Corpses proliferate in soaring violence; heirloom of franchise and eminence— perish in erosion.

Timid denizens of derision, cynicism in roaring silence — optimism’s paling vapor—commodity of Indecision, our halcyon days forgotten.

Chosen token of audacity; the onyx maladroit feigns, prevaricating beneath the Sacred canopy.

Etudes of apathy; attrition unlamented; streams of guile— quixotic squall conversely merge — veiled conceit, eloquent arrow of equivocation.

The policy of attenuation.

Treason’s vine obscured beneath the blind surf of consent.

© 2014 & 2016 W. S. Warner

Annona feigns sleep.
Marcus has bored her
With his talk of the

Campaign; droning on
About this aspect
And that and not a

Mark on his body
To show for all the
Dangers he says he’s

Been through. The flowers
He brought lie on her
Lap. Marcus gets up

To leave the room. I
Have forgotten how
Tired you must be,

He says looking at
His wife lovingly,
And me chattering

On and you wanting
Your bed and sleep, he
Adds craftily and

Smiling to himself.
Amy waits outside
The open door; she

Pretends to show her
Disinterest in
It all, holding back

A smile, knowing her
Mistress feigns well this
Tiredness and sleep.

Make sure your mistress
Gets to her chamber
Safely, Marcus tells

Amy bluntly and
Giving her his cold
Eyed stare. She nods and

Bows and watches him
Walk away with his
Usual swagger

And toss of head. If
You knew how I lay
In your wife’s soft bed,

She mutters, seeing
His figure go from
Her sight, how it was

I who kept her warm
And whom she kissed and
Made love to while you

Were away on your
Campaigns, you wouldn’t
Swagger so; would not

Seem so confident
Of your manliness
Or your wife’s fond love

And devotion. She
Smiles and gazes in
At her mistress who

Still feigns sleep, the red
Flowers lying on
Her lap like broken

Promises and frail
Tokens of lost love
After a long fought

Campaign. Amy stands
Waiting patiently
For her mistress to

Open her eyes and
Wishes her master
Were long gone; she wants

To share and sleep in
Her mistress’s bed
And that love again.

Oh, Love's infinity he often feigns.
The arrow's tip is buried in the heart,
Yet Cupid's weapon penetrates in part.
Though head pierce deep the tail outside remains.

As Love's infection spreads about through veins,
Its sweet eternal myth sets out its start.
Yet myths fade soon and hearts are torn apart,
And one who loved before so soon disdains.

Because the hand can touch the arrow's tail,
It pulls the length of it out from the soul,
The Mythic Love then dissipates to cold.

They all who buy the myth are doomed to fail,
Becoming merely halves who once were whole,
And fabled myths become a thing of old.


(C)2014, Christos Rigakos

To behold the daybreak!
-Walt Whitman, Song of Myself from Leaves of Grass

In days like this one,
when rain drops so light
& everything dips
into weeping grey
my sanity longs for memories.

My sanity longs
like impulsive recalling
of plummeting sadness
in greying day
sashaying mournful recollects
from sunrise to daybreak.

Remembering vanishes
in the joyful marrow of life.

There, forgetting lives.

Tell me the last time
bliss comforts your soul.

It is a transient tick
too stiff to evoke.

What about the last time
pain feigns your saneness.

Memories turned into bullets
slitting shrapnel
warping into my soul.

Happiness lasts for a second.
Sadness, a lifetime.

Tell me how to get rid
the hurting clout of ache
existing as a blunt fragment
benign yet reminisced.

Daybreak pours so hard
and my sanity like a waning light
crawls back in a miasmatic cave
along the river known
to be a home of a witch
& her cursing narrative
of throwing silver saucers
making her a spotless shadow
through vestal times
never again a thriving spirit.

Forget Blake. Forget Whitman.

Only in daybreak
where everything
churns into life,
my sanity shrinking back
collapsing
into surreal gaps.

Here & there,
my sanity longs for memories.

The Bishops bathe in Babylon
while Princes, prancing on the lawn,
watch Queen deflowered, pale and wan.
            The King dares not defend her.

The Horsemen, holding broken reins
the Morning of the Hurricanes,
sigh “it’s no use, it’s all in vain,
            the Saints will soon surrender”.

They wonder why they ever came,
they have No One whom they can blame,
they have no face, they have no name,
            and even less, a gender.


The empty-handed Vagabonds
smoke stale cigars, stroke faded Blondes
while waiting at the walls beyond,
            but kneel as Chaos enters.

They’re gazing through the window panes
in hopes that distant Hurricanes
will twist and break their iron chains
            defying life’s tormentors.

The Fantom of the Opera frowns
as feeble minded Cleric-clowns
mouth hollow hurdy-gurdy sounds
           when blessing doomed dissenters.


The Pirate wields a wooden leg,
with pupils dull and visage vague,
and if by chance he spreads the plague,
            it really doesn’t matter.

His Princess, pale, no longer feigns,
foresees instead (down ancient lanes)
the coming of the Hurricanes -
            the Stones stir, staring at her.

And Jackals scrape the river bed
as Savants soothe the underfed
and Crows, collecting scattered bread,
            adorn, with crumbs, the platter.


The Jokers Wild and One Eyed Janes
weep, winding up in rundown trains
mid whispers of the Hurricanes,
            and Priests refuse to christen.

They’re fleeing from the Leprechauns,
the cuckoo birds, the dying swans;
while pitching pennies into ponds
            their eyes opaquely glisten.

The spectral Clocks with spindled spokes
remind the Mimes to tell the  Folks
the time of day and other jokes,
            yet No One looks to listen.


The Hunchbacks with contorted canes
galumph before the Hurricanes,
in melted sleet, in frozen rains,
            in bruised and battered sandals.

Their Groans engulf the land of gulls,
the land of stones, the land of nulls,
and lurk between the blackened lulls,
            for Nighttime brooks no candles.

Their prayers to Dogs and Nuns and Dukes,
(and other long forgotten Spooks)
are more than random crazed rebukes,
            though taunting to the Vandals.


The Beggars ’neath the balustrades,
and broken Children, Chambermaids,
are running wild from wraiths, afraid
            of dreams where death redoubles.

