HE GIVES THE BEST HUGS
"you like long hugs don't you"
he knows i do
so he envelopes me in his warmth
and squeezes me till i feel giddy like a little girl
and sometimes
he even rests his chin on my head
and i wonder if he is memorizing what my shampoo smells like
and it's for this exact moment that i push through my workload each day and
it's for this exact moment that i walk through the rain each night
his evening smile is tattoed in my mind so i can dream peacefully
and he never fails to follow up with a simple love you snap
HE GIVES THE BEST GOODNIGHTS

The words curled around her tongue
vanishing before she gets a taste of it
Her hands are inked with sentences
Her stomach are filled with phrases unknown
Every bit of her skin
Are marked with ancient lines
Four lines, five lines, six lines
And she lost count of the others on her back
They called it stanzas
From the World Before
When words were freely written and spoken
On things called books and papers
With an ink that must be the same
As the one inscribed on her soul.
She is an obscenity
A walking contradiction
A curse in the post human language era
As she bears all the words and languages of the world
So that all can see through her
The beauty that words can make
(Yet none can read nor understand)
Even though none can read nor understand.

She wears her soul on her skin.
Still, no one can read her.

Straying at the horizon she was, when I looked at her,
My prolonged desire started breathing with a stutter,
I could see her cuddled close to herself,
Her eyes filled with lostness but strong inside,
Cause shes thinking too deep inside,
A cupid in between came and struck an arrow with his bow.
I dont even know her much but still my eyes look at her with forever longing,
Is my soulmate spreading her arms to me calling.?
She carries a me inside her from before reincarnation, ah and look at that smile,
As if taking my worries whenever smiling at me for a while.
I am afraid of losing her now, but, I havent even have her trust gained,
Even if she goes away ignoring my silent but promising love, My heart is already tattooed by her name.!

Thrown into a sea of perfection.
Drowning under the falsity of cosmetics.
A fake smile is more geniune,
you taught me that.
Covering myself up with what you find ideal.
Starving myself for your love,
turning a blind eye on the bruises you leave everytime I slip up.
I have memorised your words by heart,
tattoed them on my wrist.
I hear them everytime I breath.
"LIVE UPTO MY PERFECTION"

TATTOOED

She appear Juicy,
Delicious Must be Her Pink *****,

I am Loving her, I am Liking her,
I Already Feel Like I am Licking her,
I Picture Myself Cracking her,

I Mean On Bed So Bad... .. . [•]  

She has a *****, Body... For Years like she has been craving for it Four Years, I am sure the day she Left, Her ex was in Tears,

because Of Her Warm Heart and beauty that Pierce Like Spears, and She is Steamy Like That Beef From Steers,

Should I go on in her Life? Or wait till the dust of her Previous Relationship Clears,

She has an Electronic Scent just like a ***** ready to mate, When I look at her image, it Stays Up Till Quarter to Nine, at Night, so Bright is her appearance, Curvey is her Body, She also appear Godly, I want her Badly, Madly and Sadly,

She is tattooed allover her Body, you can easily tell, She is a Freak, but to judge, You never know, I might be Quick,

Unbelievable is the way she make me Feel, She make me want to Kneel, Send her a Picture On My Knees Holding a Golden Diamond Ring,

She is a woman I wish She Could Break the Spring of my Single Bed, because I have a wish to make Love to her until my white blankets are Red, if she has it or not I am NOT afraid,

I am tired, of looking at her pictures, paralyzed like I am nothing, with a wish to give her something so pure like the love of Christ,
She is the type to get wet for days, I just wish we could lay together on bed and blaze, as I gaze at it ready to **** it, peel it and lick it when it starts to drip, her beauty held me with a strange grip, can't even believe the way it pulls me closer, its like my life is about to be over, because I would give my all to her, if this whole imagination thing works out,

I always work out, because when I have her that night I want us to burn out, ignite the forces of our newly found love, Given by the one from above, The moment I looked at her I was set free like a dove, Now I am attached to her tight like a glove,  

I like the fact that she has tattoos, freaky you can see her, the type that knows how to choose, now I have a wish to walk with her in these shoes, The way this whole thing goes, only God knows, How her love wind blows, it might be deadly or friendly, because this type of a woman possesses some sort of super natural powers that I call Black Girl Magic,

Her body is on point, worth more than one point,

I am Liking and Loving her, wish to smell and touch her hair, she seem fair, I have got no fear but a wish to get near, Fall in Love and get out of here, When she read this I hope its my Voice That She hear.

It was a suicide.
He had gotten drunk,
too drunk.
He tried going to the bar he worked at,
it was his night off,
but they turned him away.
“You’ve already had too much to drink. Go sleep it off, pal.”
Instead he went home,
put a glock 9mm to his head
And blew his brains out
on his back porch.
His roommate found him.
There was no note,
no answers,
just questions left behind.
A week later was the memorial service.
He was an atheist,
a vocal one at that.
Had a tattoo of a rotting zombie Christ
on his arm.
But his family was devout Lutherans,
so that was the send off he got.
Standing against the wall,
in the small chapel,
the lines were clearly divided.

Seated in the pews were people
dressed in bright, happy colors.
Pastels.
Blues, greens, pinks, yellows, and lavenders.
Those were his blood relatives
and Lutheran members of the family’s church.

Then on the edges and in the back
Stood and sat his other family,
the metal heads, the punks, the ******* kids, and subculture misfits,
Dressed in black,
arms & legs tattoed with ink.

The pastels
spoke in unison, reciting prayers and scripture,
While the kids in black, stood silent
Unmoved by the minister’s words about Christ.
The pastels bowed their heads in prayer, for the poor boy’s soul.

We in black looked around the room,
studying their pinched faces
while they remained blind.
One woman apparently could feel my stare
cause she opened her eyes, and looked right into mine.
Never will forget that look she had,
like she knew something I didn’t.

The minister in the white and green robe kept talking,
saying my friend was in the loving arms of Jesus.
Guess he forgot that suicides got
a one-way ticket straight to hell.
It was typical.
A spiritual buffet,
take what you like,
ignore what you don’t.
But I don’t blame them, not one bit.
What parent wants to imagine
their child burning in that lake of fire,
never to be held in their arms again?
No one.

