Don't let this self-effacing exterior fool you
I am meglo-maniac in the making
Social media the perfect introvert's mask
Reinventing myself daily
Vanessa Ives, girl-about-town, quirky geek
An attention *****
******* in the digital wind
For a like, a follow, a retweet.

I

A Genesis! The Exodus, the Exodus!
A departure from all terrestiality
Always immoral and depraved, bathed in filth, in self-loathing
Abattoir of our souls, it entrenches us

Also, we too must be of the same make
And bear with our corpses the same proceedings, the same caliber
Allowed to their subversive candor,
All that broke the Carthaginians upon their own passage
Across the peninsular pathways

S'il in our conquest we find, however, that the pachyderms have run aground,
Vous must aggregate our conscious thought
Plaitcate the ravenousness within the heart of victory.

II

Bring victory, the winged harbinger of the conquest,
Beg for tyrannical proclamations: the end of man, the end of men,
By now, the greater of the concepts is lost to its own devices, devices,
Belching out smoke, that bend the corpses upon their backs.
By wrenching from their life a sense of purpose,
Byproductively, they feed heroic romanticisms of combat.

Brought yet upon these fields, there lies no stranger enemy
But that of the tide
Being self-effacing, masochistic,
Belittling, She breaks herself upon the shore, ravaging the bodies of
Both, Playing as ******* and as subservient

III

Come! Wave upon Wave upon Frothing
Crest, to shores of golden enfrenzied ******
Calmed by the liquid of our ***** *****
Charging forth as we
Charge forth armies upon the field of slaughter
Callously, for you, our gilded monarch
Can you see? They cannot see, and we hope to elucidate your presence, they
Cannot comprehend or fathom what they
Cannot see.

IV

Ceaseless now the charges
Come further upon the front
Crashing 'gainst the openings of each
Clangor and madness
Coalesce to form death

Dripping anew with sanguine libations
Drawn fresh from naked lambs, freshly cut for their country
Dionysian warriors return,
Desire forming their mental undulations

Effortlessly they overtake their feminine fortunes
Effacing their identities, removing from them with their clothing, the
Entirety of their selves.

V

From carnal conquest they rejoice,
Flaunting the destruction they wrought
Flinging husks of women about the room,
Foisting these shells on other patriarchs

Given no choice, they return to fields of battle
Godspeed, gods' will, and god-granted
Gaian soil is retreaded by their sodden flesh.

VI

Hellish, infernal is their presence
Having lost no measure to revelry or rest, neither
Halting nor slowed, the march quickens in time with their lustful bellows
Hastened to madness by infinity
Harkened back to prisons of mental anguish by their creators
How proud they are, the Old Gods,
Hacking away the pounds of flesh to reveal the
Haphazard construction to their instruments of torture.

VII

Into the bloodshed, into the fiery cavernous opening of the crusade
Ignited by righteous scraps of cloth and metal
Ignobly formed into crudely significant, textured shapes
Iconoclasts to their own ideals
Idyllic in their self-mockery.

Jabbering like hellbeasts, the warriors drive into the flesh of the conflict
Jettisoning armaments in the process, their
Joie de vivre having been lessened by mechanical limits.
Jocular slaughter synthesized with demonic cries.

Kapellmeisters to the symphony of death,
Keeping in the rhythm of mutilation, counterpoints of steel clashing against breastplates, giving shape to a
Kleptocracy of life.

VIII

Languishing now in the refuse of the struggle,
Laden with corpses, the warriors remain restrained by fatigue
Lurching through the mud, calling out feebly with voices
Long since bellowed to pulpy masses of throat tissue.

Masses of flesh crawling across the fields of strife,
Macerated ground, weak and shifting, struggles to support the
Multitude of half-corpses now in eternal respite upon the bloodied pasture.

IX

Now broken with regret and shame they collapse
Nestled into the marrow of the fallow earth,
Needing only rest in the cooling tendrils of dirt and blood that trickle across them.
Né de nouveau, their trek leads them towards the grave
Necrosis having taken hold in their limbs,
Nascent corpses, they subside with grave finality into a dead collective.

X

Opaque irises await those who uncover the un-burial mound
Oafish sockets containing them like marbles
Open to the elements, decaying with their corporeal encasement, shaded by
Oaken leaves that remain unfallen, while
Obsequious maggots go about their task of cleansing the remains

Paralyzed in the final moments of their mortal coil, the bodies lay stagnant,
Pacified only by the removal of sentience.
Pagan rituals surround such corpses, and the intrepid discovers
Patiently await the arrival of some necromantic spirit.

Quasi-instinctively, the pioneers of the superterranean mausoleum
Quell their fears and remove the bodies from their conclusive locale,
Quantifying their deaths by the armaments and metal carapaces upon them.

XI

Reeling across the path, weighted by the bodies,
Returning, the archaeological presence brings a pall over society, which
Remained reticent despite the presence of such suffocating solemnity
Repressed by its own intent

Solitude is given no quarter, and the bodies
Strung up like scattered marionettes
Silently serenade the town with a deafening cacophony.

XII

To Hell their souls desperately charge, frothing about the shackles of undeath
Torn from corporeal existence, yet unable to
Transgress the mortal plane
Torturous paradox!
Torment the fallen of Carthage's vestigal might no more
Traducer of the human condition
Tragedy is loosed at thy whim
Try not the patience of demi-gods of wrath and bloodshed.

XIII

Undulating by the beckoning of the wind,
Un-beautiful, un-ironed, the shrouds of the coffins
Under grey sky hang softly like leaden sheets
Unaware of the gravity beneath the few inches of oak
Un-aesthetically masking the dead warriors' forms

Visceral is the movement of the procession,
Vermicular, they wind a course to the peak of the foothill
Vehemently the priest urges them onwards, although he is
Visibly ill on this occasion of the anti-hero.

Warlike, the battle up the ***** claims the lives of those already claimed
Wastrels left to rot in the carcass of a long-dead conflict,
Wanting nothing more than solace eternal.

XIV

Xenophobes of the Inferno fear the inevitable presence of these
Xoana, false representations of humanity.
Xanthic is their fear, for inside the malebolges themselves
Xanadu is sought for those of the fallen soldiery.

Yet funerary proceedings dictate descent for these souls, and the coffins
Yaw slightly in the wind, disturbed by the
Yanks of the ****** rabble who bear their weight.

XV

Zeus himself presides over the ferrying of these souls,
Zion awaits them, their final collective fate at hand,

Yet slowly it turns its back upon them,
Xenophanes mocks from his post,
Wailing, they fall
Velocity increasing infinitely,
Until they see no more the lustrous light
Trapped eternally in dark
Stabbed with betrayal and fear, their souls
Run amok, fleeing from the source of their anguish
Questioning existence.
Periodically in the abyss, the helpless aggregate conscious is
Overwhelmed with memory of Paradise
Now to them denied for eternity.
Mephisto remains, their only companion,
Leeching from them the final vestiges of hope now left within, once
Kept hidden to protect the warriors, now
Jabbed and pummeled to death.
In this state of perpetual umbra
Heaven so distant, now only faded, as if on parchment,
Gained by the souls is a sense of locality, once
Forgotten but now reattained, and
En masse, the group instantly
Derives that they have returned from beyond the mortal plane, the terra once again
Collates beneath their soles, and the collective decides they must return
Before the open sun, to bear themselves
Against the gods, against sanctity itself, and thus they cry:

