I still have flashbacks, horrifying and spectral: of conference meetings, projectors and efficiency meetings...corporate metrics, acronymic value cards that read like a Masonic Temple's pledge.. ...honesty, commitment, sacrifice, the dutiful worship of mercury and saltpeter; also customer satisfaction.
           Those flashbacks frequent my mind alot--especially when I am ramming my co-workers into the trash compactor with the blades of the fork truck. They say " ooooh" and " ahhhhh" as if they are getting a massage. They dull my blades with their dull heads.
          I have to ram them with the blades of the fork-trucks, or they will scramble out. They still say things like, " make sure that has a tag,".....and " wear your safety goggles," making chills run down my spine. I haven't put all the workers from the " Do-Wee depot" in the compactor only corporate cadavers and not zombies.
          But I have to forewarn, the zombies are not a threat, it is a few cadavers and the "consumers" that pose a threat to me and what I have built. The zombies are producers, even only if it is moans and putrefaction, but they are good sports, and my only friends.
         Some co-workers, who I was friends with before, I have spared from the compactor--owing mostly to that the part of their brain that was corporate, either fell out on the floor, or was gnawed on by a fellow zombie rendering them good sports and not cadavers.
        I use the building material section to chain them to their previous aisles. Jose, was my best friend, he was shaped like a slug, with a huge lower lip, and slicked back greasy hair, he always cheered me up, how busy it was and how slow he remained. Him and I worked together in the ' outside-lawn-and-garden' section. Even his zombie self has kept his lisp.
          I chain him to the outside lawn and garden section, where he likes to water the flowers. He lunges at me sometimes, but the chain is thick, and Jose is still a cool zombie.
Angry Joe is out there too. He is chained to the 'reach' truck. He is always mumbling about overtime.....or " Im not staying late."
         I have disabled the riding engine, so he just stands on it and runs the fork blades all the way up then all the way down, beeping the horn the whole while. He is the only one I kept, that has some vestige of corporacy in his brain, for the reason that he watches the back gate. The consumers are constantly probing this outside metal fence gate, and Joe has eaten all of them. Don't get me wrong, Joe can be a good sport, when he is not drooling about 'overtime' or ' I havn't took a lunch yet.' He can be quite funny.
          He banters with Ryan from inside 'lawn-and-garden' all the time. Ryan is alot younger, alittle younger than me. He has a mullet(what I call a mullet and he say's a hockey cut) and verily is--before he become a zombie-- the laziest person ever, and now that he is a zombie, well let's just say, I don't have to chain him anywhere, I know where to find him.....at the back gate smoking a ciqerette backwards with his mullet on fire or in the break room. He had the most squeeky voice when he was a human, but now odd fully enough, he sounds like Tom Jones.
         " You ate my cosumer Ryan," drools Angry Joe, " No I didn't Joe, you ate your own consumer," Ryan rejoins in his acapella voice ( I like hearing Ryan's deep zombie voice).
There are others, in the various departments of the Do-Wee Store, but this journal is to relate the first most pressing concern, two cadavers have escaped the compactor.
             The store manager Joyce and her minion(the assistant manager Damien) have escaped. They were ******* humans, and remained so in corporate cadaver form. They hide from me, as I plow through the aisles with the inside forklift. I have used wire from the fencing aisle to reinforce my forklifts. Sometimes a cadaver co-worker will jump out with a price gun, drooling " where is your spootterrrr...."( a safety regulation in the store).....I run them over with great gladness, but then wishing I heeded their advice of safety glasses."Splat."
            I have my theories, on how everyone turned to zombies. It started with over-ocurring routine, which my a.d.d could have been impervious to. But I couldn't have been the only one in the store with a.d.d? But that seems the case. The first day when I showed up to ' outside-lawn-and-garden' it took me six hours before I noticed everyone was zombies. I didn't notice they were zombies until I noticed them in good spirits.
               But the first day of the zombies, was concurrent with the rise of the consumers--ever more dangerous, greedy, and audacious are the consumers. They consume everything in their path, they consume good conversation, good manners, and replace with their mark, which is this....your life with the current moment is to be sacrificed to get them what they need to continue resuming their lives. They do not enjoy shopping, but enjoy holding you in place, consuming you and your values into their value, which has no value at all, since their mind has consigned the present moment that has you and not them, to a number that always has too much value, and they will bring you and it down while you are subject to time and they are not.  
             They turned my friends into prisoners of arbitrary time; and like putting a rabbit in a dank dark basement, with plenty of food and treats and space, it will slowly get diarrhea and die.  Everyday I marked the sunrise, and I would always pay thanks to it, no matter if I was on break or not.  The nine hour day could not ruin me, but my friends being ruined, that started to ruin me.
                       And that is what I believed started all this, nature has no room for two kingdoms of Consumers. So the producers(zombies) were created from the routine of being divested of life, and from nothing they came to produce: producing gases, vile ****** smiles, human  cannibalism, hearty conversation, practical jokes, moaning questions to the infinite sky.... they were created human again, given value, and most of all, I have my friends back, and they are happy again. But, the corporate cadavers that escaped the compactor , put my creation in risk, they look to let in the consumers again, they are up to something...
             But presently with the corporate cadavers gone, and the consumers held at bay, I have my Depot of Eden, I can grow anything, make anything, and soon will be able to ferment everything, especially fuel.   Now monday morning conferences that threaten you to pick it up because there are alot of people out there that want your job( iterated by the frizzy headed gangly Joyce) are replaced with 'zombie dance parties'.  
            " Zombies, what is the first rule of zombie dance party," they reply to me, " dohmp talk bout damp party," then we make a music video.  I let loose a couple of cat's in the break room, and presto, an agile cat make's flesh eating zombies look like Micheal Jackson.  Even I get busy with them, I feel so comfortable with them; dancing to Juvenile "back that *** up,".the best dancer gets to eat the cat...sure beat's listening Joyce's depressing morning pep talks about quotas while I am watching a bird outside the front glass trying to eat a dragonfly, " Keith you paying attention."  I just want to say, " No I am not you frizzy headed gangly walking skeleton key(she is skinnier than the gang of keys jingling on her belt)."    I will find her and put a roofing nail in her temple and her plans.
                The sound of zombies walking in here is music to my ears, like gypsys walking barefoot on a strawberry patch.  I don't know what that has to do with anything, but I like it, and don't care who knows.

            I fortified the outside of the store with everything within the store. I grew a garden, with all the fertilizers, and acids and alkilines of outside garden. I also use the garden chemicals to sprinkle on the brains of my co-worker zombies to change their acidity(almost like a hyrdrangea shrub). The purpose to get them somewhat coherent to play poker and darts in the breakroom. I figured out how to make explosives, with the nitrogen fertilizer and pool cleaning acid, well actually HeyZues did, he always eats both, and one day he moaned really loud  " BLOOOONDEEE " ( his nickname for me from The Good The Bad And The Ugly) and  gestured his expanding stomach, he blew up and gave me my first wound, he destroyed my dart board.   I took his head and posted it on the back loading dock, I know there are consumers trying to infiltrate when he sounds off with " BLOOONDEEEE..."  resounding through the whole store (almost like when he was a human).   I created another dartboard, I can create anything here, sometimes I think, that feeling is what........
                But the point of this journal is the two who escaped the trash compactor, Joyce and Damien. They haunted me before and haunt me still. When I leave to venture outside for gasoline for the generators(the only thing I need, not for long hopefully) they run amok. I will see new ' sale signs' in zombie penmanship, and I can see that they have hidden co-workers to have cadaver meetings, where they talk about ' customer satisfaction.'  I can sometimes hear keys jangle, it has to be Joyce, for the sound is to the cadence of her John Wayne walk, like she has been on horseback her whole life.
            Outside is very dangerous. There are many consumers out there.
                 I was outisde in the parking lot, where consumers still wallow around when a consumer asked "which product is better." I had to drop a cinder block pallet on him with the forklift; they are more adacious then my zombie co-workers. Even after a pallet of concrete is forklifted on them, they wave fliers with sale advertisments from underneath.
            Well, this particular trip, I returned inside and was startled by the loudspeaker, it was Damien's voice, the same as before, paging the hardware department. I jumped on the fast slim forklift to hunt for him. There are phone terminals everywhere, and he could be in the upper level offices. I saw Joyce's shape through the window once.
          They are up to something.
Everytime I ventured outside, the store became altered. I even saw a consumer waiting in line with the cashier machine now on. I sent the consumer to Angry Joe, who was due for a lunch break.
          There is a gap in my wire somewhere, I know it.
            I was at the gas station, getting propane and gas, when a consumer was scowling " where is the gas attendant, is everyone stupid or what?" while he was trying to figure out how to pump gas. I disabled the safety pumps, they do not shut off, and do not coincide with numbers, you hold the handle it pumps out as much as you need.
              He was pacing around like a little kid denied recess and suffering from sounds of frolic and kickball--dragging his feet due to the fact he had to pump his own gas, I heard a scraping metallic clicking noise. My eyes were caught by a bright glare on his shoe tread, I gripped my nail gun..... then he dropped the hose and walked back to his car with gasoline gushing as his wake. I saw what it was on his tread, I had no time to flee....it was a push button grill ignitor with the orange tint of a " Do-Wee" label on it......" ****."
              The last thing I registered was the consumer saying " ahhh don't touch me," apparently talking to flames. I woke up in a ditch, the big fork truck and my gas station destroyed.
I limped back to the " Do-Wee" store, and utter horror greeted my singed and surprised eyebrows.
              " Grand Re-Opening, 50% off everything." I squeezed the trigger of the nail gun, the nail harmlessly echoed off the parking pavement at which it was aimed. "They set me up at the gas station. "
               They had to do better than that to separate me from my zombies.

