Arthur Bellow was a mellow fellow who never asked for much
Only child to a land man and wife who worked the earth
Their self-sustaining ranch the heart of farm and winding wood
They raised their living stock under siege from thriving crops
A private clan, Mr. Bellow kept to his collection of books
His wife would weave, would also read, and would take their terrier for walks
Arthur tagged along, full of creative verve and eagerness
The river, forest, beasts and wind were friends; they often spoke
He attended local schooling but had trouble fitting in
The children who mocked him he envisioned as cold blooded lizards
His reptilian teacher reprimanded him for tutoring one on his test
Arthur left the building vowing never to return
Committed himself instead to the plow, *** and plant
Back breaking labor from morning ‘til day’s end
In rest he walked with mother finding faces in the bark
The creatures kept him company when family was insufficient
Under a sunrise hotter than most tragedy struck the patriarch
Trembling and perspiring he dropped weak to his knees
His life muscle ceased its beat as he saw his flash of past
Arthur came running when he heard the music stop
Mrs. Bellow came stoic and pale, speaking only with her feet
Ordered her son to dig a ditch as deep as strength allowed
And once complete she lay her husband down and joined him in his sleep
Arthur begged and pleaded but she made him fill the hole
He bathed his mother in dirt like she had washed him as a babe
Sealed the grave with tears and sprinkled seeds like she’d instructed
His dog licked calloused, blistered hands to show not all was lost
He dropped the shovel and tried to yell, but yawp came forth as song
Arthur never left the farm or tended fallow fields
He managed what he could but the task demanded aid
A solitary man enjoys his island with friends he doesn’t call
A lonely man, however has no company at all
He caught a shrew-like thief one day with eggs he planned to steal
Being the only other human, he let him share a meal
The suspicious shrew fled through the now-unfriendly wood of lizard eye
Where the rumor speaking, mad old hermit seeking came to spy
Arthur had discovered he was not alone at all
A crepuscular couple returned to parley when the sun would fall
He found them in the library, alerted by the loyal one
Whose growl turned kind when wraith he’d find were family reunited
They visited quite often to keep him company in twilight hour
To praise him for his learning and kindness that he showed
For in their absence he had lived in books to replace all trace of school
And the seeds in the central grave that Arthur raised began to grow
His parents, very pleased, shared their otherworldly plot
Arthur was to release his goodness and knowledge to the air
Although no rewards would come to him, intrinsic deed be done
The forest heart would be reclaimed, and rest would come for flesh
In the next noon Arthur freed all beasts and let them walk away
Release from domestication, the mighty horse dark in tone
Turned golden as it left him, gorgeous and majestic
The terrier was last to leave, sad though it understood
Once empty, Arthur doused the house and then the barn in oil
Shattered his lantern and transferred the flame until they were engulfed
The local fighters came and did their best to end the burning
But despite all efforts the library sublimated in a cloud
When every page was turned to smoke he called upon the rain
To cool the glowing remains and give his friends a final drink
The men brought Arthur to custody for witchcraft and for arson
He smiled for even as he left the ground had grown more green
Immediately put to unfair trial, opposition ready
It would seem that the town in full demanded his demise
Arthur chose to represent himself as he supposed all men will do in time
He recognized the witnesses whose accusations boomed
The reptile claimed he was dishonest and a cheater
The little lizard spies said instead reclusive necromancer
The suspicious shrew told tales of Arthur luring him for ******
The fighters full of fear said a conjurer of the elements
Without a chance in the eyes of men he was taken to a cell
Feeling quite betrayed by the many he’d wished well
Arthur thought of his parents and wondered why he was alone
They appeared to him once more, apparating in his cage
My son they said in unison, you have been misunderstood
And spent a lifetime serving others for no benefit of self
For this your friends are free and the forest muscle flexed and hard
As blossoming beacon; in death the noble feel no pain at all
Upon hearing misplaced song echoing through damp stone structure
A guard investigated, preparing to beat the troublemaker
He came upon Arthur’s cage confused, head cocked and jaw dropped
The door was locked, yet the man he came to punish was no more

