NOTE TO THE READER – Once Apun a Time

This yarn is a flossy fabric woven of several earlier warped works, lightly laced together, adorned with fur-ther braided tails of human frailty. The looms were loosed, purling frantically this febrile fable...

Some pearls may be found wanting – unwanted or unwonted – piled or hanging loose, dangling free within a fuzzy flight of fancy...

The threads of this untethered tissue may be fastened, or be forgotten, or else be stranded by the readers and left unravelling in the knotted corners of their minds...

'twill be perchance that some may  laugh or loll in loopy stitches, else be torn or ripped apart, while others might just simply say “ ’tis made of hole cloth”, “sew what” or “cant seam to get the needle point”...,

yes, a proper disentanglement may take you for a spin on twisted twines of any strings you feel might need attaching or detaching…

picking knits, some may think that
       such strange things ‘have Never happened in our Land’,
       such quaint things ‘could Never happen in our Land’’,
       such murky things ‘will Never happen in our Land’’…

and this may all be true, if credence be dis-carded…

such is that gooey gossamer which vails the human mind...

and thus was born the teasing title of this fabricated Fantasy...

                                NEVER LAND

An ancient man named Peter Pan, disguised but from the past,
with feathered cap and tunic wrap and sabre’s sailed his last.
Though fully grown, on dust he’s flown and perched upon a mast
atop the Walls around the sprawls, unvisited and vast -
and all the while with bitter smile he’s watching us aghast.

As day begins, a spindle spins, it weaves a wanton web;
like puckered prunes, like midday moons, like yesterday’s celebs,
we scrape and *****, we seldom hope - he watches while we ebb:

The ***** grinder preaches fine on Sunday afternoons -
he quotes from books but overlooks the Secrets Carved in Runes:
“You’ve tried and toyed, but can’t avoid or shun the pale monsoons,
it’s sink or swim as echoed dim in swinging door saloons”.
The laughingstocks are flinging rocks at ball-and-chained baboons.

While ghetto boys are looting toys preparing for their doom
and Mademoiselles are weaving shells on tapestries with looms,
Cathedral cats and rafter rats are peering in the room,
where ragged strangers stoop for change, for coppers in the gloom,
whose thoughts are more upon the doors of crypts in Christmas bloom,
and gold doubloons and silver spoons that tempt beyond the tomb.

Mid *** shots from vacant lots, that strike and ricochet
a painted girl with flaxen curl (named Wendy)’s on her way
to tantalise with half-clad thighs, to trick again today;
and indiscreet upon the street she gives her pride away
to any guy who’s passing by with time and cash to pay.
(In concert halls beyond the Walls, unjaded girls ballet,
with flowered thoughts of Camelot and dreams of cabarets.)

Though rip-off shops and crooked cops are paid not once but thrice,
the painted girl with flaxen curl is paring down her price
and loosely tempts cold hands unkempt to touch the merchandise.
A crazy guy cries “where am I”, a ****** titters twice,
and double quick a lunatic affects a fight with lice.

The alleyways within the maze are paved with rats and mice.
Evangelists with moneyed fists collect the sacrifice
from losers scorned and rubes reborn, and promise paradise,
while in the back they cook some crack, inhale, and roll the dice.

A *** called Boe has stubbed his toe, he’s stumbled in the gutter;
with broken neck, he looks a wreck, the sparrows all aflutter,
the passers-by, they close an eye, and turn their heads and mutter:
“Let’s pray for rains to wash the lanes, to clear away the clutter.”
A river slows neath mountain snows, and leaves begin to shudder.

The jungle teems, a siren screams, the air is filled with ****.
The Reverent Priest and nuns unleash the Holy Shibboleth.
And Righteous Jane who is insane, as well as Sister Beth,
while telling tales to no avail of everlasting death,
at least imbrue Hagg Avenue with whisky on their breath.

The Reverent Priest combats the Beast, they’re kneeling down to prey,
to fight the truth with fang and tooth, to toil for yesterday,
to etch their mark within the dark, to paint their résumé
on shrouds and sheets which then completes the devil’s dossier.

Old Dan, he’s drunk and in a funk, all mired in the mud.
A Monk begins to wash Dan’s sins, and asks “How are you, Bud?”
“I’m feeling pain and crying rain and flailing in the flood
and no god’s there inclined to care I’m always coughing blood.”
The Monk, he turns, Dan’s words he spurns and lets the bible thud.

Well, Banjo Boy, he will annoy with jangled rhymes that fray:
“The clanging bells of carousels lead blind men’s minds astray
to rings of gold they’ll never hold in fingers made of clay.
But crest and crown will crumble down, when withered roots decay.”

A pregnant lass with eyes of glass has never learned to cope.
Once set adrift her fall was swift, she slid a slipp’ry ***** -
she casts the Curse, the Holy Verse, and shoots a shot of dope,
then stalks discreet Asylum Street her daily horoscope -
the stray was struck by random truck which was her only hope.

So Banjo Boy, with little joy, he strums her life entire:
“The wayward waif was never safe; her stars were dark and dire.
Born midst the rues and avenues where lack and want aspire
where no one heeds the childish needs that little ones require;
where faith survives in tempest lives, a swirl within the briar,
Infinity grinds as time unwinds, until the winds expire.
Her last caprice? The final peace that no one could deny her -
whipped by the flood, stray beads of blood cling, splattered on the spire;
though beads of sweat are cool and wet, cold clotted blood is dryer.”

Though broken there, she’s fled the snare with dying thoughts serene.
And now she’s dead, the rumours spread: her age? a sweet 16,
with child, *****, her soul dyed red, her body so unclean.
A place is sought where she can rot, avoiding churchyard scenes,
in limey pits, as well befits, behind forbidding screens;
and all the while a dirge is styled on tattered tambourines
which echo through the human zoo in valleys of the Queens.

Without rejoice, in hissing voice, near soil that’s seldom trod
“In pious role, God bless my soul”, was mouthed with mitred nod,
neath scarlet trim with black, and grim, behind a robed facade -
“She’ll burn in hell and sulphur smell”, spat Priest and man of god.

Well, angels sweet with cloven feet, they sing in girl’s attire,
but Banjo Boy, he’s playing coy while chanting in the choir:
“The clueless search within the church to find what they desire,
but near the nave or gravelled grave, there is no Rectifier.”
And when he’s through, without ado, he stacks some stones nearby her.

The eyes behind the head inclined reflect a universe
of shanty towns and kings in crowns and parties in a hearse,
of heaping mounds of coffee grounds and pennies in a purse,
of heart attacks in shoddy shacks, of motion in reverse,
of reasons why pale kids must die, quite trite and curtly terse,
of puppet people at the steeple, kneeling down averse,
of ****** tones and megaphones with empty words and worse,
of life’s begin’ in utter sin and other things perverse,
of lewd taboos and residues contained within the Curse,
while poets blind, in gallows’ rind, carve epitaphs in verse.

A sodden dreg with wooden leg is dancing for a dime
to sacred psalms and other balms, all ticking with the time.
He’s 22, he’s almost through, he’s melted in his prime,
his bane is firm, the canker worm dissolves his brain to slime.
With slanted scales and twisted jails, his life’s his only crime.

A beggar clump beside a dump has pencil box in hand.
With sightless eyes upon the skies he’s lying there unmanned,
with no relief and bitter grief too dark to understand.
The backyard blight is hid from sight, it’s covered up and bland,
and Robin Hood and Brother Hood lie buried in the sand.

While all night queens carve figurines in gelatine and jade,
behind a door and on the floor a deal is finally made;
the painted girl with flaxen curl has plied again her trade
and now the care within her stare has turned a darker shade.
Her lack of guile and parting smile are cutting like a blade.

Some boys with cheek play hide and seek within a house condemned,
their faces gaunt reflecting want that’s hard to comprehend.
With no excuse an old recluse is waiting to descend.
His eyes despair behind the stare, he’s never had a friend
to talk about his hidden doubt of how the world will end -
to die alone on empty throne and other Fates impend.

And soon the boys chase phantom joys and, presto when they’re gone,
the old recluse, with nimble noose and ****** features drawn,
no longer waits upon the Fates but yawns his final yawn
- like Tinker Bell, he spins a spell, in fairy dust chiffon -
with twisted brow, he’s tranquil now, he’s floating like a swan
and as he fades from life’s charades, the night awaits the dawn.

A boomerang with ebon fang is soaring through the air
to pierce and breach the heart of each and then is called despair.
And as it grows it will oppose and fester everywhere.
And yet the crop that’s at the top will still be unaware.

A lad is stopped by roving cops, who shoot in disregard.
His face is black, he’s on his back, a breeze is breathing hard,
he bleeds and dies, his mama cries, the screaming sky is scarred,
the sheriff and his squad at hand are laughing in the yard.

Now Railroad Bob’s done lost his job, he’s got no place for working,
His wife, she cries with desperate eyes, their baby’s head’s a’ jerking.
The union man don’t give a ****, Big Brother lies a’ lurking,
the boss’ in cabs are picking scabs, they count their money, smirking.

Bob walks the streets and begs for eats or little jobs for trying
“the answer’s no, you ought to know, no use for you applying,
and don’t be sad, it aint that bad, it’s soon your time for dying.”
The air is thick, his baby’s sick, the cries are multiplying.

Bob’s wife’s in town, she’s broken down, she’s ranting with a fury,
their baby coughs, the doctor scoffs, the snow flies all a’ flurry.
Hard work’s the sin that’s done them in, they skirmish, scrimp and scurry,
and midnight dreams abound with screams. Bob knows he needs to hurry.
It’s getting late, Bob’s tempting fate, his choices cruel and blurry;
he chooses gas, they breathe their last, there’s no more cause to worry.

Per protocols near ivied walls arrayed in sage festoons,
the Countess quips, while giving tips, to crimson caped buffoons:
“To rise from mass to upper class, like twirly bird tycoons,
you stretch the treat you always eat, with tiny tablespoons”

A learned leach begins to teach (with songs upon a liar):
“Within the thrall of Satan’s call to yield to dim desire
lie wicked lies that tantalize the flesh and blood Vampire;
abiding souls with self-control in everyday Hellfire
will rest assured, when once interred, in afterlife’s Empire”.
These words reweave the make believe, while slugs in salt expire,
baptised in tears and rampant fears, all mirrored in the mire.

It’s getting hot on private yachts, though far from desert plains -
“Well, come to think, we’ll have a drink”, Sir Captain Hook ordains.
Beyond the blame and pit of shame, outside the Walled domains,
they pet their pups and raise their cups, take sips of pale champagnes
to touch the tips of languid lips with pearls of purple rains.

Well, Gypsy Guy would rather die than hunker down in chains,
be ridden south with bit in mouth, or heed the hold of reins.
The ruling lot are in a spot, the boss man he complains:
“The gypsies’ soul, I can’t control, my patience wears and wanes;
they will not cede to common greed, which conquers far domains
and furtive spies and news that lies have barely baked their brains.
But in the court of last resort the final fix remains:
in boxcar bins with violins we’ll freight them out in trains
and in the bogs, they’ll die like dogs, and everybody gains
(should one ask why, a quick reply: ‘It’s that which God ordains!’)”

Arrayed in shawls with crystal *****, and gazing at the moons,
wiled women tease with melodies and spooky loony tunes
while making toasts to holey ghosts on rainy day lagoons:
“Well, here’s to you and others too, embedded in the dunes,
avoid the stares, avoid the snares, avoid the veiled typhoons
and fend your way as every day, ’gainst heavy heeled dragoons.”

The birds of pray are on their way, in every beak the Word
(of ptomaine tomes by gnarly gnomes) whose meaning is obscured;
they roost aloof on every roof, obscene but always herd,
to tell the tale of Jonah’s whale and other rhymes absurd
with shifty eyes, they’re giving whys for living life deferred.

While jackals lean, hyenas mean, and hungry crocodiles
feast in the lounge and never scrounge, lambs languish in the aisle.
The naive dare to say “Unfair, let’s try to reconcile.
We’ll all relax and weigh the facts, let justice spin the dial.”

With jaundiced monks and minds pre-shrunk, the jury is compiled.
The Rulers meet, First Ladies greet, the Kings appear in style.
Before the Court, their sins are short, they’re swept into a pile;
with diatribes and petty bribes, the jurors are beguiled.

The Herd entreats, the Shepherd bleats the verdict of the trial:
“You have no face. Stay in your place, stay in the Rank and File.
And wait instead, for when you’re dead, for riches after while”;
Aristocrats add caveats while sailing down the Nile:
“If Minds are mugged or simply drugged with philtres in a vial,
then few indeed will fail to feed the Pharaoh’s Crocodile.”
The wordsmiths spin, the bankers grin and politicians smile,
the riff and raff, they never laugh, they mark a martyred mile.

The rituals are finished, all, here comes the Reverent Priest.
He leads the crowds beneath the clouds, and there the flock is fleeced
(“the last are first, the rich are cursed” - the leached remain the least)
with crossing signs and ****** wines and consecrated yeast.
His step is gay without dismay before his evening feast;
he thanks the Lord for room and, bored, he nods to Eden East
but doesn’t sigh or wonder why the sins have not decreased.

The sinking sun’s at last undone, the sky glows faintly red.
A spider black hides in a crack and spins a silken thread
and babes will soon collapse and swoon, on curbs they call a bed;
with vacant eyes they'll fantasize and dream of gingerbread,
and so be freed, though still in need, from anguish of the dead.

Fat midnight bats feast, gnawing gnats, and flit away serene
while on the trails in distant dales the lonesome wolverine
sate appetites on foggy nights and days like crystalline.
A migrant feeds on gnats and weeds with fingers far from clean
and thereby’s blessed with barren breast (the easier to wean) -
her baby ***** an arid flux and fades away unseen.