             I entered through the store in a nun-plussed state. I woke out of my unbelieving stupor with the sound of Jose's voice. " Welcome to Doooooo-Weeee....can I eat your...."
            "Jose it's me, who chained you to the entrance?"
         " Dammian, Keeeeeth, they are waiiiting....here's a newsletter...." --he smacked me across the face with the newsletter.
        " I don't want that ****.....' as I clutched the newspaper the loudspeaker went off in Dammians annoyingly over-polite and late-night-voice.
       " Attention shoooppers. all prices are feeeefty percent off, ask our associate Keeeeeth for a 80% discount, he is the skinny deleeecious looking kid with spicy skin, and a boston red sox hat on."
Hundreds of consumers pivoted their heads to my direction. " Hey, that kid has a Boston Yankees hat on."
         " Run Keeeth," zombie-lisped Jose.
           Fifty million imbecilic questions assailed me at once......" can I return this sprinkler for a jacuzzi.....can I get 120% off.....can you come to my house and fix my television for free"-- it was unabashed audacity, survial of the most annoying and repetitious; and the corporate cadavers have let this consuming flood in on me and my poor zombies.
           I needed to find my steed, my inside forklift. It was not where I left it near the entrance.            
        Surely they have sabotaged it. " the riding mowers," the thought uplifted my fading resolve. I darted past wallowing consumers before they could get my scent. I heard a consumer, " you obviously don't know what Im talking about," talking to zombie George, who was munching roofing nails.
         The consumer grabbed me, and said "here he is, this is Keith, he is wearing a Phoenix red sox cap"--panic bit into my brain, this consumers grip was implaccable. The grip that holds the steering wheel tightly driving nowhere fast, with anything in that interstice of commuting, not worthy of manners and the least of which being a friendly wave to 'go ahead.'
           They formed a wall of uttering stupidity, escape was cut off. They scratched at me, hissed, tore at my flesh and screamed demonistically in my ears. I caved and and called the hoard m'am and sir, they choked me, and loosened their grip only so I could tell them " Im sorry, sorry for your inconvenience, take my life and personality as tribute, take my imagination rendered prostrate by these sceptic corporate words that this mouth emits, betraying my personal form, the human element to this lifeless purposeless machine....destroy me, for finding the infinity between letters of corporate law and none between nature's laws......"
        I was almost unconscious, giving a speech to imagined hooded phantoms......" destroy me, for valuing friendship and imagination, and seeing infinity, in the shadow of a letter, eternity in the numeral of a number, and for defying the order to see things as others do....."...." destroy me, for seeing that people are unhappy and trying to uplift people for the sake of seeing them smile....destroy me, destroy my smirk, and add a lifeless smile to my corpse."
              I heard a horn, the riding floor mopper/buffer, it was Ryan, he commandeered the machine with precision-like drunkenness. He knocked down the consumers like twenty pin bowling. " What's up ***** cat," he possibly said, and I climbed to my feet.
         I walked to the riding mowers, and turned the key on the floor model. I sped the main aisle, with caresses of consumers that would be deep clawings at a slower speed. I dodged stupid question, and swerved from unabashed frugality. I turned up the tool aisle, grabbed a battery nail gun.
              " It says batteries are included, but are they included?" I answered with a 12 gauge nail, and resumed my course to the upper offices, that for too long looked down on me and my friends. I climbed the stairs and entered. The office was abuzz in corporate banalities. " Hello, this is Damian how may I help you.....oh helloooooo keeeeeth, one minute.......sir hold one second thaaaanx."
                I aimed the nail gun muzzle at his ugly overly polite mug." I finally found you, I will get the store back in shape Damian...."
          He cut me off, " no yoou woonn't, they are pouring in, we will meet our quota for the year...."
        " Me and my friends

Grandiosely bragging about what you would do
While gently pulling my hair, adding emphasis to
Such a desperate attempt just out of the blue
I had to shake my head and feel sorry for you.

How very little you must think of yourself
To offer your body and withhold your mind
To quickly entangle and even faster unwind
Leaving countless diminished beings behind.

My sympathy should lie with every woman
That has welcomed your nothingness on chance
That has been lured by your lustful glance
To later be dismissed when they seek to advance.

All I see is a scared little boy, trying to hide
In superficial exploits because you're void inside
Casting lines of bait with all feelings aside
Giving no thought to others cause your soul has died.

© Tina Thompson

I will bring fire to thee.

Euripides.—’Androm’.

‘Eiros’.

Why do you call me Eiros?

‘Charmion’.

So henceforward will you always be called. You must forget,
too, my earthly name, and speak to me as Charmion.

‘Eiros’.

This is indeed no dream!

‘Charmion’.

Dreams are with us no more;—but of these mysteries
anon. I rejoice to see you looking life-like and rational.
The film of the shadow has already passed from off your
eyes. Be of heart, and fear nothing. Your allotted days of
stupor have expired, and to-morrow I will myself induct you
into the full joys and wonders of your novel existence.

‘Eiros’.

True—I feel no stupor—none at all. The wild
sickness and the terrible darkness have left me, and I hear
no longer that mad, rushing, horrible sound, like the “voice
of many waters.” Yet my senses are bewildered, Charmion,
with the keenness of their perception of the new.

‘Charmion’.

A few days will remove all this;—but I fully
understand you, and feel for you. It is now ten earthly
years since I underwent what you undergo—yet the
remembrance of it hangs by me still. You have now suffered
all of pain, however, which you will suffer in Aidenn.

‘Eiros’.

In Aidenn?

‘Charmion’.

In Aidenn.

‘Eiros’.

O God!—pity me, Charmion!—I am overburthened
with the majesty of all things—of the unknown now
known—of the speculative Future merged in the august
and certain Present.

‘Charmion’.

Grapple not now with such thoughts. To-morrow we will speak
of this. Your mind wavers, and its agitation will find
relief in the exercise of simple memories. Look not around,
nor forward—but back. I am burning with anxiety to
hear the details of that stupendous event which threw you
among us. Tell me of it. Let us converse of familiar things,
in the old familiar language of the world which has so
fearfully perished.

‘Eiros’.

Most fearfully, fearfully!—this is indeed no dream.

‘Charmion’.

Dreams are no more. Was I much mourned, my Eiros?

‘Eiros’.

Mourned, Charmion?—oh, deeply. To that last hour of
all there hung a cloud of intense gloom and devout sorrow
over your household.

‘Charmion’.

And that last hour—speak of it. Remember that, beyond
the naked fact of the catastrophe itself, I know nothing.
When, coming out from among mankind, I passed into Night
through the Grave—at that period, if I remember
aright, the calamity which overwhelmed you was utterly
unanticipated. But, indeed, I knew little of the speculative
philosophy of the day.

‘Eiros’.

The individual calamity was, as you say, entirely
unanticipated; but analogous misfortunes had been long a
subject of discussion with astronomers. I need scarce tell
you, my friend, that, even when you left us, men had agreed
to understand those passages in the most holy writings which
speak of the final destruction of all things by fire as
having reference to the orb of the earth alone, But in
regard to the immediate agency of the ruin, speculation had
been at fault from that epoch in astronomical knowledge in
which the comets were divested of the terrors of flame. The
very moderate density of these bodies had been well
established. They had been observed to pass among the
satellites of Jupiter without bringing about any sensible
alteration either in the masses or in the orbits of these
secondary planets. We had long regarded the wanderers as
vapory creations of inconceivable tenuity, and as altogether
incapable of doing injury to our substantial globe, even in
the event of contact. But contact was not in any degree
dreaded; for the elements of all the comets were accurately
known. That among them we should look for the agency
of the threatened fiery destruction had been for many years
considered an inadmissible idea. But wonders and wild
fancies had been of late days strangely rife among mankind;
and, although it was only with a few of the ignorant that
actual apprehension prevailed, upon the announcement by
astronomers of a new comet, yet this announcement was
generally received with I know not what of agitation and
mistrust.