The fish does not understand
Water
But the stray-nine
Understands home

Sometimes it takes an absence
A negativity, a darkness

From the dust dream rises
Like stars from the void
Someone rides an elevator up
Your spine and
Bridge
The direction is born

Soul tendrils extend and
Embrace tender lock of we
Season together

The fat men starve before the
Peasant because they
Have never really
Ached
In their stomachs
In their bones

When you live in famine
Scraps can sustain

And yet

Will you still notice the
Seven shade cycle rainbow-nectaring
From the street lanterns?
Or the

Diamonds
In ivory fro-banks glittering sparks?

When you are full
Will you

Ponder the pulsar’s violence?

Will you
Spare the stranger and Samaritan oft?

When you are full

Don’t lose it
Sadness is
Your prism
Choose the spectrum
Transcend the neut and stag

You can be their Atlas
They
Need
It

The nuns did not have much
But they valued all
And truer, fuller days filled with chores
Passed the sun-moon-suns
Some nights the mountains
Were cold, so they gave her hot coals
Their bodies thin and fragile, impossibly resilient
Winter; cup of animal fat
Thirteen years, cooking for twenty peers
In lessons learned foreign tongue
From her alien education, taught too

She passed her blue-star-blues
Painting sweetened hues
The elevation and scene in dripping sweeps of brush
Nepal became even more
Beautiful on paper
And behind thoughtful eyes

A tourist hands a wood carver
Several years salary, is this
Enough?
Masterpiece etched given free petty possessions
Empty handed back to hungry mouths
Fulfilled and satisfied

At night the unpolluted bright
Reflected off the lake; God smile
Rocky range round in isolation
The wind, for once
Whispered truth

She inhaled the honesty, and reunited art
With canvas
The Earth shook, no one else felt it
But she knew
And happy filled a forgotten face
In wise silence

Speed up, said Angel
Don’t pump it, smooth
These people cruise, I drive

Over six, wide and heavy tatted
Bald head cold eyes

Pay attention, stupid
He tapped log ash into
Cigarette box trash
Hands rugged and rough
Great deserts full of highways
Barren, arid, brutal

He held Lane’s finger in a vice
Casually, without effort as he
Squirmed and wormed and begged, full
Body efforts failing
H-drained skeleton unable to muster muscle

Angel loosened his grip, to allow
Some circulation mercy (stay on that positive ****)
We dodged Victoria crowns and
Made smoke monsters with our lips and
Tongues, watched our sins cloud-crafted
And float fade privately

Want a clam strip? Said Lane
Want a granola bar, want a cookie?
Want a strawberry?

Ya, no, sure, maybe later
We stopped for some disgusting sidegrub
And pressed on into the mountains

Talented feline peaks I peep, winding
Green tree ever-stretch left-right-wise
Central concrete snake swirls higher
Our cabins line the rocky river trail
We joke about fighting bears

The thugs bunch and separate
Breakfast with Chewbacca
The wooks sit in sun, tangled
Wool clump hair strands smell

Angel had complained about taxes
Uncle Sam taking perks
The hippie wooks against
Government and Blue Law
From behind cigarettes (**** jar [stuffed])
Injured on the job, collecting
Unemployed, collecting
Tripping, bumming, badly strumming,
Hustling, collecting

Lisa is a toothpick and she has the blowsy jitters
Moon pupils grind tooth, sniff nose hard ball hitter
Saw no shame in her strip pay
I would vouch for her when they tore apart her room

Hipsters half trying and
Lumberjack draft drinkers
No place for thinkers or clean
Shady music belly festival
Drone guards drain cancer
From lit sticks for nic fix
Ritual, and bored means

Twelve hour rain sessions
Can I see your pass?
At my gate

A questioning look
I’m Warren Haynes, he said(?)
Nice to meet you, said sheep
Oh, and Les may come
Walking in here