His mother went up and said a few words,
Some stories,
funny ones from his childhood.
Then his neighbor went up and spoke,
then an old girlfriend from high school.
And then a great silence.
The podium stood empty.
Before I knew it,
my hands were gripping the wooden podium
and my mouth was talking.
Telling the pastels & black shirts kids
about the first time I saw him.
He was in the mosh pit doing spin kicks and backflips
like a five-foot-six, blonde, ninja in Saucony jazz shoes.
And how I never saw him be unkind or mean to anyone,
that he was a GOOD boy.
My eyes began to burn,
I felt my throat tightening.
“Really gonna miss him,” I managed to choke out.
I took my place back against the wall
as the slideshow & music started up.
They were playing The Beatles.
My friend was a Black Sabbath kind of guy.

Outside I saw faces not seen in years,
not since I was a 17-year-old kid.
I saw Matty standing there.
We had just buried another one
of the boys from the crew,
Munster
less that six months earlier.
Poor Munsey.
Now Matty and I were the only ones left.
Went straight up to him and we both latched on,
sobbing & shaking
hugging each other as tight as we could.
“It’s too much, man. It’s too soon. They’re both ******* GONE.”
He was broken and I was worried about him.
Very much so.

Then we all met at a bar,
his bar.
The one he worked at and got turned away from that night.
We told stories
like when everyone was trying to **** this girl
and he wasn’t, but she pulled him into a room
at the end of the night …
picking him over us all.
Or how he could make his ***** do all kinds of tricks,
disappearing and reappearing in his red *******.
“The popper” he called it.
We slammed down shots & brews
burying our little buddy, one glass at a time.
And the last thing …
His parents showed up at the bar
cradling T-shirts on hangars, his clothes.
I saw someone pick up his Blood For Blood shirt.
It had been OUR shirt, we shared it back and forth.
We both loved that band, they sang about “living in exile” like we both did.
“****, that was our shirt,” I said to the table of drunk and grieving friends.
“Well, go get it, man. Go on.”
I went up to the guy holding it.
“Hey man, that shirt means a lot to me, can I …”
Before I could finish, it was in my hands.
The guy gave a generous smile,
“Then you should have it.”
I sat back down at the table of friends,
holding the shirt up to my face.
He lingered in my nose, one last time.
But my little buddy was gone,
a faded T-shirt and a few funny stories
were all that remained.
We all toasted one last shot.
I said,
“to the lost …”
and the table of old friends all repeated,
“To the lost.”
Rest well in your dreamless sleep, pal.
Down the hatch.
Watch it go
With a black tooth grin.

Once I knew a place, a place I never truly found significant.
A vast stretch of abandonment and history - long forgotten and left to be consumed by Time himself.
Once I knew a place, a place I never truly understood.
Decorated by Mother Nature with an asortment of trees and shrubs and an abundance of flowers it's only scar which betrayed it to the present was a solitary man-made structure, tattoed with the bold letters of "FALCON SECURITY" - surely an untold testimony to this place's past life.
Once I knew a place, a place I never truly acknowledged.
Ocassionally it would become the temporary haven of hobbos and hermits alike. Living in mutual homelessness they sort comfort under the trees, in the confines of the hideous building or simply amongst the long, billowing grass of the place. They would build thingie-ma-jigs, what-ja-ma-call-its and thing-a-ma-bobs and sell them to the curt passerbys of their place.
Once I knew a place, a place I never truly appreciated.
Surrounded by infastructure, and industry it stood out like a rose amongst the thorns and brought beauty and clarity back into the otherwise monotonous, morbid environment. It stood defiant and strong against the hungry, salivating greed of humanity - yet someday it was bound to succumb to our over-powering ambition for development.
Once I knew a place, a place that no longer exists.
In the blink of an eye that place was destroyed - uprooted and upheaveled.
Every tree, every shrub, every flower ripped out and now gone. No longer a haven but a grave yard where the dead lay scattered like fallen soldiers across the battlefield. Victims against the War of Industrialisation they fell prey to mans' heinous desires.
"Collateral damage" for a "brighter" future they say.
I say, who needs another vehicle retail outlet.
Once I knew a place, and I will never know that place again.

I’ll stay alone,

My eyes twist and twitch,
From place to place,
From this beauty to that
Beauty to the next beautiful ugly thing,
And my smile irritates me,
As much or more than any other matter,
I left you when you loved it,
The noisy smile, not far from my eyes,
Yet lately so far from sight,
I hate to hear it and the memories
It recalls, so I drown myself
In half smiles and music,

A few shots for the flu,
A shot or two, and a note
Signed and spattered with truth,
Countless shots to forget you were mine,

So many people say the worst goodbyes,
Are the ones never said,
I can’t help but dissagree,

Tell me you aren’t coming back,
Say this isn’t really goodbye,
Let me know it’s just, bye.
So many people say the worst goodbyes,

Tattoo with a paint brush,
It’s a curious thing,
It seems so many have tattoed
Strokes of thought upon me.
And you’ve peeled back flesh and bone,
To lay black ink upon my heart,

I’ll drink up shadows,
And the red of my veins,
Let the black fill my arteries,

And drink away another day, in memory of your name.

He had a tattoo
instead of a knife or gun,
that much I knew.

I was naked and edible,
dark cherry lips, parted, legs
spread, open to anyone,
starved, famished.

I moulded into his touch,
fluttering and spluttering.

My ribcage was empty,
I killed my heart when I said,
'I don't want you
like that.'

The ashes are still hot.
When daylight breaks
they are sifted like
stones in search of
diamonds.

There is nothing precious.
Here.
Anymore.

His tattoo, pressed
against my *******,
rising and falling
as his tongue swallowed pieces
of myself I was yet
to taste.

As he plunders, I imagine
all the places I visited as a girl.

I wonder if I ever truly left
the photos where I was once young
and whole. Whole.

in a way I can never be again.

I wonder if they live inside me still,
inside these shattered bones.

Summer days of warm breezes,
writing my name into the sand,
cocooning the letters in hearts and never,
not once, thinking, 'I am alive.'

As I lay naked on this rough
carpet, bleeding and *******
over myself.

As I learn too late
that words said can exist
without meaning.

I think of those summers,
long ago.