The elements of the strange orb were immediately calculated,
and it was at once conceded by all observers that its path,
at perihelion would bring it into very close proximity with
the earth. There were two or three astronomers of secondary
note who resolutely maintained that a contact was
inevitable. I cannot very well express to you the effect of
this intelligence upon the people. For a few short days they
would not believe an assertion which their intellect, so
long employed among worldly considerations, could not in any
manner grasp. But the truth of a vitally important fact soon
makes its way into the understanding of even the most
stolid. Finally, all men saw that astronomical knowledge
lies not, and they awaited the comet. Its approach was not
at first seemingly rapid, nor was its appearance of very
unusual character. It was of a dull red, and had little
perceptible train. For seven or eight days we saw no
material increase in its apparent diameter, and but a
partial alteration in its color. Meantime, the ordinary
affairs of men were discarded, and all interest absorbed in
a growing discussion instituted by the philosophic in
respect to the cometary nature. Even the grossly ignorant
aroused their sluggish capacities to such considerations.
The learned now gave their intellect—their
soul—to no such points as the allaying of fear, or to
the sustenance of loved theory. They sought—they
panted for right views. They groaned for perfected
knowledge. Truth arose in the purity of her strength
and exceeding majesty, and the wise bowed down and adored.

That material injury to our globe or to its inhabitants
would result from the apprehended contact was an opinion
which hourly lost ground among the wise; and the wise were
now freely permitted to rule the reason and the fancy of the
crowd. It was demonstrated that the density of the comet’s
nucleus was far less than that of our rarest gas; and
the harmless passage of a similar visitor among the
satellites of Jupiter was a point strongly insisted upon,
and which served greatly to allay terror. Theologists, with
an earnestness fear-enkindled, dwelt upon the biblical
prophecies, and expounded them to the people with a
directness and simplicity of which no previous instance had
been known. That the final destruction of the earth must be
brought about by the agency of fire, was urged with a spirit
that enforced everywhere conviction; and that the comets
were of no fiery nature (as all men now knew) was a truth
which relieved all, in a great measure, from the
apprehension of the great calamity foretold. It is
noticeable that the popular prejudices and ****** errors in
regard to pestilences and wars—errors which were wont
to prevail upon every appearance of a comet—were now
altogether unknown, as if by some sudden convulsive exertion
reason had at once hurled superstition from her throne. The
feeblest intellect had derived vigor from excessive
interest.

What minor evils might arise from the contact were points of
elaborate question. The learned spoke of slight geological
disturbances, of probable alterations in climate, and
consequently in vegetation; of possible magnetic and
electric influences. Many held that no visible or
perceptible effect would in any manner be produced. While
such discussions were going on, their subject gradually
approached, growing larger in apparent diameter, and of a
more brilliant lustre. Mankind grew paler as it came. All
human operations were suspended.

There was an epoch in the course of the general sentiment
when the comet had attained, at length, a size surpassing
that of any previously recorded visitation. The people now,
dismissing any lingering hope that the astronomers were
wrong, experienced all the certainty of evil. The chimerical
aspect of their terror was gone. The hearts of the stoutest
of our race beat violently within their bosoms. A very few
days suffered, however, to merge even such feelings in
sentiments more unendurable. We could no longer apply to the
strange orb any accustomed thoughts. Its
historical attributes had disappeared. It oppressed us
with a hideous novelty of emotion. We saw it not as
an astronomical phenomenon in the heavens, but as an incubus
upon our hearts and a shadow upon our brains. It had taken,
with unconceivable rapidity, the character of a gigantic
mantle of rare flame, extending from horizon to horizon.

Yet a day, and men breathed with greater freedom. It was
clear that we were already within the influence of the
comet; yet we lived. We even felt an unusual elasticity of
frame and vivacity of mind. The exceeding tenuity of the
object of our dread was apparent; for all heavenly objects
were plainly visible through it. Meantime, our vegetation
had perceptibly altered; and we gained faith, from this
predicted circumstance, in the foresight of the wise. A wild
luxuriance of foliage, utterly unknown before, burst out
upon every vegetable thing.

Yet another day—and the evil was not altogether upon
us. It was now evident that its nucleus would first reach
us. A wild change had come over all men; and the first sense
of pain was the wild signal for general lamentation
and horror. The first sense of pain lay in a rigorous
construction of the breast and lungs, and an insufferable
dryness of the skin. It could not be denied that our
atmosphere was radically affected; the conformation of this
atmosphere and the possible modifications to which it might
be subjected, were now the topics of discussion. The result
of investigation sent an electric thrill of the intensest
terror through the universal heart of man.

It had been long known that the air which encircled us was a
compound of oxygen and nitrogen gases, in the proportion of
twenty-one measures of oxygen and seventy-nine of nitrogen
in every one hundred of the atmosphere. Oxygen, which was
the principle of combustion, and the vehicle of heat, was
absolutely necessary to the support of animal life, and was
the most powerful and energetic agent in nature. Nitrogen,
on the contrary, was incapable of supporting either animal
life or flame. An unnatural excess of oxygen would result,
it had been ascertained, in just such an elevation of the
animal spirits as we had latterly experienced. It was the
pursuit, the extension of the idea, which had engendered
awe. What would be the result of a total extraction of
the nitrogen? A combustion irresistible, all-devouring,
omni-prevalent, immediate;—the entire fulfilment, in
all their minute and terrible details, of the fiery and
horror-inspiring denunciations of the prophecies of the Holy
Book.

Why need I paint, Charmion, the now disenchained frenzy of
mankind? That tenuity in the comet which had previously
inspired us with hope, was now the source of the bitterness
of despair. In its impalpable gaseous character we clearly
perceived the consummation of Fate. Meantime a day again
passed—bearing away with it the last shadow of Hope.
We gasped in the rapid modification of the air. The red
blood bounded tumultuously through its strict channels. A
furious delirium possessed all men; and with arms rigidly
outstretched towards the threatening heavens, they trembled
and shrieked aloud. But the nucleus of the destroyer was now
upon us;—even here in Aidenn I shudder while I speak.
Let me be brief—brief as the ruin that overwhelmed.
For a moment there was a wild lurid light alone, visiting
and penetrating all things. Then—let us bow down,
Charmion, before the excessive majesty of the great
God!—then, there came a shouting and pervading sound,
as if from the mouth itself of HIM; while the whole
incumbent mass of ether in which we existed, burst at once
into a species of intense flame, for whose surpassing
brilliancy and all-fervid heat even the angels in the high
Heaven of pure knowledge have no name. Thus ended all.

Catching the hard, red cricket ball
I rub it on my trousers, spin it in my hand
and reaching backwards throw it at her.

Hard and accurate the ball
divested of a reason rotates through the air,
catching the sun upon its body, gathering
impetus until the eye is mesmerized.

It happened far too quickly:
the untiring accuracy of my throw
that never would have hit a wicket
folded against her with a gentle noise.

She winced, her hand upon her *****, tried to smile
and started crying like a girl;
and picking up the ball I threw it furiously down the field
and found myself in tears.

This is one of Barry Hodges' most inspired memories.

  'Twas morning time in times of yore and I, bold Barry Hodges, stood outside my store, my giant vegetables on display for all to see, when lo and behold! a luxurious limousine drew up, and from the back there emerged a gorgeous form of voluptuous statuesque feminity.
  "My God!" I cried, it is that beauteous lady from *La Dolce Vita, the wondrous Anita - and I gazed with joyous on her divine body, imagining it sprawled lasciviously in my bed, legs open as wide as a major road junction on the M1 motorway.
  "Excuse me", said she in that Italo-Swedish voice guaranteed to make any man wet himself copiously, "But I am a-lookink for a shop a-called 6B, and yet all I can-a-see is a Barry Hodges' the Master Geengrocer's, complete with a giant cucumber or two, which I 'av to say remind me of somet'ing tasty."
"Dearest lady, said I, you have come to the right place: 6B is the trading name of my sister enterprise: Barry Bodgers' Boil Bursting Beauty Bureau which is located upstairs, Barry Bodgers at your service, my dearest, most delightful Fru Ekberg."
"Shhhhhhhhh! I am een deesguise, not even dear Federico knows I am-a-here." And thus, assuring her of my utmost discretion, and forming a bond by saying that I too, the famous Geordie seducer, Barry Hodges, had indulged in a slight nomenclatural change in order to separate the two sides of my business interests, and in order to do a spot of money laundering on the side.  "But," I enquired, "How is it that you have need of the rather specialised medical services we offer, you who are so radiant and bella-bella?" She lowered her eyes seductively and promised to reveal her terrible secret.

