It was a neutral, fair weathered, mid October Friday night in downtown Raleigh, the sky painted with stars, but barely visible as lights are strewn out everywhere, glittering as they are draped across buildings to create a corner hidden from the rest of the world. There are also lights from the many expensive cars lining the already tight streets; Chrysler, Infinity, Volvo, BMW, but also there’s an array of Hondas and the Chevy I am currently riding in to get there myself.  The lights continue to follow my evening as the holidays are approaching, accompanied by Christmas lights hanging from local breweries. The skyline is made up of buildings mimicking an array of Christmas trees on a Christmas tree farm in December; one my favorite times of year.

The spirit of the air is carefree as people gather to unwind from the week before and have a good time with whomever they are with or alone. The variety of people is similar to that of Candy in a candy store; all there for the same purpose, but different in minor ways. Groups of friends occupying the sidewalks outside of restaurants, breweries, dessert bars, coffee bars, boutiques, and galleries. Hipsters walking proudly and dancing in the streets owning who they are in their hometown or possibly visiting to experience the uniqueness the beautiful city has to offer. Most people dressed their best to welcome the night before them and enjoy the company of their friends, walking around to whatever comes their way.

The atmosphere is quiet, peaceful, and chill but the night is nothing short of alive just like the people I experience. Young couples and individuals line the streets exuberating their young lively spirits into the air as they exhale smoke from their cigarettes. The streets are also lined with a couple individuals that seem a little sketchy, but that’s just because they keep to themselves and walk alone, not effecting the safe atmosphere Raleigh exuberates. Everyone seems to be focused on only who they came with, concentrating on what they will do that evening. My plans included dinner at The Pit, one of the greatest BBQ places I have ever been in my life.

The first place I went to this evening was a Chocolate Shop called Videri Chocolate Factory with the most intriguing vibe I have possibly received upon coming into a store. There are lights strung from the ceiling and a glass case containing expensive, gourmet chocolates made in house. As I continue to walk around the store there is a whimsical feeling I get when I notice the coffee bar and more Christmas lights hanging around and intricate glass cups behind the counter. Continuing down the corridor there is a large glass window displaying where the chocolate is made, making the experience even more real. As I continue to look around the store I notice most of the people are middle aged to older; the people with money. The chocolate in the store is not cheap, but I think most of the people who come to downtown Raleigh are also paying for the experience.

Upon leaving the shop I notice the outside of the store and this is one prime example I think of when I think that people physically impact the place in which they live. The picture shown above of the chocolate shop mimics so much of the personality of Raleigh that I have noticed. The store is made of bricks on the outside that you can tell have been there for a really long time, but displays a modern, exciting font and the final touch of bright white lights adds a perfect finish to the display of the store. The people of Raleigh (or the ones I have noticed the three years out of living here myself) tend to migrate towards vintage, old things and appreciate the beauty of unique sights that make you feel special and unique yourself upon going there.

Another key factor in the imagery of this shop that reminds me of the people of Raleigh is the artsy aesthetic that the door holds with the lights. There are so many art students who consistently go to downtown Raleigh and they are a part of what makes the atmosphere so bright and exciting. While the people who visit downtown Raleigh are looking for those vintage vibes and artsy aesthetics they are also incredibly modern much like the font the door holds. They are caught up on what is currently in style and trend setters themselves, but interpret it in a way that fits them personally. This to me is the only thing that people of downtown Raleigh have in common; they are old fashioned, vintage, modern, and unique all at the same time, perfectly mirroring the city in which they live.

We wear this city on our feet
Planting our roots with each step
Our shadows

cast shapes of ancient oak trees stretching out over old squares at daybreak
We grow here

with the spirit of buildings past,
present and rising like a staircase to heaven in the distance,
the plumes of white smoke from their rooftops as burnt offerings for incense,
spires for steeples,
the bundled masses of people moving beneath as the calloused soles
of our feet pounding the pavement,
Our congregation

seated in reverant silence on the R-Line hissing to a stop
Their hushed prayers filing out from within to bring the reclaimed sidewalks of Fayetville Street back to life to join this pilgramage
They march

downtown toward Capitol
holding signs for disarmament
They bar-hop through Glenwood toasting to deliverance
They move in a blur of faces that become us,
Rush at all hours through our veins
Cross our hearts and keep us breathing,
Moving
wearing the city on our minds
like the greyest pieces of their winter sky and the way it caps the peaks of Mount PNC, BB&T and Wells Fargo like hoodies over our heads
We assume monk-like appearances
in robes color-coded by season- from blue collar sweaters to cold hard sweat
We'll wear their city until we're worn out and wet,

We'll wear their dreams at night
like streetlamps flickering on beneath wired telephone poles carrying conversations about each one as far south as Florida, fears unspoken, made visible
on iron park benches too cold to sit on at this hour
We'll keep walking

and wear this city like backpacks over our shoulders

under the watch of their heavens,
the skyline
a glowing testament
of every step taken
toward someplace higher.

South Florida
if you were a body part,
you’d be an armpit.

You’d be a bulged vein
on the side of a forehead
forever locked in a scowl
behind sunglasses.

You speak the language of horns
middle name, finger
blood type, combustible

You're a melting ***
that's boiled over the lid
sweating salt water at the brows
eyes red as the brake lights
in the maddening brightness,
you’re torrential daylight
heating nerves like greenhouse gasses
waiting for a reason to explode.

You’re a tropical motilov cocktail
no one can afford
2 parts anger, 1 part stupidity
full of yourself in a souvenir glass with a toothpick umbrella
You're all image

You’re all talk: the curse words
breaking out the mouths
of the angry line mob at Starbucks in the morning
You’re the indifferent silence
in the arena at the Heat games leaving early,
showing up late
due to the distance
from Brickell to Hialeah,
West Palm to Pompano
the gap between the entitled and the under-paid
a skyline of condos in a third world country
You’ve always been foreign to me.

You’re winterless, no chill
you attract only hurricanes
and tourists,
shoving anything that isn’t profitable
out of the way like post-storm debris
into the backyards of the Liberty City projects,
onto a landfill off the side of the Turnpike
Hide it beneath Bermuda grass,
line it with palm trees
if only conceal your cold blooded nature:
I see you.
You are overrun with iguanas,
blood-******* mosquitos
hot-headed New York drivers
not afraid to get hit

You get yours, Soflo
and you'll go as low
as the flat roofs of your duplexes
and the wages that can barely pay the rent to get it
latitude as attitude
temper as temperature
if you were a body part
I swear you’re an *******

south of the brain, one hour
in all directions,
I’d find you.
You’d impose your way
onto my flight to the Philippines,
to Seattle, to Raleigh
You’d follow me like excess baggage,
like gravity,
bringing me back when asked where I'm from:

That area north of Miami, I’d say
(the suburbs, but whatever, we are hard in our own way)
I'd show you off on their map
like some badge of grit,
certificate of aggression
I know how to break a sweat
walk brisk, drive evasive
ride storms in my sleep
I know you, I’d say,
“He’s a friend of mine.”
and I’d watch them light up
and remember
the postcards you've sent them
of the sunrise,
welcoming brown immigrants
onto white sand beaches
You were foreign to us
yet raised us as your own
in the furnace of your summers
iron on iron, the forger striking
softness into swords
built for survival
I'm made of you

my South Floridian temper
cools down
in your ocean breeze

if you were a body part,
you'd be a part of me
a socked foot in an And1 sandal
pressed to the gas pedal
as my drive takes me north
of your borders, far from home