They fritter time with tattered threads
(from ragged clothes they’ve left in shreds),
crocheting hoods to hide their heads
            and faces, full of rubble.

But many things will not remain
the Morning of the Hurricanes,
when goblets filled with cool champagne
           evaporate in bubbles.


The White-Robed Maid adorns the trash
with charnel urns awash in ash,
then fumbles with an untied sash
            while pacing in the Palace.

Her hopes congeal in coffee spoons
with memories adrift in dunes;
yet, still she smiles with teeth like prunes
            and lips of painted callus.

And long before the midnight drains,
the Saviour wakes, the Loser gains,
the waters of the Hurricanes
            will fill her empty chalice.


The storm (behind the clarinets,
the silver flutes, the castanets,
the foghorns belching in quartets,
            the bagpipes, puffed and swollen)

is keeping time to tambourines
while Tom Thumb and the Four-Inch Queen,
pick up the shards and smithereens
            of moments lost or stolen.

They’re trekking through the Dim Domains
(where fountains weep, the mountain wanes),
yet can’t escape the Hurricanes
            with trundling eyes patrollin’.


The Crowds (arrayed in jewels) in jails,
stoop, peering through a fence of nails
while light behind their eyeballs pales
            with plastic flame that sputters.

They huddle there because they must
(with eyelids hung like peeling rust,
their tears, palled pellets in the dust),
            behind the bolted shutters.

They’ll reawake without their pains
the Morning of the Hurricanes,
without their sores, without their stains,
their agonies will fill the drains
            and overflow the gutters.

I. Cogida and death

At five in the afternoon.
It was exactly five in the afternoon.
A boy brought the white sheet
at five in the afternoon.
A frail of lime ready prepared
at five in the afternoon.
The rest was death, and death alone.

The wind carried away the cottonwool
at five in the afternoon.
And the oxide scattered crystal and nickel
at five in the afternoon.
Now the dove and the leopard wrestle
at five in the afternoon.
And a thigh with a desolated horn
at five in the afternoon.
The bass-string struck up
at five in the afternoon.
Arsenic bells and smoke
at five in the afternoon.
Groups of silence in the corners
at five in the afternoon.
And the bull alone with a high heart!
At five in the afternoon.
When the sweat of snow was coming
at five in the afternoon,
when the bull ring was covered with iodine
at five in the afternoon.
Death laid eggs in the wound
at five in the afternoon.
At five in the afternoon
At five o'clock in the afternoon.

A coffin on wheels is his bed
at five in the afternoon.
Bones and flutes resound in his ears
at five in the afternoon.
Now the bull was bellowing through his forehead
at five in the afternoon.
The room was iridiscent with agony
at five in the afternoon.
In the distance the gangrene now comes
at five in the afternoon.
Horn of the lily through green groins
at five in the afternoon.
The wounds were burning like suns
at five in the afternoon.
At five in the afternoon.
Ah, that fatal five in the afternoon!
It was five by all the clocks!
It was five in the shade of the afternoon!

II. The Spilled Blood

I will not see it!

Tell the moon to come,
for I do not want to see the blood
of Ignacio on the sand.

I will not see it!

The moon wide open.
Horse of still clouds,
and the grey bull ring of dreams
with willows in the barreras.

I will not see it!

Let my memory kindle!
Warm the jasmines
of such minute whiteness!

I will not see it!

The cow of the ancient world
passend har sad tongue
over a snout of blood
spilled on the sand,
and the bulls of Guisando,
partly death and partly stone,
bellowed like two centuries
sated with threading the earth.
No.
I will not see it!

Ignacio goes up the tiers
with all his death on his shoulders.
He sought for the dawn
but the dawn was no more.
He seeks for his confident profile
and the dream bewilders him.
He sought for his beautiful body
and encountered his opened blood.
Do not ask me to see it!
I do not want to hear it spurt
each time with less strength:
that spurt that illuminates
the tiers of seats, and spills
over the cordury and the leather
of a thirsty multitude.
Who shouts that I should come near!
Do not ask me to see it!

His eyes did not close
when he saw the horns near,
but the terrible mothers
lifted their heads.
And across the ranches,
an air of secret voices rose,
shouting to celestial bulls,
herdsmen of pale mist.
There was no prince in Sevilla
who could compare to him,
nor sword like his sword
nor heart so true.
Like a river of lions
was his marvellous strength,
and like a marble toroso
his firm drawn moderation.
The air of Andalusian Rome
gilded his head
where his smile was a spikenard
of wit and intelligence.
What a great torero in the ring!
What a good peasant in the sierra!
How gentle with the sheaves!
How hard with the spurs!
How tender with the dew!
How dazzling the fiesta!
How tremendous with the final
banderillas of darkness!

But now he sleeps without end.
Now the moss and the grass
open with sure fingers
the flower of his skull.
And now his blood comes out singing;
singing along marshes and meadows,
sliden on frozen horns,
faltering soulles in the mist
stoumbling over a thousand hoofs
like a long, dark, sad tongue,
to form a pool of agony
close to the starry Guadalquivir.
Oh, white wall of Spain!
Oh, black bull of sorrow!
Oh, hard blood of Ignacio!
Oh, nightingale of his veins!
No.
I will not see it!
No challice can contain it,no swallows can drink it,
no frost of light can cool it,
nor song nor deluge og white lilies,
no glass can cover mit with silver.
No.
I will not see it!

III. The Laid Out Body

Stone is a forehead where dreames grieve
without curving waters and frozen cyprseses.
Stone is a shoulder on which to bear Time
with trees formed of tears and ribbons and planets.

I have seen grey showers move towards the waves
raising their tender riddle arms,
to avoid being caught by lying stone
which loosens their limbs without soaking their blood.

For stone fathers seed and clouds,
skeleton larks and wolves of penumbra:
but yields not sounds nor crystals nor fire,
only bull rings and bull rings and more bull rings without walls.

Now, Ignacio the well born lies on the stone.
All is finished. What is happening! Contemplate his face:
death was covered him with pale sulphur
and his place on him the head of dark minotaur.

All is finshed. The rain penetrates his mouth.
The air, as if mad, leaves his sunken chest,
and Love, soaked through with tears of snow,
warms itself on the peak of the herd.