Terry stood with me through the torrential
The first crowd name I learned
Revisit on the daily
Easy spotted in the thousands
I made stupid jokes
And she
Laughed
At them

The final night of jam
There was sun, there were stars
In my new backstage post I heard Phil and his friends
I made every bus, some
Friends, shot ****
The time type where nothing’s wrong
Volunteers brought water
Marshal’s girl, a chicken kebab
No sitting on the job!
From crowd Terry jester
A stranger gave a moonshine gift
Another, a hug and said well worked

A tie blue dye hippie dippie
Looked at a beautiful woman in a dress
I would totally **** that
*******
Disgusted

Even he can’t damper
At night I hear a sweet beat
A boots and cats boxer master Rob
The Mortar Mouth
And DJ Caesar
Laid back tracks collaborated
As the Tree narrated
We three held the jam
Classic, dream fulfilled
(Dead ***)

Chris shows me nerve ache
In a once stabbed high cheek bone
We guard the stage against
Ghost town robbers trudging sticky fingered

Mister Chicken sips from his confederate
Mug and sloppily asks to sneak, surprising kind
He brings me water and a meal
I pretend to check his wrist and
He hops the wrong fence

The Celtic tattoo on
Mike’s neck reads
My brothers mean everything to me
Latin ink, he tells me of the
Shapely thing in loose skirt
Up the stairs, not a thread
He stands all day on a
Broken back, brightens
Gloomy shifts with smiles

Andy loves his family
And promises to sing his
Grandmother’s favorite
Song when she dies
Every note he practices
Is a jagged pill to swallow
His voice haunts like
Newspaper faces
Or last words whispered

I watch the sun rise as
Magenta melts the mountain mist
And drift off counting constellations

He liked to travel after the
War, he said
His father had explored Japan
With a friend and two local lady guides
Happily snapping culture shock
Soaking in the landscape
Partaking in practices exotic and strange
They went to a sushi restaurant, and
This is before they had that stuff in the cafeteria
Calamari alarmed the two
Polite tasters but face contort and twister
His father a dab, his friend: a bite
The girls laughed and finished the squid, raw alright
And they left, owner eyeing as they go
New tourist destinations but
Their stomachs start to plummet
The girls drop sick and writhe and twitch
And kick
As he gets all three to the
Hospital, where he is suspected

Manages to get authorities
To the restaurant, where owner
Sees two ghosts walk before his
Face, and random ****** cyanide
Lies waiting

The girls went violently
His friend had a piece removed
His father, still going strong
Though he’d always been
A little gassy

The transparent roof covered her from sudden precipitation
Ice pellets pelting the ground around as she waited for the bus
The shufflers and grumblers huddled in the booth for cover share
Riddled with cold holes from liquid *******
Look at them, she thought
Untold stories in a crowd
Grey figures among the concrete and the puddles
Blank pages thickening unread novels
Returning home to stagnant plots and forgettable characters
On the auto she scanned the library for research-relevant titles
A fairy tale cuddled publicly, all lips and hands and smiles
An anthology with stained sections and shredded, well-worn binding
Scribbled frantically to transfer himself to more unpublished page
Give up, she wanted to scream
Paper dies and no one reads
No longer did she believe in hidden literary gems
Far too many friends had rushed their tales
Conclusions writ in sharpie slop
Conclude she had in pencil but the writing hand would never stop
Not for cramps of authoring nor material that she lacked
Not until the cover closed
From which there was no flipping back
Perhaps I am an article, she thought
Meant to be short and skimmed
A brief point to be made and greater issue slapped within

She wondered something dreadful then, a tremor in her bones
She never understood the other chapters, stories, poems
Reflecting in her epilogue, would she even know her own?
My pen was never full
I am illiterate

Early morning message
There are
Bagpipes
In
The
Ghetto
Like when teachers give textbook assignments
Knowing the solutions are in the back
Doesn’t matter how you learn
Show up on time with the answers
What a rocking knock
A clock to the jaw
People die
One just did
Listen, you can hear it

