I am young- small,
youthfully slight and skinny
with grasping fingers.
You turn your back to me
and begin trudging away.
All I can remember is
reaching to hang onto your apron laces-
wrapping my fingers in it
and being dragged along,
my feet leaving furrows in the soft ground of spring.
You don't look
or acknowledge me at your back-
only prompt quick steps as
we pass in peace to summer
with the sun high, hot on our skin.
I let loose of you and dance amid
green pastels smeared with grass glistening wet.
I stretch my legs now found strong
with lengthened stride
and I spin circles around you
never focusing on your face.
With the vanity of adolescence
I forget our journey and become
vociferous in play.
But soon the skies, they darken
and my grasping skinny hands, they find.
Clutching for comfort -- apron strings
your careful bow tie
and chasing the rabbit knot.
Under sheets of rain that knock the leaves from the trees, we walk.
Silent--
among the howling of nature.
I grow taller than you
and my body matures.
You look small and fragile now,
frail in the whipping wind
as fall freezes into winter.
We are cold and hold hands,
alongside each other in lurching momentum through the long hours.
I am a man now--
tall, lithe, and toned.
Full of imperial inflection
as if the vicissitudes of spring once again overtook me,
I fill the empty air with vibrations.
The chatter of blue jays join
still you stride forward,
though stumbling here and there.
And I can hear your knees pop,
the joints grind, the mouth grim.
Snow melt wets the tongue
and water drips from beard
as I still follow you.
Sometimes at a distance,
other times huddling close in your emotional shelter-
we walk
past my wedding
and others now journey with us.
We become a pack
a group-
yet,
you're always out in front.
Pressing on, one foot after the next.
Single minded and silent
as the sun once again dawns on yet another spring
I see your goal and shout
and scream
and cry
and run to catch
to hold
to stop
prevent
block
but you're walking faster now
I wrap my grasping fingers
in your apron strings
and I pull hard as my muscles can
As if metal caught in a magnetic force
I am dragged toward your grave
And in your maddening march
there is true intent
as you topple.
Eventually I know
that I will awake and it will be this day
For now I know, I cannot handle it.

My encounter, although mistakingly enlightening
Leaves me more baffled than before.
Do my words inherit the glow, similar to my daydreaming movements?
As if they were prematurely made, a banner across my silhouette.
Attached before the words can escape my mouth.

I wonder tonight about the necessity of freedom of speech
Curious to understand the rate of which our minds have developed, or been manipulated.
Is it our human defect of guilt the thing that encourages us to open our mouths?
Merely to humor our lowly human selves.

But I fumble
As words escape my lips, and enter your mind,they cannot be translated.
You cannot read my genuine emotion, as the life and purpose is ****** out as they are inscribed across your palm
So I write, and I materialize these things before they are evaporated.

Yes, I am confusing, and I apologize if I am further misunderstood
But, , my friend, I do love you
Purely, true and eternally
Yet I cannot give you what you desire.

Newton was both right and wrong
Love cannot be created nor destroyed
This energy flows continuously, passed from friend to friend
youthfully and innocently as friendship is meant to be

But, what he did not consider was the love of truth and purity
Which in the end is no energy, as they would have us believe
This love is an essence, similar to that formed the blood flowing through our family
Yet has something more

This love I speak honestly of,
Is unselfish
Is no medal of achievement
It bestows upon you the drive to be the highest you
It is the essence for the creation  of the one thing that they can never offer
True love, and true love of yourself.

Rambling through dark alleyways
      Searching for destruction
Fire and pain engulf my soul
      As misery blinds my instruction
Whitewash walls covered with talent
      Rise up from every corner
Emptiness fills this path I take
     This shadow in which I border
Up ahead is no release
     As silence breaks but will not cease
Tears trapped inside that bestow my pain
     The whistle heard that remains the same
Wind and air bites all at will
     As this body quakes, such reason, so still
A limit be said on what I feel
     And yet all at once its not so real
A glare of what I used to be
     Fire and destruction, thats all I see