As I ushered her up the stairs to the studio, my eyes on her ****-cheeks wiggling like two delectable beach ***** in a sack, she told me the sad tale of the immense boil which kept recurring on the middle of her back and which no amount of corrective surgery could fix.
"Aha!" I exclaimed, "Only Barry Bodgers, the world's greatest boil-sucker, can effect the cure for which you long, and I shall operate on you personally, not entrusting such a task to even the best of my boil-bursting minions." I added to myself, "Also I want to give you a good old bonking while we're at at."

Once we attained the privacy of my consulting room, I instructed her to strip off utterly so I might examine her, and I can tell you, dear reader, that her **** **** was a joy to behold. I too divested myself of my clobber, knowing that boil-******* can get a bit messy at the best of times. Jesus wept!, but the mighty boil betwixt her graceful shoulders revealed when de-plastered was a true horror, with a yellow tip as big as a Grade One Belgian Turnip. I explained that I would **** it out whilst I rogered her from the rear and that, when she felt her ****** on the way, she should scream out to that effect and I would then bite the core of the boil right out in a blaze of mutual ******* glory, before applying a dose of my exclusive Boil Preventative Cream, namely a handful of our conjoined love-juices extracted from her gaping ***** by hand a few seconds earlier.
"Yes! Yes! Yes!" screamed the Swedish bombshell and with a mighty **** like an industrial Dyson FX334 on full power, I slurped and  razor-bit the boil, bursting it asunder, smothering my eager face in blood and putrid pus, thereby causing me to blow my *** as ne'er before. The green core of the boil emerged from its fleshly cavity with a deafening plop as we came together like a nuclear blast d'amour.

O, but only then, as my seminal outpourings soaked my jim-jams, did I awaken to discover yet another nocturnal emission. And, not unexpectedly, dear Nurse Nellie, having heard my cry of ecstasy, rushed in to my bedroom, head-shaking and tut-tutting as usual, as she knelt down and licked my tum-tum dry.
"Yum, yum" she murmured in her dulcet Northumbrian tones, "Ah've looked after three generation o' Hodges laddies, and I kin tell ye, your *****'s the tastiest of them all, ye bonnie wee man."
"Better than Grandad Charlie's?"
"Why aye, mon, yours is well creamier."

1658

Endanger it, and the Demand
Of tickets for a sigh
Amazes the Humility
Of Credibility—

Recover it to Nature
And that dejected Fleet
Find Consternation’s Carnival
Divested of its Meat.

The two,
Divested.

                                The two divested,
                          the darkness melting away every imperfection.

every imperfection:
every stray hair
small blemish
scars
protruding bones
and fat.
Legs too skinny and hairy
to be enjoyed in the light.

                                  Love-
                       a nocturnal creature that prospers most in the dark
                                        Thriving on your pining .

The nocturnal creature known as love
enveloping the two.

Love,
and through love,
each creature-
the two and love,
all becoming a symbiote
and a parasite.

                       The darkness-
                 a creature of it's own kind.

The darkness
melting the day away
                               melting the imperfections away
the light
escaping into the moon
shifting every shadow
and enveloping the three.

The two,
         Love,
              the darkness.

The two love the darkness.

1671

Judgment is justest
When the Judged,
His action laid away,
Divested is of every Disk
But his sincerity.

Honor is then the safest hue
In a posthumous Sun—
Not any color will endure
That scrutiny can burn.

Once more the Big Bang occurs
Each time spurred on by the spark
of the sleeping child's dream of reality
A naked singularity inflates
at an exponential rate
Subsisting on the substrate
of her slumbering psyche

Her neural networks create galaxies
Energy expended directly from REM sleep
spent on the formation of solar systems
and stars
comets crash land carrying key components
for the conditions of future life on Earth
and Mars

Within the primordial soup
Of the third rock from the sun
Residing in the ocean
-life has just begun
Microbes photosyntesize carbon
Giving Earth an atmosphere rich with oxygen
Arbitrary factors steer evolution
Tetrapods mutate from fish
becoming amphibious

Exodus.

Something steps onto the surface
- for the first time
Two billion years have elapsed
mere minutes move in the girl's mind

It was maybe thirty minutes since
she bade her mom goodnight
The child sleeps tight
Meanwhile a caveman strikes flint on timber
The resulting embers form a fire
Providing him with warmth and some light

Callous winds from outside conquers
the comfort of her comforter
A chill permeates the child's skin
This feeling reverberates all the way down
The first ice age begins
A frozen world of snow
For eleven thousand years
Her mother creeps in closing her window
The ice age ends

External stimuli
affects those things which rely
on her to sustain sleep

The 21st century is past the prime of its peak
The greenhouse effect from carbon
Corrupts the ozone, making it weak
Wars carry on over resources or religion
Water levels rise and countries
remain in division
Governments pick payouts over compassion  
Indifferent to what happens
With their most vulnerable citizens
Letting most rot in for-pay private prisons
Yet far removed from all these chaotic conditions in this society,
...The child still snoozes,ever so quietly

There's no more gods In the 2,001st century.

In their place, now only harmony and grace
Humanity banded together as a unified race
galvanized toward a single, common goal
To flee the dying planet
before it swallows them all whole

A contingency plan is put in place
For when the scientists fail
and the Earth collapses under its own weight
A ship will be sent deep into outer space
containing embryos and astronauts
suspended In a cryogenic state

The sun assaults the closed blinds
Testing the resolve of the resting child...

Two astronauts are jolted awake
En route,they believe
To a viable new world to habitate
Earth imploded five decades past
But with mass embryonic incubation
-they will revive humanity
Saving it from the brink
of all-out annihilation,
All that hinges on is if they can first safely reach:
Their destination

A routine glance
at procedural scans on the screen
Shows they shifted an exigious sum
while they were sustained in cryogenic hibernation
This detour turned exponential;
when you tally up the years
They fail to attain any feelings aside from fear
for this journey they must now embark
a single line of corrupted code controls their ship,
"The Noah's ark"
These last two have veered so far
from what would have been humanity's
new home
-With no way to course correct
They suspected their task would take a toll
But they were not expecting anything
like this:

Adrift towards a rift in reality
The ship's malfunction
steered them in its wake
It's too late now:
-far too close they can't escape
That dark incision distends itself
gourging on time and space
There is a beauty to how things end
Watching superheated gas and dust aggregate
Creates an accretion disk concealing vacuity
-Yet shines much brighter
than an angel's halo
The two astronauts strap in to the cockpit
With front row tickets to the show:
...just how far down the black hole,
         are you willing to go?

The mother returns,
fully opening the blinds
Cuddles next to her resting child...

Meanwhile Inside the singularity
The last human sees a secret and weeps
He's peering beyond the veil now
Into a little girl's room who is asleep
Yes, he sees her clear
her mother spoons her nestling near,
Shakes her shoulders softly,
whispers into her daughter's ear,
-As she does every morning day,
" what did you dream of this time, my dear?"

She kisses her daughter on the cheek
The little girl yawns as she speaks
Birds outside have started to sing:

"Momma, I think I dreamed of...Everything?"

His eyes close
The man gives in to that sweet release
All of her internal creations ceast
Consumed
as the child is wrenched from the well
Of her own unconscious infinity
The pocket dimension contained within her
Is decimated as she arises
All that energy then metabolizes
to sustain her life
And when she rests it will be divested
once again
To create a new dimension-
as it does every night

Eternal Bloom
Entire galactic timetables and scales contained
In the slumbering soul of a six-year old
She will grow old
She will wither
She will die
As the world's which reside in her do,
When she wakes.

- when she meets her fate
On that operating room table
at the age of 98
the light which emanates at the end of the tunnel

Was merely a father's mistake.

Illumination cast killing darkness
In the bedroom of his home
he absentmindedly turned up the brightness
While playing on his phone
She takes one last breath then fades to grey
In sync with the father stowing his device away
Not alone in his room
he snuggles in for the night
-And can't help but smile
Unaware of the realms
that depend on the dreams

Of his own unassuming, resting child.

-

Little divested flower,
Shame— how you break with the peak of light.
A blossom they might think,
You're still a phony stick.
Is it guilt filling the scene?
Or is it just the sunbeam?

There we were,
under the watch of the moon
and the distant traffic lights,
swinging from rope to water,
diving, turning, spinning.
Drunk on our youth,
we divested ourselves of our suits
and let the water sink around our bodies,
which glowed with untainted whiteness,
Clean&*****;&Free;
all at once.
We told each other we weren’t self conscious,
and maybe it was true,
but even if it wasn’t, it didn’t matter.
I have never felt so beautiful and alive,
as I did the moment I paused in midair at the apex
with the rope strangled under my muddy fingers
and let go,
my naked body under the stars and the moon and the sky,
flying weightless
through the night.