What is they saying? A stenching silence settles down.
We are here with a body laid out which fades away.
with a pure shape which had nightingales
and we see it being filled with depthless holes.

Who creases the shroud? What he says is not true!
Nobody sings here, nobody weeps in the corner,
nobody ****** the spurs, not terrifies the serpent.
Here I want nothing else but the round eyes
to see his body without a chance of rest.

Here I want to see those men of hard voice.
Those that break horses and dominate rivers;
those men of sonorous skeleton who sing
with a mouth full of sun and flint.

Here I want to see them. Before the stone.
Before this body with broken reins.
I want to know from them the way out
for this captain stripped down by death.

I want them to show me a lament like a river
which will have sweet mists and deep shores,
to take the body of Ignacio where it looses itself
without hearing the double planting of the bulls.

Loses itself in the round bull ring of the moon
which feigns in its youth a sad quiet bull,
loses itself in the night without song of fishes
and in the white thicket of frozen smoke.

I don't want to cover his face with hankerchiefs
that he may get used to the death he carries.
Go, Ignacio, feel not the hot bellowing
Sleep, fly, rest: even the sea dies!

IV:

The bull does not know you, nor the fig tree,
nor the horses, nor the ants in your own house.
The child and the afternoon do not know you
because you have died forever.

The shoulder of the stone does not know you
nor the black silk, where you are shuttered.
Your silent memory does not know you
because you have died forever.

The autumn will come with small whiet snails,
misty grapes and clustered hills,
but no one will look into your eyes
becuaase you have died forever.

Because you have died froever,
like al lthe dead of the earth,
like all the dead who are forgotten
in a heap of lifeless dogs.

Nobody knows you. No, but I sing of you.
For posterity I sing of your profile and grace.
Of the signal maturity of your understanding.
Of your appetite for death and the taste of its mouth:
of the sadness of your once valiant gaiety.

It will be a long time, if ever, before there is born
an Andalusian so true, so rich in adventure.
I sing of his elegance with words that groan,
and I remember a sad breeze through the olive trees.

I am the hermit who lives in my head.
I gather...
I analyse...
I stow away all that I've learnt.

Because when the wind would blow
and the earth wouldn't understand.
When the world would tremble,
shaken by man's ruthless hand.

I am the hermit who lives in my head.
I listen...
I keep...
I stockpile in the shadows.

Because in my blood exists grudge...
And my bones, weary from despair.
My skin screams exhaustion
and my body feigns to care.

I am the hermit who lives in my head.
I overthink...
I hide...
I hoard all my thoughts.*

Because the walls have ears
and these pages bear eyes.
What my heart truly knows...
Is that your mouth tells only lies.

Here lies a continuation of being.
View it as scenery indifferent to the weather channel.
A silent, exponential inverted sunshine euphoria
Warming the deepest letters of the soul:
U and I swaying outside linear cubic conventions corroded-
We sway like flowering Earth Resonance blooming as foreign

[Sensations]
A toe-curling in the chest stretched intimate at the highest hour

[Movement]
An unconditional syncopation of the heart and mind echoing a
Design as Liquid Resonance - I am that which you are.
“I could cry solid tears. Where have I been all these years,” says

You to reflected I rippling

[Perception]
Never spoken, only written as an abstract entity aware of vibrations
Tethered to timeless stories never read, only felt as I and U in

Reflected them, the missing strangers with a need to be found

[Immortalized]
Twisted eyes, encumbered lips, everflowing knitted letters stuttered. Kissed. Growing from itself a rehearsed mantra embroidered pattern discord. Mythical. The murmuration of a serenade’s evil dermis that feigns thick to tooth and claw, but silences to love as the overture.

Wide-eyed, you and I are a nascent reprise of words cloaked in inked pages turning in the billowing wind.
"Read them to me."
So I read in heavy rain.
From Monday to Sunday.

If the writer is not the reader and the reader is not entered
(entertain-ed?) by the trial or trier
here in our phor of oroboronic

wheel spinning, our world of
entertaiment
contained,
be
coming to meet, um,
-phatics of sorts unheard,
ignored,
or unshown, un-

init-
iated unit-
ary, you,

become the
eleventh hour ***, none hired.
Apo

Unem, come work my field, *** my hard rows
no early helpers
weeded

Attention glitch... some signal intra fearal

No worry,
-- fear of god beginning wisdom boot code;

that connection
has been loose so long, missignaling
special and free,

a special sort of
crudescence has scabbed the short.
It's a brain fix.
You get a feel for it, the augments help,
Om as the
Axionic go, is tuned to absurdity. Listen.

Hear me, dragon-lizard-brain. We are a team. The team.
All the story stories tell of you and me. We unite.
We get our act together, and we
go mad, in the sight of all earthlings augmented to see
Youtube.

By my ab-surd-ifity, all our stories change. An unmatched wave.

-- forgive the footnote, but don't lie about what we both know is true:

absurd (adj.)"plainly illogical," 1550s,
from Middle French absurde (16c.),
from Latin absurdus "out of tune, discordant;"
figuratively "incongruous, foolish, silly, senseless,"
from ab- "off, away from,"
here perhaps an intensive prefix,
+ surdus "dull, deaf, mute," which is possibly
from an imitative PIE root meaning "to buzz, whisper"
(see susurration).
Thus the basic sense is perhaps "out of tune,"
but de Vaan writes,
"Since 'deaf' often has two semantic sides,
viz. 'who cannot hear' and 'who is not heard,' ab-surdus can be explained as 'which is unheard of' ..." The modern English
sense is the Latin figurative one,
perhaps "out of harmony with reason or propriety." Related: Absurdly; absurdness.
--
Screech, boomers know, finger nails on the chalkboard, the blackboard
jungle screech,
when teacher is takin' a smoke. Absurdity is entertainment.

It can make you think in whole new ways.
Or stop your believing of a lie

for long enough to see
a hope, no lie, a hope of something human
**** sapien sapiens augmental,
upright under Good and Evil,
sheltered from the storm.

A class, a level, a common value beyond Belief and Dignity and

dexterous sinister plots of points where clues were pinned,
yet you
overlooked the message, daze-led by the angels dancing.

