THE PROLOGUE.

When that the Knight had thus his tale told
In all the rout was neither young nor old,
That he not said it was a noble story,
And worthy to be drawen to memory;                          recorded
And namely the gentles every one.          especially the gentlefolk
Our Host then laugh'd and swore, "So may I gon,                prosper
This goes aright; unbuckled is the mail;        the budget is opened
Let see now who shall tell another tale:
For truely this game is well begun.
Now telleth ye, Sir Monk, if that ye conne,                       *know
Somewhat, to quiten with the Knighte's tale."                    match
The Miller that fordrunken was all pale,
So that unnethes upon his horse he sat,                with difficulty
He would avalen neither hood nor hat,                          uncover
Nor abide no man for his courtesy,                         give way to
But in Pilate's voice he gan to cry,
And swore by armes, and by blood, and bones,
"I can a noble tale for the nones                            occasion,
With which I will now quite the Knighte's tale."                 match
Our Host saw well how drunk he was of ale,
And said; "Robin, abide, my leve brother,                         dear
Some better man shall tell us first another:
Abide, and let us worke thriftily."
By Godde's soul," quoth he, "that will not I,
For I will speak, or elles go my way!"
Our Host answer'd; "Tell on a devil way;             *devil take you!
Thou art a fool; thy wit is overcome."
"Now hearken," quoth the Miller, "all and some:
But first I make a protestatioun.
That I am drunk, I know it by my soun':
And therefore if that I misspeak or say,
Wite it the ale of Southwark, I you pray:             blame it on
For I will tell a legend and a life
Both of a carpenter and of his wife,
How that a clerk hath set the wrighte's cap."   fooled the carpenter
The Reeve answer'd and saide, "Stint thy clap,      hold your tongue
Let be thy lewed drunken harlotry.
It is a sin, and eke a great folly
To apeiren* any man, or him defame,                              injure
And eke to bringe wives in evil name.
Thou may'st enough of other thinges sayn."
This drunken Miller spake full soon again,
And saide, "Leve brother Osewold,
Who hath no wife, he is no cuckold.
But I say not therefore that thou art one;
There be full goode wives many one.
Why art thou angry with my tale now?
I have a wife, pardie, as well as thou,
Yet *n'old I, for the oxen in my plough,                  I would not
Taken upon me more than enough,
To deemen* of myself that I am one;                               judge
I will believe well that I am none.
An husband should not be inquisitive
Of Godde's privity, nor of his wife.
So he may finde Godde's foison there,                         treasure
Of the remnant needeth not to enquere."

What should I more say, but that this Millere
He would his wordes for no man forbear,
But told his churlish tale in his mannere;               boorish, rude
Me thinketh, that I shall rehearse it here.
And therefore every gentle wight I pray,
For Godde's love to deem not that I say
Of evil intent, but that I must rehearse
Their tales all, be they better or worse,
Or elles falsen some of my mattere.                            falsify
And therefore whoso list it not to hear,
Turn o'er the leaf, and choose another tale;
For he shall find enough, both great and smale,
Of storial thing that toucheth gentiless,             historical, true
And eke morality and holiness.
Blame not me, if that ye choose amiss.
The Miller is a churl, ye know well this,
So was the Reeve, with many other mo',
And harlotry they tolde bothe two.                        ribald tales
Avise you* now, and put me out of blame;                    be warned
And eke men should not make earnest of game.                 *jest, fun

Notes to the Prologue to the Miller's Tale

1. Pilate, an unpopular personage in the mystery-plays of the
middle ages, was probably represented as having a gruff, harsh
voice.

2. Wite: blame; in Scotland, "to bear the wyte," is to bear the
blame.

THE TALE.

Whilom there was dwelling in Oxenford
A riche gnof, that guestes held to board,   miser *took in boarders
And of his craft he was a carpenter.
With him there was dwelling a poor scholer,
Had learned art, but all his fantasy
Was turned for to learn astrology.
He coude* a certain of conclusions                                 knew
To deeme by interrogations,                                  determine
If that men asked him in certain hours,
When that men should have drought or elles show'rs:
Or if men asked him what shoulde fall
Of everything, I may not reckon all.

This clerk was called Hendy Nicholas;                 gentle, handsome
Of derne love he knew and of solace;                   secret, earnest
And therewith he was sly and full privy,
And like a maiden meek for to see.
A chamber had he in that hostelry
Alone, withouten any company,
Full *fetisly y-dight with herbes swoot,            neatly decorated
And he himself was sweet as is the root                           *sweet
Of liquorice, or any setewall.                                valerian
His Almagest, and bookes great and small,
His astrolabe,  belonging to his art,
His augrim stones, layed fair apart
On shelves couched at his bedde's head,                      laid, set
His press y-cover'd with a falding red.                   coarse cloth
And all above there lay a gay psalt'ry
On which he made at nightes melody,
So sweetely, that all the chamber rang:
And Angelus ad virginem he sang.
And after that he sung the kinge's note;
Full often blessed was his merry throat.
And thus this sweete clerk his time spent
After *his friendes finding and his rent.    Attending to his friends,
                                                   and providing for the
                                                    cost of his lodging
This carpenter had wedded new a wife,
Which that he loved more than his life:
Of eighteen year, I guess, she was of age.
Jealous he was, and held her narr'w in cage,
For she was wild and young, and he was old,
And deemed himself belike* a cuckold.                           perhaps
He knew not Cato, for his wit was rude,
That bade a man wed his similitude.
Men shoulde wedden after their estate,
For youth and eld are often at debate.                             age
But since that he was fallen in the snare,
He must endure (as other folk) his care.
Fair was this younge wife, and therewithal
As any weasel her body gent and small.                      slim, neat
A seint she weared, barred all of silk,                         girdle
A barm-cloth eke as white as morning milk                     apron
Upon her lendes, full of many a gore.                  ***** *plait
White was her smock, and broider'd all before,            robe or gown
And eke behind, on her collar about
Of coal-black silk, within and eke without.
The tapes of her white volupere                      head-kerchief
Were of the same suit of her collere;
Her fillet broad of silk, and set full high:
And sickerly* she had a likerous eye.          certainly *lascivious
Full small y-pulled were her browes two,
And they were bent, and black as any sloe.                      arched
She was well more blissful on to see           pleasant to look upon
Than is the newe perjenete* tree;                       young pear-tree
And softer than the wool is of a wether.
And by her girdle hung a purse of leather,
Tassel'd with silk, and *pearled with latoun.   set with brass pearls
In all this world to seeken up and down
There is no man so wise, that coude thenche            fancy, think of
So gay a popelot, or such a *****.                          puppet
Full brighter was the shining of her hue,
Than in the Tower the noble* forged new.                a gold coin
But of her song, it was as loud and yern,                  lively
As any swallow chittering on a bern.                              barn
Thereto she coulde skip, and make a game                 also *romp
As any kid or calf following his dame.
Her mouth was sweet as braket, or as methe                    mead
Or hoard of apples, laid in hay or heath.
Wincing* she was as is a jolly colt,                           skittish
Long as a mast, and upright as a bolt.
A brooch she bare upon her low collere,
As broad as is the boss of a bucklere.
Her shoon were laced on her legges high;
She was a primerole, a piggesnie ,                        primrose
For any lord t' have ligging in his bed,                         lying
Or yet for any good yeoman to wed.

