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i have recently fallen ill
and i don't know if it is because he left
or because the weather keeps changing
all i know is that my body aches for anything
but these white pills and nasal spray

it's like a windstorm that's so strong you keep falling over
or maybe lightning hitting you right in the chest
or it's like that time he left and you couldn't sleep on your back
because you could see his side of the bed

i don't quite care that i've eaten
every single type of soup the world has to offer
or that i could cook you a million different dishes
because i've watched the cooking channel
for 5 days straight

the only way i think this illness would go away
is if you came back
and held me as i drank my tea with honey
and coughed my brains out

i wish you would rub my back
as i complained about being cold
or being fatigued
i just wish you'd come back
i was sick last week and i'm still trying to get over it, so yeah i wrote a poem about it
I was angry with my friend;
I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
I was angry with my foe:
I told it not, my wrath did grow.

And I waterd it in fears,
Night & morning with my tears:
And I sunned it with smiles,
And with soft deceitful wiles.

And it grew both day and night,
Till it bore an apple bright.
And my foe beheld it shine,
And he knew that it was mine.

And into my garden stole.
When the night had veiled the pole;
In the morning glad I see,
My foe outstretchd beneath the tree.
Last nite I dreamed of T.S. Eliot
welcoming me to the land of dream
Sofas couches fog in England
Tea in his digs Chelsea rainbows
curtains on his windows, fog seeping in
the chimney but a nice warm house
and an incredibly sweet hooknosed
Eliot he loved me, put me up,
gave me a couch to sleep on,
conversed kindly, took me serious
asked my opinion on Mayakovsky
I read him Corso Creeley Kerouac
advised Burroughs Olson Huncke
the bearded lady in the Zoo, the
intelligent puma in Mexico City
6 chorus boys from Zanzibar
who chanted in wornout polygot
Swahili, and the rippling rythyms
of Ma Rainey and Vachel Lindsay.
On the Isle of the Queen
we had a long evening's conversation
Then he tucked me in my long
red underwear under a silken
blanket by the fire on the sofa
gave me English Hottie
and went off sadly to his bed,
Saying ah Ginsberg I am glad
to have met a fine young man like you.
At last, I woke ashamed of myself.
Is he that good and kind? Am I that great?
What's my motive dreaming his
manna? What English Department
would that impress? What failure
to be perfect prophet's made up here?
I dream of my kindness to T.S. Eliot
wanting to be a historical poet
and share in his finance of Imagery-
overambitious dream of eccentric boy.
God forbid my evil dreams come true.
Last nite I dreamed of Allen Ginsberg.
T.S. Eliot would've been ashamed of me.
The maids
tug away the bed sheets
tainted in ***
and one night stands
III
Slim adolescence that a nymph has stripped,
Peleus on Thetis stares.
Her limbs are delicate as an eyelid,
Love has blinded him with tears;
But Thetis' belly listens.
Down the mountain walls
From where pan's cavern is
Intolerable music falls.
Foul goat-head, brutal arm appear,
Belly, shoulder, ***,
Flash fishlike; nymphs and satyrs
Copulate in the foam.
 Apr 2015 James Crofts
Josh Bass
Laying here on the cusp of sleep
I am visited by visions of the young man I once was
What happened to that beautiful boy?
I miss that overwhelming positivity
the naive idealism
the undying spirituality
he was fearless in many ways
I am not that old but that boy is
a million miles away
and all that's left is me
in my body's shell that has gone hard and stale.  
I could learn from his example
But I survive better now...
 Mar 2015 James Crofts
Gigi Tiji
The motion of your body
in the throes of getting through to me
are a dance I'd like to fold up
and put in my pocket.

The hinge at the wrist
and a nonchalant manus
looking to the west waiting
for an answer...

I find wondrous waterfalls
falling from the tips
of every finger
cascading.

There's a world within your grasp
as you transfer your temple between
the infinite bubbles of your surrounding space.

Your eyes saccade softly yet swiftly
as they envision worlds from other dimensions that I can only visit through your woven webs.

I will lay in them and swing
as a hammock in the summertime.

We will weave them together
as our phenomena emerge
into sacred universal patterns.

Our contents will thaw when
the sun starts to stay longer,
they will melt and flow
as our crystal lattice structures
ceaselessly shatter and
recrystallize into geometric flowers.

We are dancing rocks
We are dancing rocks
who have learned
how to love and —
Now we are aflame!

We are licks of carnelian
shifting to a roaring citrine.

Now we are jade flowers floating
to tropical turquoise waterways...

Kyanite kites flying into
deepening oceans of lapis lazuli.

Gold flecks
explode into purple
as our eyes flutter open into
bursts of bright white feathers.
You are not my children,
tender as you are.
You are not my lover,
though you cause my heart to yearn.
You are not my sun,
or my moon,
or my star.

I set you on this rock;
you will not make me burn.

You are simply sticks,
arranged upon the pyre.
You are clever tricks,
though you flaunt my clear desire.
You are not the match,
or the wick,
or the fire.

I set you on this rock;
To see what might transpire.

You will never be a pheasant's egg to be coddled.
You are only this: a calf led to the slaughter.
A poem addressed to my poems, in the midst of the dreaded poetry workshop, where my lovelies are torn to shreds.  An attempt to maintain distance, for the sake of learning.  It's hard.
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