Thales fell into this hole. He survived. It all ties in

The new -phatic word that started this stream ends it,
with our common
scream for meaning fullness apo-

apo-phatic mystery of sympathy,
bha, bha --

Paradox ortho
pedic augmentations, koan to mantra,
meditation on the word of words,
step to step to step logical
logos-centric reason, logo-istical rite to
evince a visible faith,
a virtue signal,
a mark, between the eyes,
an aim,
a point to spring a story from
upon an unsuspecting child averse to boos.

Trauma at a bubble pop. When all we know, dear
reader, is lost, and our bubble's edge sur
past our horizons,
we are mine-yoot, mispent attentions being

recycled, for goodness sake. Old lies twisting
into first fruits of the know
ing tree, ideas mani-fest
ing
ting, ding

Aha, my bubble of thought ala
funny papers in the old days where we met and laughed
together
in America, before we knew
earth from this distance
fifty years ago.

Wishbooks were real,
Whole Earth Catalog suppliers
sold me my nets, my hooks, and lines,

I learned the ways men have caught fish.
Wishing all the while for a way to live as earthlings live.
Guided by witty inventions, messengers
from the gods, eh.

Easter eggs, tucked away in retro games surfacing on Wall Street.

Who manages the messages released when the
first trump sounded?

That was me, as real, Asreal Kanbe, a walkon role.

I saw a third,
at least, of all the fish in the sea die,
in the duration of a single
short-span standard life. All seven trumps did sound, though,

they may be like lizards, we don't hear them well.

These seventy years of captivity
in the tales of my culture, my people and the ways they live in peace,

in the ways they resist war, sistere in peace with faith, the idea, the deed,

faith works in acting. True. Eh. Faith without action is dead.

Incandescentis onburnedupus, ****, dark. Switch on switch off
nada
dark dark faith sees nothing, ah so what, we muddle in puddles

and fail to portage for fear of surface I can't sticking to our
iron shod feet,
miry clay, heavy steps ******* the good news socks off
our beautiful feet,

see hear focus id - i dent ify the why, find the how-

thought change changes thinker, not thought.

Which of you can make one wire plus or minus by taking thought?
Taking anxious thought? Eh?
Fret not. Ohmmmmmmmm

my god, why the threats? Why must I fret for never making sense?

Dee ahna knowledge chan zen

consider the opposite, the shadow of turning, not doubt

preserve light and darkness little man
preserve sun and moon and stars

lose your wish to catch the Magic Fish.

But that is my wish, my wish for one more wish,
I wished to catch the fish

which taught the lessen to the fishher whose wife
could not be satisfied.

I wished for a source of all the answers ever found,

Ah. and I got this global brain that remembers ever,
though we know only now.
Never before,
has this been past that which men hoped for,
unseen.
Faith for the world to become as it now is,
is finished.
What a man sees, why does he hope for?

It worked. Self-evident, right. Same class as life and liberty.

Chickeneggical,
**** or ovoidal elliptical slices of life, those arrive for our

per-use-al, right or wrong. Like a Fabrege' egg:
You break it, you bought it. Life ain't fair. But it works.
Pick up the pieces.
They all still fit. None are missing. Some are broke,
but a soft touch can fix em.

You were always Humpty-Dumpty. This had to happen once.

Good side always shines, when
the rub has been dealt a shine-on signal for ever sake,
no reason,

just cause. A man can, even mad, be as happy
as he can imagine being,
at the time, all things considered, augmentasciously.

This was my oldest memory today, the future
shall come, and whatever
shall be, shall be, que sera sera.

How are you bored? This is earth. Even if you wish otherwise.

There are new things we may learn if we choose.

--apophatic (adj.)
"involving a mention of something one feigns to deny;
involving knowledge obtained by negation," 1850,
from Latinized form of Greek apophatikos,
from apophasis "denial, negation,"
from apophanai "to speak off,"
from apo "off, away from" (see apo-) + phanai "to speak,"
related to pheme "voice," from PIE root *bha- (2) "to speak, tell, say."

I would not call this meditation, sitting in the back garden.
Maybe I would call it eating light.
Mystical traditions recognize two kinds of practice:
apophatic mysticism, which is the dark surrender of Zen, the Via Negativa of John of the Cross, and
kataphatic mysticism, less well defined:
an openhearted surrender to the beauty of creation.

Maybe Francis of Assissi was, on the whole,
a kataphatic mystic,
as was Thérèse of Lisieux in her exuberant momemnts:
but the fact is, kataphatic mysticism has low status in religious circles.

Francis and Thérèse were made, really made,
any mother superior will let you know,
in the dark nights of their lives:
no more of this throwing off your clothes and singing songs and babbling about the shelter of God's arms

When I was twelve and had my first menstrual period,
my grandmother took me aside and said,
'Now your childhood is over.
You will never really be happy again.'
That is pretty much how some spiritual directors treat the transition from kataphatic to apophatic mysticism.

But, I'm sorry, I'm going to sit here every day the sun shines and eat this light. Hung in the bell of desire.” 
― Mary Rose O'Reilley, The Barn at the End of the World: The Apprenticeship of a Quaker, Buddhist Shepherd