Now, sir, and eft sir, so befell the case,                       again
That on a day this Hendy Nicholas
Fell with this younge wife to rage and play,       toy, play the rogue
While that her husband was at Oseney,
As clerkes be full subtle and full quaint.
And privily he caught her by the queint,                          ****
And said; "Y-wis, but if I have my will,                     assuredly
For *derne love of thee, leman, I spill."     for earnest love of thee
And helde her fast by the haunche bones,          my mistress, I perish
And saide "Leman, love me well at once,
Or I will dien, all so God me save."
And she sprang as a colt doth in the trave:
And with her head she writhed fast away,
And said; "I will not kiss thee, by my fay.                      faith
Why let be," quoth she,

BELIEF & TECHNIQUE FOR TELEPATHIC PROSE
Lee Sharks & Jack Feistfrom Pearl and Other Poems

1.     Compose real poems telepathically, with mind control powers, inside your glorious brain.

2.     You are your own best advocate. Insist the world acknowledge your poems as artifacts of tiny doom. Accept nothing less. Threaten to smash yourself in the face with gasoline and set your hair on fire. Leap over the seats to aggressively stand inside the world’s personal space and get up in its grill. Take this container of Tic-Tacs and smash it on your forehead. Crush each Tic-Tac individually into your eyeballs and ask the world if it likes your poem, and if it likes your poem, then eat your poem: “Do you like my poem? Then eat it.”

3.     Always seek constant approval, then punch your cat in the face.

4.     Arrive alive. Don’t text and drive.

5.     Always write poems all the time.

6.     Never professionalize writing. Professionalism is the last refuge of responsible people looking for work.

7.     Your life is your poem. Take care to write it biographically. Failing that, invent false biographies and post them on Wikipedia.

8.     Get as much education as you can, then ****** your education in the face to save it from sloppy education. Get enough education to respect your contempt for education.

9.     Give it all that you have, as deep as it goes, as desperate and total as taking a breath.

10.  Also be pedantic mundane pig-critic of precise punctuation juggling and ruthless crossed-out darling murdering of your own puny sentences. Save every draft and revert to original after enormous work, then drown yrself in the bathtub. Remember: editing is organization.

11.  Be long-sighted prodigy of skeptically believing in nothing, but also believe in destiny, but quietly, and hit yourself in the face for naivety’s sake.

12.  You are a seamstress of words—place each stitch carefully, deliberately. Develop a series of rituals and perform them, without variation, prior to placing each word. Allow the frequency and intensity of these rituals to grow until you spend hours, each day, touching and retouching your left index finger to the tip of your nose in a rhythmic, counter-clockwise motion, in sets of thirty revolutions, in order to place a single character. Spend years of your life shut away from the world, wasting away into an awkward, unhygienic shadow of your former self, and have, to show for it, a two-syllable word of Germanic origins on an otherwise clean, white page. This word will be redoubtable, the bedrock of your writing career. Go on to spend vast sums of personal wealth and total dedication, alienating the remaining handful of long-suffering friends who continue, despite all odds, to solicit the memory of your humanity, in order to learn the arts of metalworking, Medieval alchemy, and font design, recreating a metal-cast, alpha-numeric set of Times New Roman font, from scratch, going broke long before “numeric,” and with only the half-formed germs of the characters W, N, and sometimes-vowel Y.  hat are such retrictio s to  ou?  ou are a poet,  ot a mathematicia .  ou are a creature of steel.  ou  ill  rite a  e  and better  orld, a  orld  ithout the letter   , forgi g it, o e smoki g husk of a  ord at a time.

13.  Turn over a new leaf. You’re not getting much done like this, anyways, let’s face it. Break the chains of your censoring, conscious mind; tap into the spontaneous well of unconscious human brilliance that springs from the source of dreams. Thwart the stick-in-*** tyranny of your internal editor by making a commitment to write constantly, without ceasing, editing, or even thinking, no matter what, ignoring the anally retentive quips your brain will no doubt make. Make a further commitment: you will not only write, irrespective of internal censorship, but in a way that is unconscionably terrible, on purpose. Your writing will be, by turns, embarrassing, infantile, automatic, and marmaduke poppers—or shall we say, antagonistic to the indoctrination in repressive concepts such as “sentence” and “word” of your reader, who is always, and only, you. Let your writing be a spiritual discipline of Bat-a-rang pancakes and lightly alarm clock, ding—your toast is done.

14.  Always Alka-Seltzer eyelids all the time.

15.  At last, you are ready to make it new, to ****** your darlings, to first thought, best thought, to your heart’s content. Your adverb will be the enemy of your verb, the difference between your almost-right word and your right word will be the difference between your lightning bug and your lightning. You are ready to have a spontaneous overflow of powerful feeling, then censor the s**t out of it. You are ready to turn your extremes against each other: Unlearn your apple pancakes and burst through the mental barriers; then slow the flood, let the lovely trickle out & edit, edit, edit. Capture spontaneous gem of native human genius, then marshal vast armies of technical knowledge & self-discipline to ensure it glimmers and cuts.

16.  Believe in things like destiny. No really—the path will shatter you so many times your shards will have splinters, your bombshells, shrapnel. By the time you get there—which you probably won’t—even your exhaustion will be tired. Exhaustion of mind and body will have passed so far beyond the physical, and through malaise of spirit, that it will emerge on the other side, as physical exhaustion again. In the face of this, nothing but a little Big Purpose will do. Besides, a little ideology never hurt anyone. Feel free to be all Voltaire with your bad self, in public—but don’t give up.

17.  After all of this, when your will is finally broken (again), and you have given up for the final time (again), start over. The former model wasn’t working. Refashion yourself and your writing. Lather, rinse, usurp your noble half-brother, and repeat, until you get somewhere, or die in the trying.  

18.  Achieve consistency of voice; it is the signature by which you will be known. Your “you” should ring out clearly from each individual letter. In this, the writer is like the salesman. Like a new car, neither the writing’s merits, nor the reader’s needs, will be the final, deciding factor. Ultimately, the deciding factor is you.

19.  Unlike a new car, it is difficult to drive a poem, to use it to get to school or work. Unlike a car salesman, a writer does not wear enormous ties.

20.  Be so consistent that your writing consists in composing the same words, in the same order, creating the some overall voice and style, consistently, over and over, an eternal return of the same. Maintain this disciplined drudgery over the course of years. Let years become decades, and decades, an entire life: You will have “found your voice.” Variety is the spice of life, but consistency is its signature.

20.  Be so consistent that your writing consists in composing the same words, in the same order, creating the some overall voice and style, consistently, over and over, an eternal return of the same. Maintain this disciplined drudgery over the course of years. Let years become decades, and decades, an entire life: You will have “found your voice.” Variety is the spice of life, but consistency is its signature.

21.  Then again, consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds. Throw things up a little bit. One day, put on your hobgoblin hat, the next day, your small mind.

22.  On second thought, re: #16-17: Stop here. You don’t look like much of a writer. Save yourself the trouble of a deep investment that is sure to yield no returns. The prize is big, and not many take it. The Iliad showed us that the prize of writing is life eternal, and taught us to long for that promise; but the Odyssey taught us not to bother. There are many suitors, a single Odysseus. While the husband wends arduously homeward, Penelope weaves impending glory, an evaporating glamour, enchanting them, until he arrives. We are in for a bad end, if we chase another man’s wife, or a prize not rightfully ours. There are many suitors, a crowd of them. They begin as a chittering swarm of bats and end in the very same manner. You cannot have what is not yours. What is yours, no man can take. So, like Emily says,

I smile when you suggest that I delay ‘to publish’—that being foreign to my thought as Firmament to Fin. If fame belonged to me, I could not escape her—if she did not, the longest day would pass me on the chase—and the approbation of my Dog would forsake me—then—My Barefoot Rank is better—

23.  Therefore, take these Sturm und Drang commandments to the trash heap. Return to step 1, as the only useful piece of advice: Compose real poems telepathically, with mind control powers, inside your glorious brain.