1975 Art Institute is tactic for Odysseus to put off dealing with real world also investigate range of visual techniques gay instructor fruitlessly endeavors to ****** him he enjoys several affairs with beautiful girls yet Bayli haunts him main building of school is connected behind Art Institute of Chicago Odysseus spends lots of time looking at paintings Edward Hopper’s “Nighthawks” Gustave Caillebotte’s “Paris Street Rainy Day” Ivan Albright’s “Portrait of Dorian Gray” Jackson *******’s “Greyed Rainbow” Georgia O’Keeffe’s “Black Cross New Mexico” Francis Bacon’s “Figure with Meat” Pablo Picasso’s “The Old Guitarist” Balthus’s “Solitaire” Claude Monet’s “Stacks of Wheat” Paul Cezanne’s “The Bathers” Vincent Van Gogh’s “Self-Portrait” Edouard Manet’s “The Mocking of Christ” Henri Toulouse-Lautrec’s “At the Moulin Rouge” Robert Rauschenberg’s “Photograph” Mary Cassatt’s “The Child’s Bath” Peter Blume’s “The Rock” Ed Paschke’s “Mid America” Grant Wood’s “American Gothic” Jasper John’s “Near the Lagoon” and John Singer Sargent James McNeill Whistler Diego Rivera Marsden Hartley Thomas Eakins Winslow Homer his 2nd year at Art Institute involves student teaching during day then at night working as waiter at Ivanhoe Restaurant and Theater gay managers teach him to make Caesar salad tableside and other flamboyant tasks wait staff are all gay men once more Odysseus experiences bias from homosexual regime he is assigned restaurant’s slowest sections it bothers him the way some gay men venomously condescend women and their bodies Odysseus loves women especially their bodies he thinks about how much easier his life would be if he was gay in 1976 the art world is managed by gay curators gay art dealers he wonders if he could be gay yet not realize it can a person be gay but not attracted to one’s own ***? Ivanhoe hires variety of night club acts one night he watches Tom Waits perform on piano in lounge Odysseus feels inspired in 1977 he graduates with teacher’s certification he considers all the sacrifices teachers make and humiliating salaries they put up with he does not want to teach candidly he feels he has nothing yet to teach teaching degree was Mom’s idea Odysseus wants to learn grow paint after Art Institute he flip-flops between styles his artwork suffers from too much schooling and scholastic practice it takes years to find his own voice he has tendency to be self-effacing put himself down often he will declare what do i know? i’m just a stupid painter one topic artists do not like talking about is their failures how much money they cost creation requires resource paint and canvas can be expensive how much money is spent on harebrained ideas that never pan out? most artists resort to cheap or used materials few can afford their dreams he gets job selling encyclopedias that job lasts about 5 weeks then he finds job selling posters at framing store on Broadway between Barry and Wellington Salvador Dali Escher Claude Monet prints are the rage his manager accuse him of lacking initiative being spacey after several months he gets laid off he finds job waiting tables during lunch shift at busy downtown restaurant other waiters are mostly old men from Europe they play cards with each other in between shifts teach Odysseus how to carry 6 hot plates on one arm and 2 in his other hand the job is hectic but money is good experience educates differently than books and college a university degree cannot teach what working in the real world confronts people learn most when they are nobodies he reads Sartre’s “Being And Nothingness” he wants to discover who he is by finding out who he is not often he rides bicycle along lakefront taking different routes sometimes following behind an anonymous bicyclist possibly to come across new way he does not know or to marvel at another person’s interest

truth is this life is too difficult for me the violence hatred turf wars tribalism laws judgments practices rules permits history i’m not prepared emotionally to withstand the realities of this world not equipped psychologically to deal with the stresses of this world not prepared emotionally to withstand the realities of this world not equipped psychologically to deal with the stresses of this world i’m sorry am i repeating myself i apologize i’m not prepared emotionally to withstand the realities of this world not equipped psychologically to deal with the stresses of this world god please protect teach me strength courage fairness compassion wisdom love i’m not prepared emotionally to withstand the realities of this world not equipped psychologically to deal with the stresses of this world

buy divinity purchase devotion earn reward points own 4 bedroom loft with roof garden deck porch pool parking in paradise’s gated community pay for exclusive membership into sainthood become part of inner circle influence determine fate destiny of everything step up to the plate sign on the line immortalize yourself feel the privileges of eternal holiness i’m living inside a nightmare inside a nightmare inside a nightmare hello? i am dizzy in my own self-deceptions lost in my own self-deceptions alone in my own self-deceptions there was a time once but that time is gone there was a place once but that place has vanished there was a life once but that life is spent remember when things were different truth is i’m weak skittish anxious alienated paranoid scared to death pagan idiot stop

breath deeply push stale air out imagine kinder more respectful loving world please god do your stuff angels throw your weight around clean up this mess planets align stars shine ancient spirits raise your voices magic work there are words when spoken can change everything words rooted to spiritual nerves if voiced in  particular order secret passwords capable of setting off persuasions in the mind threads to the heart if a person can figure out which words what order tone of voice rate of pronunciation time of day then that person can summon powers of the supernatural Isis goddess of celestial sway of words whisper secret earth water fire air reveal your alchemy winter spring summer autumn teach about passages patterns sublime eastern western sun fickle moody moon unveil your heavenly equation north south east west  beat the drums blow winds show the path to healing path of the heart blood dirt hair *** bare the mystery of your trance dance the ghost dance sacred woman with ovaries cycles flow smell beautiful girl eyes sweetness strange awkward skinny scruffy boy great bear spirit bird jumping fish wise turtle where are you why is there no one to back me? jean paul sartre what was your last thought before you died? was it nausea? nothingness? or a wish?

MORNING HAS BROKEN
The men, in lines, ***** two by two,
forgetting all the women who
indulged them through a night of tricks
(their lips designed with crimson sticks,
their eyes a wild mascara mix)

and think instead on times ahead
when they’ll be gone, their bodies dead
(some rotting slow’, some mummified)
though once they were their mummy’s pride.

Attired bright in uniforms,
they strew their bombs in desert storms -
like melting sands, the sky deforms
with darkness, death - and doomsday swarms
through ravished lands where fires warm
the corpses, cold and puriform.

Their eyes flash forward towards the backs
of lucky ones who have the knack
of never being in the way
of bursts of bullets as they stray
(effacing phantoms faraway)
and dodging doom’s Redemption Day.

They’re wishing for a foggy morn
or best of all to be unborn,
and peering down to mark the sway
of wings in webs while spiders prey,

they wonder when their time will come
and they can cease their fleeing from
the sights they’ve seen, the deeds they’ve done,
the life they’ve lost, the death they’ve won,

then muse a while upon the child
they killed today when they went wild,
and when they’re finally reconciled
with broken bodies stacked and piled,

they ponder, does she have a kin
to curse them for their burning sin?

And if she does, will god reply
with tooth for tooth and eye for eye?

Or will her clan be mild and meek
and simply turn the other cheek?

2. MIDDAY MUSINGS
They’re counting steps to pass the time
and puzzle if they’ll reach their prime
or if instead they’ll serve the worm
their carnal flesh and aching *****

when soon, perhaps, they sleep in berth
provided by the chilling earth,
and fret about the fate they’ll find
below the stones that slowly grind.

And once or twice will come to mind
a sultry smile they left behind
(the distant past - a tepid trace –
another time, another place),
reflected in the gray grimace
that paints a frightened fading face.

And on they trek through guilt and gloom
to track their own and others' doom
and soon they’ll  grace another pool
with blood of other beings who’ll

inhale no more the evening airs,
unlike the wily Functionaires
who brutalize the fighting men
and send them far away and then

(relaxed, unwound, with victories made)
confer with sword an accolade
on those who’ve lopped bowed heads, with blade,
so someone bent must turn a *****

to hack a hole which then is filled
with all the cloven bodies killed
then cloaked with clay or loamy dirt,
as if to hide the pain and hurt.

3. TEATIME INTROSPECTION
Amongst the many are the few
who maim and **** and think it’s true
that purple war’s a parlour game
when really they’re submerged in shame
for crimes for which they are to blame
and can’t expunge with searing flame

while plodding through an endless time,
or pealing bells with holy chime,
or posing in a paradigm
where paradox and riddle rhyme.

And when they die (as die they must),
forevermore their putrid dust,
still soaked with gore and carmine lust,
will conjure thoughts of cold disgust.

And even though torrential rain
(which tastes at times like cool champagne)
can wash away the scarlet stain
which soaks the sands of god’s terrain,

it cannot ever cleanse the hands
that work the guns and burning brands,
or purge the throats that give commands
to him who never understands.

Nor can the raging hurricane
from blackened souls the white regain,
rescind the sins or void the banes
or loose the ****** from Satan’s chains
who line the pits of hell’s domains.

4. EVENING REFLECTIONS
When through the day to night they pass,
their eyes avoid the looking glass
displaying dim a pale phantasm
plunging deeper down a chasm,
surging through a blood ******,
smiling thin unveiled sarcasm

for the chances lost to taste
the many fruits that went to waste
when each was still a joyous lad,
who went to school and learned to add
and danced in rivers, barefoot clad,

attended church with mom and dad
(which tends the poor and cheers the sad),
to pray for good and curse the bad,
before, in war insanely mad,
he fought the fight (no Galahad)

by flinging flames and slashing throats,
immersing bods in  midnight moats
between the broken battered boats
where babes and booted bodies float,

and leaving bags of bones to bloat
in bullet-ridden overcoats,
and wondered if the goblins gloat
or spot (behind his eyes, the motes),

then strode away without a thought
that mortal lives had come to naught,
sedated by his conscience brought
to nothing more than dripping snot,
while Others sit upon a yacht
and pluck the eyes of fish They’ve caught,

for, when they die, fish seem to see
The Ones behind the tyranny
(with bellies round from gluttony)
in future dangling from a tree
(with leaves as black as ebony),
for that’s, They fear, Their destiny.

5. MIDNIGHT DREAMS**
At night the soldiers sometimes dream
of many things which make them scream,
like
                      floating down a gelid stream
             with burning flesh and cold ice cream
             upon their lips, which makes it seem
             as though their salt they can’t redeem
             when looking back at bold extremes
             of valiant warriors’ victory schemes.