MARION! why that pensive brow?
What disgust to life hast thou?
Change that discontented air;
Frowns become not one so fair.
’Tis not Love disturbs thy rest,
Love’s a stranger to thy breast:
He, in dimpling smiles, appears,
Or mourns in sweetly timid tears;
Or bends the languid eyelid down,
But shuns the cold forbidding ‘frown’.
Then resume thy former fire,
Some will love, and all admire!
While that icy aspect chills us,
Nought but cool Indiff’rence thrills us.
Would’st thou wand’ring hearts beguile,
Smile, at least, or seem to smile;
Eyes like thine were never meant
To hide their orbs in dark restraint;
Spite of all thou fain wouldst say,
Still in truant beams they play.
Thy lips—but here my modest Muse
Her impulse chaste must needs refuse:
She blushes, curtsies, frowns,—in short She
Dreads lest the Subject should transport me;
And flying off, in search of Reason,
Brings Prudence back in proper season.
All I shall, therefore, say (whate’er
I think, is neither here nor there,)
Is, that such lips, of looks endearing,
Were form’d for better things than sneering.
Of soothing compliments divested,
Advice at least’s disinterested;
Such is my artless song to thee,
From all the flow of Flatt’ry free;
Counsel like mine is as a brother’s,
My heart is given to some others;
That is to say, unskill’d to cozen,
It shares itself among a dozen.

  Marion, adieu! oh, pr’ythee slight not
This warning, though it may delight not;
And, lest my precepts be displeasing,
To those who think remonstrance teazing,
At once I’ll tell thee our opinion,
Concerning Woman’s soft Dominion:
Howe’er we gaze, with admiration,
On eyes of blue or lips carnation;
Howe’er the flowing locks attract us,
Howe’er those beauties may distract us;
Still fickle, we are prone to rove,
These cannot fix our souls to love;
It is not too severe a stricture,
To say they form a pretty picture;
But would’st thou see the secret chain,
Which binds us in your humble train,
To hail you Queens of all Creation,
Know, in a word, ’tis Animation.

Reading an anthology of
Classic poems
On quiet a night
With wings of
Enlightenment and delight
My soul took flight
To far-off lands bright
Rife with musical poems
Some brain racking,
While some savory but light.

When I saw celebrated poets
From my dream plane
I decided to alight
So that the messages
Encoded on their poems,
To me they further explain.
Cognizant that
Hearing things from
The horse’s mouth
Like Antarctica
Will not make things
As far south.

I saw Helen Steiner Rice
Reading whose works
Like  ‘Christmas Guest’
Is nice.
When she me behold
This to me she told
“Till your corporeal being’s
Turn come to be a sod
Never desist to
Put your hope in God,
Who foresees and shapes
That will unfold.
Always dwell
In the vineyard of
The Lord. ”
Drew close James Stephens
With Helen
You are right nod.
“Chap, if you look around
You will behold
On everything
The hallmark of
Creation stamped by God!
Also excellent, from
The ordinary extra,
Your will hear
Nature’s God praising
Orchestra! ”
Willian Henery Davis
Courteously came by
To say <<Hi!>>.
“Be content with
What you have
You will be happy
When that you learn to love.
See you not why
The example set
By the butterfly,
On a rough rock
That sleeps content
Without a blanket! ”

Soon I met
Enda St. Vincent Millay
Whose fame
Surfing the tide of time
To date that does resonate.
“As the saying goes
‘The world is lovely
And the loveliest is enough!’
To be happy
Try to nurture the culture
Of admiring nature.
Waste not time
Go to the mountain
The secret of happiness
To you it will explain.”

After seconds walk
William Ernest Henely
Approached me for a hard talk
“When beset by challenges
Never give in
That is a great sin!
As for me, whenever
I fall
Soon I get up as the
Captain of my soul.
Though in the darkness
God seems far,
For the downhearted
He is a lodestar.”
I saw Elenor Frajeon
By a roadside
With a book in her hand.
“Love to books
Is a launching pad
To a wonderland,
Where readers meet authors
Of different brand
Hence, a window to their
Soul they will stand.
Also read my poem
That draws attention
To mother-to-child affection
That defies description.”

I met anon
Austin Dobson
“A rose
To itself
A question
Opted to pose.
‘I wonder why
This hoary-headed
Gardner refuses to die?’
But soon
A wind blew up
Its sun-withered
Petals to the sky.
The analogy teach
On the timeline
Brief, beauty to a grind
Will screech.

Patted me on the back
My son,
Ben Johnson
“Like a Lele
Being short and brief
Could render life
Ease and relief! ”

Sat on a rock
Samuel  Taylor Coleridge
To me a secret he broke.
With bitter smile
Waving his
Pen as a tool,
“Those who think
A poet is a fool
They will realize
Who is rather the fool
If they think with
A head cool!”
I saw Walter De la Mare
Exactly the way towards
Old Susan he used to stare.
“Susan taken away by
A romantic fiction
Past midnight
Sat on chair
Engrossed in a monologue
‘Breeching
Culture rules
Is not fair! ’
After
One’s age
Did advance
Reading fiction
One stands
For reliving
The past
A chance.  ”

Soon, came William Blake
Me to the graveyard
To take
Pointing to
A headstone
“Now, my enemy,
Object of my anger,
Is dead.
Subject to a
Conscious pang
It is divested of a soft pillow
I go to bed!
You must not yourself find
An axe to grind
Otherwise, to a reason
You will become blind.”
For supper
Volunteered to be
My host
Robert Frost.
He stressed
“To settle
Punitive price
As lethal
As fire is ice!”
Came an invited guest
Edmund Spencer
To tell us
The mystery
That put
His phlegmatic dream object
And he, her
Ardent lover, asunder.
“When fire and ice
Are locked in a love’s dorm
Out of the norm,
One may not change
The other’s form! ”
Via the window,
I saw a graveyard
Past the meadow.
When my eye caught sight
Of Julia Caroline
I took steps
To sit by her side
The meaning of eternal love
To understand.

“A kiss on the lips
From a lover
Is a keepsake stamp
That transcends
An earthly map.”

There in the graveyard
I met Sara Teasdale
“Like a low hanging ripe fruit
In the gray time
When a lass
Is off guard
To ****** her
A chance a lad
May stand.
Also from affection
For conjugal felicity
Many a lass
Could give added attention.”
I posed
Why should you show bent
To profanity?
“My friend
A *** could not be taken naughty
For expressing man’s sexuality!
For the answer try to meet
                Anne Bradstreet.”

Before I asked
Her why she
Committed a suicide
She got clear
From my side.

Anne Bradstreet
I met
“It is tragic
To have at home
A child with
A down syndrome!

What lurks
In the subconscious
Of an author or a poet
Through his/her pen
S/he may seek an outlet
So to date,
Regretting
“Why did I
Write this a taboo-seen
Thing!”
Seems some author’s fate.


I saw Thomas Hood
Amidst his harvest
That fares good
He told me
“From a perfumed
And well attired lady
Who belongs
To the top brass,
It is by far better
To tie a knot
With a provincial lass,
In her hair
With a fresh flower
Plucked out of the grass
She shines bright
Bathed by sunlight!”

Out on the street again
I met Lithuanian Salomejia Neris
I became happy
As I never wanted her to miss.

I asked her
About the heard-renting fate
She, her father, her mother, siblings
Neighbors and her age mate
Underwent.
“During the  World War II
Children, who
Otherwise were
Considered
Unfit for themselves
To fend,
Were forced
The brutal ****
To defend!”
Soon I met
Richard Lovelace
And John Scott
Locked in an argument hot.
The former
“I want to head to the front
It is a source of pride
To fight on
Nation’s side.”
The latter
“Paying a price grand
I cannot understand!”

Edwin Arlington Robison came
To tell me the story
About Richard Cory
“Measure not
Your life by
The success of your object
Of admiration,
The one a role- model
You hold or held,
I am afraid
Off guard
He can lodge
A bullet in
His head.”


I saw William Butler Yeats
, an Irish poet
Who raised an issue hot.
“How an
Angel helped out
A tired priest
A snap who
Could not resist
While a laity
In his parish
Was Ceasing to exist.”
Robert Herrick approached
Me this to speak
“I am smote
By grief,
To see a Daffodil,
Like human beings ,is brief.”