(c) 2014 lee sharks & jack *****

from Pearl and Other Poems:

http://www.amazon.com/Pearl-Other-Poems-Crimson-Hexagon/dp/0692313079/ref=sr11?ie=UTF8&qid;=1429895012&sr;=8-1&keywords;=lee+sharks+pearl

******* in you nose can do that,
This is the rosebush, the fuschia,
the striding spiderweb of summer.
Your trees from the ocean and sky,
and sepals turned sences.
A spindle-spinning wheel,
turning sunflowers to liquid honey,
yum - yum - yum !
Oh the tastes of nature,
hidden in burrow holes,
with small mice chittering their teeth,
through chestnut temples!
A crucified sunflower, soft-spoken ochre,
the pumpkins turning fields to dust
and growing seeds of castles.
Three blades of grass in
tasseled soil.
Three green-squash faces
among the fields burgundy,
growing eyeballs.
Viola splashes wave,
Palo Santo fragrance,
Filling the nostrils with
Happiness!
Day-to-day ecstatic twirls
Twists and twirls,
a steep staircase to
the waterfall's epicenter.
The soul of the falls tumbling
across the sealed creek,
oiled with the feathers of soils.
The queen of frozen loganberries
gazes with approval,
watching seperate streams congeal, spiral,
and form starry nights
beneath the sky.
Lime scent comforting
the ☀ of rivers!

*Written by: Lotus and Simon

You must understand my fear
As I grow closer to you dear
No more bite or insurrection
You penetrate the armour
Hard covers but tender underbelly
Be gentle in your stroke
Blisters fester
Red welt of swollen lips
Let the blood fall as it may
Unafraid
You are the light in my everyday
Slither hither
& crawl over blistering heat
You seek, you sting
Sharp penetrating glance
Venom glistens like the dewdrop
Do drop & Let drop the droplets
Wet hard the mind ****
Chittering madness
Stinger in brain
Dark obsidian, your poison sings
Your back
Glistens shiny.
Your armour penetrating dance
Brings me back
Tail quivers
Knees weak
Crawl to me
The strike
The sting
Your poison venom
The venom inside me
No antidote or logic
No rhyme or reason
Your venom sings
sound gone
Mind blown
Eyes blind and heart bleeding
I am your zombie baby
Obey me
Tease me
Play with me
Seize me
Sting me
Again and again.

i just don't some things,
i don't understand that under the pretense
of writing very little
being able to write a rhyme is enough
to suggest that you're toying with
an art-form...
   personally? i don't know how i got here,
but right now that doesn't really matter.
the whiskey is cold and a cigarette is
only 10 minutes away, gone is the macho
strive to impersonate the Kray twins,
or in that line of thought: blue for boys
pink for girls,
why is the transgender movement happening?
erm... could it be because of
gender stereotyping?
   it probably has nothing to do with
annexing the words from St. Thomas' gospel,
it could really be a rebellion against
                 gender stereotyping...
out comes a woman dressed as a nun,
then out comes a woman dressed in a niqab....
  curtain-sellers! i knew it!
                 what's pajamas in punjabi?
     chuckles?    chack'ah chuck chittering?
**** me and a throng of sparrows, land ahoy!
what i don't get is that there's a science in poetry,
poetry for its lack of volume gets this leechy
science of itemisation, this vague anatomy...
i don't think i write for an anatomy,
i ****** well hope i don't write something
worth an anatomy... i basically write to give people
a feeling of eating sushi, or raw red meat...
    i entrust them with the notion that it's a narrative
that needs to be there between having a glass
of whiskey... i don't write with the hope of being
itemised and stripped bare by some English students
equating a metaphor with liver...
******* bog-standards... i really do not understand
this whole concern for a hussle-and-bussle
that surrounds poetry: you have a ******* pelican
taming the skies, why invite a Mongolian beehive
to fill in the blanks intended with "notes"?
     it's to do with the fact that you don't need to
strain your eyes, *******, it's not:
i write sparingly so you have to comment...
           why note the ****** crap from four words
when you're intended to sorta spread them out,
and feel them over a spectrum of a few days,
so that there's no synonymous-amgiguity ascribed
to them, which means you can act upon
deviating from the idealism of words thought,
and antonym them within the realism of words acted
upon...
        i just can't stand people mutilating poetry,
they're not even performing a postmortem surgery,
they're hacking at a stump of wood
    in a forest, when there are so many trees to be
looted...
               again the point... maybe the transgender
movement is due to the fact of gender-stereotyping?
blue boy, pink girl, salmon fading pink of shirts on
metrosexuals? hey, Sherlock! i'm not the answer!
   what i'm bothered about it the fact that
poetry attracts bothersome flies...
who feel a need to make poetry into prose:
economically speaking, yes prosaic literature is
worth the money, with more words in a chapter than
in a poetry collection.. how's your eyesight though?
    then there's this girl, a Joe Pachelbel (sorta),
and she does the worst thing imaginable to poetry,
the educated norm...
              the bothersome fly bit...
              it's just narration girl, it's just narration
too lazy to invent characters fake schizophrenia
          and say too many words that don't appear in
urban conversations about a ****** or a juicy mango...
and that's why i think people are put off poetry,
the fact that poetry is like this magical artefact that
might give you eternal youth... that you have to
scrutinise it so much that you almost get sick of it...
you couldn't even if you tried put a question of metaphor
into a journalistic entry...
                      so why put so much science into
an area of the humanities?
            where's the feeling part, and the part where you
have to create volume from poetry for it to compete
for an existence alongside prose?
    most prose works these days don't even deserve
a campfire anyway... in the same way that poetry shouldn't
really accept all this excess of narrative,
it's like people who read poetry are characters in
    a prose novel, they're asking for the part of
lynching the narrator into suggesting less ambiguity...
   in prose the narrator is almost too easily discredited
from playing chess, in poetry the chess pieces gain
consciousness that they're being moved and subsequently
rebel and ask too many questions...
          what the **** dragged me into this realm?
the question serves itself...
   and even donning a cravat or a boutique corset you
suggest not talking *****...
   then off the donning attire gets ripped,
   and it's heathen sprechen in onomatopoeia of
knocking on a door to open, a flower to open in spring,
a ***** to get juicy, and de Sade coming home.
                i say fiddle with the idea of a river...
  end this bogus fly-trap of people playing surgeons
with poems like they might play doctor with dolls...
                 it's getting annoying:
it's written sparingly for a reason, the blank spaces between
the words is not a prompt to comment and vandalise
the poem, which they do; pristine bourgeois? you'd
think, wouldn't you... graffiti on some urban slum wall,
a comment in a poetry book: same ****, different cover.
i never understood why they needed to say
so much about poetry in order to make it
economically viable to compete with prose custard,
     i just thought: poetry and photography are akin...
say much more than the photograph endorses
and you've just started blinking...
         which to the photograph in-itself means:
  look at another if your eyes are watering with
            peppery tears that itch; and another... and another...
and another.

When biting Boreas, fell and doure,
Sharp shivers thro’ the leafless bow’r;
When Phœbus gies a short-liv’d glow’r,
      Far south the lift,
Dim-dark’ning thro’ the flaky show’r,
      Or whirling drift:

Ae night the storm the steeples rocked,
Poor Labour sweet in sleep was locked,
While burns, wi’ snawy wreeths upchoked,
      Wild-eddying swirl,
Or thro’ the mining outlet bocked,
      Down headlong hurl.

List’ning, the doors an’ winnocks rattle,
I thought me on the ourie cattle,
Or silly sheep, wha bide this brattle
      O’ winter war,
And thro’ the drift, deep-lairing, sprattle,
      Beneath a scar.

Ilk happing bird, wee, helpless thing!
That, in the merry months o’ spring,
Delighted me to hear thee sing,
      What comes o’ thee?
Whare wilt thou cow’r thy chittering wing
      An’ close thy e’e?

Ev’n you on murd’ring errands toil’d,
Lone from your savage homes exil’d,
The blood-stain’d roost, and sheep-cote spoil’d
      My heart forgets,
While pityless the tempest wild
      Sore on you beats.