A student of mine sat on the steps
Clenched, clammy, and bulging with strained strength
Periodically overcome by shadows of pathology
This night he begged for help through gaps of cyclical consciousness
A funeral trail for clarity ambled solemnly to the gymnasium
He was surrounded, and they plotted, and advanced, and he was engulfed
They were upon him like a ****** seeking seed or vulture carrion
He seized on an arched back and suffered under octodemons
On that hard wood floor under dead bulbs that swung like momentous pendulums
My student transformed into a tiger leaking rage from rusty cage
Explained in eloquent detail and prophetic tone his will to ****
Blacking out to full extent
He was amygdala, he was instinct
Battling grown poachers until they stole his fearsome fangs
Clipped his claws, and painted over his stripes with calm
When contained, vicious umbra cat turned tranquil
We sat circular and played lobster ball pass with our toes
And talked about buses to New York
His mother taught him to be a songbird
While the streets moved his feet
Goodnight Archery, we hugged
I wonder how he's
Breathing

Writhing, the screeching leviathan demands
And I cave to save the aching from tricky time slopes
Pained craving
Wavering but
Hit and
It’s all loosey goosey goodness
Sensing silent magma pulse, whoosh the tummy tingles
Droopy ears gape-face giggle no more nowadays
A stern turn in old age the silly phase of
Too bright, neon common numb tongue rambles
Secedes into introspective
Crowded walks, broken talks strung into threats clustered and
Flung like monkey **** at many-stabbed ego, Brutus?
Strangers will eat you
The professor thinks I’m funny because
I know the answers in class
The other day Dingus
And Whoseewhatsee tried to alley mug and hurt and end
And money!
No, rocked nose ran dude! Fine
Trying not to fear the outdoors, though
The arthropods and phantoms tell me ***** jokes
And not to eat my candy

Books melt into soupy mercurial elixir
I slurp them and belch
Educating myself in a barn ******* knowledge
On loud faces; empty meat
Where you can hear the jingly metal
Thing when you shake it, it’s dead no flower
They don’t always like me
But
I’ve got the jeepers creepers behind my peepers
And a million lightyears to burn
Truth is worth dying
Four **** sow
Izzeny thing these daze
Maybe it was a bust from the start but there’s
Always art
Quieting the plague that revealed
Not so good after all

Tiny thorns and all-consuming
Waves of red-get-out wrenching, gutted like a fish
Overcome, that never went away or found
A place to sit
Memories arthritic grind a grim gray whetting stone
Reduce with juice-cloud, grape teeth cough will never find a home

The flashlight, we explained to the campers
Is so captivating because it brings light
To dark places
Combining the positive
And negative within, you can
Bring enlightenment to the world
One circle of clarity
At a time, illuminate your
Path, or that of another
Step by
Step

We danced drunk on the bridge
You held me safe and
Liked how I smelled, arms protective

It had been years since we’d
Loved each other
We were alone, so we didn’t have to worry
About the way out

You wanted me to go with
But I felt I had already crossed the line
In head
So I said no

And then

You gave me the
Look, for the first time
The same look
You gave me when I was
In the bus, leaving
For the airport

It was the most hurtful
Gaze I have ever seen

I think it’s going
To haunt me forever

In pocket a postcard
With this bridge upon
But I cannot send

Tear to shreds and
Empty bottle stuffed, dead

The conditional form makes me sick, I don’t
Say goodbye forever, or maybe
I do

We call it a casse-tête, she said
A “break head” if you prefer
We are each trying to fill in this
Jagged, fractured outlook
One piece at a time
On occasion you meet a corner
And they unlock for you new progress
(I think I have even found; a foothold in the face)
Others are peculiar, shaped like spilling liquid
Filling unique holes perhaps unknown to undone artists
Our greatest folly as we find our relative perspective
Would be to assume any kind of now-complete picture
We are dove tailed, ami
In ornate carpentry fine fitted
Angles filled with oil drops to help us burn eternal
An esprit ouvert, she said
In your tongue an open mind
The wise do not distinguish
Value forms of every kind