"So. Why a robin?"
I picture us fighting, my neck hits the back of the leather arm chair. It hurts and you apologise. You are still pretending to get mad whenever I say I love you like you are not willing to hear it. You know I am going far away and whether its university or life we can't work without one of us making the other miserable. And I am still folding our hands to origami swans at 3am wishing for a second more with you. It goes futher than taking the scenic route home, dragging my feet and prolonging the front door, pretending we don't know how this ends.  We have the same conversations over and over, you apologising and joking as you think about what you'll turn into//me wondering if I'll even bother to make it that far. One day you might not remember my name, think my face isn't mine because didn't I used to blonde? We are not even perfect on paper. The government wouldn't grant us our bursary because they knew we are too self destructive. My poems for you were pretty when flipped to the ceiling but we think too much, wound ourselves up, and the folds in the pages won't come loose anymore. The words don't sit right. Somewhere on a fence in Carlton sits two robins. And life gets so hard when you realise you can't actually help another adult with their problems, you can only make them a cup of tea. Not coffee. Their brain spins in it's swivel office chair, controls broken. A dictatorship sinking fast. Their heart races - the more coffee you drink the more likely you are to experience anxiety//undiagnosed depression is hard to get rid of, it knows you want to acknowledge it and it waits for you to stumble upon it, it feigns surprises behind a pinewood door, but life doesn't get much better after you notice it. You still want to die and you still think every day about the one in three anorexia sufferers that don't make it. How really you don't know what "making it" is. I found a boy that I imagine smells like fire. He has these crazed pinpoint eyes that are not like yours and I don't know what to think anymore. He is an artistic genius and I want to run from my bad dreams into you and I don't know what to think anymore. I don't think anything is real anymore. I think we hit an iceberg. I think my fingers are caught in the ice, splayed hands grasping still like curved talon ends and I don't think I can get lose but it is cold. Think. Your warm hands on my ribcage holding me on an axis. Pedestal. You told me I don't love you last night and it felt like hot wax cooling in my throat. I can still taste it now. My hands are cold. I'm writing poetry about you again but I don't know if it's for you this time. Yes, there's a difference. I felt something gut wrenching today when I found that the great barrier reef had died. Is dying. It lived for 25 million years and the human race killed it. Like a toxic relationship composed of a bad survival climate and corporate waste, like us killing us. Big red buttons looming closer. I would compare us to the death of the great barrier reef- I don't think we were as beautiful, and we were killed by ourselves not climate change. So I am writing us an obituary before we self implode. I am writing the nights I have not spend crying on the kitchen floor an obituary before they are even over.  I don't think I can breathe underwater and the pressures are getting to your head. The colours are fading and the plants aren't breathing anymore. The backs of my eyelids are freezing over. You are the only one who knows about the two robins on a fence somewhere safe. You are the one I tell my nightmares to, the ones where I wake up and I can't breathe without you. The ones that I don't have anymore because now my fingers are inches away from the end of the rabbit hole. I can feel the breeze at my fingertips. We deserved more than a bunch of flowers cellotaped to a lamppost. More than a game of hangman. More than this is how I say happy anniversary. I wish we hadn't killed the great barrier reef. I wish that there had been better ways to say happy anniversary.

Rippling outward till the waves stop.
Dropped from a 5ft 10" skyscraper with a plop.

Perfect circles in precession,
stretching into regression
The placidity is eerie
as it returns with no sign of it's companion

The next one cast did a flip flop
across the liquid table top.

Those ripples again.
As if this lake had a brain,
it feigns space to detain
the stone and share knowledge arcane.  

The last one I decided to swap
I traded the lake's ripples for ones in my pocket.

Its a reason to return to the lake
The reason behind the pebble's wake
Scientifically, I know the make.
How is done, now why is at the stake.
,

Sun feigns heat
in a clear slate of blue above;
I gaze upon pale, brown hills and fields
through the smoke of my breath
wishing it would at least snow.

There was talk of cow-tipping
when I was in fifth grade,
but cows would've broken their necks.
Ground covered in frozen grass
is no comfort for fallen cows at 15 Fahrenheit.

Our small lake
transformed into a debating ground for skaters and hockey players,
each vying for control over the weekend's
primary source of entertainment.
(The dreadful alternative: afternoons shopping with parents.)

When it finally snowed, a wonderland was made,
a knee-high, get-out-of-school-free card.
We charted expeditions in corn fields, wooded creeks
and stone-colored barns that were beguiling in the white
of Chadds Ford pastures like untended English castles.

Woods like a Pollack of burnt sienna and white,
their only sound is weight of snow bearing down on limb.
Beyond those whispers, just a roaring silence
when I'm still as ice fingers
trying to touch the ground from the roof.

The cats of Baldwin's Book Barn nap easily within,
as we dig for a pearl amongst makeshift shelves
full of hard-bound reads for snow-bound youth.
These felines, grown, need not the words,
but the pages themselves for fine beds.

A blue-white glow from outside casts a cold light,
illuminating prints of Helga and Christina's World,
a reminder to all who live down the road.
On such a winter day, I didn't care to remember
that soon there would be Spring kittens in the books,
and a lake full of children's swimsuits.

Out on the empty streets
The ringing chime of deaf echoes cries
Stumbling through the brown alleyways
All I find is trash & dirtied lies
I need someone to save me, I've got no more strength
My soul's been stretched out to its limits length

I've looked for my secret
Yet all I've found is an illuminated crescent
Shining like the son of the sun
Who's only wish is to truly belong
To the morning bluebirds song

I need a way out of here
I need passage quick
The fields are empty, the cold-blooded moon high,
And all that can be heard are the sounds of crickets
Rubbing together in the tall, thinning thicket

A fire burns as the milkman feigns
Flicking his wrists as he whips the reigns
Toward a house full of the ripe insane
The grandpa on the deck, tapping his cane

Torn between choice and necessity
I feel free at least once in this life, oh' finally!
Cry for the moon and cheer for the rising struggle
Of the corrupt waning as the stitching of fought for love
Flies to the west like a snow white dove

Old times intertwine with the new
Waves crash along the beaches shore
What she wanted she couldn't explain
But I knew deep inside she wanted more

So I shake my head back and forth
Rocking with a splintered ship that wears no obvious sail
And I press my finger's against my heated temples
Looking for a moment that is never resting
Searching for a feeling without a name
Worrying whence I find it
I'll waking in the morning still the same

Black lit sky key to the weather horizon
A fortune for you is cast in all sorts of prizes
Hotel beds creased to make as the fake I.D.
Is checked and double-checked
Making sure who at dawn will pay
Rooms dressed for stranger's bashful vices
A rose colored wish only meant to entice

Each song I hear reminds me of you
Who knew true love was so fleeting and few?
I stretch my sun dried hands as I gaze ahead
If only I'd thought straight before I was led
The road in front of me graveyard dead

The abuse I'm feeling
Still runs through me
Is the heart serious
Or is it fooling?