I LOVE him, I love him, ran the patter of her lips
And she formed his name on her tongue and sang
And she sent him word she loved him so much,
So much, and death was nothing; work, art, home,
All was nothing if her love for him was not first
Of all; the patter of her lips ran, I love him,
I love him; and he knew the doors that opened
Into doors and more doors, no end of doors,
And full length mirrors doubling and tripling
The apparitions of doors: circling corridors of
Looking glasses and doors, some with knobs, some
With no knobs, some opening slow to a heavy push,
And some jumping open at a touch and a hello.
And he knew if he so wished he could follow her
Swift running through circles of doors, hearing
Sometimes her whisper, I love him, I love him,
And sometimes only a high chaser of laughter
Somewhere five or ten doors ahead or five or ten
Doors behind, or chittering h-st, h-st, among corners
Of the tall full-length dusty looking glasses.
I love, I love, I love, she sang short and quick in
High thin beaten soprano and he knew the meanings,
The high chaser of laughter, the doors on doors
And the looking glasses, the room to room hunt,
The ends opening into new ends always.

How sweet to be thus nestling deep in boughs,
Upon an ashen stoven pillowing me;
Faintly are heard the ploughmen at their ploughs,
But not an eye can find its way to see.
The sunbeams scarce ****** me with a smile,
So thick the leafy armies gather round;
And where they do, the breeze blows cool the while,
Their leafy shadows dancing on the ground.
Full many a flower, too, wishing to be seen,
Perks up its head the hiding grass between.—
In mid-wood silence, thus, how sweet to be;
Where all the noises, that on peace intrude,
Come from the chittering cricket, bird, and bee,
Whose songs have charms to sweeten solitude.

Here is Cedar Draw, a stream which
spills free from the dam upstream
and then slowly licks its way westerly
among the billowing cottonwood
and volcanic boulders that still appear red-hot,
flattening out, pooling here and there
where fat trout and perch can feed
on luckless grasshoppers and mayflies
blown into the water by the wind.

Here is Cedar Draw, widening into
lush shallows with bulrush and cat-tails
clicking in the wind, showy red-winged
blackbirds clinging to stalks high above
the waterline, and where snowy egrets
ply the mossy banks for frogs. The
only sound heard is the chittering of
birds and that warm summer breeze
softly moaning and sighing for you alone.

Here is Cedar Draw, as fine a place
a poet could every hope to find to relax,
meditate, sip a little port wine, tease the
iridescent-blue damselflies that abound
here, cool one's feet at water's edge,
scribble in a notebook disjointed thoughts
that may or may not make it into a poem,
perhaps to doze a little and finally to
rouse up and thank your muse for such
a great day and such a splendid spot.

--

a whole town goes dark
all cars stand still
lights are out



silence . . .

then, something rushes by
nothing

or is it?


looming out of the jet-black inkiness
knees shake in cold moon
the sudden-roar of a impossible jet for five seconds
tinkling of three pedal-notes in the distance
a child's laughter calling from behind a deserted playground
sinister swirl of seeming-piranha inside the dark sky-folds
a half-dead bulldozer on the rim of a quaking river
murine-teeth ferret in a SUV-carcass long abandoned by instant-gratifixes






after..

birds chittering about the secrets of the night
while leaves embrace the wind*




S T, sun - 22 sept

**** robin wakes and greets the dawn
With high-pitched chittering;
Spindly legs bear his stout form
Across the frozen terrain;
Icy breezes ruffle rosy breast,
Blood red against the charcoal soil
And sugar-frosted shrubs;
He spies a lardy oasis
Strung from a barren branch
And breaks the night’s fast
With ravenous peck.
Close by, spider, aroused,
Dazzled by its diamond-studded abode,
Unfurls its legs to investigate
The solitude of its frozen labour.
Gazing down upon the scene,
The hazy moon,
Sickle of silver smudged
On sapphire sky,
Prepares to renounce its sentry duty
To the sun,
The glowing amber orb
On the horizon;
And so to bed Jack Frost,
Your toil is done.

February 12, 2016

I lie **** on top of my blankets; praying. Praying. Praying. I am fighting waves of nausea and sleepiness. Medicines I feel sprinting through my veins dragging me downward. No.
The rain slow at first but gathering wrath in the warm night.
Lightning and thunder will come I smell it afar off. Ions heavily scented spill through the atmosphere holes in my plexiglassed window.  
Thunder rolls through my chest shaking deeply my whitewashed plaster cocoon. The cries begin to swell, and echo strangely through the sterile corridors. I am not the only light sleeper, I muse.
I doze momentarily even among the screams of the mentally hilarious; I am called into sleep. They must have doubled the sleeping medication; the storm will be worse than I thought.
I start at a sound. Steady. A theta wave vibrating through my room. I pitch to my side in time to see a lightning bolt slash through the sky. I saw something. The bolt plays hell with my night-vision as I sit upright on my bed.
There. Struggling up the plastic surface of the viewport. It cannot fly in the rain; it struggles for purchase on the portal. I study her. Elegant and slender she reaches the airhole and pulls herself through. Far off the screams wax and wane as the storm intensifies.
Her slender thorax and polished, obsidian, exoskeleton strike excitement through me to a cell. A perfect engine of pain and terror. A great black wasp. She reminds me of a thorn as she rests on the windowsill; unmoving in the air conditioning. Giddily, I shake with excitement nearly overwhelmed. Delicately she cleans water droplets from her abdomen and shakes the moisture from the thin membrane of her wings. I slowly move to my shelf and remove the specimen cup from its placement; silently unscrewing the threaded lid from the clear plastic container. Down the hallway a tired groan and a throaty grunt from one of the other patients. The wind now screams through the breezeport that runs to north toward the cafeteria. A shingle is peeled from the roof of a gazebo and cyclones into a bulkhead. I lick my lips, and consciously check my excitement.
I slide a sheet of crisp white paper from my desk. Quickly, I trap the great insect with the jar and slide the paper over the aperture trapping her between jar and paper. She does not struggle, but looks intelligently at the walls of her new prison. Beautiful, and intricate machinery at work; she readjusts her  wings, observing me with with bulbous eyes. Lightning strikes, and there is a deafening pop as a transformer explodes. For a moment it creates an azure sun outside, and casts curious shadows through my room. In the corridor the lamp light is squelched, and then ignites emergency lamps in scarlet hues as the diesel generator sputters to life and idles. A deafening clackson alarm begins to wail.
I am not aware of this at first; obsessing over my catch. Her form is ******, deadly. Something deep within me stirs at the very site of her. Revulsion? Ecstasy? From my reverie I am stirred by the clanging of doors and staccato laughter in the crimson glow of the storm lights. In a moment I am resolved and I slide the paper from the opening and cover it with my hand. Now footsteps. She senses me and reels in instinct. Without hesitation she draws herself tight as a bow string, poised to ****** the hypodermic stinger into the warm pink flesh of my palm. Quicker than thought she strikes piercing, seemingly to the bone she injects poison. Down the ward doors are slid open and the sound of radio chatter plays toward me. I am engrossed, in bliss as my arm begins to numb. Five times then Nine times she spears me with the barb. My heart beating so hard in my chest that I am sure the orderlies must hear it. Then I hear a burst of static and a sing-song reply of phonetic alphabet followed by my room number. I grasp her delicately from the specimen cup with my thumb and forefinger as she stings me with prejudice beneath the nail bed and cuticles. I cast her through the air hole in my window and quickly lie upon my bed before the door is unlocked. A man in white scrubs and a five o'clock shadow opens my door and pierces me with two steel blue eyes. "You should be asleep." "Get some rest, we will have the lights back on in no time." I smile my head swimming with post adrenal bliss. When suddenly I hear the droning of wings. A sea of raging hornets sounding ominously in the small cell. A black cloud pours through the airhole, countless chittering wings encompass the orderly in a poisonous storm cloud. With vengeance they sting, his eyeballs his hands, his throat. All swelling with purple nebulas of poison. In his mouth they crawl and down his throat. Efficiently suffocating him in mere moments. Then they quiet. All at once they flock to me, walking on my pale naked flesh caressing me with millions of antennae. They do not sting, instead they are still. Their crescent shaped bodies vibrating,  like a cat purr against my cold skin. I put my hand over my mouth to keep from laughing hilariously, and I shudder hardly containing the joy. Then I pick up the radio clipped to the orderlies pants, and pull the 18 inch telescoping  steel baton from the holster belted at his waist. I click the PTT and speak into the radio. Epsilon Wing Cell 005 Accounted for, Over Quintar beep followed by a burst of static and a reply. I cover my mouth to suppress another fit of hysterical laugh. I step barefoot over his body and onto the cold tile of the ward; spinning the heavy keyring on my finger

The hunger is back

She remembers now.

