between the *******
of *******
Marj lie large
men who praise

Marj’s cleancornered strokable
body      these men’s
fingers toss trunks
shuffle sacks spin kegs they

curl
loving
around
beers

      the world has
these men’s hands but their
bodies big and boozing
belong to

Marj
the greenslim purse of whose
face opens
on a fatgold

grin
hooray
hoorah for the large
men who lie

between the *******
of ******* Marj
for the strong men
who

sleep between the legs of Lil

They sell sandwiches and little nightmares with vanity inside.
i glide to a booth and schmooze the next wet group of compromised -
And Charlotte's web
of insular jokes,
snare me from outside my comfort zone...
and i own the green eggs and ham of our sepia tone in the septic lake
of our laughing groan.
We enjoy the view.
I drink to be We and Apart from you.
But the kegs dredge.
They plunder the blunderbuss of our best shot. With Silencer.
We crowd loudly in the Big Easy of our modern strife.
We scrape with dull Lives,
save those with sharp Eyes that see spigots
as unseen Blithe !
We gather in the Hemisphere of our Wanton Anonymity,
as divulged mirrors
in a House
of Cards....

All of my Best Jokes
are Friends
With hearts....
and Then
some...

A Child’s Story

Hamelin Town’s in Brunswick,
By famous Hanover city;
The river Weser, deep and wide,
Washes its wall on the southern side;
A pleasanter spot you never spied;
But, when begins my ditty,
Almost five hundred years ago,
To see the townsfolk suffer so
From vermin, was a pity.

Rats!
They fought the dogs, and killed the cats,
And bit the babies in the cradles,
And ate the cheeses out of the vats,
And licked the soup from the cook’s own ladles,
Split open the kegs of salted sprats,
Made nests inside men’s Sunday hats,
And even spoiled the women’s chats,
By drowning their speaking
With shrieking and squeaking
In fifty different sharps and flats.

At last the people in a body
To the Town Hall came flocking:
“’Tis clear,” cried they, “our Mayor’s a noddy;
And as for our Corporation—shocking
To think we buy gowns lined with ermine
For dolts that can’t or won’t determine
What’s best to rid us of our vermin!
You hope, because you’re old and obese,
To find in the furry civic robe ease?
Rouse up, Sirs! Give your brains a racking
To find the remedy we’re lacking,
Or, sure as fate, we’ll send you packing!”
At this the Mayor and Corporation
Quaked with a mighty consternation.

An hour they sate in council,
At length the Mayor broke silence:
“For a guilder I’d my ermine gown sell;
I wish I were a mile hence!
It’s easy to bid one rack one’s brain—
I’m sure my poor head aches again
I’ve scratched it so, and all in vain.
Oh for a trap, a trap, a trap!”
Just as he said this, what should hap
At the chamber door but a gentle tap?
“Bless us,” cried the Mayor, “what’s that?”
(With the Corporation as he sat,
Looking little though wondrous fat;
Nor brighter was his eye, nor moister
Than a too-long-opened oyster,
Save when at noon his paunch grew mutinous
For a plate of turtle green and glutinous)
“Only a scraping of shoes on the mat?
Anything like the sound of a rat
Makes my heart go pit-a-pat!”

“Come in!”—the Mayor cried, looking bigger:
And in did come the strangest figure!
His queer long coat from heel to head
Was half of yellow and half of red;
And he himself was tall and thin,
With sharp blue eyes, each like a pin,
And light loose hair, yet swarthy skin,
No tuft on cheek nor beard on chin,
But lips where smiles went out and in—
There was no guessing his kith and kin!
And nobody could enough admire
The tall man and his quaint attire:
Quoth one: “It’s as my great-grandsire,
Starting up at the Trump of Doom’s tone,
Had walked this way from his painted tombstone!”

He advanced to the council-table:
And, “Please your honours,” said he, “I’m able,
By means of a secret charm, to draw
All creatures living beneath the sun,
That creep or swim or fly or run,
After me so as you never saw!
And I chiefly use my charm
On creatures that do people harm,
The mole and toad and newt and viper;
And people call me the Pied Piper.”
(And here they noticed round his neck
A scarf of red and yellow stripe,
To match with his coat of the selfsame cheque;
And at the scarf’s end hung a pipe;
And his fingers, they noticed, were ever straying
As if impatient to be playing
Upon this pipe, as low it dangled
Over his vesture so old-fangled.)
“Yet,” said he, “poor piper as I am,
In Tartary I freed the Cham,
Last June, from his huge swarms of gnats;
I eased in Asia the Nizam
Of a monstrous brood of vampire-bats;
And, as for what your brain bewilders,
If I can rid your town of rats
Will you give me a thousand guilders?”
“One? fifty thousand!”—was the exclamation
Of the astonished Mayor and Corporation.

Into the street the Piper stepped,
Smiling first a little smile,
As if he knew what magic slept
In his quiet pipe the while;
Then, like a musical adept,
To blow the pipe his lips he wrinkled,
And green and blue his sharp eyes twinkled
Like a candle flame where salt is sprinkled;
And ere three shrill notes the pipe uttered,
You heard as if an army muttered;
And the muttering grew to a grumbling;
And the grumbling grew to a mighty rumbling;
And out of the houses the rats came tumbling.
Great rats, small rats, lean rats, brawny rats,
Brown rats, black rats, grey rats, tawny rats,
Grave old plodders, gay young friskers,
Fathers, mothers, uncles, cousins,
Cocking tails and pricking whiskers,
Families by tens and dozens,
Brothers, sisters, husbands, wives—
Followed the Piper for their lives.
From street to street he piped advancing,
And step for step they followed dancing,
Until they came to the river Weser,
Wherein all plunged and perished!
- Save one who, stout a Julius Caesar,
Swam across and lived to carry
(As he, the manuscript he cherished)
To Rat-land home his commentary:
Which was, “At the first shrill notes of the pipe
I heard a sound as of scraping tripe,
And putting apples, wondrous ripe,
Into a cider-press’s gripe:
And a moving away of pickle-tub-boards,
And a leaving ajar of conserve-cupboards,
And a drawing the corks of train-oil-flasks,
And a breaking the hoops of butter-casks;
And it seemed as if a voice
(Sweeter far than by harp or by psaltery
Is breathed) called out ‘Oh, rats, rejoice!
The world is grown to one vast drysaltery!
So munch on, crunch on, take your nuncheon,
Breakfast, supper, dinner, luncheon!’
And just as a bulky sugar-puncheon,
All ready staved, like a great sun shone
Glorious scarce and inch before me,
Just as methought it said ‘Come, bore me!’
- I found the Weser rolling o’er me.”

You should have heard the Hamelin people
Ringing the bells till they rocked the steeple.
“Go,” cried the Mayor, “and get long poles!
Poke out the nests and block up the holes!
Consult with carpenters and builders,
And leave in our town not even a trace
Of the rats!”—when suddenly, up the face
Of the Piper perked in the market-place,
With a, “First, if you please, my thousand guilders!”

A thousand guilders! The Mayor looked blue;
So did the Corporation too.
For council dinners made rare havoc
With Claret, Moselle, Vin-de-Grave, Hock;
And half the money would replenish
Their cellar’s biggest **** with Rhenish.
To pay this sum to a wandering fellow
With a gypsy coat of red and yellow!
“Beside,” quoth the Mayor with a knowing wink,
“Our business was done at the river’s brink;
We saw with our eyes the vermin sink,
And what’s dead can’t come to life, I think.
So, friend, we’re not the folks to shrink
From the duty of giving you something for drink,
And a matter of money to put in your poke;
But, as for the guilders, what we spoke
Of them, as you very well know, was in joke.
Beside, our losses have made us thrifty.
A thousand guilders! Come, take fifty!”

The Piper’s face fell, and he cried
“No trifling! I can’t wait, beside!
I’ve promised to visit by dinner-time
Bagdat, and accept the prime
Of the Head Cook’s pottage, all he’s rich in,
For having left, in the Calip’s kitchen,
Of a nest of scorpions no survivor—
With him I proved no bargain-driver,
With you, don’t think I’ll bate a stiver!
And folks who put me in a passion
May find me pipe to another fashion.”

“How?” cried the Mayor, “d’ye think I’ll brook
Being worse treated than a Cook?
Insulted by a lazy ribald
With idle pipe and vesture piebald?
You threaten us, fellow? Do your worst,
Blow your pipe there till you burst!”

Once more he stepped into the street;
And to his lips again
Laid his long pipe of smooth straight cane;
And ere he blew three notes (such sweet
Soft notes as yet musician’s cunning
Never gave the enraptured air)
There was a rustling, that seemed like a bustling
Of merry crowds justling at pitching and hustling,
Small feet were pattering, wooden shoes clattering,
Little hands clapping and little tongues chattering,
And, like fowls in a farmyard when barley is scattering,
Out came the children running.
All the little boys and girls,
With rosy cheeks and flaxen curls,
And sparkling eyes and teeth like pearls,
Tripping and skipping, ran merrily after
The wonderful music with shouting and laughter.

The Mayor was dumb, and the Council stood
As if they were changed into blocks of wood,
Unable to move a step, or cry
To the children merrily skipping by—
And could only follow with the eye
That joyous crowd at the Piper’s back.
But how the Mayor was on the rack,
And the wretched Council’s bosoms beat,
As the Piper turned from the High Street
To where the Weser rolled its waters
Right in the way of their sons and daughters!
However he turned from South to West,
And to Koppelberg Hill his steps addressed,
And after him the children pressed;
Great was the joy in every breast.
“He never can cross that mighty top!
He’s forced to let the piping drop,
And we shall see our children stop!”
When, lo, as they reached the mountain’s side,
A wondrous portal opened wide,
As if a cavern was suddenly hollowed;
And the Piper advanced and the children followed,
And when all were in to the very last,
The door in the mountain-side shut fast.
Did I say, all? No! One was lame,
And could not dance the whole of the way;
And in after years, if you would blame
His sadness, he was used to say,—
“It’s dull in our town since my playmates left!
I can’t forget that I’m bereft
Of all the pleasant sights they see,
Which the Piper also promised me:
For he led us, he said, to a joyous land,
Joining the town and just at hand,
Where waters gushed and fruit-trees grew,
And flowers put forth a fairer hue,
And everything was strange and new;
The sparrows were brighter than peacocks here,
And their dogs outran our fallow deer,
And honey-bees had lost their stings,
And horses were born with eagles’ wings:
And just as I became assured
My lame foot would be speedily cured,
The music stopped and I stood still,
And found myself outside the Hill,
Left alone against my will,
To go now limping as before,
And never hear of that country more!”

Alas, alas for Hamelin!
There came into many a burgher’s pate
A text which says, that Heaven’s Gate
Opes to the Rich at as easy rate
As the needle’s eye takes a camel in!
The Mayor sent East, West, North, and South,
To offer the Piper, by word of mouth,
Wherever it was men’s lot to find him,
Silver and gold to his heart’s content,
If he’d only return the way he went,
And bring the children behind him.
But when they saw ’twas a lost endeavour,
And Piper and dancers were gone for ever,
They made a decree that lawyers never
Should think their records dated duly
If, after the day of the month and year,
These words did not as well appear,
“And so long after what happened here
On the Twenty-second of July,
Thirteen hundred and seventy-six”:
And the better in memory to fix
The place of the children’s last retreat,
They called it, the Pied Piper’s Street—
Where any one playing on pipe or tabor
Was sure for the future to lose his labour.
Nor suffered they hostelry or tavern
To shock with mirth a street so solemn;
But opposite the place of the cavern
They wrote the story on a column,
And on the great Church-Window painted
The same, to make the world acquainted
How their children were stolen away;
And there it stands to this very day.
And I must not omit to say
That in Transylvania there’s a tribe
Of alien people that ascribe
The outlandish ways and dress
On which their neighbours lay such stress,
To their fathers and mothers having risen
Out of some subterraneous prison
Into which they were trepanned
Long time ago in a mighty band
Out of Hamelin town in Brunswick land,
But how or why, they don’t understand.

So, *****, let you and me be wipers
Of scores out with all men—especially pipers:
And, whether they pipe us free, from rats or from mice,
If we’ve promised them aught, let us keep our promise.

She frequents here most weekend nights,*******, long kegs, freaky appetite,Her eyes scan every inch of the club,Wet ***, all hard and *****, to hell with love.She licks her lips, and warmly, her other lips respond,She sees her prey and grins at knowing this night will be long,They stroll towards her knowingly, they are the lucky ones,She straddles one, while the other mouth makes her come.Moaning ***** words, and writhing, her **** are bouncing freely,Two on one's her favourite, it makes her come so gleely,Her wet tongue finds something hard and veiny, she takes it in her mouth,Her stroking slips and slides make both guys moan and pant out loud.His ******* dangles over her, she's begging for a ****,The other's fingers enter her, she loves a finger ****,Her mouth fills up with pleasure juice, she comes onto his fingers,She licks it off, but takes her time,intent to make it linger...