The circus gongs excite the throngs in nighttime Never Land –
they swarm to see the destiny of Freaks at their command,
while Acrobats step pitapat across the shifting sands
and Lady Fat adores her cat and oozes charm unplanned.
The Dwarfs in suits, so small and cute when marching with the band,
ask crimson Clowns with painted frowns, to lend a mutant hand,
while Tamers’ whips with withered tips, throughout the winter land,
lure minds entranced through hoops enhanced with flames of fires fanned.
White Elephants in big-top tents sell black tusk contraband
to Sycophants in regiments who overflow the stands,
but No One sees anomalies, and No One understands.
At night’s demise, the dither dies, the lonely Crowd disbands,
down dead-end streets the Horde retreats, their threadbare rags in strands,
and Janes and Joes reweave their woes, for thoughts of change are banned.

The Monk of Mock has fled the flock caught knocking up a tween.
(She brought to light the special rite he sought to leave unseen.)
With profaned eyes they agonise, their souls no more serene
and at the shrine the flutes of wine are filled with kerosene
by men unkempt who once had dreamt but now can dream no more
except when bellowed bellies belch an ever growing roar,
which churns the seas and whips a breeze that mercy can’t ignore,
and in the night, though filled with fright, they try to end the War.

The slow and quick are hurling bricks and fight with clubs of rage
to break the chains and cleanse the stains of life within a cage,
but yield to stings of armoured things that crush in every age.

At crack of dawn, a broken pawn, in pools of blood and fire,
attends the wounds, in blood festooned (the waves flow nigh and nigher),
while ghetto towns are burning down (the flames grow high and higher);
and in their wake, a golden snake is rising from the pyre.
Her knees are bare, consumed in prayer, applauded by the Friar,
and soon it’s clear the end is near - while magpie birds conspire,
the lowly worm is made to squirm while dangling from a wire.

The line was crossed, the battle lost, the losers can’t deny,
the residues are far and few, though smoke pervades the sky.
The cool wind’s cruel, a cutting tool, the vanquished ask it “Why?”,
and bittersweet, from  Easy Street, the Pashas’ puffed reply:
“The rules are set, so don’t forget, the rabble will comply;
the grapes of wrath may make you laugh, the day you are to die.”

The down and out, they knock about beneath the barren skies
where homeward bound, without a sound, a ravaged raven flies.
Beyond the Walls, the morning calls the newborn sun to rise,
and Peter Pan, a broken man, inclines his head and cries...

School was always humuorous to a degree in my opinion because of the underlying idea
that the more damaged you were, the cooler you were in the eyes of the rest of the school.
I have heard numerous conversations that began with something along the lines of, "Oh, you
think YOU got it bad, well my dad blah blah and my best friend blah blah and my life is hell."

I decided to get a little personal and share with you guys something I have never actually
told anyone in entirety yet. I am pretty sure the whole story is still only here in my brain.
I will, out of respect for these people, change their names.

It's October 31, 2012. It's about noon, and all of us sixteen to twenty-two year olds are just waking up.
Brianne woke up probably a few hours ago already to tend to her son, Aaron. He is adorable, one
and a half, blond hair, blue eyes. I have been living here for nearly two months. I am supporting her,
Aaron, and myself with food stamps. I get two hundred dollars a month to basically smoke **** and drink
on the government's budget. Trust me, I'm not proud of it either, and if I could I would pay it back.
Since Brianne is a single mother and an adopted child, she has a single-digit monthly rent (I was *******
baffled to hear this) and receives support from her foster parents. Basically, if I want to stay here forever
with absolutely no consequences save to miss out on a life of my own, I can.

Brandon is putting on clown make-up so he can troll the streets as a juggalo. I find this amusing as I always
liked to mess around with ICP fans, but he's a really cool kid so I let it go and I even help him perfect it.
I notice he has a bottle of Stolichnaya in his backpack and it's practically full. That, to me, is temptation.
I ask if he would mind me taking a few drinks here and there from the bottle and he says it's fine, so I proceed
to get a nice one p.m. buzz. It was always my favorite drunk, very light, and airy, almost like you're still asleep.
Something bogs you down, but it doesn't bother you, somehow it makes you lighter.

For the rest of the day, we hook up with a few friends, go out and trick or treat in the pouring rain, get soaked
and wait for two hours under an overpass while Brianne goes and gets her car. From there, we proceed home.

At this point, everyone is over at Breanne's and we're all making dinner and drinking beer and having a good time
(Aaron is with the grandparents tonight). I guess I started getting angry about the recent events (for about a month,
everyone in our group with the exception of Brandon have been slowly losing items...but they're obviously being stolen.
At a point, a few of us did some research and determined the only person who could possibly have stolen
a good deal of these things has to be Brandon) and I decided I was tired of sitting on the news waiting for no one to make
a move after a solid two weeks of being certain that we had our guy. So I called him out... and proceeded
to begin burning bridges slowly and very surely for the next few days. I am pretty sure a fight would have broken out
if Bri hadn't taken me into her room to relax. When I finally do, it turns out I woke up the upstairs neighbor,
her baby, and everyone in the house has left save for my friend Jeff and his girlfriend Marissa. This concludes night one.

I later learned that Brandon was not actually the person who was stealing from us (unless of course
he just happened to not get caught when we found out who had done most of it) and I feel bad for bringing the whole
thing up because I would have liked to stay in touch with him. We got along swimmingly and he actually did have
a lot of interesting things to talk about. Smart, nice, hilarious... Well, maybe he'll turn up one day.

The next morning, I woke up to find the house empty save for Jeff and Marissa in the next room, but where I am,
it simply appears empty. I don't know what happened but I intuit that I have been sleeping all night without
my girlfriend. This upsets me and I begin to weep like a confused child, which is exactly what you do when you're
helpless and too drunk in the brain to figure out how to pull yourself out of a helpless situation (trust me,
I own the handbook). Marissa walks in and begins to explain to me that I had scared her too much and she slept
on the couch and that she had left to go pick up her son. So I realize I need to calm down, but I can feel
Jeff is not happy with me in the slightest, considering he will not come and talk to me (this is extremely painful
because he is probably one of the best friends I have ever had, with a mind that vastly exceeds that of everyone
I have met save one other, and he's a different story). They leave and I decide to stay in the house all day.

This is a very bad idea. I stay home, watch re-runs of a show I have seen billions of times, and considering
that Brandon and I are no longer on good terms, like a complete *******, I drink the rest of his *****.

In walks Bri, it's around 7. She's not happy. She proceeds to tell me that the night before I asked out a friend of mine
and she said yes. And I was a bit shocked because I couldn't remember it at first. Then it all hit me.

A few days before, Aaron called me "dad." Now remember, this is not my child. I am dark, dark, dark, and she had this kid
about two years after we had any past relationship. I am extremely worried in my mind and I realize I am headed toward nothing.
That I am stagnant and can not even afford to go back to school. This scares me, so I drunkenly asked out Tanya.

Tanya...we had been friends for about five years, and I had tried to get with her so many **** times... she was like
one of those girls you see and you're instantly reminded of an anime character. Tall, thin, beautiful hips, perfect
proportions, lovely hair, eyes, voice, and a personality I can liken to a Disney princess/black metal lumberjack.
The kind of girl who has a tough exterior, but inside, she just wants someone to tell her everything is going to be ok.

After about two hours of pleading with Bri to let me stay, I finally send Tanya a message, and we hang out for the next
two days, whence I whisper in her ear that everything is going to be okay and we proceed to have quite passionate ***
for those nights, where I discovered the secret to making a woman ****** with my tongue (tip: if the underside of your
tongue isn't completely torn apart, you're doing something wrong). But alas, I could not stay.

This is the part I dreaded, because I know I have to go back to Jeff's house and ask him if I can stay there for a while.
And I got the answer I expected.

The words he used...

"I'm *******...extremely ******* at you, and disappointed." It was like a father saying it to you. And him and I
have a very interesting friendship built on such an extreme understanding that I knew exactly how badly I had been spiraling.
I began to leave and he gave me a slice of pizza, with that slight smile that told me "just go find yourself, we'll be fine."

I hobbled off into the night drunk, with one piece of pizza and all my food at Bri's, which could have lasted me another few days,
easing the transition into homeless. And it could have prevented a horrible occurance that took place the following afternoon. I
was crying, because I knew I was dying, but I didn't want to ask either of my parents for help, because this was the first time
I was out on my own and I was far too proud to give up and let the world make me its victim. So I walked...

Sixteen ******* miles...

To the next town. Took me all night because I was dodging traffic, easing into trees, avoiding on and off ramps, trying to stay
away from any police that may exist on the road. When I finally arrived in the next town (where I knew I may have one contact)
I decided to sleep until the morning came so I could have the energy to find my next venture.

It was five thirty am. I had 3 hours until sun-up, I had just walked enough to be burning, and there was plenty of whiskey in my veins.
I had left my sleeping bag with Tanya hours earlier, wishing in the park that I had not been so naiive as to think I would be allowed
back in the house. So I pulled out a pile of ***** clothes and put them over me like blankets, in some random corner of the local
park, under some bushes, hidden from cold and sight, with great hope...

Fifteen minutes pass. My eyes shoot open. I am freezing. The sweat has dried and frozen to my body. This is hell.

I grab my things and with the worst effort I can ever remember myself mustering, I drag myself to the toilet.
When I open it, the first thing I check for is cleanliness. It's spotless. I am so relieved. I sit in the corner of the room,
which my knees to my chest, head in my hands, wrapped in a leather jacket I had gotten from Jeff (ha, he really is my
guardian angel, though he would laugh to hear it).

I catch winks, occasionally looking up to check if the sun is rising. When it finally is, I get up, change my clothes (I had
ONE clean set of clothing and it had been rotting with the rest in the backpack) and immediately head to a thrift store where
a family friend is working.

On my way there, I notice in a little parking lot near the store a sight I had never actually come across but I always thought
would be the most amazing luck, and it was timed in such a spot in my life that it was the ultimate miracle...and a curse in
disguise.

In front of my eyes (this miracle appeared in my path as I was walking looking down, so it startled me) was the worst possible thing
for me: A half finished fifth of Smirnoff, and a half smoked pack of Marlboro 100 Reds. I open the pack and sure enough, the celophane
protected every cigarette inside from any water damage. I am ecstatic. This is not only amazing, but highly unlikely.

So I down the bottle in one go and take the rest of the smokes with me.

When I arrive at the thrift shop, it turns out I am there on a day when my potential savior is not working, so I get her number from the clerk
and head over to a payphone and realize... I have no money. So I decide to go on a quest for dropped pocket change.

Before I even leave the parking lot, I see a young man, no older than 23, sitting on a nice red classic-style Corvette and he's
reading William S. Burroughs. So naturally, I decide to strike up a conversation with the young man. Turns out he's the nicest guy
and his name is Jordan. So him and I got together and decided to go out for a game of disc golf (some may not know what this is;
Imagine frisbee but with a golf theme, so you need to get from a tee pad into a basket. Really fun, centering, and extremely popular
with potheads, Californians, beer-drinkers, and hippies) and before we go, he asks if I would like to snag a few beers first.

I tell him a piece of my story and he can tell I am down on my luck and broke so he decides to help me out. He buys us both some beer
and we proceed to disk.

Turns out he's an ex-****** and has been through quite a bit of hell himself, so we find that we're in a good position to help each
other make some better decisions in life. After the game, we go over to a payphone and he gives me money to call my friend.

Buzz (this the only name I am not changing because her name is ******* badass) answers the phone and unfortunately informs me that
though she would take me in any day of the year, she just moved in to a house with one older lady she takes care of, and its a single
bedroom apartment, so there is just no way it can work.

So I go back to his car and tell him the news, and he says he thinks he may be able to put me up for a few days until I can sort
everything out. We go back out to the store and grab ourselves a fifth of *****.

We end up in the park playing music, talking, performing standup for one another, and I begin to realize I am drinking too fast,
so I try to ease back a little. He was playing a version of a Radiohead song I had never heard before

"Everyone this way. Okay, get your hands against the wall. Spread your legs. Don't move."
The doors clanking, some ******* won't shut up in the next cell over.
More slamming of doors, someone rubbing my body all over trying to find my knives, no doubt.
And my AK 47 I conceal, and my ****, and my ... oh ****, I really did have **** on me.

"Move forward. Turn around. Alright, go to bed."

----------------------------------------------------------­---------------------

"Get up. Come on, slowly... There you go. There's a few more coming in so we got to get you to another cell."

Clank, clank...

"Pick a bed."

----------------------------------------------------------­---------------------

Something is wrong. This bed is not covered. There is no comfort. It's just a mat. And I have no pillow. This is not a house
of any sort, my bag isnt what I am sleeping on. Something is very wrong here.

I am in jail. Oh of course.

I know the answer before I hear it, but I ask anyway: "What are my charges, ma'am?"

"Drunk in public."

-------------------------------------------------------­------------------------

I'm about thirty miles or so North of inner Seattle. Not a bad place to be. I'm working for a Safeway. It's somewhere around
the first of June. I receive word that Bri has been on ******. And I may have left at a crucial time in her life thinking
only of myself, but I needed to go somewhere I could be productive. Yet my decision left her in a position where she turned
to hard drugs...

I can't help but feel I am to blame. I am listening to the dull, stupid words of my ex boss, Rod, who is telling me
that even though I may feel like I need to help her, there is nothing I can do for her, so I should bury myself in my work
instead. He tells me this in about six hundred different ways before I leave the room after twenty minutes. Well great.
I may have no focus here at work today, but at least I killed almost a half hour of the day just listening to someone
*******.

I am at a loss of what to do here, but I eventually get a hold of her, and after a long time not talking, we come to
somewhat of a closure, and she is beginning to sober up herself. I realize we were both in incredibly hard times, and I still
wish with all my heart there could have been some way I could have helped her raise that boy and stayed and been her
love, and at the same time, still go to college, and progress and get a good job...but I was in a small Northern California
town. There was nothing left, all the old shops were out of business. It was time for me to move on then, and we have
all seen better days for it. She looks incredible these days by the way. She lost an insane amount of weight, and I know
a lot of it had to do with the drugs, but if she truly is sober like she says she is, she'll be getting much better.

