I'd finished
and was leaving
on my way
back to the street
when i heard
that shotgun drumbeat

i turned back
found a corner
ordered whiskey neat
then i heard
that shotgun drumbeat

something came alive in me
and something else just died
i don't know how to tell you
I couldn't if i tried
something came alive in me
and something else just died
it sliced my soul in two right then
a gap, ten miles wide

eyes closed
waiting for
a table with a seat
and then i heard
it once again
that shotgun drumbeat

twenty minutes
and i was sitting
with a coke and crown
waiting, wishing
for that
god ******
shotgun sound

something came alive in me
and something else just died
i don't know how to tell you
I couldn't if i tried
something came alive in me
and something else just died
it sliced my soul in two right then

i listened
to the music
but, i never
ever heard
a sound like that
shotgun drumbeat
i'd been muddled
in the words

full out attack
like Keith Moon
back in the day
I'd never heard
the music
Never heard
what it could say

something came alive in me
and something else just died
i don't know how to tell you
I couldn't if i tried
something came alive in me
and something else just died
it sliced my soul in two right then

closing time
came quickly
faster than i would
have thought
i told myself
this feeling
would never
go for naught

now awakened
by a drumbeat
i was living, fresh, anew
i could no longer hide
that shotgun
killed off something
giving birth to something too

something came alive in me
and something else just died
i don't know how to tell you
I couldn't if i tried
that ******* shotgun drumbeat
made me feel alive
i can't describe the feeling
I couldn't if I tried

somewhere out there
over the rainbow
exist
the
divine expression
to possess
the
drum major's instinct
where
the
drumbeat of hope
spread with
distinction
thus
become
the
drum major
make the final destination
called the
drumbeat of freedom
make the drumbeat of
equality and justice
but
more
then that
the
drum major
make the
drumbeat of life
while
the
drum major
plays all of the
unselfish
dissonant chords of life
drumbeat the patterns of
day and night
then
who wants
to be
a drum major
that
wants to
carry the
baton of world
that  
gives service and dedication
to humanity
to know self
and
to know
God
be able to
look over
the
horizon of significant
and
transform us
into peace warriors
where
i have
the heart and the courage
to love
all of my brothers
i become the
drum major for life

I could take the Harlem night
and wrap around you,
Take the neon lights and make a crown,
Take the Lenox Avenue busses,
Taxis, subways,
And for your love song tone their rumble down.
Take Harlem's heartbeat,
Make a drumbeat,
Put it on a record, let it whirl,
And while we listen to it play,
Dance with you till day--
Dance with you, my sweet brown Harlem girl.

the pharaoh's soul
ride a ferry
through the
umbilical chord
of another
cosmos
with a
steady drumbeat
and
the sound of
a tamborine

It was confused and dark, dark, so dark,
dark like when Charlie got drunk for the first time, came back, and stumbled-open the door long after Sam had screamed at everyone to leave her the f--- alone.  

And Jesse is standing there, swaying slightly with the beer and the pounding music, and Charlene feels her ribcage shiver with each bass beat.  The pale light oozing off the stage silvers Jesse’s angled face like water, soaks the black shapes around her, pools in each eye as the constant ripple and shudder of the crowd shifts her hips.  Somehow her thin, bare shoulders speak her excitement, and in the dim shuffle of the audience she’s half drunk and lovely.  “You know that calc test is tomorrow,” Charlene screams over the straight roar of chaos. “Don’t remind me! God!” Lovely Jesse laughs and her hand sketches a lazy gun that jerks at her head -- don’t remind me, God don’t don’t don’t --  and Charlene clenches her eyes shut and still that flashes, dark dark dark, her loose-jointed fingers flicking up, twitching in sickening unison with her mocking head, again again again-- don’t remind me, God,
don’t remindmegoddon’t remind megod god oh God,
Sam loved drinking herself sick, stumbling home with her arm ‘round Charlie’s neck, slurring alcohol love and despair to her ‘bes’ fren, besh’ roomate evr, Charlene a.k.a. Charlie.  And “a.k.a.” as Sam loved to call her, was always there to pick Sam up and clean Sam up and sober Sam the **** up.  And every stupid drunk party night that semester she told Charlie over and over again: ‘listen, a.k.a., here’s a funny story: a girl went to buy her mother aspirin cause her mother had a terrible ******* headache and she bought some from her dear second cousin Kurt the cashier who was a trublueblooded Eagle scout mama’s boy back from college, that sonofabitch and she came home, but her momma didn’t have that headache anymore and gave her a mostly delicious popsicle and it was red strawberry, the end.’  And every stupid drunk party night that semester Charlie watched and listened as Sam made up new stories about aspirin (always ending with popsicles).
See, Charlie was always there. Charlie never drank.  And Charlie, she always listened to the stupid f---ing drunk-strawberry-popsicle story.  And Charlie never gave a **** about Sam, did she? She sure didn’t, no, Charlie didn’t.  

