“Everybody has won, and all must have prizes.”- Alice in Wonderland

“Everyone knows it’s a race, but no one’s sure of the finish line.”
        -Dean Young, “Whale Watch”

1a
Children rarely listen to any armchair advice from their immediate family, relatives they commonly have contact with or anyone they haven’t known for more than a couple years because in kindergarten or day care they often got gold stars just for showing up… Little glittering prizes plastered on poster boards in elementary school classrooms regardless of grades or mistakes…


1b
On the windy day when you lower the green jet-ski instead of the good one, race it to the north end, out of the safety of the bay, into the choppy waters, you’ll get bullied by the wave’s splash like the cattails of a whip. The lake will overwhelm you; you’ll inhale some of the water,  a sharp pain will course through your body as you try to breathe those short shallow breaths, which you will force yourself to do as seldom as possible. You will cough and keel over on the craft; It’s not uncommon to spit up blood; you will have to return to the dock and raise the jet-ski back onto the boatlift.  You will stub your toe on the cracks in the planking, stumble and get a splinter in the ball of your foot heading towards the deck but won’t notice. All feeling numbs against water trapped inside your lungs.


1c
Jackie Paper’s mother made him a hotdog with potato chips and served it to him on a plastic plate outside so he could enjoy it on the newly refinished deck while he watched the schooners and speedboats, stingray’s and ski-nautique’s jet in and out of the bay. He didn’t wait five minutes after he finished to fly from the deck onto the dock into the water where he free styled too far and got a cramp. His mother almost lost a son that day.



2a
If wet some recommend running around the shore of the lake until the air has thoroughly dried you off. Listening to the gulls dive and racing through the varying levels of grass on the neighbors’ unkempt lawns, in between the oaks and elms, keeping ever mindful the sticks and stones and acorns that litter the ground in lieu of stubbed toes or splinters. You will most likely fail, but you will get dry.


2b
When you **** your big toe on the zebra mussels while wading in the shallows, near the seawall beside the dock, trying to catch crayfish and minnows darting between the stones underneath the water, and the blood doesn’t stop flowing for 10 minutes and the H2O2 bubbles burgundy on the decks maple woodwork, instead of that off white color it usually bubbles, and stings something awful, don’t be a little ***** about it.  It’s your own fault for leaving your aqua-socks on the green marbled tiles in the foyer closet next to the bathroom; where you changed into your bathing suit and got the bottle of peroxide.


2c
Last winter Christopher Robbins drove his red pickup on the ice (near the island, towards the North end, where even when it’s been freezing for weeks the frozen water seldom exceeds six inches in thickness) at night and fell through.  He felt the cold water enter his lungs.  Although it was snowing and no one had noticed he survived; it took him the whole of an hour to reach the nearest house and call home; he lost his truck and suffered from severe hypothermia and acute pneumonia. At the hospital it was determined that while there was ample evidence of the early onset of frostbite in his extremities, amputation would not be necessary.


3a
While sitting Indian style on the dock next to your friends, settled on the plastic furniture, sipping whiskey and beer, comparing scars assume, no matter whose company you’re in, that yours are the smallest. Those cigarette burns running down the length of your right forearm are self-inflicted and old- reminders that you haven’t had to force yourself to breathe in quite some time.

3b
When you jump off the end of the dock you’ll forget to keep your knees loose because you were running on the wooden planks trying to avoid the white weather worn and dirtied dock chairs and worrying about getting a splinter. The water is inviting but during the summer the depth is only three feet four inches. You will roll your ankle at the very least and probably sprain it because, Like an *******, you locked your knees and jumped without looking.


3c
Two summers ago Alice was tubing behind a blue Crown Royal when she hit the wake at an awkward angle and flew head first into the water in the bay a few hundred feet off the dock at dusk. The spotter and driver simply weren’t watching and the wave-runner didn’t see her due to the advancing darkness.  She cracked her head open on the bottom of its hull; swallowed water.  She needed 70 stitches and several staples but Alice made a full recovery.


4
Mothers often tell their children to should chew their food 40 times before swallowing to aid digestion and to wait a full half hour after eating before engaging in physical activity. Especially swimming.


5
When you’re at the lake house this summer skipping stones swimming and running on the dock remember not to listen to any advice.  

If this were a race to get dry you’d be much closer to first than last.

The internal bleeding eventually stops.  The splinters all get pulled out, staples and stitches are removed, lacerations heal and the feeling returns to the fingers and toes.