I see you
in the rear view mirror,
tail-gating
like a sports car on the exit ramp
the color of the sun.

how can I make a translation
of these never before felt feelings
if their language I don’t possess
one of which mine ears
have never had a previliage
of previous precous encounter
and one which overwhelms so powerfully
mine eyes;  and my tongue but in realisaton
is powerless to pronounce
yet can do nothing else than confront them
these feelings, these feelings, oh these feelings
a painted mosiac of plasure and gulit
that leaves me in such a quandadry as I don’t know why
yet has me beliebve that the only thing  I trust
any longer is this very moment; the moment with him
where pure and untainted feeelings break upon me
as foamed waves upon a pebbled beach
where convention does disintigarte
in splintering bursts of Vulacn light
oh to be yet disintangled in my mind
to be detached, feeling each succeeeding thought
as it seperates itself from the centreal core of my mind
to examine them in the srange sub-lit detachement
where I find myelf now floating
there is no known languange for its expression
these feelings, these felings, these feelings
only Raleigh, only Raleigh, I hope

A bicycle is the most efficient transportation machine.  A little input and I’m gliding, moving a useful measurable distance but more than that. I like going fast enough so the wind in my ears is louder than my thoughts.  On a tough day I like riding until I can be grateful again; sometimes that takes a couple hours but every ride is a good ride.

My youth’s independence was a banana seat Huffy pulled from an under-appreciated pile of rust in the back of St. Vincent’s Thrift Shop.  No school bus meant riding to school, the first 45 minutes of every day in all weather. Afternoons were exploring detours; summers were expeditions to the city limits, sometimes beyond.  I needed an upgrade for high school; I found a spotless antique 3 speed Raleigh, the cultural English workhorse collecting dust in an unlikely garage for $50.

I kept it through two foster homes. The first one kept me busy with farm chores, but the second was back in town. There, I had the bike back, and as an aside, they had a phenomenally sophisticated wall sized sound system: reel-to-reel and amazing headphones. I would forget myself in records: Sgt. Peppers, Genesis, Yes, etc, and another favorite. Just a guitar and piano instrumental album with a simple melody called Bricklayer’s Beautiful Daughter. Something about that one song in particular I heard faint glimmerings of contentment that was denied to me.  I would replay it to cling to this hint of a simple happiness I didn’t understand; that if it was in the song, it was somewhere deep in me.
Without a car for 10 years, one used 10-speed or another got me to various eccentric jobs.  

Fast forward to the life-changer, after a divorce. Needing to reconnect with myself, I searched for a decent bike. I found it hanging dusty in the back of a cluttered boutique shop smelling of tire rubber, quiet with racers’ confidence. They had a Lemond thoroughbred on consignment, assembled custom 5 years earlier to race. It was slightly outdated, but a dent on the top tube put it out to pasture. It was steel though, so rideable enough for me.  My entire $300 savings and it was mine. Then I discovered the special pedals needed special shoes, so another month saving for those.  I wasn’t going to wear those silly spiderman outfits, until I started to ride more than 10 miles and my **** demanded it.  And those pockets in the back of the shirt were handy.  I met a friend who taught me how to draft: my skinny wheel a few inches behind the bike in front at 20 mph, to save precious energy in the slipstream. Truly dangerous, vulnerable, and effectively blinded; but he pointed at the ground with various hand signals to warn of upcoming road hazards. I was touched by this wordless language of trust and camaraderie. This innate concern is essential to the sport, even among competitors, so it seems to attract quality people I liked.  My new life expanded with friends.

I discovered biking exercise could stabilize the life-long effects of brain injury, lost some weight, grew stronger, and started setting goals.  First longer group rides, then a century (100 miles in one ride), then mountain biking: epic fun in nature, unadulterated happiness.  Then novice racing, then the next category up with a team, then a triathlon.  It became an admitted obsession but I won a pair of socks or bike parts every now and then.  Eventually tattooed two bike chains around my ankle, one twisted and the other broken.  I loved the lifestyle, and had truly reinvented and rediscovered myself.

A 500 mile ride from San Francisco to Los Angeles with fellow wounded veterans helped dissipate the old shame from the military.  I had joined the ride to raise money for a good cause.  I respected the program and knew personally that cycling had changed my life.  They turned out to be inspiring, helping me more than I could have helped them.  Some had only just started riding a bike for only a few weeks, some were amputees fit with special-made adapters on regular bikes, some had no legs using hand cycles.  They all joined on to the task of riding 500 miles. No one whined, and helping each other finish the day was the only goal.  While riding with them, I began to open up about my experience.  I found a few others who also had TBI, and we could laugh about similar mishaps.  The other veterans didn’t judge me about anything, like when I was injured, the nature of my disability, how much I did or didn’t accomplish. I had signed up just like them, had to recover back to a functioning life just like them.  It was the first time in my life that whole chapter in my life was accepted; I wasn't odd, and they helped close the shame on that old chapter.  (Thank you, R2R.)  The next year I took a 1500 mile self-supported bike trip through western mountain ranges with my husband and soulmate, whom I had met mt. biking.

There was one late Spring day, finally warm after a long winter, when I just wanted to ride for a few hours by myself.  No speedometer or training intervals, just enjoy the park road winding under the trees. I had downloaded some new music on the IPod, a sampler from the library.  I felt happy.  Life is Good.  Rounding a bend by the river, coasting through sunbeams sparkling the park’s peaceful road, my earphones unexpectedly played Bricklayer’s Beautiful Daughter.  I hadn’t heard that simple guitar tune in three decades.  My God, time suddenly disappeared.  I was right back in the forgotten foster home, listening for the faint silver threads of the contentment I was feeling at this very moment on the bike.  The full force of this sudden connection, the wholeness of the life and unity of myself in one epiphany, brought me to tears. I found myself pouring my heart into praying hang in there, girl, hang in there, you’ll find it and I felt my younger self hearing echoes of birds singing in new green leaves.

KISSING MR. CHELIDON GOODBYE

**...**.  . .oh!
I don't know

if I should be
telling you this.

I was just sweet
as in 16 &

never been kissed
and my *******

hadn't yet arrived
though I prayed and prayed

to a God who did not
heed my girlish plea.

All the girls in my year
had already budded.

******* to the right of me!
Breast to the left of me!

Into the valley of despair
I rode my Raleigh

alas alas
breast-less!

I practiced kissing
by kissing

the you know
inside of
( the whatchamacallit? )

my elbow the
chelidon so called

by an old falling-apart
medical dictionary.

I clipped some hair
from our Yorkshire terrier

stuck it on the crick of
my right elbow

so that it became
my first moustache'd kiss.

And so, was born
my Mr. Chelidon.

Pathetic...yes...I know
but the year after

my bosoms arrived
with a suddenness

that took my breath
away.

I breasting the waves
like a ship's figurehead

as I dived into the sea
a Venus for boys to see.

I was my *******
and my ******* were me.

Somehow I could then not
stopped being kissed.

And once kissed
grew addicted to it.

The bliss of the kiss.
I was my own drug.

I gave Mr. Chelidon
the elbow.

Discovered the joy of boys
inventing various uses

for them
as they

discovered
me.