“I’m gonna go find the bathroom” Charlie screams into Jesse’s ear and plunges out into the sea of dark shadows circling her.  The door struggles open, then she’s crushing it shut, crushing splinters into her palms, she’s bending over the counter, both hands white-pressed onto its imitation marble, choking down these sharp sparks of nausea bursting like fireworks inside, and the music’s faded out, its just the thud of that ******* drum that pulses over and over and over --god stop it-- fills the room, rattles the stalls, over and over and Charlie’s convinced its a heartbeat, its Sam’s heartbeat, thud thud thud, god its going on and on and pounding, OH GOD, charlie screams, IT STOPPED, no no no no SAM no SAM SAM SAM OH GOD it stopped no no GOD
next song. drum starts again. and the room is inside of the drum, it is the inside, the taut air’s quivering with each beat, taut ribcage quivering with each beat. Charlie is inside a drum. beat beat beat drumbeat heartbeat thud, thud, thud,
god I look awful, Charlie’s looking at her face in the dim vibrating mirror: blue shadows under her dull eyes, pale, dead-tired, dead-drunk, and so f---ing dead-alive,
she goes back to Jesse, wriggling through the black lumps: lovers making out, heavy spellbound listeners, uneasy loners, angry drunks, drunk as-- drunk as Charlie’s first drunk night.

Sam was so ****** that night and Charlie dragged her home to their dorm, sick of Sam’s tangy alcohol breath and her sagging, skinny weight on her shoulder. “I’m sick of your breath, Sam.” sick of it, god Sam, just stop it, wish that breath would go away, I mean,
it was blowing all over my cheek Sam, cause your **** beautiful face was lying on my neck-- that’s why I said that, I didn’t mean that, Sam.
And then you said ‘well, all right Charlie, I’ll tell you a funny story Charlie,’ and I said ‘oh god Sam, not again,’ and you said ‘no, its different this time’ and you said ‘one day there was a little girl who went to the store to buy aspirin for her mom and the cashier took her into the back of the store and hurt her and she came home and told her mom and her mom slapped her and told her to stop talking ***** and shut the **** up and then that little girl’s throat sure did ache, Charlie, even after a popsicle it did. And Charlie, Charlie, a.k.a. Charlene, sure did hate her breath. see, that’s my story and isn’t it a funny story...”
you drop your drunk roommate on the gritty hallway carpet, give her the key say
‘’bye Samantha", goodbye samgoodbye, bye bye Sam, "I’m going to go get drunk don’t be too much of a ***** while I’m gone.’

floormates told Charlie later that Sam screamed at everyone “hey, all you motherf---ers, leave me the f--- alone,” then laughed, slammed the door. and they did leave her alone.
Charlie came back *****-drunk, touched the doorknob and heard the shot, the door opens,
Sam’s falling and Charlie watches her beautiful, bony wrist flick back as she gets blood all over and ruins her face and Charlie sobers up really f---ing fast.  She always was good at that.
There's a note on the desk in Crayola washable marker (purple): "well, a.k.a., I guess I am being way too much of a ***** while you’re gone. you’re welcome. sorry for ******* it all up again as usual"
*Thanks for that Sam, thanks a lot Sam thanks thanks f--- you

Ah Consuela! Invoking vast vistas for visions of green Spanish eyes,
I discern them again where she left me back then,
                 as we kissed when she parted, my friend.
Through those ruins I tread towards the footlights, now dead,
                 where I’ll muse as her shadows ascend.

                  .
                          .
Ah Consuela! I’m watching, she teases the mirror with green Spanish eyes;
her serape entangles her brooches and bangles
                 like lace on the sorcerer’s looms,
and her cape of the night, she drapes tight to excite,
                 and her fan is embellished with plumes.

Ah Consuela! I’m watching as spectators savour her green Spanish eyes;
taming wild concertinas, the dark ballerina
                 performs on the music hall stage,
but she shies from the sound of ovation unbound
                 like a timorous bird in a cage.

Ah Consuela! I’m watching, she quickens the pit with her green Spanish eyes;
as the cymbals shake, clashing, the floodlights wake, flashing,
                 igniting the wild fireflies,
and the piccolo piper’s inviting the vipers
                 to coil neath the cold caldron skies.

Ah Consuela! I’m watching the shimmering shadows in green Spanish eyes
as I rise from my chair and proceed to the stair
                 with a hesitant sip of my wine.
Though she doesn’t deny me, she wanders right by me
                 with neither a look nor a sign.

Ah Consuela! I’m watching, she looks to the stage with her green Spanish eyes,
(for her senses scoff, scorning the biblical warning
                 of kisses of Judas that sting,
with her pierced ears defeating the echoes repeating)
                 and smiles at the magpie that sings.

Ah Consuela! I’m watching faint embers a’ stir in her green Spanish eyes,
for a soft spoken stranger enveloping danger
                 has captured the rhyme in the room
as he slips into sight through a crack in the night
                 midst the breath of her heavy perfume.

Ah Consuela! I’m watching, she gauges his guise through her green Spanish eyes
– from his gypsy-like mane, to his diamond stud cane,
                 to the raven engraved on his vest –
for a faraway form, a tempestuous storm,
                 lurks and heaves neath the cleav’e of her *******.

Ah Consuela! I’m watching the caravels cruising her green Spanish eyes;
with the castanets clacking like ancient masts cracking
                 he whips ’round his cloak with a ****
and without sacrificing, at mien so enticing,
                 she floats with her face facing his.

Ah Consuela! I’m watching the vertigo veiling her green Spanish eyes,
while the drumbeat pounds, droning, the rhythm sounds, moaning,
                 of jungles Jamaican entwined
in the valleys concealing the vineyards revealing
                 the vaults in the caves of her mind.