Hi, I'm a ****.
I'm the girl who is only seen as a ****** slave.
I'm just digging my own grave.
Hi, I'm a ****.
Having *** seems to have marked me.
"****, let her be."
Hi, I'm a ****.
I never close my legs.
Drinking straight from kegs.
Hi, I'm a ****.
Today's world is so messed up that we are stuck with a meaningless name.
It's a game.
Hi, I'm a ****.
I've gotten more men then I can handle.
Caught up in a scandle.
Hi, I'm a ****.
Broken and threatened, bullied online.
****, she is so fine.
Hi, I'm a ****.
But I'm also a writer too.
An artist, a poet, but you never knew.
Hi, I'm a ****.
Where today in this world names can translate into actions.
And girls can get rapped.
And you can't escape.
Because fate is fate.
And I should not wear that because it's cut to low.
She's such a ***.
She should just go.
Hi, I'm a ****.
And it's a title that never dies.
Breaking ties.
Because.
Hi, I'm a ****.
And I can never keep a guy.
No matter how hard I try.
And it's all a lie.
But, Hi...
I'm a *****.

THE Colonel went out sailing,
He spoke with Turk and Jew,
With Christian and with Infidel,
For all tongues he knew.
"O what's a wifeless man?' said he,
And he came sailing home.
He rose the latch and went upstairS
And found an empty room.
The Colonel went out sailing.
"I kept her much in the country
And she was much alone,
And though she may be there,' he said,
"She may be in the town.
She may be all alone there,
For who can say?' he said.
"I think that I shall find her
In a young man's bed.'
The Colonel went out sailing.

III
The Colonel met a pedlar,
Agreed their clothes to swop,
And bought the grandest jewelry
In a Galway shop,
Instead of thread and needle
put jewelry in the pack,
Bound a thong about his hand,
Hitched it on his back.
The Colonel wcnt out sailing.
The Colonel knocked on the rich man's door,
"I am sorry,' said the maid,
"My mistress cannot see these things,
But she is still abed,
And never have I looked upon
Jewelry so grand.'
"Take all to your mistress,'
And he laid them on her hand.
The Colonel went out sailing.
And he went in and she went on
And both climbed up the stair,
And O he was a clever man,
For he his slippers wore.
And when they came to the top stair
He ran on ahead,
His wife he found and the rich man
In the comfort of a bed.
The Colonel went out sailing.
The Judge at the Assize Court,
When he heard that story told,
Awarded him for damages
Three kegs of gold.
The Colonel said to Tom his man,
"Harness an *** and cart,
Carry the gold about the town,
Throw it in every patt.'
The Colonel went out sailing.

VII
And there at all street-corners
A man with a pistol stood,
And the rich man had paid them well
To shoot the Colonel dead;
But they threw down their pistols
And all men heard them swear
That they could never shoot a man
Did all that for the poor.
The Colonel went out sailing.

VIII
"And did you keep no gold, Tom?
You had three kegs,' said he.
"I never thought of that, Sir.'
"Then want before you die.'
And want he did; for my own grand-dad
Saw the story's end,
And Tom make out a living
From the seaweed on the strand.
The Colonel went out sailing.

ya see i oarty all over neptune yeah, with methane yeah methane yeah methane yeip

i party all over methane yeah with all the fans of the new england patriots

ya see, everyone in the USA, SAID TO ME, party with me, you do tapestry

and then slim dusty sent

i have tipped methane all over brian i tipped methane all over brian

you see i tipped methane all over brian

and got him blind he could hardly stand

my dad picked brian allan up, and said, i will tip this methane all over ya

but you should be fine with that brian, cause it improves the quality of ya life

and bon scott and micheal jackson said to brian said to brian

you know your bad, your bad, your really really bad

your **** is mine, and if ya can’t get me right

i am way cooler than my body’s celliuite

you see brian is fat, but he is cool, as well

and then i say, party on, i drink my coke, and i say to dad

listen mate i gave you jimmy barnes as your new grandfather, what is wrong with that

dad said, i wanted to be a boy, and then robin wiklliams said **** up nanu nanu

then my nanna said, don’t call my earth body nan boy, he hates it

and i want to sing a song for you

amazing grace, how sweet the sound, leave your family alone brian

you were once my darling, but now your not,

your are blind if you can’t see that

and then started singing fly burgers saying your still not a kid brian

which made brian HAPPY, no matter how nanna sang it

at the footy the flies are cooking on the stove

brian the bbq man is falling in the can

you see we get a well cooked blowie, and put it on a plate

get the fly and say to brian, hows it going mare

in a restaurant a fly comes in and bites  hole out of brian

brian was taken in too much by the alien flies

he drank a whole lot of neptune turpentine

and then you get two buttered buns and lettuce and tomato

with my kid, john robert rimel, yeah i took him out for gelato
then nanna sang

in the summer friends drop round to enjoy the atmosphere

some drank wine, got too ******, some drank coke, for athena;s help

and others just drank beer

the bbq man noticed a fly on his back

this is what he is waiting for tah here is our mate JACK

In a hospital, it’s very busy since fly burgers were on the menu

people trying to inject the flies right out of your system

nanna said, your stupid brian, you can’t die from eating flies

i put the teasing in the young dudes, brian, to make you fucken grow up

this is what i do on earth, since i was john robbery rimel nan said

then nanna threw methane all over brian

and said, i am taking thev darling crap right out of you

brian said fine, you are not my nanny nan

you are john robert rimel now, a cover singer

and then paul berenyi said, you wanna be an artist

and said mmmmmmm, and shoved 234 kegs of methane all over brian, to rid this silly yeah matev yeah kid

and  then paul berenyi chuckled 345 methane smoothies all over dad

and brian shoved 234 methane more kegs on dad, to make dad understand

that his new life, betty campbell isn’t immortal

ya see the hardest years the darkest years the desperate and decided years

these were not forgotten years

the roaring years the falling years, these should not be forgotten years

then my brother came to sing with my nan on jupiter and me and dad went to watch it




Rock, folk rock sponsored links

A long long time ago
I can still remember how
That music used to make me smile
And I knew if I had my chance
That I could make those people dance
And maybe they'd be happy for a while
But February made me shiver
With every paper I'd deliver
Bad news on the doorstep
I couldn't take one more step
I can't remember if I cried
When I read about his widowed bride
But something touched me deep inside
The day the music died
So

[Chorus]
Bye, bye Miss American Pie
Drove my Chevy to the levee but the levee was dry
Them good ole boys were drinking whiskey in Rye
Singin' this'll be the day that I die
This'll be the day that I die

Did you write the book of love
And do you have faith in God above
If the Bible tells you so?
Now do you believe in rock and roll?
Can music save your mortal soul?
And can you teach me how to dance real slow?

Well, I know that you're in love with him
Cause I saw you dancin' in the gym
You both kicked off your shoes
Man, I dig those rhythm and blues
I was a lonely teenage broncin' buck
With a pink carnation and a pickup truck
But I knew I was out of luck
The day the music died
I started singin'

[Chorus]

Now, for ten years we've been on our own
And moss grows fat on a rolling stone
But, that's not how it used to be
When the jester sang for the king and queen
In a coat he borrowed from James Dean
And a voice that came from you and me
Oh and while the king was looking down
The jester stole his thorny crown
The courtroom was adjourned
No verdict was returned
And while Lenin read a book on Marx
The quartet practiced in the park
And we sang dirges in the dark
The day the music died
We were singin'

[Chorus]

Helter skelter in a summer swelter
The birds flew off with a fallout shelter
Eight miles high and falling fast
It landed foul on the grass
The players tried for a forward pass
With the jester on the sidelines in a cast
Now the half-time air was sweet perfume
While sergeants played a marching tune
We all got up to dance
Oh, but we never got the chance
Cause the players tried to take the field
The marching band refused to yield
Do you recall what was revealed
The day the music died?
We started singin'

[Chorus]

Oh, and there we were all in one place
A generation lost in space
With no time left to start again
So come on Jack be nimble, Jack be quick
Jack Flash sat on a candlestick
Cause fire is the devil's only friend
And as I watched him on the stage
My hands were clenched in fists of rage
No angel born in Hell
Could break that Satan's spell
And as the flames climbed high into the night
To light the sacrificial rite
I saw Satan laughing with delight
The day the music died
He was singin'

[Chorus]

I met a girl who sang the blues
And I asked her for some happy news
But she just smiled and turned away
I went down to the sacred store
Where I'd heard the music years before
But the man there said the music wouldn't play
And in the streets the children screamed
The lovers cried, and the poets dreamed
But not a word was spoken
The church bells all were broken
And the three men I admire most-
the Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost-
They caught the last train for the coast
The day the music died
And they were singing

[Chorus: x2]




and my brother took me over to the new place in neptune

where he introduced me to all his drunken mates, and

i drank too many methane smoothies, and i sang

i would love to chuck methane on brian

yeah we are having fun teasing him

methane improves the quality of each others lives

as we chuck methane all over, tome **** or jim

you see this is the way to PARTY

leave brian with egg all over his face

actually the egg is flaming methane

and my brother said, yeah, you look so high on life up here

and brian said, fine with me, brother boy

brian said, the only gentle i am, is, i don’t believe in violence

and violence doesn’t like me

every time i see a fight, i say LEAVE ME THE **** ALONE

then carla watt am said to me

my next earth body is hannah montana, ya see

i got rid of my nice voice, ms chase said i had

i said,. all kids do that, carla

that is why i believe in reincarnation

and i wanna meet miley cyrus, but i have to be famous first

and then paul berenyi said, at poetry slams you are doing well

you don’t have to worry about not talking

but don’t do what you used to do, buddy

always look like ya ready to talk

tonight we are trying to get this jittering for the families out of ya

then i went to my brother and said

i am high on methane

my brother said ok, let’s muck around hey, brian

and party right through the solar system

and then dad said, i don’t think your mates care

that is why, i stopped treating you like a young dude

but they fight, and your no bully brian

slim dusty ivy gimbert and peter sargent  said

i am a baked potato baked potato, baked potato

a baked potato, yeah

you see i am a baked potato a baked potato

a baked potato, ivy, went up to brian and said

that she is a kid now, so is peter and slim

all part of bratayley

so EVERYBODY STARTED TO REALLY PARTY, DUDES

--To Elizabeth Robins Pennell


'O mes cheres Mille et Une Nuits!'--Fantasio.

Once on a time
There was a little boy:  a master-mage
By virtue of a Book
Of magic--O, so magical it filled
His life with visionary pomps
Processional!  And Powers
Passed with him where he passed.  And Thrones
And Dominations, glaived and plumed and mailed,
Thronged in the criss-cross streets,
The palaces pell-mell with playing-fields,
Domes, cloisters, dungeons, caverns, tents, arcades,
Of the unseen, silent City, in his soul
Pavilioned jealously, and hid
As in the dusk, profound,
Green stillnesses of some enchanted mere.--

I shut mine eyes . . . And lo!
A flickering ****** of memory that floats
Upon the face of a pool of darkness five
And thirty dead years deep,
Antic in girlish broideries
And skirts and silly shoes with straps
And a broad-ribanded leghorn, he walks
Plain in the shadow of a church
(St. Michael's:  in whose brazen call
To curfew his first wails of wrath were whelmed),
Sedate for all his haste
To be at home; and, nestled in his arm,
Inciting still to quiet and solitude,
Boarded in sober drab,
With small, square, agitating cuts
Let in a-top of the double-columned, close,
Quakerlike print, a Book! . . .
What but that blessed brief
Of what is gallantest and best
In all the full-shelved Libraries of Romance?
The Book of rocs,
Sandalwood, ivory, turbans, ambergris,
Cream-tarts, and lettered apes, and calendars,
And ghouls, and genies--O, so huge
They might have overed the tall Minster Tower
Hands down, as schoolboys take a post!
In truth, the Book of Camaralzaman,
Schemselnihar and Sindbad, Scheherezade
The peerless, Bedreddin, Badroulbadour,
Cairo and Serendib and Candahar,
And Caspian, and the dim, terrific bulk--
Ice-ribbed, fiend-visited, isled in spells and storms--
Of Kaf! . . . That centre of miracles,
The sole, unparalleled Arabian Nights!

Old friends I had a-many--kindly and grim
Familiars, cronies quaint
And goblin!  Never a Wood but housed
Some morrice of dainty dapperlings.  No Brook
But had his nunnery
Of green-haired, silvry-curving sprites,
To cabin in his grots, and pace
His lilied margents.  Every lone Hillside
Might open upon Elf-Land.  Every Stalk
That curled about a Bean-stick was of the breed
Of that live ladder by whose delicate rungs
You climbed beyond the clouds, and found
The Farm-House where the Ogre, gorged
And drowsy, from his great oak chair,
Among the flitches and pewters at the fire,
Called for his Faery Harp.  And in it flew,
And, perching on the kitchen table, sang
Jocund and jubilant, with a sound
Of those gay, golden-vowered madrigals
The shy thrush at mid-May
Flutes from wet orchards flushed with the triumphing dawn;
Or blackbirds rioting as they listened still,
In old-world woodlands rapt with an old-world spring,
For Pan's own whistle, savage and rich and lewd,
And mocked him call for call!