T'was just before Christmas and I went down to the garage
To have my old car looked at by a fellow known as  "Sarge"
He said I need tires and my wipers weren't so hot
My hoses all were leaking and my muffler was shot
The repairs just kept on coming and I saw a sparkle in his eyes
He was counting all my money, he was the devil in disguise
I told him "Thanks, but I would go and get another look"
Before I signed for his repair list and I was on the hook
So I went on to my friend's place to see what he could do
We've been friends for nearly 30 years...since 1982.
His mechanic took it out back and while he had it on the hoist
I saw a woman at the counter, looking rather moist
She said my car is leaking there's  a hole that must be filled
I thought that if Rob had a coffee, it'd most certainly be spilled
A girl came in and she told Rob her boyfriend had loose nuts
And whenever he was driving her, they slid into the ruts
Rob stepped back, grinned a bit as he was looking down her front
And from where I stood behind her I could almost see her
Donation to the Angel tree that was standing in the corner
A door opened, a breeze blew in, and there was no time to warn her
Her skirt blew up, exposing  her tattoo of some sprigs of holly
And Rob came round and covered her just like Sir Walter Raleigh
I'm sorry miss, for I did look when your skirt was lifted
And I must say, you made my night, for my drive shaft has shifted
And then a man came through the door and said "My name is Nick"
"I've problems with my reindeer and I need them seen to quick"
Rob said "we work on cars here sir , I can fix tires or a hose"
"It's nothing major son, I need a bulb for Rudolph's nose"
"It doesn't stay on like it should and the other deer get frantic"
"And I can't risk it going out when I'm over the Atlantic"
"So, if you would replace it now with something nice and bright"
"I'd pay you well for all your time and for aiding in my plight"
Rob stepped up, fixed Rudolph's nose and said "This one's on me"
"And for all work done in my shop you get a guarantee"
We all stood round as Santa left, for we new that  it was him
For he left us each a candy cane in a metal alloy rim
And as we watched him fly away, I'm sure we heard him yell
"There's mistletoe tattooed on her too, but...where I'll never tell!"

i.

my writing is truly one thing, my life another - not
that's a statement clouded in excuses and guilt:
just the claustrophobic macabre -
and so it happens, that every few days i reach
the limit with wrestling the Minotaur -
the time comes when the liver k.o.s the brain
and the brain then starts punching the liver -
it usually stars in the afternoon, e.g. yesterday,
at 3 in the afternoon, a burrowed sense of guilt
comes over, cigarettes are rolled and chain-smoked...
a promise of not painting the front of
the house is the overpowering weight on the heart -
as is an ably bodied father: who, i might
as the source of my writing capacity: the silence -
but the day flows through... the excess nicotine
adds to the shakes, the detox period begins
with a big meal: chinese pork belly in five spice
and other additives, peppers, spring onions
until a thick goo sauce is cooked slowly to thicken...
served with 'it's called egg fly lice, you plick!'
(Uncle Benny, lethal weapon 4) -
the meal is ate as if a ****** ****** - this is
really the point of critically approaching the
concentrated detox - binge of television,
drinking orange squash and smoking -
playing some stupid video game between watching
an even worse movie - before the saga of
x files begins... at 5 a.m. with the most annoying
feline opera by the most annoying ginger cat
begins... the shades are drawn and the hours between
5 a.m. are spent in a quasi somatic state -
the pain in the brain is too strong to allow you
a kipper without the sedative being dragged from
the body: taking sleeping is avoided -
the blinds in the room don't have blackout plastic,
by 6 a.m. a t-shirt is rolled up and put against
the eyes, the eyes adjust to the light until 7 a.m.,
the body gets up and goes downstairs for more
orange squash, but this time breakfast is stomached,
yesterday's leftover rice, fresh eggs scrambled
and mixed with spring onion -
                                                     cigarette, and a daytime
news channel - Victoria Derbyshire -
the main topic of concerns? only 12% of Paraolympic
Rio tickets have been sold, a charity having raised
about £25,000 wants to sponsor Rio's children
to join in the fun... housing shortages in England,
Redbridge council buying social housing in
Canterbury (once a military base) - 7 people living
in one room (the Romanian standard is
14... you have to remember night shifts) -
oh i seen houses like that, i remember one Jew renting
out his house to 20 / 30 Poles before the Union
expanded... paid of his mortgage... no new reality
here for me... the major misdiagnosis of heart attacks
in women on the N.H.S.: a woman ate a curry,
thought it was only a heartburn... boom, two days
later drops in agony... in between the real
results of the detox... sitting...
not ******* out whiskey yellow ***** when there
are barely any toxins in the body... diarrhoea...
up to about 8 times on the toilet - more orange squash,
more cigarettes... then onto the piece the resistance...
the x files... which last up to about the twilight zone
hour of having reached the 24 hour mark of being
awake... one last **** and then shower, and
then doing the laundry (on a sunny day like this,
it would be a shame not to)...
                                                   at noon
tinned mackerel in sunflower oil... brown bread,
all the oil drank... but by the twilight zone hour
a realisation: ****! my headphones are broken!
i've been walking around these streets with those
very depressing sounds of vrroom vrroom...
i know how the old complain about the youth
and their headphones... yes, but you probably
grew with about 10 cars per hour passing your
house back in the day... and too the birds could
be beautiful, and the sound of children's games
and golden laughter... but all the other sounds...
so off to the shop for a very respectable £1.50 pair...
and then the moment when all the sights
on the streets are no longer synchronised with
what i'm hearing, my eyes sharpen and i dance
past the cars and people never bothering to press
the crossing lights on streets: ease the traffic,
ease the traffic... then into the supermarket and
the detox ends... i can go back to sleeping a decent
night... a bottle of Stella... the only thing sexier
on a hot summer's day on the street... good old,
good cold Stella Artois...
then up to another shop for two more beers and
tobacco...
                        after that? magic...
as the title suggests: on a park bench with Ernie -
something more grand than Beckett's waiting
for Godot... i.e. something resembling a scene from
Patriarch's Ponds, an encounter with
Mikhail Alexandrovich Berlioz (editor of a highbrow
literary magazine, abbreviated MASSOLIT)
and a young poet Ivan Nikolayich Poniryov -
a few clues to the less knowledgeable parties:
Behemoth ***** and chess, a book that makes
sense of the world interrupted by Herr Woland's
wonderful delights (among many), such
as the notable pandemonium at Ivan Savelyevich
Varenukha's Variety Theatre -
yes very much akin to Hector B.'s:
symphonie fantastique: dream of a witches' sabbath.

ii.

sincerest apologies... the sedative hasn't been bought
yet, and a patient father's invoice for work
done on the construction must be written in tangible
English - in ref. to the uttermost sincerity -
Polski nadal w mej duszy dudni,
                            taki ogrom organów i
                                         bębnów twki -
           że strach pomyślec - czy to wir zamkniętej
historii ludu: czy poczatek gorszych prwad o świecie?
   bo co o zamkniętej historii (skrawku) ludu?
      to przeciez moj dziad'ek w Partii uslugi dawal!
      a kraj podziekowal - i co Prawda to Walesa
   na Florydzie z lwa w zlota rybke sie zamienil.   (comp. diacritic
                                                       ­                                 pending)

iii.