The water eventually drains from the lungs and only the scars remain:

Gold stars on poster boards;

because everybody has won, and all must have prizes.

We met in the Red Square at Midnight. Sitting on the austere steps of the Kremlin We drank Stolichnaya in silence; listened to St. Basil’s Bells stoic ringing until Our sun rose pale over Moscow  

Beauty is created when I press your mulatto skin to mine.
We shift. You move, and as you’re moved you move me.
Our motion akin to your mother’s in a gentle breeze or a dancer;
Some Elise pirouetting et fouetter and falling over graceful infinities.    

I am deliberate during this ballet. Subdominant.
Una corda e sostenuto, and as you request so do you respond; relaxed,
Sustaining single notes; soft into that ethereal Moonlight…
Blurred and blunted, your perfect meter dampened by my learned cadence.
    
As you sound off forte I rock slightly forward, coming into you harder.
We breathe sharp together; my fingertips caressing you legato;
My Ana Magdalena. Andantino; rolling into flurries of crescendos
presto allegro climaxing; Capitulating again before we rest…
Before lento diminuendo.                                                      ­                

We courted at the Konig Von Ungarn in Vienna. It was classical and   romantic. Baroque. We fell in love. At Figaro’s wedding we tasted sangria as the stars Set, pastel, over Seville. Our first kiss was the Holy Roman Empire fading; A footnote under bass cleft.

We were married in the Rhineland, a single Canon announcing our nuptial.
You a Riesling and I your lattice. I stood firm, resolute, as you grew in, around, and from me. But the lords, they taint you, they **** me of your fruits; oblivious, they invoke their subtle prima nocta.                            

From the rooftops and the gutters they hear you. A virtue is lost between us. We shift. They are unwelcome eavesdroppers’ playing ******.  
They come and gather round us and I grow nervous, stiff; sweat falling from my brow to your ebony and ivory.
They move provocative, but they do not care; they do not notice us.                            

I stop as they begin. They’re discourteous during this Can-can. Their  praise and kind words may arouse the pimps and ****** wandering Montmartre into Paris’s red-light,  “Hear,” they fall on deaf ears.
This is no Moulin Rouge. We are not meant to be exhibitionists and yet
we yield to their flat appeals.                                                         ­                           

I put my clothes back on, Rags is all they are, and you, you’ve become stark.
I project my discontent through your string and hammer heart;
I slap your toothy face and stomp your sterling feet without relent.
I-De-tach-My-self-From-You. Staccato. They call me Inventive and as they sip their whiskey, their bourbons and their Texas Tea they tell us that
we have Entertained.        

We build our home from the precious stones of foreign countries.
We traverse ages to reach the mines and the rock fields, finding rough Diamonds and sapphires. Naked, we wash them in ether; they luster.
The noblemen come. They smile and applaud as they peep through the Windows and knock at the doors, but We shall not  be moved.

Life is bigger- than you; me-

you treading mire
choosing these heavy eyed tragedies over religion

me holding on
so tightly to that comforting distance always-
In my eyes the comedy is that I'm losing
these confessions once spoken-
I say so much under covers throwing
faith  at empathetic shadows.

Can't we hear our better demons?

Feel sympathies?

God's abandoned as we protest
a dismal fantasy over truth- and off our knees
we use cold notions of what's "real"... like fools-
Our ironic hint towards the centuries
as we lose our religion- trading flaws for other flaws

Pretending all the time

God was just a dream.

Crimson comes to those that wait but gold
it never does

Nights in neon hazes on ***** bar stools
transient coffins on sticky floors

Snatching seraphim from pipe dream myths

Wishes come true at the worst moments,
through jaded smiles

+

Another round we lie, from our mouths,
these glossy eyes

Sacrifice nothing to the looking

The walking dead speak with conviction of their
so called lives

Lived in palor boxes and unbalenced columns
where they

Die each week, come full circle to us
fo-cherubs

In hopes of being reborn.

I lie-

Not from a beating heart, bleeding and breaking always
for the cynic in all of us, for the human spirit's relentless wane between birth and death,
but from the bottom of a mind unburdened by feelings of empathy or loss I

hide behind deep mahogany eyes, the ones you whispered
shone through to illuminate my soul which was a dinghy lost at sea, a quiet storm
or the full moon reflected off a placid lake at night.

If I were honest I'd tell you that I only see reflections of myself in others eyes, the world
a pallor shade of something not quite discernible and not quite good; I'd say
the lies I will never convince myself of are the truths you use to fall asleep at night.