I could not pass
The half-door where the cobbler sat in view
Nor figure me the wizen Leprechaun,
In square-cut, faded reds and buckle-shoes,
Bent at his work in the hedge-side, and know
Just how he tapped his brogue, and twitched
His wax-end this and that way, both with wrists
And elbows.  In the rich June fields,
Where the ripe clover drew the bees,
And the tall quakers trembled, and the West Wind
Lolled his half-holiday away
Beside me lolling and lounging through my own,
'Twas good to follow the Miller's Youngest Son
On his white horse along the leafy lanes;
For at his stirrup linked and ran,
Not cynical and trapesing, as he loped
From wall to wall above the espaliers,
But in the bravest tops
That market-town, a town of tops, could show:
Bold, subtle, adventurous, his tail
A banner flaunted in disdain
Of human stratagems and shifts:
King over All the Catlands, present and past
And future, that moustached
Artificer of fortunes, ****-in-Boots!
Or Bluebeard's Closet, with its plenishing
Of meat-hooks, sawdust, blood,
And wives that hung like fresh-dressed carcases--
Odd-fangled, most a butcher's, part
A faery chamber hazily seen
And hazily figured--on dark afternoons
And windy nights was visiting of the best.
Then, too, the pelt of hoofs
Out in the roaring darkness told
Of Herne the Hunter in his antlered helm
Galloping, as with despatches from the Pit,
Between his hell-born Hounds.
And Rip Van Winkle . . . often I lurked to hear,
Outside the long, low timbered, tarry wall,
The mutter and rumble of the trolling bowls
Down the lean plank, before they fluttered the pins;
For, listening, I could help him play
His wonderful game,
In those blue, booming hills, with Mariners
Refreshed from kegs not coopered in this our world.

But what were these so near,
So neighbourly fancies to the spell that brought
The run of Ali Baba's Cave
Just for the saying 'Open Sesame,'
With gold to measure, peck by peck,
In round, brown wooden stoups
You borrowed at the chandler's? . . . Or one time
Made you Aladdin's friend at school,
Free of his Garden of Jewels, Ring and Lamp
In perfect trim? . . . Or Ladies, fair
For all the embrowning scars in their white *******
Went labouring under some dread ordinance,
Which made them whip, and bitterly cry the while,
Strange Curs that cried as they,
Till there was never a Black ***** of all
Your consorting but might have gone
Spell-driven miserably for crimes
Done in the pride of womanhood and desire . . .
Or at the ghostliest altitudes of night,
While you lay wondering and acold,
Your sense was fearfully purged; and soon
Queen Labe, abominable and dear,
Rose from your side, opened the Box of Doom,
Scattered the yellow powder (which I saw
Like sulphur at the Docks in bulk),
And muttered certain words you could not hear;
And there! a living stream,
The brook you bathed in, with its weeds and flags
And cresses, glittered and sang
Out of the hearthrug over the nakedness,
Fair-scrubbed and decent, of your bedroom floor! . . .

I was--how many a time!--
That Second Calendar, Son of a King,
On whom 'twas vehemently enjoined,
Pausing at one mysterious door,
To pry no closer, but content his soul
With his kind Forty.  Yet I could not rest
For idleness and ungovernable Fate.
And the Black Horse, which fed on sesame
(That wonder-working word!),
Vouchsafed his back to me, and spread his vans,
And soaring, soaring on
From air to air, came charging to the ground
Sheer, like a lark from the midsummer clouds,
And, shaking me out of the saddle, where I sprawled
Flicked at me with his tail,
And left me blinded, miserable, distraught
(Even as I was in deed,
When doctors came, and odious things were done
On my poor tortured eyes
With lancets; or some evil acid stung
And wrung them like hot sand,
And desperately from room to room
Fumble I must my dark, disconsolate way),
To get to Bagdad how I might.  But there
I met with Merry Ladies.  O you three--
Safie, Amine, Zobeide--when my heart
Forgets you all shall be forgot!
And so we supped, we and the rest,
On wine and roasted lamb, rose-water, dates,
Almonds, pistachios, citrons.  And Haroun
Laughed out of his lordly beard
On Giaffar and Mesrour (I knew the Three
For all their Mossoul habits).  And outside
The Tigris, flowing swift
Like Severn bend for bend, twinkled and gleamed
With broken and wavering shapes of stranger stars;
The vast, blue night
Was murmurous with peris' plumes
And the leathern wings of genies; words of power
Were whispering; and old fishermen,
Casting their nets with prayer, might draw to shore
Dead loveliness:  or a prodigy in scales
Worth in the Caliph's Kitchen pieces of gold:
Or copper vessels, stopped with lead,
Wherein some Squire of Eblis watched and railed,
In durance under potent charactry
Graven by the seal of Solomon the King . . .

Then, as the Book was glassed
In Life as in some olden mirror's quaint,
Bewildering angles, so would Life
Flash light on light back on the Book; and both
Were changed.  Once in a house decayed
From better days, harbouring an errant show
(For all its stories of dry-rot
Were filled with gruesome visitants in wax,
Inhuman, hushed, ghastly with Painted Eyes),
I wandered; and no living soul
Was nearer than the pay-box; and I stared
Upon them staring--staring.  Till at last,
Three sets of rafters from the streets,
I strayed upon a mildewed, rat-run room,
With the two Dancers, horrible and obscene,
Guarding the door:  and there, in a bedroom-set,
Behind a fence of faded crimson cords,
With an aspect of frills
And dimities and dishonoured privacy
That made you hanker and hesitate to look,
A Woman with her litter of Babes--all slain,
All in their nightgowns, all with Painted Eyes
Staring--still staring; so that I turned and ran
As for my neck, but in the street
Took breath.  The same, it seemed,
And yet not all the same, I was to find,
As I went up!  For afterwards,
Whenas I went my round alone--
All day alone--in long, stern, silent streets,
Where I might stretch my hand and take
Whatever I would:  still there were Shapes of Stone,
Motionless, lifelike, frightening--for the Wrath
Had smitten them; but they watched,
This by her melons and figs, that by his rings
And chains and watches, with the hideous gaze,
The Painted Eyes insufferable,
Now, of those grisly images; and I
Pursued my best-beloved quest,
Thrilled with a novel and delicious fear.
So the night fell--with never a lamplighter;
And through the Palace of the King
I groped among the echoes, and I felt
That they were there,
Dreadfully there, the Painted staring Eyes,
Hall after hall . . . Till lo! from far
A Voice!  And in a little while
Two tapers burning!  And the Voice,
Heard in the wondrous Word of God, was--whose?
Whose but Zobeide's,
The lady of my heart, like me
A True Believer, and like me
An outcast thousands of leagues beyond the pale! . . .

Or, sailing to the Isles
Of Khaledan, I spied one evenfall
A black blotch in the sunset; and it grew
Swiftly . . . and grew.  Tearing their beards,
The sailors wept and prayed; but the grave ship,
Deep laden with spiceries and pearls, went mad,
Wrenched the long tiller out of the steersman's hand,
And, turning broadside on,
As the most iron would, was haled and ******
Nearer, and nearer yet;
And, all awash, with horrible lurching leaps
Rushed at that Portent, casting a shadow now
That swallowed sea and sky; and then,
Anchors and nails and bolts
Flew screaming out of her, and with clang on clang,
A noise of fifty stithies, caught at the sides
Of the Magnetic Mountain; and she lay,
A broken bundle of firewood, strown piecemeal
About the waters; and her crew
Passed shrieking, one by one; and I was left
To drown.  All the long night I swam;
But in the morning, O, the smiling coast
Tufted with date-trees, meadowlike,
Skirted with shelving sands!  And a great wave
Cast me ashore; and I was saved alive.
So, giving thanks to God, I dried my clothes,
And, faring inland, in a desert place
I stumbled on an iron ring--
The fellow of fifty built into the Quays:
When, scenting a trap-door,
I dug, and dug; until my biggest blade
Stuck into wood.  And then,
The flight of smooth-hewn, easy-falling stairs,
Sunk in the naked rock!  The cool, clean vault,
So neat with niche on niche it might have been
Our beer-cellar but for the rows
Of brazen urns (like monstrous chemist's jars)
Full to the wide, squat throats
With gold-dust, but a-top
A layer of pickled-walnut-looking things
I knew for olives!  And far, O, far away,
The Princess of China languished!  Far away
Was marriage, with a Vizier and a Chief
Of Eunuchs and the privilege
Of going out at night
To play--unkenned, majestical, secure--
Where the old, brown, friendly river shaped
Like Tigris shore for shore!  Haply a Ghoul
Sat in the churchyard under a frightened moon,
A thighbone in his fist, and glared
At supper with a Lady:  she who took
Her rice with tweezers grain by grain.
Or you might stumble--there by the iron gates
Of the Pump Room--underneath the limes--
Upon Bedreddin in his shirt and drawers,
Just as the civil Genie laid him down.
Or those red-curtained panes,
Whence a tame cornet tenored it throatily
Of beer-pots and spittoons and new long pipes,
Might turn a caravansery's, wherein
You found Noureddin Ali, loftily drunk,
And that fair Persian, bathed in tears,
You'd not have given away
For all the diamonds in the Vale Perilous
You had that dark and disleaved afternoon
Escaped on a roc's claw,
Disguised like Sindbad--but in Christmas beef!
And all the blissful while
The schoolboy satchel at your hip
Was such a bulse of gems as should amaze
Grey-whiskered chapmen drawn
From over Caspian:  yea, the Chief Jewellers
Of Tartary and the bazaars,
Seething with traffic, of enormous Ind.--

Thus cried, thus called aloud, to the child heart
The magian East:  thus the child eyes
Spelled out the wizard message by the light
Of the sober, workaday hours
They saw, week in week out, pass, and still pass
In the sleepy Minster City, folded kind
In ancient Severn's arm,
Amongst her water-meadows and her docks,
Whose floating populace of ships--
Galliots and luggers, light-heeled brigantines,
Bluff barques and rake-hell fore-and-afters--brought
To her very doorsteps and geraniums
The scents of the World's End; the calls
That may not be gainsaid to rise and ride
Like fire on some high errand of the race;
The irresistible appeals
For comradeship that sound
Steadily from the irresistible sea.
Thus the East laughed and whispered, and the tale,
Telling itself anew
In terms of living, labouring life,
Took on the colours, busked it in the wear
Of life that lived and laboured; and Romance,
The Angel-Playmate, raining down
His golden influences
On all I saw, and all I dreamed and did,
Walked with me arm in arm,
Or left me, as one bediademed with straws
And bits of glass, to gladden at my heart
Who had the gift to seek and feel and find
His fiery-hearted presence everywhere.
Even so dear Hesper, bringer of all good things,
Sends the same silver dews
Of happiness down her dim, delighted skies
On some poor collier-hamlet--(mound on mound
Of sifted squalor; here a soot-throated stalk
Sullenly smoking over a row
Of flat-faced hovels; black in the gritty air
A web of rails and wheels and beams; with strings
Of hurtling, tipping trams)--
As on the amorous nightingales
And roses of Shiraz, or the walls and towers
Of Samarcand--the Ineffable--whence you espy
The splendour of Ginnistan's embattled spears,
Like listed lightnings.
Samarcand!
That name of names!  That star-vaned belvedere
Builded against the Chambers of the South!
That outpost on the Infinite!
And behold!
Questing therefrom, you knew not what wild tide
Might overtake you:  for one fringe,
One suburb, is stablished on firm earth; but one
Floats founded vague
In lubberlands delectable--isles of palm
And lotus, fortunate mains, far-shimmering seas,
The promise of wistful hills--
The shining, shifting Sovranties of Dream.

A Dramatic Poem

The deck of an ancient ship. At the right of the stage is the mast,
with a large square sail hiding a great deal of the sky and sea
on that side. The tiller is at the left of the stage; it is a long oar
coming through an opening in the bulwark. The deck rises in a
series of steps hehind the tiller, and the stern of the ship curves
overhead. When the play opens there are four persons upon the
deck. Aibric stands by the tiller. Forgael sleeps upon the raised
portion of the deck towards the front of the stage. Two Sailors
are standing near to the mast, on which a harp is hanging.

First Sailor. Has he not led us into these waste seas
For long enough?

Second Sailor. Aye, long and long enough.

First Sailor. We have not come upon a shore or ship
These dozen weeks.

Second Sailor. And I had thought to make
A good round Sum upon this cruise, and turn -
For I am getting on in life - to something
That has less ups and downs than robbery.

First Sailor. I am so tired of being bachelor
I could give all my heart to that Red Moll
That had but the one eye.

Second Sailor. Can no bewitchment
Transform these rascal billows into women
That I may drown myself?

First Sailor. Better steer home,
Whether he will or no; and better still
To take him while he sleeps and carry him
And drop him from the gunnel.

Second Sailor. I dare not do it.
Were't not that there is magic in his harp,
I would be of your mind; but when he plays it
Strange creatures flutter up before one's eyes,
Or cry about one's ears.

First Sailor. Nothing to fear.

Second Sailor. Do you remember when we sank that galley
At the full moon?

First Sailor. He played all through the night.

Second Sailor. Until the moon had set; and when I looked
Where the dead drifted, I could see a bird
Like a grey gull upon the breast of each.
While I was looking they rose hurriedly,
And after circling with strange cries awhile
Flew westward; and many a time since then
I've heard a rustling overhead in the wind.

First Sailor. I saw them on that night as well as you.
But when I had eaten and drunk myself asleep
My courage came again.

Second Sailor. But that's not all.
The other night, while he was playing it,
A beautiful young man and girl came up
In a white breaking wave; they had the look
Of those that are alive for ever and ever.

First Sailor. I saw them, too, one night. Forgael was playing,
And they were listening ther& beyond the sail.
He could not see them, but I held out my hands
To grasp the woman.

Second Sailor. You have dared to touch her?

First Sailor. O she was but a shadow, and slipped from me.

Second Sailor. But were you not afraid?

First Sailor. Why should I fear?

Second Sailor. "Twas Aengus and Edain, the wandering lovers,
To whom all lovers pray.

First Sailor. But what of that?
A shadow does not carry sword or spear.