as i knew, i should have finished this poem on
the principle of ensō - all in one piece -
thus i would have staged what happened on the bench
with Ernest -
                        but after walking to the supermarket
minding my own business and the jokes ensued
about how no one notices, how they know my name
as it's their mascot -
                                   after walking into a world
i found chaos; indeed if i wrote the poem on principle
of ensō, i would have included the phantasmagorical
details of something so simple you could almost cry at it...
the simplicity of it, the fluidity of almost 2 hours
spent in conversation... about what? i'm not telling,
and how was it spoken? i'm not telling either -
let's just they laughed at Ernest's bike, because
it was proper oldie...
                                     i mean, i won't mention the odd
details, but the essence? forget it man!
after writing my father's invoice, and how cut money
on the construction site, blame it Romanians but only
have themselves to blame with their model
of profiteering and that ****** fetish they have
Che's socialism of guerrilla warfare...
                            and the comments in the supermarket,
it just stuck with me about Ernie's bike,
nothing in comparison to the Tour de France's racers
doing up to 50kmh...
                                      it just made me happy to make
a clean bed... and prevent 36 hours awake threshold
glitches of abstraction: black strings and random
square objects popping out of nothing with me in a
variation of nervous startles... Ernest's bike?
an antique, a 1950s Raleigh...
- hard leather seat beneath that modern overcoat?
- yes; no one would even take it if i left it
  outside a shop, they'd probably sell it for parts.
- well, unless someone is smart enough to notice
  a vintage, and tries to restore it,
  buy the vintage green paint and cover the rusty bits.
oh **** it, i can't keep my own company to suit
being happy by saying: ooh, doesn't know a joke,
the happiest he felt after walking out with a stone heart
was making a bed... but to be honest?
psst... i haven't made it in over a month... last night i
was getting cold-heat shivers in the idea of it being *****
enough though i shower everyday... ok, every other day
sometimes, my socks have holes in them, and my
shoes are ripped.
but there's more to this... the bicycle is a pun
of a Heidegger maxim: man is born as many men...
but dies as a single man... imagine how many
influences are entombed in us, the education reformers
to begin with, motherhood tips, cot deaths...
but we die as individual men... so when Ernest said
about the bicycle being only worth spare parts,
i said what Heidegger meant: but i'd take the whole thing
as one.
- how many gears?
- three at the back, one at the front; you see this thing?
- the long tube beneath the seat?
- yeah, when charged it would power up the front
   and back lights.
- oh, i'm used to seeing that thingy-madgit that you'd
   press against the front tire and the principle would be
   the same.
- a dynamo.
- yeah, a dynamo, forgot the name of it.
it started so innocently, i just sat on the bench with my
earphones and two beers and started rolling a cigarette.
- may i invade the bench?
                                               (earphones out of the ears)
- sure.
                and we just sat there, i asking if he minded me
smoking.
- i used to, loved it, esp. after dinner, gave it up 15 years ago.
  then conversations about dogs, family,
                                         and children's games,
          i said
- i'm finding it hard to find people of my generation with
even friendly dynamic of the body: eye contact is gone!
- it's all the fidgeting on those ****** tablets and phones,
when we were kids we used to play marbles,
conkers, hopscotch, so many...
- and we used to draw a racing maze, fill bottle caps
with plasticine and flick them through the maze
(i can't remember if we threw dice to see how many
moves we could make).
  by the time we started talking about the dogs we liked,
and compared them to the dog walkers passing us
   we already forgot who died today: it was Gene Wilder...
the world is mourning him, and we sat there
and the best i could come up with was Richard Pryor.
- dumb animal luck...
- you know how i managed to train my dog to run
  around the park, but come back to me? i used a whistle
  to get the dog to come back and i'd give it a treat.
  until it got the hang of it, i sometimes wouldn't give it
  a treat... other times i would, the point being was
  to teach it both obedience when nothing was given
  and double obedience when something was.
- ever heard of Pavlov? he basically did the same thing,
  but your experiment had coordinates, it was three-dimensional,
  Pavlov's was just two-dimensional, instead of a whistle
  he used a bell... just to stimulate two senses
  as coordinated, the sound of a bell created saliva
  in the dog's mouth, poor dog received treats
  but in the end Pavlov put him in a car with closed
  windows in the middle of summer outside
  of Parliament square; obviously the dog died.
- German shepherd though... i had a friend, naturally
  obedient.
- could walk a German shepherd through Manhattan
  without a leash.
- exactly, not even half a metre away, and when the
  master stops, the dog stops.
(i started thinking, what a great way to invert theology,
in this way from dogs to gods.)
well... i guess there was more, but if i write more
about it, when i'll reflect upon this chance meeting of
complete strangers as more insightful than it
already was...
                         he managed to climb back on his bike
with a slight problem after his hip-replacement
operation... at 74 such things break... and he rode off
and i sat there trying to think about what the hell
i was thinking after watching the x files to find
something insightful...
                                        well, i got one thing,
i mentioned it before... i could never have believed
that adults created the most nightmarish version
of hide (negate) & seek (doubt) -
                   i thought it was just as bad as
  truth & dare with religion - with that motto:
          the Koran: this is the truth, and the only truth...
so truth or dare? i dare you to deny it!
                    can i just doubt it? you know, not be
a definite unbeliever, but an indefinite quasi-believer?
well doubt in the stated quasi-believer is wavering,
isn't it? the two of the most beautiful games of
innocence, morphed into these gargantuan abominations.

mr moonlight
mr nowhere
maxwell edison
mr jones

dr robert
sgt pepper
mr kite, bb king
edgar allen poe

walter raleigh
mat busby
the hendersons
and maggie mae

mr mustard
captain marvel
rita lucy jojo
vera chuck and dave

mother nature
polethene pam
mr heath doris day
and buffalo bill

loretta martin
**** sadie
hey jude eggman
my michelle

rigby            and pilchard
or elenor      and semolina
took father  mckenzie
too see a dancing horse

henry       his name was
rocky       raccoon was there
prudence rode elephant
to the i me mine waltz
---
There gonna crucify me
the way things go
christ it aint easy
the next day dont know

you know the walrus was paul man
johns bird can sing
george was a genie
ringo wore a ring

but paul is dead now
george stole his soul
john is alive though
ringos in a hole

her royal highness the tax man
commit the perfect crime
she asked for more
with a belly full of wine

the patrol car has left the block once more,
a bull shark circling
nearer to some shore, headlights
blared, a black silhouette steering the vehicle;

night kisses the horizon, pecks it sharp
like a bullet case
scraping the darkling pavement,
only the whitest stars visible above.

many like me stroll sidewalks at this hour,
smoking a stogie
or sitting on empty swings
in playgrounds vacant of laughter; it is better

that children sleep while they can and can dream
before the true night,
that blight of bruise blue, sirens
wailing on their way to steal away some dark man

from the streets. where I stand on an apartment stoop
I count the vehicle
for the fourth time, lurking
out around the corner, like a wolf dressed metallic.

nothing gets better come nightfall. nothing
gets done while asleep.
i slip on my shadow, hood
dark, concealing my face. lean back into the steps

and light another cigarette. inhale.
exhale. most don’t have
to worry: their paleness turns
them ghostly, invisible, to the patrolling cars.

but I wear my darkness. i wish I knew
how to make sparks fly,
have them issue from throat, crack
into splinters of glass. the law tells me to sit

but I refuse. i am a phosphorus
fuse; i am whitened;
but i am impoverished,
and I too have my own reasons to be frightened.