You said I was enlightened. You said my mind was beautiful. You said
you wished you could see the world as I do.... The grass is not greener.
The scene from where I'm standing is dim and growing darker.

True love is... and it is truth, and my truth is a world of melancholy grays,
memories of all the things that have ever hurt and a forgiveness in which I hope to claim solace.

My love is: never forgetting that I've been undeserving; rising each morning
in a place devoid of hue or tint only to keep up appearances and expectations;

The beautiful lies I whisper as you drift off to sleep...

The lies I make you believe just to save you from the truth...

To to save you from me.

- because I love you.

The summer's day sun died; drenched, drowned, felled
beneath golden water of a past fall's horizon;
set. The trees' ephemeral amber leaves. To flames as it expired

autumn's bright seer burned the world a dark and chill,
ever failing to stay the approaching night
beneath. Golden water of a past fall's horizon

strained, swelled, rose to greet winter's ashen moon
who left earth- for a moment- a frozen visage.
Ever failing to stay, the approaching night  

ebbed, revealed spring rains and summer heat before flowing
again to autumn's golden twilight.  That harvest sun,
who left earth for a moment, a frozen visage

in the heavens now it seems, begins once more to wane.
The summer's day- sun-dyed drenched and drowned- felled
again to autumn's golden twilight.  That harvest sun
sets the trees' ephemeral amber leaves -to flame- as it expires.

Each night, which engulfs the day,- like the ocean's tide
Rolls over sand, like death envelops life, both timely and blessed-
Washes us away to reveal who we are. From him we can not hide.

Still we attempt, we turn, we face inside ourselves. We confide
In no one, in fear that others will soil our dreams. We detest
Each night, which engulfs the day like the ocean's tide.

The Son of Man was nailed to a cross and died. He chose to abide
A God he had never seen but believed in. A God he confessed
Washes us away and reveals who we are. From Him we can not hide.

Yet we are condemned by our choice, our power to decide
What is wrong from what is right. Which is why we can not rest
Each night, which engulfs the day like the ocean's tide.

We hope that when we look back at our lives we can say we've tried
To turn ourselves around. I've heard that at our final hour fear of death
Washes us away to reveal who we are. From him we can not hide.

All three noblemen: the darkness, he who defied
Death, and that black angel himself hold our souls within their *******.
Each knight- engulfs the days like the ocean's tide
Rolls over sand, like death envelops life, all timley and blessed-
Washes us away to reveal who we are. From Him we can not hide.

Grey sky morning’s twilight enters cold, rouses him,
through icy windows, behind locked doors. It’s 8 am.

She sleeps- like no-rain covers his world, turns bright greens to brown,
brings drought- beneath lead thoughts that tablecloth his mind.

He wrestles- with himself- struggling to find the words
(I must leave now, before I break) to subdue, to arrest… to right

the morning’s shadowed sunrise entering through locked doors
under the cracks of cold windows. It’s 8 am;

his thoughts assault him, turn back to her (turning under covers),
weigh him down, parch his throat until speech fails;

begins to break. Consciousness escapes as words on paper,
release him from their credence, wets his tongue, subsides.

Still, he’s afraid to let go … sometimes, at very least,-

I want to hold on: to these truths, these small wonders, these lies,
In this grey sky’s morning twilight that’s passing through cold windows behind locked doors
Into a bedroom made of card walls and full of secrets. Into my closet filled with shirts and socks and
Ties: gifts. Into drawers containing stories and poems and papers- all shining; igniting silver
Brilliance in the bright darkness- sealed closed so they can’t get out and cut; so they can’t
Burn and crumble or break. To my shelves, stocked with childhood books, photos and picture frames;
My memories captured in glass, bottled and canned… and kept safe.
Desk lamps and alarm
Clocks on night tables; cords and plugs and switches all turning on

The grey sky morning’s twilight that’s emitted from my distant eyes staring and
Trapped in a beating box- my diary, locked, kept safe from the judging gaze of strangers
And lovers: from warmth and hurt and love and pain and hate, from her:
My insecurities, lying porcelain in the grey skied morning twilight,
next to me,
Worlds away on a goose down stage floating over diamonds.
It’s anytime she dreams
Behind frost laden windows, those doors of hers I can never quite open, feelings I can never keep safe;

An ascetic desert,
Where anything floating falls and porcelain shatters on only dense carbon,  
Where paper burns silver instead of gold and card walls crumble under
this immense weight,
Where glass and lead are bent, gifts are thrown away-
And diaries… hearts… they always break.