I can never go back but, really,
I have never left.

And I know the outcome of this,
I know how much it will hurt when I land,
Bruised and bleeding,

But I want to wrap my love around you,
Warm you up,
From the mind
down
And Iwant to get dressed in your insides,
The things you ve learned to hide,

Will you let me crawl inside your head space,
And hallow out a place so we me meet beside,
Your ribs to my chest ,

I dance for you my love,
Longing to do more then entertain,
Allow me to wake the dormant feelings
You promised once you'd never feel again.

Because you carve at my insides,
You cause world of warcraft to begin in my stomach,
While mere heart mumurs increase too a caterwaling of my senses till
I am bankrupt of all sound, left with mountains heaving to breathe

And Ido learn to breathe,
Longing to inhale the poetry you produce
In the wake of trails tattoed by spidery fingers,
That prove to be more poisonous then 1st thought,
Leaving me captured,

And I'm sorry but we haven't yet met,
I really wish we had met,

But lover to love
here is the reciepe for my disaster.

It came to me then, that every second i spent thinking about you, is a tiny waste of my life, and just now i realize that loving you is just pointless as staring at my shoes, and the tattoo of the heart with YOU&I; i tattoed on my back nows only give me regrets, and even feelling all this hatred when i see you my heart aches so hard thats is almost impossible to breathe, why? just why? why i cant forget you or just try to move on? why everything around me just reminders me of you? why i cant live a life without you in? Because i'm a stupid person or because you are my true one?
I dont have a answer and i hope you too, so i can accept my fate of lonely one, of a single bird in a tree, of a single cell in a living being, of a drop of rain in nigth

At night the boys go hunting buses,
Tight-lipped eyes
Loaded with anger,
Gun-barrel arms
Tattoed at the shoulder
And quarry-stone cocked in their hands.

The finger-high boys
Of corner-store cool,
Snarling boys,
Drinking the dark and unloved spaces,
The public places,
Where they have ****** both grog and girl.

They've flogged the stolen cars for fun
In third gear up Spit Hill
And disappeared in the Wallaby Grass
As the sirens wail
And the cars burn.

Footpath foul round cul-de-sacs
These branded boys
Have made their name,
And window panes
Have felt their bitter
Forceful curse.

And tonight the boys are hunting buses,
In tobacco-black suburban hollows
They're taking aim
And will sleep
Smiling
Once the **** is made.

Your love is a line
Tattoed down my spine
The pulse of a tentative touch
This pain is an art
I play my bit part
When you leave and I miss you much
Your mark on me
Indelible
I close my eyes and see
Your soul is a beautiful picture
Superimposed on the skin that's me
Indelible
My baby.

Write my life with your ink
I cannot think
Of a better way for the page to unfold
Each line a caress
This gentleness
Of a love story in flesh be it told
Indelible
The name of the story we write
Your soul is an epic masterpiece
Written on my flesh at night
Indelible
That's right

Indelible
Your mark on me
Indelible
Sketch my destiny
Each stroke
Set me free
Indelible
This tattooed line on me
13107
TL Boehm
© 2007

The jazz man on the metro,
is playing you his song,
while you inwardly cursing,
wonder where it all went wrong.

As light flashes to dark,
you remember that one day,
sheltered by the oak tree,
a glorious morning in May.

The man opposite shuffles,
you need to get off this train,
the sun doesn't rise in this place,
horror tattoed onto your brain.

The water is all frozen,
with you trapped beneath,
sometimes even villains,
need some kind of relief.

Scholars have all thought,
of why men do such things,
but the ghost on your shoulder,
knows not what tomorrow brings.

Her blood will be cold now,
the clown has stopped his show,
the trumpet has stopped playing,
and it seems you've nowhere to go.

so here I am, in evening's day,
watching as lines draw importance among charts
erased, once holy.
my tools collapse, blood letting instruments
raising grave. terra firma,
influence for siblings & greed to rest.

I am here, head high.
images burrow into my core, burned I shiver,
waiting forthem to control this grey brain, requesting,
from that moment, I'll throw them into
her paper grave.

why? why has the dawn come again?
one decade,
I waited for night.
& minutes agone, I spat in morning's eye.
tomorrow's evening I'll curse,
praying with head held, that sunrise
will not forget me.

slipping into my grave.
stepping out politely,
to wave my hand & contort my mouth,
pressure my heart & tense my bones.

now I'm alone.
& these potential loves can not
cure
my continual wishing or
halt these searches.

tattered auras weave into purple thread.
tattoed ivory wraps Turkish gold.

here.
here I am,
fousing or nodding;

the heavy weight of ink's stroke,
drawing you,
farther away.

it hurts when I speak.
it wakes when I breathe.

I think march has returned though it snows outside I can hear you outside and I’m slurring forgetting my senses and ignorant to the truth you posses; pretending it could be but would never be because this
is me forever.
unrequitedunrequitedunrequited; get it tattoed on me it will make no alteration because I can face it everyday needlessly.unrequited you are silenced from the rest. In the movie you are the fool  and unrequited you are unvisible/invisibe.no one cares to correct you for spelling because everyone forgets to read or write. As have you so what has drawn you back here; to march?
maybe she missed her letdown glazing her tear fire maybe she missed how the pen and the dark proved a healer and wanted to feel saved again from a nightmare.

So the Sun moved on beyond horizon
But the bright shadow of Love
Still clings on to me
Long after the setting Sun


Yes, I agree
The light moved on
From Sun Rise to Sun Set
Bound by desires and duties to perform
Some times to the birth of a life
Some times
End of another


But Some times ....
Some desires remains
Attached to you
Like a Shadow
Not willing to cast you away
Tattoed to your soul
Like a bright sun spot
Willing to move on with your soul
Till the end of the life...
Willing to move on ... with you

Some times, love remains eternal within you
Even when the life moves on.

He was a brawned and ugly gun-slinger, and he came from the wild west;
He had the names of six dead Texan boys, tattoed on his chest;
His hat was 15 gallons tall, his long-coat midnight black;
He wore his holsters mighty high and he said his name was Jack.

He rode a palamino horse on the day he came to town;
Three deputies were in the street, and he shot those suckers down;
Dismounting by the sheriffs door, he hollered out a cry,
"Get yer no-good chicken *** outside, today yer gonna die."