Or ofter yet,
                      they sometimes meet
             a broken skull upon the street
             with gaping eyes, its mouth replete
             with swollen tongue that can’t repeat
             mere words of joy when lovers greet,
             or yell aloud or indiscreet’,

             or talk about the grand deceit
             of Those Who live on Easy Street,
             Who plot, destroy and overeat,
             while others bide beneath a sheet
             on bed of steely cold concrete,

             with final gift a flag or wreath
             that soon will wither like their teeth
             when once they’re settled underneath
             a mound of muck on mouldy heath,
             to lurk in Limbo Land beneath.

And ever more before they wake,
appear quaint dreams not quite opaque,  
like
                      upside down upon a lake
             keeps popping up a pregnant Drake
             who says “there must be some mistake,
             I only have a bellyache”,
             while high above’s a flying Snake,
             (a sight to make a killer quake).

             She cries aloud “for mercy’s sake
             your foresight’s blind, your wisdom’s fake
             the fragile bodies that you break,
             impale or burn upon a stake,
             then stack in layers like a cake,
             reflect a lust that death can’t slake”.

             And turquoise Turtles on the make
             (though taking time to overtake,
             each slurping down a chocolate shake)
             rev up to plead “let us explain,
             we think you men are all insane
            with morals thin as cellophane;

             for, peering through god’s window pane,
             we see quite clearly those you’ve slain,
             enough to fill the Dim Domain
             with blood and guts and tears and pain,
             Chimeras of a frenzied brain.”

             A worn and weary weather vane
             announces floods of claret rain
             that forty days and nights sustain,
             submerging mountains, raising Cain,
             while flushing mankind’s acid reign
             down nature’s evolution drain.

             The Serpent hails a hydroplane
             “because”, she hissed, “we can’t remain;
             behind the hill, the atom’s spark
             has vaporized the palace park,
             reduced to dust the Meadowlark
             and nullified the Rainbow’s arc”.

             And while the others hush and hark,
             a feline Toad begins to bark
             “This plane is certainly Boa’s Ark.

             Let’s flee the Human hierarch,
             forsake all Men to sate the Shark
             which swim within the Waters Dark,
             and purge all traces of the Mark
             in Eden when we disembark.”

             The beasts, in lines, by twos embark.

The dreamers wake, they’re staring, stark,
behind their eyes, a watermark.

Pale-skinned girl from Indiana,
with freckles,
yes, freckles, on your cheek,
this is who I am. This is my story.
It is only coincidence that I sing it
to you,
but sing, nonetheless, I do. One morning
amidst the restlessness of my top-bunk sheets
I heard a whispering and thought it might be God it was
me. My unconsciousness begging me
for nourishment, silently loudly attacking
my awareness with questions: it asked why
I neglect it. Pale-skinned girl from Indiana,
with freckles,
yes, freckles, on your cheek,
is this, too, why your body vibrates
when your thoughts are feelings? Because you too
have recognized feeling as thought? That that
faculty of wonder you hush about as if a
***** secret of forgotten childhood memory
is something that is as real as
the metaphysical pores of a skin you cannot touch,
but know is not some foreign, distant, effacing
thing, but is thick, is thick, thick as words
creaking like old wood in a library filled
with students who read so much ******* to get into
college but never venture forth for such skin
in the skin of those unconscious voices in the
shelves? Selves: we call them books but they breathe.
The ideas wriggle in your veins like
a worm. They block your blood yet move
your soul. The stillness of your speechlessness
is some movement in itself. So I suspect of you,
pale-skinned girl from Indiana,
with freckles,
yes, freckles, on your cheek.
                                                So I suspect of myself.

I do not understand how else I could have been born
without eyes which we call eyes. I cannot see
why else.
                I cannot.
                                 You cannot.

There is light over there in that darkness.
               A glimpse of it- a sliver of silver
has shocked you into your paleness. Into my
blackness. It is the same difference. A different
same.
            
Line break:

A mirror tells me things with my eyeless eyes.
My brownness ***** me into journeys with
tunnels so deep that we call them pupils.
In the distance that I gaze into I find
myself gazing into a distance I gaze into. Fathom
it. Do not. Will not will it will it will not
willed. Touching it will wilt it without touching:
this is the soul you said does not exist.
              
             It is not there. It is.

In Indiana.

Where's that? asks my blood.

In Indiana.

Over there? my finger points out the window.

No. It is.

It is. Not.

Suddenly I smell something and it is myself.
It is not Indiana or freckles or pale-skin.
I ask you where it is.
Suddenly you smell something and it is yourself.
It is not Gaborone or curly-haired or black.
You ask me where I think it is.

What the **** do we know?

from my book 'How To Write Pro$eperly

LESSON 18: Marketing Your Product
Get outside and box.

How to Make Good Money as a Poet

Volume
Keep up the volume
Then they have to buy all the books
And go looking
For something good
Self-effacing



More How to Make Good Money as a Poet

*** angles
in relation to women’s personality gauge it
chart it
*** angles
Canadian research grant



More How to Make Good Money as a Poet

Poem-in-a-jar
Ode-in-a-jar
Rhythm-in-a-jar, and it vibrates when you pick it up
or could be handwritten
with desperate plea
send money
fax phoney part
please pleas
should colour of lid
indicate mood of poem
should label
indicate word topic theme
or what of material
metal lid or plastic
* Replace the safety seal so they have to punch cover
* Note: if freshness seal broken, do not consume

More How to Make Good Money as a Poet
dead poet cookbook
dead poet cookbook



Poem-in-a-Jar

limited edition collector poetry
signed by author
artist proof worth more
more worth more
per line $1 $5 $100 sky’s the limit
capitalism:
self-effacing charity:
give-drop poem-in-a-jar to bums to sell
use as tax write-off full retail + “costs”
have party supporting charity more tax write-off
wheee! thank you, taxpayers
mmmm! tax write-off



More How to Make Good Money as a Poet

Verse libre
Convince public that your random scratch ins
have deeper meaning social import
esoteric ****** meaning
make it plainly oblivious for them
doubletalk and doublewalk
run at them
when you recite
a poem
attack poetry
possible sales to war department
note when publishing do not include how to make money poet stuff proprietary secret
information

More How to Make Good Money as a Poet

Poetry Repair
Fix other peoples poems
Putter with their pitter-patter
Charge per word (or line) no word
Fix their lines
of poetry and charge them for it
Could franchise this idea
Have walk-in shops around the planet
Poetry Repair;
Pete's Poetry Repair; friendly sounding.
Come down to Pete’s, we'll fix what’s the matter with your pitter-patter
Could increase sales by charging for coffee and downnuts
when they bring in their poems for repair
(Making money as a poet is a joke, easy living man)
Pete’s Podium of Poetry Repair
Poetry Repair
There's gotta be money in it somehow



More How to Make Good Money as a Poet

Ads
In the backs of magazines *2007 or spam
Now you can make EASY MONEY AT HOME
With the fastest growingest gosh-**** bestest
Poetry Repair
Can you spot the error in this?:
Twinkle twaddle little star
How I wonder what you are
Yes. You saw it. Easy, wasn't it? And in no time at all
you'll being doing this to even some of the greats:
Romeo, Romeo,
Oh where for **** thou Romeo
Editors pay big bucks for this stuff
Poetry repair
do it at home
Ads

More How to Make Good Money as a Poet

1 book = poems + free towel inside
free towel inside your book of poems
poem and a free towel
could be symbolic message
something about a towel and a poem
maybe the beach
maybe the *****
something about a towel and a poem



More How to Make Good Money as a Poet

poem-in-a-casket
very goth
sort by flavour
poem-of-the-month club (with underwear)
poem *******
poem *******
******* with poems on the ***
maybe women will let me write on their pantied ***
and charge them for it
(I'm voting for poem *******)
***** Poetry
I’ll be rich
fifty bucks a toss
Painted-***** Poetry
for fifty bucks a toss
I'll come to your house
and paint a poem on your *******
We'll discuss each poem
over tea and cookies
so you'll get what you like
get what you like
poem on your pantied behind, painted
fifty bucks a toss
Call now!

Like flowers sequestered from the sun
  And wind of summer, day by day
I dwindled paler, whilst my hair
    Showed the first tinge of grey.

"Oh, what is life, that we should live?
  Or what is death, that we must die?
A bursting bubble is our life:
    I also, what am I?"

"What is your grief? now tell me, sweet,
  That I may grieve," my sister said;
And stayed a white embroidering hand
    And raised a golden head:

Her tresses showed a richer mass,
  Her eyes looked softer than my own,
Her figure had a statelier height,
    Her voice a tenderer tone.

"Some must be second and not first;
  All cannot be the first of all:
Is not this, too, but vanity?
  I stumble like to fall.

"So yesterday I read the acts
  Of Hector and each clangorous king
With wrathful great AEacides:--
    Old Homer leaves a sting."