Knows the difference between deprivation and hunger.



He pulled out her teeth one by one.

How quiet she had been despite the pain

The tears gliding her cheeks and jaw

He asked but took what he wanted regardless of her words

His necklace of teeth chattering in her face,

Whispering to her to push him away, to fight.



It’s only afterwards he reveals that the teeth are of other women.

No, her teeth will find no place on that thread he tells her,

but placed in his pocket where no one will see.



Touching her gums she finds pockets

Open sores oozing pain and the flavor of iron,

But when he tried to take her tongue next

She wrenched away, his necklace chittering in envy.

He smothered her with his body, fingers scrabbling in her mouth

as she whimpered and writhed

Bit his fingers with what she had left

Firm enough to discourage but not to draw blood in return.



Her new teeth are ridged like a child’s

Odd to feel the return of them.

How she hungers again

For true love and affection

Never again does she want to hear the click of teeth on a chain.



She wants to feel the nip of a lover on her skin, tongue laving the bruises she wants

A need to mark and be marked

Share the joy of consuming.

sweet child of the stars-
never forget these bright lights
and pages of gold

blaze of fireflies-
momentarily trapped in
mason jars; glass-hewn

a saturday evening in july of 1987, pottstown, pennsylvania. the moon peaks over the horizon, craning its neck at the carcasses of lost dreamers littered across the landscape. denim jacket, stone wash; unintentionally half-popped collar. a glass of cinzano bianco in one hand and store-bought iced tea in the other. eight wicker chairs on the deck; chittering and smiling and shuffling and laughing. an evening soirée illuminated solely by stars and citronella candles.  sticky, humid night. grill roars heat as yet another batch of burgers are flipped. step down into the murky dark.

fireworks ignite-
brilliance across nightsky
eyes gaze in wonder

new-age americana at its finest—

we are here and we are now. the product of every moment leading up to now. smoldering remnants of infinite reactions, extraordinary in their own right. what are you cultivating within? what will stay and what will go? what will take hold and manifest? what legacy, what footprint do you dare to leave on the sands of time? in this sublime psalm of life, we can only dream.

the humble sloth sees no morning and no worm in the sun -
nor the chittering of a few eager sparrows,
either -
             he sees everything square in
rhombic - squinty eyed, sorta:
should i bother it, or will i wait long
long enough till it bothers me?
that's me, right there, a young man will
idealise women, until he finally idolises
them in the naked form at-moist
sensual... and this will go on and forth,
he'll pass the corridor of a few
teenage pregnancies, because there
was no *****-Nilly & the Eager-******
scenario for him to scream and moan...
until dawn.
                      the natural contract is there
and it will knit & pick out the most
useless lions... until a few lionesses start
to congregate and do what the lion
does... every lion's statue akin to man's
is not even in a state of contemplation...
strange how man glorifies life and sacrifice
and indeed sacrifices the worth of life
by burning incense, and selling goods,
and running around the world
for a worth of a scalpel's worth of
a barber overdoing it... calling the forehead
a man's chin, and bluntly stroking it
until a dentist can take part in the wreckage...
might i say: i am sometimes like a sponge,
i read a bit of e.e. cummings and act on paper,
i don't plagiarise as such,
i merely focus on how one might repeat -
he said, she said,
       and return to: nonetheless, it said
for both of you: without a neuter pronoun:
she'll say eve, and he'll say eve,
    he'll say apple, and she'll say apple,
and you're still both, both! going to sit on a
******* chair... deemed obscure for
the sistine chapel, but indeed worthy to
scribble the lesser findings of graffiti into
a classroom table, like GD GV M GD CCK...
       so i i dabble a lot, in much of what
really is testing the young men who begin
with misogyny comparisons of genitals
at Billingsgate... and later try to find
one and only monocle to a bowler hat and moustache...
that train? long gone...
     so let us find people like me...
who idolised women, who made them divine in
supposed grace, and... well... eventually
all babies look similar, as do old people...
women chop of their locks (unless
they want to be deemed Merlin's brides)
   and the fat embodies them and they all turn out
alike... we all think heaven is the pinpoint -
    governed by an aesthetic democratisation of
all our faults... i just don't trust a world to be
wandering a forest of oak, while in the background
man settles matters of what dwarf eye of the beholder
should be asserted above the immortals' arrogance...
         but there i was... idealising women...
what a horrid affair...
     the moment you encounter woman
you already know she eats, she farts, she snarls
and she stares... after all: what woman is a woman
who isn't building a cosy abode?
            the moment you begin from a fascination
with women, that you state your anti to a misogyny
well... try wiping your nose with paper
   and even bothering debating feminism with anyone
except a homosexual... you haven't got lunch,
you have this seemingly 1970s film from Polish cinema
that states that feminism is equally transcendent
to encompass Aristotle in the present age,
       as it is not encompassing some frivolous
   ancient Greek joke... why women have less teeth
than men... i guess they hide them... then they
practice felatio... n'es pas?
                    i have a wriggly worm, she has a
hollowed out bone to fill with juices of the marrow...
     then she's practical enough to call Aristotle
an autistic astronaut... i say: give the woman! a time-machine!
         why? she has no sense of humour,
or no historicity concerning humour,
    or how there are necessary fluctuations...
men these days tell rapes jokes...
           because the one joke they are afraid to say, is:
at a ceremonial altar, with the punchline: i do.
               i do is hardly synonymous with the more
appropriate: i will.
                i do is a stagnation coordinate:
how can i do all of that if i say i will do such things
only account of mere ceremony? surely
the chaplain gets paid... but what do i get?
alimony checks, court-hearings and how
        i have two testicles, she has two *******
  and we debate the 2 to 3 ratio of d.i.y. holes
     for inviting sinister sergio to do the plumbing;
cos the ******* cobwebs got in the way by way
of leeching on the purse.
              see where misogyny comes from?
not getting an Aristotelian joke... or basically not
getting an ancient Greek joke right...
because off they go! mistaking dualism as a dichotomy...
   you start idealising women, you encounter
a woman and ****! the dream is gone, and out
pops shaggy and ******-doo...
                   and if you retract from idealising women?
you begin with Billingsgate and genitalia...
me? personally? i always thought of marinating my
chicken thigh in a warmed marinate of yoghurt
and tandoori spice - mix the two: you get Coronation
pink... all fluffy and unicorn and wonderful...
           idealism can be hard to shake off...
unless of course you tell either Americans or Russians
how finicky things can get in the bridal-chambers
of Essex on the Grecian isles of Cos,
   or Ibiza (I-beef-ah), or anywhere where there's
contrary speed-dating shakiness that's bound
to be representative of Essex, once upon a time,
when great music played a key-role in merely
utilising all body parts when dancing, i.e. snogging,
and lo and behold... when satan averted his
eyes composing the two serpent composition,
he looked into the mouth of man and a mouth
of woman, and found no resemblance unto his
original investigation: speak no ill of tongues:
for the tongues of men are merely ill-fated
         against themselves: for they revel in
other parts of their anatomy bearing the sting
and quickened step,
   but whether it's politics or uniting two tongues
in a dance: they're sluggish about it
ever becoming fruitful quickly enough to
            sediment into a snail's shell worth of
chattering teeth into old age, for the slug of both
sexes' tongue, having no such allowance,
         and subsequently left wriggling into their
daily trough of the competitive: first come,
first served.
                   but then man want's clarity!
if i idealised women, have i not become a gimmick
to such idealisation in the first place?
              how can i display this with all but words,
well, i can, all the more simpler...
                 by idealising women i have conceded
to a contest that has brought me against my fellow ***...
              and all because by having idealised woman
as a concept: i cannot see any of man's achievements,
i cannot see any achievements worth striving for
   in what could be translated as creating a reverse
idealisation of woman, in that other men might idealise
me, to later idolise me... all saints were fools in
idealising jesus, which is why he's strung to a crucifix
made of termite-wood... the minute they hang him
upright on mt. golgotha the crucifix collapses...
                        how could he be an ideal if
  the obscurity of righteous judgment be so-far removed
from the people? is this the construct of the pharisees
appealing to the reason of the greeks to save them
from the roman "oppressors"?
         can this really be the case? just because the greeks
had so much more to think about, and so many more
things more interesting than the romans to think about
that they would have rather written the "new" testament
in greek?
    i am indeed graced by an incompetence
   of having begun with idealising women, experienced
a woman, and thus begun idealising myself
    to a status of idol, or a moral example of plagiarism
worthy of imitation...
               does a crucifix imply a metaphor of
marrying a difficult woman? how many poetic
angles has a man have to write to rob these filthy
philistines of taking things too literally
      and provoking Islam?!
                      when it comes to the old testament
poets only exploit the book of genesis...
   but with the new testament... it's almost like
this need to create a poetic attack on the established
order... and when the book of revelation appears
as the exodus-equivalent book...
       we get: a democracy of poetics...
           which accounts for escaping the health
of the body, and an inherent illness of the abstracted
brain: the mind, and then that becomes
     cubed and encompasses nothing quiet
once more able to take literalism mind's experience
of the world: back into it.
             sheltered man of civilisation can take
a painting more seriously, and then explore it in
his dream factory, than the man pledged to the land
with no galleries, and instead given a canvas
that might swarm with tornadoes and give him
absolutely: no luxury to dream.
   dreaming is a luxury... the last remaining luxury
most people have these days...
   i don't think people can be artists by simply
dreaming... i think they're luxury hobbyist,
       call them the ones standing in line
            as Joseph's Travel Agents... 7 years in Tibet
     (lean years).... and 7 years in a district of Beijing -
where have the "blind" prophets disappeared to?
      and why do so many seem blind
      and blindingly obey to the prophets of "sight"?
nonetheless: frivolous questions...
                 i idealised woman to the extent that
upon encountering a woman: i could not find
an ideal to suggest idol worship for other men...
or create a continuum of dialectical embedding
or the sight of following the cause toward becoming
a sacrificial lamb: whether under the bachelor's
ideal of becoming a martyr - or indeed
                      the idea of becoming a martyr:
bound to old age... and woman - for where did
the wooing of man recede to?! farting into an armchair
and arthritis... much aplenty about that much
could be said about me too: solo.