Omnipotent master, not in ocean
But the raindrop
All heat shines spectrum through; illuminate fluid cohesion
Several shades of wisdom painting picturesque arc
Sky high miracle hiding in cloud fall
Pure white of light
Containing color
Water divine
The children catch them in their mouths
Drizzle bringing smiles
A message dripping down
I am with you
Wordless feeling

The paint is chipping, the Christmas tree shutters hanging
Green on gray, brick stoop and twin column mouth
Opens to creaking stairs that made sneaking out commando work
My room made your favorite shade is gone, death to ugly orange
I used to think of it as my laboratory, safe haven for exploration
And abstract cultivation, I bled my innocence into the floorboards
There are still fist-sized holes along the stud that I detected
Remnants of the games I played and the four that I connected
The basement is still damp and dreary, the wooden cage for laundry suspended
At the bottom of a chute that you told me was the tomb of a curious girl
My weight bench, secondhand and mixed pounds with kilograms
Living in sin, vowed never to be defenseless training endless
The attic lends its hospitable hand to trapped bird and cobweb gems
Quarter-circle window kept by chain hungrily swallows smoke
Shelves packed so tight with yellowing knowledge and petrified wood
That if spiteful spark made love to
Musty air and
******* embers, I would never make it out
Déjà vu as backyard grass soothes badtripbitch with tingling tips
Of leathery flesh, ready to be buried and wormed in its bedbox
Overwhelmed like militia in failing keep against advancing hordes
Until nature’s handsome sprouts remind me life is beautiful, always
The trumpet vine grows hideous and spiny, roots reaching deep
Settles in its site and survives all assaults man-made
For a blink during the year its vermillion nectar tubes take flower
The hummingbirds find love outside my window in their bloom

Maktub saw the light at the end of his tunnel
It approached him with a barbaric screech
Doppler shifting to piercing, painful pitch
On the wrong side of tracks he watched the train charge past
In his new freedom, he explored the station
Wandering through the grimy halls by
Too-busy roaches scurrying from the bright
A burpy crumple lump sat propped against the wall
Reeking of sick and
Filth and dead liver
Maktub bought him a sandwich
And left it on his lap, with a dead president
On whose face he had jotted a blotted
Don’t drink me
The *** woke to this, and
Bless you friend, jaundiced beam
Bless you back, sir
Restored faith in (chances) chances

Some teens whizzed unpaying under turnstiles
On rolling boards, lying on their backs and holding bags
Maktub found them clever and pursued
In a secluded spot they made aerosol spray mural
Mischievous hands intricately crafted as cans blasted
Through their mist emerged a mighty orb of life
And in blackness round twinkled possible worlds
He admired their vandalism; art is everywhere, he thought
At sound of step the mural makers
Dashed, leaving colors and can
Maktub raised it, unfamiliar, and finished the wall with
We are one

Returning to his platform, he saw that more had gathered
And a strumming bard, milk eyed, fluttered notes with dancer’s grace
Her voice sent shivers down his spine and lifted him in spirals
I would recognize the
Song of God, he thought (and I know where he is)
The screeching came again, and Maktub
Leaned to watch, eager for his light
His train had come to take him home
He was calm
He was ready

The wood floors screeched and scraped
As she yanked her bed aside
In a crazed hunt, sweeping for
Scraps; anything would do
A pinch, a taste, a crumb
She plucked the dirt and dust from chemical gems
Pooling the fragments in mounds
Sweat poured down her wrinkled brow
The room steamy from summer and glowing screen
Full of jobs she would not get, and friends she could not call
And music that had lost its mystery
A world she could not follow
Drawn shades and stinking clothes

Stash spots scoured, links to lenders soured
Pocket and purse empty funded
She collected her meager treasure
And consumed
Mush minded marsh of good and guilt