Ah Consuela! I’m watching life’s carnivals call to her green Spanish eyes,
and with paused palpitations the tom-tom temptations
                 come taunting her tremulous feet
with her toe tips a’ tingle while jute boxes jingle
                 for jesters that jive on the street.

Ah Consuela! I’m watching, she rides ocean tides in her green Spanish eyes,
and her silhouette’s travelling on ripples unravelling
                 and shaking the shipwracking shores,
as she strides from the light to the black cauldron night
                 through the candlelit cabaret doors.

Ah Consuela! I’m watching, she dances till dawn flashing green Spanish eyes,
with her movements adorning a trickle of morning
                 as sipped by the mouth of the moon,
while her tresses twirl, shaming the filaments flaming
                 that flow from the sun’s oval spoon.

Ah Consuela! I’m watching, she masks for a moment her green Spanish eyes.
Then the magpie that sings ceases preening her wings
                 and descends as a lean bird of prey –
as she flutters her ’lashes and laughs in broad splashes,
                 his narrowing eyes start to stray.

Ah Consuela! I’m watching fey carousels spin in her green Spanish eyes,
and the porcelain ponies and leprechaun cronies
                 race, reaching for gold and such things,
even being reminded that only the blinded
                 are fooled by the brass in the rings.

Ah Consuela! I’m watching, she shepherds the shadows with green Spanish eyes,
but as evening sinks, ebbing, the skyline climbs, webbing,
                 and weaves through the temples of stone,
while the nightingales sing of a kiss on the wing
                 in the depths of the dunes all alone.

Ah Consuela! I’m watching the music and magic in green Spanish eyes,
as she dances enchanted, while firmly implanted
                 in tugs of his turbulent arms,
till he cuts through the strings, tames the magpie that sings,
                 and seduces once more with his charms.

Ah Consuela! I’m watching, the citadel steams in her green Spanish eyes,
but behind the dark curtain the savants seem certain
                 that nothing and no one exists,
and though vapours look vacant, the vagabond vagrants
                 remain within mythical mists.

Ah Consuela! I’m watching as lightning at midnight in green Spanish eyes
kindles cracks within crystals like flashes from pistols
                 residing inside of the gloom
as it hovers above us betraying a dove as
                 she flees from the fountain of doom.

Ah Consuela! I’m watching, distilling despair in her green Spanish eyes,
and the bitterness stings like the snap of the strings
                 when a mystical  mandolin sighs
as the vampire shades **** the life from charades
                 neath the resinous residue skies.

Ah Consuela! I’m watching, she looks to the ledge with her green Spanish eyes,
for the terrace hangs high and she’s thinking to fly
                 and abandon fate’s merry-go-round.
At the edge I perceive her and rush to retrieve her –
                 she stumbles, falls far to the ground.

Ah Consuela! I’m watching the sparkles a’ spilling from green Spanish eyes.
As I peer from the railing, with evening exhaling,
                 I cry out a lover’s lament –
there she lies midst the crowd with her spirit unbowed,
                 but her body’s all broken and bent.

Ah Consuela! I’m watching, she beckons me hither with green Spanish eyes,
and I’m slightly amazed being snared in her gaze
                 and a’ swirl in a hurricane way,
but the seconds are slipping, my courage is dripping,
                 the moment is bleeding away.

Ah Consuela! I touch her - she weeps tender tears from her green Spanish eyes;
as the breezes cease blowing, her essence leaves, flowing,
                 in streams neath the ambient light,
and the droplets drip swarming, so silent, yet warming,
                 like rain in a midsummer night.

Ah Consuela! I hold her, am hushed by the hints in her green Spanish eyes,
while her whispers are breathing the breaths of the seething
                 electrical skeletal winds,
and the words paint the poems that rivers a’ slowin’
                 reveal where the waterfall ends.

Ah Consuela! I’m fading in fires a’ flicker in green Spanish eyes,
as she plays back the past, she abandons and casts
                 away matters that no longer mend.
           .
                  .
And she reached out instead, as she lifted her head,
                 and we kissed as she parted, my friend.
           .
                  .
                          .
Ah Consuela! I’m tangled, entombed, trapped in tales of your green Spanish eyes,
in forsaken cantinas beyond the arenas
                 where night-time illusions once flowed,
for the ash neath my shoulder still throbs as it smoulders
                 some place near the end of the road.

I wrote this poem about 4 years before Mandella became president
I post it now as we remember Mandella and the legacy of change that has taken place in S.A.


Out of the darkness of Apartheid and separation came Reconciliation and new ways of beingness have opened up, not only in South Africa but all over the world.
I prayed for peace for South Africa my birth place.
I pray for peace for Israel Palestine and the Middle East where I now live
And I pray for peace throughout our world may we all remember love and may our legacy for our children be one of LOVE


People came to Southern Africa from many lands and many places drawn by their destiny.
They came, bringing with them memories of each place they called home.
They moved deep into the heart of the country engulfing the people already there.
Alas for many many years the nations remained separate and the people suffered.
Great nations from far away who felt the call within their own lands for change called out to the people of South Africa and told them it was time to make changes,
But the hearts of those in power remained hardened.
The Black people became strong and it came to pass that a great need for change arose deep within their hearts -
"Let's break down the barriers" they cried -- but how? They tried to talk, but the words became meaningless,
They tried to fight and many died. Still people went their own separate ways.
There came a time when the winds of change blew from far off lands the winds blew over the mountains.
They blew over the cities and farms. The earth called out to the people
Remember the heart of Africa has many colours, and beats in many different ways
The heart of Africa lies deep within the rhythms of the land.
If within the heart of Africa there is love - peace will reign.
Let each man be free to choose his path, Let each man choose his destiny.
Let the drumbeat of love beat it's rhythms and let the Eternal fire of love cleanse away hurt and sorrow,
And let the rainbow of love colour the nation of the New Africa.