A few weeks ago 3 people I used to know and hang out with died in the span of a week. It was a terrible tragedy, and I have been
thinking back on all the names of people I used to love very, very much before they got lost in some way.

There's Lorne Holly, who killed himself after a few weeks of detoxing from crank.

Layla Harmon, who died in a car crash, blunt head trauma, with a drunk driver (I have a tattoo for this, I will never drive drunk).

Heavy Eagle, who killed himself after years of drug problems.

Chaz Lipman, who died in a car crash as well.

Ren Rain, who I am still not sure about...

And of course, Tray Beraldi, who was my closest friend's cousin... I wish I were there to mourne with him...

Last night I got a text from my best friend, who said he couldn't sleep and he barely eats anything anymore, and he feels like his throat
is going to explode, and he cant swallow and his neck is killing him constantly. He has been this way for a year, and he is talking constantly
about getting a gun and blowing his head off. And no one believes him because he constantly talks about it because he is in so much pain.
No doctor can diagnose him so far, he has no idea what's wrong with him, he's been tested all over the place, he has no hope, he's barely
cligning and he doesn't know how much longer he can hold on.

All I really want to say is

Lord? What I have done? I don't pray, I never pray, I don't even know who I would pray to. But WHAT ELSE DO I HAVE TO DO?!

I bring myself across hell and I pull myself from the worst depression I h

Highland Nordic landscape
hands bound by twine
the smells of pine
wafting through the forest
the stranger awakes to their escorted fate
the judge, jury and executioner awaits
with bated breath and a heaving chest
behind the forever closed gates
just beyond the mist.

The Rebels want their Freedom
and the right to choose their destiny
The Empire want allegiance
and the spoils of war
to stroll their sequestered land
the suppression they hold unto thee

taken by force in an act of Union
intent on silencing the minority
but the quell of the rebel voice had failed
an unbridled passion and belief
that as natives they would never relinquish
not even under the purge of fire
nor the controls to decide
that resistance of existence is futile
in the face of a Colonial state
that all should bow and abide

emphatic on extending their reach
natives were but minions in their eyes
harvesting an ancient history
as you would brew heather mead
hounding the pilgrims of Talos
tending the ego's of the few over the many
laying claim to what lies beneath the sea
the fossil fuels they ache for
and on-demand that they have
the greatest need.

Dragon Slayer is in their midst
but they do not know that yet
not until this epic unfolds
like a warriors Tartan
laid out and stitched in war
the family crest emblazoned
hues of amber stained in years of fervor

the weight of the uninvited guest
who decided it was best
that they should take whatever they desired;
you land, your dreams, your women -
the nubile pale skin of a lovers breath
tarnished her name, pillaged her sanctuary
before you were able to take her hand
and under the arched stealth of moonlight
and under the eyes of your Gods
solemn oaths sworn and ritual pacts made
that they would never steal the memory
and that this would never fade.

Dragon Slayer would have you heed their name
in time to come when all must decide
make alliances of your own
or squander freedom in the name of history
let the past slip into the murky waters of shame
preserved in the wetland bogs to the west
till the soil broken by man's greed
to populate the last remains of nature
so that he may gorge his already fat belly
with the notion of carrying on his seed
in a world where more are alive today
than have ever been.

You decide:
what do your Elven ears hear
your Orcish eyes see
your Redguard heart feel
your Viking spirit wield
your Khajiit senses fear

the Argonian lizard
his forked tongue speaks in riddles
puzzles await
poisoned logic
and arcane magic
in a time before the world found its feet
when dragons ruled the skies
and breathed fire and ice

the artifacts of legend
lay hidden in the hall of stories
rewarding only the Dragon Slayer
with the wall of voices

will you accept the fate of history
or stand tall and embrace the change
will you go headlong into the cold night alone
whether you be the warrior or the mage
all that is yours by right to keep
your moment of glory awaits

the Greybeards will ask only this:
which destiny will you seek?

Welcome to the land of golden trout

Where black bears roam and hawks still shout

In the eastern Sierras, hills of the west

Tales of the Adventurers and their first test.

Forming an alliance in Santa Cruz

They left together, unwilling to lose.

Packing up and heading down the trail

They knew as a team they would never fail.

Without a moment’s hesitation nor shred of doubt

The crew took their Tools of Tenacity out

And in less than three months flat

The Adventurers finished, exclaiming “that’s that!”


But who composes this mysterious crew?

Wait just one moment, I promise I’ll tell you.

First, there’s Nico the Noble, the leader so fearless

Who also frightens many when he’s not beardless;

Followed by Ben the Benevolent with his hearty laugh

And never without his Capitals hat;

Kahn the Courageous has his wild antics

Telling stories with Buckeye semantics;

Jamie the Just and her vegan ways

Had to eat lentils for most of her days;

See Jen the Jubilant with camera-in-hand

Shaving logs for as long as she can;

The team’s newest member, Maggie the Merciful,

Has now experienced the wilderness in full;

Tim the Wise lacks alliteration, unlike the others

But has chased many cows, some scraping their udders;

And at last there’s me, the Notable Narrator,

So our crew’s legacy can live forever.


In our quest the crew has changed slightly.

Those unable to handle the tasks lightly

Had left- like Mary, Bobby, and Stary the Skeptical

All well-admired, and mostly respectable.


Now let’s shift our story to the work completed

In the struggling meadow, its health near-depleted.

Using fallen trees that have long-since passed

We found a clearing with their numbers quite vast.

Cutting the deceased into sixteen-foot longs

And lugging them over thickets and bogs

Our team stacked them perpendicular

To the stream, or creek, in particular

And in a magician’s “ta-da!” moment

Water rose up to our new component,

Flowing over the freshly-made dam

Then briefly meeting with dirt and sand

At the bottom. Multiplied by thirty

And that was work: rigorous and *****.

But why were the Adventurers sent there,

To build check-dams and do repairs?

It was, in part, human consumption

That led to the meadow’s near-destruction:

America’s insatiable need for beef

Will not, for a long time, see any relief,

So Industry has pushed forward, sending cows to the fields

Grazing and growing to become our future meals.

But little did Industry know how devastating

Hundreds of cattle leave an ecosystem suffocating.

Trampling grass and dispersing banks underhoof

The bovine are easily guilty, there’s so much proof.

Stupid, noxious, and obnoxious creatures

Recognized by these, easily their best features.

Incessantly screaming day and night

They are more like demons by every right.

Yet the Forest Service lets ranchers send

Hundreds of cattle, seemingly without end.

And while the Golden Trout crew fixed things,

It’s not enough to ease the strain the cows will bring.


So what can we do, if anything at all

If we go veggie will Industry stall?

Can the end of beef save the earth

Is society only worried when we gain in girth?

That’s not for me to say right now

It’s up to you to answer the “how?”


But I digress, I must end the story

Of the Adventurers and their summer glories.

In the end they saved the meadow, saved the day

Held the bovine rampage at bay,

Raised water levels, erosion erased,

Then was the time to leave that place.

So the Adventurers hopped in their van,

Eight warriors mean, lean, and tan,

And took off down the mountainside

To Santa Cruz and the oceanside.

Each followed one’s own path

But only after taking many baths.

The Golden Trout legacy will live forever,

Only made possible by the best crew ever.

Everyday caught
In the labyrinth of mind,
I am,
Where dreams,
And desires
And lust,
From nothing
Conspire something.

Destination: Canada Water.
The next station is Surrey Quays.
Doors will open on the right-hand side.
Exit here for Goldsmith's College.

In the cerebellum
Fragments flash cerebrum bright:
Wheels in tunnels burn,
A neural screech amplified deep,
As waves of electrons churn,
And in multiple places keep.

This stop:
- My birth -
Is in Westminster!

It’s time:

Do you love me?
DO YOU LOVE ME?
          Yes, No, Ohhh (the audience).

In the space-time continuum,
The labyrinth is forever,
Within a fourth dimension.

It’s time …

You love me, right?
YOU LOVE ME, RIGHT?
    Yes, No, Ohhh (the audience).

DO-MI-NA-TION
DEATH FREE
DO-MI-NA-TION
ASH FREE

Lost in the labyrinth: a journey to an exit.
The Overground train pulls!
And from floor to ceiling,
Between vertical orange pins,
A medley of languid listless limbs lulls,
       Seated hips,
       Angled legs,
       Dangling feet,
And neck-less heads,
Lost, ghoul-like,
The disconcerted move doggedly on,
Everywhere somewhere; but forever nowhere
Through London's hills and bogs.

From  STOP to STOP,
In the labyrinthine network,
In tubes splayed out on cubes,
Of bright brushed viscose comfort,
Overhead, the ads exhort:

       Top Up Your Soul,
       Fast Forward Your Escape
And
       uSwipe
       uSwitch
       uSave

Like these,
A hundred escalating messages,
Each more insistent than the last,
Compel, enough to distract,
So man’s desire enslaves his heart.

Its time…

         You love, right?
YOU LOVE, RIGHT?
    Yes, No, Ohhh (the audience).

DO-MI-NA-TION
DEATH FREE
DO-MI-NA-TION
ASH FREE

How? Why?
Has bacterial sludge,
Built these edifices of glass and steel.
This labyrinthian cage,
Whose walls race up at the speed of light,
While the inner commuter flame gutters,
Everywher, in multiverses,
Supernovas explode in showers.
And for a moment, in the moment, The Overground chromatic glows.

New Cross Gate, Canada Water, Southwark.

Lit and digital and LCD:
        
  ALL CHANGE, PLEASE.
  THIS TRAIN TERMINATES HERE

A few automated steps, and:
       Southwark,
       Green Park,
       Then Baker Street,
Appear, fade and disappear.

Now walking down Belsize Road,
On the evening of the
Super Gibbous Moon,
As it rises high over the Ziggurat dimensions of the Alexandra Estate,
And all is blood orange at dusk,
As I, a slinking silhouette,
Make for the event horizon of home,
For surely given, and taken,
A few more bends, another turn,

It’s time, again.

         Love, right?
         LOVE, RIGHT?
    Yes, No, Ohhh (the audience).

DO-MI-NA-TION
DEATH FREE
DO-MI-NA-TION
FREE ME.

To the event horizon of consciousness,
To that black hole at the core.
In death's star-like eye,
Embrace, pass through,
(Fear not),
On, through the labyrinth northward,
Entering and exiting,
We go awhile, a little longer.

Stars, my Stars,
Again, it's time.

You love me, right?
YOU LOVE ME, RIGHT?
Yes, No, Ohhh (the audience).

SU-PER-NA-TU-RAL
SU-PER-NA-TU-RAL
DEATH FREE.
LOVE!
BE,
WINGS FREE:

     SU-PER-NA-TU-RAL

One more stop:

       New Bond Street.

GET BEYOND
DESIRE,
BEYOND THE LABYRINTHEAN LIE,
CONSUMER, DIE!
BE
MATERIAL FREE.

Last stop:

       No-name, this one:

BE:

     SU-PER-NA-TU-RAL.

SAY IT:

     SU-PER-NA-TU-RAL
     SU-PER-NA-TU-RAL
     DEATH FREE.
     LOVE!
     BE,
     WINGS FREE:
    
     WE ARE:
     SU-PER-NA-TU-RAL

“You ought to have seen what I saw on my way
To the village, through Mortenson’s pasture to-day:
Blueberries as big as the end of your thumb,
Real sky-blue, and heavy, and ready to drum
In the cavernous pail of the first one to come!
And all ripe together, not some of them green
And some of them ripe! You ought to have seen!”

“I don’t know what part of the pasture you mean.”

“You know where they cut off the woods—let me see—
It was two years ago—or no!—can it be
No longer than that?—and the following fall
The fire ran and burned it all up but the wall.”

“Why, there hasn’t been time for the bushes to grow.
That’s always the way with the blueberries, though:
There may not have been the ghost of a sign
Of them anywhere under the shade of the pine,
But get the pine out of the way, you may burn
The pasture all over until not a fern
Or grass-blade is left, not to mention a stick,
And presto, they’re up all around you as thick
And hard to explain as a conjuror’s trick.”

“It must be on charcoal they fatten their fruit.
I taste in them sometimes the flavour of soot.
And after all really they’re ebony skinned:
The blue’s but a mist from the breath of the wind,
A tarnish that goes at a touch of the hand,
And less than the tan with which pickers are tanned.”

“Does Mortenson know what he has, do you think?”

“He may and not care and so leave the chewink
To gather them for him—you know what he is.
He won’t make the fact that they’re rightfully his
An excuse for keeping us other folk out.”

“I wonder you didn’t see Loren about.”

“The best of it was that I did. Do you know,
I was just getting through what the field had to show
And over the wall and into the road,
When who should come by, with a democrat-load
Of all the young chattering Lorens alive,
But Loren, the fatherly, out for a drive.”

“He saw you, then? What did he do? Did he frown?”

“He just kept nodding his head up and down.
You know how politely he always goes by.
But he thought a big thought—I could tell by his eye—
Which being expressed, might be this in effect:
‘I have left those there berries, I shrewdly suspect,
To ripen too long. I am greatly to blame.’”

“He’s a thriftier person than some I could name.”

“He seems to be thrifty; and hasn’t he need,
With the mouths of all those young Lorens to feed?
He has brought them all up on wild berries, they say,
Like birds. They store a great many away.
They eat them the year round, and those they don’t eat
They sell in the store and buy shoes for their feet.”

“Who cares what they say? It’s a nice way to live,
Just taking what Nature is willing to give,
Not forcing her hand with harrow and plow.”

“I wish you had seen his perpetual bow—
And the air of the youngsters! Not one of them turned,
And they looked so solemn-absurdly concerned.”

“I wish I knew half what the flock of them know
Of where all the berries and other things grow,
Cranberries in bogs and raspberries on top
Of the boulder-strewn mountain, and when they will crop.
I met them one day and each had a flower
Stuck into his berries as fresh as a shower;
Some strange kind—they told me it hadn’t a name.”