The comely face looked up again,
  The deft hand lingered on the thread
"Sweet, tell me what is Homer's sting,
    Old Homer's sting?" she said.

"He stirs my sluggish pulse like wine,
  He melts me like the wind of spice,
Strong as strong Ajax' red right hand,
    And grand like Juno's eyes.

"I cannot melt the sons of men,
  I cannot fire and tempest-toss:--
Besides, those days were golden days,
    Whilst these are days of dross."

She laughed a feminine low laugh,
  Yet did not stay her dexterous hand:
"Now tell me of those days," she said,
    "When time ran golden sand."

"Then men were men of might and right,
  Sheer might, at least, and weighty swords;
Then men in open blood and fire
    Bore witness to their words,--

"Crest-rearing kings with whistling spears;
  But if these shivered in the shock
They wrenched up hundred-rooted trees,
    Or hurled the effacing rock.

"Then hand to hand, then foot to foot,
  Stern to the death-grip grappling then,
Who ever thought of gunpowder
    Amongst these men of men?

"They knew whose hand struck home the death,
  They knew who broke but would not bend,
Could venerate an equal foe
    And scorn a laggard friend.

"Calm in the utmost stress of doom,
  Devout toward adverse powers above,
They hated with intenser hate
    And loved with fuller love.

"Then heavenly beauty could allay
  As heavenly beauty stirred the strife:
By them a slave was worshipped more
    Than is by us a wife."

She laughed again, my sister laughed;
  Made answer o'er the laboured cloth:
"I rather would be one of us
    Than wife, or slave, or both."

"Oh better then be slave or wife
  Than fritter now blank life away:
Then night had holiness of night,
    And day was sacred day.

"The princess laboured at her loom,
  Mistress and handmaiden alike;
Beneath their needles grew the field
    With warriors armed to strike.

"Or, look again, dim Dian's face
  Gleamed perfect through the attendant night:
Were such not better than those holes
    Amid that waste of white?

"A shame it is, our aimless life;
  I rather from my heart would feed
From silver dish in gilded stall
    With wheat and wine the steed--

"The faithful steed that bore my lord
  In safety through the hostile land,
The faithful steed that arched his neck
    To ****** with my hand."

Her needle erred; a moment's pause,
  A moment's patience, all was well.
Then she: "But just suppose the horse,
    Suppose the rider fell?

"Then captive in an alien house,
  Hungering on exile's bitter bread,--
They happy, they who won the lot
    Of sacrifice," she said.

Speaking she faltered, while her look
  Showed forth her passion like a glass:
With hand suspended, kindling eye,
    Flushed cheek, how fair she was!

"Ah well, be those the days of dross;
  This, if you will, the age of gold:
Yet had those days a spark of warmth,
    While these are somewhat cold--

"Are somewhat mean and cold and slow,
  Are stunted from heroic growth:
We gain but little when we prove
    The worthlessness of both."

"But life is in our hands," she said;
  "In our own hands for gain or loss:
Shall not the Sevenfold Sacred Fire
    Suffice to purge our dross?

"Too short a century of dreams,
  One day of work sufficient length:
Why should not you, why should not I,
    Attain heroic strength?

"Our life is given us as a blank,
  Ourselves must make it blest or curst:
Who dooms me I shall only be
    The second, not the first?

"Learn from old Homer, if you will,
  Such wisdom as his books have said:
In one the acts of Ajax shine,
    In one of Diomed.

"Honoured all heroes whose high deeds
  Through life, through death, enlarge their span
Only Achilles in his rage
    And sloth is less than man."

"Achilles only less than man?
  He less than man who, half a god,
Discomfited all Greece with rest,
    Cowed Ilion with a nod?

"He offered vengeance, lifelong grief
  To one dear ghost, uncounted price:
Beasts, Trojans, adverse gods, himself,
    Heaped up the sacrifice.

"Self-immolated to his friend,
  Shrined in world's wonder, Homer's page,
Is this the man, the less than men
    Of this degenerate age?"

"Gross from his acorns, tusky boar
  Does memorable acts like his;
So for her snared offended young
    Bleeds the swart lioness."

But here she paused; our eyes had met,
  And I was whitening with the jeer;
She rose: "I went too far," she said;
    Spoke low: "Forgive me, dear.

"To me our days seem pleasant days,
  Our home a haven of pure content;
Forgive me if I said too much,
    So much more than I meant.

"Homer, though greater than his gods,
  With rough-hewn virtues was sufficed
And rough-hewn men: but what are such
    To us who learn of Christ?"

The much-moved pathos of her voice,
  Her almost tearful eyes, her cheek
Grown pale, confessed the strength of love
    Which only made her speak.

For mild she was, of few soft words,
  Most gentle, easy to be led,
Content to listen when I spoke,
    And reverence what I said:

I elder sister by six years;
  Not half so glad, or wise, or good:
Her words rebuked my secret self
    And shamed me where I stood.

She never guessed her words reproved
  A silent envy nursed within,
A selfish, souring discontent
    Pride-born, the devil's sin.

I smiled, half bitter, half in jest:
  "The wisest man of all the wise
Left for his summary of life
    'Vanity of vanities.'

"Beneath the sun there's nothing new:
  Men flow, men ebb, mankind flows on:
If I am wearied of my life,
    Why, so was Solomon.

"Vanity of vanities he preached
  Of all he found, of all he sought:
Vanity of vanities, the gist
    Of all the words he taught.

"This in the wisdom of the world,
  In Homer's page, in all, we find:
As the sea is not filled, so yearns
    Man's universal mind.

"This Homer felt, who gave his men
  With glory but a transient state:
His very Jove could not reverse
    Irrevocable fate.

"Uncertain all their lot save this--
  Who wins must lose, who lives must die:
All trodden out into the dark
    Alike, all vanity."

She scarcely answered when I paused,
  But rather to herself said: "One
Is here," low-voiced and loving, "Yea,
    Greater than Solomon."

So both were silent, she and I:
  She laid her work aside, and went
Into the garden-walks, like spring,
    All gracious with content:

A little graver than her wont,
  Because her words had fretted me;
Not warbling quite her merriest tune
    Bird-like from tree to tree.

I chose a book to read and dream:
  Yet half the while with furtive eyes
Marked how she made her choice of flowers
    Intuitively wise,

And ranged them with instinctive taste
  Which all my books had failed to teach;
Fresh rose herself, and daintier
    Than blossom of the peach.

By birthright higher than myself,
  Though nestling of the self-same nest:
No fault of hers, no fault of mine,
    But stubborn to digest.

I watched her, till my book unmarked
  Slid noiseless to the velvet floor;
Till all the opulent summer-world
    Looked poorer than before.

Just then her busy fingers ceased,
  Her fluttered colour went and came:
I knew whose step was on the walk,
    Whose voice would name her name.

       * * * * *

Well, twenty years have passed since then:
  My sister now, a stately wife
Still fair, looks back in peace and sees
    The longer half of life--

The longer half of prosperous life,
  With little grief, or fear, or fret:
She, loved and loving long ago,
    Is loved and loving yet.

A husband honourable, brave,
  Is her main wealth in all the world:
And next to him one like herself,
    One daughter golden-curled:

Fair image of her own fair youth,
  As beautiful and as serene,
With almost such another love
    As her own love has been.

Yet, though of world-wide charity,
  And in her home most tender dove,
Her treasure and her heart are stored
    In the home-land of love.

She thrives, God's blessed husbandry;
  Most like a vine which full of fruit
Doth cling and lean and climb toward heaven,
    While earth still binds its root.

I sit and watch my sister's face:
  How little altered since the hours
When she, a kind, light-hearted girl,
    Gathered her garden flowers:

Her song just mellowed by regret
  For having teased me with her talk;
Then all-forgetful as she heard
    One step upon the walk.

While I? I sat alone and watched;
  My lot in life, to live alone
In mine own world of interests,
    Much felt, but little shown.

Not to be first: how hard to learn
  That lifelong lesson of the past;
Line graven on line and stroke on stroke:
    But, thank God, learned at last.

So now in patience I possess
  My soul year after tedious year,
Content to take the lowest place,
    The place assigned me here.

Yet sometimes, when I feel my strength
  Most weak, and life most burdensome,
I lift mine eyes up to the hills
    From whence my help shall come:

Yea, sometimes still I lift my heart
  To the Archangelic trumpet-burst,
When all deep secrets shall be shown,
    And many last be first.

Fewer adults are laughing,
It's not funny any more;
We leaned on poles to direct our titter,
Quite harmless in its day.
And Engine 9's been derailed,
We're catching tigers,
But It's still okay.

We rolled our eyes at Jewish jibes,
And salesmen in the barn;
Or the Newfie warning,
Don't slip on the ice,
Don't ya know, bay, it's hard frozen.