It wasn’t
Enough, it was never enough
Unsteady and emaciated bag of lone bones
Dials never-call-Paul, desperate
Hey baby, trade you a
Hit for a hit
Modded whip picked her up with mechanical lion roar
Of engine souped
Drag king down to explore

He handed her a zip, and a piece
Do your thing
She choked it down water eyed
His hand, a scorpion on her thigh

What is this, she asked
Lights divided; kaleidosynchro swimmers and dancer faces
Sounds sludge oozing and brain train no conductor
She faded in and out
Half aware that he was
Taking his turn to the same rhythm
Car behind a dumpster

Paul gyrated brutally, from every angle
Raw skinned and full of disease
It’s ok, it’s just me
You wanted this, he panted
In the ear of a tangled pile of limbs
Whose name escaped him

Pants hiked and belt buckled, they moved
She was sore, and hit more
By the time they stopped again, cold napping

The racer rolled into his chop shop
And the swarm huddled
Mechanics, painters, draggers, part lifters, negotiators
Muscled, scarred, tattooed, and greedy eyed
He let the mob have their turn
And they plowed her on the hood
One, another, another, two
Stretched and wrecked and broken
Across the street, a neighbor puffed a camel
And watched

Who is she, anyways?
I don’t know, just
Some
*****

He carried her to her room, left her
Half alive but wide eyed
The rest is in your pocket, I gave you extra
Because I’m a nice guy

She crawled into the shower, where she leaked pink drops
And her tears were invisible
Sobbing, and rocking, and scrubbing
Exhaled her high from an empty bag
I can’t go on

Lucid in a lush landscape, baked by burning Savanna sun
The undeveloped endlessness all encompassing
My feet sink into the tender tissue
Of Green Mother and Infinite Father’s lovechild
The watering hole is overpopulated with thirsty families
Suspiciously inspecting the albino primate
I make undeterred deliberate steps skirting hydration
Drawn to his penetrating and omniscient orbs
A genuflect to show respect, my head bowed and gaze on ground
The mighty titan mimicked me and extended peaceful welcome
Gradually I rose and full-figured, approached
Warily, minding his twin osteoscimitars
Hello friend, he said
I heard you coming from several years away
I have been waiting for you
In a thousand forms and figures as the shadowy shapes you doubted
But Wisdom, how?
Baffled now, as I follow worn creases of age
That line his cracked and withered face and date his hardened hide
Come see yourself as I see you, he said
For we are as old as your mind is young
And he led me to the liquid, still and reflective
My own visage now ancient
You often sought me out, and I never hid
But I always came too late
I am with you in every action
Every success and every mistake
I was your hand when you learned to hold on
And your ears when you learned to listen
I was your adrenaline when you lost control
And your uncut blood tunnels when you learned to live
I was your arms when you hugged a forgiving embrace
And the nausea you felt when you lied
I did not mourn you when you died and scattered
For you returned to me as many; come, we have much to teach and learn
We will raise the bulls of a generation
Without another word, I mounted sacred pachyderm
And we became a vortex for wandering energy universal and fluid
The venerable sage and I rode as equals through the night
The savanna sky resting its tired eye at last

Most days it is felt in the bones
Sometimes it moves to my
Soap, or my
Belt, or my
Lighter, I burn it into
****** circles in whatever page I scar
I feel it in my hands when it
Flows in peace, sweet release
I never feel it in my guitar, I thank

A harmless exoskelocreeper darts along the
Wall and the sick pit of belly says ******!
But things have been so
Transparent of late I would hate to
Move and sad statue watches crawling, powerless

These stones we lug, do they make us strong?
My back sores with
More pain than progress

I feel it when they speak
The stinking breath of some
Who have never looked up
Or did and got dizzy frailneck

I feel it in the not now

I feel it in the dreams
Where waking comes after death

I feel it in the mornings
Planting palmonn wall to balance liquid lover
I swear, I went right
Through it like
I wasn’t even
There
Becoming less of something lately
Or, more of a slim
Quantum chance (?)