“I’ve told you how once not long after we came,
I almost provoked poor Loren to mirth
By going to him of all people on earth
To ask if he knew any fruit to be had
For the picking. The rascal, he said he’d be glad
To tell if he knew. But the year had been bad.
There had been some berries—but those were all gone.
He didn’t say where they had been. He went on:
‘I’m sure—I’m sure’—as polite as could be.
He spoke to his wife in the door, ‘Let me see,
Mame, we don’t know any good berrying place?’
It was all he could do to keep a straight face.

“If he thinks all the fruit that grows wild is for him,
He’ll find he’s mistaken. See here, for a whim,
We’ll pick in the Mortensons’ pasture this year.
We’ll go in the morning, that is, if it’s clear,
And the sun shines out warm: the vines must be wet.
It’s so long since I picked I almost forget
How we used to pick berries: we took one look round,
Then sank out of sight like trolls underground,
And saw nothing more of each other, or heard,
Unless when you said I was keeping a bird
Away from its nest, and I said it was you.
‘Well, one of us is.’ For complaining it flew
Around and around us. And then for a while
We picked, till I feared you had wandered a mile,
And I thought I had lost you. I lifted a shout
Too loud for the distance you were, it turned out,
For when you made answer, your voice was as low
As talking—you stood up beside me, you know.”

“We sha’n't have the place to ourselves to enjoy—
Not likely, when all the young Lorens deploy.
They’ll be there to-morrow, or even to-night.
They won’t be too friendly—they may be polite—
To people they look on as having no right
To pick where they’re picking. But we won’t complain.
You ought to have seen how it looked in the rain,
The fruit mixed with water in layers of leaves,
Like two kinds of jewels, a vision for thieves.”

Even if I loved thee a thousand times, still thou'd never be real.
But still, in t'ese dark miseries and dreams of th' night-
ah, just like t'is silent night of ours
And t'ose fierce fairy tales of young hours
Thou'd still be shaken off my realms
As soon as morn comes-and unveils anew, my charms.
O, death, how lush and inviting thou art,
even though at t'is early age thou might
still be asleep and thus soundeth really far.
Thou art but as naughty as t'ose abundant peeping stars,
brimming with locks of divine warmth and wealth
T'ey shalt again, tease up my mind
Whilst capture my rude, hating heart;
and once more shall t'is gruesome life turn into a solitude
Beside promises t'at canst harm souls' benign attitude.
But as soon as thou art gone; thou might just be no longer safe
And to my conscience thy threat is no more than a slave
Thy delicacy is but servile and uninviting
In t'ose choruses of blood and suffering
For which our senses should nay be proud;
but only of our genuine voices and gravity
T'at though sometimes seem virtual,
but still, are crafted within reality.

And yes, my painting, behind thy soul was ever born thy art,
Locked safely within thy summer foliage and forests
But shall I, for your goodwill ever be sketched?
Ah, one swiftly done, and miraculously correct-
yes, one only, my love, for th' very sake of single jests!
For in thy eyes hovers my triumph,
and in t'ose bogs beneath-
yes, th' ones idling about thy feet,
are cuddled-just here like my little heart, my love.
A sacred love t'at is thrown about
But to which my thirst canst never shout.
Ah, as if my voice is hoarse, and not loud-
and soon I step into whose soils, shall be sanely caught.
Caught and swung around thy idyll-though against my will;
amongst heaven's sandy shoals, and t'eir creepy windowsill.
Oh, and be defected with t'ose blades of thy swords, how evil!
Bereft of my sanity, prudence and sometimes too-bitter delicacy
As I dance around to those lands of hurtful mockery.
Be my soul's delighted worry, and mouth-oh, but mouth of blasphemy!
Ah, how of which I'm now devilishly tired!
Though you might be my eternal sire,
and beside whom my virginal soul shall forever feel so sure
As if my pride shall never ever retire,
everything shall altogether be wounded and obscure
But comely and true, just like t'at shimmering white-lipped dew
With breaths so smooth, like one from my feelings for you.

Ah, my prince! T'is craze for thee is an arrogant little devil;
and its longing for thee which gradually eats away my soul
and at times ****** and tells me harshly what to feel.
Just like t'ose ill-hearted fruits of people's minds
For which t'eir villains wouldst even in death bleakly whine
I am but forever bound to thee;
just like thou art already inside of me;
For in majestic times of our days
Thou shall hungrily partake
my fruity; but eager soul, soul away
and marvel about th' visages of my purity
I shall always but love thee once more;
no matter how boastful thou art,
and detestable virginal pain might be!
For thou art always to me as pure,
though unconvincingly art forever in vain-
For t'ose loveless satisfactions thou hath procured-
and premature pain thou hath delightfully endured.
But healthily t'ese senses shall always love thee
And with such tragedies and tears
canst t'ey but forgive thee only
Because, regardless of how untrue thou art;
You lifted my soul when I was down
And cheered me up 'twixt yon last wound
Dark was th' night t'at day, ye' tender was the moon
As both would pass and dusk would fade away soon
And into my blood thou injected th' real meaning of virtue
Whenst I was all wasted and coldly blue
Whilst my thoughts had not even a clue.

Ah, painting, but still, our love is incorrect as a tragedy-
for t'is world is too exhaustive and greedy
And at times elusive whenst but not necessary-
to grant our love th' chance we needst best!
Oh, but hark; hark once more, my love!
Over t'ere are bursts and chants of a heartbroken violin,
Though spurned by heretic hanging clouds,
slandered by boastful chirping winds.
But, no matter; no matter how hard it might seem
Thou art still to me an indescribable story;
and in thy red cheeks lies my stranded vitality
Signs of virtuous tenderness and curtained loyalty
As though thou art but still with no sin;
No sin; and ah! No stain, no stain at all-of
neither viable crossness nor madness
Though thy cleverness is at times no more to be seen
As once thou said, t'at for thee t'ere might just be
no any further happiness.

Ah! And trapped shall I be, within poisonous vileness
Should I not be granted thee
For thou art th' only soul I love, and idolise
Through whom my life was once formed, and characterised.
For love, to me is like a whole pattern;
and thus needst to be complete;
Thereby in t'is sense-loving him is but like denying
my own merit-merit t'at I am part of, and sure of-
for it is not love, though he might; as fate might say;
just as reliable and handsome and sweet.
But still, he is not thee!
And by no chance, is being not thee is but the same,
as being thee!
How fraudulent, and gross-t'is comparison all be!
Ah! And so thou knoweth, t'at he is, too me-
more even not than a stunning evening doll
Like those ones I hath seen so often
strutting about posh malls
Whilst with heartlessness welcoming
and sneering at innocent cold falls
With faces too stern, yellow, and sometimes bold;
Too bold to be true, much less sincere
And wholly unlike thine-amongst those sins;
t'at for thou honestly admit; look still sparkling and keen;
thus so astoundingly charming my veins and curdling my blood
Until thy unread shadows but reach my heart;
With such braveness and th' frankness of a gentleman
Like at that moment-whenst we told each other's life stories, back then.

Ah, and lure, lure my heart, my love!
And play with it soon as we sit 'mongst th' groves;
I would like to lay again about thy breast,
as I whisper once more to thy chest;
t'at it is truly thee that my soul loves;
and invites to love from t'is moment to end.
Ah, but t'is love started I knew not when,
though never have I thought thou art just my friend.
And lie, just lie to me no more,
t'at thou, just like me-but needst me to thy very core,
with a love t'at seems impatient,
but is born still, from pure virtue and resilience.
Oh! How valuable thou art to me, darling!
Thou who art to me such a mindful; soulful treasure,
and betwixt thy impurity thou remaineth but pure;
Thou are a smiling cloud to my blinding sun;
but sunlight to my rain as soon as it is done.

And thick and tough just as yon bough may seem,
thou shall forever be to me more t'an him!
I shall do and always want thee,
it is thy picture t'at I keepest within and about me.
Ah! And to t'is world, I promise, I shall not bluntly surrender
as how my wailing heart it shall never disrupt!
For thee I shall swear with a thousand loves greater,
t'at from actualising thee, I shall never be stopped!

Then please, please me, o my love-once more,
and talk to me and look at me sweetly as just never before.
For I love thee brightly and gently, as how air loves breath;
and so shall I love thee purely and greatly, as how life loves death.

Teach me how to forget thee!
Ah, 'fore this silky moon do I pray,
so t'at th' sky shalt forgive me
andth grant but forgiveness to me
for the love I've thought of today.
T'is is still the love of thee,
and 'tis but translucent little soul
t'at refuses to leave the barren crates of
my heart. What a pampered, but
captivating creature! And what a shrill doth
it send through my spines!
O my thee, I beg, I beg with thousands
of teardrops that I shalt soon be freed of this love-
and it be carried away by some seething
clouds. But never shalt it leave me-never! T'is is
also but my delirious-and conscious expectation,
as realise do I hereth-t'at I shalt never enliven
myself again, without thee.
Everyone doth t'eir own stories, as special as t'ey are-
but mine, with thine, areth united together, bound
to each ot'er like crazy, as we mutually thirst for
one another more and more!
How t'is greediness shan't liberate me, and my doings-
from t'ese thoughts of thee, never!
For I am still incapable of heaving my legs
without thee-I am but a stiff lass, and paralysed
areth my senses-and their untarnished caprices,
in the moonlight and as the sunlight arises
on the following day when I ameth without thee.
How I disdain such contraventions! As my love is now
threatened by acute ambiguity-andth I know not
whether thou shalt ever miss or not miss me. But still
I do love thee! And as long as I breath I shalt
but long for thee-I am deafened by thy charms; and
pacified only by thy presence. I am calm and weary
in thy arms! But why ought it to be so difficult
to pour my love? Why is it that I am not to be destined
to cross thy paths-especially on t'ose days of precarious solitudes-
why wert thou but away from me? And even now, why can I
only think of thee-as an untouchable apparition,
whom I can cherish only in my dreams? My
dreams, my wild dreams, areth but vain resemblances of t'ese
superfl'us thoughts. My thee, my thee, I should desirously admit t'is:
thou art still th' only one I love, and shalt always be! Thou knowst,
my love, thou knowst it impeccably-look at my delicate
hands-yes, t'ese feeble hands! T'ese loving hands, my love!
T'eir young beauty is marred by thy absence-
here and now, unripe as it was, but
abhorred by thy demure unexistence-it withered and
wasth frightfully sent into unsullied gloom. Look at 'em-
how derived from isolation t'eir frailness hath been-
hark to t'eir suffering silence, my love! T'eir palms areth
but now lined with traces
of paleness, sullenness, and ferocity. Ferocity for pleasure,
my dear. Ferocious, and wicked desires for thy love-thy
love, only! But why doth t'ese things needta happen? What isth
my mistake-so t'at I cannot caress thy real flesh-but
th' picturesque one in my imagination-ah! Thou should believe me-
my love! I would love thee fervently-and greedily, I would kiss thee
just like a ****** rose cooes at its doubtful morning-I would
cuddle thee in my arms-as I hath always longed to do!
I would sit 'fore thee under brimming candlelight, andth th'
innocuous tree next to us-andth gleefully relate thee stories
of wondrous and adventurous affection. T'at affection so dear-my love!
Hark to t'eir tale-and th' heartwarming melodies of th'
nightingale. Th' nightingale t'at shalt bring mirth into our
bogs-bogs of endearment, fragments of promises, and rainbows of
glows-all t'at marks but our very own
chained love. Our forever love! Andst our eternal union-
just as thou and I shalt shoulder together. But wherefore art thou,
my love? Swarms of gentlemen hath I seen-with feather caps
and grinning lips in morning scenes-but thou art still th' one
t'at I seek, and long to heareth; how thou shalt fast bound down
th' stairs, and blend into th' sunny morning walk-for another flood of
salubrious errands-as every day shalt we do, until old do we
grow together, as one union, and one single, generous eternity.
Thou art th' only one I love.

not drunk enough to listen to classical music,
i dwell in stinking bogs of cheese and pop,
gorgon zoella and tartan elbow patches
on my suede dinner jacket persona.

london, the great stink of 1858,
even the mayor of the city of london opposed
bazalgette's proposal for sewers,
saying he knew more about perfumery
than the parisian prostitutes,
said: '**** stinks for applause!'
well, we didn't get applause from the public,
but a mexican wave of some aztec king
playing the puppets of arousal:
monetaryzoomah the 2nd...
well there's that my sudden compromise:
i always loved organic chemistry,
i was really good at it,
but organic chemistry seemed futile in theory
with too much emphasis on tic-tac-toe
of those migrating diagrams,
trying to enforce the atomic visible
represented by C (carbon) attached to H (hydrogen)
with a tail of a carboxylic categorisation
O= (doubly bonded oxygen) and OH (the alcohol
bit), ****** futile... i just loved cooking
anaemic potions of clear like water,
sometimes scented, sometimes like sulphuric chick farts,
it was basically cooking, i didn't like physical
or inorganic chemistry, actually, university
almost felt like a museum, we weren't students
we were tourists, we were showed the basics,
the impracticalities of later application,
i was never asked to make a bottle of shampoo,
or a toothpaste, or a perfume, i was asked to
recreate theories and cul de sacs of application,
yet actual chemistry is your hoarding of chemical
products in the bathroom: starting with bleach...
never learned how to make bleach...
shame really... the workforce of chemists isn't
given a fair start, no mechanic implication:
ok ok, i'm not into having an existential crisis
in my early twenties, can you just make me robotic
so i can provide the instruments of dentistry
and hairdressing? no? well, here comes an existential
crisis aged 21...
but organic chemistry is still the bomb...
like that onion i smashed after it was dipped
in liquid nitrogen... felt like moses with the two
tablets thrown onto the ground... or a pirate's X...
here...
            it will begin and end *here.
so every time i cook i think of an organic chemistry
experiment, although i've learned that cooking
is a more colourful chemistry, and poly-scented too,
today i made shanghai style braised pork belly
(CHONG SHAO ROU),
sugar, light and dark soya sauce, kashmiri chilli powder,
ginger-garlic paste (plenty of it), spring onions,
oil, balsamic vinegar (good if you don't have shaoxing
rice wine, same ****, different cover)...
cup or two of water... and then watching the water
evaporate and all the active ingredients starting to
cling to the pork belly slices, making it look
as if coated in glistening flour... nunchuks finger licking
smooth... yeah, i eat chinese cuisine using
nunchuks rather than chop sticks...
even comrade mao tse-tung would approve,
after al chong shao rou was his favourite dish.
in addition: **** remembering poems and scaring
children... remember recipes; job done.

