The  poesy of chef's soup du jour,
   peppered in a skillfully
            pauperized simmer
       or sublimely enriched dish of
          ultimate truffle butter grandeur,
   tastefully rendered in the
        aromatic broken bread of
           delectable poetry's bouquet

There have been times I've been lost all alone
18 years old and without a home
I robbed and I stole, and I let it be known...
I'll slice your throat, and cut to the bone

swabbin' the deck and walkin' the plank
clangor and crash, clatter and clank
I had myself and the devil to thank
swillin' down whiskey, I drank and I drank

batten the hatches, there's rough seas ahead
sterns would be broke and sails would be shred
splatter his guts and off with his head
let dead men lie where they've made their bed

I. Letter 1

You write of sitting in the cold
of anxiety about your grant
not coming & how you lonely
you are & how you'll send the money

for those jeans of yours she paid for
not wanting to come between
her & her mother
& of the growing

distance between you
such a poor, proud country boy
unwilling, still to give up
on what all see as a crazy dream

& talking of emigration
& how you couldn't find
the book she wanted
in the shops, for it was sold out

A letter to your English girlfriend never sent
& poignant all the more for it

I.I Letter 2

You write of your concern
for us, my mother & me,
praying we have enough to eat
saying you wish you were there

to stand in hopeless Russian food queues
for us and how hard it is to be so helpless
You talk of shouting on the phone
& how you didn't mean to do it

& of how love and pain are two sides
of the same coin & how when
you & my mother talk you never
say anything much, just talk about the Museum

& dinosaur bones & how mad this is, how wrong
my mother would say those bones
were your reason for your so-called love
that she should have seen the naked ambition in your eyes

that of a man used to poverty, reaching for more
aiming for notoriety, whilst lying of love

I.I.I Letter 3

You call my mother ' Princess'
(my mother doesn't know this is cliche)
& talk of British superstitions
such as black cats being unlucky

& ask why Russians think
asking for photographs
of people is unlucky
a superstition my mother doesn't recall

when I ask her about it now
Black cats, is that why I ended
up in hospital in Britain
in a land of the free robbed of my freedom

because we had a black cat?
I always thought them lucky,
adhering to the Russian superstition
I guess I might have been wrong

back then you talked of emigration
of wanting to move to Russia to be with us


I.V Letter 4

I can mostly only imagine it
from my mother's words
your letter to her who was 23
named ' Lily' after the flower of death

bringing the death of our family
She calls you ' Day-Day'
like your youth's English girlfriend
in your mid-life crisis

you've turned into a poet
& are talking of your secret
love & nursing memories of love-bites
all else is dust & forgotten

you'd later cry on the Chinese hotel
bed in front of your wife, my mother
' how can I refuse these offerings'
& eleven years go by

occasionally we talk on the phone
it's something you don't deserve

Excitement can be addictive
I know that because I am a recovering addict
What's wrong with peace I remind myself
no need to keep on running

•

Sometimes,


                       People just disregard each others value,



                                      Throwing dirt at each other,

                                                 Pointing fingers to one another,

                           Bashing words that doesn't even exist,



They just don't understand,

                        That somebody are breaking inside,


But those shattered people,

                                                   They just don't show it,

                                          'Cause they want peace and harmony,

                                                      ­       But they are crushed,

                                                     More than you can imagine!






Sometimes,

                        People are just so selfish,



Doing things that just benefit their own selves,

               Not even thinking of the consequences it may turn,



                              But for those people who are breaking inside,



Whom they have bombarded with pain and sorrow,



The coin seems to not favor to them,

         But time will come,

                 It will just flip to theirs.







Sometimes,

                           People are just so watchful,



Of the mistakes of others,

           Even though they have not known them,



Like a dog barking on complete strangers,


                                          Then just like a blinking of an eye,



Overlook all the good side of those people,


                                  'Cause of their own "observing wrong" habits,



They just can't even observe,

      About how people sees them?


Are they pleasing or not?

But sadly,



They aren't admirable,


   'Cause what they are doing,

            Are never gratifying,






Sometimes,


                    People just look into this worldly pleasure,


Wealth and FAME,


          And can sacrifice every dignity they have,

                  All the friends they have,

    And all of the good they have,

                                         Just to obtain this stuff,


The world devoured them,



But remember,

                                No matter how much WEALTH AND FAME,

       That we will possess in this world,

                             If we don't have a heart,

                That loves all humankind,

                         That loves appreciating people,

                 And that has God inside it,



Remember,

All are just nothing.






Sometimes,



                          Peop­le lack these words


LOVE, PEACE, and RESPECT.




                                                  S­adly,

Sadly....






                                  © Earl Jane
                                    ♥ E.J.C.S.

I have an illustrious dream,
     want to be Leonard
          Cohen's gypsy wife,
he's kissing my lips on
    Boogie Street,
impetuously we dance
    to the end of love
       'til closing time
       midst his secret life,
he serenades me with
     I'm your man
         when we take Manhattan,
bewildered by his poetic beauty there
     waiting for the miracle to happen,
a sip of wine, a cigarette
         in love we disappear,
   here it is, you got me singing
        be that dog in heat,
I'll take this waltz and
   another please, cause
             everybody knows
     I hunger for your touch,
  his famous blue raincoat
         and the dew on my thigh
goes a thousand kisses deep
   in the cave at the tip of the lily
  with its very own breath of brandy,
slipping into the masterpiece
             where Lenny is eternal

He's that guy that slays you,
    always charming, ready &
       eager to lend a helping hand,
  a garish smile tucked in his hip pocket  --
    he's your friendly next door neighbor,
         the quintessential serial killer

The universe is immeasurable,
  we are merely infinitesimal
    machinery keeping pace,
as churning cogs tick wildly
  transmitting within allotted time,
attempting heartbeats' cohesion
  clocking our own honed destinations,
accumulating illusions 'tween mass
   waiting to return as a speck of dust
      in the never-ending saga of
           inexhaustible collectives amidst
         systematically creative contrivances

I visit the old mill by the creek.  
It hasn't ground a grain in a century.
A ghost of wood and steel and history.
How it still stands is a local mystery.

I want to buy that old mill by the creek.
Rebuild it with glass walls facing the waterfall.
Use the water for electricity.
In the summer, when you visit me,

We'll swim in the pond, it'll be my own pool.
Sip beer on the rooftop, be rockstar cool.
In winter, we'll ice skate my frozen backyard
Before fireplace, whisky, snacks and cards.

I'll build you a guestroom on all three floors.
And secret rooms behind hidden doors.
The automn rains will pound at the wall  
And sing with the sound of the waterfall,

And the song will be that of the miller's ghost.
The house might be mine, but he's still the host.
He loves that his workplace has now become home.
For a hundred years, he's been there alone.  

He'll laugh with the kids of my visiting friends.
He'll dance with the women, and when the fun ends
He'll sit on the rooftop with a ghost cup of tea,
Walk by the willows and thank God for he

Who took the mill ruins and rendered them "home";  
A palace by water of wood, glass and stone.
I thinks of these things, when I visit that mill.
And thanks to my dreaming, it's standing there still.

this is the moon's
quiet rose, the unfolding
of the clouds, tranquility
resting her head,
the beautiful sea.

the water carves its caves
out of the black rock,
little turrets of the wind
walking the battlements
of the sea's dark fortress.