The sounds of the wind as it blew over the land filled hearts with love.
"Love will bring people together it echoed, love will touch all hearts.
And the time will come when each man will be free to be himself -- with love all men will be free.
Children were the first to hear, and they reached out over the barriers and accepted each other,
They looked beyond colour, they let the drumbeat of love beat its rhythm through their hearts,
Until it touched the leaders and those in prisons who were there because they had cried freedom.
They allowed the eternal fire of love to cleanse away the hurt and sorrow,
And let the rainbow of love colour the nation of the new Africa.

Because a thing may seem cliche won't mean it isn't right.
Warm sunbeams, drumbeat thunder, and the clash of dark and light.
Or just because it's overused, don't say it can't be true.
Old words and phrases well describe my burning love for you.

Don’t always march to another’s drumbeat,
Nor always dance to another person’s tune,
But march in time to your own heartbeat and
Dance and dance, till you reach the moon …

in a wine glass
sleeves of a sleeveless dress
knotted
around its stem
and a bull’s head sleeping, breathless
tangled
in the scent of pearl and warm flesh
standing on a drumbeat
balanced
by a prism’s deceptive stammer

In quick-step and in air-cushioned silence,
With the drumbeat threat of mob violence,
All those laces were quite absurd,
But to us 'Jo-***' was just a verb.

Now the Alts stand in plain sight,
Preaching:

            "It's OK
                 To
                 Be
              White",

Hidden by our new dress code,
An Oxford collar and a Derby brogue.

I will leave this tent for the mansion
That is built for me over there.
I will close the door..
Be welcomed evermore.
Where the Saints have gathered on the shore.
—————————-
I will praise the name of my Savior
On the day this tent is taken down.
I will praise the name of Jesus
When He calls
To take me to the room He prepared.
—————————
Do you hear the rushing in the wind
It’s the wings of angels coming near.
They are coming for me..
To carry me home.
To my savior where I shall ever be.
—————————
I hear the voice of my Savior calling
Call my name as I fly through the door.
All the Saints are there with
My Mother and my Father.
I am home now… I see His face now.
—————————
Hallelujah to my Jesus
Hallelujah to His name
Hallelujah to my Savior
Evermore.
I am home now.. I see His face now.
————————–
Praise His name for evermore
Praise His wonderful name.
Praise the name of Jesus
Evermore.
I am home now. I see His face now

(Ends with light drumbeat)
9-24-2003 Finished

Raindrops tap, tap at the window pane
A drumbeat for calm
They twinkle in soft light shining through
All my own, all my own stars
Crackles of brilliant blue light the night, world turned to colour for one moment
Stare in wonder
Claps and booms form a cacophony of sound
A song being played
It softens and calms
The events of the day almost erased
A lullaby so soft demanding to not be ignored
Lulls my eyes closed as I say
Goodbye to this day
Welcome the following, arms opened

Clamp the red march onward!
Cut the winding trench!
Mask a visage for protection
from the visceral drench.

Light the forge in battle!
Keep the battlefield alive.
Hear the laborious drumbeat
of a heart trying to survive.

Stainless steel and knowledge
in the forge are fired
Gone are human needs -
Death is never tired.

On each second rests a lifespan.
Each minute gambles years.
A surgeon only has two hands
and no mortal fears.

The battle surges forward
as blood is forced right back
from the heart it came from;
a heart still under attack.

Even as the battle ended,
with blood, tears and sweat,
the war raged ever onward,
Death remains a threat.

Every day a battle.
Every life a war.
Against Death and the ethereal
survival is the score.

The carpet all around me
my little island lonely to no one.
Little flourishes in the carpet  twisting back on each other
and back again,
rolling endlessly this way then having a change of heart
and bending back the other way.
Flowing freely on its canvas.
The stunning flowers, looking surprised as
I focus on it.


I sit, a lethargic tiger, my picture of myself.
The television perched ready
for the next greatest thing.
My head, static on my shoulder,
a boulder resting on itself.
The gentle hum of air conditioner.
With great effort
I gaze slowly out the window,
up past the air conditioner,  
past the base of the metal frame
where the tree idly stands.  
My eyes lift past them, to the heavens
The clouds content where they are, slowly pulled along.
A greater force heaving, making gentle progress.

The edges of my chair start to form.
My arm resting on the soft fuzzy border,
my stomach hazy in deep territory,
my toes out beyond the border.
In a disjointed synchrony I make my way to
the fridge. The blank door swung open
rotting milk, and a once great fish.

The milk fading, a gentle
fade, not hurrying, but the milk, not taking its time.
A  tad yellowish but still white.

The milk a long fierce journey,
perhaps having bounced around the world,
for it to be as is now.
Perhaps
through turbulent oceans, did it see the endlessly taunting
of the ocean? What did I miss?! Did it see the gentle waves
thrash mercilessly? Did it see the infinities of life?
Did it see the octopi dying for the young ones?
Did it see storm clouds change course for their safe passage?
Did it see nature play its hand?
Even if it saw nothing at all,
I envy the milk with the hint of yellow!
Doorways without doors the milks unknown voyage.
It of course could have easily just came from
a farm down the road in a truck with a billion
other containers of milk, on a well traveled path,
the only question, why?