-he’s afraid to let go,

but as he moves those thoughts from head to hand to pen to pad
there comes a weightlessness.  

He- as the sun begins its ascent, leaves the bitter solitude of the east,
falls across the skies, westward, burning gold, warming the panes

-unlocks the door and steps out, picking up the pieces, smoothing the cracks.
It’s 8 a.m. It’s starting to rain.

These words break backs
(I love you no more)
Make bones shudder.
Marrow leaks from vertebrae to hearts
-bleeds-
Life leaves, fire-water draining,
Drains lava flows from mouths opened.

Whispers can sound off like shotgun blasts
(This is over, I’m leaving)
Splits ribs, peppers tendered tendons,
Rips muscle, tears tears
From sockets agape.
Wide eyes speak
Volumes of saline solution-
Downed flushed flesh cheeks.

Teeth grind dull chainsaw
Blades chew emotion to dust.
These words that hurt
(I’m seeing someone else)
Cut deeper than sticks or stones;
Some syllables cleave like sledgehammers
To kneecaps and elbows-

Usually land: right on the button.

When the smelling salt revives us
We lie,

We are still;

Never quite the same.

He held radical light
to moon’s somber stare;
Night’s bright
diminished-

Taking backseat in a cab
heading polar;
Up north and downtown.
Somewhere dark.

He breathed cold brilliance in;
Addict’s winter;
snow filled air

Yielding melodies
to dense beats.
Music stopped;

Time raced…
Erased.

He spoke hard liquid
through wide eyes;
Tongue flailing,
Mouth jawing,
Body failing,

To wet ground.

He heard color flash;
Blue,
        Red,
Blue,
White,
            Red,
    Blue,­
                        White,
Red,
                        Whit­e.

           White.

White.

He felt silence enter.

White.

White.

Black.


He held radical light.

Jealousy is calling Mrs. Brightside to a dark moon.
Werewolf howls: some lost girl, lonely,
Wanting only to be loved.

Let me scream for she is lost.  ‘Cause
never found outside, in cold, damp rooms;
Body tossing,
Sweat staining the sheets,
Soaking the pillows

She cries...
Just to be heard,
Just so she might breathe.

Cry for Her...
Lost Innocence.
Purity forgotten can never be expressed,
Only bottled up,
Distilled,
Filled to the brim to be poured out then thrown
To the ocean-
Awaiting time may bring beach glass,
Smoothed rough and shattered softened-
In hopes of sparkling some distant shore.

But to belie Her: these empty vessels;
Silhouettes among a crowd of unfamiliar faces
Identically backlit by the sun-Vivid Death-
Setting,
Turned westward,
Watching an amber light’s slow fade-
Crimson turqouise violet splendor-
To black.

Let me scream for You.
Let me scream,
For you are lost.
Let me scream for your lost cause;
I will scream forever,

     And forever
           let me pray for you in silence
And speak soft down whispers into the depth of vacant ears
Well-known strangers wandering empty streets,
Lighting sidewalks and store windows as they pass
-Sometimes-
Waking cold sweat screaming through darkness;
Tears for Bright Dreams-
Now only Lost Causes.

And the day begins to break.
The lights go out.-
She cries, “Go out”-
Extinguishes.

My freedom’s lost.
My innocence wanes.
She cries.
Ransoms collected.
I lay silent…
She cries.
Screaming,
She cries.
Silently
I cry,
And you begin to fade away.

Close to this end you were a free-spirit caged
Body-bound parlyzed, muted and muzzeled, entombed
locked alive and screaming from a keyless cell.
A fleshy coffin-with-a-view, an unburied object of pity on public display.

Further from this end you were daughter, sister, friend,
wife, mother. More. You will always be so much more.

Leading up to this end you showed me a suffering so completely devestating
I can't bear to think of it. I can't bear to speak of it.

A suffering I could never endure myself.
A suffering I can't understand or imagine, and hopefully never experience.
A suffering I had been praying your release from for years.
A suffering you had been pleading your release from for years.

A suffering that thankfully you are now released from.

It is a suffering I will never forget, that you alone endured.

I had never known strength until I witnessed your strength through your suffering.

Here at this end I know real loss.

It is a loss I cannot possibly bear, but will.
Using a strength that is not mine, but yours.