NOW

Well, GI Jack is welcome back, he left his legs in 'Nam.
He wakes at night in sweat and fright, then drinks another dram.
He doesn't know quite where to go, so seeks his uncle, Sam.


                           BEFORE

One can't ignore - his ma was poor, and seasons sometimes cruel,
yet Jack was brave and well behaved and surely no one's fool
so joined the ranks that man the tanks, as soon as he left school

He learned to **** our foes at will (ordained a sacred rite)
then packed his bag, unfurled his flag, when sent away to fight.
And yes, the tide was on our side (for, clearly, might makes right)

Through tangled days in jungles' maze, he sought the enemy
behind the trees where, ill at ease, he fought the Yellow sea -
upon the waves of gravelled graves he sailed a killing spree

The ****** dropped and cooked the crops, charred huts along the way
and tanks, with zest, erased the rest, their villages of clay.
(Yes, turret guns are loads of fun with roaring roundelay.)

While on the hunt with other grunts, he burned some babes alive
and wondered why frail things must die, while evil's phantoms thrive -
<When folly ends, he'll make amends if only he'll survive>

With ***** traps (sticks smeared with crap), yes, Charlie fought unfair.
He hid in holes with snakes and voles and snuck up everywhere
and like a mite within the night, caught Jackie unaware

At battle's end, Jack sought his friends - their souls were washed away
and only he and destiny were left in disarray -
with bed and pan, just half a man, the man of yesterday

When Jack awoke beyond the smoke, his frame no longer whole,
he found instead some suture thread neath wraps to hide the hole,
and realized a further prize: a chair on wheels to roll

His head felt light, as well it might, at Victory Day Parade
(across his chest, you've surely guessed, his medals shone, arrayed)
for when he rolled, while others strolled, his boots no longer weighed


                           AFTER

Well, Jack stayed home (no roads to Rome) to start his life anew
receiving dole which took its toll as largess went askew
for sure enough, when times got tough, his uncle, Sam, withdrew

To walk the streets with fine elites (or else some *** who begs)
or find a job (or even rob) requires both your legs.
And those who can't, are viewed askant like those we call the dregs.

For getting by he tried to ply and mine his medals' worth -
a wooden cup, a mangy pup, a smirk when miming mirth,
and best of all, at midnight’s call, beneath a bridge, a ‘berth’

He clutched a sign 'A dime to dine?', if anybody cared,
but soon he found, as time unwound, that victors seldom shared.
And Jackie's pride was slowly fried by vacant eyes that stared


                           ENLIGHTENMENT

He took to drink to break the link with thoughts of what he'd done
and threads of doubt began to flout the yarns Big Brother spun
of freedom's ring and other things, like what it was we'd won

His vague unease arrayed a breeze with words that chilled the air
and like the fogs above the bogs, they floated through the square
where people sat at tea to chat, and shrieked 'How could he dare?'

Yes, freedom's price is never nice: like storms before the flood
the Daily Rag was on a jag, was looking out for blood,
deemed Jackie's thoughts untamed and fraught, then dragged him through the mud

By hacking clues, they plucked his views like grapes upon the vine.
Big Brother came, blamed Jackie's name for thinking out of line,
shut Jack away from light of day, eclipsing freedom’s shine

The Junto Brass, with eyes of glass, were robed in fine array
to hear the words (though slightly slurred) the witness gasped to say,
while Justice snored (the waterboard awash with Perrier)

Well, Jack was charged with laws enlarged in secret dossiers
within the guise of spreading lies and leading thoughts astray -
The Jury's out... the rabble shout “well someone's gotta pay”

The Judge (who fears the mind’s frontiers) inclined his head to yawn
while making haste through courtroom waste, though slightly pale and wan.
(A voodoo Loon withdraws as soon as Night condemns the Dawn.)


                           ETERNITY

While in his cell, the verdict fell - the sighs of Silence, rife
While in his cell, the verdict fell - the Reaper played a fife
While in his cell, the verdict fell - the price was Jackie's life


                           EPILOGUE

Well Jackie's ghost, unlike the most, still mused upon the praise
for misdeeds done in victories won when cruising in a craze,
and once again upon the sin of thinking, nowadays
where, cunningly, humanity’s served lies, and trust betrays.
Then, reconciled, it simply smiled at fortune's wanton ways.


                           EPITAPH

A mind was caught while thinking thoughts neath Sammy’s prying gaze
and forced to stop by concept cops, else join the castaways.
For now it's law to hold in awe the brave new world's malaise
and cerebrate with programmed pate, adorned with thorned bouquets,
then mimic mimes in troubled times - and no one disobeys.
With freedom’s death, truth holds its breath awaiting better days.

I prayed with light voices, but a burdened heart;
You are not here--that I am supposed to know of.
But still, my mind cannot accept that we are now apart.
I am despaired by my own hands, by my own love;
Your images keep shrouding me--you keep haunting me.
Your portraits shout your name, but none of ‘em is truthful;
They reject my bliss, though they told me I was beautiful.
I keep looking for you in the shades: but all I find is blueness,
And as daylight grows mature, I feel but scarce and clueless;
I am entrapped by my own wishes, and I can no longer write.
Ah, ‘tis over now--I should declare;
I walk home and sleep, and decide I should no more be in love--
Some sheer charms I might better not be.

I was running across the moors, and secretly hoped I would find thee there;
Thee with thy own giggles and mockery and childish wishes;
Thee with a resemblance of moonlit skies on thy face.
Thee with a thousand arches in thy brown eyes;
Eyes that were genuine, hopeful; with spirits that would not die.
And those lithe hands; and thy handful of full lips;
Thou always startled me within thy black jacket,
Yes, that black jacket with gruesome naughty little pockets,
Thou always asked me to chase around the bogs;
While peering naively into the hidden summer spider webs.
Thou woke me up with thy morn noises;
Thou wanted to tell me a tale of castles, friendship, and promises.
Thee with a thousand smiles, hopes, and legitimate fears;
Thee with the sweetness of a moonbeam, thee with one hundred kisses.
Thou wert like a lonesome butterfly at first;
And on a shiny day I but caught thee;
and weaved my colourful love onto thy plain nest.
Thou shined again, and I felt but merited;
As time passed, I grew hungrier for thee--and always delighted;
Thou wert a summer to a pleasant summer itself;
Thou made my heart warm, and my seasons magnified.
Even my lavenders were stupefied by thy cleverness;
They were warm always, to welcome and greet thee at night.
Ah, my darling, my half spirit, my sweet;
Thou owned the second spare of my green light;
Thou wert my frost at conned summers, and mild winters;
Thou wert the white snow I played with--and its evening rainbow!
Ah, and at times--thou wert like a nature among yon shrieking green grass;
I smiled always, as I entrapped thee within my clear glass.

I should twist this story away, and welcome him;
Welcome whoever shines through my love--in reality, and in dreams.
I know I hath to celebrate him behind the furnace;
I shall smile sweetly and charm him by my maiden’s face.
He hath a lovely aura as the unheeded stars;
And his steps are awkward, but stately as the moon’s.
He hath smooth and virile advantages about him;
He hath a weather, but still he hath not thy playful air.
He is serious, thou art more festive and thoughtful;
He is cordial, but I findeth him at times uninnate and insoluble.
Ah, Immortal, he liveth but in a cold bubble away from me;
And so you know, the love of him is but a love of pain;
Sometimes I want to find thy face in his poetry;
Sometimes I want to see again, but your fairness.
Thy heart is, as thou hath figured, widespread within me;
It ambushes me and glides me around like a cheeky star;
But as thou gazed into me,
I found that thy charms were absolute;
I pampered this notion of thee--as I still do;
Thou wert my nymphic and immortal dream;
Thou art my sane and insane ambition;
Thou art my sand, my boats, my sails!
Thou art the sea worth a thousand miles;
And I care not what foul and fuzziness thy soul might carry;
I shall purify thee, I shall endorse thee, I shall welcome thee into my lonely heart!
Ah, Immortal, I am but a spoiled of ruins and wreckage now;
As I woke up t'is very morn, I knew I wouldst not see you tomorrow.
And guess now--how shall I define our once glossy, faint Sofia?
I do not want to pronounce to Sofia, ah, our very dwellings, a goodbye;
I shall never pronounce such; and on t’is I shall care for thy sayings not--
As telling such wouldst indeed be a remarkable lie.
Instead, I should dream again, of being by your side;
I shall be the terrified mermaid--but thee--my gentle merman;
We shall swim across the sea and startle the aquatics by our depth;
And thereon I shall dream of myself cherishing you--and holding you in my arms;
As I pray and bow and submit the rhapsodies of my heart, all day and night.

Ah, but where is Immortal, Immortal, Immortal;
Without whom my heart is bleak; and winters are hard.
Ah, Immortal; by whom rains are pretty, and colours are magnificently saturated;
By whom storms are no more storms, and no more downpours are petty;
By whom lakeside houses are not cold, and slippery rocks are not frightful;
By whom birch trees shall sing, and honey bees shall farm away for hours.
Ah, Immortal, by whom my poetry stays alive, and fed tranquilly by yon earth;
Immortal, by whose lullabies I fall asleep among the midnight’s icy hearth.
Immortal, whom my heart values, and urges me to love;
Immortal, by whose side debris are whole, and ruins picture unity;
Ah, Immortal, by whose singing melodies are songs, and rhythms are but poetry.
Immortal, Immortal, Immortal, by whose words--the entire worlds are but Sofia;
And all merit and grace but belong to the romantic Bulgaria.
Immortal my entire darling; who taught me to see how the moon teases the sun;
And how the latter becomes fainted but mirthful, at t’is very realisation.
Ah, Immortal, Immortal, Immortal, by whose absence I feel but frightened.
Ah, Immortal, do you think I should hurry--shall I fleet and run?
I shall meet thee again tonight, around the corner by the lake;
Before such an eve grows genuine--causing the day to turn fake.
I should meet thee before everything is but feasted and pierced;
And I shall bringeth thee my midnight poems and soliloquy;
I shall embrace thee by my myths, and relish thee within my solitude.
I shall make thee remain by my side, and keep shady thy burly night;
I shall, perhaps, make thee my mirth itself--I shall keep thee warm, and safe, and bright.
Ah, Immortal, one who was always aired by my fresh recitations;
One who was entrenched in my tales of craze, atrocity, and vanity;
One who cried by me like a selfish child--but at times, became the radiance itself.
Ah, Immortal, one within whose palms the moon is transparent;
And the harmony of night becomes more possible;
Ah, my darling Immortal, who was once infatuated with my nights--and 'twas apparent;
Oh, my darling, my own darling, my very darling--how I hath only words to play with!

Where is but Immortal, Immortal, Immortal,
My jokes cannot sleep, and even my eyes choose to stay awake.
My heart feels absurd, as it is not calmed and soothed by him;
Even as I can sleep no more, I am but unable to edify him in my dreams.
Ah, where is my Immortal--for as I scurry outside, I cannot locate him;
While he is but the golden lock I need to deliberate my heart.
Ah, my husband, who owns but the charms heartbeat cannot describe;
Ah, Immortal, by thy words--thou knoweth, vanished worlds are real to me today.
The rush of your blood still, knowingly, flows within my breath;
You look like that little lad proudly standing by yon bridge faraway.
Immortal, my little sound, my eager song, my profound lilac;
How shall you ever know what you mean to my heart?
To me, you are more than any gold, brown silver, nor white bronze;
You are my tears, my growth, and the height of my winter;
You own the youth and throne my heart hath always longed for.
Ah, Immortal, no matter how hard thou hath defeated--and perhaps, betrayed me;
Thou art still more immortal than a thousand suns outside;
And more mature than t’is benighted winter as it already is.
Ah, Immortal, 'tis hath grown silent again, and I need to greet my lavish worlds;
But for you know--your scent shall remain better than the sun's on its own, and more lively.
Ah, Immortal, and while those winds shriek, and hop, and wail;
‘Tis your voice still, that I but imagine in my *****;
And while their spread and take rule of their wings;
Thou shalt remain by prince, my ruler--the one I choose to be my king.

My heart hath borne thee since I was in her womb;
My mother's chaste womb--and there, just there--
I had but been formed by her sheepish threads.
Ah, and thus I heart her like t’is-but not as much as I heart thee, perhaps;
If I doth dream of her; it meaneth I'd but dream of thee;
And thou knoweth--my dreams of winter shall be but one about thee;
About thee--my vigour, my shadow in my traces, my vengeful spirit.
Ah, Immortal, Immortal, Immortal; my century of blessings, my time
and poetry of such an endless eternity.
Ah, Immortal, in whose heart there was purity;
And in whose love I felt reified, and no such tyranny,
Ah, and t’is loss of thee perhaps means a life of illness;
A time of neglect, but a loss of my valid youth.
I want not to age, for thou art, thyself, young and ageless and immortal;
I want to dwell but only in yon Paradise of thee;
And be fueled solely but thy desire, and not anyone else's.
Ah, Immortal, I want to feel but the flavour of thy skin;
And be engrossed but against thy stomach.
I want to be thy lily, and thy novel rose that shall never wither;
Ah, Immortal, I want to be little again; and thy most awesome lavender.

And thy blame--such as t'is one, shall mean a brawl to my destiny;
And its glam is but my fiery--while insuperable--destruction.
As I promised thee--I shall not be weary, I shall not be sad;
But never shall I love, never shall I be satisfied.
Ah, Immortal, I shall never agree to love again;
I want to keep my love for thee; for whom I shall advocate my youth,
I want never to share my trembling love with anyone else.
As I hath loved thee just now, perhaps I shall love thee forever;
Ah, Immortal, as how it usually is, thou shall be the sailor-
And ever the painter, in our very own colloquial poetry!