I sigh knowing, the best I’ll get is “an answer” trying
to sell me some more milk. Though the best questions
should never be properly answered.

No answers in the fridge, and I’m still hungry.

The smell of the fish overpowers me.
The smell of the ocean, of the seas of
what we did to them!
Of how the same fish, epitomizing
turned noses, once part of something grander than us.
We have seen the tops of the world,
flew down rivers and
cut through the skies,
held enough power to send a man
to the moon and back in the palm of our hands,
yet never been to the places that the fish has been.
We have clear lines and boundaries, yet
No walls separate what we haven’t seen.
No limits.

A  school flows by,
barrel rolls and flips, each individual
showing off amiable bubbles.
A collective direction, no agreements
just space, the sandy floor free of motion.
The floor free quiet, a gentle bed.
Taking their time, a place
to be but never of the essence.
A lump in the distance,
a dip behind them. Slowly becoming
something more, something grander.
A mast starts to form a gift from above
no gentle giveaway.
A hellish panic.
The alarms bell ringing panicked
sailors, a vault flows by. Nobody looks twice. The
earth slowly swallowing the meal, as
if to enjoy each taste and make it last.
The fish intrigued.
Ignorant of the history. Wooden ruins, choral
the dead ship alive!

A shadow crosses the sun.
A sleek shark shows its hand.
The school flees the table.
The shark chases demanding to be payed.
Flying towards the old gift they dive into
the maze.
Only coral in the doorway to the left.
He keeps pursuing.
The group scatters.
Pretenses over
some failing.
Sharp teeth cut indifferently.
New respect for the fragility of water.
Not just joy when they swim now, but a heartbroken celebration
flying along the streams with a learnt respect.
Celebrating each other.

My shadow, catches me off guard, flees up
the wall and up past the celling.
I watch it go and
stumble and look down to see what caused me
to see only my feet and the floor. Oak wood strips
make the floor solid. Endless minuscule canyons
carved below me. Wavy sand dunes and craters sit atop the canyons.  
Rivers flowing separating sides.
Rocks calaborating, blocking paths,
creating treasures.  
everywhere.

Surely somewhere down there a couple holding hands,
a dingo eyeing its next meal watching intently,
solely focused on the ****.  
Perhaps a number of tourists, impressed with the landscape,
snapping pictures of the stone valley.
All wondering at the rocks, meticulously placed.
Tourists cooling off in the rivers.
  Maybe just maybe though
a pair of strangers bump into each other on a
narrow trail, and instead of passing by,
both of them will leave all the better for it.
To defy nature and prove to the landscape, that
people can exist in your world and respect
your customs but play by different rules.
That we have made progress! Not just in phones
but in the barren glory of canyons.
Maybe then the stranger will bump into
the tourists and offer out a hand.

Then the couple will make love,
the tourists will take more photos,
the dingo will eye more food,
the drumbeat will likely stay the same
but maybe just maybe though
the stranger will start something
and help out another stranger,
New music to all who will listen.
Lost completely but with no need to be found.

Amerikeisha tapping out the drumbeat with her see through plastic mechanical pencil  
Me sidewinding my way through highschool
Dizzy Gillespie's  trumpet waking the souls that are buried in the lockers,
Chick Corea and I are returning to forever
The land where summer is the only season
And daisy dukes are greatly appreciated,
John Coltrane is helping me realize
How beautiful girls in white dresses with blue satin sashes are,
I've been dancing to Dave Brubeck since this morning
And I can't get Maria out of my head
I just picture Maria
As this girl
Feeling Pretty
Oh so pretty
I imagine if I saw her in the street
I wouldn't double take
But Take Five    
Charlie Parker playing saxophone like
It's as easy as brushing his teeth,
Nat King Cole
Serenading Hispanic women with his soothing tone
Robert Glasper experimenting with his music
Burning you brain like mentholated cough drops

Blood Rain
Rain....
signal that the sky is crying.
Sun,
now hiding behind clouds.
Ashamed,
of me and my human sins.
Wet,
droplets of rain become blood.
Stinging,
my tears now ****** as the rain.
Wounds,
Open and burning as they run red.
Recriminating,
my soul as shame fills my being,
Earth,
opens her arms to welcome me.
Mud,
oozes into my mouth slowly,
Taste,
that of blood soaked in earth...mine.
Blurry,
my fading sight as my eyes glaze.
Winter,
mocks me with its cold howling wind.
Darkness,
envelops my whole being in totality.
Sight,
No longer gifted to me, hindsight too late.
Brain,
functions fading fast, on impulse.
Heartbeat,
Fading no familiar drumbeat heard.
Crossing,
over into the light I venture timidly.
Judgement,
mercy on my soul, I know I'm not worthy.
©Perveiz Ali

swimming under lightning,
lighting our submergence flash allure:
smooth bodies, bright to glimpse and shadow-grin intent
collide and mingle folds of pleasure, firmly
bent to tangle, clasp and spurn the world above,
rely on one another's breath, stored for loving
long in bubbles gasping sweet melodics free
as with imagined merfolk passion-songs of lore, prescient
lapping dance of tidal fruits you loved before they came,
moonray columns stage us in our seashift wombs--again--
within a womb--like instant chrysalises blinking luminescent bursts
i am interred within the waves you ripple into me, blind
carnal pressures built from ancient shores become the sea again
the magnitude entrances on its own, that acrophobic thrill
celestial in our interthreaded eyes, open
to a color deeply in the dark of octopodal ink
a curtain phosphorescent armpit pulse,
caressing thumb and lip, billows, sways the dance anew,
to sonar drumbeat, pulmonary height
the spinal scream a surface ripple for the sky,
symphonic deep to barely whisper into air

how odd, to be a woman and a girl
to wear the dresses but concern about cleavage
more than meets the eye: because.