The sheriff boldly stepped outside, a shotgun in his hand,
"You'd best be coming quiet son, or your life aint worth a ****."
Jack tipped his hat and curled his lip, he turned his head and spat,
"You shot my brother, sheriff, and yer gonna pay for that."

The sheriff paused to ponder, then he slowly shook his head,
"Your Jimmy robbed a stagecoach and he left the driver dead."
Jack grimaced at his brother's name, and his hands twitched by his side,
"You can call it how you like", he said, "But I'm gonna have yer hide."

The sheriff put the shotgun down, and they faced off in the street,
His hands were poised above his guns, he was sweating in the heat;
He waited till he saw Jack flinch, and his hands flew lightning fast,
His trusty colts were smoking as they fired their deadly blast.

For a moment they both stood stock still, then Jack fell to the ground,
His face was full of shocked surprise, but he never made a sound;
The sheriff felt a tinge of pain, and he saw his badge was bust;
As the blood came seeping from his chest, he fell into the dust.

The townsfolk still recall the day, when Jack rode into town,
And every year they say a prayer, on the day they both fell down;
They were buried up on old Boot Hill, their graves were side by side;
The sheriff renowned for killing Jack, with the man who took his hide.

When you held my hands in your lap
your stare tattoed eyelashes on my wrists,
they're still bleeding.

You used inexpensive words to tell me
you never wanted to make me cry again,
I'm still sobbing.

My soft-petaled wings faded and crushed
as your last kiss fell from your lips to my cheek,
I'm still wilting.

For three months I held up my green-bean spine
with a meter stick, a lifeless statue of sprouting stem,
I'm still dying.

When I called you I know my hair slipped through
the phone speaker, and you could smell my skin,
You're still yearning.

But it's been three years now, and you no longer
care for teenage laughs and the discovery
of thigh and shoulder kisses,

Yet I'm still writing about
what a beautiful thing to have loved,
what a terrible thing to have said goodbye.

BREATHLESS......MOTIONLESS.......BREATH TAKING
These words just can't express it all when it comes to you
You take out every words out of my lips
Each time I try explaining how I feel about you
Paradise is the most beautiful sight in creation
The 2nd most beautiful I have ever seen is you
i wanna describe how beautiful you are...
but 1st I need to invent a whole new language just for that purpose
I don't need a dictionary to define the word 'BEAUTIFUL'
you are all the definition I need to describe it
I still can't believe I have you in my heart
How we met and how we fell in love
Are memories I will forever cherish till I die
The sight of you smiling at me
Arouses and gladdens every part of my soul
Its like sparks of light projecting from the windows of heavens
and the view of watching the angels lift its wings to fly
To everyone,there are 7 natural wonders of the world
To me,there's only one natural wonder in this world & its YOU
Your voice is bliss made in heaven When you talk,everything stops to listen
Even the earth stops rotating round the sun just to hear you
Your voice is the melody of a thousand love songs to my ears
Its like liquid enchantment poured into my eardrums
The very moment you walked through the doors of my heart
Is the very moment where I first experience heaven on earth
You took away my sense of speech
The very first time you said to me " I LOVE YOU "
I stood still like an electrocuted fellow
I just didn't know the right words to say
All I wanted was to keep hearing it over and over again
it echoed deep down my eardrums and kept my ears ringing
And the first time we kissed?
Made me lose my conscious state and awareness of what surround me
You are a precious gift of inestimable value
a friend created with virtue of grace and love
You deserve all the good things life has got to offer
That's why I want to spend the remaining half of my life to grant you all of it
i've got your face tattoed on the walls of my heart
And the imprint of your smile brightens my existence
My head is like a memory card filled only with pictures & thoughts of you
Even a screwdriver cannot unscrew thoughts of you from my head
Without you I'm incomplete Like Thor without its hammer
Like a man without a soul and a world without air
My queen,I'm the snail,you're my shell
The only thing that will make me leave you is if am dead
i can't let u go u are like the sun;both my light,my centre of gravity
without u,i'll fall apart like a broken soul
If I could be forever young, I would be forever yours I still wanna grow old with you tho
I want tomorrow,but I don't want tomorrow if you won't be in it
I'll never be perfect... but I'll always be yours
til my every hair is white,and my age enters 3- digits,and im toothless and wrinkled...i'd still be loving you.

(i.)

the frail kid
singing sand
brand new friend
leaving already
developing meaning
the word lonely
a killer pool
tattoed arm
naked as ***** baby
insecurity never felt
that pure
fishes and sisters
the kindergarten
now collapsed playground
right milktip, left milktip
how could you miss
the ones you do
not even
remember?
the hell keeps
leveling up

True love never dies
It keeps fossils breathing
Hid in this closset heart
Its ghosts the memories done
Distant this bygones be
By date and not feeling
Forever and gone
This thoughts still breathing
Though this heart lame
On crutches doth it still stand
Wounds still bleeding,
Scars become a tattoed memorial
To reminisce
And forever miss.

Into her life , a tear did fall
Cleanses the wound , of the past that crawled
struggled so hard to get up and run,
waiting for the brand new life , only to steal

Understood , offering not even a single tear ,
gifts , weighted heart , difficult to bear

or surrendering to the unfair world ,
could only be a regret throughout year

memories of stolen childhood ,
had tattoed into her soul
tears became her new ornament , that the life wants her to pay as a toll

Her screams , gone unheard ,

her silence , gone crime ,

her tears , gone wasted ,

her life became useless ,

but still she rose ,
learnt to fly with those broken wings ,
doesn't need the pillow , to share her tears ,
climbed up , from cliff of hurtful stories ,
and spread her wings ,
to chase for her little Big secret dreams...