Immortal, my grace, my perambulations, my ecstasy;
Immortal, my good, my one, my irrepressible;
I hath fulfilled thy wishes, at least at present, to bear t'is alone;
But for you know, that life without thee is no Paradise;
And even when I am dead, perhaps my soul shall never lie;
I shall wander the earth still--to look for thee, my tears and my lost love;
And insofar as thou remaineth away, I shall too stay on earth; and never ascend above.

The Christmas rush has started, and the countdown has begun
Advent doors are opened, but look what you have done
You've ridiculed the Bounty bar, and your spoiling all the fun
Why buy a Celebration, if your not happy after one ?

What's behind the cardboard doors, what did you all expect
A gold ring perhaps, or the keys for a corvette?
Why bother with an advent, when you have no respect
There's no need for chocolate genocide, or coconut neglect

You shouldn't be so outraged, with your Christmas Celebrations
I don't understand the malice, or the advent hesitations
If you don't want a bounty, buy heroes or sensations
It's hardly a matter for Interpol, or the united nations

Celebrations are your choice, there's no cause for your regret
The outcome is quite obvious, why are you so upset
Are the pictures not a clue, to what your gonna get ?
No rarity of Bounty hunters, so don't mess with Boba Fett

Are Maltesers that much lighter, in a Galaxy far away
Maybe you will find Mars, in between the Milky Way
A Twix or Galaxy Caramel, they we're for a different day
But you've dissed your celebrations, and no longer want to play

Some YouTube clips have surfaced, and I have read the blogs
I think it's just pathetic, seeing chocolate thrown down bogs
Your creating your own misery, as well as yule time logs
You won't be very happy, when your toilet blocks and clogs

On day two you still complained, and you wanted to resist
Is that because the chocolate, was not on your Christmas list
Would you be pleased with mistletoe, if you never did get kissed
Christmas spirit has been lost, with your Snickers in a twist

Some people are just morons, that's the message that they've sent
Their expectations are to high, and cruel jokes are never meant
Why is Bounty not as good, to start of an event
A Snickers in your calendar, doesn't mean a ruined advent

the choir grows with the barks of dogs,
the rumble of cars, the fusion of bogs

Rainy day people and frogs
Packed New York streets, mossy bogs
Umbrella or bumbershoot
In quagmire and crowded route
Splashing masses, polliwogs

Precipitation, cascade
The alley or everglade
Plebeians and ***** toads
Wetlands, winding back roads
Holding brolly or sunshade

Mobs, croaker in the wallow
Soggy marsh, bypass below
A sprinkle, pitter-patter
Parasol, doesn't matter
Your bullfrog and average Joe

by
rgpage

In this quiet time of night, I lie alone and prey to the bitter pain of
joy's absence. Lost in my mind's shallow thoughts the sharp fragments of
happy memories since shattered ***** at the sensitive fringes of my sleep.

Sleep: Nature's sanctuary

A quiet haven, an island set apart
from the daily consciousness of life
where my thoughts may at last run free.

An island with white sandy shores as
far as the eye can see. Blemished only
by my solitary figure walking the blue
water's edge.

And the forests of my paradise, their
deep green density gives substance to
my world. Often I stop to ponder their
far reaching greenness.

The warm subtle breeze carrying the
fragrance of this foliage across my
face, fills my nostrils with the pleasures
of nature.

And occasionally a gull overhead,
drifting unchallenged on the soft
warm currents of the azure, as free
in his world as I in mine; lends companionship.

All of the sudden in the beat of a heart,
from no where a large black cloud appears
to smother the sun's warm light, turning
the blue sky and green foliage black
and the white sand that I once walked
upon a cold gray.

And just ahead of me lying there in
death's humiliation, my winged companion;
soaked and scorned at the dark water's
edge.

I awaken:

This cold room and bed the greatest part of my conscious moment, and the sound of a distant train bell mocking the destruction of my comfort; its havoc upon my sleep done it now moves on. Saddened I once again wade through the shallow bogs of my loneliness, and the pains of memories of the love and life i'd wasted return. This painful sleepless night a most cruel retribution for my past. So firmly entrenched it seems I may never return to my paradise; yet remain in this cold room to suffer the long night's tortures.

Returning:

The warm sunlight, and gentle caress
of the water's pulse upon the white
sand.

And overhead my pure white friend
again drifts on the warm currents of
air, heralding not my return
but praising my presence....

...for my presence alone, gives
life to this warm yet oh so precariously
balanced paradise.

The white beach with its warm sand
leads me on my journey to the morning,
as I walk the blue water’s edge.

****, this coffee's really sour
I've been drinking it for half an hour
Wanna hear a poem
Wanna hear a poem
Wanna hear a poem about a cauliflower

[Cauliflower's foolish
It doesn't fit the theme
I'm sick of all your nonsense
I'm tired of your memes]

Woman selling knickknacks
I'm not eating tic-tacs™
Your words were put in brackets
Check out my rhyming tactics

I see that you're not one for fun
Your a cloudy day, I'm the shining sun
My absurdity
Is the key
To happy for eternity

[You're clearly deeply broken
And only you can cure
Your fundamental problems
But really I'm not sure

The only one who conquers
Is one who really tries
So stop with the gorillas
Since everything will die]

Maybe you don't understand
My foolishness goes hand in hand
With making things that are the best
Like giant squids and turnip fests

Order, chaos, streets and bogs
Them, White, Color, Talking Frog
Odd on top but clear below
From ash and fire life will grow

Then again I see it's true
I am right and so are you
Maybe we both have a claim
In this crazy poet game

[x_x
Okay]

That didn't rhyme!

[It doesn't have to]

I love you

[Mmm hmm]

Unanswered uncertainties limber up
Unwanted confrontations cumulate
Passion deliquescing over unexplored reason
Unacknowledged, ignored, overwritten and dismissed
Without consideration for his fragile heart
The answers flow broiling him, wearing him down

Scorn rejection,
When trust is misplaced,
And she exfoliates to true skin
Hatred smothers over her love act
Bogs him down by the shoulders
All seems empty, all is empty

Toyed with, lied to and used up
He is a clock rigged for self destruction
With no actions that lead to consequences
The reason seems bleak and obvious
His respect for her dies, His respect for her other doesn't exist
She is not the one he loved, she is not the one that he knew

A younger him he sees in her other
Making the same mistake he did, mislaid trust
The multifaceted chameleon that she is
The other doesn't see
Pouring his heart out and defending her wrongs
The other starts to undermine and ignore him

Move on they say,
Only his heart is too heavy
Forget her they say,
Only she was a perennial settlement in my memory, he thought
Hate her they say,
Only he hates himself more for trying

No one understands him
Everyone tries, but no one understands
He loved, he was back stabbed
He suffered and suffocated under the blanket of secrets
Lighten your heart brother,  the mascot of a good soul
You will be alright.

From the kingdom of death thou wildly run,
as though to die not; as though all shall be fun.
Even though thou might not be as fine as mine,
And hesitate once not, like many other minds.
Under the staggering sun thou art the sun itself;
Unlike the universe any mortal shall never have.
To thee but heaven shall never be adequate,
To thee whom fate shall not mind; but dare not ever bend.
Thou, who deemeth everything is futile and late;
Thou, who hath neither words nor poetry in thy hand.
Thou art at times like a piece of youthful innocent art,
Which amorous feeble hands long to tear apart.
Like a flower t'at grows on the window behind the curtain,
Thou shall return to youth, and be younger-every now and then;
For with thy playfulness thou shall bitterly mock Determination;
Whilst thy childishness shall help thee dream of, and silently miss Salvation.

And whenst all t'is business is to say goodbye;
Thou shall still stay, forever and never die.
For thou art undead, and forever and ever immortal,
No stab canst wound thee, as no torpid wound of thine fatal.
Thou art a fatal prince-yes, a wicked, wicked heir;
Heir of cheerfulness-of a soul so full of spirits yet fairness.
Ah! And so thus thou shall leave behind not t'is worldly affair,
Thou shall be eternally bent upon it, and makest of it, thy happiness.
And when at the very end, all dead souls should awaken and retaliate,
Thou shall stay calmly and twitch not by heaven's wooden gate.
Thy agelessness is a mirage no blunt living soul can afford;
Thou art infallible, unlike the decrees of our dear Lord,
For thou shall never dwell among a thousand earths
And be lain among lilies and roses yonder, of irrevocable green hearth.
Thou art, in any midst of grievousness, cold with mirth;
When there is no more born thou art blessed with anew, birth.

Thus thou art forever unsinned, and shall be so gullible;
Thou art an adult inside; 'spite appearing so weak and feeble.
People canst, by thy comely appearance, fall deaf and misunderstand,
Thinking thee a ruddy friend; a robust and sincere fellow.
But thou art indeed, and in truth-a witty and good-hearted man,
As bold and ever unhesitant, but caring and good-willed, as tomorrow.
Thy naivety thus fights against, and befalls any mercilessness,
Thy delight is but our timid society's frank joyfulness.
And every song is benignly rooted in the delicacy of thy tongue,
To whom thy streams of love, as well as hate, shall belong.
But again, more and more loving hearts shall complain-
For when they fade and ought to disappear; thou shall firmly remain.
And duly thou defeat for evermore any tainted miserable heart,
Especially hearts that hath no beat when they supposedly beat, and are alive.
For thy heart is as fresh, and inevitable-like a solitary work of art,
But innocent and intelligent-like a young sword; or the neat blade, of a cold knife.

So whatever love claims to be love-which is too proud, though clear and sanguine;
Is not at all, or by any chance-pure, tolerable, nor delightfully keen;
For love is not the same as pleasure-as pleasure is not love,
Love is the one no senses canst touch-nor for pride move.
Ah, thee, we canst but teach thee more lessons of love itself;
For there are more than our anxious souls canst tell;
Love is not something t'at canst one satisfy, nor is for one to drink;
For any to satisfy or drink is yon that makes oneself sink.
I figurest above are imminent to thy knowing;
For thou shall still mature more; and be independent in thy living.
For family is still more essential than any money or gold;
To which we humans oftentimes too sternly hold.
Ah, but thy journey is still upwards and steep as a hill;
An endlessness our mortality is but too scared to feel.
So be wise and fill thyself with rich wisdom likewise;
And as thy findeth bitterness on due roads-turn to poetry, and seek its advice.

And so to thee hath a world of supremacy be assigned,
So thus I entreat-t'at be with thee all the reciprocal goodness-and dexterity!
Ah, and by thy cleverness shall all be mutually aligned,
For naive thou art still, about the very course of extremity!
But severity shall not burden thee, as to thy endurance and good will,
Thy willingness to share, and rely and lean on how such fellows feel.
Thou refilleth 'em always, with endless and plentiful splendours,
Thou cheereth 'eir minutes, and stay comely at all 'eir breathing hours.
As every single day's dates themselves, thou art undeniable;
Thou art real in thy eternity, though sometimes unbelievable;
Thou art worth all the bogs who are so merrily singing-
Thou art so graceful, thou art everything!
As in both reality and dreams thou art present,
Thou who art obscure; but coincidentally, sharp and inherent!
Ah, thee, thus I hope t'at every poem-such as t'is, shall make thee even more truthful;
For poetry itself is relief; and our most reliable urge to be brave, and thoughtful.

moving inland far away from
the coast temptation doth bring
deeper in land the head seems consumed by everything

nearing the coast it's the heart that sings

though inland, my love, you will find me

away from the bogs or the shoals o' herring

holding you at bay with *****

keeping me next to me

wanting tomorrow to be the better day

my mind, an island for tromping shores
different from desert sands
when the tide of your concern reprimands

on this island the shells
are smaller and there are no dollars,  
the sea, a shrunken plastic expanse of
syringes and lip balm containers,
soft fluid-filled bodies turned into
sopping brown-bag skeletons,

revenges
of modern life.

there is a rivulet further up shore

do you feel it?

follow the inlet wind

near a candescent pond

there is a house

open the door

if you fall in

a home can be found.

1.   Beginnings

Her babe was her joy, such a beautiful boy,
and he suckled her breast till the end.
The slaver sought cash, bestowed mammy a thrash,
sold her babe to a gentrified friend.
Yes, life flits like a flash, a lithe leathery lash,
yet another cruel link in their chain.

With mammy not there, Sammy dared not to dare
but to bide near the edge of the night.
Yet nevertheless one must always outguess
else absorb burning stings of the bite.
Yes, it flits like a flash, a lithe leathery lash,
yet another cruel link in their chain.

Though learning the rules in the shadows of fools
as he grew to a leery lean lad
he often defied but he never once cried
although whipped at the post whene’er bad.
Yes, it flits like a flash, a lithe leathery lash,
yet another cruel link in their chain.


2.   Youth

The cotton gin broke and nobody spoke,
so ol’ ***** said  “BENNY’S TO BLAME”.
But Sammy said ‘No...  *****, jus’ cain’t be so,
no ’tain’t Benny, ’tain’t Benny’s sore name’.
Yes, it flits like a flash, a lithe leathery lash,
yet another cruel link in their chain.

“LOOK, SEE IN HIS EYES HOW THAT NG** BOY LIES!”
- replied Sam ‘no I’s tellin da truth’.
But daring to speak earned him scars for his cheek
and thus blemished the bloom of his youth.
Yes, it flits like a flash, a lithe leathery lash,
yet another cruel link in their chain.

“THE COTTON GIN’S BROKE, AND THAT JUST AIN’T NO JOKE”
and he called upon Benny to pay:
“BENNY GOT NO EXCUSE, DRAPE HIS NECK WITH THE NOOSE”,
just as Sam feared ol’ ***** would say.
Yes, it flits like a flash, a lithe leathery lash,
yet another cruel link in their chain.

Black faces soon blanched as Ben bended a branch
near the base of a broken oak tree.
His body hung bare as it swung in the air
while the buzzards and crows shrieked with glee.
Yes, it flits like a flash, a lithe leathery lash,
yet another cruel link in their chain.