and so we waddle for the men –
twisting straps, my petticoat drawbridge

i am over-aware of myself: know the pulse and
when to tug draperies from ‘part thighs
they only see what i am okay with,
which does not include exhaling.

i am like a drum, drumbeat
i punch my body until the purple softens
and it sounds beautiful, but incomprehensible:

me, this woman-girl and child cheeks
placed upon petals that flap
with attention, not the old storm breezes –
every april shower molded me into a flower
i rise above each season, gay spectacle

the men that believe hurricanes so enigmatic
must lust me for such a reason –
i have been through many in girlhood
that i bleed one as a woman.

because of word infidelities, the muse
april said that i am only as big as my body

and i grew, grew, grew
until my stem became caught
to where it grew no longer, a woman-child
who took the wind like salad dressing.

Like the rainbow shooting out of the horizon:
a whole palette of colours emerges,
carrying in her wings,
all the embers
of the late monsoon -

a side glance, bass strummed of the heart;
Her dimpled smile, drumbeat, missed.
brass, sax, crossing paths,
leaping on a trampoline,
the ***** shrill.

O my towering folly, that
stands mourning like a lighthouse
with the gulls by the rough sea.

All the tones come alive hidden
in this song that like amber
held a slice of that time
in her depths,

screen covered in mist, as now a car pulls over:
clearing it as in a Mandarin Ai, a hut
and some jagged lines: glimpses,
of that dimpled smile -
and a whole jazz band comes alive.

oh hell, every time i write some embarrassing a day prior, i turn into honour killing from Pakistan enveloped by shame... 'what the hell did i write last night? i can't remember, but i know for sure that i didn't roll down the stairs or **** in a phonebox'. well, i could sit here romanticising like Marcel Schwob, or just dig into like Marquis the Sade... honestly and oddly enough the latter did give me an *******, and he was half-the-pervert that everyone deemed him to be, flashing his buttocks from the Bastille... his uncle abbé de Sadé (i love to put that accent in on purpose - sounds better to me, less boorish) - and yes, Creedence Clearwater Revival does more justice to the harmonica on graveyard train than Bob Dylan and **** Jagger put together... it's just there, and it ain't it's because it's there that makes it... ha ha... groovy - maybe that's why they spared him from the guillotine, in that he wrote more of his exploits as wished to be done, and of the actual exploits too many were hidden in his blabbering prose undone; ****** is by far his greatest work.