My dreams,
Wasn't just any dream.
It took me into the deserts,
And made me into a cold
Feen,
A cold killer with a pierced heart ring.
I slowly fell into that dream.
Sinking like quick sand.
My head went first then my hands.
Unclean,
And dark tan.
I sunk.
I sunk into your quick sand,
And you left me there;
Selling false dreams with no care,
But who ever really cares?
I feel reincarnated wearing all
Black everything,
And a tattoed red tear drop that stains.
The stains that slowly rain,
One by one.
Two by two.
I've been playing fools gold,
But who would've ever knew,
That this day would come true?
I need your direction.
The only thing I ever knew was your
Protection.
I breathed you,
And your imperfections of lack of
Rotation to change your ways,
But it doesn't work like that,
That's just how the game plays.
Now i'm reincarnated in all black.
I had a knife cut in my heart
And thru my back,
But I still stand because at the time
I didn't know that I was sinking into
Your quick sand.
You know its funny,
Now;
Because you had me on hold,
But now all along...
I can truly title this
Fools Gold.
I was digging deep
Praying my soul would mold,
But that's just another story
Being untold.


-Marci H.

WHERE THE SHADOWS OF LIGHT AND DARK
HAZING IN ICE COLD WEATHER
WHETHER THE SKY IS ILLUMINATING THE SWORD OF WATER
CARBONATED WITH CRYSTAL STONES
PERHAPS IT INCLUDES THE MAGICAL POWER OF LIGHTNING THUNDER.
WORDS THAT IS TATTOED IN MY ARMS
CLASHING AND DUMPING IN AN AREA
WHERE THE TRUTH LIES
BENEATH THE STARSEEDS OF HYDROGEN
AND OXYGEN.
COME OH COME
LUCIFER THE ENEMY OF MY EMPTINESS.
IAM COLD AND HOT INSIDE THE *** OF MY INTRIGUING MIND.
DON’T LOSE ME
HOPE OF MY DREAMSCAPE SEA.
TAILING MY OLD SELF SCARF.
BUT I AM THE WHEEL OF FORTUNES.
LUCKY IS TODAY.
LUCKY IS TOMORROW.
LUCKY IS THE ONE YOU CAN REACH OUT
TO YOUR HANDS.
SYMBOLIZING THE ETHEREAL FLOURIDE
OXYGENATED WATER OF DREAM AND RIVER OF HOPE.
TILTED IN MY HEAD OH WHY OH WHY
SUCH POOR THING OF ENERGY LEVEL.
PUT YOUR ARMS ON MY SHOULDER.
BRING ME TO HEAVEN AND EARTH.

this body isn't a temple
if anything it's a church that catholics have sworn is haunted
by years of whispers and catcalls and screams
it's a house that has never been truly beautiful or taken care of
with broken windows and scratched walls
that kids run away from and shudder while passing by it and wonder if anyone lives there
it's a mask that has been marked by an illness that's symbolised by masks
it was marked by commands that were never quite done
if it was a color it would be a dark old grey
if it was a sound it would be a weak quiet whimper
it's a source of fun when i used to be "up"
it's a source of fear any other time
it's something that i've been always told could never truly belong just to me
that i'm supposed to give it to someone, not too soon but not too late
but not to someone with curves and long hair and soft features and
if someone did get it first he would get forever because that's what was decided years ago so it has to true, right?
if anything it was always supposed to be ran by rules and lines that could never be crossed
if anything it's a word said years ago still stuck somewhere in my mind forcing itself closer to my thoughts, so i can remember it as if it's tattoed on my hand, with me every second
if anything it's a force that's constanly trying to be the most important but never can be, not quite
if anything it only ever works the way it was supposed to when the chemicals in my brain don't work the way they were supposed to
if anything it feels like it will never be worshipped, loved, adored how could it be when it's not a magnificent castle but an old house that's falling apart
if anything it feels like it doesn't deserve to be good so it's not
if anything it's like a meeting so bad that i don't ever want to leave, a conversation so bad i don't ever want to really end it, a material so bad that i won't ever completely rip it
if anything, it's mine

השואה גוססת...the Sho'ah is dying

©  STEPHAN PICKERING / חפץ ח"ם בן אברהם
30 Sivan 5778 / 13 June 2018
revised:
1 Tammuz 5758 / 14 June 2018
2 Tammuz 5778 / 15 June 2018
3 Tammuz 5778 / 16 June 2018

I.

and cantillated poetry -- memory being
automatic editing -- may not be enough.

what was not a reality
may never be a reality,
may never be a memory. soon,
survivors will be silent, and
the concierge of film and tape
and books will whisper
in library corridors.

the villanellesque windows of
constantly chanting 'disaster' and
'master' are shattering,
an amphigouri of shadows and
mirrors...

II.

I stand on the balconies of quantum
strings: Auschwitz made my
forebears more Yehu'dit than Moshe.

No one
bears witness for the
witness.
-- Paul Celan, 1971. Speech-grille
& selected poems [trans. Joachim
Neugrosche] (E.P. Dutton), 1-255 (241)

the horizon is grey, in
Poland 2018, the ash still creating
a haze, specks on the leaves,
the shoulders, the watch face on
my wrist having no hands...

III.

how is the memory of a paternal
relative kept 'alive'? she remains like
a flickering match growing fainter
in what will be a night of
receding possibilities,
shadows be-ing alongside
my own. I have one colour 1941
photograph of her.  like salt held
on the tongue
she is carried in my mind.

she would not, a decade later in
Rosemead, speak of the
Kingdom of Night.

one of the fading blue
numbers stamped (not tattoed)
on her left forearm in 1942 was
a four.

she would stare intently into
my eyes, turn her arm over,
the four becoming a chair...
it was Garcia Lorca in 1928 who said
'verde que te quiera verde'...

she loved green, even the green stained
gargoyles she was painting in Paris...
on a sidewalk caught up in a christianist
SS roundup 16 July 1942, the Rafle du
Velodrome d'Hiver, her painting
fingers crushed. soon she was on a
rattling box car in August 1942, sent
to the East...

she was gone in 2006...but her dreams
are still in me...

IV.

teaches Reb Ya'akov Glatshteyn...