Come consume the air around my head
Let your eyes stray to curiosity
Feel the pressures that make us animals

Come touch these bones
Let no tears wash their age
Feel the history of our people

Come sing the joy from your belly
Let others join in form
Feel the warmth of hearts beating as one

Come read my poetry
Let it grasp your intellectual mind
Feel the emotions I desire to have

Come pray to the idea we share
Let it speak of peace
Feel out the truth you seek

Come crash into the ocean waves
Let the under-toe fling you free
Feel the strength of the great mother

Come lose words with the birds
Let the chittering and chattering slip our tongues from there mouths
Feel confused? As do I  

Come to trust the dream wept last Saturday
Let is sink into the bed you sleep
Feel nothing at all

Come rest on my mind
Let my imagination grant your every wish
Feel

****

before my very eyes right now
bottle brush sway dance for me and I get breeze caressed
and blades of grass all round me, my lovely quiet friends
over two yellow towers, a small wink flits across the way
chittering its strange works and seeping in all my veins
bugs marvel at this towering stilt
aloe of varied height, a neat semi circle round the being
protecting all open ****, still raw


             I can cry out for pain, but I do not
I let it sit inside my mouth
like a throbbing tongue
till it goes away
or melt into the soil
              that mother earth opens for me, in the wings of stunted dreams


I can reach up and pull a branch to me
full of foliage, green and brown
every leaf a miracle, just for me in this moment
nature dust paints much contrast and sensuous texture










yellow rose

I take your wrists in my hands and you let me to the hasty lines
scribbled in short hand patience
I had better be quick, catch that pulsing
I may miss the already camouflaged code
placed between your lips, a yellow rose

before the world
challenge credence and beat nerve ridden walk
and no need to butter up anything
what's true, is true

I adore you beyond mere words, despite this
dry salt survives absent eyes
expectations sprain and get crippled, hobble on
on crutches made of geranium petals
like a half boat on an arduous journey
to visit a season on another planet that I hold within this can
just for you










stem**

you're such the poem for keeps
no poikilotherm stem
tubes of beautiful green fluids
thanks to the extraordinary sun spill
of light in every breath

what is the benchmark or minimum
for telling someone, "i love you,"?
how many i miss yous
and i wish you were heres are enough,
even minutes after parting?

whatever the number is, **** it.
because my heart remembers to beat
and even attempts to soar with you
to heights new, unfound, unseen.

where the chittering of nearby birds
is both foreign and kind comfort
in our hands;
where oranges and strawberries grow
in tandem, vine over vine, root over root,
and fall into us, sweet and kind and lovely.

if i were to say it too soon, i'm afraid
i'd lose you, your wit, your smile,
dumb jokes and blazing blue eyes.
and by withholding, i risk combustion,
and an end to it all the same.

i love you.

the dew of some mornings is a thing which is not unlike the kind nuisance of my lady's graceless feeble miraculous fingers. who are not unlike the starting end of day where **** and silent and hulking quiet tremble viscous muscles
of pure unlight, teeming with wondrous gleaming follicles, pimpling the
evenings tummy lapped with luna's rapid fortunate tongue. the chittering
globs of arms waxing ferocious. in climbing steeply valleys feet middle in
strange streams. the common streams. the unerring crooked and corpulent streams. in there, between between, 1and1 (you and i) our ventricles beat
insatiably voluminous leaves. from trees of amorous fruit bearing fronds
slapping silence(whileWeBeneathThemIntoEachOthersMe'sDepositSlushyViteWeWe­remore than god's unfound children returning into the cherished cherry red
steaming glue of our very and very clanGlorious howls repeatedly again angain andgain and gain: an earth wholly more to the liking of "which is not unlike us")
                            1
                          !    I:,.

slight music
quite instrumentals slither through the space

now an ethereal silence and a curled, gnarled hand rest at the table
weather-worn pockmarked face twitch
a common occurrence
a scene worthy of a masterful painter
the air sighs, not in sound but in feeling
it is demure, languid,
a seamless bond of hunched figure and wispy breaths
a heart feels light and hollow with pulsating winds surrounding it
a man's hide tingles, prickles
pores gently widen in anticipation

a boxed room
a shackle room
dark, yet for the dim lantern
and a speckling of pinpoints in ever shifting pupils
patterns shift with tightening skin, hackles raised
billowing smoke against snarling and jolting

our West is not kind

a child stumbles with its chittering and chattering, back into its hole
an equalizer delicately rocks upon the floor
hot in its despondence and billowing smoke barrel
the metal becomes cold, uncaring; what despair was impacted upon it has left, as is the same with all objects subject to human emotion

Old blood sleeps in the shackled room
with chattering mumbling children in their holes

life is but glorious process, while we all wish for results
how deplorable

It does help,
To put thoughts to paper;
To lay them out FLAT.
To see the words and meaning,
To feel the rhyme and reason,
To string them out like pearls-
To count the beads,
To put between tooth and nail,
To examine every line and curve.
(These words)
An empty chattering echo in head,
A hollow, indecipherable boom,
A cacophony of giggling and chittering
Whirlwind of birds .
(these words).
Outside the head, these thoughts
And words are tamed in chains,
Captured on these lines-
Taking space on a page.
For who to read?
For You, my sweet-
All these words are for You.