I would like to formally apologize
for the size of my lungs
because they will never be
as expansive as my love
or as loud as my voice
longs to be as heard
or as tumultuous as my passion
rumbles in need of parallel composition

and I just want to say sorry
that I dream to donate
every cubic inch of air
that my tiny chest can or rather cannot hold and breathe it into you
in attempt to make you whole again instead of the ghostly thin form
you hold above my head nowadays
but today is Sunday
and my hands are dry and cracking
from the Friday on which
I finally admitted to myself
that my lack of air is exactly the reason why you don't search me out
for respiration even when you're
grasping and gasping
out of suffocating solitude

this apology is spelled out in sighs
those breaths you told me to hold in
youthfully long exhales
I promised you I would never pick up a cigarette once you started chain smoking
I'm choking in this secondhand smoke
let me fall through your fingers like ashes
the golden spark has died
put out my flame with your heel
stamp it into your coffin so the world doesnt catch fire
deprive it of oxygen
tell it youre sorry for not wrapping your hands around its neck before now

tell it you're sorry that sometimes I find myself becoming angry at the parchment crumpling between my palms because the FRAILTY OF MY HANDS WONT COMPLY WITH THE HUNGER FOR EXPLANATION AND EXPLOITATION OF MY BRAIN AND MAYBE ITS THAT IMMATURE NEED FOR OXYGEN AGAIN BUT I HEAR MYSELF CRYING OUT FOR RELEASE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT NOT BECAUSE YOURE HOLDING ME AT THIS PRECARIOUS EDGE BUT BECAUSE YOU CHOOSE TO NEVER TIP ME OVER.
(a sharp intake of breath)


(exhale)


I can't breathe.
I think I might be allergic to you.
I think you might be bad for my health.

there are three thousand miles between your sandy shores of ironically ****** air and my rainy lakes of needles. you'd think the contrary.

you lost your ashtray and replaced it with my inhaler.

I would like to formally apologize
for the size of my lungs
because they will never be
as expansive as your love
or as loud as your voice
longs to be as heard
or as tumultuous as your passion
rumbles in need of parallel composition

we are both still learning to breathe

I float out to sea like driftwood
Other times I find myself windswept
Higher and higher
In autumn gusts of wind
In summertime my beautiful green skin
Is a youthfully verdant hue
I cling to this told old tree
And provide a canopy
Until one day I find myself delicate
And easy to crumble in your hands
For I have withered
When winter comes
I will become invisible
And insignificant underneath
A blanket of sparkling white snow
My life goes unnoticed and I long to be loved
But no one loves a trivial leaf like me
Yet this is my life and I am content
With being who I am
Even though I am forgotten and alone

**~Marian~

Dance,
Peacefully
Open,
Tremendously
Stare,
Daringly
Discover,
Yo­uthfully
Talk,
Powerfully
Say,
Truthfully
Come
Alive,
Leave
Arrived

twenteesventh.
you write of dismembered leaves,
enhaloed lust(***)
pains too sweet because they’re youthfully incomplete,
using incontrovertible idiocies like
dry rain droplets shining like sunlight,
edible goodbye cheerios,
edible didactics, teaching “frosted flakys”
poetic methadone methodology,
poems hats with rhyming lyrics  
that taste like that burnt eyelids colored
a blood stained mustard yellow, (yum),
beyond burger veggie based satyrs,
the happy gladness of sadness,
reversible rivers flowing heavenwards,
***** *******, you want an
infernal cataclysm...

really?

dechambered hearts, ventricular mysteries,
brains wearing wooly sport jacket helmets
and other Olsonian beauties,
like I write with succinct passion,
me, who gets eaten alive by buggers saying
“too long,” “too long,” “needed a mid-poem napt”

non-lexical non-commonsensical ecumenical hysterical
chemical verbal reactionaries
and then you wonder why

PEOPLE ******* HATE POETRY?

jes kiddin’ a leetle

He passes by,
Sigh,
Brown, yellowy hair,
Jigjag outlines like fallen leaves
Adorn his clothes,
In his eyes autumn blue skies shine,
Tussled hair brushes his face from the wind
And he makes me smile.

He passes by,
A smile on his face,
A ruby red stripe on purple bluish cheeks,
Ebony brown hair and pale blue eyes like the winter sun.
He holds his hands to his face,
Breathing the breathe of life into them,
And he makes me warm.

He passes by,
Thistle green eyes and bruising body,
Coiled like a spring day, come undone, sprung.
Like the fresh flowers along the lane
And adorn the hedges.
And he makes me love.

He passes by,
He smiles at me,
I sit there in the summer sun,
All these years I have loved him,
But Time passes on.

Oh Son of Time,
You are so youthfully beautiful,
But how quickly yet gracefully,
You grow old.

Flavourless

You say you want me
To be the flavour of the month
And lick my ice cream cone.
You say you are a cherry popsicle,
Youthfully frozen in time to please me.

I say, I don‘t need to be
A tasty treat,
Because I am already "I Believe You But My Tommy Gun Don't"

If perception truly is everything, then to age in Amerika is a psychological disaster.