Like a tiny candle over each grave,
a cry will burn,
each one for itself.
'I am I' --
thousands of slaughtered I's
will cry in the night:
'I am dead, unrecognized'.
-- Ya'akov Glatshteyn / Yankev Glatshteyn
/ Jacob Glatstein, 1987. 'I have never
been here before', p. 111 in: Ya'akov
Glatshteyn, 1987. Selected poems
of Yankev Glatshteyn [ed./trans. R.J. Fein]
(Jewish Publication Society), 1-215
[Yiddish & English]

V.

let us compell trolls among us
to remember that, at its peak,
their grandparents' vaticanist
Auschwitz was burning 12,000
of us every 24 hours...

when it was happening
sound still reaches us in 2018.

and yet.

when it was happening,
few were listening, but now it is
bashert / inevitable my soul
hears nothing else.

the 'orderly' minds of the
trolls among us are well-tended
cemeteries without
gravestones.

the fire escapes are covered
with psilocybin spores.

long after midnight, when the
darkened carnival is awake,
there are survivors at the
seder table awaiting the
Missing One return with Her
Sefer haZohar, pick up the
empty cup.

the underside of every leaf
is fear, shadows gathering
at the foot of our beds,
transforming gristle into haze,
made real by Hebrew letters
and syllables.

TO BE CONTINUED

'When I am in the darkness,
why do you intrude?'
-- Shabtai Zisel / 'Bob Dylan', 1978

*****



STEPHAN PICKERING / חפץ ח"ם בן אברהם
Torah אלילה Yehu'di Apikores / Philologia Kabbalistica Speculativa Researcher
לחיות זמן רב ולשגשג...לעולם לא עוד
THE KABBALAH FRACTALS PROJECT

IN PROGRESS: Shabtai Zisel benAvraham v'Rachel Riva:
davening in the musematic dark

the older i become the more it hinders my output:
volume, quality, whatever you want to call...
perhaps it's censorship (in a way) -
a ****** lenovo keyboard: not wide enough
to properly place my hands to not look down
but ahead at the genius of QWERTY...
since... believe me: the classical order of the alphabet
conjured up by the French (perhaps i'm
remembering incorrectly) is not really important:
what matters is the entire body of the scripted
language... words don't unravel from a prerequisite
of abcdefghijklmnopq...rs...t...u...v...w...x...y...z
is that all the letters?
i actually don't know fingers dart backwards &
forwards... or, not really... when playing this
"piano" anyway: as long as all the required
letters are invoked in the required words:
hey presto! meaning!
                      there ought to be 26... funny...
there are 32 letters in the ****** (western Slavic)
alphabet... the same number as the teeth
in my gob...
but sometimes i "lose" a poem... whether it's censorship
when i make a post: ****! gone...
or whether i'm callous with the ctrl + c / + p / + a
scenario when i drank a little bit too much...
i don't know... perhaps i'm writing for
some elite that doesn't want the public to read
my work... i like to think of it that way...
but losing a poo'em can become so disheartening
that i i sometimes want to forget that i speak:
let alone write... now longer periods when
i can rekindle a makeshift monologue:
but then i have to find something technical in language
to reorient my purpose...
it's becoming less & less easy...
esp. since i'm not writing fiction...
  just... grass is green... butternut squash soup is
more than hearty: but it will never match up
to my better take on the Heinz canned classic... period...
not enough chilly in the Heinz... canned classic...
& never eaten with a slice of bread...
it requires vermicelli... like most soups do...
like a decent ****** chicken broth...
which also requires... well: poaching the carcass
but  base set of vegetable...
a leek... a celeriac root slice...
parsley root... a carrot... garlic... celery stalks...
parsley - the green leaves...
salt, pepper... & vermicelli...
oh... & plenty of time...
i'm disheartened when i lose a piece of script:
it's not Shakespeare (obviously) but so much emotion
can flow into the cascade that:
tabloid newspapers are given bragging rights...
are, ahem... "important"... so... my writing...
whether by censorship or not...
or my clumsy fingers when putting across
a body of text from one canvas to another... goes wrong...
hours become days when i find a new:
desire to write... since... writing is much easier
to thinking...
writing is much easier to thinking...
as thinking is much easier to speaking...
- but all of a sudden my life has changed a little...
writing is so much easier when you're
not "doing" anything...
mein gott... poems flow & flow... snippets
of narrative arrive at your forehead & fingertips like
postcards from your ex-girlfriends missing
you dearly from exotic locations: as if being married
& having children is still not enough because:
they didn't have your children & aren't married to you...
the poo'em i lost was about... two days ago...
travelling to Wembley Park for... an induction...
the role? being a steward...
i figured: enough of youth can be wasted on dreams...
literary dreams...
let's inject some... proper... grass-root ambition
with... RE-AH-LI-TY (****... phonetically that's
REE-AH-LEE-TEA/EE/AE)...
this writing "business" isn't going at the pace
i want... sure... i can brag about...
wow... almost 40 thousand views of one poem...
there are over 6K poems of mine, just here...
Wembley Stadium can host 90,000 spectators...
one poem of mine can muster up... almost half
of the capacity?
not bad... but... not good enough...
lucky for me i can relate for this sort of thirst when
drinking... sometimes i'm content with
a bottle of wine... at other times i need a liter of whiskey...
go figure... but not when so many idiotic pundits...
when there's this media masquerade happening...
i'm in the shadows: i'm listening to what people
are listening to... i never leave traces in the comment
sections: a waste of time...
makes thinking about certain things easier:
when you don't air your opinions...
after all: that's pseudo-rhetorical...
the true art of debate is... withdrawing from:
debating... the dialectical position is:
first mind diacritical marks (sorry... none in English,
& yes... it's still more ugly
when phonetically charged with graffiti "mishaps"...
misnomer: "shortcuts")...
- where was i? oh right... perhaps i "missed" something
in my original lost sample of a narrative:
although (last time i checked)
this website provides automated save as drafts
when you stop typing - after a prolonged period
of typing: my bad...
writing is so much easier when life is uneventful...
i could tease that word: uneventful into
a katakana syllabary: i almost want i almost have
to i therefore (not almost, but) must:
un-eh-vent-ful...
oh look at that: sitting pretty like a toddler
with a drumstick of a chicken (leg)...
**** it: my writing is going nowhere...
i have more ambition to simply let it... sizzle in its own
juices: or whatever better expression is handy...
none come to mind...
i need to look at people: i need to study people...
the internet is an echo-chamber to begin with:
it used to...
a jukebox narrative... such freedoms were
once available... mein gott... what music
i discovered when foraging on youtube...
in two years... gone... the algorithm got ******...
period: bad grammar is an exemplification
of this load of: hot-steaming... mix of **** & *******...
i need a real job... wasting my youth on writing
is not enough: perhaps my writing will catch up:
or my readership will... either way:
i'm not aiming for anything under
the title-weight of a Bukowski:
lucky ******... but i'm also not aiming for
the almost near obscurity of... the Black Mountain poets...
who was their leader... Larry?
Lee-rrr...       eh... it's not like a tarantula didn't
crawl into an English mouth & "somehow"
numbed the tongue for the end result of:
nein zu tremolo! ****'s sake... if i only asked:
why the French Fwench... but they hark so:
never mind...   yes, yes... Larry Eignar...
**** me... that took a while...
but there's another... a "renegade" on the...
ha ha... steppes of "Cambodia"...