Fifty years ago today

A half century. Yes--seems like a long time when we say it that way, sublimely forgetting time is a dimension we chop cheaply for convenience. In earth time, in galaxy time, the vast blue stretch since the cosmos’ first coding coughing of carbon, that five decades has been but a clipped comma in a thousand page tome, with a single stout capital letter being the history of a country, and a verbose sentence or two being the tale of our two legged species. For me, the 50 years since that day has been most of my book--nearly all that has been written since the dawn of light.

I was on the Kanto plains of Japan, so it was already Christmas--though I guess my world has always spun faster than most. During the night, my father had assembled my new black three speed 26 inch Raleigh English racer, a serious upgrade from my red 24 inch Schwinn, my first bike, long lost to spinning memory, and likely the property of some dump in the heartland.

The new bike stood beside the table in our large combination kitchen/dining room of our temporary officer quarters. I can’t recall if it was too cold to ride that day, but I probably ventured out, either in the real rays of the sun or in the land of imagination, the two being of equal measure in the realm of memory.

A month before, my father woke me with the news of Kennedy’s assassination. Like others who were old enough to remember, the events of that November day have much crisper edges than any other, including the Raleigh racer Christmas or any Christmas I can recollect.

Tomorrow is another Christmas. I won’t look at that day too much when I am walking in the park this afternoon, for tomorrow is not waiting for me at all. It will be there even if I am again dancing with stardust. More likely, I will be here, on the same rolling rock, eating the flesh of a fallen gobbler and making new memories I will recall only hazily in fifty hours. And if I were promised another fifty marching years, I might lament their passing before they arrived, knowing full well they too would be filled with forgetting.

I'm Stuck Inside of Raleigh with the New York Blues again
I feel like Mr. Dylan did
way back when
He sang it with emotion
and wrote it with his pen
I'm hoping and I'm praying
I'll see New York again

Read Shakespeare and Milton and all of the rest
Keats, Coleridge and Wordsworth are some of the best
Read Ted Hughes and Sylvia, Motion, Duffy
They say what I want to say better than me

Read Homer and Ovid, Basho and Su ****
Chaucer and Boccaccio they've stood the test
Read Donne, Spenser, Marlowe, Jonson and Raleigh
Read Shakespeare and Milton and all of the rest

Read Swift, Pope, Blake, Tennyson, and Rossetti
The two Barrett Brownings are of interest
For feelings romantic as true as can be
Keats, Coleridge and Wordsworth are some of the best

Read Larkin and Betjeman if you're depressed
Read Wendy Cope to enjoy all of life's zest
Yes please don't think I despise modernity
Read Ted Hughes and Sylvia, Motion, Duffy

And how about all those I haven't addressed
Yeats, Auden, Joyce, Longfellow, Poe and Shelley
And all of the others I'm bound to have missed
They say what I want to say better than me

But what of the poet, with poets obessed?
In prose I am prolix, in speech stuttery:
So where will you find my emotions expressed?
On MySpace, on Twitter, read my poetry
It says what I want to say

The red flower centered
between exotic curled lines
evokes the smell of old Jaipur
the Hawa Mahal ~ Palace of the Winds
where the maharaja’s women once peered
from pink honeycombed windows above streets
overflowing with painted elephants, camels, turbaned men.
A river of color, movement, sound
from red-dust shrouded sunrise
to ember scorch at the horizon line
the desert broken only by the organic rise
of dung and mud-bricked houses sheltered
by one denuded tree, a mirage of shade.

A cobalt hurricane spiral or vine’s end
worn smaller than its origins
its story, the shelf on which it sat
perhaps a fragile immigrant, hand-carried
from the old country by someone’s mother’s mother.
Whole and admired for a century before
its demise, told with regret-laden mouths
mother to daughter, daughter to mother
Oh, I wish we still had that blue bowl
great grandmother dropped
when she heard about Roy
a circle of memory, come to rest
on this distant curve of beach.

The cream and blue striped shard
could be my grandmother’s coffee cup
rimmed brown and lipstick stamped
sip, then drag on the Raleigh cigarette
always attached to electric-tipped fingers.
The cup was most likely broken in the war
that raged until death parted my grandparents
maybe it sailed harmlessly past my grandfather’s shiny
head and hit a rock near the creek, exploding into pieces
a small token of their shattered marriage
a lifetime of regrets carried to the sea
grievance-scrubbed, muted by the journey
this sliver must be handled with care.

The largest fragment found
tangled in the eelgrass at my feet
delivered on a tide of need
at the ebb of an unexpected storm
a perfect cross, soft edges raised
on a rough slab of terra cotta.
The fragile sun had warmed
the worn shape nesting
in my palm like a missing piece
as my restless fingers traced
down and across, across and down

asking questions, seeking answers.

Plastic pistols, cowboy hats
action men, palitoy combat

Hotspur, Tiger and Hurricane
leather footballs, broken panes

Matchbox, Corgi, Airfix, Meccano
Stickle Bricks, and (only) red and white Lego

Triang scooters, Raleigh Choppers
Dunlop plimsolls, orange space-hoppers

Down the park’s obstacle course
Witches Hat, iron rocking horse  

Bumps and scrapes, grazes and cuts
rub it all better, just-get-back-up

Home before dark, in time for tea
Billy and Ian, my sisters and me

There is moonlight on the mountains on a
cold December night, behind the glass
On my way to Raleigh-Durham like a
bullet, six miles high, and fading fast

I know that in a year or so your
little broken heart will surely mend
Loving you was heavenly but
leaving you will **** me in the end

I can lose myself reflecting on that
moment of the day that we first met
Drinking from a rocks glass full of
bourbon, with a chaser of regret

Tonight I've got raise the strength to
face an empty hotel room alone
The time we spent together was the
sweetest thing that I have ever known

I am trapped within - all that might have been
I know in time your memory will fade
Better bitter tears than all your wasted years
So I'll live with all the choices I have made

Like a teardrop in the ocean,
our love is lost and gone beneath the waves
And our old, romantic notions lie in
pieces, while the memories remain

The pain that lives inside me like a
devil is no more than I deserve
But hearing that you loved me was the
sweetest thing a man has ever heard

There is no fool like an old fool
And when you're in the autumn of your days
I'll be done and gone, and you'll have long moved on
And you will struggle to recall my very name

If I had been a better man, I
never would have kissed you on that day
But the days roll ever onward, and there's
really nothing left for us to say

Baby, I'm afraid that I'm too old
To try to change the way I am
But Loving you may be the only thing
I've ever done that's worth a ****

And when you lie awake in bed
I hope you know I tried to do what's right
and remember how I loved you when
I left you on that cold December night.

You can choo cha, doo da, hula with a hoopla,
It's all an oil on canvas by the man that they call Dali and you go sail away like Raleigh with the Queen and off to Bali, but your Sheila and the Children wait for you in
Basildon.

It never makes a rhyme when you ******* every time that the debts start mounting up and it shows in the starved faces of the cold and golden places in the eyes and on the lips you leave behind.

You,
the star now
going far now
and forgetting who you were,
are you aware in some false state that this love can turn to hate?
are you bound so tightly to the dream, does it make you happy, can you hear the scream of fate?

The kids are still in Basildon
but Sheila met a soldier boy and moved away to Warrington, long gone the Queen and dream
you're getting old, can't hula hoop, but you seen it all and now you fall into a reverie.

