©J.GonzalezJr 7/2019

Into the brisk, cold night I ventured home,
leaving joyous occasion of friends and delights.
Filled on laughter, food, and warming spirits,
I tucked into my coat and gloves to journey home.
Sky filled by celestial stars and fullest moon,
the olden road leading me to needed slumber.
Moving forward still filled in mood of merriments,
as sounds of fading friends grow weaker by every step.
The glow of the home's lit fireplace dim's,
as shadows cast from moon and trees ahead.
A late hour of night to be in woods alone,
a long way to be made with the greatest of haste.

The cold chill of wind brushes my face firmly,
as if Death's hand caressing me to follow.
Shivers run throughout to my spine in waves,
feeling unnatural though it is just the very.
Dried leaves rustling past feet keeping to pace me,
such unnerving nuisance to my ears and senses.
The scraping and knocks of outstrecthed tree limbs,
as if decrepit fingers begging up to the moon.
Swaying within gusts like hideous worshipers,
crowding in as if to make me believe in their ways.
Making quickened pace to surpass this horrid place,
not giving way to thoughts of such *******.

Remembering the evening just had of friends,
filling my mind with contentness to travel on.
Laughing aloud to a story of great humor told,
broken by noise in return from amongst the trees!
Frozen within my steps to listen closer,
scanning darkness and behind for something familiar.
Met with nothing but silence and nature in view and hearing,
just to tuck deeper into my coverings to resume leave.
Too much drink of spirits is the reason i give to self,
the need to bed from the festive eve of friends.
Perhaps to hum a tune we did sing to ease me,
yeta laughter pierces the air as if upon a cue.

Turned to seek if joker is in close hidden follow,
perhaps a friend having left soon after my departure.
"where do you hide old friend?" to the dark is called,
yet nothing to greet back in return.
"If a foe or to do harm upon me I am ready!"
but trees and leaves give only reponse.
I return with fear to now quickened walk home,
heart beating in chest with more sounding.
My hands clamming, rubbing in moistening glove,
feet stamping to hardened ground below.
Sweat forming all about head and neck in irritation,
as the feel of garments sticking, tightening to body.

Every few moments I turn looking behind,
expectations to see who trails me in eerie follow.
Laughter echoes from beyond range of sighting,
stirring deepened fears, surfacing from deep within.
Laughter gains it's closeness by every moment,
as my feet slam to gain distance away.
Wind beats against me in cold resistance,
defiant to my attempt to succeed to hurry.
Laughter has become great and loud in trailing,
like a witch's cackle filling the air around from beyond.
It gains to the woods all about me and fierce,
as to taunting and make mockery of my speed.

Shadows of decrepit limbs cast forth on the road,
taunting in meaining to grasp at my soul!
The road ahead has many turns to my safety,
I am knowing the forest as I lived here so long.
Perhaps I am to lose my tracker in short,
by cutting time to where I need in being!
Laughter falls upon me in maddened form,
if to be ready to pounce upon me with unearthly hands!
"I know the woods better than it", I pant aloud,
"this will be where I am to flee free", gasping to reassure me!
Straight off to woods from hardened road i panic,
laughter in closest follows of lay's voice most macabre.

Breath shortening from exerted strides over rocks,
chest pounding, filling body and legs of pain.
Lady of laughter grows closest yet,
as to revel in my frightful state.
No longer do i care of horrid, darkened place,
refuge home is the answer to my torment.
The voice calls my surname aloud in evil tone,
"Ingleton" then gives way to returning laugh!
Pain most intense fills my chest in squeezing manner,
limbs weakening with every strain i can give!
In very distance sight is a glow of my home,
This my final push to my haven in waiting!

Upon my neck a whipser I did hear,
"Henry", came the voice in fullest terror.
Legs gave way to buckling and tumble down rocky knoll,
sudden ringing of head,as stopped by large stone!
Vision blurred and senses be ******,
luck seems to be passed to only misfortune!
Vision clears well enough to see stone i had hit,
a very long ago hidden secret I had made.
A crime before me of many years gone and very night,
the ****** of wife, tonight of that very time I commited.
Clenching my chest of life being wrenched within,
a voice too familiar whispers as my life my departs away.

Something long forgotten, just brushed aside i had done,
a truth covered by heinous acts of my own doing.
A ****** most foul, with my hands at place of rest,
my fate forced by karma as to see what has been done.
I turn from stone on ground sensing my stalker behind,
I am spoken to by her, with voice of ethereal plane.
The sight of once living wife, not as I knew from living,
now of vengeful specter, here to bring my own end.
All life left within me, begins to flee in the horror that stands,
The night gives to little light fading, as body begins to cease.
"Did you forget of darling wife Laura Ingleton?" is last I hear,
her vengence has come for me, to bring me to where i deserve!
Her final laugh to be had and echo in these woods,
as I, there in dying, just being yards from home.