Second Sailor. My mother told me that there is not one
Of the Ever-living half so dangerous
As that wild Aengus. Long before her day
He carried Edain off from a king's house,
And hid her among fruits of jewel-stone
And in a tower of glass, and from that day
Has hated every man that's not in love,
And has been dangerous to him.

First Sailor. I have heard
He does not hate seafarers as he hates
Peaceable men that shut the wind away,
And keep to the one weary marriage-bed.

Second Sailor. I think that he has Forgael in his net,
And drags him through the sea,

First Sailor. Well, net or none,
I'd drown him while we have the chance to do it.

Second Sailor. It's certain I'd sleep easier o' nights
If he were dead; but who will be our captain,
Judge of the stars, and find a course for us?

First Sailor. I've thought of that. We must have Aibric with us,
For he can judge the stars as well as Forgael.

[Going towards Aibric.]
Become our captain, Aibric. I am resolved
To make an end of Forgael while he sleeps.
There's not a man but will be glad of it
When it is over, nor one to grumble at us.

Aibric. You have taken pay and made your bargain for it.

First Sailor. What good is there in this hard way of living,
Unless we drain more flagons in a year
And kiss more lips than lasting peaceable men
In their long lives? Will you be of our troop
And take the captain's share of everything
And bring us into populous seas again?

Aibric. Be of your troop! Aibric be one of you
And Forgael in the other scale! **** Forgael,
And he my master from my childhood up!
If you will draw that sword out of its scabbard
I'll give my answer.

First Sailor. You have awakened him.
[To Second Sailor.]
We'd better go, for we have lost this chance.
[They go out.]

Forgael. Have the birds passed us? I could hear your voice,
But there were others.

Aibric. I have seen nothing pass.

Forgael. You're certain of it? I never wake from sleep
But that I am afraid they may have passed,
For they're my only pilots. If I lost them
Straying too far into the north or south,
I'd never come upon the happiness
That has been promised me. I have not seen them
These many days; and yet there must be many
Dying at every moment in the world,
And flying towards their peace.

Aibric. Put by these thoughts,
And listen to me for a while. The sailors
Are plotting for your death.

Forgael. Have I not given
More riches than they ever hoped to find?
And now they will not follow, while I seek
The only riches that have hit my fancy.

Aibric. What riches can you find in this waste sea
Where no ship sails, where nothing that's alive
Has ever come but those man-headed birds,
Knowing it for the world's end?

Forgael. Where the world ends
The mind is made unchanging, for it finds
Miracle, ecstasy, the impossible hope,
The flagstone under all, the fire of fires,
The roots of the world.

Aibric. Shadows before now
Have driven travellers mad for their own sport.

Forgael. Do you, too, doubt me? Have you joined their plot?

Aibric. No, no, do not say that. You know right well
That I will never lift a hand against you.

Forgael. Why should you be more faithful than the rest,
Being as doubtful?

Aibric. I have called you master
Too many years to lift a hand against you.

Forgael. Maybe it is but natural to doubt me.
You've never known, I'd lay a wager on it,
A melancholy that a cup of wine,
A lucky battle, or a woman's kiss
Could not amend.

Aibric. I have good spirits enough.

Forgael. If you will give me all your mind awhile -
All, all, the very bottom of the bowl -
I'll show you that I am made differently,
That nothing can amend it but these waters,
Where I am rid of life - the events of the world -
What do you call it? - that old promise-breaker,
The cozening fortune-teller that comes whispering,
"You will have all you have wished for when you have earned
Land for your children or money in a ***.-
And when we have it we are no happier,
Because of that old draught under the door,
Or creaky shoes. And at the end of all
How are we better off than Seaghan the fool,
That never did a hand's turn? Aibric! Aibric!
We have fallen in the dreams the Ever-living
Breathe on the burnished mirror of the world
And then smooth out with ivory hands and sigh,
And find their laughter sweeter to the taste
For that brief sighing.

Aibric. If you had loved some woman -

Forgael. You say that also? You have heard the voices,
For that is what they say - all, all the shadows -
Aengus and Edain, those passionate wanderers,
And all the others; but it must be love
As they have known it. Now the secret's out;
For it is love that I am seeking for,
But of a beautiful, unheard-of kind
That is not in the world.

Aibric. And yet the world
Has beautiful women to please every man.

Forgael. But he that gets their love after the fashion
"Loves in brief longing and deceiving hope
And ****** tenderness, and finds that even
The bed of love, that in the imagination
Had seemed to be the giver of all peace,
Is no more than a wine-cup in the tasting,
And as soon finished.

Aibric. All that ever loved
Have loved that way - there is no other way.

Forgael. Yet never have two lovers kissed but they believed there was some other near at hand,
And almost wept because they could not find it.

Aibric. When they have twenty years; in middle life
They take a kiss for what a kiss is worth,
And let the dream go by.

Forgael. It's not a dream,
But the reality that makes our passion
As a lamp shadow - no - no lamp, the sun.
What the world's million lips are thirsting for
Must be substantial somewhere.

Aibric. I have heard the Druids
Mutter such things as they awake from trance.
It may be that the Ever-living know it -
No mortal can.

Forgael. Yes; if they give us help.

Aibric. They are besotting you as they besot
The crazy herdsman that will tell his fellows
That he has been all night upon the hills,
Riding to hurley, or in the battle-host
With the Ever-living.

Forgael. What if he speak the truth,
And for a dozen hours have been a part
Of that more powerful life?

Aibric. His wife knows better.
Has she not seen him lying like a log,
Or fumbling in a dream about the house?
And if she hear him mutter of wild riders,
She knows that it was but the cart-horse coughing
That set him to the fancy.

Forgael. All would be well
Could we but give us wholly to the dreams,
And get into their world that to the sense
Is shadow, and not linger wretchedly
Among substantial things; for it is dreams
That lift us to the flowing, changing world
That the heart longs for. What is love itself,
Even though it be the lightest of light love,
But dreams that hurry from beyond the world
To make low laughter more than meat and drink,
Though it but set us sighing? Fellow-wanderer,
Could we but mix ourselves into a dream,
Not in its image on the mirror!

Aibric. While
We're in the body that's impossible.

Forgael. And yet I cannot think they're leading me
To death; for they that promised to me love
As those that can outlive the moon have known it, '
Had the world's total life gathered up, it seemed,
Into their shining limbs - I've had great teachers.
Aengus and Edain ran up out of the wave -
You'd never doubt that it was life they promised
Had you looked on them face to face as I did,
With so red lips, and running on such feet,
And having such wide-open, shining eyes.

Aibric. It's certain they are leading you to death.
None but the dead, or those that never lived,
Can know that ecstasy. Forgael! Forgael!
They have made you follow the man-headed birds,
And you have told me that their journey lies
Towards the country of the dead.

Forgael. What matter
If I am going to my death? - for there,
Or somewhere, I shall find the love they have promised.
That much is certain. I shall find a woman.
One of the Ever-living, as I think -
One of the Laughing People - and she and I
Shall light upon a place in the world's core,
Where passion grows to be a changeless thing,
Like charmed apples made of chrysoprase,
Or chrysoberyl, or beryl, or chrysclite;
And there, in juggleries of sight and sense,
Become one movement, energy, delight,
Until the overburthened moon is dead.

[A number of Sailors enter hurriedly.]

First Sailor. Look there! there in the mist! a ship of spice!
And we are almost on her!

Second Sailor. We had not known
But for the ambergris and sandalwood.

First Sailor. NO; but opoponax and cinnamon.

Forgael [taking the tiller from Aibric].
The Ever-living have kept my bargain for me,
And paid you on the nail.

Aibric. Take up that rope
To make her fast while we are plundering her.

First Sailor. There is a king and queen upon her deck,
And where there is one woman there'll be others.

Aibric. Speak lower, or they'll hear.

First Sailor. They cannot hear;
They are too busy with each other. Look!
He has stooped down and kissed her on the lips.

Second Sailor. When she finds out we have better men aboard
She may not be too sorry in the end.

First Sailor. She will be like a wild cat; for these queens
Care more about the kegs of silver and gold
And the high fame that come to them in marriage,
Than a strong body and a ready hand.

Second Sailor. There's nobody is natural but a robber,
And that is why the world totters about
Upon its bandy legs.

Aibric. Run at them now,
And overpower the crew while yet asleep!

[The Sailors go out.]

[Voices and thc clashing of swords are heard from the other ship, which cannot be seen because of the sail.]

A Voice. Armed men have come upon us! O I am slain!

Another Voice. Wake all below!

Another Voice. Why have you broken our sleep?

First Voice. Armed men have come upon us! O I am slain!

Forgael [who has remained at the tiller].
There! there they come! Gull, gannet, or diver,
But with a man's head, or a fair woman's,
They hover over the masthead awhile
To wait their Fiends; but when their friends have come
They'll fly upon that secret way of theirs.
One - and one - a couple - five together;
And I will hear them talking in a minute.
Yes, voices! but I do not catch the words.
Now I can hear. There's one of them that says,
"How light we are, now we are changed to birds!'
Another answers, "Maybe we shall find
Our heart's desire now that we are so light.'
And then one asks another how he died,
And says, "A sword-blade pierced me in my sleep.-
And now they all wheel suddenly and fly
To the other side, and higher in the air.
And now a laggard with a woman's head down crying, "I have run upon the sword.
I have fled to my beloved in the air,
In the waste of the high air, that we may wander
Among the windy meadows of the dawn.'
But why are they still waiting? why are they
Circling and circling over the masthead?
What power that is more mighty than desire
To hurry to their hidden happiness
Withholds them now? Have the Ever-living Ones
A meaning in that circling overhead?
But what's the meaning?

[He cries out.] Why do you linger there?
Why linger? Run to your desire,
Are you not happy winged bodies now?

[His voice sinks again.]

Being too busy in the air and the high air,
They cannot hear my voice; but what's the meaning?

[The Sailors have returned. Dectora is with them.]

Forgael [turning and seeing her]. Why are you standing
with your eyes upon me?
You are not the world's core. O no, no, no!
That cannot be the meaning of the birds.
You are not its core. My teeth are in the world,
But have not bitten yet.

Dectora. I am a queen,
And ask for satisfaction upon these
Who have slain my husband and laid hands upon me.
[Breaking loose from the Sailors who are holding her.]
Let go my hands!

Forgael. Why do you cast a shadow?
Where do you come from? Who brought you to this place?
They would not send me one that casts a shadow.

Dectora. Would that the storm that overthrew my ships,
And drowned the treasures of nine conquered nations,
And blew me hither to my lasting sorrow,
Had drowned me also. But, being yet alive,
I ask a fitting punishment for all
That raised their hands against him.

Forgael. There are some
That weigh and measure all in these waste seas -
They that have all the wisdom that's in life,
And all that prophesying images
Made of dim gold rave out in secret tombs;
They have it that the plans of kings and queens
But laughter and tears - laughter, laughter, and tears;
That every man should carry his own soul
Upon his shoulders.

Dectora. You've nothing but wild words,
And I would know if you will give me vengeance.

Forgael. When she finds out I will not let her go -
When she knows that.

Dectora. What is it that you are muttering -
That you'll not let me go? I am a queen.

Forgael. Although you are more beautiful than any,
I almost long that it were possible;
But if I were to put you on that ship,
With sailors that were sworn to do your will,
And you had spread a sail for home, a wind
Would rise of a sudden, or a wave so huge
It had washed among the stars and put them out,
And beat the bulwark of your ship on mine,
Until you stood before me on the deck -
As now.

Dectora. Does wandering in these desolate seas
And listening to the cry of wind and wave
Bring madness?

Forgael. Queen, I am not mad.

Dectora. Yet say
That unimaginable storms of wind and wave
Would rise against me.

Forgael. No, I am not mad -
If it be not that hearing messages
From lasting watchers, that outlive the moon,
At the most quiet midnight is to be stricken.

Dectora. And did those watchers bid you take me
captive?

Forgael. Both you and I are taken in the net.
It was their hands that plucked the winds awake
And blew you hither; and their mouth

My brother, Jake,
He had what it takes;
Shaved when he was eight,
Strong as a boa snake.
He had hair
Like Ringo Starr,
But played guitar
Like Ravi on sitar.

My brother, Jake,
He grew to six foot eight;
He had arms like legs,
Muscles like beer kegs.
He was fast,
With a ball,
His speed could do it all.
And he could speak,
Like a priest,
He kept us all enthralled.
His wit,
It was quick,
And sharp as a paring knife:
He was funny,
He was cruel,
And well thought of at school.

My brother, Jake,
Had a running streak
Up his back,
At the sign
Of any trouble,
He left on the double,
That's my brother, Jake.

So you see,
As I see,
Size is allegory.
Jake's stature
May bring rapture,
But he's a little man to me.