With Dali
and
a cup of tea.

Greensleeves.
that's the tune
every day
around about noon
******
Greensleeves.

Elizabethan ear ache for
a Walter Raleigh or a Francis
Drake, cornets
with a flake?
Greensleeves
******
Greensleeves,
wish the man in the ice cream van would play some Eminem
then I might stop moaning.

Dearest creature in creation
Studying English pronunciation,
   I will teach you in my verse
   Sounds like corpse, corps, horse and worse.

I will keep you, Susy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy;
   Tear in eye, your dress you'll tear;
   Queer, fair seer, hear my prayer.

Pray, console your loving poet,
Make my coat look new, dear, sew it!
   Just compare heart, hear and heard,
   Dies and diet, lord and word.

Sword and sward, retain and Britain
(Mind the latter how it's written).
   Made has not the sound of bade,
   Say-said, pay-paid, laid but plaid.

Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as vague and ague,
   But be careful how you speak,
   Say: gush, bush, steak, streak, break, bleak ,

Previous, precious, fuchsia, via
Recipe, pipe, studding-sail, choir;
   Woven, oven, how and low,
   Script, receipt, shoe, poem, toe.

Say, expecting fraud and trickery:
Daughter, laughter and Terpsichore,
   Branch, ranch, measles, topsails, aisles,
   Missiles, similes, reviles.

Wholly, holly, signal, signing,
Same, examining, but mining,
   Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
   Solar, mica, war and far.

From "desire": desirable-admirable from "admire",
Lumber, plumber, bier, but brier,
   Topsham, brougham, renown, but known,
   Knowledge, done, lone, gone, none, tone,

One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel.
   Gertrude, German, wind and wind,
   Beau, kind, kindred, queue, mankind,

Tortoise, turquoise, chamois-leather,
Reading, Reading, heathen, heather.
   This phonetic labyrinth
   Gives moss, gross, brook, brooch, ninth, plinth.

Have you ever yet endeavoured
To pronounce revered and severed,
   Demon, lemon, ghoul, foul, soul,
   Peter, petrol and patrol?

Billet does not end like ballet;
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
   Blood and flood are not like food,
   Nor is mould like should and would.

Banquet is not nearly parquet,
Which exactly rhymes with khaki.
   Discount, viscount, load and broad,
   Toward, to forward, to reward,

Ricocheted and crocheting, croquet?
Right! Your pronunciation's OK.
   Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
   Friend and fiend, alive and live.

Is your r correct in higher?
Keats asserts it rhymes Thalia.
   Hugh, but hug, and hood, but hoot,
   Buoyant, minute, but minute.

Say abscission with precision,
Now: position and transition;
   Would it tally with my rhyme
   If I mentioned paradigm?

Twopence, threepence, tease are easy,
But cease, crease, grease and greasy?
   Cornice, nice, valise, revise,
   Rabies, but lullabies.

Of such puzzling words as nauseous,
Rhyming well with cautious, tortious,
   You'll envelop lists, I hope,
   In a linen envelope.

Would you like some more? You'll have it!
Affidavit, David, davit.
   To abjure, to perjure. Sheik
   Does not sound like Czech but ache.

Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, loch, moustache, eleven.
   We say hallowed, but allowed,
   People, leopard, towed but vowed.

Mark the difference, moreover,
Between mover, plover, Dover.
   Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
   Chalice, but police and lice,

Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.
   Petal, penal, and canal,
   Wait, surmise, plait, promise, pal,

Suit, suite, ruin. Circuit, conduit
Rhyme with "shirk it" and "beyond it",
   But it is not hard to tell
   Why it's pall, mall, but Pall Mall.

Muscle, muscular, gaol, iron,
Timber, climber, bullion, lion,
   Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
   Senator, spectator, mayor,

Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
Has the a of drachm and hammer.
   *****, ***** and possess,
   Desert, but desert, address.

Golf, wolf, countenance, lieutenants
Hoist in lieu of flags left pennants.
   Courier, courtier, tomb, bomb, comb,
   Cow, but Cowper, some and home.

"Solder, soldier! Blood is thicker",
Quoth he, "than liqueur or liquor",
   Making, it is sad but true,
   In bravado, much ado.

Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
   Pilot, pivot, gaunt, but aunt,
   Font, front, wont, want, grand and grant.

Arsenic, specific, scenic,
Relic, rhetoric, hygienic.
   Gooseberry, goose, and close, but close,
   Paradise, rise, rose, and dose.

Say inveigh, neigh, but inveigle,
Make the latter rhyme with eagle.
   Mind! Meandering but mean,
   Valentine and magazine.

And I bet you, dear, a penny,
You say mani-(fold) like many,
   Which is wrong. Say rapier, pier,
   Tier (one who ties), but tier.

Arch, archangel; pray, does erring
Rhyme with herring or with stirring?
   Prison, bison, treasure trove,
   Treason, hover, cover, cove,

Perseverance, severance. Ribald
Rhymes (but piebald doesn't) with nibbled.
   Phaeton, paean, gnat, ghat, gnaw,
   Lien, psychic, shone, bone, pshaw.

Don't be down, my own, but rough it,
And distinguish buffet, buffet;
   Brood, stood, roof, rook, school, wool, boon,
   Worcester, Boleyn, to impugn.

Say in sounds correct and sterling
Hearse, hear, hearken, year and yearling.
   Evil, devil, mezzotint,
   Mind the z! (A gentle hint.)

Now you need not pay attention
To such sounds as I don't mention,
   Sounds like pores, pause, pours and paws,
   Rhyming with the pronoun yours;

Nor are proper names included,
Though I often heard, as you did,
   Funny rhymes to unicorn,
   Yes, you know them, Vaughan and Strachan.

No, my maiden, coy and comely,
I don't want to speak of Cholmondeley.
   No. Yet Froude compared with proud
   Is no better than McLeod.

But mind trivial and vial,
Tripod, menial, denial,
   Troll and trolley, realm and ream,
   Schedule, mischief, schism, and scheme.

Argil, gill, Argyll, gill. Surely
May be made to rhyme with Raleigh,
   But you're not supposed to say
   Piquet rhymes with sobriquet.

Had this invalid invalid
Worthless documents? How pallid,
   How uncouth he, couchant, looked,
   When for Portsmouth I had booked!

Zeus, Thebes, Thales, Aphrodite,
Paramour, enamoured, flighty,
   Episodes, antipodes,
   Acquiesce, and obsequies.

Please don't monkey with the geyser,
Don't peel 'taters with my razor,
   Rather say in accents pure:
   Nature, stature and mature.

Pious, impious, limb, climb, glumly,
Worsted, worsted, crumbly, dumbly,
   Conquer, conquest, vase, phase, fan,
   Wan, sedan and artisan.

The th will surely trouble you
More than r, ch or w.
   Say then these phonetic gems:
   Thomas, thyme, Theresa, Thames.

Thompson, Chatham, Waltham, Streatham,
There are more but I forget 'em-
   Wait! I've got it: Anthony,
   Lighten your anxiety.

The archaic word albeit
Does not rhyme with eight-you see it;
   With and forthwith, one has voice,
   One has not, you make your choice.

Shoes, goes, does *. Now first say: finger;
Then say: singer, ginger, linger.
   Real, zeal, mauve, gauze and gauge,
   Marriage, foliage, mirage, age,

Hero, heron, query, very,
Parry, tarry fury, bury,
   Dost, lost, post, and doth, cloth, loth,
   Job, Job, blossom, *****, oath.