We've pulled our collective heads out,
We're sniffing old world air.
I liked the self-effacing glibs,
Affected with a brogue.
Now there's a hard line on a country bridge,
Across a brook, or penal school ditch.
It's just not funny any more.

JIMMY large nose natural hipster totally informed clever funny sincere yet aloof

JOEY tall tan lanky physique long thick brown hair in braid striking good looks yet self-unaware

SHANNON athletic build attractive brunette accomplished poet so good she doesn’t need to prove it emotional sensitive tough

ANNE Joni Mitchell good looks bohemian self-effacing impulsive submissive *****

ACT 1 scene 1

a deserted chic indie reception area somewhere present 8:30 PM

JIMMY (singling out Anne) you’re so beautiful i want you so bad

ANNE oh yeah you’re sweet to say that

JIMMY i mean it you symbolize hope inspiration in me

ANNE hope? oh god

Anne looks away runs fingers through her hair

JIMMY hear that song over the speakers?

ANNE yeah

JIMMY it’s “Home” Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes very cool check out rough trade east version on youtube

ANNE yeah right

Anne blows air out her nose looks away in Shannon’s direction

SHANNON (singling out Joey) do you read?

JOEY yeah some

SHANNON what are you currently reading?

JOEY uh a text about economic international relations

SHANNON hmmm interesting do you ever read literature or poetry?

JOEY nah not much

SHANNON like movies?

JOEY yeah sure some

SHANNON what’s you’re favorite movies?

JOEY “The Devil Wore Prada” “Eddie” “I’m Not There” i don’t know there are tons of movies i enjoy

SHANNON interesting

JOEY i need to ask Jimmy something excuse me

Joey walks across area to Jimmy

JOEY that western shirt looks so cool on you

JIMMY thanks yeah it’s a hip shirt what up dude?

JOEY oh god Shannon is hitting on me she’s way too full of herself way too available

JIMMY hmmm nice toned body bet she’s a tiger in the hay

JOEY not interested

JIMMY me neither but i could be persuaded honestly i’m blown away with Anne

Anne approaches Shannon

ANNE Jimmy is a conceited **** he thinks he’s so cool Shannon you look so beautiful this evening your hair complexion

SHANNON funny I felt so blah all day what did Jimmy say to you? he’s not my type but not so bad if only he had Joey’s looks Joey’s shy sweetness look at Joey over there his eyes lips he’s so **** I think I’m falling in love and yet i recognize falling in love requires a huge territory of untried tolerance

Anne’s fingers stealthily pocket Shannon’s tortoise-shell comb while Shannon observes Joey fawning over Jimmie across room

ACT 2

refer to ACT 1 scene 1

Ah, how perilous!
How tenuous is the hair which holds the Sword of Damocles!

How terrible it must be to lie in the seat of power,
To be cradled in her ***** of lust, ambition, and greed--
To turn endlessly over one's shoulder,
To have one eye forwards, and one eye back,
Never at ease.

When the throne becomes a death knell
A holding cell
A hotbed of restlessness,

Look up! Look up!

See the mighty sword above your head,
How it sways to and fro,
And on the hair of a mare rests your soul, your sole lifeline's thread!

You find yourself in the pit
With the pendulum swaying to and fro,
To and fro,
Closer and closer,
Closer and closer.

How terribly loathsome your position has become--
What painful prostration must you now display in self-effacing humility,
An abomination to your pride and claim of invincibility.

Ah, but what respite!

To live no longer in the shadow of fear
With the threat of death removed from above thine head
Like the unshackled chain of a man excused from the gallows

You are free!
Liberated!

But do not forget,
For the torment of power is a great responsibility,
And you'd be wise to remember that the favor of your king can change at a moment's notice--
He is a paranoid man, after all.

Behold!

The Sword of Damocles!

1358

The Treason of an accent
Might Ecstasy transfer—
Of her effacing Fathom
Is no Recoverer—
—
The Treason of an Accent
Might vilify the Joy—
To breathe—corrode the rapture
Of Sanctity to be—

In the beginning there was Shakespeare
with his worldly verse that let me fly
betwixt the Merchant and the Shrew
a flame was set alight
and it grew and bore
testimony to an increasing love for the music of the mind
                                                            ­                               Tagore came later
with more a serious thought                              a distant father
to my immaturity
undulating spirit that within me lay
                                                       inspired

Always thought I’d grow up and be like Plath
                                 Or like Dorothy Parker
                                                          ­                                                       always in some dark corner
trying on all the mental dresses
my imagination supplied
powerful black and pungent hues
tears that no one cried
confessions which became
                                            accusations
se­lf-effacing in my pride
                                                           ­     then I found e.e.cummings
that tricky wonderful guy
who weaved puzzles into his poems
                                                   such spell-binding joy!
I am become Ekalavya
from absent teachers i have learnt
to string my voice together

- Vijayalakshmi Harish
        31.08.2012

Copyright © Vijayalakshmi Harish

Whisperings of a morbid night foretell
Of a humble visitor that the velvet shall grace
Hope sears through the indolent air
Mutterings of a sweet dream it lays.

And its wispy arms, it spreads
Turned crystal white with its eternal age
With clandestine diligency it works around
A heavenly glow kindling from its face

It leaps across with its companion
On amethyst streams, through its sprays
The curved drops of life falling with a time-less reflection
Vivifying the wind in the boundless chase

And it blankets the forests in its spell
It plummets meticulously into the dark
Veering down the crevices unwelcome
Effacing the veneer of darkness, on a journey it embarks

It's gentle in its temperament
But of sturdy shoulders it boasts
With an unfaltering expression it entails
With a vivacious drive, all, it endures

Somewhere across a strewn landscape
An irrational vindictiveness comes to work
A carpet of bullets laid across
Sprays the emblazoning red across in its mirth

Fulfilling a painter's dream
The lewd red glistens on the grass
A town awakened to a carnage of dreams
The stars flicker, frightened, the night they grasp

And a clarion mingled with the mud beside
A crestfallen spectacle it boasts
This verbose only euphemising the sight
Knitting the strands of malice, the blood flows

Cries of agony and pain resound through the stench
Corpses of infants clinching their mother's
And the face of a young girl clinging to a pole
Whimpering at the face, numbness inside, it bursts

And this despondent night, the visitor visits
Sweeps across the blown landscape, dispassionate
Stops beside the girl and in its soothing elegy
Tells tales of the battles of happiness lost in time's chase

And Hope, it lingers on
With ardent belief and patience to reap
And the girl weeping with blank, black eyes
The memories that shall never be cast, the mother she shall never see

The young ones of a bird remain
Stranded in their nest, their stomachs inviting
Squeaking and gnawing with their tiny beaks
Oblivious, their mother shall never appear, suffice in this cold, biting

A mother in a furtive torment
Fruits of whose shall have been sweet
A life that may have spawned, laughing with clenched fists
Unknowing, what the vicissitudes shall entail, what fate it shall meet

A boy with a kite in his hand
And a euphoric smile on his face
With dreams of racing with the wind
And mists of clouds that he shall chase

Hope casts an omnipresent shadow, moves along
With a passive effect binding them all together
Harbringing life, sweeps off the tears
Lifts them up to the zenith in its calm, dependent clutches

Kingdoms fall and statues wither away
The tide of time takes its toll on all, in the unduelled race
But Hope suffices, clings on to the little crevices
Gives little flocks of dreams for the girl to chase

humans born a mess,
messengers carrying blank notepads, sheet music,
brought from within to the without

a baby-sized handful of historical residues retained,
garnered from all too brief a prelim existence,
arriving possessing hints of what may be

most emerging crying,
crying over loss of the womb security,
for seers all, all see unaccountable futures clouded
by an inevitable chance of rain
and death

all of us, no one excepted,
covered for months in **** stained fluids ,
a holy, ***** combination
of amniotic nourishment,
and our own waste

a hint of what is to come?

human then spends the rest of life
cleaning up after himself,
mostly with tasks of addition,
punctuating by the occasional cleansing of
elimination subtraction

making room for the next love,
labored birthing of a baby poem,
from your womb, midwifed,
haunting ghosts of three note tunes,
begging for a set of lyrics and a
great chorus everybody can sing,
a completion competition

going along, all along, to the goings on,
all our routes preternatural crooked,
lived a life of pretense, a straightened out life,
which is the nuanced, connected summary of our components
which are all curves, dots on a line

and the composition source,
the secret chords employed,
tech installed just prior to birth,
effacing glorious sadness, glorious joy,
the human building blocks,
with the certainty that
everybody knows,
that's how it goes
everybody knows,
only fools believe,
you'll live forever

but live at least long enough to sing and write of
a man cleaning up his own life's messes,
and perchance, after our absence,
leaving the world better for it

beneath            one                            effacing       ­        blush
                          simmers         veil ties               liquidly i stare
                                                  fears   pink with praise      lusts withheld       thimble shames
embalm a gift identity
                  daily sunny graves    
                                       dissembled life

with deeper breath akin to fisher netting cast
                     fog caress mneumosyne             lover's misty thigh
                                                           ­                                      traps me willingly  
blinded   i taste ambrosia
                          gazing at between zones                               believing anything again

cliches pyroclastically reborn in celebrants of ash and cynic deaths
            energetic     swim         i stroke   a butterfly        in Love
                                instant tribadists      commit   a joyous toast to joy itself

My inner child,

Recently I have found myself crawling through those hazy archives of my past, when it was only you and the dirt on those endless afternoons. And I wonder to myself how much of these memories truly exist and how many blanks I may have filled in along the way. I try to formulate a hypothesis on this but my mind is preoccupied with the image of the mound of soil at the back of the garden. The one our sister swore was a buried lion – a truth you swallowed so readily. Since then you have moved house and dug a grave for the lion yourself, only this one was your best friend.