          Russell is a likely connotation...
but incorrect... let's see....
     wait... Charles Olson... ol' Ollie...
he? he was a black mountain poet?
you ******* kidding me...
no chance in hell that will pass by me
given.... concerning his Maximus poems...
like: **** no...
i'm a critic i'm a nobody i'm a porveurour...
now i remember the ******'s name:
Robert ******* Kreely...
him! Kreely: Creely... Creeley...
**** it... fling in the vowels...
lets see what sort of a trebuchet **** master
you... ought... might... make.
oh.... wait.... important "news"...
an... apostrophe "missing": plain Jane typo....
where?LET(')S i.e. implying the shortening of:
the inclusivity of the collective... "US"..
      wunderbar!
                 schön!
that's the umlaut O... ergo... shoo... shoon...
great!
                           kaninchen und...
                        rosa ball-ons!  
i know a ******* balloon from a *******
ball-on... it's like telling me...
what's the difference between an omicron
and an omega...
i.e. do you really need to tell me
the difference?
sure... if it was an upsilon: you *******
clueless Greek!
what audacity:
you ******* clueless... Greek...
what... better some Iranian...
arriving from... Belarus?!
oh sure... i really want to live in Kenya...
among the ivory beauties with skins
that hide their bodies...
******* milk on toast... some chocolate:
sprinkled... i see teeth & sclera...
& some mahogany...
  ****? i'd **** anything that moves...
even south Korean girls geared up for a game of....
ping-pong....
my bad... what?
or is that: WAT like... WATT...
the energy unit or the Samuel Beckett novel
that over-competes James Joyce's Ulysses?!

your is the roulette... yours... hmm... your's...
for a while... the latter was underlined...

life used to be so much simpler when...
language could speak for... "itself"...
no one could use it: somehow, "somehow"...

i applied for the role of a Wembley Stadium
steward on a whim...
i thought: **** it... writing is not going toward
a projected: Ginsberg stastus...
i'm not going to compete with the leftoid jargon
of the 1960s... lucky me...

i'm just a terrible "millenial"...
i use an apostrophe like i migh5t secure understand
of the Pythagorean hypotenuse...
some C "squared"...
Wembley Stadium steward...
this... cacophony of hierarchy "suddenly" hits me...

i can understand authority...
tier one, tier two... vampire... zombie...
sure, sorted...

of the supposed 12 rules for life...
one of them reeds... i suppose that's reed: read:
reeds... sorry.. n'est ce pas...
pet a cast on the sreet?
you know, how hard it is... to pet a cat..
on the street?!
if you lived in England...
wolves... what wolves?!
foxes... oh yeah... plenty of those...
but... petting cats?
a bit like explaining...
a jpeg. take up less volume... ha ha: "volume"
than a pdf. file...

why i was mo4e than ready: i'll never known...
perhaps i'm a closeted fan of Ed Sheeran,
perhaps i like children in the role of:
a fathering figure...
perhaps children like to
poke my beard & lips...
perhaps this... perhaps that...
perhaps i'm ******* Santa Claus...
or what's Satan's Claus(e)....
all these freebies... cough up!

or... i just like making people "feel" included:
"feel" is one "thing", REALISED... another...
it might sound like newsspeak...
but... i don't want to ingest another...
Manchester Bomb Arena spectacle...

SAA... a week in Brixton... 7 days...
but they require a cohort of at least 12 applicants...
it elevastes your status as steward to:
someone who can: "juggle"...
be legally obliged to utilised force:
if necessary...
i like... i like... i like...

first ZOOM call in my life... ******* Ludite...
luddite... ugh... that double D kills me...
surd: you don't hear(d) to: begin with...
so... what... spelling "mistake"?

oh sure... the ****** transit & traffic...
train from Romford through to Liverpoool St...
then the Metropolitan Line to Wembley Park...
great... the arch...
a black coffee from McDonald's & two croissants from
Lidl... morning... done...
no more... morning sickness....
come late afternoon Somali girls eyeing me up in a black
tie... o.k. sure... fair game: "gamble"...
hunting what?
i like this understudy of what's man...

i arrived an hour early...
waited the tad bit... of a little... we exchanged formalities... but then i watched as...
two groups formed...
the ****-shock-show of the multi-cultural urban... ahem... "class"... with one rep. & the other... mostly... asian men... with their... asian rep...

12 rules for life... seriously?! do you know how hard it is... to pet a cat? sorry... can i make you reiterate... petting a cat... lucky me... for petting two cats today... "strays"... but... do you know how nearly impossible it is... to pet cats, is?! you don't pet a cat because you can... you pet a cat out of the whims of: the cat willing you to pet it!  just like i like... sitting on my windowsill listening to foxes bemoan their lack of ****** adventures... it's England... foxes... ergo no wolves! d'uh! cull the foxes... you cull the erotica of the nights!

between... sigourney weaver... &...
mmm... winona ryder...
raven 'air...
two winners... how harems work...

Tuba Büyüküstün...

apologies for the phrasing...
if all the supposed gems not donning niqabs
that are western women
are so... *******: NIGGERCOCK mad...
Tuba Büyüküstün... oh... look at me...
you think i want some anemic blonde:
stereotype?!
raven... hair!
sure... the black male specimens are
handsome, attractive: if i were a woman:
i would... ha... "problem"...
why don't i want to...
the ****** antonym... because a white girl
really wants to... do a black guy...
do i... "have" to have the same
compulsions with regards to a black girl?!
Turkic! **** yes!
Mongolian... probably!
Tuba Büyüküstün...
or... swans probably don't have necks...
no... swans probably don't have necks
when you see this:

(although sophie skelton looks
better in the initial photograph...
papa best preached)...
swans don't have necks...
not with her...
around... to... curate... a balett of
nodding  approvals...