3.   Flight

Sam’s feet were unclad, as befitting the lad
(as alone as a stone in his path)
when  he started to run neath the sly sliding sun  
being followed and fearing God’s wrath.
Yes, it flits like a flash, a lithe leathery lash,
yet another cruel link in their chain.

Surrounded and caught brought his efforts to naught,
child in chains at the end of his trek;
winds wept as he went, with his spirit unbent,
a cold collar of steel ’round his neck.
Yes, it flits like a flash, a lithe leathery lash,
yet another cruel link in their chain.

“FLOG THE BOY FROM HIS TOES TO THE TIP OF HIS NOSE”
- only so could a lesson be taught -
for to set an example, Sam’s death might be ample
was what the ol’ ***** first thought.
Yes, it flits like a flash, a lithe leathery lash,
yet another cruel link in their chain.

But since boughten at birth, Sam had proven his worth
so his loss would be too much to bear
and as Sam was a child the ol’ ***** was mild,
said “ENOUGH” when Sam’s back was laid bare.      
Yes, it flits like a flash, a lithe leathery lash,
yet another cruel link in their chain.


4.   Life

Sam grew to a man, branded ‘boy’ by the clan,
as they spat on the trails that he tread;
should he dare raise his gaze with a gander that strays
they’d be certain to sever his head.
Yes, it flits like a flash, a lithe leathery lash,
yet another cruel link in their chain.

Once Sam found a wife whom they ripped from his life,
yes along with the babe at her breast
(was it simply their greed or by heaven decreed?).
Well, with hindsight you might guess the rest.
Yes, it flits like a flash, a lithe leathery lash,
yet another cruel link in their chain.


5.   Destiny

From phantoms of fright neath the frail foggy night
Sammy soared as he fled to escape
and he no longer crawled (lady liberty called!)
through the darkness, a black hole agape.
Yes, it flits like a flash, a lithe leathery lash,
yet another cruel link in their chain.

Unleashed! Frenzied dogs hounded Sam through the bogs,
(baying beasts neath the ****** red moon).
White fangs intermeshed as they mangled his flesh,
freedom flayed through the pale afternoon.
Yes, it flits like a flash, a lithe leathery lash,
yet another cruel link in their chain.

Sam’s body was torn leaving little to mourn
but there’s really no need to despair
and there’s no need to cry for his spirit can’t die,
being borne by bound men everywhere.
Yes, it flits like a flash, a lithe leathery lash,
yet another cruel link in their chain.



                          EPITAPH

                    SAM
Revolted and clashed ’gainst the cruel leather lash
and broke free from the choke of their chain.



                         EPILOGUE

Those parts of the past that we gaze at aghast
reveal harrowing questions quite plain –

Why people quite free, just like you, just like me,
were so happy inflicting such pain?

Why we bask in the throes of humanity’s woes
while the tyrants and tyrannies reign?

Why we sit back and watch, sometimes scratching our crotch,
as it happens again and again?

And I’m wondering too (’cause I don’t have a clue),
might we each be a link in their chain?

In early eighteen-forty-four,
In Cornwall’s heart; on Bodmin Moor,
Charlotte Dymond, a young farm maid,
Had her throat slit with a steel blade,

She crossed fast streams and deadly bogs,
Found her way through mists and fogs,
But couldn’t stop that fatal blow,
That stole her life and laid her low,

She walked to meet someone that day,
Just who that was ... no one would say,
Found days later beside a track,
Laid on a cart; her shroud a sack,

The surgeon, Thomas Good, was fetched,
Had in his mind, her white face etched,
Charlotte untouched by fox or crow,
Had she been moved ... he did not know,

No evidence was ever found,
But her young boyfriend had gone to ground,
Fingers so quick to point his way,
Matthew Weeks panicked; ran away,

The hapless *******, was soon caught,
No other culprit was ever sought,
The judge was just a rubber-stamp,
Bodmin Gaol was dark and damp,

The scaffold built, the crowds arrived,
Matthew swore he had not lied,
The floor gave way, the rope drew tight,
Was justice done ... the verdict right?

Another enchanting "Barry Hodges Memory" poem for you all!

O glorious Art Deco edifice, tucked away behind the 'Dilly!
In your near century of hospitality, how many millions of visitors
Must have thronged your rooms, meeting, greeting, eating, sleeping
And (need I specify the obvious?) ******* away the fleeting hours?
How sad it is to think that the dear Regent Palace has fallen victim
To the money-grabbing developers' philistine wrecking *****.

Rumour came to me in the Seventies that the ground floor cocktail bar
Had gained a somewhat , shall we say, *louche reputation,
Being frequented by ladies of the night and part-time gigolos;
And that the hustle and bustle of the reception area meant that
Staff would hardly notice if guests invited a newly made friend upstairs
For some horizontal entertainment, be it on a cash or ex gratia basis.

Several evenings, perhaps after a night at the theatre, I paid a brief visit
To the dimly lit bar, with its sophisticated black pianist tinkling out a tune
In the very best Casablanca tradition, perhaps even crooning a little ditty.
One summer night I recall I dropped in, probably post-prandially
More in hope than serious expectation, ordered an over-priced G&T;
And settled down to assess the odds on some casual leg-over action.

Much to my surprise I was soon joined by a large middle-aged blonde
(to a naive young chappie, any woman over 35 is no spring chicken);
She was Icelandic and big with it in the mammary department,
But not fat I hasten to add, just sturdy, like a splendid Wagnerian Valkyrie;
Yea, I knew she was gagging for it when she confided that, only last week,
She had shared l'amour with a young stranger in the Wienerwald al fresco.

I cannot recall much of our no doubt fascinating intellectual conversation
And I certainly can't remember her name, but I do know I readily acquiesced
To her generous invitation to participate in a glug of her duty free allowance
Within the intimate privacy of her spartan little bedroom on the seventh floor.
Delightfully, to my mild pleasure, our upwards journey in the crowded lift
Enticed her to caress my eager testicles in a heart-warmingly experienced way.

Over a malt whisky and, following an extended exchange of warm saliva,
We ended up stark ******* naked in the rather narrow single bed;
Sadly, my recollections of our coupling have gone the way of all flesh
(but my well-preserved diary for that year notes I gave her the works thrice)
And I do vividly remember wondering what time the Underground started
on Sunday mornings as I was no longer enamoured of her tobacco breath.

Now, dear reader, we come to the ****** of my night of Nordic nookie:
Just as the dawn's early light was filtering through the ill-fitting curtains,
My partner in lust informed me that she desperately needed a squirt
(I fear I omitted to mention that the RPH didn't run to en suite facilities)
And that, rather than struggle down the corridor to the communal bogs,
She intended to void her bloated bladder in the waiting washbasin.

She enjoined me to be a gentleman and to refrain from watching her
As she performed her toilette and I assured her, with a covert smile,
That I would not breach her urinary modesty. Thus I slyly observed her
Waltz over to the window and, with the assistance of a handy little chair,
Hoist her ample buttocks up on the basin and let fly her steaming ****;
O, what a romantic sound it made as it splashed onto the porcelain!

As I lay there, entranced by the sight of my piddling blonde Brünnhilde,
An unexpected sound intruded over the splatter of her seething waters:
O Jesu! Suddenly, in the veritable twinkling of an eye, the basin's supports,
Unequal to the unscheduled weight of the female Goliath squatting thereon,
Gave way and what's-her-name fell to the economically carpeted floor,
Screaming in fear, spread-eagled in ****-drenched shattered chinaware.

To say I was beside myself with mirth would be an understatement but,
Gentlemanly as always, I managed to pass off my gargled giggles
As evidence of gallant concern. As soon as common decency permitted,
I made my excuses and left the disconcerted dear to tidy up a bit.
But I will confess to emitting a huge howl of uncontrolled laughter
As I raced off to the nearest toilet (I too was bursting for a huge slash).

Our conversation began playfully, as they always did. Your dark hair was shining in the sunlight, and I wondered whether I'd made a mistake.

I wondered what I'd found to dislike in you, with your witty banter and your light, teasing tone.

I wondered why I'd done it. I wondered if I could go back, if I should take the blame for something I'd thought was your fault. We all make mistakes, don't we?

When I was a child, my mother often read me a fable about hobgoblins that lured travellers into the peat bogs during misty nights. They would wave lanterns and promise sweet things, such sweet things, that the travellers would lose the path and follow them. She would kiss me goodnight, and tell me not to listen if they cam calling.

My brother and I would lark around on the mountain ridges with sticks, pretending there were lanterns hanging from the end.
Come over here, it's the safe path, my pretty, just follow my light - All accompanied by ten year old laughter and the sparkling eyes that I just don't have anymore.

You promised me sweet things.
You promised me laughs and lightness and endless summer days. And when you pulled a ring out of nowhere I thought that it was all paying off - I could see my life mapped out.

But safe isn't that same as happy, is it?

Safe means banter that never dips into the darkness that swirls just below the surface. Safe is lying when you asked if I was having second thoughts. Safe means not mentioning the lipstick stains - just trying to coil you in tighter, to make myself that little bit more secure.

Happy didn't play a part.

The silly thing is, I never thought that I might be unhappy.
It only occurred to me when my friends took me out to celebrate my engagement. I saw a couple sitting, only their little fingers linked. I watched them, and realised that we would never do that.
Could never do that. You showered me with over the top, public kisses and affection. You told me you loved me, and that was supposed to be enough. You told me you loved me, you told me you cared - but it wasn't water tight, was it? Because when push came to shove, you were never there.

When Meredith's funeral came, and my face was streaked with tears, you were nowhere to be seen. We were getting married and you couldn't come to my bestfriends funeral? That was heartless. That was so, so heartless.
And I lied for you. "He's ill. He wanted to be here".

I think I realised then. That you were my hobgoblin.

The conversation began playfully, but when I reached for my ring and slid it off my finger - it didn't stay that way for long.

I'd never seen you so angry. Not heartbroken, not sad, not confused - angry.
And you were sick-minded enough to try and make me feel guilty. And it worked. Your face still comes to me, eyes wide and pitiful. "You're not actually going to go through with this, are you?"

And yes. Yes I am.

Do not eat of Faerie food
And do not drink of Faerie wine
Or when you leave Faerie at last
The home you seek's no longer thine.

Do not step in Faerie rings
Do not enter the Faerie Mound
Or when rescue comes for thee
Your sanity will ne'er be found.

Do not lie to Faerie folk
And don't insult the Faerie Queen
Or for all of eternity
You and yours will not be seen.

Do not enter Faerie woods
And do not walk the Faerie trod
Or, though you come back to hearth,
Your heart will ne'er again be thawed.

Don't listen when Faeries sing
And ignore the Banshee wail
Or you will have the dubious fame
Of becoming a Faerie tale.

Do not look through Faerie stones
That you find on the Faerie ground
Or they will put out your eye
So you can't see when they're around.

Do not enter Faerieland
But if you do, don't leave the path
Or you'll be lost for ever more
In darkness where the monsters laugh.

Do not ask for Faerie help
If it comes take care how you pay
Some want clothes or milk for it
Some are insulted and betray.

Do not accept Faerie gold
From captured elf or leprechaun
For it will turn to moss and leaves
And when you look up they'll be gone.

Don't swim in the Faerie stream
Where nixies and kelpie play
Banshee wash dead men's ****** clothes
In that water, so stay away.

Do not believe what Faeries say
Though it's true that they cannot lie
They never say quite what they mean
Honestly they will truth deny.

Don't even taste Faerie repast
No goblin fruits from elven trees
They're addictive beyond belief
A wise man offered such food flees.

'Ware giving thanks for Faerie gifts
Though they save you from all pain
Or else you may be in their debt
And lose more than you stood to gain.

Beware lights off Faerie shores
And lanterns seen in wild bogs
For wisps will lead folks off of cliffs
And laugh as corpses float like logs.

And buy naught from Faerie markets
They sell goblin fruits, curses, lies
The price your dreams, your past, your soul
Your voice, the color of your eyes.

229

A Burdock—clawed my Gown—
Not Burdock’s—blame—
But mine—
Who went too near
The Burdock’s Den—

A Bog—affronts my shoe—
What else have Bogs—to do—
The only Trade they know—
The splashing Men!
Ah, pity—then!

’Tis Minnows can despise!
The Elephant’s—calm eyes
Look further on!

Well, Gypsy Guy would rather die than hunker down in chains,

be ridden south with bit in mouth, or heed the hold of reins.



The ruling lot are in a spot, the boss man he complains:

“The gypsies’ soul, I can’t control, my patience wears and wanes;

they will not cede to common greed, which conquers far domains

and furtive spies and news that lies have barely baked their brains.



“But in the court of last resort the final fix remains:

in boxcar bins with violins we’ll freight them out in trains

(should one ask why, a quick reply: ‘It’s that which God ordains!’),

and in the bogs, they’ll die like dogs, and everybody gains.”

Remember all the Wise Men on their knees upon your yacht?
With orphans on their backs they’d crawled (with others that they’d brought)
Through rubble on the highway sands and residues of Lot.
They came from severed cities selling postcards of your thoughts,
Though offered for a penny piece, not even worth a jot.

They mused
               “How are you feeling? What it is you want, you’ve got.
               The words you scrawl on calling cards: ‘I AM – the others NOT’
               Shun wisdoms of the Seven Seas: ‘Salvation can’t be bought’ –
               Your fathers tried before you and your fathers came to naught.

               “You started out by gelding goats and then by casting lots
               Of bodies to the battlefields, contorted, tight and taut,
               Then wallowed in the wake of trails the dervish devil trots.

               “With marching bands of fatherlands, and drums of Hottentots,
               You lure your legions in harm’s way like giant juggernauts.
               Like Tweedle Dum your minions come (the sober and the sots,
               The troglodytes, barbarians, and mislead patriots,
               The Vandals, Huns and Hannibals and seaport Cypriots,
               The Japanese, the Congolese, Americans and Scots)
               To vanquish bows and arrows, spears and catapulted shots
               Of those who hide in bamboo huts their families, pale, distraught,
               (Their withered wives with dried up *******, their swollen babes in cots)
               Who swoon, engulfed in poison darts and vats of acid hot,
               Consumed by magic mushroom clouds, atomic megawatts.