We have drifted you and I. I rarely see you. Sometimes in the midst of pills and drink I swear we cross paths but soon my heart thuds heavily and I do my best to just keep my feet and then you’re gone. I am now just a composite of lessons learnt and punishments served. A sum of all the times I broke a heart, failed a class and tripped on a stone. I look ahead to adulthood – I know we never believed we’d get there - we never needed to, but here we are. I don’t wear a suit, I don’t drive a car and I have no money. Beards don’t suit me and as things stand, it is unlikely I will become Batman. I would tell you that we’re not a failure – that I’m not a failure but the world tells us differently. We need a real career.

It is a tired cliché admittedly, but I do miss your innocence – your boundless inquisition into everything about you. The incessant inquisition still remains, but the plague of indoctrination-education and the scorn on your school friends soon puts up borders in your mind. You soon realise which questions are stupid, even if they are right to be asked. Cleverness soon becomes more than being able to tie your shoes. You must be strong, you must be brave, you must be ruthless.

I think back to how much we loved our mother and how it hurts now, to see her ignorance and her emotional frailty for all that it is. The day when your mother becomes human is truthfully one of the most frightening days to experience. Still, for you, those wonderful April shower mornings in the park are a refuge. Feast on those sandwiches, huddle together under the shelter of the slide and listen placidly to the rain hit the metal. Do not think for a moment of what needs to be done or what has been done. Live in the present before you get lost the cogs of causation.

Learn to fall in love. Not just with people but with animals. With words, with pictures, with colours and tones. Textures, sounds and imagery. Please never lose the wonder of lying in the grass and seeing a separate world. I know you don’t understand beauty, perhaps because you are beauty within itself. Perhaps only I can understand beauty because mine has been lost through these fatherless years of self-effacing thoughts and relentless hangovers. Perhaps it is only now that I grasp for beauty, in order to claw back some of what I have lost. Just to taste it again.

I wont keep you for much longer. I know you need to run and yell and play until the sun falls. I simply wanted to tell you that I love you. You are what I love about me, despite what may have been lost in the classrooms. I know now that I should get my head out of the screen and cast my eyes beyond my bank balance, so that I can see you in the distance and greet you as a friend. My old friend. I hope I get to see more of you after writing this, because I miss you and my brain is sometimes just so loud and I think you might be the only thing to quieten it. I am going to fall into bed and sleep dreamlessly under the covers now. If nothing else, I promise you that as you grow older, you will look forward to bed time!

Yours in complete awe,

A very confused person.

All others talked as if
talk were a dance.
Clodhopper I, with clumsy feet
would break the gliding ring.
Early I learned to
hunch myself
close by the door:
then when the talk began
I’d wipe my
mouth and wend
unnoticed back to the barn
to be with the warm beasts,
dumb among body sounds
of the simple ones.
I’d see by a twist
of lit rush the motes
of gold moving
from shadow to shadow
slow in the wake
of deep untroubled sighs.
The cows
munched or stirred or were still. I
was at home and lonely,
both in good measure. Until
the sudden angel affrighted me—light effacing
my feeble beam,
a forest of torches, feathers of flame, sparks upflying:
but the cows as before
were calm, and nothing was burning,
nothing but I, as that hand of fire
touched my lips and scorched my tongue
and pulled my voice
into the ring of the dance.

Bring victory, the winged harbinger of the conquest,
Beg for tyrannical proclamations: the end of man, the end of men,
By now, the greater of the concepts is lost to its own devices, devices,
Belching out smoke, that bend the corpses upon their backs.
By wrenching from their life a sense of purpose,
Byproductively, they feed heroic romanticisms of combat.

Brought yet upon these fields, there lies no stranger enemy
But that of the tide
Being self-effacing, masochistic,
Belittling, She breaks herself upon the shore, ravaging the bodies of
Both, Playing as ******* and as subservient

Leeza (the 13 year old sister of my roommate Lisa) and I are in the building 220 lobby, heads-down on our phones, waiting for Lisa and Peter (my BF). The lobby is huge and deserted except for a lady concierge at the front desk, a security guard and the doorman - all far away from us. This is by way of explaining that our masks are off - mine hanging, useless, on my left ear.

When this unmasked guy, I was grazingly introduced to at last year’s 220-building Christmas party walks up to us and says, “Anais, Hi. You’re back!”

I flinched. I know a lot of people are over the whole mask thing and the covid thing - and have the temerity to risk it all, but I don’t - did I mention flu season or covid variations? Someone unmasked getting unexpectedly up in my personal space is jarring, rude, and on several levels dangerous and scary.

“Oh, hi,” I said. I vaguely recognized him, but I couldn’t remember his name. He’s one of those guys who’s cutely strange looking. He’s short (5’4”) (nothing wrong with that, short kings, you’re valid), his hair’s dark at the roots but blonde tipped (beach-hair?) and when he smiles, and he smiles a lot, his smile looks too big for his face. I remember he’d seemed socially awkward when we met, and Lisa had said his father is someone important.

“Yeah,” I said, with a shrug, “Holidays again.” I briefly bob up on my toes, to glance over Leeza’s head and to my relief, I see Lisa and Peter coming out of the elevator. I decide to mask up and seeing me do it, Leeza does as well.

“I’m sorry,” I said apologetically, “I remember you, but I can’t remember your NAME. I’m an idiot.” I give him my best, ditzy shrug.

He reintroduced himself, “Merritt,” he said, offering his hand and smiling again, still unmasked. As I shook his hand he twisted in Leeza’s direction and said, “Hi Leeza!” She gave him the smallest possible 13-year-old’s courtesy nod.

Peter and Lisa arrived, having masked up. “Merritt, hey!” Lisa said, greeting him warmly. “Have you got senioritis yet?” she asked, cheerfully. “Merritt’s graduating from Brown this year,” she announced, turning to include us all in the good news. “Public policy, ya?” She followed up.
“That’s it,” he confirmed, beaming.
“Congratulations!” I said, nodding.
“Way to go!” Peter added with a “yes” nod.
“Merritt, this is Peter,” Lisa said, taking charge. “He belongs to Anais.” she reported, as they shook hands and exchanged nods. “Merrit,” Lisa said, in a disappointed tone, “I hate to rush off, but we’re in a scramble for a dress fitting,” she lied. Lisa can lie like a politician.

And just like that, in something like 45 seconds she shook-off Merritt - who seems like a very sticky guy indeed - without resorting to mace or anything - Lisa’s got charm.

Thoughts about charm..
My grade, in physics 3 (an A-) was 2-one-hundredths from an A+. I almost certainly (like 85%) could have charmed the professor for that tiny bit. We’ve all seen it done - you put on a self-effacing smile and say, “I’m so close, is there something I can do for extra credit?” But I can’t DO it, physically, I can’t say the words and beg for grades. It’s like I can picture my mom watching me having to beg for something she earned, and I’d be mortified to even try. It’s my small disadvantage, a self-imposed handicap.

Besides, if I did betray my code, there’s the awful chance the professor might say no - and that would **** me.

Lisa, on the other hand, wouldn’t actually have to charm. She’d ask about her grade, periodt. The teacher, seeing there’s something he or she could do for this goddess - would just do it. With no asking involved.

Imagine you’re an airline agent and Beyonce´ stepped up to your station. She has a little problem you could effortlessly fix with a click of your mouse. Would you, do it? Hells-yes you would and before she even asked. “It’s already done,” you’d say - just to have Queen Bey smile at you.

The rest of us have to work at it (sigh) - and take our chances..

She, betrayed, in histrionic flow,
Heart akimbo, flailing at the sky,
Fired with voyeuristic need-to-know,
Rages at the outing of a lie.

He, defensive, understanding, sure,
Accommodates the outburst in his stride.
Lassoes her with a practiced sinecure;
Instinctive gesture, expertly applied.