I stand accused
Guilty and innocent
Shackle me let me free

The end

Means all the same to me

In brotherhood men learn to spread their wings
Mixing kindness with mythic grievances
The night wakes as the dawn slowly slips to sleep
Bubbling brook, I am here, try to speak

Cornered and alone now
Each hour a witness
Of a goal never finished
And inside myself I hear a wail
Of my soul setting sail
The waves breaking as I'm speaking
To a monk of no persuasion

Every prayer with reason
Drenched in hope for salvation
Appeasing what pains are held within thee
Each hour in wait ear near to the gate
Only humbled disinterest
Tempt the hands of sought fate

as honeysuckle grows tight on the fence
& the scent of jasmine burns in my nose
i can hear a child's laughter on the hills
& watch your cheeks burn hotter than the sun
when you tell me about your **** addict mother

how she lived in the econo-lodge dumpster for a while
painting cryptic symbols & mountain landscapes
on the outside walls still wearing the unsteady boots
she's had since her life in colorado
but she was scared of someone checking in it
while she slept so she didn't sleep
instead she conversed with the wimpering wind
& used the toy telescope she stole from your baby brother
to sing to the stars so she didn't feel so ******* alone

last summer you say she camped in the graveyard
behind the methodist church in town & spray-painted
the headstones as they climbed up the hill together
because she harbors too much pride to be
just another tweaker with her hand out

she's on guard against wickedness at all times & no longer
sells her love to method-acting men who don't love her at all
but she doesn't wear ******* anymore either because
her last pair were so soiled with *** she burnt them
in effigy on their last night of action

you say you miss her
& wish she'd get sober
but she's never been sober
& that's why your brother
was born with a stutter

she has warrants for her arrest in two counties
& surrounds herself with withering flowers because
she feels dead inside already
when she sinks her face into
the stem of the bulb & inhales she thinks
she is the one thing in the galaxy
god doesn't have his finger in
her stomach churns with hunger
flies hover around her & light on her
big as black crows resting on a dead tree

you say you haven't heard about her in
going on a month & ask me if i think
she's still alive
i say i saw her just last week
i was a pensive beetle perched on the wainscoating
she was stumbling out of a parked car at dawn
to take a wilderness **** down by the river

her smile is no longer a pretty thing i noticed
as she crouched to release the stream of early morning
maple syrup ***** knocking on the biological door
she said she's slept in her bedroom-car
so many consecutive nights that she distrusts houses
says she's scared of walls &
****** outside so many mornings after
that she's terrified of bathrooms
claims an allergy to porcelain
she even feigns an aversion to trains but
we've all seen the tracks on her arms
& the pits in her cheeks like she
sleeps draped across the railroad
at night tempting the cycloptic executioner

but she doesn't sleep at all &
she doesn't dream of you or your brothers or
of the days when she lived in a house
her tattoos have all become crude wax crayon
depictions of sunflower blossoms
needle drags & match strikes
she wraps & braids her hair with gnarled fingers
& bottle caps she finds on the riverbank
she bathes in hysteria at midnight
& washes her swollen eyelids each morning with dew
she fights paranoia with the ghosts in her throat
& stupor with stones from the dark bottom of the river
she is a frail bag of muscular potential living
in a finger-painted 97 pontiac sunfire with
a splintered patchwork windshield
& she is never coming back to love you

I'm about to slip
quietly into sleep
when the cat,
her food bowl bare
and the drink dried up
like Mojave,
hops on my back
and feigns affection
her sharp claws
stabbing here & there
in a soft attack
as she carves out
a cozy perch
in my flesh.
I lurch up
grunting and fumbling
pull the short chain
on the night table lamp
and in the pale green glow
pad off into the kitchen
scouting for Cat Chow
and a measure
of peace

Casual catastrophe
The hollow yearn of death’s widow
Bites the pavement on a thunderous night
For crippled rattles to ignite

The insidious ruin
Rides a blanket corpse into the liquor store hold up
Feigns apparitions for the madness
Distilling cruelty as a hand’s reach for addicts

A sleeper savant
Stretches his face across barren lust
A killing grin between rotting tusks
That rent the light out of a *****’s still blood

Devouring maggots
Of the ignorant, the arrogant, the cruel
Kiss the blisters on the swollen hearts
Of starving nations left to tear themselves apart

I weep for you, sweet angel.
So alone and isolated.
So scared of what the future could hold,
Or perhaps what it couldn't,
That you preferred to die rather than live.
I wish I could have held you.

I weep for you, brother.
Who lost your sibling.
Who regrets every cross word
And every assault and insult,
With the bruised eyes and torn soul
Don't blame yourself.

I weep for you, mother.
Who loved you baby more than anything.
Who laughed with him,
And cried for him,
And now battles with every ghost of a memory.
He loved you too.

I weep for you, father.
Who dreamt of your child's future,
Who imagined he would be a father someday too.
Who feigns strength for your family
But wants more than anything to break down too.
You tried your hardest.

I weep for you, world.
Who watched as an angel fell.
Who observed the skies opening for him,
Who watched the heavens pour out.
Who cradles him now, tighter than ever.
*Hold him gently, for all of us.

soft soliloquies cannot touch me
for the mountain tops have blurred in the stratosphere
and still deny their shadows from the fog
and sink like marionette martyrs to the ocean floor
and sway refused forfeit flags painted as seaweed

--

stiff joints acost
and above, an albatross!
roams discreetly through the sky
yet all hell's dead
wretched through molten lead
succumb to false alibi
(and fate's caress never questions why)

--

your
bamboo words
and
tourniquet hands

bear loss of convicted man.

and
piano strings
like
forgotten things

have cost all the contraband.

--

--oh, but sweetly they had fallen
the petals which forgot the sun
and faces the moon while acrobats
form the constellations of the sky

and so— so weakly it had passed us by
but yet had still seen the sails of clouds
adream of every lost sunken shroud
ever shining by.

--

defeat me, hang
a noose from every ceiling
--and maybe i'll change my mind
or faint like festered wounds
trailing down the hallways
--and maybe i'll forget the way
you made me see it
clearer than mirror rooms
and moulded like day
(your lungs full of clay)

breathe me out or
sheathe it in
complete me, hang
an emptied world from every airway
to rust all the ventilations
to flood all the irrigations
and condense into the black hole
you left behind.