Aye,..Uhh
where the ****...Where..(Where the2)..drinks..(Where the2)..****..(where the2)..drinks..Uhh..Let's have some fun tonight mane, Yeah let's have some fun Aye..(Where the3)..****, where..(where the2)..drinks,..Where..(Where the2)..****..(Where the3).. Drinks..(Aye, let's have some fun tonight mane2)..(Yeah..let's have some fun2)..Aye..
Burn up, Blaze up..Yeah burn up, Yeah Blaze up, Yeah po up, Yeah drink up, Yeah burn up..Yeah po up..Yeah..Blaze up, Yeah drink up.. let's (turn up2)..Yeah..let's..have (some fun2)..Yeah have fun mane..Aye..(Where the3)..****..Yeah..where..(where the2)..drinks..(Yeah let's have some fun2)..tonight mane,aye..(Where the2)..****..Yeah..(Where the2)..drinks..(Aye let's have some fun3)..Tonight mane..Aye..Po up Yeah, Blaze up Yeah...drink up *****, & burn up man..(let's have some fun..Yeah3) man..Aye

OFTR, we throwing a house party like we in the 70s era dawg, yeah we gonna have this **** jumping like Kid n Play dude.., mane
The whole crib gonna foggy filled up wit hella smoke, aye..Yeah ***** that dope..Yeah that good kush aroma dawg..The only thing you can really see is the fire at the end of the roll up..Everybody drinking yeah Everybody rolling up, Yeah everybody coughing & choking & (having fun3).. Yeah..my nigaa..Yeah we puffing on funky, Uhh.. Homie leave all the stress at the front door man..so
Don't bring no drama, don't bring no problems, don't bring no *******, don't bring no false ones, & don't bring no stank **'s please dawg..forget blowing ******, we got sticky icky grown organically, no pesticides Yeah mane..just straight THC Thats it..home grown , Yeah we..(having fun3)..relaxing kicking back Yeah kicking back a young ***** had a long *** tiresome day, now its time to unwind get high & have some fun..Yeah..man..Uhh..
Yeah, its time to roll up,Yeah, its time burn up, Yeah its time to po up..Yeah, its time  get super drunk..
(Yeah just having fun2)
(Have fun3)...man..

Yeah, we gone turn up tonight dawg, Aye we got 40s OEs, Aye we got champagne, clicquot mane,Aye..we got Budweiser, bud lights,coronas & 2,11s by the case load,..also *****, gin, & vsop..Yeah we getting ****** up like a white fraternity, please don't throw up mane,..make sure you eat..Aye mane, **** what people think about me I just live my life, who's the **** to tell me I ain't living right..nobody **** right..
(We having so much fun yeah3)..tonight   should be here dawg , come now, Noo we ain't stopping till the morning.. That's how OFTR party dawg..Uhh Yeah we party hard Aye..


(Where the **** at mane,Yeah where the drinks at,Aye4)...(burn up, po up, twist Yeah, don't stop..Uhh,Yeah3)..
/Don't stop,3../3...
ever *****..let's go..
Noo I ain't done wit this song no not at all
...Ohh, that's what you thought dawg, ****, I still got some more turning up to do.. Man I still got kegs & bags of marijuana that ain't even half way through we getting throwed ,like a football, Yeah we so gone mane..(Ohh3)..Yeah dawg, Let's go..
(burn up, po up, twist Yeah, don't stop..Uhh,Yeah3)

/(Have fun3)..Yeah mane/2
(Have fun3) Yeah..Uhh

where the ****...Where..(Where the2)..drinks..(Where the2)..****..(where the2)..drinks..Uhh..Let's have some fun tonight mane, Yeah let's have some fun Aye..(Where the3)..****, where..(where the2)..drinks,..Where..(Where the2)..****..(Where the3).. Drinks..(Aye, let's have some fun tonight mane2)..(Yeah..let's have some fun2)..Aye..
Burn up, Blaze up..Yeah burn up, Yeah Blaze up, Yeah po up, Yeah drink up, Yeah burn up..Yeah po up..Yeah..Blaze up, Yeah drink up.. let's (turn up2)..Yeah..let's..have (some fun2)..Yeah have fun mane..Aye..(Where the3)..****..Yeah..where..(where the2)..drinks..(Yeah let's have some fun2)..tonight mane,aye..(Where the2)..****..Yeah..(Where the2)..drinks..(Aye let's have some fun3)..Tonight mane..Aye..Po up Yeah, Blaze up Yeah...drink up *****, & burn up man..(let's have some fun..Yeah3) man..Aye




We doing what we want Yeah..we having so much fun man, we twisting & drinking we living free Yeah..we living freer..than they want us to be , Yeah..we breaking all the rules like **** Dat ****, Noo, we don't care about polices, noo, we don't give a **** about nothing, like **** all the laws homie, Naw mane,
/we just do what we want..(Yeah2..)/2
we gone kick back & roll up the whole pacc, Yeah man,we gone  wake up tomorrow & do the same **** again..Yeah man, we gone live it up..(Yeah, we gone have some fun3)..tonight.. (Yeah2)..Aye..Uhh

Where..(where the3)..**** at...Where..(Where the3)..drinks at..Uhh..(Where the2)..****..(where the2)..drinks..Uhh..Yeah
Let's have some fun tonight mane, Yeah let's have some fun Aye..(Where the3)..****, where..(where the2)..drinks,..Where..(Where the2)..****..(Where the3).. Drinks..Aye, let's have some fun tonight mane..
(Yeah..let's have some fun3)..Aye..

(Uhh..Yeah, Blaze up, burn up, drink up , po up, Yeah Blaze up, burn up, turn up, drink mo3)
(Have fun6)..(Yeah have fun4)..
Man..
Let's have some fun..Aye

The Boy woke up at around a quarter to noon, and to his deep surprise, he found that he had not awoken where he had planned to the night before. Instead, he found himself in a strange bed, in a strange room, on a strange street, with a strange girl next to him. Of course, the girl was not so strange, as he had met her twice before, and the room, at least, he knew had to be somewhere in Ann Arbor, but that was certainly the extent of what he knew of his situation, basically, pretty much, that’d be what he told people later on, and would believe himself. He looked around, and he was shocked, and he remembered in a flash that this might not be very good boyfriending on his part, and in a fit of guilt, or maybe exhaustion or in forfeit, he leaned his head back once again and fell asleep for a while longer.
When the Boy woke up again, it had turned to one in the afternoon. He woke up this time with a mop sweat, and his hair stuck to his forehead and his eyes burning from the salt water. The Girl was now awake also, and she was brushing her hair quietly, on her roommate’s bed right next to where the Boy was now sitting upright.
“I should go now.” The Boy tried to say, but before he spoke the Girl smiled at him, and crawled over and kissed him softly.
“Good morning.” She said, and rested her head on his lap, looking up.
“Good morning.”
“Did you sleep well?”
“Very. Thanks you. I hope you did too.”
“I did.”
The Boy touched the girl’s cheek and she touched his, and he knew he wanted to leave, but he was afraid, so instead, he and the Girl lay down together, and watched TV for a while.

I guess I made a mistake, thought the Boy. I guess this isn’t going to look too good. I should probably get back to the house, see Joe, smoke our cigar, think of a story that I can tell Melissa; but I shouldn’t tell a story, should I? It would certainly be safer. I should probably, for my safety. I should probably not for my conscience. Anyway, I’m not sure how to get back to the house. I’m not sure how I got here. I think I took a cab. I think I was at a party. I think it was last night. It may have been yesterday morning; for the football game. I think I got here without protest. I think the game was a good one. I don’t think I got in though. I don’t think we won either. My head should hurt right now. Why do I feel so good, and healthy, and spry, and energetic? This isn’t exactly just punishment for my actions. Her skin is so soft; I’d like to kiss it again. I think I will. Still, I do feel guilty. Melissa’s good to me. That was a good game, from what I can remember. I don’t think we won though. I think we lost. Ohio State won, but I got very drunk, and that was good, and then I danced, and I had fun. Then I ended up here. How did I end up here?

The Boy stroked The Girl’s hair and he kissed her again. In the light from the window she looked happy, and her smile was much whiter than his, and he liked that. She wore an oversized gray sweater, and without any makeup or any of the typical fixings she looked more beautiful than ever. Not surprisingly, this was a dilemma for the Boy, who wanted to leave so he could be done with this episode. Instead he stayed a while longer, didn’t pick up his phone when it rang, kissed the girl some more, talked about what they were going to do that day, forgot about Melissa. He felt guilty only for a moment, but more than anything, he felt proud, and that pride dug into his side and hurt him. Nevertheless, he didn’t want it to go away. It was his pride after all.
The Girl, on the other hand, seemed to feel guiltier than the Boy, but at the same time, she was tender, and welcoming, and she embraced what she had done in a sort of graceful manner that only girls with experience and class can do without seeming too self-confident. She too, had a boy back home, but she had liked the Boy, and that was that, and in the light on the day, to her, he also still seemed good to her.
Of course, what the Girl knew, and the Boy did not, was that as soon as he walked out of her room that day, that was the end of the episode in reality. There would be no more kisses, no more conversations, and when they both went home to see their others, she would stay with her boy because he loved her, and that would be that, and life would go on for the two of them as it had before; business as usual. Still, for the moment, things were as they were, and so she looked at the boy, and let him kiss her, and lay down on his lap, looking up at him and smiling.
“What are you going to tell your girlfriend?”
“I don’t know. Either the truth or a lie, I guess.”
“Don’t lie to her.”
“Won’t she be angry at me?”
“Yeah. But don’t lie to her. Trust me.”
“What are you going to say?”
“I’m going to tell the truth. But I’m going to leave some things out.”
“Isn’t that lying?”
“Not if you can justify it to yourself.”
“I feel like you’re confusing me right now.”
“You should tell your girlfriend the truth. She deserves to know everything, and if you ever want her to forgive you and stop being angry, then that’s what you need to do.”
“I know, but I’m scared.”
“I know. But you’re still here; and that says something.”
The Boy looked at the Girl, and he wanted to respond, but he had nothing. Instead he lay down next to her, and held her.
“I guess you’re right.” He said, and then rolled over with a sigh.

I got in on Saturday, right? No. Friday. Yeah, it was Friday afternoon because I didn’t have class then. I remember now. I got on the wrong bus, and I missed the stop for Ann Arbor, and I ended up near East Lansing, and I had to take a cab back. Why did I forget that? I got so drunk that night, I got lost. I remember that. I got lost and my phone went dead, and I had to have a security guard from the school help me back to Joe’s house so I could sleep again. But that wasn’t last night. That was the night before last night. That was different. That was just prep for that.
Yesterday was when it started, really. I woke up early and had a beer. Joe handed me the beer, and I drank it because, why not, it looked like it tasted good. Then I had nine more. Then I had Jell-o shots and whiskey, and some more beer. It wasn’t even nine yet, in the morning; my camera barely had enough light to expose my pictures, what was I doing? It was a lot of fun. I got really happy. I remember now.

The Boy reached for his shirt, and he pulled it on, over his head. He had to go, and he knew it, and he was taking the initiative to make it known that he intended to. He reached for his pants and he put those on too, but he put them on slowly, in the hopes that the Girl might have stopped him before he did, but she did not. Then he sat back down on the bed and he looked at her.
“Are you going to leave now?” She asked.
“Most likely.”
“Ok. Do you know where you have to go?”
“Not really.”
“I’ll show you.”
“Ok.”
The Girl grabbed a map off of her wall, and she took a marker from her desk and drew a line from one dark block to another. These were her building and Joe’s house. She explained to the Boy how to get back where he wanted to go, and she handed him the map.
“I don’t need to take this, what if you need it?”
“I already drew on it.”
“Are you sure?”
“Take it.”
The Boy felt almost embarrassed. This girl had been nothing but nice to him, and now he didn’t want to leave. He wanted to stay and hang out with her some more, and he wanted to forget about Melissa, and Joe, and his home, and his school. He wanted to stay, but he knew, finally, that he couldn’t. So he put on his jacket and he stood in front of the Girl, only inches away, neither of them touching the other, despite the very minimal distance separating their bodies.
“Thanks for the map then.” The Boy said, and the Girl giggled.
“Don’t worry about it, get out of here!”
“Ok then. Should we let each other know what we do?”
“That sounds like a good idea.”
They exchanged numbers.
“This *****.” The girl said.
“What?”
“Now I’m going to miss you.” The Boy’s heart broke a little bit. He smiled, but he didn’t dare say the same thing back to her. Instead, he moved his hand up to her face and stroked her cheek a little bit, then gave her a soft kiss on the forehead and opened the door behind him.
“I’ll see you.”
“Ok.”
“Let me know what you tell him.”
“I will. You let me know too.”
“Sure.”
The boy stood staring at the Girl a bit, and then he left and closed the door behind him. As he waited for the elevator to open up for him, the boy took out his phone and looked through his recent text messages. There was one from Melissa, asking him how he was doing, and if he’d been having fun in Michigan, but he deleted it reluctantly, so that it looked as if his last message had been from Joe. It read: Are you coming back to the house tonight? He answered now, a few hours later: I’m sorry. I’m coming back now.


The morning was pretty crazy. Game day, Ohio State, how could it not have been? But I was good during the morning, and I intended to be good. Didn’t I? Yes I did. I did look around, and I spoke to a few other girls, but I never intended to do anything with them. Only this one. I didn’t even get into the game. I tried to sneak in with a student ticket, and they didn’t let me in because I wasn’t a student. Instead I went back with Joe and we got ****** and watched TV and then I took a nap after we smoked a cigar together. At the parties, people stood on the roofs, and they danced around massive kegs, and I spoke to some people I had just met and flirted and danced, but I was good, and at Joe’s house, after the parties were over, we just got ****** and smoked cigars and watched the game and waited for phase two of Saturday to begin so we could rest.
Phase one was getting wasted. Phase two was rest. We built up our energy so we could go back out at night, for Phase three, and that’s when I met her, at some party Phil got us into. I had seen her before, back home, and we had spoken only a few times. Why had I been so angry at Melissa when I left New York again? Respect issues or something, wasn’t it? She had said something cruel to me while we ate dinner at that jazz club, and the lights made her soft skin glow so that she looked almost translucent. I reacted. I think it started because she had been flirting with a friend of mine. Anyway, I thought she had been. She claims she wasn’t. Then she got angry and she said something cruel to me so I got angry, and then she apologized a lot. She apologized so much, Her lips pouted. I wanted to kiss them. We had great *** that night. And I loved her. But I was still angry when I left for Michigan the next morning, and I was still angry last night, apparently. I guess that’s why I immediately gravitated towards that girl. She looked really beautiful that night also. And I always did have a crush on her. And I was still angry.