Amerika is a youth obsessed country;  a capitalistic consumer oriented country. All the power of capitalism goes into (via advertising, etc.) creating and maintaining this youth obsession.

Take women as an example. If you are female in Amerika, you must always look 25. You must be slim, long-haired, sexually alluring, preferably blond and dress youthfully. Even if you are 60.

This goes a long way toward answering the question why so many women who are 40+ are so fat, unhappy, depressed and ******. Simply put, there is no reasonable way for most of them to meet cultural expectations.

Either they let themselves go (fatties abound in the US) or they resort to grotesqueness to measure up (extreme diet and exercise, plastic surgery, etc.)

They can't win so depression and self-loathing abound.

Most mature women have known that horrible moment when a young, attractive man looks right through them. They have become culturally invisible: they are shocked and hurt.

Men suffer from all this too, but not as much. Younger women will sometimes actually see value in an older man. Rarely, but sometimes, so cultural invisibility comes later for men.

Mid-life money, Corvettes and condos only delay the inevitable. The same moment will arrive and so will the hurt and shock.

This is not as simple as all men are pigs or all women are *******.

If we know that the perception that we don't exist is created by the capitalist media and advertisers, why do we do we buy into it?

Every age has its beauty. Why not accept it and be how old you are? Be who you are. Forget those impossible perfections. Stop trying to be Barbie and Ken. Be real.

It is difficult but possible. I have seen it.

In France you see lovely older women dressed alluringly (but not like 20-year-olds) who are slim, can run in high heels over wet cobblestones and exude sexuality. You often see them with handsome younger men, who are clearly entranced. Why there and not here?

Maybe it's the champagne or maybe it's just sanity.

mce

Seven told me its name
And I laughed out loud
Oh how I was so proud
There was a million things I should've said
Yes and a million things I shouldn't have done
One day I'll see
There ain't ever a thing as won
Were just a floating boat
Across one big fiery sea
With captives which scream "Save me!"
And captains which are grieving
I scratch these keys upon my hands
And I know inside my head
I got no ******* plan
There was a pain in the wind today
Something out there I just couldn't say
There was something in that women's eye
The way she held that sigh inside
I met a master in grey yesterday
He swayed that a' way when he said this that a' way
In robes he left and in robes he was born
He whispered to me "I'm just a gettin' bored"
I took a letter I wrote a couple days ago
And I sent it away as fast I did wrote
It had ideas that splintered like the leaves of a Fall forgotten
And a winter
That had never had a swollen snow a' fallen
Magicians weep with what this age has sneaked
For we are blinded by the buzz of an electronics bed
There was something yesterday,
I wish I could've said
Maybe it was the way her hair fell that way
Or those eyes that say "Don't stay"
Love will soon be the mystery that the crazies
Riff about
A theory that seems blurry and quite burly
Roses which bloom in winter white
And thorns which *****
The mightiest stork
A rebellion within the heart of man that cannot recognize
The size of the prize within these human eyes
Wrong deeds touching guilts weight
Bears a torment that only a man and women
Can converse in torment
A breathe from a master of prose & lyric
Every letter said from the mouth of pin point
Made him believe there was so much beauty in the
Sneeze
Apologize to the man beside you and hope
That he'll reside in your heart
For the rest of all time
An apple tree bloomed
When your heart grew to where you are
Now you stand
Alone and in the sand
With your eyes squinting youthfully onwards
There's got to be something out there

It is for her birthday
Drawing eyeliner
Like she is painting her most beautiful dreams
Ruby red on her lips
Vivid as blood that flow trough her veins
Rich as roses
Bold, brave and blooming

Black lace dress on her skin
Her heart is purest pearl
The everlasting jewelry
Deep as ocean that only few could perceive

But today she is clueless
Blowing candles
Counting numbers
Making wishes
Might the burdens be washed away
For the next years to come
She would really dress up and celebrate her self aging
Youthfully, happily, gracefully
Sharing her birthday cake with real laughter on June 6

We shared something more
Than a Christian name
You and your pretty white skin
You and youth and your twin

Last night an Angel
Came to play my game
And ruthlessly showed me
What our lives could have been

You and your pretty white skin
Meet me at the toilets!

What a life would have been
If that fustian sunny morning
I would have not listen the warning

I won't tell anyone
Meet me, meet me
And please me!