--

words called windows walk on sunday lanes
toward sideways tree roots with hallow'd veins
and iced over stairways that have no name

or excretories called inventories that fell on dead ends
or ghouls that catapult just to make amends
then rise from idle tidal waves with the bends

perhaps even holes called souls can confine
and mists like cysts fail to intertwine
and fall away as heaven feigns to maligne.

—and oh, how sullen scenes do compromise
the way our flesh restlessly burns and fies.

Gold's untarnished yellow feigns
dawn's igniting of soft edges behind a mountain cloud,
or sunset's beacon flashing reflected from home's far window.

A diamond's clear flash imitates
bright glints of blinding sun across the afternoon shore,
or a star's brilliantly precise ray through eternal night.

A sapphire's velvet marine resembles
the limitless horizon between azure sky and tropic sea,
or the vertigo of fathomless water below suspended feet.

An emerald's tantalizing green mimics
the vividly penetrating beam warming a rainforest's singular tree,
or the disarmingly beautiful captivation of a strangers eyes.

A rainbow necklace of delicate gems pales
on a summer afternoon porch shaded by stately trees
and a butterfly sanctuary of whimsical flowers,
calm breezes stirring blue shadow leaves
brushing intimately on white shiny paint.

By accident these jewels mirror life's ephemeral essence
Grasping for this illusion to hold fast the spirit
distracts one from living.

One can cling to stones for one's life,
Or
One can live moments for infinity.

She spreads her legs for any **** with a fat wallet
then ***** with their heads when she’s done.
She sits on her pedestal and feigns character
when she is just a vapid sack of empty atoms.
She’s a maneater through-and-through
and deserves nothing out of life.

She phones you to let you know how she’s doing
and laughs at all your problems and lack of luck.
She flashes her **** and wears skintight trousers
but the ***** in her won’t come out for you.
She’s a maneater through-and-through
and deserves nothing out of life.

She spits venom with the devils in their dresses
then acts all nice when you’re around.
She feigns being a princess who just wants love
but throws your affection back in your face.
She’s a maneater through-and-through
and deserves nothing out of life.

She will wrap you around her littlest finger
then flick you off without hesitation.
She will use your skills to her advantage
then abandon you when they’re not needed.
She’s a ******* ***** through-and-through
and deserves **** all out of life.

Forever and ever and ever
my mind my raconteur
holds trust in indecision
and wastes another year

As in youth immortal
oblivious to life's change
I squander all my arrows
on targets out of range

There and there and there
opportunity taunts the soul
while here I stand unmoved
as time takes its toll

And soon out of pocket
a life frayed at the seam
as this man in the shadow
feigns the primal scream.

A bee whistles past his ear
He feels the sound . . he doesn’t care
Averts his eyes in case there’s others
Raises his hands to fix his hair

Divorced from reality somewhat: from feeling.
Or at least extremes of:
Never exceeding amounts unfeasible:
Pertaining to the limits thereof:
Plateaued at governable levels in present:
Exempt from enth
Kept in check
His whistle wet & he’s well fed

Real words strewn along the ground
Discarded leaves fallen
Left decaying: mostly forgotten

His pants look to him pantaloons
For the good they do representing him
the man chases an end necessary; resenting
not waning, he feigns stoicism
then his creeping cynicism clouds his eyes

‘u know what buddy, u can honestly get ******’ he says ‘the 1st world cries the loudest; but is softest.  Thinks it is toughest; it is weakest, smoothest, creamiest.’
‘u know what buddy u are honestly right’ he says to himself not wanting to admit to himself that he agrees with himself,
but despite this all, his gaze’s focus still lowers
the edges become softer
& he does what he does

he wraps up in his blanky
with his bottle; safe under cover
among some big ******* to feel warm
but the swarm of bees they circle
twitching fever; rippling waves

hope to god that they don’t sting you
as u hide & feel their sway
lapping closer swooping hawk like
collective wind; they rearrange

and then

they push left !swoop! they raise u up,
( a cloud of black and brown and yellow arches and hums, hums like a razor on steroids, seeping potent purpose, pushing, coming: close your eyes for impending hell)
leaving bumps that swell and burn, they grab, they encase, they consume, they drive, they raise and they push
and they deliver u
and u obey them
and u relinquish; u fold enslaved
they push u forward  !the buzz! it wakes
it makes u groan,
u can’t ignore it
u know u need it
u’ve got to do it
u need to go


toil on & reap the spoils
another set with the walking beige

go here go there: be happy
u have no reason to not this day
just keep on going, mate my mate
lulling deep into the beige

Our hands are lovely together
Not because of their  staunching similarity
Or your smooth cracks
Or my chewed up nails
I don't mind the way
Yours move across my thigh
The temple of  God
And then find their way into truth and goodness
Like trunks of two elephants
And you whisper 'interception'
I giggle to myself
You're raising your eyebrows at me
And in that expression
I forget who we are
But what's beautiful about our hands
is the Cimmerian darkness that lies between our clasp
It masks the depravity
And feigns the glory
Guarding hell at the edges of earth
The record stops
I fall asleep in your lap
As you study my face
Caressing my hair
And holding our shadows all at once

Come, the Dark lady to my new age Will,
you, my female evil that knows no time.
I try to forget; my dreams you are still
and once again I am forced to the rhyme.
Intertwined story with the greatest wright,
I sit here thinking of our sorry plight.

Sweet beauty hath no name, no holy bower,
yet there she is again when I see you.
You, the only one who makes me cower,
as the winter tides return all I knew.
How oft when thou my music, music play'st,
and you, my muse, the source of this play list.

To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell,
this not foreseen in your gypsy-like cards.
From the lost and beautiful past I rebel
and not continue the path of the bards.
And yet by heaven I think my love as rare
as those who brace true love, hence my despair.

Although I swear to myself alone,
to you, this love I shall never admit.
Together we speak in a hopeful tone,
But to speak the truth I shall ne'er submit.
To mourn for me since mourning doth thee grace
and perhaps this one day, I shall embrace.

Prison my heart in thy steel *****'s ward.
Why, warden of my heart, you not relent?
Why does my heart continue to be barred?
You continue to deny my repent.
The statue of thy beauty thou will take
and for you, serve my sentence with no slake.