The Boy made it to Joe’s house at about a quarter to three in the afternoon that Sunday. He only had a little time left before he had to leave for his plane, but he spent it well. They smoked, and they got ******, and they smoked cigars and they talked about the night. Joe helped the Boy remember some of what had happened, like when the Girl’s friend got sick on the wall, and then the Girl had to leave to go help her, and when the Boy had broken a table by jumping on it too hard after Joe and some friends had challenged him. Joe barely remembered those things, but he remembered them better than the Boy, and the Boy was grateful for Joe then, who also reminded him of another thing:
“You cheated on Melissa, didn’t you?”
“I guess I did. I don’t feel great about it.”
“I thought you two had separated. I would have stopped you.”
“We were. We got back together about a week ago.”
“Are you going to tell her?”
The Boy thought about it. He hadn’t quite made up his mind yet.
“I suppose that would be the honorable thing to do.”
“Honor kills.”
“Not if I’d been honorable at the beginning.”
“True.”
The two sat thinking for a while, and they both could tell the other had plenty more to say, but they both waited for the other, and so neither of the two spoke a word for a little bit. Finally, the Boy took a pull from his cigar, set it down, and opened his mouth. No words came out the first few tries, but after a while, he got better, and then he spoke.
“I feel like my father.”

I couldn’t help myself I guess. It’s in my genes, this endless tail-chasing. Even though I had always thought I was the noble one, the one with honor, I’m still an animal, like my dad and his dad and his family before him. She looked so good, I don’t know how I held back for so long—she in her tight pants and that green shirt that made her eyes pop, and her long, beautiful, silky brown hair, and the way she moved her hips against me. I could almost hear her name in the music, like it was egging me on, like it was encouraging me to kiss her. I kept getting beers, just kept going to the bar, two more, one more, three more, until I was drunk enough to do it, because I wanted to because it’s in my blood. Then I kissed her, or she kissed me. I can’t remember how, but it happened, and not for a second did I feel remorseful. Not until this morning. I was too busy having fun. In a way, I kept telling myself a kiss was nothing, at least nothing to worry about.
Then I went home with her. That’s probably the part I’ll leave out in my story. Her bed was really comfortable, much better than the couch or the floor, which is where I spent the night before, and where my sides had picked up bruises from the beer cans all around me. She smiled at me funny then. She hadn’t smiled at me that way before. Her teeth were really white, and her lips were really soft.
I had seen her before, and we had always flirted before, so she made a joke about it being almost like fate that we ran into each other. I remember thinking that that was probably true, or at least that it would be my excuse for not stopping myself. Her skin was too soft, and her body was blessed with perfect curves and I couldn’t resist myself. In many ways, she felt like Melissa. I almost felt at home, like there was a comfort to it.
I, on the other hand; well I’m not sure how I got so lucky. I just had to be myself—even as goofy and as hairy and as drunk as I was, she still liked me for the night. And she didn’t make me feel like I had to earn her respect either.
But I’m being cruel. Neither does Melissa. Not often anyway; and I’m sure if I spent enough time with the Girl, she may have made me feel that way also. It may even be a girl thing, but at the moment, it felt like it was a Melissa thing, and this girl liked me very much, and I wasn’t even trying.

Now it was time for the Boy to go home. Even if he wanted to stay, even if he wanted to go back to the Girl, and spend the rest of the day with her, between her legs and in her arms, and smoke cigars with Joe whenever he wanted and get drunk Saturday mornings, and just forget about telling Melissa anything, it was time for him to go back to New York where he belonged. So he packed his bags and walked to the bus stop, and he put his hat on, and he got ****** with Joe one more time, and they both walked together, without saying a word, because they didn’t even have to.
At the bus stop, Joe turned to the Boy and said:
“Did you make a decision yet?”
“About what?”
“You know, you stooge!”
“Not yet.”
“Well let me know then.”
The Boy nodded. The two had a hug by the bus as it arrived, and then the Boy got on the bus and fell asleep on the way to DTW. The flight was short, and it was easy. Still, the Boy kept thinking about what he would do when he got to New York. Once back at Newark, he took the train, and on the way back to Penn station he sat next to a large man with hairy arms, a mustache and a trucker hat. The man wore very thick-rimmed glasses, and spoke to anyone that listened, with a heavy drawl from some unidentifiable location.
“What’s your name?” He asked the Boy.
“Johnson.” He replied, having decided not to give his real name.
“Well Johnson, let me tell you. Don’t ever travel without alcohol.”
The man reached into his jacket, and he pulled a 24-ounce can of beer out in a plastic bag. He opened it up and took a swig from it, and then proceeded to lecture the Boy about the struggles and pains of traveling and marriage. He had lost his wife only a year ago, after he’d

(8:20 P.M.)
I'm out my back door
and into the cities
I've got my hat, phone, wallet,
lighter and keys.
It's a short little walk,
the gas stations not far.
I see where they parked,
I enter the car.

(8:30 P.M.)
Kelsey grabs my hand
and looks me in the eye,
she ignores the centipedes
she sees,
or at least she tries,
she then calmly explains
she's out-of-bodied
the entire car ride
and how she's been
counting the stars
even though its not quite night.
She says we're swimming
through the mountains
and climbing up the seas
but from where I'm sitting
we're still in the back seat.
I ask, "Hey, what's she on?"
"I think LSD.
But don't worry, it's cool,
she's dating the guy
throwing this thing."

(8:40 P.M.)
It's a twenty minute ride,
crammed into the Taurus,
but Ashley's in the front,
getting shots poured out for us.
"To a good night!"
We laugh and proclaim,
we down the first drinks
and start the pre-game.
Hennepin then Franklin
then Grand avenue.
We've already got a buzz
now were smokin buds, too.

(9:05 P.M.)
We pull up
just as the suns going down
and as the moon peeks her face
out from under the clouds.
There's already some kid
face down in the grass
some brilliant soul's pulled his pants down
and sharpied his ***.
I guess he shouldn't have passed out
with his shoes still on;
hopefully nobody patrolling
sees him lying in the lawn.

(9:06 P.M.)
The second thing we notice
are the angels on the porch
They've already bent their halos
and lost their wings, of course.
The beautiful brunette
with half her head shaved
turns to welcome us
with a big friendly wave.
With a smile on her face she says,
"Hi! I'm Mel!
Welcome to our party;
welcome to Hell!"
"Where should we put our drinks?"
"Just leave em in your car!
We've got three kegs
and our very own bar!"
We're escorted inside,
in front of at least a hundred people,
and brought to the roof
with a sign that reads Steeple.

(9:20 P.M.)
Jon's tipping a bottle,
just waiting for Kelsey.
He asks her right away,
"Babe, will you marry me?"
She's too far gone
to know what to say,
so he wraps her in a hug
that makes everything okay.
It's clearly a cute joke,
just some little spiel,
but Kels is so high
she thinks that it's real.

(10:30 P.M.)
We all decide its best
if we leave those newly wed
because, to be frank,
there was a lot of PDA going on in their bed.
Mel starts to lead us
down the winding stairs,
by now the broken halo
escaped from her hair.
She said seeing Kels and Jon
made her feel lonely
so she needs another drink
and wants to get to know me.

(11:45 P.M.)
As it turns out
she's a good partner for pong;
but now she wants to sneak off,
to go rip up her ****.
So we take a trip down the hall
and slide through her door.
let me preface this part:
I never expect to score.

(11:50 P.M.)
She gives the lighter a spark.

(11:53 P.M.)
We're making out in the dark.

(12:15 A.M.)
The silence is broken,
we hear someone scream.
We look at each other,
"What the Hell could that mean?"

(12:20 A.M.)
We're scared, so we joke
about what it could be.
The most likely reason?
Something scared the heavens out of Kelsey.
We say she's probably worried
about alien transplants
and the whole entire time
I'm not wearing my pants.

(12:21 A.M.)
"The cops are here!"
I jumped and ran from her bed.
I don't think I'll see those red skinny jeans
ever again.
I manage a quick goodbye
and then I'm into the Hall.
I find my friend Ashley
and our sober cab Paul.
"Kelsey's with the cops
and Tom left with Nancy,
our cars down the road,
lets head to the street."

(12:25 A.M.)
As we sneak out the back
we hear the cops speak:
"The first kid we found
had **** drawn on his **** cheeks."

(1:05 A.M.)
After a while
the three of us arrive,
back to my place,
though we started with five.
The drive back was extended,
even if Paul was driving well,
because in my drunken stupor
I made him stop at Taco Bell.
We head through the porch,
My roommate's still up.
He asks if we wanna drink
and then goes to grab cups.

(1:50 P.M.)
After a few rounds of Kings
Paul's on the couch, fast asleep,
and James went downstairs,
It's just me and Ashley.

(2:00 A.M.)
We turn a movie on
and we sit in my bed.
We discuss all the things
going through both of our heads.
For three straight hours
she flirted up some guy
'til his girlfriend walked in
and started to cry.
She called Ashley a *****
who swore she didn't know
while dude stared at the ground
and said, "Sorry, bro."
Ashley had enough,
she hates being called a guy,
so she winded one up
and kissed her fist to his eye.

(3:00 A.M.)
We didn't watch the movie,
we just talked some more,
until we fell asleep
keeping one another warm.
Two old friends,
two trips in different Hells
and the only thing to do afterwords
was to laugh at ourselves.
Two old friends,
who's hunt for love was a blunder,
who consoled their loneliness
by wrapping up in each other.

THE BIG CRASH AT PARK VILLE

BETWEEN A BEER TRUCK AND A TRAM YEAH AND

SLIM DUSTY’S GHOST CALLS OUT


I CAN’T HAVE A BEER WITH DUNCAN

I CAN’T HAVE A BEER WITH KEVIN

I CAN’T HAVE A BEER WITH PATRICK

I CAN’T HAVE A BEER WITH TONY

NO THE TRUCK IS IN A CRASH

THE BEER KEGS ALL FELL OVER EVERYWHERE

LEAVES US WAITING TO HAVE BEER WITH OUR MATES

HOW CAN WE DRINK IN MODERATION

THE BEER KEGS ARE SCATTERED ALL OVER THE GROUND

WE CAN’T HAVE BERR WITH OUR MATES

CAUSE THE TRUCK HASN’T COME UP YET


I CAN’T HAVE A BEER WITH RODNEY

I CAN’T HAVE A BEER WITH DAN

CAUSE I MIGHT HAVE MENTIONED THE PARKVILLE CRASH

OH MY GOD, IT SPOILS THE PLAN FOR THE TOWNSMEN

YOU SEE HOW CAN WE DRINK IN MODERATION

WHERE THE BEER IS LOW, OH YEAH

IU CAN’T HAVE A BEER IN PARKSVILLE

CAUSE WE CRASHED INTO A TRAM

I WANT TO HAVE A BEER WITH WILLIAM

I WANT TO HAVE A BEER WITH BILL

WE DRINK IT UNDER THE TABLE

BUT THIS CRASH BRINGS A SHORTAGE YEAH

COME ON RESCUERS, PLEASE, SAVE OUR ****** BEER

I WANT TO HAVE A BEER WITH DUNCAN

CAUSE, HE DESERVES IT, OH YEAH

THEN SLIM DUSTY FLIES AWAY, DON’T FORGET ME PARKSVILLE

I  MET YOU AT THE STATION

WITH ALL THE BEER HERE RATHER THAN THE PUB MY KIND SIR

WE CAN’T HAVE OUR CELEBRATION

WE DRINK THE BEER ANYWAY, IT’S HOT BUT WHO CARES, IT’S BREW

YEAH LET’S GET ****** OLD KODGERS, AND YOUND DUDES

YEAH, GET BLIND OH YEAH

The clouds hid the red sky that day
Amid the wind and rain
No red sky meant no sailors warning
The waves broke high and hard
They passed the breakers and the kegs
They missed the red sky morning

The ships out on the water
From the shore to the Grand Banks
Were helpless in the coming storm
No choice to turn and run
The best bet was stay put
There was no port to get warm

The skies were filled with nothingness
the clouds like a sharks eye
Shades of black were all they saw
The icy waves of winter
Broke the calm of the early morn
For red sky in the morning is an unwritten sailors law

The Captain closed the bar down
On the Digby ferry crossing
The doors were being opened by each wave
They couldn't see the white caps
Only sky and see was all
And the souls he had to save

There were fifteen boats in transit
When the storm came bearing down
Most were halfway home or so
Now they all were stranded
In the journey between heaven and hell
Which direction they were headed only God would know

Turn sideways and you'd flip it
Just sit still and you were dead
You had to ride the water hellish ride
Hatches all were battened
Windows sealed and doors shut tight
Sailors tried to stay inside

Water spouts were forming
Off the stern and then the port
Navigate the safest spot and keep low
The door to Davy Jones' locker
Was opened and ready to accept
Any boat who made the choice to venture down below

On shore the coast guard were all scrambled
Planes were sent out just in case
More to recover than to save
Families awaited word by radio
The lines from all the ships were down
Some lost to a watery grave

Each year the ocean opens up
Mother Nature takes some back
It's just the circle of life at sea
Prayers are said at the Mariners Hall
Bells are rung for the dead
The sailors soul belongs to the water and it never can be free

Are you one that lives on water?
You know one day your luck will end
You knew this fact from the start
Sailors know the sea's a minefield
It's a war with God each day
You have to fight with all your heart

The ******'s Lesson

They sought it with thimbles, they sought it with care;
They pursued it with forks and hope;
They threatened its life with a railway-share;
They charmed it with smiles and soap.