She, bewildered, aimless and morose –
(He, distracted by the barmaid’s hips) –
Casts aside the guilt-effacing rose;
Repealed devotion scrawled upon her lips.

a new poem (words, words, words but another drug), bolt upright, uplight, reattach yourself to the liquid of the music,
soothe the irritation, slowdown the shaking hand,
give god or his creatures, the nocturnes and sonatas,
a chance to restore the pounding of the chest to a leveling
equanimity

to no avail, the sleep angels have fled from the
forest fires in the chest, and the helicopters must quench
with the commence of dropping clouds of wet words,
when, when will I be released from a life that has no
easements

words, words, words but another drug, a habit that gives
everything but a temporary state, every poem nothing but
another her, another lady puncture in my restless body,
another juncture, where all your choices are the way of
error

the high will last, shorter each one, but the track will exist
for all the time, a token of human foolishness, the more is
the inevitability of the ending, writ, drawn a little closer,
and comes with a hand written spongy-apology begging for
existing

in his notes, motes, dust mites of titles, single verses,
elegies, essays half written, passing thots claiming to
want to be wannabes, this appears and it's a perfect
ending

there is no security in poetry, only the unresolvable

man in his perfect certainty, never was, nevermore, n'ere will be never, and one poet walks a razor's edge, that is his three tenses struggling for mutual coexistence, one of
a calming beauty, a dark glory, a perfect closing, choosing
a final solution, a belief in relief, that simultaneously
engraves, erases, and
equates

another new poem fissures to the surface, and the palpable
is a magician's illusion, a trick, a feat of dismemberment,
an excise of a piece, a drink, a Tennessee whiskey of him,
an emission that never gains remission status, all this fakery,
a new poem (words, words, words but another drug),
excellent, worthless and self-
effacing

{|||}

3:48am-5:46am

As you lie on the creaky hospital cot,
there is a lot that can be thought
by listening to the uneven, rapid wheeze
and by looking at the hitherto unseen pallor
of your otherwise ruddy cheeks......

Many (im)possibilities can be perceived;
that a father I may never be;
that my father may never be
the same with me;
that you may well have entered
the last lap
in your race for that ever elusive
qualifying tag;
that come what may, one day
you shall really be a non-entity
and there may be only me
to see you lying limp and lifeless
just as you now seem to be......

Perceptions may not be real.
The only reality, is a single soul searching query:
Does any materialist passion
or for that matter, a self-effacing spiritualism,
allow anyone to cause the demise of the one
still huddled up in that warm,
allegedly safe darkness of anonymity?

Isn't a human life, howsoever insignificant it be might,
too much a price to pay
for even the rarest gain...
in this provisional little world
of putty clay?

it's a short  dance
between the night and, say  
the morning
dreamy hope  
moon trance  
missing heartbeats
scary haunting prowls
distant shards of darkness
and a soft release
with a hint of silence.

My drugged fantasy
follows the rhyme masters:  
trans-Atlantic dwellers  
icy treasure keepers
sights of sacred mountains    
and powerful embracing
(never self-effacing)
of half-life, half-death.

My pen poised and struggles:  
such a crazy evening  
such seductive welcome  
sights perfectly imagined  
and accomplished howls  
of the gospel sayings.  

I'm a northern demon
painting ashen skies
as I watch vampires of dark past returning.
  
Such a hard unlearning:
memories
are future souls burning
that whisper to us  
through the ancient dust
of painless forgetting
freedom fragments chasing  
precious bonds of wisdom,
perfect dreamy angels.

Narcissus was hunted,
His life abated through reflection
‘Till all that was left was his beauty
Stained on the water’s surface,
And his tale as a flare in the night
For every proud soul.

Thenceforth we shamed ourselves,
For every fleeting glimpse at the face
Which contains the twinned thoughts of our own.
The mirror, now a symbol
Of despicable self-assurance,
Man’s vain invention.

It is the microphone
However; the tool that listens,
Clamours attention to every word
And breaks in vicious soundwaves,
That’s the true measure of vanity,
A catapulted voice.

The mirror, used more so
As a reflection of our self-doubt
And all of the fear people can see.
My self-effacing curses,
My knowledge of singularity,
And total lack of greed.

you'd always come home via the garden path, reveling in the crunching of the twigs, the slooshing of the leaves, the endless clackering of misfound footfalls. till the day, after a particularly satisfying stomp snapping, you looked underfoot and saw the remains of the fallen sparrow's nest


it took you five days to soak out the blood


tonight's supposed to be the biggest moon in 68 years. Biggest moon! Wow.


a girl at the party says it's stupid to care what others think. i agreed with her. She agreed with my agreeance, and then burst into tears. i ignored her and walked away. i'm a frigid *****, but theys' gotsta learn, they


God, the flies, it's such a cliché, but it's true, as you trek down into the sludge you can't see them but you can hear it, the buzzing, you can always, from everywhere, the buzzing


when our flatmate left, he deconstructed his bed. he didn't take it with him, he just, took the mattress, threw it in the water closet, left the headboard on the stairway landing, and the sides and springs'n-**** in the garage
                      i really respect the gesture


in the gully between the graveyard and the mine, they built a highschool. a ******* highschool. lord knows why. it looks like a ******* campers lodge, all the kids climb up the banks and the uni students sell them acid in lolly mix nickel bags. everyone i've ever known came from that school, one way or another. heavens know why. hey, look at the big chimney, guess the furnace is on. it's still in use, huh? probably shouldn't be loitering. anyway-


the big diggerman's dig up the concrete, put it in a bucket.
the big diggermans with the big digger truck, with all the cones and stop signs.
Bawm! Bwam! the big muscle arm, full of strewn piping and pistons, bab's the ground bab bab. Take that, ground! Bab Bab!! the spinning chair vibrates, the man gyrates, and the big arm up's and downs, down down, swivel, dump.


remember when we were thirteen, and the idiot boys made a game of standing in a circle, trying to **** into their own mouths? you wanted to punch them in the face, but didn't want to get your hands *****. if only you'd known, back then, that your limbs were really just overgrown turnips, would you of been so insistent at keeping your distance? keeping the world at arms length? that's always the irony, isn't it. the world was inside you all along

–

At the end of the cemetery, past the hedges, a car park, overlooking the hill, where there's a huge oak tree, and all the concrete is just fractured under its weight, and the asphalt is in tar stricken colours a blackbird in mid-dive splatter. Anyway. Sorry,-

god, you're making porridge? Porridge? *******, are you even hungry, or did you just ******* want to see the ******* oat-*****-muchus coat everything you

-just, there, in this graveside car-park overlooking the city but also in the middle of nowhere, there's two cars. One, a ******* Mitsubishi GT, all slick and weltering plastic, pure pristine millionaire CEO's toy phallus, and beside it, a banged up old Datsun, and it all seems like an allegory for something, but it isn't, it's just, someone dumped these two ******* cars here, but they're not even dumped per see, the registry in the windows are up to date and everything, but they're just there


      all the damp men take the STOP out the truck, stand on the road, hold the cones, watch the digger man seat shuffling; gotta shuffle move up the pavement before you big hand down


You were too clever, weren't you? to bash her head, right there, in the corner, there, above the left cheek bone, so i couldn't tell, right? to make her look like just one more corpse, among the rot? obscure that one side, turned away? left to decompose, mid-perch, on a desert highway? well, maybe it wasn't, maybe it was just someone else, but the fact that you knew, you knew i'd check above the left temple, and that you ****** chose that as the point of rupture, it shows, it just ******* shows, the


the flies never gather, at the point of death, they just breed in the damp, the gulleys surrounding it, why is that


and just look at you now, sitting there, naked as a newborn, crying to yourself, wiping your weepy eyes with your simpering turnip paws, and it's just pathetic, isn't it? And i love you, i do, it's the one moment i can say it, i can feel it with burning, simple purity, with self effacing truth and clarity, because, here, i don't matter. you don't need me, you need a body to hold, an arm to hug you. in loving you i can be absolved of all qualities, and so, for once, i do, i do

Yeah no! In sixty-eight years! What even is the moon



it's amazing, i've eaten nothing in the last thirty-six hours, except a single dried apricot. yet
                                   i need to *****

  you know that feeling? What a feeling. You need to retch, but there's nothing to retch, and there you are, just standing there, at 5am gagging to yourself in a damp field. A stomach, trying to turn away, fold upon and shaft itself a vicissitude. A stomach, no, no, yes, you see?  You need to empty yourself of this bile. What bile? Exactly. There's nothing. Nothing up-emptied onto nothing. And that's all there is, right, that's all that life is, is given right there; the gag, the convulsion, the upturning unto itself, the attempt, attempt, you understand? Of the cathexis, of the innerworld, taken to contain only the unspeakable within itself, miserly bile, a concomitant of all the worlds ills and would be ills and then upon it taken as an ill unto itself, a single nebulous fluid husk of malignant umbra, held in *******, bound in fleshy lining. But then the expulsion, the retch, is attempted, to take all the seething disease of the inner and to project, upturn it onto the outer world. Where? It doesn't matter. In the bin, into the shrubbery, Anywhere but in here. Once it's gone, it gone, that's all that matters, gone, go, go, get. The body tries to push the malaise of(as) the internal unto the external, the outer, but in doing so, finds itself(boundary) empty, where it thought it incubated only vile, there was instead, only nothing, but still, somehow, the convulsing, the retching, the act itself, remains. And that's it, you see? That's all it is, all the emotional turmoil, all the half-hearted hallucentric episodes, the all of everything, is just that, just an, an emptiness trying to upend itself but finding there's nothing to upend, but it still asserts itself as process, as an unending nausea, unresolvable nausea, both grounding and thrown, the throwing and that-which-is-cast, bent under itself,  nausea



the swamp reclaimed the garden last summer. flood season, after all. some days the stagnant waves came right up to the brickwork, can still see the lines, see? your old swing set's a gonna though. all the rabbits either abandoned their dens, or were drowned out. lord knows how many micro-organisms died as well. lot's of new ones were probably borne though, right? hear those flies, bzzt, bzzt. life loves damp heat. you can never tell, never tell really.