Not once vouchsafe to my will in thine?
To once again live our moment of bliss.
To know for a moment that you were mine
I'd barter all, for the bad angel's kiss.
Make but thy name thy love, and love that still
can open your heart to the new age will.

Thou blind fool, love, what dost thou to mine eyes?
I'm caught in the mischief of cupid's game.
I know the truth, yet I hope you realize
that your heart secretly calls out my name.
On both sides thus is simple truth suppressed,
for we both desire to walk abreast.

Her pretty looks have been mine enemies,
and my secret rival does not deserve.
You are worth all of life's amenities,
and you, the muse, to my banned oeuvre.
Lest sorrow lend me words, and words express,
that which my lips shall ne'er ever  profess.

But 'tis my heart that loves what they despise.
For what they see is your icy cruel veins.
My heart blinded, yet there's truth through my eyes,
and they cannot be fooled by my heart's feigns.
If thou dost seek to have what thou dost hide,
expel the ice so our hearts can abide.

But if thou catch thy hope, turn back to me,
for there can still be time left in our song.
I'm tortured thinking of all that could be.
'Tis harrowing stars, with my heart they prong.
Yet this I shall ne'er know, but live in doubt.
I wish this, to you, I could talk about.

'I hate,' from hate away she threw.
The Hathaway pun I must bring to light.
Can you save me by saying “not you?”
Or shall you add to this murderous plight?
And death once dead, there's no more dying then.
So please save me now, or your feeling's ken.

My love is as a fever, longing still.
And I am fiending for her to embrace.
My female evil, the reason I'm ill,
despite reason, my heart shall ne'er efface.
How can it? O! How can love's eye be true?
Despite our past, I am in love with you.

Canst Thou, O cruel! Say I love thee not?
Do you truly wish to cast me away?
From the past, is the future truly naught?
All of these questions I wish to allay.
More Worthy I to be belov'd of thee
Yet my heart fears that this shall never be.

Her love, for whose dear love I rise and fall,
seen by my actions to master the dance.
I do wonder how our fate shall befall.
Our connection seems to be more than chance
To swear against the truth, so foul a lie!
But the truth, a sin of the deepest dye.

Some nights I find you
on the ceiling, while I lie in bed.
Your face looms over me,
a haunting memory.

Some nights you're in the blankets,
the same ones you once touched,
and I swear,
they still have your scent.

Some nights, truly bad nights,
you reside only in my mind.
Thoughts of you intertwine with my nerves,
they send my system into overdrive,
they attack so forcefully,
I am left gasping for air.

Some nights,
it's crippling flashbacks,
glasses of warm milk
while curled on the bathroom floor;
my attempt at self care.

Some nights,
sleep feigns peace before transforming
into horrid nightmares.
Tears spill, screams emitting,
I drown in vivid images of you.

Some nights,
I cannot decide whether being awake
or being asleep
will cause more pain.

(d.d.b)

Fumbling fingers over premature *******
The hardships of new men
Buttons and clasps, too many to handle
All but means to an end

She fakes smile as, he peels off her shirt
He feels the jump from down below
As she pushes down her skirt
So he rises to the occasion

Her cheeks redden as the curtain falls
Laying back, sweet kisses rain down
A moment so pure when nature calls
Cries of pain or pleasure?

Moment frozen in eternal time
His eyes on hers. Reassuring her
That their love is not a crime
She feigns a smile as he holds her close

The end is near, for him at least
She bites her lip as he confides n her
His face a hilarious picture of a beast
Falling out of her, they dress quietly

The love in hiding, lust under the bed
She lays there a second longer
He smacks the sheets playfully, cheeks turning red
Caught in a memory of when she felt lust for the first time

They cage the animals at night
And once again when sun is bright
In cages gray and bleak and tight
Until the strong have lost their might
Until the free have lost their fight
Until sharp eyes have gone to white
Oh to be free like soaring kite
To fly away to heavens height
But steel bars block futile flight
And nature weeps at such a sight
While man continues with his blight
Yet feigns blind eye to their sad plight
And will not dare to see the light
That a caged life is never right.

My soul howls with Gaia and her kin.
Stardust composes us all.
In the bellies of ancient burning beasts,
We were forged.
In their fiery deaths we were cast,
Deep into the vacuum of space.
Through Eons and perfect accident we began to form.
We are now the death feigns of an elder Cosmos.
Pillars of atoms desperately trying to understand.
Be kind.
Our souls are intimately intertwined.
Hurting others is hurting yourself,
You are them as much as I am me.

We are One.

Time's clock ticking, drops
infinity into the rust of bedside tables.
In Bed-Stuy, in D.C, dear Baltimore. And you too,
Ferguson.
East Coast warriors raise high heavy heads.
Break loose shackles, blushing muscles. Veins
of ancients pump through us.
Now we cry for peace. Resilience and time
******* out from present pleasures. T.V screens.
Longing hours contemplating
forgotten dreams. Nightmares,
trickle blood out of nosebleed section patrons.
An operatic multitude of greed
and insanity. Corrupt millionaires
spit down on struggling, stuttering
lost and alone
actors, poets
the good politician.
The neighborhood bully weeps after swatting a fly,
and immortality feigns existence. Be here
now death, let them know the coming of peace,
spiraling black holes
of emotion and pride and dead boys.
Broken time continuous, and hearts.
9-11, 2001 rocked a nation,
what rocked you?

Shadow of two-year guilt,
Rather be erratic than static.
The world rolls its tongue
And everyone is talking
But me.

You said
Something good will come out of this.
You said
That I wanted to be unhappy.
I could reach so far
For impossible dreams
But it would not be enough.

Sleep feigns rest.
Bedsheets weather to discomfort;
Hypnotic inducement
As the sun comes up.
Alarm clock, *****. Cigarette for breakfast.
Food sits in the mouth.
Chewing on plasticine,
Sudden fear of choking.

I do not remember when I got so bad.

Lacklustre tyre swings,
A noose in the half-lit cemetery.
No amount of air
To tame the breath.
Folded, years of divorce,

Of cold toast, early mornings;
My insufferable self.
You said
That I wanted to be unhappy.
You said
That love would never be enough.