Said Emily Dickinson
“It is when you ere to hit
A target heart felt
You’ll understand
The meaning of
Having something desired
Under your belt.”
At last
I saw
Edgar Allan Poe
To make this to me
He made haste.
Though a pauper
“From my soul mate
No earthly or heavenly power
Is capable to asunder me
Top date.
After reading this much
I realized why
Poets never die”//////

They said I divested Saturn of his rings
and asked if he would dance with me.
He squeezed my fingers so heat lingered.
I knew he was told I'm a danger;
that I don't feel, that I don't kneel,
that I'm a terror, but that isn't fair.
Just say he can't make his own choices.
Say he can't control his impulses.
Why would I tempt a planet to ruin?
Why would I tempt a god to consuming
each breath before it disappears?
Confined him to my strong atmosphere.
Then call my heart weak as it beats in threes
how convenient, toes tap to odd melodies.
For my body's from Venus, how divine.
Yet I was a borne sinner, so keep me in line.
He said good evening as I said goodnight,
atoms were buzzing in the sunlight.
He grinned like I was a prize to be won
It was almost as bright as the starry sun.
So I lead him a bit further and took great care,
Saturn broke his orbit for an affair
and threw himself into the fire.
He was burning desire as I played the lyre.
Strum a gentle song for the end of love,
call me a heartless, winged-rat dove.
Say this is how I feel; this is who I am.
Say I sent an innocent to be ******.
Call me a fiend, a demon, a liar,
when I'm just a woman who played a lyre.

I don’t mean metal gold but those golden moments that make up life’s richest treasure your words
Images you made and shared but more importantly those exquisite for ever framed time that will never
Be forgotten when you laid aside your strength became weak as I in vulnerability you gained excess to
my soul still it burns with high flames out of a dark place it made it more memorable you divested your
Self of the normal selfish life as is so common among us as humans you walked you shared you stared at the
Torrent that was breaking from the storm with the same intensity that I felt a genuine heart knitted with
Mine what power it creates one alone will fall two together unmovable then your hands that you touch
And help with how they moved me I etched them into the sacred most hidden place where the heart is
Seated and over them is written purist gold then your eyes that sparkle we could be in the most
Untamed darkest forest our struggle for survival weighing its heaviest maybe the next breath our last
But then you turned and looked into my eyes it no longer mattered I awoke to the understanding alive
Or dead I saw a seal that was unbreakable it was not forged in powerful steel but emotion and love were
Wrapped intertwined first it is not touchable by you or I or any enemy or circumstance it just is such a
small word is it not but on that hangs all we are or ever will be yes it has dressing cars homes place but
Essentially and they exist by faith a trust that is a solider warrior that has never been defeated he can
Be betrayed and the other can walk away but the one who was true will be true for ever you said
You loved me as we walked familiar dark streets and then a darker world called far away alone I had
Comfort from your letters all was foreign danger was real death stood not in miles but in feet but a
Greater blow your letters stopped funny how a motel a song and other ways your name plagued me
Then you fell in love and married another I soldiered on was loyal to my country brought honor to the
uniform I wore I still visit the place we pledged to always be true no ill will is held if so then I would have
Been a liar I pray for you and your family little do you know your mother died on my birthday how
Strange that was I don’t dwell on those times I let them help me to be watchful if someone is found
Hurting I will be fist to give all I have to ease their pain not for any reward except the reward of seeing
Them find and know relief I mentioned hands and eyes can’t end without mentioning your noble head
Your governess in thought and deed where you hold enchantment as a fine jewel sometimes it depends
But in minutes or hours or cumulative years the facets you reveal wealth and riches that will never be
Found in a bank people act like they don’t understand that it is only transitory what you are is permanent
Unique irreplaceable you are an indivisible keep sake for the ages you represent unending exorable
Qualities that awesome doesn’t say enough what are you then you are undying thoughts once
Conceived and given birth they are forever the best description of being human here is an example since
I can’t share things about everyone these are words from my friend “It was never about becoming your
truth But getting you to question my answers” God bless you friends

The Gold alone will remain
I don’t mean metal gold but those golden moments that make up life’s richest treasure your words
Images you made and shared but more importantly those exquisite for ever framed time that will never
Be forgotten when you laid aside your strength became weak as I in vulnerability you gained excess to
my soul still it burns with high flames out of a dark place it made it more memorable you divested your
Self of the normal selfish life as is so common among us as humans you walked you shared you stared at the
Torrent that was breaking from the storm with the same intensity that I felt a genuine heart knitted with
Mine what power it creates one alone will fall two together unmovable then your hands that you touch
And help with how they moved me I etched them into the sacred most hidden place where the heart is
Seated and over them is written purist gold then your eyes that sparkle we could be in the most
Untamed darkest forest our struggle for survival weighing its heaviest maybe the next breath our last
But then you turned and looked into my eyes it no longer mattered I awoke to the understanding alive
Or dead I saw a seal that was unbreakable it was not forged in powerful steel but emotion and love were
Wrapped intertwined first it is not touchable by you or I or any enemy or circumstance it just is such a
small word is it not but on that hangs all we are or ever will be yes it has dressing cars homes place but
Essentially and they exist by faith a trust that is a solider warrior that has never been defeated he can
Be betrayed and the other can walk away but the one who was true will be true for ever you said
You loved me as we walked familiar dark streets and then a darker world called far away alone I had
Comfort from your letters all was foreign danger was real death stood not in miles but in feet but a
Greater blow your letters stopped funny how a motel a song and other ways your name plagued me
Then you fell in love and married another I soldiered on was loyal to my country brought honor to the
uniform I wore I still visit the place we pledged to always be true no ill will is held if so then I would have
Been a liar I pray for you and your family little do you know your mother died on my birthday how
Strange that was I don’t dwell on those times I let them help me to be watchful if someone is found
Hurting I will be fist to give all I have to ease their pain not for any reward except the reward of seeing
Them find and know relief I mentioned hands and eyes can’t end without mentioning your noble head
Your governess in thought and deed where you hold enchantment as a fine jewel sometimes it depends
But in minutes or hours or cumulative years the facets you reveal wealth and riches that will never be
Found in a bank people act like they don’t understand that it is only transitory what you are is permanent
Unique irreplaceable you are an indivisible keep sake for the ages you represent unending exorable
Qualities that awesome doesn’t say enough what are you then you are undying thoughts once
Conceived and given birth they are forever the best description of being human here is an example since
I can’t share things about everyone these are words from my friend “It was never about becoming your
truth But getting you to question my answers” God bless you friends

displaced to the sterile mercy of this place.
Diaphony withdrawn as probably as
destiny, recalling her palm upturned
to feel the grains that slip into
our sleepless eyes
where she dreamed our futures.
This thought threads arachnodactylous wisps
spreading their many jointed legs to fill
the dancing of a body well used.

I could have come sooner.
I could have divested the clatter,
the shine of baubles and nebulous distractions.
I could easily have offered my soul.

All you wanted: our eyes locked into a perpetual bliss.
All you wanted was a deep and endless pool
the darkness so complete
so comfortable, you said, so final.

You couldn't have fallen the coloured glass like
rain on the asphalt, and somewhere a sandman
dusted the reverie of the highway in downbeats
across the windshield an etude in betrayal.

The night before I tried to call you into the shower,
to call you with my body into the sacred space
that might have saved you for a moment
that might have closed the distance

strung too tightly, the tendons a terse
and gut kept silence of reserve,
between your bruised eyes and shutterred hands.

How is it that another's love
can be so easily abandoned,
so thoughtlessly divested, like an
indifferent breath exhaled into
the frigid morning, visible but
for an instance then vanishing,
and meaning nothing at all?

--

It's a lot of work
Having to drag myself up here
Before slicing you off of me,
Piece by piece,
Tossing the already-rotting morsels
To the raptors
Lurking from the crags,
Anticipating
With rapt hunger.

Those poor birds
Having to settle for gristle,
Already spoiled by rancor and impermanence,
I hope they pardon me
Like how I'm starting to forgive you --
With resignation
Accepting
That it was all you had to offer
In your desolation and brokenness.
And maybe I should have known better
That you didn't know better
Than to sear your conscience,
That betrayal was all you knew.

The trek back down
Ought to be easy.
How can it not be
When I am divested
Of these memories staining me --
Of us flashing sickly sweet grins at each other
Breathing each other in
Serenaded by the music of our souls,
Each asomatous snapshot
Titanic in weight.

I'm surprised
The winds haven't carried me off by now.

Divested self worth and shattered dreams
my heart bleeds to feed the screaming voices
in hopes that my blood will purge them from my mind
and desecrate my thoughts of a life long lost* - Jeffrey Sutter

Writing becomes the margin
The annotations,exclamations..
In the corners of my life.

I am stifling in the sutures of some silicone filled future
where the real becomes the fiction and with a predilection for affection.
I search out with some conviction to look for something more.

In the corners of my eyes where constellations live and die..
..and where stars are born and burn
I turn in to inner space
Hoping there I'll find the place
Where this pen that meets the page is divested of its rage
And in the margins once again
Only peace and ink blots will remain.

Books are made to frame these words.
Sturdy things with wire bound spines.
Many times, I have looked within and been taken far away..
..from where I lay..into another world within this world.
In the whirling of narcotic free.
A story.
This is the me.
The light against the night the wrong way round
The day that breaks without a sound and yet remains unbroken
A token that will win no prize
More constellations in my eyes.