Got money for *** and gambling,
but you're leaving your bills
on someone else's tab.
People are telling me to jump ship.
It's getting harder not to oblige.
I live in multiple states
of anxiety and depression,
ain't it grand?
No "God" here, no "God's will",
quit chittering your religion like
it's a ******* verb; wallowing
in filth, and next is misery.
I'm steadfast on sinking
in this **** already.
I'm still here.

Chittering, flittering, spiky legs skittering,  black crickets sneak underneath the back door -
Skidding on lino and diving for cover as broom bristles sweep them across the smooth floor.
Hiding in crevices, antennae waving, they creep out when I’m dozing off in my chair -
launch at my night light, their whis'pry wings whirring, to tangle their crooked black feet in my hair.

A grin with thin rimmed glasses,
smiles with delight
as she speaks to her sprites,
whispering
with hands wide,
telling them to listen to
her tale of things that go
bump in the night.

“When I was very young
there was a crooked old tree
that sat savagely waving
down the road from me,
a mess of gnarled branches
that looked like they could
grab you up and take a bite.

One day I went out to play,
saw a small squirrel,
and chased it all the way.
Until, it climbed up that
wooden monstrosity.

Distracted,
I did not notice
how the grass reacted,
shrinking under my foot falls.
I failed to see
how far I had actually gone,
because to my little mind
the distance from my yard
to that tree was shorter,
but in reality, it seemed to be
approaching me rapidly
as what was behind
faded out of sight.

Daylight became night
quicker than expected,
and I suspected
that I should go home,
but when I turned around
I found that I was lost,
and all alone.

I heard a twig snap,
then felt a limb smack
me on my lower back.
My body seemed to contract
as I lost my breath,
and a fog of coldness
washed over my flesh.

The wind lifted
a small pile of leaves
revealing tiny
black shiny beings,
a nest of chittering beetles
that started skittering
ever closer.

I cried out. No sir,
and tried to hoof it out of there,
but I had lost my sense direction
and didn’t know where
my small house was.

A little bug
that looked like
a hairy brown spider
leaped up on my dress.
I quickly flicked it off,
then flinched when
I heard something
purring.

I turned in time to see
a small pair of glowing eyes
focused directly on me.

The feline
passed by
rubbing gently
against my thigh,
and then strutted away.

I followed that kitty,
and I thought we
were heading back to my city.

We passed a stone fence,
and a small wooden hut,
a little gas station
that didn’t have much,
plus a tiny graveyard
and a busted gray car.

I walked so far
that my feet got blisters,
saw a stranger,
and cried out, hey mister,
but he didn’t even turn around.

I kept going not knowing
if I would ever get back.
Nervously, I started to laugh.
I had probably snapped,
cause I was scared and starving.

It was dark and cold,
and I couldn’t find
anyone to help me.
People didn’t even
acknowledge my presence
unless I bumped into them.
I tried to speak,
but no one would listen.

I never got home,
just settled here
in this little cottage
for the last
seventy plus years.

No one has stopped by,
in such a long time
so thanks for listening
to this story of mine.

Now, come closer my little dears,
because I am soooo hungry.
I don’t want to be rude,
but you look like food.

Why are you running?

You see when you heard me calling,
you shouldn’t have listened,
like me,
you to are now missing,
but I know where
your new home will be.
There’s a place in my stomach
because it is so empty.”

The little old lady smiled,
chasing the last small child,
with a sharp tap on his neck
she laid him to rest
in a well-dressed bed
of greens and liquid red.

I had never liked the color blue
until they had tried to guess what my favorite color was.

"Blue," They had squealed, with such assurance and brightness
that I didn't want to say that it wasn't; that my favorite color was magenta.

But now
I can't stop seeing blues
wherever I go.

I see it in the deep hues of the ocean;
a dark blue abyss.
In the sky, both night and day.
I see bright hues in space; in stars and nebulas.

I see it in the birds with painted azure and teal feathers
who zip around above us, chittering to themselves;
and the flowers beneath our feet
with such fragile and intricate petals; colors as dark as midnight and as bright as aquamarine.

So many kinds of blue.
Navy, royal, cyan, turqoise.
Each has their own hidden charm, their own correlation with an object or feeling.

Now that I see so much blue, and what wonders it represents
and what emotions it brings,
I wonder why magenta had ever been my favorite.

In my chair near the table
Sitting with my hand to the chin
Holding a blue ink pen
Closing my eyes slowly
Drowning myself into thoughts
Some four lines came out
Poured it on a white paper
Eyes closed and back to thoughts
A hullabaloo woke me up
Blue ink sprinkled on my words
Few dry neem leaves on the table
Distracted by some chittering
It was the mischievous but cute
The three lined little Squirrel !

HITHERING AND TITHERING WATERS OF..

Aaw sure she's my own
little Finnegans Wake.

For my little skeowsha
language is lava

the mind is molten
flowing.

She catches tones and hones
in on the last word.

"pleaseyawannanicecupof...TEA?"

She knows how to
stick question marks on

things like
"...sweets?"

The thunder scares her
on Thursday

& becomes
Thundersday.

The flies bother her on Friday...
becomes Flieday.

Not realising  she is
quoting Mr, Joyce

following in his WAKE.

Or she makes up her own

"ONESDAY...TWOSDAY
WEDDINGDAY...FATTERDAY
SOMEDAY!"

She my little trinketotes
my dear ***** Dumpling.

I read her to sleep.
Not a peep

when Anna Livia Plurabelle...
tells her tale.

Beside the tickling waters of.
Beside the chuckling waters of.
Beside the laughing waters of.

She loves
the music of it all.

"Again!"
she agains it!

" Can't hear with the waters of.
The chittering waters of.

Night now.
Tell me, tell me, tell  me elm.

Night night!
Tellmetale of stem or stone.

Beside the rivering waters of..
Hithering tithering waters of.

Night."

There was a land

Not bland

But very grand


Flowers bloomed from every corner

A beautiful sight

And everywhere you found no mourners


The sun shines fairly bright

The weather was perfect to fly a kite

Everywhere beautiful birds took flight


So beautiful were the plants

But at first you would give them a small glance

Then they’d put you in a trance


Animals chittering all around

Upon their face there wasn’t a frown

Happy, chatting, chittering sound




The land was always peaceful there

And the weather was always fair

With non-violent bears


And there are some perks or two

The sky was always a deep sky blue

With growing bamboo



But that, my friend, is not all

It is never a cold fall

But i do not want to drawl and drawl


So goodbye, farewell

I hear a bell

That says, “It’s time for the wishing well.”

You flit gracefully
from treetop to treetop
singing your sweet, altruistic song.
You're wonderful like this.
Chirping and warbling as you do,
your voice is vibrant and warm and fond and
everything that I'm not.

I'm awfully sorry to rip you from your perch
but I can barely hear your gentle tune from down here.
I love it when you flutter softly down beside me, far,
far from the sky where you
belong.