Then the Butcher contrived an ingenious plan
For making a separate sally;
And fixed on a spot unfrequented by man,
A dismal and desolate valley.

But the very same plan to the ****** occurred:
It had chosen the very same place:
Yet neither betrayed, by a sign or a word,
The disgust that appeared in his face.

Each thought he was thinking of nothing but "Snark"
And the glorious work of the day;
And each tried to pretend that he did not remark
That the other was going that way.

But the valley grew narrow and narrower still,
And the evening got darker and colder,
Till (merely from nervousness, not from goodwill)
They marched along shoulder to shoulder.

Then a scream, shrill and high, rent the shuddering sky,
And they knew that some danger was near:
The ****** turned pale to the tip of its tail,
And even the Butcher felt queer.

He thought of his childhood, left far far behind--
That blissful and innocent state--
The sound so exactly recalled to his mind
A pencil that squeaks on a slate!

"'Tis the voice of the Jubjub!" he suddenly cried.
(This man, that they used to call "Dunce.")
"As the Bellman would tell you," he added with pride,
"I have uttered that sentiment once.

"'Tis the note of the Jubjub! Keep count, I entreat;
You will find I have told it you twice.
'Tis the song of the Jubjub! The proof is complete,
If only I've stated it thrice."

The ****** had counted with scrupulous care,
Attending to every word:
But it fairly lost heart, and outgrabe in despair,
When the third repetition occurred.

It felt that, in spite of all possible pains,
It had somehow contrived to lose count,
And the only thing now was to rack its poor brains
By reckoning up the amount.

"Two added to one--if that could but be done,"
It said, "with one's fingers and thumbs!"
Recollecting with tears how, in earlier years,
It had taken no pains with its sums.

"The thing can be done," said the Butcher, "I think.
The thing must be done, I am sure.
The thing shall be done! Bring me paper and ink,
The best there is time to procure."

The ****** brought paper,portfolio, pens,
And ink in unfailing supplies:
While strange creepy creatures came out of their dens,
And watched them with wondering eyes.

So engrossed was the Butcher, he heeded them not,
As he wrote with a pen in each hand,
And explained all the while in a popular style
Which the ****** could well understand.

"Taking Three as the subject to reason about--
A convenient number to state--
We add Seven, and Ten, and then multiply out
By One Thousand diminished by Eight.

"The result we proceed to divide, as you see,
By Nine Hundred and Ninety Two:
Then subtract Seventeen, and the answer must be
Exactly and perfectly true.

"The method employed I would gladly explain,
While I have it so clear in my head,
If I had but the time and you had but the brain--
But much yet remains to be said.

"In one moment I've seen what has hitherto been
Enveloped in absolute mystery,
And without extra charge I will give you at large
A Lesson in Natural History."

In his genial way he proceeded to say
(Forgetting all laws of propriety,
And that giving instruction, without introduction,
Would have caused quite a thrill in Society),

"As to temper the Jubjub's a desperate bird,
Since it lives in perpetual passion:
Its taste in costume is entirely absurd--
It is ages ahead of the fashion:

"But it knows any friend it has met once before:
It never will look at a bride:
And in charity-meetings it stands at the door,
And collects--though it does not subscribe.

" Its flavor when cooked is more exquisite far
Than mutton, or oysters, or eggs:
(Some think it keeps best in an ivory jar,
And some, in mahogany kegs)

"You boil it in sawdust: you salt it in glue:
You condense it with locusts and tape:
Still keeping one principal object in view--
To preserve its symmetrical shape."

The Butcher would gladly have talked till next day,
But he felt that the lesson must end,
And he wept with delight in attempting to say
He considered the ****** his friend.

While the ****** confessed, with affectionate looks
More eloquent even than tears,
It had learned in ten minutes far more than all books
Would have taught it in seventy years.

They returned hand-in-hand, and the Bellman, unmanned
(For a moment) with noble emotion,
Said "This amply repays all the wearisome days
We have spent on the billowy ocean!"

Such friends, as the ****** and Butcher became,
Have seldom if ever been known;
In winter or summer, 'twas always the same--
You could never meet either alone.

And when quarrels arose--as one frequently finds
Quarrels will, spite of every endeavor--
The song of the Jubjub recurred to their minds,
And cemented their friendship for ever!

There was a lady of Lenz
who had 4000 hens
she gathered the eggs
and sold ‘em in kegs
she now drives a Mercedes Benz.

Oh this polite gentlemen,
From ear to ear he's got me smiling.
His arms are strong from everything.
He makes me, just want to, ahhh sing!
Lets talk about those hairy legs,
Find him when he's older, he'll be drinking those kegs.
one day he shall get there,
Hell if I can, but he will i swear.
Later at night, he becomes silly.
Plenty of time to daddle it up, yeah to dilly.
He's got moves to make your legs shake.
Oh for goodness sake.
Take your time, there's no rush.
For him I have a baby crush.


- - - - - - - - - - -
part two of the same poem.
- - - - - - - - - - -
  


Yes, he's so fine.
Talk bad, he'll keep you inline.
Nothing tragic will set him back,
No he never puts forth no slack.
Curious, he wonders how i work.
Hell, he's even asked me if I could twerk.
Country music, is his forte.
In the mud he enjoys to play.
Catch him riding in his truck.
You're funny if you think he gives a ****.
Going here and there.
Catches me looking when I stare,
No room for what i want to say,
Not ever enough time in one day.
(est.j.r.e.)

She labors to smile,
irony draws lines
on her embittered face,
thick dark iron bars,
temporarily cage pain;
yet the risk
the two run is toxic.
soon they 'd have to face it,
unmistakable indications reveal,

her velvet voice over the phone,
conjured up an image,
drastically different,
a sadness now faintly asks
his permission to spread quickly,
confused he postpones, buying time.

guilt, a shaggy, smelly, hound
suspicion, its dominant trait,
lurks sniffing around,
the table they mutely sit,
like prisoners of unburied past
convoluting the plot,
by playing ***** tricks.
the air thickens
chocking both,
the haunt leers, licks its paws in glee
what is its intention?

"You look more or less
like him, my former lover-
I try to erase from memory
by every which way possible,
sorry about that, but i can't help it,
he traded in pain of many kinds
ingeniously, nothing else he did"
she shoots from the hip.
memory of an evil genius
was quickly resurrected by him
from the assortment of stereotypes,
vision of caravans transporting
gun powder kegs of bad memories, flashed
he had a match stick handy.
soon, everything exploded to culminate;
darkness devoured all,  breaking limits.
caravans slog towards horizon, one after other still.

Your beauty is a mystery,
The ęwa that the sun can not
Withstand,
Your smiles that scholars
Can not fathom.

Ajoke, the aręwa of our village,
I had known you since you came Of Age.
Adesina the only heir to the Oba,
The Queen said he hasn't be sleeping since
He saw at the yam festival.

Balogun, the warrior of our village,
Promised the King 300 victories to have you,
Ayankola the prominent drummer,
That performs at the village square,
His 'konga'  gives vulnerability to hips,
He wonders what have become of yours,

Odewale, the best village Hunter,
He has sent his wives packing to have you.
Alamu, the village woodcarver,
That carved even Oduduwa,
He has no clue how to carve your beauty.
Bashiru, the son of omowumi,
The palmwine tapper,
His is ready so supply 300 kegs to have you.
Olaniyi, the biggest village farmer,
With plenty of barns, is ready to
Give all this for your beauty.
Ajoke Ashake you are the goddess
Of beauty!

The beauty bird sing for,
That attraction men speak of,
The smiles poets write of,
Your beauty is a mystery!


To her who never noticed me
But her name protest to leave my lips.

Little one, you happy child,
Little do you know,
That as time passes and as you grow,
That happiness will surely go.

Your smile will fade into a smirk,
And eventually a frown.
And you'll turn it back from upside down,
With many drugs in your local town.

Whether you're at the bottom of a bottle,
Or at the end of a pack,
Maybe even a ******* sack,
It'll be too far to go and turn back.

So little one, I toast this to you.
To a really bright future of unhappiness too.
Filled with loads of drugs and kegs of brew,
Maybe even a lover, but you'll never know who.

Who is this old man sitting in the tattered old chair,
Yelling French at Mad Dog Vachon,
Bragging about the Crusher's capacity for beer,
Chortling at the desolation of the British Bull Dogs?

Smoking his cigars to their very ends in his old pipe,
Spitting plug tobacco juice
Mostly in the can beside us as my Grandma gags....
The French they speak to each other
Should include requests for pardon....

This raving lunatic is my Grandpa Charles,
And I am five and six and seven,
Sitting on his lap,
Believing every word the Gospel truth:
Seeing Vachon as the savior of French Canada,
The Bulldogs for the evil nation they proclaim,
Kegs of beer as quantities strong men crush.

This old Frenchman whose horse days are done,
Who barely knows to sit still
Though he is a passenger now,
Beside my father...
Knows magical tricks to stun and spell me:
Pushing his teeth out with his tongue,
Leaking smoke from his ears,
Tamping burning coals with his thumb...
An old man who refuses to be old,
Who sits and raves at wrestlers on TV.

Where are the men
Those that stand up and admit their sin
Unlike Adam
Hiding behind leaves
Where are the men who are faithful those that are not cheaters
The ones that care more about growth in God than sneakers
Where are the men that have not been conditioned
**** by their kin now they grown and switching
Oh its deep like a giant squid swimming
Where are the men that understand that there wounds need healing
The men that do right dictated by the direction of the Holy Spirit not there feelings
Where are the men that get married and stay
Those that raise there families mightily like Christ rising from the dead
The men that make decisions with their heads
And not the one between their legs
Where are the men who don't need kegs
Trying to balance life with crutches and wooden pegs
Where are the men that know what manhood is
The men that don't have multiple baby mother's and random kids..
Where are the men?
I look in the mirror and see one
The others are my friends
There are other real men that exist
Many grown boys
Like 17 year olds that look 25 but are kids
No men

Quick find me an apple
And shove it in my eye;
I'm pathetic like facts under Snapple
Caps twist off as I cry,
My arms my legs
And anything you want
You took my heart and even kegs
Of *** cannot un-haunt
The void left behind;
Not even a huge pumpkin rind
Can plug this black hole,
******* whatever life is left
Withering fading from my soul,
With whom do I file a claim for this theft?
My mind is not in right now
Leave a message; I'll know
When I return if I can live
Without a smile to give
To those that care
Trust them I cannot dare,
But I won't just yet die
Because something still
Beats within my carcass;
For you lost apple of my eye
For you I will find the will
To amble out of this darkness...
© okpoet

it’s hard having a normal sized torso while fitted with 10 foot legs,
it’s like living with legs as long as trees and as wide as beer kegs,
i’ve never gone on a successful shopping trip in my life,
everything bought online, even though it’s convenient, i’m still filled with strife

as you may have guessed, getting out of cars is a nightmare,
like some awkward mutant trying to get out of a bmw makes a whole crowd stop and stare,
contrary to popular belief, i never played ball or played any sports at all,
so clumsy, if you ever saw me on the court you’d be appalled

grocery shopping is more difficult than you would anticipate,
the simple task of reaching the top shelf effortlessly makes an awe-filled crowd congregate
some kind of genetic monstrosity, why did it have to be this way,
i would like to cut half of my legs off, if i may

but alas, maybe one thing i could excel at,
something to give me hope, to not make my dreams flat
i could be an accountant! an awkward, tall accountant!
they barely get up, with no physical labor, this is the answer to my prayer, my covenant!

i started my job as an accountant, and everything was going great
i vowed to get all my work done, and never be late
but then i remembered that i failed math 3 times in high school
i don’t really want to be an accountant anymore, i feel like a fool

it’s hard having a normal sized torso while fitted with 10 foot legs,
it’s like living with legs as long as trees and as wide as beer kegs,
i’ve never gone on a successful shopping trip in my life,
everything bought online, even though it’s convenient, i’m still filled with strife

as you may have guessed, getting out of cars is a nightmare,
like some awkward mutant trying to get out of a bmw makes a whole crowd stop and stare,
contrary to popular belief, i never played ball or played any sports at all,
so clumsy, if you ever saw me on the court you’d be appalled

grocery shopping is more difficult than you would anticipate,
the simple task of reaching the top shelf effortlessly makes an awe-filled crowd congregate
some kind of genetic monstrosity, why did it have to be this way,
i would like to cut half of my legs off, if i may

but alas, maybe one thing i could excel at,
something to give me hope, to not make my dreams flat
i could be an accountant! an awkward, tall accountant!
they barely get up, with no physical labor, this is the answer to my prayer, my covenant!

i started my job as an accountant, and everything was going great
i vowed to get all my work done, and never be late
but then i remembered that i failed math 3 times in high school
i don’t really want to be an accountant anymore, i feel like a fool

Today walked down the street in my wheel chair
Rode the bus and train but forgot to be pay the taxi fare
Found my self with a blind guy who gave me directions
Got educated by an eighty year old on morning erections

Held an interesting conversation with a deaf friend
Listened to a book with no meaning and no end
Sitting down made my legs hurt but mostly my heels
Skinned an orange, threw out the bad stuff and ate the peel

Breakdanced the morning moon with a dude who didn’t have legs
Simmered the night sun with tea that was poured out of kegs
Had dinner with a vegetarian and we shared my steak dish
Also, we swam in the sky with a remarkable flying fish

Saw a janitor perform heart surgery on a machine
While the doctor told a cricket what was wrong with his spleen
Wrote lyrics with a dyslexic composer on a piano
Tanned on the beach lines of Alaska with a dark albino

Found my way thru the day with a dull flashlight
Slithered around with a snake that offered a colorful sight
Today was a day much more opposite than any other
Is this the confusion you had when you saw me with my lover?