1
To suspend
A summer day in glass.
Complaisant green,
This blade of grass.

2
To give away
Grief, unfeel a caress,
Nourish a hunger
For emptiness.

3
To insinuate
to love’s unanswered skin
syllables of desire
pricking in.

4
To build
a terrace of form,
inside the weather of confusion,
a private storm.

5
To wander
through rooms of the mind
searching for enchanted objects.
What do I have to find?

6
To mark
against the slippage
of another year
that we are here.

German is a harsh language
An opinion that prevails
A strong rolled “R”
Noises, making you think
Something is stuck down your throat
Talking, in everlasting anger

Let me tell you something
Let me introduce you
To the beauty of the German language
To the words of “Wanderlust”, “Weltschmerz” or “Geborgenheit”
Many words so unique

Their meaning poetic
Using them yet so difficult
Listen to us closely and you will find out
German is not German
It comes in many forms
It varies by the region, state, country

Every form has its own character
Every accent has its own thrill
Determinable in the way it’s spoken
And sometimes hard to understand
Differences so great,
Yet compromised in a single tongue

Reconsider,
German is not as harsh as you think
No anger lies in our tone
Nothing is stuck down our throat
And spoken by the right person
It can be quite melodic

Late night thoughts
In a solitude space drenched by,
White colour; call it a room
Memories a simple solution to escape
Reality, an ordinary moment
Dreaming and wallowing in the past
Lost feelings, experienced once more
It is a troubled track to pursue
I hope you will find your way back

Cautionary visions visit in viciously vivid fashion
I'm dead and my head is missing
Everyone is laughing
        
                     But me

And the sky is sorta dreary but I don't know
With no eyes you don't see too clearly

      Sew me a new one on,
Attached at the neck
Plastic instead of brittle skin and maybe then
     I can exist in some form above the normally gray and grim

    I pray to a faceless facade
            I made a "God" in my head
An eternal alternative to turn to and blame
   And claim to strangers that he works in mysterious ways
        My lips are chafed from singing unheard praises
  
        I'm tasteless and it has me thinking that maybe my mouth was only a product of my imagination
     Food for thought I chew and stop
           Its too **** hot for contemplation

      Still, I used to think my hands belonged to someone else
     Right up until I used them both to **** myself

Whilst you were faithful
The sky stayed blue
The sun shone orange
And the moon stood bland
Then she lied
And lived under covers
Relishing every mistruth she uttered
Reliving every moment she deceived you
But it was a shame
Because you could have walked barefoot
Across the glass shards of her previous embittered pasts
You were willing to live beneath the light
For her.
But human beings hate having to owe anyone
And they hate having to live confined lives
And so she threw it all in the bin
And opted for a life in-between the sheets
Then things fell apart
And suddenly, she realized that the regret she felt was not of the things in the past
But rather, of the future passed
Of the things that could have been
And not those that had not been.

A hasty look, a gentle smile
Another compliment, once in a while
Your sweet touch upon my skin
I enjoy your proximity, my hidden sin
Here and there not too much
How I embrace your gentle touch
Every hug  a second too long
Hidden feelings growing strong
A keeper of secrets, a loyal soul
When will we start to lose control?

Achia,
That's the name of my town.
There's a path surrounded by yellowing bushes that go green in autumn,
Brown in the harmattan,
that joins Achia to Jato-aka town.

At the head of this path is a junction
You'll notice another path to your left here.
And that our own path is to the right of it

I call it our own because that's the only path followed by the villagers.
The other hasn't been in use in recent years
You can see the undergrowth,
Bent and unrepentant,
Daring you to trample on it and watch it regrow

Everytime we use the right, i always wonder
Where would you lead me to, Left?
Are you like many of our life's (in)decisions,
The unexplored choice?
The one that time will eventually erase?

So I've decided,
That the next time we get to that point
I'll take the road less favored
And see the quiet secrets that it has had to maintain over the years.
And i hope that that will make all the difference to it.

Dear great river stream
I am longing for you inside my dream
Peacefully running towards the sea
A familiar feeling of home provided to me

Nothing seems to stand in your way
A path created over time without delay
At leisurely pace you're running by
A beautiful day beneath the blue sky

Treacherous your water can be
Though I am not afraid, as you can see
Always drawn back to you
The sound of water, the pretty view

Regardless of which time or place
A river running by I always embrace
Providing stability, a glimpse of home
Making every location a part of my own

I'm a shallow pond of emptiness,
        but stones were pulled out
before this evaporation of self
                   was but a hollow echo.

Those stones were skimmed on
           the surfaces of others waters,
but where greeted as they sank beneath
              settling within the depths.

I was a collected in the pools of many,
        even though I faded the stones
of myself were collected in others.
                           they never evaporated.

"When one evaporates,
          our condensation will gather within others,
      
*"Rocks sometimes never dry but sink below others pools.