i told you the black and red Oranjeboom is a trip, they used to sell it at 8.5%, now they dropped it to 7.5... that beer can get you crazy in nanoseconds, quicker than a formula 1 crown jewel of a Mercedes-Benz, i'm serious, the ****'s lethal - you drink with me you'll be talking l.s.d., you'll end up a Mongol somewhere in Siberia, stark naked in minus forty saying the words: 'where's my umbrella? where's my umbrella?', indeed on repeat... 'and that yak? i was riding a yak... where's the yak?' we have European bisons to await you colonel... 'about time, i was waiting for a bison... isn't that the place where storks migrate to to make butter over the summer? and the Jews hid when the Black Plague was sweeping across Europe leaving them immune in the vicinity of Cracow?' yes it was, Herr Mascherschtic-Messerschmitt -
'who's on the oboe? and the soloist violinist?' we don't know, working it out, 'you better, because i don't really long for a drum-beat of knocking two stones together to spark anything but fire, rather, a conversation; 40 days in the desert with Jesus trying to relocate the Jews to Goa worked out so splendid that they moved North, started speaking riddle Hebrew that's Yiddish and followed suit with ****** being gassed, but instead of trenches, death chambers - people tend to forget he was himself gassed and dated Eva a Jewess... no far right assimilation, i spoke with a grandpa that asked for sweets from an SS-man and a great-grandmother who fed her daughter opiates to hush her on the eastern front so she wouldn't cry - sometimes stating a self-consciousness detached from thinking (the inhibitor of existence) is as random as a lottery - because it's just that, thought is an inhibitor of existence, being is an exhibitor of the (sic) stated - oh please don't read me if you're into ******, i'm with the bookworms and freaks, premature ejaculators and whatnot, go eat a ******* macaroon in Morocco or something - of all the admirable circumstances worthy a stage thinking isn't really allowed, it's not exactly glorified, in two sentences:
- *i thought about it             (how two pronouns
                                               interact without Freud,
                                               or meet, or are the proton i
                                               neutrons thought about
                                               and the electrons it)...
it's a permanent duality of expressing something and anything,
we need the first person, the eyes give it away,
but in the end we're either touching an axe to chop
down a tree or attaching ourselves to a detachment of
chopping the tree down for the Freudian third it -
it's no longer a game of 'you're it!' tagging of
the kindergarten game but a work of fiction, transitions
like that must be painful - third person narratives are
generally conceived from being lazy in the first person,
how many people do you actually need to **** the poet off?
film credits: and it's a long list, mind you.
oh yeah, that word: dzwiękać - it's about making 0.1% of
a Mozart symphony with two stones smacked against
each other for what the feet used to do, a drumbeat,
it's not exactly an act of Prometheus' Odyssey into
the first glimpses of chemistry -
alternatively?
- i am it / or some alternative to something even more alternative,
  in the French school of thought dubbed deconstructionism
  that's also a blah blah reduction,
  Bruce Springsteen and Frank Sinclair, a slum-dunk
  by the Lakers - it's still supposed to mean that i intended
  the phonetic encryption, i visualised nothing for
  you to follow-up on, sounds, poetry isn't cartoon,
  the harsh reality of having to read the Mandala of
  mouth expressions without, eye, eyebrows or cheeks
  or chin - ends up being dentistry when you want to
  say a but end up adding a            h     while
  the dentist inserts a blunt object into your mouth for
  an ah (be my guest, macron or umlaut depending
  on the volume of your lungs added to the a for reasons
  of reality's prolonging the seance of rotten teeth).
what i meant was the notion that thought is a different
type of being, or expression of out of every instance -
thinking too much won't grant you access to
people who say: 'are bored with their *** life. especially
gay men, who 'see *** as something you have to do
while on drugs'. so once **** no reassurance with
forever ****? **** it! could have given it a one-over
back when i didn't have a monkish demur.
well i can admit i'm jealous, but i just remember *******
before puberty and feeling the muscle sensation and
seeing no *****, aged 8 - the ******* help, and incubator
for all that raging monotheistic operatic harem wanton -
it's still a balancing act writing a sentence,
you are basically juggling two words, both are pronouns -
you throw a boomerang, you throw it as yourself
and expect it to come back as yourself,
pristine, juvenile, ******, intact with a pride of being
a person not influenced by others... the origin of
Columbus... it doesn't work like that,
the boomerang ends up like a windscreen with
several bugs attacked to it, bugs like Kant, like Heidegger,
whoever... whatever, free-love **** *** is overrated for me,
the ******* build-up and the flashing lights and whatnot,
i approach *** like a lumberjack a tree,
axe, tree, chop chop, tree falls... i'm out after an
hour having paid £110 for the pleasure... so you can take
your little feminism into the annals for these free-love
festivals (burning man in Nevada, killing kittens
in the hamptons etc.), preach there, leave me and my loser
****** high libido crew in the shadow of the crucifix -
judgemental ******* - i never expected so much stigma for
giving an ****** that i paid for to give, it's like an
Albert Camus novel, or worse, his life,
paid for a train ticket but decided to travel to the desired
destination by car, dead in a car-wreck - Irony with an ism.

The sanguine shades of India
Flow in mantras through my mind
In hashish tones sienna brown
To ochre greens, I find.
The soaring slopes of massif peak
And roaring waterfall
Lead to tranquil rhododendron glades
Capped in scarlet, I recall.

The clamour of the market place
The grimy squalor found
In the gutters on the roadway
With a constant wall of sound,
In the bartering for spices, red
In wicker baskets wide
With the stench of open sewer
Causing queasiness inside.

Dustiness of sandaled feet
Robes of saffron gold
And the gleaming glow of polished bronze
To purchase, should  you hold.
Patterned carpets lay displayed
In jute and woollen blend
Whilst ancient hands on simple loom
Weave more for you to spend.

Ullulation in the air
As turbaned dancers spin
To shrilling ethnic instrument
With drumbeat adding din.
Wild eyed watchers flashing teeth
As rhythms beat the air
Encircled by a chanting crowd
With temperament at flair.

Thronging people fill the lanes
Churning on their way
Interspersed with sacred cow
Meandering to hay.
Children flock with outstretched palm
Surging as they do
Insistently to foreign purse
In urgency that grew.

The sea of dark skinned faces
Mid flashing whites of eyes
An intensity of gaze that takes
You jarringly by surprise
And everywhere the pungency
Of the continent in the air
With the spicey taste of curry
And a chutneyed rice as fare.

But in speaking to the people
I found their manner warm
And their love for caste and custom
And their cricket team was worn
Like a flag around the shoulders,
Like a talisman, so proud,
And their love for home and family
Reiterated, long and loud.

Overhead, the baking heat
Occasionally relieved
By a downpour of monsoonal rain
Must be seen to be believed.
And the total inundation
Of believers on the stair
Of the teeming seeking holiness
In the river Ganges there.

And then as quickly as I came here
It became the time to leave
And the wonders of diversity
Were beyond what I believed.
What was once a frank abhorrence
Grew surreptitiously on me
The splendours of this mystic place
Well deserve their sanctity.

Now far across the oceans
In my safe and sterile land
I am drawn to stare to seaward
To recall my thoughts at hand,
Out across the sprawling delta
Gazing far to sunset sea,
That special taste of India
Flows irrevocably, back to me.