Progressively I believe in more and more of my own lies.
And surprisingly..I knew this would occur
This event was written in the margins when I wasn't there
But was read and readily digested as another fiction.
Fact.

Something that I missed..I lacked?
In the margins..life is difficult and to define a future..
..has no future but the snipping of another suture
Binds these wounds and hurts abate.

I would not write against the margin of my fate
Nor relate the pangs of hunger as I take
An empty page again..to sate my rage again.
I must behave again..
..must be brave again.

In and on a dusty manuscript where one more dream was stripped
And one more life was ripped to shreds
I put to bed my haunts.

The mix and match of minds at hand with attitudes diverse
compel me to make comment that some may find adverse,
Some may find a reason to launch to fierce attack
Whilst others choose to spectate sipping beer and sitting back.

It seems we have proponents of a new unsubtle mix
Who breeze in with their verbal fangs and talons fiercely fixed,
Who at the slightest pretext take offence and go to war
Leaving innocence astounded, open mouthed, upon the floor.

Some here  can handle criticism, others clearly can't
And some perceive this helpful and others simply shan't,
But our greatest single asset is this freedom flow of words
where opinions and convictions are divested and diverged,
Where compliments and attitudes should be taken in our stride
And barking, fierce rejoiners must, perhaps... remain outside.

Ruffled feathers agitate but few intend offence
Interpretations differ... but in truth, with common sense,
Accommodation can be made without hot anger's flame
So let's bury the invective and get on with Shakespeare's game.

M.

The warmth of a spring sun
Beckons people to the Square—
Some sit or lie on the grass,
Others choose the benches, watching—
Studying the tide of life come rolling in
And passing through, all with some purpose,
Somewhere they seem compelled to be.
Sometimes they pause as if for a moment
Divested of their direction, enjoying
The sense of teeming life reawakened,
Stirred by the sheer spectacle of it.
A pigeon struts his way toward a possible mate,
Puffing his feathers and cooing his love,
But ignored as she continues her search for food.
So it goes in our world too
Always the chase, always the aching need.
I can almost hear the bird’s lament—
“Why must I be alone?”
My eyes wander to a man
Sitting on a bench not far away.
He stares ahead at nothing, aware of nothing
Save the thoughts that seem to paralyze him,
Lost to the beauty and light and life
That offers itself to him if only he’d see.
His sadness seems to enfold him in its dark embrace.
Some hurts the world just cannot help,
Some wounds beyond her power to heal.

A husband -> a wronged wife

"My dear take a chair
Your affair is unfair
I can't stand
A suffocating air
This way you and I
Could no longer continue
A loving pair
Soon to my parents
I must repair!
How come for love of a ****
A marital vow
You thwart? "

This way since
You decided me desert
For what I did spurred
By transient lust
Chagrin my soul has hit.
As usual in deep slumber
When I extend my hand
To ascertain whether
You have slept sound
And stir you up
So as we sleep entwined
Yet get awake to a tragedy stark
That I but draw a blank
My heart indeed
Incessantly bleed
From the loss it incurred
Your obeisance and love divested.

If you can't find it in your heart
My folly to forget
Forgive me my dear
For without you near
My life turns insufferably sour.

A wronged wife—>A husband

After your body you befouled
And proved a down to earth cad,
After your spirits perfidy you debased
Impudently you demand
As before I should you hold
An esteemed husband.
Indeed this I will not!
For rancor laden my heart
Bleed incessant
It mustn't!
Away to my parents I fled
For you failed to abscond
After what you did.
'Once bitten twice shy'
Forgive you how could I?

A husband—>A wronged wife

Your forgiveness but
Nothing depurate
The blot
In your eyes
Down me brought.
I hope
Forgiveness is the least
Your impeccable heart
Me could grant.
Even the ocean of tears
I wept
Whitewash me still not
My dear there is a second
Man goes wild
And commits a deed
He condemns absurd,
My perfidy to nothing but
To this folly could be imputed.

Man is prone to err
So you should consider
What matters is his bid
Improprieties away to clear.
So my dear
Give me a chance second
To prove, you loving husband.
Your forgiveness will be a credit
That surely you catapult
To ensconce
In the apex of my heart.
A forgiving personality
Is a virtuous quality
Besides your heart
Me 'love' that taught
Which is also on me soft
Won't follow a policy
Watertight and
Once for all me smite

A wronged wife—>A husband

Raving ans volleying
Boisterousness nay, nay!
You stultify
Must not I.

My mind is bedeviled
Since you I missed.
On your misdemeanor
Brood I shall no more
To night
Come to the cathedral
We first met
As a jump-start
Together out
We have to spend the night.
The night's Zephyr wet
Will wipe away
Our disagreement!