Faugh, oppugnant, keen oppugners,
Bowing, bowing, banjo-tuners
   Holm you know, but noes, canoes,
   Puisne, truism, use, to use?

Though the difference seems little,
We say actual, but victual,
   Seat, sweat, chaste, caste, Leigh, eight, height,
   Put, nut, granite, and unite.

****** does not rhyme with deafer,
Feoffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
   Dull, bull, Geoffrey, George, ate, late,
   Hint, pint, senate, but sedate.

Gaelic, Arabic, pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific;
   Tour, but our, dour, succour, four,
   Gas, alas, and Arkansas.

Say manoeuvre, yacht and *****,
Next omit, which differs from it
   Bona fide, alibi
   Gyrate, dowry and awry.

Sea, idea, guinea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
   Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean,
   Doctrine, turpentine, marine.

Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion with battalion,
   Rally with ally; yea, ye,
   Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, key, quay!

Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, receiver.
   Never guess-it is not safe,
   We say calves, valves, half, but Ralf.

Starry, granary, canary,
Crevice, but device, and eyrie,
   Face, but preface, then grimace,
   Phlegm, phlegmatic, ***, glass, bass.

Bass, large, target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, oust, joust, and scour, but scourging;
   Ear, but earn; and ere and tear
   Do not rhyme with here but heir.

Mind the o of off and often
Which may be pronounced as orphan,
   With the sound of saw and sauce;
   Also soft, lost, cloth and cross.

Pudding, puddle, putting. Putting?
Yes: at golf it rhymes with shutting.
   Respite, spite, consent, resent.
   Liable, but Parliament.

Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew, Stephen,
   Monkey, donkey, clerk and ****,
   Asp, grasp, wasp, demesne, cork, work.

A of valour, vapid vapour,
S of news (compare newspaper),
   G of gibbet, gibbon, gist,
   I of antichrist and grist,

Differ like diverse and divers,
Rivers, strivers, shivers, fivers.
   Once, but *****, toll, doll, but roll,
   Polish, Polish, poll and poll.

Pronunciation-think of Psyche!-
Is a paling, stout and spiky.
   Won't it make you lose your wits
   Writing groats and saying "grits"?

It's a dark abyss or tunnel
Strewn with stones like rowlock, gunwale,
   Islington, and Isle of Wight,
   Housewife, verdict and indict.

Don't you think so, reader, rather,
Saying lather, bather, father?
   Finally, which rhymes with enough,
   Though, through, bough, cough, hough, sough, tough??

Hiccough has the sound of sup...
My advice is: GIVE IT UP!

As Rasputin rapture he'd fraudulently claim
that his thoughts were a divine mystery
as he sought finally that debachery was where he laid
but were cloudy rains only nigh round Nicholas II
a kremlin in red square that he liken to a Soljeniten
that must bear incredulous vapor due cultivation
aflame in aura of tobacconist ALA Walter Raleigh.

KISSING MR. CHELIDON GOODBYE

**...**.  . .oh!
I don't know

if I should be
telling you this.

I was just sweet
as in 16 &

never been kissed
and my *******

hadn't yet arrived
though I prayed and prayed

to a God who did not
heed my girlish plea.

All the girls in my year
had already budded.

******* to the right of me!
Breast to the left of me!

Into the valley of despair
I rode my Raleigh

alas alas
breast-less!

I practiced kissing
by kissing

the you know
inside of
( the whatchamacallit? )

my elbow the
chelidon so called

by an old falling-apart
medical dictionary.

I clipped some hair
from our Yorkshire terrier

stuck it on the crick of
my right elbow

so that it became
my first moustache'd kiss.

And so, was born
my Mr. Chelidon.

Pathetic...yes...I know
but the year after

my bosoms arrived
with a suddenness

that took my breath
away.

I breasting the waves
like a ship's figurehead

as I dived into the sea
a Venus for boys to see.

I was my *******
and my ******* were me.

Somehow I could then not
stopped being kissed.

And once kissed
grew addicted to it.

The bliss of the kiss.
I was my own drug.

I gave Mr. Chelidon
the elbow.

Discovered the joy of boys
inventing various uses

for them
as they

discovered
me.

I'm so tired.
And it's so late.
My eyes are blurred.
Slower.
I'm skipping letters,
Or just writing the wrong ones.
But I know there's still something to say.
Some weight before sleep can lift me.

She texted me this thing.
A guy she was hanging out with.
How he was such an artist.
I immediately thought he was a *******.
He had taken her phone and
God knows why,
Was texting me.

Didn't know it was a guy.
Thought I was humoring
One of her girlfiends.

He tried to convince me
Raleigh was the "cultural capitol of the south."
"If I could go anywhere, I'd go to Savannah."
"...nah."
That ******* line. "Nah (my opinion is more valid than yours."
****.

Any guy that had Jessie's phone
Would have been a ****.

Because I saw that girl one day,
She's never
Out of my head.
God.
Three years.
Or two?
Still.
Two years and nothing happened.

Nothing even came close to happening.
I can take a hint but,
Is she even that good of a friend?
Why?
The hell am I upset of this?

I'm planning some crazy trip.
Risking the life of my car
(she's on her last cylinder)
And...
I can't think of a good reason.
She doesn't even like me.
I'm not sure I even like her.

Unless of course I'm stupidly in love
with a person I've had two years to
barely know.
And all that was denial.
Grasping at reasonable straws.

God I'm lost.

i bring you to Tru, it's a wine bar
(and they have sandwiches during the day, in which i over-order avocado and eat sloppily over my homework sometimes)
close to my home.
raw wood tables, low lighting, black leather couches.
i order red wine, cotes de rhone.
you order...the same thing

i ask if you like red wine, because
that's something i know a little about

we go to sit outside with our 6 oz blood cups
and my teeth go white in the dark

its a 78 and humid september night
but i just came from work so i'm sweaty anyway

you're from Mumbai, or New York (long island actually)
or Raleigh. I grew up around here,
so you just bring up my hair and my legs,
i instinctively feel the need to run

Do not think because I have a roving eye
that I am any less in love with you.
A knowing wink, a bashful smile, a haughty stare,
these are the terra incognita
which I, beauty's student, must needs explore.

But like Raleigh in Guiana, in search of El Dorado,
thinking of  his Bess,  
or Daniel Boone in Kentucky,
it is you I am thinking of, always,
and it is to you I will, Odysseus-like, return.