Marshalg
13 July 2014

How can I explain to you
What is within me?
I am African
I am American
I am both
And I am neither
I am something
And I am nothing
And yet…I am everything.
But I cannot be like you
Trust me.
I’ve tried.
You say “Welcome back”
Like my roots are in this soil
But how can I explain to you?
Yes.
My body originated here.
But not my soul.
No.
My soul was born in the arms of Mama Africa
She is not the ancestor of my skin
But of my spirit
And my roots run deep in her red earth
Her drumbeat, my hear.
Yet here I am…
I look like you.
I sound like you.
But I am not like you.
And when I try to explain
What I’ve seen
And done
And known
And how I became
You feel as though I am big
And you are not.
But it isn’t true.
I am not bigger.
You are not smaller
We are just…different.
I contain a vastness
That is misunderstood
That vastness holds so much
Yet often feels so empty.
And I cannot be like you.
Trust me.
I’ve tried.
But when I do it feels like chains
Shackles of iron
I try to deepen my roots
For you.
But when I try
I can only seem to spread my wings
And I am sorry.
I am sorry that I cannot make my home in you.
I am sorry that I make you feel small.
I do not mean to.
I am sorry I cannot find the words to explain
What it is like
To feel as though your skin is too tight for your soul
To feel as though you are always
Nowhere and Everywhere
Nothing and Everything
No one and Everyone
Too much…and never enough
I am sorry.
But I am trying.
So when I try…
When I share with you these tangled feelings
When I crack open the door
To the whirlwind within
Do not ask me to shut it.
Please, do not ask me to hide away
Because you cannot relate to the chaos behind my eyes.
Don’t see the mess.
See me.
And love me.
For the mystery that I am.
To you.
And to myself.

Random mortar shells in the afternoon.
Sparkling, steel jacketed rain drops,
Glinting rainbows of reflected sunlight.
Plastic explosive seat cushions upon which passers-by,
Rest their weary bones.
C-4 candy bars, nuclear toothpaste,
****** for dessert.
Orphanage flambe', hospital hash, blood pudding.
Human burgers sizzling on a smart bomb bar-b-que grill.
Finger food, toe jam, baby-back ribs.

Bureaucratic double talkers,
Sugar coated body counts,
Colateral stew.
Really deplorable, awfully sorry,
But it was their own faults trying to put on raincoats.
They declined our invitation to the cook-out.
Bad luck to open an umbrella in the house.

Remotely piloted funeral processions.
Radar guided hearses.
Televised in real time.
Precision, surgical,
neutralized, deterrent, disarmed,
Deactivated, stand down, eliminate.

Living pawns on a battlefield checkerboard.
Strategic, defensive,
Dominate, annihilate,
Acceptable loss, public opinion pole.

Listen to the tinkling of sabre blades,
Rattling windchimes,
In the warm breeze of the shockwave,
Accompanied by the drumbeat of detonation and concussion.
Rock...
        ...and heads will roll.

Holy, blessed,
Patriotic, brave,
Courageous, dedicated,
Heroic, dutiful,
Self sacrificing...
                         ...******.

There is no cure for my self.
I will sit up nights
And read poetry aloud
And cry harsh tears as my words fall away into the darkness.
It is my nature.
A voice of sorrow lives in me
And it speaks, always.
It murmurs beneath everything like a brook.
It sweetens my days
And swallows my nights.
It is not without its merits
But it is
Painful.
I am a sad person
Always have been.
I ache, and always will.
Love soothes and frightens me
But beneath it grief runs steady
The only thing
That is always there
Heedless of any other turmoil.
It presses into me-
A small trickle, less than rainwater-
But it has carved me deep over years
Deep, deep,
It has cut caves into me.
It is the heart of me, the softness of the stone
It is my weakness and the source of my life
And I have hated it for as long as I have known it was there
But it
Doesn’t care:
It only knows how to continue
Not how to feel.
It doesn’t stop for love
Or for anger
Or for joy.
It gouges a path through all of them,
A deep, steady drumbeat
A persistent crawl
And I am witness to its slow erosion of me.
I watch with apprehension
An unwilling subject
A reluctant vessel-
For I know that as gentle as it seems
It has stripped away all this so far
And will go on
Until nothing remains.

sit, to a ticking clock
numb bones, aching joints
a drumbeat heart slowing
living in death and decay

eyes pour synthetic love
and fear, while my
dreams rot in my skull
losing my mind each day

should be working, reading,
writing something with real
meaning, instead I am
living in death and decay

structure falls, missed lectures
since I can't focus or
even pretend to understand
losing my mind each day

getting into trouble, again
and again I fall into this
silence and paralysis
living in death and decay

how long before they notice
I am not really here,
I don't exist, and never did
losing my mind each day

insanity, unreality hangs
on every wall oozing venom
that stills my heart
living in death and decay

dying is no art when I
should be becoming something
beautiful and alive
losing my mind each day

failure, drop out, weak
poisonous words and I
am giving in, giving up
living in death and decay
losing my mind each day

*© Tara India.

you know
when i first beheld the icy greyness
of this giant sepulchral building
a giantness of Empty
a giantness of unrecognised surreal faces
a giantness of being sorta kinda lost
a giant lostness of slamming into glass doors
hurriedly breaking out
to a place i wanted to know

when i first beheld that giantness
i had never thought
imagined felt conceived
hell i had it all figured out
in what i thought was a deep deep experience

i had never thought
it would be that crisp
that quick
the creepiness of mounting heartbeat
pounding like a drumbeat
rising out into the rosiness of dawn
full of a wisdom of it's own experience

that it would be that supple
lifting me with effortlessness
like a wave of adrenaline
rush; gushing into my
guts; breaking out like
a furious river bent on
flowing with the vastness of the ocean
and the innocence of the sky

i had never thought
that is how you have a Crush.