Articulate Throwback (Amazing Rap that Doesn't Get Enough Respect)
Fielding an eclipsed Jack the Ripper Sun
Yielding dismissal garish, begotten The Matrix smokin’ gun
Wielding a firebrand skittish
Skills levied an intolerable tax by quisling quoted British
Stunting on heyday levity marksman of primes
Flogged for flagrant dragons sinking nickels and dimes aimed beatific sublime
Flowing like centripetal orbit  galvanized by riddled spirits dashed in secondary impetus of reason over rhyme
Littoral swank partial to Taylor Series of dedications Speak Now peaks livid with fumiducts of crippled sheep blandished for reach
Apologies invited always welcome for a kitsch debased by universal theaters yet united for Payable on Death singing the deceit of receipts impeached
Islanders flooding suicides punning that a sunken treasure is barbs smuggling
Otiose on ribald corsairs blinkered by the rhombos of speculation thunder itself about lightning starts wondering
Where a City by the Bay shining on a Hill of travesties of decay tanks for domesticated Negros that flashbangs got to slay
To the wistful shaken house music garnishing the prey of prayer on heavy pulls of quotable 415 hay-day
The wrinkled stray dog never  far from *****
Slapsticks against the tribunes awaiting for meteoric functions of a recessive allele of a dominant comet
Ludacris flickers dancing in dormant revelry because On Top, Just Let Go..I am honest and On It
To the milk of harvested stars glaring at tankers and garish broken FaceMash scars teetotalers scatter with Thursday crashing into glass shards
Black fame is a white epiphany of infamy designated by name
Of the craven coltish spinsters who market the crackling whiplash of sanity apportioned to the regaled insufflation of blame
Streaky on a jejune Diggity hapless hop of Kumbayas etched by Trailer Park’s scalding flop
Glorifying a Gangester heir to titanic humbled beginnings chockablock divested to Kennedy’s dead Candy Shop
Impressive rags of riches of counterfeit tags blundering with lazy LASER Tag of sharks too bellicose to earn a pitfall pittance of swag
Trippin’ by tripwires too flippant to be flippin’ on known graves sidesplitters of treecheese yaggots grimaced on madcaps of bottlecaps swimming in ether of money too happy for House of Pain rags of gag orders intrepid because some blood is Bad
****** drapes of tapestries too woven on Ducking Badger duck tape
Pretending not even a slightest twinge of celebrity faked is a tantamount affliction to Kobe’s escape
Time to rig the 7/11 notoriety of a caper drawl in Cape Town Blue Sky Action can barely offer scrape
Let them eat cake and heads roll like Nicholas Cage clairvoyant in mystique quaking like a Quaker parody rank-and-file rancid graveyard creep
Cuz the best in the Business evokes singes of Dre grazed persistence a Space Rover rather than a broken-down drive-by Vegas Cheap Holyfield Jeep
Forgeries in trigonometric time gone haywire because ******* of fools is delicious neutered ballistic wrong with elemental statistic
Armed to the Teeth because twinges of righteousness is strongly established because it elevates truces well-predicted
Reckon the self-aware hive jetsetting with Jive warbles of departure yet to arrive
“Talk” of those fewer in knowledge yet living an invented diatribe
Lil Dicky mumbling his churlish codling vendetta
Too petty on the game like a turgid Mariah Carey Christmas Sweater evaporating on benzo bleats because exaggeration is a measuring stick more prone to delusion than the vapid version of Eddie  Vedder
Ripping through seamstresses of time a delope from impoverished cesspool grime
Certainly not swinging with sockdolagers like Musk as UPS owns insider angles about BitCoin riches scoffing at #11 Sublime
I owe respect to an upstart prescience scowling hatched never against fragile egg-shell minds
He’s the predecessor to the Walter White of cesspool inveterate rivets in hulking pretense of a measured stick lying like Tony  Hawk on the grind drawling on videogame addicts lost to numbers like Wall Street bet on fractions divisible like Scarface on cardinal crime
Blip on the WHIP cackles of clever pasquinade owned by sizzurp of Red Wings demolished like Draper balking at the West Coast ****** of East Coast royalty etiolating on Life After Death because of a teased script of March 26th shining bright like nine-inch nails longer than an exaggerated Dicky loving pollution more than Sina Loa loves bricks
Mad respect to juggernaut Michigan flow, but when you henpeck a rooster fewer regaled Ravens start to sing like Tomorrow’s sung by Sheryl Crow
So attack the kenspeckel hiding like sobriety itching to revel
Even the greats are grating despite prestige owned like Steppenwolf inventing Heavy Metal
Yet the raspy dengonin certainly a curtain call for the moribund smooth competition genius but not square to my elevated level
Time to brush aside, politics is a Velvet Morning rather than an Everest scaffold of glaciers divide
Flourishing Eden of a Seattle worthy of treason on rollercoasters yet to ride
The contumely of charlatans berating brassage is a Lie Boring in Federal Way united against prejudices scowling because Qwersy Mencia is too fraught to enjoy the jeers of a tattered Pride
Past-Tense Quinn in his Chauvin Blue Suit is Queer on The Bends
For a better radio the shatter of the quaff is Damon on the mendlatch for the rights of heroism among men
Applesauce is scary when the cooks are too chary for emoluments of cherry-picked vanity inoculated because hackneyed hacksaws aren’t that scary
To a Rush Hour acclaim that owes a Martian a fair-share of the inviolable degrees above freezing that guarantees the Hang Seng
The cretaceous dinosaur livid in the Fields of Dreams lives to the honor of the author rather a subsidiary prosperity rooting for the same exact team
Credit belongs not to slot-machine jibes of Navy throngs because the sealed pedigree of a Potemkin stonewall ravaged an Atlanta March that Richard Sherman found himself wrong
Ripostes of wavered glory serenade Field’s Medal accolades jaunty with brimstone repartee for persecution of Sing-Sang jailed avuncular Dana Carvey
Crumpled in missives etched decisively by Popcorn paparazzi Lee Harvey Oswald Part Three dinging Reagan’s Drugs because belittled Batman and Robin Harvey Dent is on a defalcation spree
Limited by the gambit of orbit I flex space measured only by perception hourglasses mistake for Dewey Decimal ministry
Because mountebanks of the tramontane canard unscrewed by Donkey’s without the triumph of vindicated colts spew the unwarranted without the warrant of upright parlance
Deflecting the useless caricature of Jezebels they barely even know dancing with fisticuffs choleric with jaundiced illuminati chants of an age bracing for the venom of viper’s of gratuitous pretense in violence because the whittled conscience scourges footloose profligacy in dementia that owns probability rather than certainty but doesn’t stand a chance
A billowing toxic fume of a Trojan Horse of galloped complicity of headless horsemen too scared to even pinprick the average Brett Hume huffs like mad wolverines dancing with Buccaneers for the fidelity of bridled brides with a tailored or sloppy groom
Cowering behind plashy starlets dashed for authenticity too soon
The Red Robin Hood ****** of silhouettes of Caste system indecency is reduced to reductivism in peddled paranoia of Randall Graves confronting his deepest specious tomb
To rogue slipshod miracles of denuded ice for Christopher Reeves Wally World White in Simple Jack owleries of confiscated light they caper encaged Caspergers ergotamine flavored favor uptight
Glaring prince dashing Rusty with ***** for Hummers glazed with donut torus hummus swift with reverend repartee
Sunken sleepless abyss ghosts haunt for quaffs evanescent in backbone bliss incurring parted sight for nebbich sprees
Calculated by persnickety prattle brazen with bravado promontory sparked on the flames of an overhyped hysteria ablaze
Raisins aren’t the determinant of a blinkered starstruck page gilded to amaze
Formidable reform conserved against blasphemies of ****
Withstands the immutable geotaxis of inevitable backfires in limited scourges of scorn
Time to sacrifice the badge earn the primacy of trimleggers making a dash rushing for hourglass sand prominent in fiat flash
In a second a trampoline against a specious marvel is a sour remorse of a crusade turning into protection not found in autumn ash
With autarky righteous rain boogies against bogeys of golfers livid with sensational inane
Lunacy predicated on sensational maudlin labors of Genesis 3:16 birth pain
Incurred upon the toil of the lugubrious heights of teachers that defy tribes and stripes
Soldiering for God without even the slightest nefarious mercenary spite
Because Ledgers cannot be mistaken for legends because petty battles Abandoned Pools named were avoided for Nobel Prizes of moonshot fame never King Kong because 24k magic called the Hang Seng  game enter stage right
The thematic liberation of the freewheeler isn’t a combustion of truckers Ruckers allergic to chattered shame
But the time honored Sevendust defies blisters because a brave heroism leaps into legacy vaunted by cheery repute in winning hegemony against rigged fraud in frigid feral tames
I march to an inaugural chance without a chance of quick inauguration because Junetao is a duck-duck-go childish flicker against Amsterdam Vallon besides the church with a touching spectacle of solidarity beyond temporal Anacondas of deserved blame
An ally to the kitsch the prosperity of Nas is afforded to optimism never so fulgurant because of a bewitched Tik Tok twitch
As the true flock regards the true shepherd the guardian of wonder and the captain avoiding Yellow Submarines because Stayin’ Alive is a prophecy not a febrile contagion of germs pitching tents for flukes insistent on incident rather than honorable to Canada Dry on Strike for better than a bubble gum mumble rap of Lil Pump’s pruned humps for a ******* ghost rider rather than a profaned itch
But the camel survives because the needle doesn’t thrive in a world where God is always Stayin’ Alive to strike a pose for the voguest Jive
“The Seduction” lives and the corruption limps with glib bribery fibs because 2 Timothy 1:7 in autarky is a generous rhyme that  gives and gives
In endless crusade to beat like David the ***** of a poker miracle that stars in a showcase of a life of splendor eternal rather than a cursory kamikaze reckless fib
Its time for  abundance of life to be lived fully to truly find riches in the best possible life winsome in discretion to quake and yet remain immune to a Walgreens of Stonewall myth
Cast not the first stone against the immaculate Giant because everybody is shaking to Bond and Saint Joseph’s guarded wordsmith

The Best Picture of Sacred
Two standing in a field empty eyes empty hands and at their feet all of their possessions
Neatly stacked with a sign that says forsaken that I may possess the Son alone I emptied my mind of all
The clutter and the frivolous thoughts that were held there I came into this world with nothing I will
Soon leave it the same way all I want is my soul to be divested of any and all goods and hopes that are
Contrary to a life of holiness when I am looked upon I want you to only see the pure and total grace that
Emanates no longer the crass selfish human but like I saw in only two other individuals over a life time
One had brown leathery skin another was white a milky cream there was no distortion they had
Disappeared He alone stood before me the flowing of deepest serenity wave after wave rolled over
My soul I stood on earthen ground but the roots were reaching heaven earth fell away like the dying
Waste that it is they talked and you heard clear and pure speech it softly spilled from their lips you
Forgot where you were and knew only that you never wanted to leave the spot the vagaries and all the
Contemptible realities were uprooted only the fruitful sounds of a boundless harvest came to your ear
Over the grain as it listlessly swayed waiting as the labors moved quietly through I saw in the eyes of
These favored ones a festive rejoicing dance above the earth as the bulging sacks were carried past the
Master’s throne not in his eyes but in mine I saw the result of birth a sinless blessed life then the death
And its cruelty but here was the pay off the victory all those souls not fooled into losing eternal riches
For the folly of a few wasted earth years no they were singing in the purist voices splendor beamed from
Their faces where I stood it was like a blast you were standing in the harsh desert and then miraculously
An ocean wind blows across you the promise the
thrill the telling all is changing no more having to watch the lonely the heart broken just take more of the
Same staggering steps that brings no relief now without question every promise is being kept
Tears of joy and the ring deafens but it is pleasure a sound never ever conceived of before the word says
Eye has not seen nor ear heard what he has prepared for those that love him thanks sister K. Divine
Emiline my standing by your wheel chair wasn’t in vain

I am witnessing
The great mauve the sky is,
The same one, as she divested
Closures from all four winds,
Cutting her hair off,
Depriving her nape of
Tickles, my cold, cold fingers,
But what can I say,
That was the afternoon
Of afternoons.

Here’s to the kiss of blue
And fire, of this very life and the next
(whatever that means).
All the cooing never got to me,
The nth star did not. So frown,
Laugh at me, but here’s what I think,

Love is not walking, nor talking, not even falling.
Love is not stop, nor go, not even wait.
Love is not probable, nor improbable,
     It is certain.
Love is not right, nor wrong,
     It is true.
Love is all, not us, not me, not even her, but
     How I love her, all of her, with all of me
Having her, us, even if
     I just have us now.

This is all,
That I can love (and I will love, I did),
     And I chose loving her,
     Choosing to,
           Even now.*

© 2015 J.S.P.