Babe Ruth smokes a Raleigh in the doorway,
as i give birth to a broken mirror
if home is where the heart is, i live on the state line
or on my sleeve
he knows that, and as he finishes his cigarette
i ask him if he ever thinks about cancer
"i think of it like i think about 1949,
so far away"

wind soughs outside
slightly

I'm up late tonight

my sister careens
on the eastern coast
touches Topsail
with her lacy fingers

and I cross mine

wheels and wheels
like lockstep men
march inland
automobiles whine
like soon, treelines

I'm up so late

my best friend dreams
in the wayside,
somewhere west of me
after a long day
of convincing her boyfriend
to high-tail his *** out of Raleigh
Clayton, it is
he decided
her fret only calmed enough to sleep
by his promises of a high-rise property
and below 70 mile wind speeds

I can feel my eyelids tug

my brother's fingers thrum
on countertops
well-wishes in morse
as he says he'll stop thinking about it, now
no, wait... now

and my mother works to bend
each emerging frown

as my fingers drum up natural disaster nonsense
I watch, wait for the earth's recompense
as it surely blares through my old house's fence

rippling through the silhouette of the statue
my sister's soul had attached itself to

every crevice of county road
every man-hiked piedmont mile
interstices of feet and snow
the dirt that has seen every trial
to fail under inclement weather

they say it's overdue
that it's been a while

I'm done with firsts;
I'm done being Eve
and wickedly foraging my way forward.
Pioneering is dangerous,
pawns that went first
had to be slashed down by still others
or their betters,
and those who returned to their familiar land
were cast like Raleigh into prisons of mental standstill
unfulfilled.
The rewards of adventure are great,
But I'm done looking at the world with naive wonder.
I will no longer
be naming new findings after people I barely knew,
like myself,
as explorers before me have done.
I don't want another journey-
to set out in the hopes of finding another place
that resembles home in the smallest way.
I don't want another conquest-
burning the homes of others
so that I might find
an ounce of worth among their possessions,
hoping to define myself
by what I leave left of them behind me.
I'm far too comfortable,
have far too much at stake
to set out again,
uncertain of my return.
I've decided to settle in this wild land-
this New World full of wonders
that I hope will one day become mundane,
but I know they won't.
This land has such heights-
mountains shining in the setting sun
orange and red halos burning on their edges like forest fire passions
and they are reflected
shimmering
on the water's surface
as it lazily rolls tiny hills to lap at the mountains' feet.
That landscape was such a welcome sight
after so long spent on black seas,
nothing but empty grey skies
and my lonely vessel.
Storms beat their drums in ominous rhythms,  
the reverberations of their peals on the surface
wreaking havoc,
ripping wildly at sails and heart.
I had feared mutiny
only to be betrayed
by gods in much larger battles.
But I entered the cove, calm,
and its glass comforted me
as the arms of its coast encircled my battered life boat.
Soon the strange sounds of the forests,
that rustling at night at the forest's breath,
animal calls
and the sound of footsteps behind me
were normal.
I would not soon trade
the stability and comfort of this solid bedrock
For the tumult of that sea
No.
I've built my home
out of the strong trees here
that have sheltered me from wind in my journey.
I've harnessed my uncertainty
when faced with this new environment
and now sit in front of a warm hearth,
warm of heart,
and say goodbye to the sea.

Your words remind me of the joy  I felt with my first adult bike at 18, sweeping about the countryside. Dorset. Evenings.

I could not buy a car. I had no freedom then really & too scared to try.

Here we spell them tyres and glad for you they are coming.

My house is very old.

Full on day yesterday at Mill unpacking leather goods . The smell clings.

I needed help with my revulsion. The chamois and deer skins. She helped me and we became giggly despite the sadness.

Once again it is a pretty day and I have found that the tall plants are knapweed, and nearly flowered. The news plays on with out any good news . I am sure there is some, and I am sure it comes from the little things. they do not broadcast that,

I am pleased now with the not linen top described as linen. They gave me half my money back and it becomes a pyjama top. Loose and cool.

Your tales of your area and cold tea are of those words found in a novel. For me.

A surreal film. It has the makings of the sort I like, slow and determined.

The days move forward, we focus on the pleasantness mainly. We worry over the rest.

Now they play Elgar and I must get on with the day. Enjoy your new tires, your expeditions .
Sonja
6.29
With Capitals

KISSING MR. CHELIDON GOODBYE

**...**.  . .oh!
I don't know

if I should be
telling you this.

I was just sweet
as in 16 &

never been kissed
and my *******

hadn't yet arrived
though I prayed and prayed

to a God who did not
heed my girlish plea.

All the girls in my year
had already budded.

******* to the right of me!
Breast to the left of me!

Into the valley of despair
I rode my Raleigh

alas alas
breast-less!

I practiced kissing
by kissing

the you know
inside of
( the whatchamacallit? )

my elbow the
chelidon so called

by an old falling-apart
medical dictionary.

I clipped some hair
from our Yorkshire terrier

stuck it on the crick of
my right elbow

so that it became
my first moustache'd kiss.

And so, was born
my Mr. Chelidon.

Pathetic...yes...I know
but the year after

my bosoms arrived
with a suddenness

that took my breath
away.

I breasting the waves
like a ship's figurehead

as I dived into the sea
a Venus for boys to see.

I was my *******
and my ******* were me.

Somehow I could then not
stopped being kissed.

And once kissed
grew addicted to it.

The bliss of the kiss.
I was my own drug.

I gave Mr. Chelidon
the elbow.

Discovered the joy of boys
inventing various uses

for them
as they

discovered
me.

Love is growing
From within.
From the bottom of my insecurity,
Taking the worst of me,
Building it into eternity.

Eternally, we sit on broken thrones
Built up, on the past.

Feels too much like home
Our pain, can’t see how far
We’ve come.

Obscured, because we’re too wrapped up
In ourselves.
****** up
How we treat ourselves.
Tells us,
That we can’t be
A you and me,
Won’t make it through a year,
Much less eternity.
Don’t you worry,
I understand what’s happened,
I know the past is hard
To understand.
I don’t demand,
I just try to revitalize,
Both myself,
You,
And I.

Can’t heal nobody,
It’s hell to try,
But this is my story:

In a city like Raleigh
I rumbled down streets,
With a couple beers and a few shots in me,
The New Year’s coming,
But I just couldn’t see,
had to get out,
just for me.

Hit the big city for a couple days
Driving down avenues
Littered by Christmas lights and Christmas trees,
Christmas in New York,
Spent drinking and stumbling,
Spent away from you
Broken and mumbling,
My pain dripping into the sewers,
As I ****** away the anger and anguish,
And I ****** a pretty little Ms.
Who never could love me,
and I could never love she.

In the spring, I spent,
A lot of time,
With a pretty dime,
she wanting my child,
But in the end it wasn’t meant to be,
The choice of life,
Ain’t up to you and me,
I said to she.

In the midst of fall,
When it all falls apart,
I met a woman,
Twice my age,
Willing to have *** for days,
But she couldn’t handle her own pain,
Demanding all the love,
But her, I just couldn’t save,
Fights and fights and fights
Until calls to the cops were made.
No hands put on,
No hands displayed,
No hands up,
No call from the soul to say,
"Let’s let it go,
It’ll be best for you and me,"
No, we hung on,
Hanging onto the precipice
Until the love in us died.

Winter comes,
More Hennessey shots taken,
Taken for days,
For you I don’t know if it’s easy to say,
But I was lost,
So lost in those days.

Spent cold nights
In a car,
Cold mornings in a Mcdonald’s
Biting bad meat,
Tainted with an unloving scar,
Couldn’t even love myself,
Felt that would take too much time,
So I found help
Drowning, drinking, soaking
Thinking that would help.

But in time,
At the right,
I found you driving down the parkway,
Down the right line.

An accident brings us together,
Love, ain’t no beautiful story,
At least not then,
Kind of ****** up, a horror, sorry,
Ours littered with skeletons,
But from the ashes and bones
Gardens grow.
And now, roses bloom
Where once the earth was dead.
Dead as death.
Heavier than metal,
Now lifted as a breath,
Warm as the kiss of a petal.