Oh, little bird.
Oh, my graceful songstress,
you cannot stay with me.
Look at how the leaves ripple and quiver
in the wind.
Look at the other birds chattering and twirling
in the air.
Somewhere in your generous, overflowing heart,
you long to join them in their dance.

Your songs to me are fainter, sadder
than what I know you can sing.
What I know that you can feel.

Doesn't it strain your wings
to fly so close to the ground?
Believe me, the memories I have of you chittering beside me
are among my most cherished,
but you have to know that you are the most
beautiful
in the bright, blue sky.
I'll only ever be happy when I see you
fly
freely again.

Forgive me.
Little bird.
You guileless siren, you.
It appears
as though
my heart beats
with a
new emotion
now.
One that I can't, shouldn't explain
just yet.

But please.
Detach yourself from me.
It's much better this way.
For the both of us.

After the birth of morning
The maturity of the sun
Driving the leaves to grow
Grasses, deep and green
Reaching for the warmth

After noon's heavy heat
Siesta's come and gone
Shadow's time begins
At first, a gradual pace
Deceivingly slow

They lay in wait, watching
The sun's retreat across the sky
Falling to the Earth, coming down
Loosing its power, darkness creeping
The day trying to stretch itself long

Say your prayers on heavy breath
But not for night's stare or embrace
Head for home, bar your door
Children and wives, in pantry's store
Men behind doors, cower, the storm

Rift in time, a seam in the between
Night and day, that which comes
Slips through now, gasping for air
Creatures not of the dark or of day
Only hungry for anything, scared

Twilight creatures, neither human
Nor bear, not wolf, either some
Or both, something between
Feathered, some; tufts of fur
Defying demons, angels both

The run, fearing the heavy night
Here, not for long, just to feast
Catch stray cattle, chicken or child
A raptor from the skies
Or beast jaws wide

The heat of light, retreating
Draws them forth, eyes glinting
Small, beady and cunning
Intelligent malice minded
Chittery cries before night

Tendency to violence, panic
Sometimes sheltered, closeted
Built for speed, cornered and fright
Desperate in their time
A brief interlude, nothing right

Lust for the fresh death
A ****, they'll come together
Feast, and eat in lust
Flurry of feathers, disgust
Hair and fur, they demand

Clenched knuckles, white
On stick and stone, any weapon
A man might hold, protect the home
Thicken oaken doors, seem thin
Windows boarded, watch sun demise

Gaunt cheeks show shadowed, sunken eyes
From too many hard days near end
Always hungry, fearful work, never enough time for work and sleep
Some, drunk, heavy on spices, deep drink
Seeking solace in cups, not protection in men

This village is ******, think old women
Gathered children to hem
Little enough cloth, even for them
Living rags, less human than men
Desperate eyes, from fires and then

A blow from wind, maybe spirit or sin
Hushes hearth fires, extinguishes light
Light scratches at windows, claw
Cloying smells of dirt, **** and death
Seeps through cracks to tight to caulk

A thud on the roof, steps too heavy
Shaking the dust from the ceilings
Drifting like morning fog
A silence, the moments hang
Dread, deep seated to bone

Then the frightened scurry
Talon and claws, scramble
The whoosh and flap of wing
Heavy footed bodies rush in
With the dark, something comes

The little creatures of twilight
Flitter, chittering back to whence
Leaving small tracks, slightly
Bigger than man, maybe
One carried through, kicking

Away they go, but not all
Competing with the powers
That drew forth the deep dark
Hunted like little creatures they are
They rush back, to the seam, the cold

Men, women and children
Still away they hold, another scare
Another night, breathing silent
In fear, tears fall, like horrors
Stalking the seam, in the night

HITHERING AND TITHERING WATERS OF..

Ahhh sure she's my own
little Finnegans Wake.

For my little skeowsha
language is lava

the mind is molten
forever flowing.

She catches tones and hones
in on the last word.

"pleaseyawannanicecupof...TEA?"

She knows how to
stick question marks on

the end of things
like: "...sweets?"

The thunder scares her
on Thursday

& becomes
Thundersday.

The flies bother her on Friday...
becomes Flieday.

Not realiasing  she is
quoting Mr, Joyce

following in his WAKE.

Or she makes up her own

"ONESDAY...TWOSDAY
WEDDINGSDAY...FATTERDAY
SOMEDAY!"

She my little trinketoes
my dear ***** Dumpling.

I read her to sleep.
Not a peep

when Anna Livia Plurabelle...
tells her tale.

Beside the tickling waters of.
Beside the chuckling waters of.
Beside the laughing waters of.

She loves
the music of it all.

"Again!"
she agains it!

" Can't hear with the waters of.
The chittering waters of.

Night now.
Tell me, tell me, tell  me elm.

Night night!
Tellmetale of stem or stone.

Beside the rivering waters of.
Hithering tithering waters of.

Night."

You're the color of chittering pansies, giggling at my visage
You've the elusiveness of a panicked rabbit, scurrying towards slippage  
Down a hole I go, how far? I do not know, perhaps time will stop and I'll float
Like smoke O's and alphabet accusations, questions confused by answers
Running to circle back again, disoriented though stuck in place.
How many oysters must I taste before the guilt can be erased?
Thrown to waste, slit a smile upon my face while I fade.
You're a thief, with a turtle shell hidden in your pocket
Mock my strength by stripping me of defenses.
I'm always late even though time doesn't move,  
And you don't like tea so you'd rather snooze.

-SLuR

I love the moments
When everything is so simple
It's just you and your friends
Being weirdos on the trampoline in the dark
It's you in a moment of truce with someone
Who has hurt you countless times
When you're out on a run
And all you see and think about
Is the things going on around you
Or the next few steps to take
To reach your goal
The content feeling of sitting in your backyard
For ten or twenty minutes
Feeling the sun shine and hearing the birds chittering
Being at a party
Not talking to anyone
Just looking around
At all your friends and thinking
*Wow, I have a great life

I thought I could escape everything If I kept running
but now I've broken both my legs and without you as my crutch, I'm not sure I'll find the willpower to walk again.
  The other day I realized you can prolong the pain for so long but eventually you're going to have to come face to face with it.
I still can't look you in the eyes.
   I swear I can still feel your calloused hands on my lips, They keep me quite and passive. I lose the urge to speak whenever Im around you.
  When I look in mirrors all I see is a little girl staring back, eyes wide and apprehensive. Her hands are shaking and her teeth are chittering, shes breaking down on the inside.
  I wore my boots today to feel confident, maybe if I walk loud enough people will finally acknowledge my tread.
  Im tired of tiptoeing around, I will stomp my feet until everyone hears the pain Im trying to resonate. You always told me i was too loud, I hope I shatter your eardrums now.
  You cover your ears and shush me, I shrink down to the size of my heart, indecisive and weak.
  My father always said patience isn't our families strongpoint, I'm trying to change that. I keep giving you chances because I'm tired of expecting the worst out of people. Maybe I'm more like my dad than I'd like to admit.
  I want you to prove me wrong, I need you to try.

A dirt devil dips into
the valley, crashes and breaks itself
on red canyon walls
Mina Loy spins her words dizzy,
round and round
but they only get lost in the ground
while today I scrape by
How many may I say,
to your ten, Sir?
Your pockets are empty but
you are rich in noise.

Words fall heavy out of man's lips
My own words carried away
by a wind
still spinning against that heavy rock
that even Nancy could not crush
nor Gertrude
you cannot put them in a box
but you tried
the square rock chittering at Woolf
as she crossed the lawn of Oxford.
She found a way into their library
after all

we only have handfuls of
all the thousands of words
buried under rubble
the rocks
the canyons
the words
of men.
but gradually
they escape
as only the wind can.