Jonathan Pizarro
Copyright 2010 ©
May 12, 2010

Outside my unseeing windows
Stringed lamp posts
Pierce the deepest night.

Lights still dance
Along the streets,
Reflected in silent pools,
Splashed by gentle roars
Of pavement rubber
Racing the idled road.

Beneath my candid room
The aircon units gargle
Their cold nocturne
Of sleep and thought.

The sidewalk stays mindful --
Witness to murmured kegs
And murdered heels,
Its quiescence reverberates
The gentle parley
Of blaring merchant loons.

The boulevard refuses
To choke in darkness.

My mind will wait until
The clamour of morning
Shatters this weighted gloom.

Looking out
Around
There is a generation
Not the one with angelheaded hipsters
That were laid infamously famous
But truly a generation that is its own

Cold, calculating, as they, we, must
Be now that there is everything
There is everything here but right now
As we are surrounded by the everything that
Makes up our filled lives, we concentrate on
The nothing.
So we, they, them, I all must be cold, calculating
Networking, meeting, greeting, cheering,
Pleading for work in the everything that is
Nothing.

And as I look out, through the window
Into our generation, my generation
There is a warmness
A kindness once
unfamiliar to coldness and calculating
Where despite distance, time, values, reasons
Nothing
everything
Bonds are made

Is it this cold networking, greeting, meeting that
Allows for the kindness that kindles the fire
That keeps our cheeks warm and glowing
A soft pink in the dead of night
As we stand by kegs, cups, tables, cops, cars, bars,
By girls vomiting on their own volition or not
By boys raising hell as their families admonish but
Their cultures praise

We, Them, I, They, Us, can not know
What we, them, I, They Us are doing
Just as others didn’t know what they
Were doing, and meaning and becoming maryters for
On a clear fall day, when there wasn’t a cloud in the sky
Yet turbulence filled the air, the nation and the world.

They, We, I, Us, Them, do not even
Consider their meaning as they ponder
Fake lives on interposed mediums
Or if they are Jackies,
Or Marilyns or
Audreys

Or if laying down somewhere
just as warm as it is cold
As they touch souls with others
Means anything more than nothing
If they can hold on as they try to let go
When an entire world begs them not to

But the teenage desire to rebel is strong
And the pull of the vast of emotions is stronger
And as we seem to be losing
In clusters
The We.
I.
Us.
They. Them
The fire never dims, and the warm pink glow never flickers
Off our cheeks
And the mix of cold calculations and
Pleasant beatitudes
Combine, like a nights plans
In a gin bucket

And the thought of importance, rarely is thought
Of aside from the few
The brave
Maybe a Marine, but mostly
Those who wish to cure things, change other things
Create things, build things, code things
Things Things Things Things.
T-H-I-N-G-S
For a future of nothing and everything
Everything and nothing

Slurred words

blared in my ears

drunken fists took

cheap shots,

cheap liquor,

30 packs

kegs

all around --

Such sweet

Corona melodies

Sing me a

liquor lullaby,

refrains full of regret

"shouldn't have smashed your face"

"..that girl"

"..that window"

"..your heart"

Turn your corona boom-box

down a notch.

I'm tired of listening.

Our Crayola crayons have become blunts and our juices boxes are turning into kegs

Teachers try to pry into our personal lives and relate                                     but every mistake we make they turn into a story to scare the other kids

Every mistake is a new lesson plan or lecture ; It’s scary how much teachers can tease

They ask us how we feel and we say “great” “fine” “awesome”                      but do they not see the pain on our faces and the war in our hearts?

And every decision we make affects our future because we’re supposed to pick a career in our teens

How do I feel, really?

Pressured and analyzed and hurt because my hearts been broken three different times this year

and I want to know if I’ve grown up enough to hold his hand

because cooties have turned into love and we’re stupid enough to believe it will last

We’re being cast in our on plays because Hollywood was empty of adults who always played 15 year olds because they want us to think we need to look like that

They sell us things we don’t need because we’re too trusting and don’t bother to ask “do I really look like that?”

But, then they go on a mission plan to fight teen suicide and help teens who have turned to drugs to feel something

This is not Dawson Creek or Degrassi

This is the lives of actual people who have feelings and not lines to read

So, please stop covering up your tracks

because when you throw a stone into an ocean, the ripple can (and will) reach many shores

And stop telling me that, at 15, I should be grown up

I forgot my thumb
on my candle fire
till the smell of burning flesh
awoke my paused consciousness.

I bit my lip
and looked by my right side for
a small tissue-paper,
only to find the rats staring innocently
at my candle and my thumb.
It is fascinated by
the way the candle affected
my thumb
i guess.

I looked up
"no light"
was the reason
for the frown that
graced my slightly
pimpled face.

Heat!!
"shoo" i said
because of one of the rats
that sat on my
hand fan.
It shifted a bit
and i reached for it.

Thirst!!
All the water bottles and kegs
empty
all taps hissed, "no water"

Then the stomach growl.
Nothing in my cupboard,
not even a chewing-gum.

Gosh!!
I hate here.
I then layed down to
fantasize about my dream boy.

Sleep came
and floated me off
Nigerian Waters.

hi dudes this briano alliano up here on saturn to welcome richie benaud and i can guarantee

the cosmos is blessed to have a great man, and here is richie singing come on aussie come on

hi everyone, i say hello to saturn

you see lillee pounded down like a machine

taylor was the best captain you’ll ever seen

brett lee got a hat trick, merv, kim and phil hughes were pretty rad yeah

till phil hughes died last year oh yeah

thommo is pounding like another machine

as a bowler he was very fast and mean

you see he will pick up wickets, while the outfielders clearing pickets

and the chappell eyes, have got their eyes on the green

then pascoe is making divvits in the green

border ordered his players around like noone you’ve ever seen

and rod marsh took some catches like healy and haddin, to win those matches

and i remember joel garner and micheal holding cleaned us out, oh yeseree

we still went, come on aussies come on, come on, come on aussies come on

after that small song, ritchie benaud took phil hughes on the cosmic turf, where my dad and mark jones

and tony grieg and rob douglas and stan niemic and phil hughes and many many more, and crocus’s earth body brian allan

played cricket at john knight memorial park, i made some great hook shots, it was cool, dad who had bias long legs

hit 34 runs off 45 *****, yeah and dad gave a methane smoothie to richie, saying welcome to the cosmos, and

mark jones hit 23 off 34 ***** and gave richie a new earth drink coca cola life, which is a drink which will put you

in touch with the cosmos, congratulations richie, marks my name, you will come back to earth when the cosmos is ready

to let you return and tony grieg scored 123 off 112 ***** and after that, he gave richie benaud a methane smoothie

and rob douglas got 87 off 100 *****, but rob said, good on you richie, you’ll a fine player, and tipped methane all over

richie saying, good job old pal, and stan niemic scored 123 off 123, and going at a run a ball, stan was happy, and when he finished

he poured methane all over saying welcome to the cosmos, and phil hughes scored 56 off 56 and went over to richie tippe

tipped a keg of methane on him and said thanks mate old chum old pal for those kind words and the other players together averaged at 123 off 122 *****

and richie benaud had methane smoothies all over him and at the end every player went into saturn club rings

to have a great celebration for the great richie benead with a lot of bottles and kegs of coca cola life, which will,

improve the quality of their lives on earth, and everyone was dripping with methane and might i add malcolm marshall bowled

very well as the official bowler getting 34 wickets, now malcolm marshall is matty b, on youtube, but this game was in honour

of the great richie benaud, welcomed to the cosmos and malcolm poured a bit of coca cola life on richie saying you love life, dude

and briano alliano came out and said

ritchie was the best commentator you’ll ever seen

you see i watched him on channel nine congratulate the gold and green

you see here everyone, welcome this great man

to the cosmos, he’s the happiest in the land

welcome ritchie benaud yeseree

the world will miss him, oh yeah you see

because you hosted nines coverage, of the cricket, well done mate

now what will buddha do with you

come on aussies come on come on, come on aussies come on

well done, ritchie benaud, WELCOME

see you next time, this was a great cosmic cricket match, dudes

now the saturn club rings was filled with methane, PARTY ON, to next life, ritchie

Our souls are empty space,
    black peeling paint on your bedroom door.
Our hearts are made of bursting yellow,
    dripping handprints of eternal sun.
Our eyes are dull and lonely,
    murky paint water and smashed beer kegs.
Our eyes are smoky and dark,
    grey as Rimbaud's cheeks on the covers of your books.
Our hearts are bare, white skin,
    liver spots and silvery temple hairs.
Our souls are speckled brown doves,
    the beating of frustrating wings,
*je rappel maintenant ce que c'est que d'être libre.

Thus
you fall into that other place where you're standing still and you can't keep pace,
it's the up and down and the come and go when you can't keep track of the status quo and the devil's riding on your back with the crack pipe calling,'attack,attack'
But I'm blowing bubbles made from soap with the year ahead promising more than hope and I'm moving on.

This year,
almost gone now and all we'll have is the rosy glow of what we did and did not know and even that will go in time,
and time's the whinger,the creeping ninja bringing happiness and woe and I don't know when this time's through,
where I'll end up,
but so wish I knew.

Pints,
I've sunk a few, drunk some more,don't know what for,there's nothing alcohol can say that I don't understand and anyway
the beer house is a poorhouse full of dregs, barrels,kegs and something begs me not to go to drown in what?
again I do not know.

Love,
Fortunes played for,win the big score,I am satisfied.

Work,
had to do it and I knew it,almost blew it but did not.

Friends,
Life ends and I've lost some good ones,won some new ones and so it goes.

I see horizons,
more than that,I see the world is not so flat or black and white as once I might and did suspect.
I think it as near to being something more than what's worth seeing and I intend to see the lot,
I've got hope and that's no joke.

Her eyes a pool of liquid jewels
Drunken by only the most foolish of fools
Draw me in and weaken my legs
As if I’d devoured several kegs

Her smile that of an angel
The kind found in the old fables
Greets me warmly and welcomes me home
As if it’s the only one I’ve ever known

Her heart purer than gold
No matter how young or old
Loves me undoubtly and makes me lucky
As if I’ve won the grandest of lottery

How such a saint love a pilgrim such as me
Shall forever remain a mystery
Her voice lifts me from life’s misery
And shows me that all along she was the key

.

*O’ crooked branch and magpie’s claw,
yon rusted chains a’ sway this night
Clutch tight a sign “The Seagull's Squall”
of splintered wood and storm clouds fight
Old tavern lone this craggy shore
where angered waves accost the sand
and drenching rains from heavens pour,
whilst thunder boasts its loud command

On creaking stools with painted legs
'long the bar, a gathered crew
Expected flow from aging kegs
a frothy crown this lagered brew
Fills tankards held of one now gone
'midst pewter death in golden ale
In drunk'n stupor sorrows shown
lost at sea, his soul last sailed

Watching cloaked of shadowed mist
in darkened corner, lingered smoke
O’er long goodbyes on echoes twist
and couraged voices soundly spoke
Weaving tales a' journeys past,
voyages beyond the deep
Ports o’ call and forth day cast,
of treasures that abound to reap  

When one, a glass above his head
beckons silence, moments slow
Respect, our mate now swallow'd dead,
entombed within the depths below
Then hearty cheers and farewell speak,
this touching scene if one would be
A ghostly tear now falls my cheek,
this fallen mate they cheer is me

The tension is rising slowly, as the blood pools beneath fingernails
I can hear the ropes start snapping, brittle as a leaf
The bells begin tolling, the vultures swirl amid the frigid air
Of the televised devastation of the week

I hide my true intentions, I do
Somewhat well, if I must then
Admit to something,
I didn't really care too

Stop me if you've heard this one before
Or heard it better, somewhere else
---------------------------------------------------
Sending money through the wire
Never ending crimson flow

Past the thoughts of victims
Intuition caught in undertow

Masqurades with musket powder, kegs
And lampshades tinted red

Festering my own psychotic
Philanthropic need for death

Sending money through a wire
Rising slowly through the smoke

Laughter bursting through the cracks
Of somebody's final joke

Celebrations, conversation
Windowpains and slitting throats

Powers set to loosen grips
But destitute, watch me still choke

I think its time we could talk about the ending
Open the intent that we're pretending
Its something to be said aloud
Lost within the frigid clouds above

Oceans slowly forming up above
torrents under spoken like a flood

Oceans slowly forming up above
The mainland