Last night, I dreamt about you
You were by my side at my bed
How I purely and eagerly wish
This would have been our grey debt

Lull me, Lull me to rest

Maybe outside this prison
We could have been more than -

The ashes of all the cigarettes I have smoked
Are burying me down straight to death
While I think of you and me
Eternally resting in bed

Oh how I remember the fustian morning
That we played truant again
And instinctively you begged
Come, come to the toilets

As your legs slightly shouted
I won't tell anybody
Meet me, meet me at the toilets
And don't be late!

But what could a clumsy,
Ugly and bashful young boy do
How the hell would I know it
Where the hell could I go

Meet me, meet me at the toilets
And please me!

Playing ***** games on my enshrined mind
I will never be a man
Playing tricks on my tidy mind
Sadly I will NEVER be thine

Find me, find me
And -

I do believe you always knew my secret
I do believe all men keep a secret,
Don't you?

I wish I could meet you
I wish I could take you

And please remember,
You were the first
You were the first
Youthfully yours

I'm escaping again to Green Island.
Here the landscape never changes,
The rocks never grow moss,
The mystic river is never stolen.
They are as they were eons ago.
I am the odd man there,
Worn out by time,
The bald patch on the green,
A barrenness on the fertile soil.
Yet here I'm forgiven
For seeking her face,
Youthfully there on the wallpaper.

My heart was once a butterfly flying youthfully through the air.
It did not care, it had no scars, it had no burdens, it had no strain.
One day this butterfly became curious, and danced around a black flower.
This flower was tempting, it's name was Love.
Love was poisonous.
Love sickened my butterfly, and it almost perished.
Eventually, the butterfly woke up. It picked itself up, told itself it was fine, and ventured forth, only to be knocked down again.
And again.
And again.
Because this Love was everywhere, and the butterfly no longer knew how to ignore it.
So it built a fort as tall as the sky, and hid behind it for a long time.

One day the flower flew over the wall, and landed beside the butterfly.
The butterfly couldn't quite tell if it was Love or not, but it felt content.

That was the day I met you.

By the time I got to see him
He was an old man grey hair
Thinly combed across his head
Still loquacious, bending over
Stewed apples gathered from
A wind swept garden of falls.

A proud collector of knowledge
Across boundaries and wisdom
Stretching age ‘youthfully ‘at gate,
City centre and poetry recitals  
With copies of books for selling.

Love Maryxxx

Fingertips buoyant and dancing
skim across shimmered skin
my breast turn to moving sea
you stand on my beach
youthfully observing
tossing rocks into a stilness
making waves into ripples
my body is full, beautiful, endless
you want to dip into me
want to know me
want to swim.
Someday you will realize
there is no way for you to hold all of me
not at once.
That I am not the body you want.
You will forget me
Turn other bodies into water
No not water but
Bouncing ripples of flesh,
Into waves
Dancing your fingers across their skin with thirst
Forgetting all the ways you have been quinched
Forgetting my body of water for a sea of skin
All that love and i'll turn to rain
I will remain the most beautiful, and endless body
But water wasn't what you were looking for
so sorry you cant hold all of me at once
too expansive to only be a body
to much meaning to just be the sea
yet still to little to go around
still just one

When the puff adder bites will you cut off its tail? Will you be like all the rest nothing good left, surely you werent born to fail, capsules of medicine as the medicine man draws in, he helps your lovers, desires of others, hes the cure to all your kin, Babylonian carpets of rainbow colors reak, you naked you dumbfounded your bright dress surely wreaks, Tellers, bookmen, warfarers of false gods, you lie around plant your feet to the ground flying in alien pods...Quazors of disaster, beautiful moanings the morning after, have you taken your pill? You ready to be meadly your words silent to ****, I youthfully walk lonesomely to earth creatures, all murderers all have animal like features, morphine drips are rivers red, cinnamon musks to elephant tusks the ancients arent yet fed....(listen) by meself

The seduction of our Salivary  glands began with masses of often overlapping flavors
  Tingling  leap start ,wide eyed but also an abrupt whoa,terrible to terrific
Oblivious ,willing to try ,why not ,blending in the beginning  learning tastes as translators
Breathing in and licking the lips ,wiggling and giggling ,is it? is it? OH the dog.