It is like we walk among the
Subterrain thinking we are
Open air, I can hear the
Footprints above, everywhere
And the true sky beyond imagination
I can feel it
When they haven’t
Flown
We reach and
Reach like emerging
Gravewalkers, desperate
For something
Sun on our hands, run them through
The breeze and think we’re free

When it rains, blind grasp
Turns out not the soothsayer
We question the water no origin exposed

I feel it in the mirror
And in groups
I feel it in the hairs on the back of my neck
I feel it in everything
My beautiful virus

Something
Is not right

Careful to make respectful steps, she padded lightly through
The grass a weaving wanderer
Investigating the stone garden with
The ashen faced man calling her name
He was perverted, but insightful
And he shared the roots of the stone trees
A wealthy merchant lay with
A poor laborer
Side by side and synchronized demise-wise
Death, the pale guide said, is the great equalizer
Life is not fair; Death is.

Pictures marked the grander tombs and one caught
Her searching eyes, reptile
Slither serpent slinks and eats circular self loop
Symbolizing eternal, consume-die resume
The local ghost noted vert reaching rest stones
******* competition in the inadequate hereafter

A corvidae watched, perched: “wait your turn”, then fly sky
The cold wind eavesdropped on
Her chestbeat, early cycle thumps (time) to spare
Knowing her fear
The winded skeletons of the stone garden howled like wicked tuning forks

Together they lamented a generation with newspaper vision
In a mesh perspective, young and old
I have a bad habit of falling
In love
Everywhere I go, said young
Is that jazz on your record player?
I do believe it is becoming my most passionate affair of all
Each
Skiddly-doo bahp, *** dum walk, deedly-dee
And keyed swung run
Are like wild spirals of fireworks, tie dyed tentacles swirling about
Hugging my weightless all-ear, a train for fractal tracks on-spot created
I hear their hoof beats, and I think zebras
He told old how he intended to learn
To morph his pain to bop
And achieve the wordless cohesion of sardine schools
Through plucked coiled steel, if it cost him all his years
He knew the notes, but now he would conjure color
And shade them through his pineal prism
Until his dancing phalanges could spill coral reefs and sunsets
Old told him how music had saved his life
And in the war he was permitted to leave his truck
To press on black and white, tamed but untrained
The Japan grand was lame, but officers smiled
Some night, he said, when you're smashed and uninhibited
Gather your tools and let your inner self become a melody
When you manage to break your gates in sobriety
You will be an artist
Listen to the wind
Beauty is improvised
He handed young his authored book, which carefully he'd signed
Never lose it friend; your greatest gift is your appetite
They sat in his office while the record spun a standard
Fuzzy magic rang out forever, it seemed
Like signals to space or whale songs through the depths
Most listeners are scared to lose control
Ashes piled as the fire died
But young knew his never would
Him and jazz had fallen in love
That night, he knew he'd lived

They beat my friends’
Faces in the woods
Pinned them down
And slug, slug, slug, SLUG!
A phone call poorly thought, retaliation
Car rolling heavy pulls by, cuts me off in
A gas station as I walk
Home, hey do you know your way
To the hospital, said thugs?
Then
I walked by the hospital several later and
Another auto threat
You got out, and approached
Intimidated,
Bullied
Now, hearing how you
Crawled home with
Soon-to-be-fatal knife plunges
Desperate for family, at the end
I mourn you
Conflicted
I hope you
Found
Peace

I said no and
Backed away he made
Advances anyway and groping
Goblin hands tried to pilfer what Venus
Owes man
“The Inheritance”
My crop shall rise
From your field I claim this
Land in the name of
Man
With his grabbing
Paws he bent her over the
Bed, to get on with it

She trembled, teary then
He lifted my skirt up, I shouldn’t have
Been wearing it
He was really messed
Up, maybe if I hadn’t looked so
Willing, so easy

I
Asked
For
It

I couldn’t believe the
Blame, even as it fell from her
Hung head and
Hidden face

It
Wasn’t
Your
Fault

Socialized to please the guys
Why?
Victims hating self, non-believers, mental health

I’m not liking college
She confessed
Where’s the safety net?