               “In churches of your deities, your Holy Huguenots,
               Your Imams, Rabbis, Voodoo Dolls and Mitered Lancelots
               Lit wicked kindled candled walls in temples (while we fought)
               (Used pins and needles, magic spells on makeshift mock whatnots)
               And mosques, cathedrals, synagogues have blessed each new onslaught
               With prayers for pipers, puppets, pawns, your rigid armed robots.

               “Upon your knees in golden naves, while peeking through the slots,
               You horded thirty silver pieces, downed a whiskey shot,
               Then crossed yourself and wrapped yourself in furs of ocelots,
               And danced on cleated cloven hoofs in purple polka-dots,
               Then drank His blood from chalice cups with pious afterthoughts.

               “You’ve treated men like mongrels chained, like little flies to swat,
               By doing what you wanted to, instead of what you aught;
               You’ve wiped your nose with dollar bills and paid your serfs with snot,
               But when you’ve paused to preen your pride, you’ve scrubbed a scarlet blot.

               “In ashes of our victories: the diamonds that you sought,
               The crock of gold, the Golden fleece of bogus Argonauts -
               In mirrors of your lifelessness, the evils you begot.
              
               “The haunted winds strew leaves of time across a shallow plot
               Where now, beneath the frozen stones blanched bodies bathe in rot,
               Disintegrate, return to dust to feed Forget-Me-Nots
               Amidst the bane and pits of pain where broken bones lie caught.

               “In fields above the catacombs and tombs of Camelot
               The black and withered tree of Death arises from the spot
               Where oft beneath a bleeding moon you hid your gold in pots
               Embedding doubts neath barren bogs where roots of wormwood squat.

               “While waiting at the river Styx, in twisted time untaught,
               From branches of the gallows tree, in recollections wrought,
               Your soul, a beggar’s blanket, hangs in crazy quilted knots,
               With dangling pearls and diamond studs mid dripping crimson clots
               And gaping wounds with bulging eyes like fouling apricots,
               For wrapped in chains around your throat, the Reaper’s grim garrote.”

Yes, that’s the fate of all your kind, disclosed by Wise Men taught.

But that was, oh, so long ago, by now you have forgot…

You hear those saint fainted swines? Slopping around ****** in muck. For hogs seeking bogs, bespatter the pink with thick mire. Dull sluggish foul smelled trolls, basking a bridges under cove, feasting on distant mare. But old boar’s belly’s’ under grown, he has not self meat to spare. Go elsewhere wise butcher. Go elsewhere. Grieve not thy ******* of purification, instead satisfactory of sales. He has not the soul to touch rare blood of a bessy hung by hook. Sars covered hands, sars drenched the feet. Not here butcher, elsewhere lay menial meat.

I love to sit in the bogs
and listen to the frogs

I love to hear the sound
as they hop upon the ground

Their croaks "music to my ears"
it always brings me to tears

The place I like to romp
inside the darkened swamp

In the cloudy evenings with strong hints of rain
You heard them once and you heard them again
The air would rend with their cacophony
The torrents would send them in ecstatic glee.
Even a few years back you could find them around
The harbinger of monsoon with harsh croaking sound
On your yard and garden in quite large packs
Frolicking for insects, the great jumping Jacks.
They scoured the marshland in search for food
Calling in monotone and setting you to brood
With your mind gnawed by the incessant rains
That rattled your thoughts and the glass window panes.
But then lands were devoured by the human sharks
Soon disappeared open spaces and parks
Came up apartments and rows of house
Urban growth you accept without grouse.
Now in the lonely evenings with fair hints of rain
The rains will be back but you won’t hear them again
Their habitats are gone there aren’t left any bogs
And with these are gone your neighborhood frogs.

It is not to be thought of that the flood
  Of British freedom, which, to the open sea
  Of the world’s praise, from dark antiquity
Hath flow’d, ‘with pomp of waters, unwithstood,’
Roused though it be full often to a mood
  Which spurns the check of salutary bands,—
  That this most famous stream in bogs and sands
Should perish; and to evil and to good
Be lost for ever. In our halls is hung
  Armoury of the invincible Knights of old:
We must be free or die, who speak the tongue
  That Shakespeare spake; the faith and morals hold
Which Milton held.—In everything we are sprung
  Of Earth’s first blood, have titles manifold.

It is not to be thought of that the Flood
Of British freedom, which, to the open sea
Of the world’s praise, from dark antiquity
Hath flowed, “with pomp of waters, unwithstood,”
Roused though it be full often to a mood
Which spurns the check of salutary bands,
That this most famous Stream in bogs and sands
Should perish; and to evil and to good
Be lost for ever. In our halls is hung
Armoury of the invincible Knights of old:
We must be free or die, who speak the tongue
That Shakespeare spake; the faith and morals hold
Which Milton held.—In every thing we are sprung
Of Earth’s first blood, have titles manifold.

These rhymes ... Reflect ...
APOCALYPTIC Times ... !!!

Times where minds ...
are ............... Dismissing .................................................. Signs ...... !!!!!

That times ahead .....
Will see ... BLOODSHED ...
and ... Loss of Life ... !!!!! ...

Times where ... Crimes ...
Refine ... Bloodlines ... !!!!!!

Like ... " Old Designs " ...
Primed to ... " ***-id-e " ...

Apocalyptic ... times ...
Reside inside ...
Deep Seas with ... " Tides " ...
Now On ... The rISE ...
Just like ... The Minds ...
of ... WICKED ... Types ... !!!!!!
whose Pride ... DENIES ...
to help the ... " Plight " ...
of those who ... STRIVE ...
Just to ... " Survive " ...
and Live a ... " Good Life " ...

The Type ... who like ...
to see us ... Fight ...
Like ... " Dogs in Bogs " ...
Fed On ... WAR Songs ...
and Words of ... HATE ... !?!

A Time and Place ...
where ... Technological Tools ...
are used to ... School ...
our youth to ... Abuse ...
Like ... VIOLENT Fools ... !!!!!

VIOLENCE ... Will Rule ... !!!

Like DEVILS ... Who ...
Infuse with ... Views ...
That ... Lead to ... FEUDS ... !!!

Which would ... You Choose ... ?!?

APOCALYPTIC ... News ... ?
or a place where ... " Love " ...

REIGNED ... Up Above ... !!!!!!

Just like ... SUNSHINE ...
in the ... " Summertime " ...

Well ....
Rhymes Like ... " These " ...
Paint ... Different ... scenes ...

Scenes ... OBSCENE ... !!!!!
and ....... Far From .................................................................­..... Clean ... !!!!

Where ....
Peoples' Dreams ...
are ... "FILLED WITH" ... SCREAMS ... !!!

Am I .... SCARING You ... ?!?

If so ... Not Cool ... !!!

Why would you choose ... ?
to take ... The View ...
That ... What I Say ...
Makes You ... AFRAID ... ?!?!?

Apocalyptic Trips ...
May Well .... ECLIPSE ... !!!

The Place in which ...

Your Thinking ..... " Lives " ......

OUTSIDE ... "TheBox" ...
is where ... Mine Is ... !!!!!!

NOT IN .... " Laptops " ....
or .... VIOLENT ... Stings ... !!!

I Deal with ... NOW ...
and what ... Surrounds ...
Before i'm ... CLOWNED ...
and end up ... "Drowned" ... !!!!!

Or ...
Worse yet ... DEAD ...
Like ... Youthful Heads ...
As ... " Current Trends " ...
would now ... " Suggest " ...

In Fact .... CONFIRM .... !!!!!!

Does it make you ...
........ " Squirm ........ ? "
to Read ... Such words ... !?! ...

Well .......

Here's a ... " Verse " ...
to ... CALM ... Your Nerves ... !!!

They're ONLY ... " Words " ... !!!!!!

That show ... CONCERN ...
About the world ...
and how ... it turns ...

If we ... " Observe " ...
We may just ... " Learn " ...
How to ... STEM This ... SURGE ... !!!
of Pain and ... Hurt ... !!!!!!

and make a ... RETURN ...
to Life being ... PRESERVED ... !!!!!

Let The DEVILS ... Burn .......................................................

and Make ... PEACE WORK ... !!!!!

Like ... UNITY ...
cos' things like ... " These " ...
Will Help ... " Relieve " .................................

Our Streets of ... BEASTS ... !!!
And .... " POVERTY " ....

And .... News Stories ...
of ... KILLING Sprees ... !!!?!!!

Our Youth ... are DYING ...

Don't You ... SEE ... ?!!!? ...

These words are ... TRYING ...
to FEED ... Our Seeds ...
with ... Something MORE ...
Than ....... " MTV " ........ !!!!!!!!!!

BUT ....
Here's The ... SCORE ... !!!

Too Many ... " Elders " ... TOO ... !?!
are PROMOTING .... Wars ......
WITHOUT .... A Cause .... !!!?!!!

and NEED TO ... " Reduce " ...
Their ... ANGRY ... Moods ... !!!

" Don't try to front ! "

" You know it's true ! "

Why take the view
that I'm ... TOO BLUNT ... ?!?

The time has ... COME ...
to .... " Listen Up " ......
and Fill .... " Eardrums " ...
Like Kweli' ... Does ... !!!

with words that ... " Soothe " .........................
and HELP ... " Improve " ...
The Minds who ... " Choose " ...

APOCALYPTIC ... Moves ... !!!!!

Like ...
Dropping .... BOMBS ...
That Breed ... " Phantoms " ...
and .... " Tsunamis " .... !!! ....

Do you ....
Get The .... " Scene " .... ???

NO TREES ....
NO LEAVES ....

NO ...
Ice Caps left ....

Just .... WAR and DEATH ... !!!!!

I Guess .... ?
to ... " Most of You " ...

This seems ............................................................. " Far Fetched " ......

But ...
THINK IT .... Through ......

What's coming .... " Next " .... ?!?

FLOODING ... Here ...
and Flooding ... THERE ... !!!!

and then .... HEATWAVES .... !!!
that send ... SHOCKWAVES ... !!!

As Fires ... BLAZE ...
For .... DAYS and DAYS .... !!!!!

APOCALYPTIC .... Yes ... !!!

So ....
What do you say ... ?

Does THIS Poem ...
and it's ... Wordplay ...
Make ...  You Think ...

I NEED A ... " Shrink " ... ?!?

Maybe ... I DO ... ???

But here's the ... " Koo' " ...

Apocalyptic things ....
ARE ...... Happening ...... !!!!!

CLOSER ... to home ...
and that's ... NO JOKE ... !!!!!

Most folk ... are BROKE ... !!!
Or ... SNORTING ... Coc' ... !!!

With ....
NOWHERE ... to go ...
to find some ... " Hope " ... !!!

" OH I'M A PESSIMIST ! "

" If You Insist ! "

I'm simply ...

writing things ...
Through ... " Poetic Scripts " ...

That ... Reflect how ...

I Feel ...
Right NOW ...

Some Music ... " FILLED " ........
My Mind with .... THIS ....

Thoughts of ... GLOOM ...
and MUCH ... "Darkness" ... !!!!!

A ... " Discreet Flava " ...
DARKER THAN ... " Vader " ... !!!

Try to .... DENY ...
and you ... " May Find " ...

That ....
What You ... FIGHT ...
Inside ... " Your Mind " ...

is the ....

TRUTH About .........
What's ..... Coming .....

" Apocalyptic Times "

This dot kami’s ‘Nam when I see you’re all neutral
To futile lords still passin’ Acts of Removal
Pretentious performers as if upon stages
Of casting call characters caught up in cages
Like ****** who off-shore **** the poor on vacations
I’m diggin’ up dirt on the founders’ plantations
When bail-outs are ballots and bullets are mallets
Why not be a rabbit hole in Hefner’s palace?
And dare call it talent, a gift or a passion
Just model behavior for slaves to a fashion
Show running the breadlines when crimes are a dime
In the dozens of ***** Weinsteins on your minds

Instead of the felons when court is in Sessions
Instead of the under-oath treason confessions
In rapid succession they feed you the buzz
Until nobody cares what the debt ceiling was
When the roof has been raised for the privatize party
The right wants us dead and the left shows up tardy
I’m sorry “you people” are making me sick
Guess I’ll just pop a pill from the cabinet pick
Like has-been Michael Flynn’s and these Ex-Tillersons
Resource hogs cloggin’ bogs up with smogs of odd jobs
They’re the slEASIEST Slytherins still seemin’ Jesus
Pro-life until *** aid is the fetus
Egregious excesses of who the **** needs this
Huge 2nd place trophy wife ivory tower
Big guns for a stickless diplomacy coward

Here’s my ******* tricklin’ down your faces
You blatantly ****** repeal and replacists
You war-profiteering, grand **** of old Racists and fakers, uranium cakers
Still stuffing the stockings of doomsday clock-makers
With melting North Pole lumps of coal-hearted cash
‘Till every last Christmas trees nothing but ash
As the fascist machine builds its pyramid scheme
On the dreams of the themes of your Disney World screen
But the credits will roll as the talking heads stroll in
The shoe bombs of Terrorist’s livelihoods stolen
But I leave ‘em spinnin’ like Christopher Nolan

a butterfly caked with dust
a cathedral black as rust
an **** of satanic lust
but who, O fool, can you entrust?

you prance and sneer, put on a frown
call Believing people stupid clowns
in moors with bogs to drag you down
a place of darkness where you drown.

Marilyn Manson had his kicks
devil's music, Satan's licks
laugh, say Jesus is for hicks
ignore the goads, ignore the ******.

we're all worked up? in a stew?
while you scream like skewered shrews?
kohl your eyes with blackest goo
party's in hell?

THE JOKE'S ON YOU.


SoulSurvivor
(C) 12/13/2015