   Sensory sensations occurring regardless of our inhibitions or wants or needs ,occurring around ,mild or profound
   Youthfully gullible , playing a new game ,scents & smells starting to form deeper wells
  Blush with a rush ,warming into oranges the pinks more profound when arising into the reds ,leaping circling around
Begging for release from the beginning ,but unknown excitement rising edges ,wider wedges ,calmer pastels

Flexing ,fluctuating far out feelings ,far flung excitement all gathered into one instant nervous burst
Staying back,trying to adjust ,mildness is objected to when the rest of the time is only described with bright adjectives
Then we laugh because we have it hidden ,but never quite knowing the blur still an unknown abyss,but always first
Open minded children begin the journey into finding nameless noises,shadowy flavors or tastes moving,directing like detectives


   Burning RED, drops of BLUE, Icy WHITE, now fixed in the mind ,time lost in odors ,blinking color palates poised
  Wanton wisps centered onto extreme extracts ,visualized often sensationalized into auditory overload
Simple as it has begun ,left with nowhere to run, taking it in stride it can never be put aside ,permanence never destroyed
Excreted excitement now being assessed is a far flung idea ,unless you live it, Raising and rising into an endless plateau .R.C.

Her fighting fear and rumbling rage youthfully flickers
She doesn't know, how the chess pieces lie parallel to the cars
Kindred heart, I do keep some appointed time with myself to learn
Passing the queen in numbers, prudently teaching me about vitriolic teaching

Loathing is strong on this avuncular admirer
A student of knowledge that should've recused her lying papers
Caressing herself in the most apologetic ways and climactic jealousy
I couldn't help forgive her for foraging a game without an aphrodisiac

The thought of mollycoddling makes my charm turn into an effeminate curriculum
You crashed class and charmed your way into our crash course in astronomy
Incendiary was the love at first sight, that story's burnt to putrid parchment now
Drapes, verdant, croquet in the halls of the star-crossed sensual words
"Push it in, slowly."~drew blanks

~o~o~o~
Skin is the one that gets wrinkled,
it deals with the heat and the cold
of one's existence...not the mind,
the heart, or feelings...character
and determination mellow with the
passing years...brain is hidden,
but has always been gray...hair
gets visibly gray with age.
~o~o~o~
Seasons, and life's lessons
help broaden and wizen
narrow minds...a much awaited
solitude, that silent dialogue with
the soul, gives light and sense to
questions...it pays to be in touch.
~o~o~o~
Late summers have come...a face
that once youthfully beamed
with smiles...still smiles,
the grayed crown sparkles under
the sun...making it known that,
lightning still flashes in the mind,
thunder still roars through the veins.
~o~o~o~
Underneath wrinkled skin and gray,
thinning hair, there still breathes
within, a little girl or a boy...a once
young lady, or young man, now
aging men and women...more
introspective and ruminative...but,
it's still you, him, her, me...it's still US!
~o~o~o~
Not much changes, just numbers, gray
hair...lined skin, and plenty of wisdom.
~o~o~o~


sally b

© Rosalia Rosario A. Bayan
  February 6, 2022

Tell me about how how you are a just a tourist everywhere you go.
Let me pick you up from the train station,
and drive you past
balance beam sidewalks
you once walked on
to get home after
you bulldozed the night
out of the sky.
Our lips tango
at every red light.
When they do,
I forget myself.
The light turns green,
I change the song.
I the mouse.
You the cat;
playing youthfully
with the terrified dinner you caught.

Heart Break

Love doth take the form of it’s creator;
For as man is complex, it is as well.
Undulating like a wave to a swell,
Receding to a small trickle later.
Oh! The heart! To misery it caters.
A fickle flaming; My personal hell.
To what purpose could this hope to avail?
If this be love, then call me love-hater.

Of love, I have none but for myself only.
For thine self is what thy own, truthfully.
Mine soul being my very own vessel.
Illuminating to not be lonely,
While embracing this one life youthfully,
With self and ego I constantly wrestle.

I start
From mounts
High up
Innocent as a little one
I chatter and bicker along
I carry people and cultures
I am a brook
I flow youthfully
Through the vales
The sunshine plays in my
Glowing waters
From pines to banyans
I see everyone
I carry messages galore
I am a brook
Lover's delight
Touch me nots
Grow by me
They tell me the beauty
And innocence
Of the blossom
Of love
In peoples heart
I carry immense love
Oh I am a brook
I enter the planes
Having nourished
Many people
Along my journey
As a loving mother
A student and
A lover
A teacher
And businessman
And a farmer and a preacher
All rub shoulders
As they cross my
Vast expanse
In a steamer
Conversations of life
Irrigating lands
Bringing a smile
To people's faces
So much I do
After I enter into
The brimming river
Oh I was a brook
Men come and go
Some carve a place for themselves
But I go on forever
Getting lost into the
Mighty river
My glorious destiny
Every moment!