And then she walked back to
Missing friends and
Silent pain and
Ambulance calls for alcohol’s
Waterfalls and consequences
Fading details and
Stories cops won’t believe

What were you
Wearing, they asked her
Were you drunk?

It
Wasn’t
Your
Fault

An unsuspecting observer would view his property as bland
With subterranean secrets rarely breaching for detection
When pointed ends met with his cracking winter surface
The sludge bubbled out filling every empty space
His inner oil to some
Was black gold
Prosperity
To others still, a tar pit worthy of dinosaur death
He grew as a sheet of ice which could harbor skating lessons
Or unseen, send auto travelers in lack of traction spirals
His light-stealing sticky venom clotted neural networks
A fat tarantula plucking whims from the web between two ears
He fraternized with Morpheus
On odds
With cousin evens
Awakening unsure if he were caught in silky cobs
Or the hands above it all
He certainly felt like a marionette, dangling on feeble feet
Pulled by the digits of ink stained impulse
Hate, tug
Create, tug
They made him dance to their tattooed meter
He felt the crunch of beetles and flies
His temples throbbed as tar dripped from his eyes
Drops forming clefs, pictures, and words
I am but a stencil, he buzzed

You spoke to me again
I thought you were done visiting
But awoken, your form the cause to stir

Things have been different
Sometimes, just sometimes
I admit, the image
Of you disappears and I doubt
If you were real

Food tastes different
Trees grow strangely
People are boring

I think about
Where, or what
You are

When I died, my
Body seemed
So
Suffocating

I laughed more, at
Serious things
No pain in the
Hot or sharp

Do you live like exhaled cigarettes, silent and
Blending sick with winter breath?
I was adrift above the city
Same as smog, but heavy dropped and return
Forever, then
You must have kept on rising

Why continue to show self to
Me when there is nothing to be helped
On and gone accepted was a blessed dressing on stretched messy testing
Of mortal skin ripped many over?

Tap dancing the Morse message
On the sensitive ruby stillflow stream
That had loved you goodbye
Final

I love the nightwalks
With the ghouls and spirits
And giggling about what it
Is to be beyond

But the bond is a brain is a broken is a binding
Paper signing
To be a devil is a labor
When waging daily
War one wakes weary

I see why you don’t often
Come back but
“I will again”
Anticipation?

Tingle with the sensory tense
Of the Vanishers who
Smile in reflections half seen
And questioned
Slipping back into shadows
Of inner eyes
And thunder storms
Of the mind

Some robots sip
Coca Cola and
Send each other text messages
The fog of shadowalking on the daily
Hangs a bit heavy but the
Diamond filter for stimulation makes
Life shine, though it's a hard one

Memories have become marauders
Stashing treasure in a hidden sand they won't know
I celebrate you
Secretly

Or escape from you;
I watch the cloud of the runaway noise pain
Clotting into grim ghosts
They do not listen to the gouhways

Why do they fear life
As much as death
When they split the faces
Of an endless coin(?)
In the dark pocket jingling away
Metallic music to somewhere

The breeze and pastel sundown remind of life
Door slam to same car, in same spot, in same lot
Strange hand drops modified food in squeaky
Cart, and they won't taste like anything
Same faces, same line
Grumpy man makes same cashier cry
We catch eye
And she doesn't remind
Of anything
Same turns, same drive
Lids open, same home
Answer phone, fine, same old
Voice on line doesn't
Sound like anything
Strange hands touch trinkets on dusty shelf
But there are no memories
Chipped edges, ridged wrinkles, don't feel like anything
Strange hands open shades
Trees are bare, scattered warm
Stuffed in bags, piled high
Hadn't noticed anything
Body moves, mouth lies, passion friend and hobby fade
Mind set, decision made
And yet
And yet