Caitríona Mary Balfe... i'm so loved up...
in that i once remarked in private:
bemoaned: that the Scots have forgotten
their native tongue...
swans have no necks...
swans don't need necks...

the neck of Caitríona Mary Balfe
eyes... too...
or the short-styled hair... & eyes
of Tuba Büyüküstün...
don't get me started on the hands...
those petite Antoinetes of joy...
the most ****** aspect of a woman is bound
to her hands... i'm missing a knuckle! or at least
*******!

woo-man!                         woe-is-me!
woe-is-man!             woo-man!
i'll bark i'll gargle... not for the sold-cold "soul & eternity"
of the d.n.a.:
but rather for that Muhammad never achieved when
competing with King Solomon!
then again... King David had the better tale...
the love of music, the writing of the psalms
&... defeating Goliath...
king Solomon was... compensating with
the excessing in the exploitation of women...
eh... Solomon &... proverbs can be tested...
true... or untrue...
but psalms... unconditionally...
sung... or... lost...
no antonym-synonym dynamic...
you either remember or you forget...
you don't merely remember & pseudo-remember
via changing the narrative a little: or a lot...

what a neck... on this Irish beauty...

two frotiers formed.... one side...
the cosmopolitan, readied to talk to women
in possible women in authority, etc.
whatever are the preferenfes....
i really adore the ROYAL: third person:
ONE might...
or the plural WE....
"genger plural pronouns":
not since the existence of the "crown":
i am subject to ol' Lizzies stipends!

i am her mouthpiece wherever she's:
not m'ah ******* grandma!
on zoom calll i was sked....   (scared, for sked)
what were British values....
i was asked....
i replied... universal?!
i passed some mythological...
Kennsington Test...
ooh p'ah! ******* hurah
join the Union Jack brigade!
who's kidding who?

              the red coats are coming!
last time i 'eard?
not enough of 'em are "coming"...
come to "think" of it: beside staring at goats...
"going": where?
do "we" need to "go" to Afghanistan
when... Afghanistan is coming to us?!

sorry... what?

two groups of people at Wembley...
mostly Asian men... an Asian rep...
& a group led by a Jewish girl...
talk of tortoises...
Sikh... Tamil... Sanskrit... men...
& women... ******...
Stalowa Wola: Iron Will... which is
an actual town...
Harry... the guy with tattoed hands...
Ewelina: Evaline...
**** me... another single mother...
how many more single mothers will i have to pass?!
i don't mind it:
ancient Rome replies with:
the surrogate father...
chances are...
i could be a bad genetic partner...
i wouldn't mind... raising children that weren't my own...
i swear to the only god available on such
matters...
he'd just nod approving me as
surrogate father...
to hell with it...
CORALINE - DREAMING...
ancient Rome sends you a postcard...
you'll reply?
        no? fair enough...
i could i wish i could...
a little: BAMBINO of my own...
bit then again...
investing in so much of my own...
what if... they are killed...
hell! ****** is one "thing"...
but what if by some stupid circumstance of
a traffic incident?!
ergo?
i very much like the idea of raising children that
biologically "belong"... ahem...
"elsewhere"...
not their souls, their minds.. though...
n'est ce pas?! VOU... that's not how
ALTHOUGH is assembled?
AUL: ALL.... VOU? it's not VOW...
ate the G... no, kiddy?

i love children... esp. those that are not my own...
i could love them & love them like
an Abraham... nein... i could love them like...
a god... i could love children in a way that...
mirrors.. the moment they arrive at...
exploring the game of:
hide & seek...
there was never any playground invoked
to summon: the game of bulldog...

i'm glad i have no children of my own...
more of my seeing and less of the eyes of my "choosing"...
petty tender heart-felts: demands...
i'd rather father the children of "unavaliable" fathers
than father my own...
ancient Rome is messaging you...
dearest...
   look how much easier it all becomes!
you raise someone else's child... but...
should said child die... become murdered...
erm... what of it?
a statistic... i feel no inclination to give a ****...
i invested in the mind... the soul...
the body can ***** itself to death...
as it does... but it's not my own...
i can be as much detached from its fate as is most purposively
ridden: to riddle me...
i'm glad to not raise my own!
it dies... it's murdered... do i care?
no... life replaces life... here we go: the grand
carousel... it's not like i have name like:
McKenzie or... McDougal...
so... no... no lineage... i'm a baron of the most
atomised of times... the individualistic
sanctity: real or supposed...

ancient Rome replies:
the negativity of single mother households....
compensated with... the freedoms of...
paternal surrogacy... give me a break!
ha! it's Eden! i come with not leverage of....
ownership! i owe nothing due to
the Darwinistic impetus!
i'd be freed from whatever is expected of me...
there are no investments...
in pronouns... might we:
the royal one?

ha!

it's no much easier to have children
that turn out to be girl...
ha!

i'd rather be a surrogate father to a "daughter"...
come to think of it...
i'd only want...
to be a father... to a son... biologically....
a daughter can...
Mayflower herself... or ***** herself all she wants...
from a father: unto a son...
like that "******": Matthew & Son (cat stevens)
or... "dreaming": Coraline...

the inquisitive cat... the teenage girl...
the "felix"... the Urdu... somewhat...
the inquisitive cat... kommen die nacht....
alles ist nacht...

if there's no democracy in poetry:
then there's no democracy at all!
maxim: non-la-rochefoucauld

Imagine a world where we tattoed ourselves in all of the nice things we didn't think people needed to hear
All the compliments we didn't think we needed to give
Imagine if we took all these chances we had to be the best part of someone's day

Tears rolling i sit alone
Alone in the dark
Alone at home
Trying to protect my cubs
To show them right and give them love
i try
i fail
Oh not again
Exposed to violence caused by him
Daddy please
Daddy dont
Daddy's mad
so daddy wont
Tattoed scars
And memories
Bruises bumps
And mommy bleeds
constant events the children see which may affect who they will be
Mom is scared
Cant get away
She has no job
No money saved
She leaves
But returns
Believeing his lies
She's lost her soul
And isnt alive.