Why do you repel death
As if you stepped on an uncouth reptile
That stupified your mirth with a sting
and stiffled your brearth with dark coils round your girth?

The sibling death was with you ever since your birth
As close and distanced  as the self-effacing unmouthed mammoth  earth.

Throughout your path
And  passage along childhood to Man or
Motherhood
You did not see the truth
That death was with you ever since your
Being to  becoming growth
As a naive and native
Star in the north.

When you giggled and smiled in sleep-shell
the death was smiling with you as well.
When you dreamed and deemed yourself immortal
The death was kind at your daring mettle.
When you forgot to know the worth
Of the Love Smith
Who carved you as the crown of creation
The death was with you, an emphatic narration, a gentle witness of your lavished wishes of yourself.

Death was around you
Embracing your kiths
With valour indepth
And a love of eternal strength!

Still you strolled  uncontrolled to count your mortal home and hearth,
Ephemeral wherewithal

Death was ever loving
And lent you a free living
Even when you were  ailing.


Still you failed in your mirth
To listen and learn
From  what its worth
Still he is mute and modest as earth
And a caring and guiding  north star.

Then why do you loathe
And  show dearth of love to the one who
Loves all in equal strength
And blanks out all balance sheets,  
That credit and debit all accounts on earth
To the remembrance bank of infinity
without showing any disparity?

Realizing a fresh life growing inside,
What thoughts coursed through my mother’s mind?
Did she gleefully welcome the news?
Or respond to it with a violent shock?

So sure, right away after her fourth baby
With four little kids still needing care
Like chicks in a coop, carrying once again
Might not have been in her scheme of things

Thus at a time when she expected it the least,
Could she beckon the new life growing inside,
With a pleasant nod of head in assent
Or with a suppressed moan of fright, I wonder!

When from nausea she started to suffer
And threw up each time when she ate
Did she curse her man in silence?
Or grow mad with her children and her fate?

Slogging through those weary days
With no respite from her routine chores
Did she get enough rest or care?
Or did she languish without a hand to assist?

Seeing her with an extended waist line
Did some nosy neighbors behind her back
Teasingly utter in hushed whispers
‘Oh, she has done it again!’

Once when I started kicking inside
Was she tickled or greatly annoyed?
When she heard the first ‘lub- dub’ of my heart
Did she feel as two hearts singing in harmony?

As her tummy grew bigger everyday
And sleepless in bed as she tossed
Was she haunted by nightmares bleak?
Or was she visited by dreams of delight?

Travelling closer and closer to those final days
Did she curse herself seeing her in the mirror
Woefully bloated and ripened into a bulge
Or did she wait my arrival in blissful expectation?

Then suddenly one day when the earthquake began
In mild tremors first, then gaining in force
Did she scream mad or cry aloud?
Or did she endure the pain in austere silence?

Then abruptly when I showed myself up
Did she feel any remorse over my ***?
And see me as another liability
Added up to the girls already in line

No, I am sure she must have cuddled me close
And locked me in the warmth of her *****
For she was such a rare gift sent from heaven
A mother nonpareil in self effacing love

884

As Everywhere of Silver
With Ropes of Sand
To keep it from effacing
The Track called Land.

You wear your presence lightly,
you politely undermine it
for the folks who'd find it fright'ning
in the normal daily grind
You are jocular and flighty
wear a self-effacing grace
although your shoulders might be mighty
were they not so undermined

We met at a rehearsal
for an amateur dramatic act
to shrink the universal
to a comfortable size
They took a work of genius
the timeless peerless grandeur
and they whittled it to meaninglessness -
There I caught your eye.

"I hear you need a drummer!"
you intoned in toffee baritone
and sad, diluted Shakespeare
did evaporate tout suite
"We're gigging in the summer!"
I replied in my delight and then
I knew I'd found a friend
who might just help me keep the beat.

I found you were an artist
of broken, brittle beauty
who believed an artists' duty
was to challenge and defy
Who had washed up in the genteel
artists' village of Kircudbright
where the art is safe and snooty,
boats and trees and sunny sky

But your canvas is elastic
is electric and eclectic
as you drastically cast an angry
eye across it all
Any prettiness is sitting
on a nauseous unwellness
where the skeleton of Elvis
boogies by a butcher's stall

Well we found some fellow feeling
in our mutual defiance
casting darts at art and science
and amusing just ourselves
Made some music, sank some bevvies
wrote a book, got raging drunk
but what we managed withered, shrunk
by what we planned and simply shelved.

Well it seems that I've been hoping
that our business was unfinished
that our plans were undiminished
by the passing of the years
That some catalyst would manifest
and shake us into action
dissipate the dull distraction
of the daily hopes and fears.

But it seems that you are leaving
that your talent, brightly blazing
and the fact that you're amazing
has been missed by this wee town
Well I undersand it, ******
but I'll miss you now, my brother
and the tumbled jumbled colour
that you spun from Solway brown.

I.

He’s
put on
the ****’s watch,
a peaked tower
who stands at far reach
to throw shadows with square
limbs. Loose-draped in rough
skins, he’s wary
of Dawn’s creep,
its lies.
He
sips fire
to fillip
flagged spirits, fix
the one-hundred eyes
rung monstrously about
his uncrowned head. Sleep
comes as well-timed
jaunts, its blinks
rolling
round
in thin-
lid cascades;
these hoodless winks
non-stop projecting
scenes from green grazing fields
where he keeps a girl-
beast, the jealous
prop of fast-
fading
robes.

II.

She’s
ill-changed
by blind rage,
a punishment
brought down for baring
another’s intentions—
his wont of too much,
never sought for
or seeking.
Her sleek
nymph’s
lines were
well-drawn till
smudged and pulled wide
they broke open, spilled
a dark spotted bulk, she
awkwardly carries
on spindly legs.
A mind’s led
circling
back
to gnarled
trunks that clutched
at blackened soil.
The tether’s chain, forged
silver with heavy links,
stretches taut to cut
circumscribed arcs
through bitter,
dying
blades.

III.

He’s
foggy
as he spies
morning ride in
rosy on the curled
back of low-rising mist.
Its errand breezes
were sent to spell
a lyric’s
deceit—
blow-
whispers
to drowse him
with wedded tunes.
Needle-sharp leaves spin,
making olives hum, while
their twigs clatter-knock
dull drums and lull
fifty pairs
to close.
What
was kept
is loosed with
thunder-less flash—
the quickening catch
that foils Argus by writ
mischief and wraps him
in its coiled tale
of never
slipping
free.

IV.**

She’s
twisted
and drags clanked
metal tangles
behind, while ahead
lie the first halting steps
of her re-formed path-
ways. They spoke out
a blurred wheel
beyond
the
sentry’s
fallen bulk,
but malodor
beckons to its sky-
enthroned mistress who tasks
cloud-effacing pests
to descend and
buzz-beat words,
erstwhile
known,
to non-
sense. The winged
confusion goads
Io, who released
from cowed thoughts will make mad-
apparent wanders.
She’ll chase earthbound
love and birth
mortal
time.

What has remained where memory was lost or stolen?
Effacing years replaced what had been felt,
the child adept at stealth and isolation
becoming stranger than the life he left

behind in absence, which was both gone and forgotten.
An echo of a voice in an empty silo rings
because he heard it answer him with words
instead of bruises; the man and child grins.

Remembering selectively, the man
recalls the carcass of a red Case tractor
thigh high in grass; and Viet Nam,
a water buffalo dead in a paddy after

the Viet Cong, like willful parents, spanked
the area with small arms fire. Hell
was neither here nor there but something stank.
The mood rolled over as an odor will

disperse in time, a transient effect
of mind, but an abyss of remembrance haunts
wherever ghosts have congregated, cleft
from the wanton interval of thwarted wants.