I am wandering in the grove.
From out of the darkness
Christopher John appears perched
on an old ash stump
giving a speech about Robert Mitchum
and his performance in Farewell, My Lovely.
I want to say "right on",
but my voice only whimpers.
He doesn't notice me in the shadows.
I close my eyes and his voice fades to a whisper,
then nothing.
My thoughts drift along to pictures of liberty concerned porcupines.
-
I am wandering in the grove.
Against the shady walnut
Elby Marcellous husks the meat from a shell
and tosses it to his canvas shoed feet.
"You ought'learn a trade kid, it'll save yer ***."
His mouth never moves.
A *****, navy blue sweat suit; fruit of the loom.
Hundreds of construction paper stars
glued to a bedroom wall,
and a legacy of tall tales and unrequited favors
for the train hopping rambling man.
Comeback Jack, come back Jill.
-
I am wandering in the grove.
My house slippers were not the best choice of shoes.
There is plenty of mud from the gather dew,
and the rocks are jagged and unforgiving.
The Sylvan's planted the trees here,
Roger and I dug the holes by hand,
Roberta watered them each with care.
The Eastern-kin cut a lot of them down
to help feed their Dionysian pyres.  
At least they left the mulberries,
so the birds still get their colors in the spring.
The songs need the full prism to translate properly.
-
I am wandering in the grove.
There she is.
My feet were tugging me due west the entire time,
I could feel it.
And there she is,
underneath the sycamore like a sore thumb.
I want to cry, I want to run,
but the song comes crooning out.
It is our instinct to dig our nails in
and tear each other apart from the bone,
but we sing the refrain, paralyzed,
feet tied to the ground with pyrite bands.
-
red, orange, yellow
I'm seventeen, long-haired, and screaming my lungs out.
green, blue, violet
I'm throwing verbal punches from sixty-two miles away.
red, orange, yellow
There's no where to be, and no one to impress.
green, blue, violet
Two cities weave troubling stories well.
Everything shifts to ethereal indigo,
things shake around a bit, but nothing seems to be any different.
I awake, rid of my flaxen shackles, but bruised.
The scent of thirteen perfumes linger in the breeze.
-
I am wandering in the grove.
A quilt tied to my neck for a cape,
serves as a warm shield against the cold night.
I found a rusty lantern, half-filled with oil and
with working wick, I venture on.
There is a crunch of brown-red leaves with every step
that I take in song-less stride.
The moon is new, the deer are charged in estrus.
Every creature I happen upon is speaking
in some strange tongue to which I cannot comprehend.
I try to motion that my hunger has become dire,
but no eyes are lifted, no responses given.
-
"Hurry now, no time to dawdle,
we have to make it to market before
they sell all of the livestock, and the farmers
decide to call it a day; no naive pockets."
-
"That rotten boy was a **** from the placenta,
and his mother was a crystalline chimera
made from chemicals in one of those zygote-vats.
Nothing was natural from that household; that bloodline."
-
"The day will come when we need a place to go,
but we can't ever go down the winding path
or Mama-Bog will come crawling out of the mud
and take away your sister like she did Papa."
-
"My eyes saw what I would never believe again;
the town was gone. Not destroyed, not missing,
not packed up and on it's way, but gone.
The **** place had never been there to begin with."
-
"There was once a planet between Mars and Jupiter
that was the home of a peculiar race of fungus.
The planet was bombarded by a multi-nation nuclear strike
when the fungus was found to secrete [OMITTED]."
-
"No, my sister left about three months ago, mister.
Said she was headin' into the city to try and get a job waitressin'.
If she were to just up and leave the quadrant she'd say something,
or at least update her ping location on her bio-input; sheesh, guy!"
-
I am wandering in the grove
and the trees are weighed down with ripened fruit.
Muninn and Huginn take flight.
Tap on the stained glass windows of the cathedral
as if the hounds were nipping at your heels.
There was a time when wings alone were enough
now the game has change, the cards disguised.
No direct line to the big man.

We don’t need swaying palm trees and cicadas,
Not to feel as if we have stepped into paradise,
Cradled in the still, warm shadow of devotion,
We are soothingly bathed in love’s sweet heat.

Emotion surges within, rising, an upwelling,
Breaking with the speed of a tropical storm,
We are saturated with loving, wholly drenched,
The feeling; as water offered to a parched soul.

With burning words we urge our worlds to merge,
Unexpected blending during the summer of our lives,
Forging an alloy of free-flowing emotion, so powerful,
So intense, we are captured by its undeniable allure.

We don’t ever need to speak of our love aloud: no,
Finding our affirmation in the sighs between lines,
The liquid longing whispered into stories that we build,
Mirroring our deep desires, hopes and needs fulfilled.

From heady dreams, creating our own sweet heat,
Exploring unconditional passion, trembling, complete,
On cold, starry nights, embracing, sated, warm, alive,
Our coalescing, enraptured spirits, breathlessly writhe.

Across the challenging separation of distant night,
Languishing on the cusp of sleep, edging dreams,
Images rise, silken gossamer threads of thought,
Brushing against latent desires, calling, calling.

Irresistibly drawn together, ah, sharing the dream,
Thrumming pulses racing as we gently caress,
Languorous kisses, hot, sweet and hungry, we love,
Sleep entwined in moonlight, streaming from above.

I am the flightless pelican.
I’ve found myself with my mouth full,
my stomach full, and so much still on my plate.
Possessed by an inhuman hunger,
I will gorge upon pure potential.
I will yowl on and on, without sleep.
-
I have sand between my toes.
My shoes are glued to my feet.
Keep on running ‘til the calluses come.
There has to be a point where I stop to sweat,
and I’ll finally get my sigh of relief.
I have one ride left on my bus pass.
-
I have a tendency to ramble
and languish in my own stench.
People tend to forget this at first;
lured in by the false face of a genetic fluke.
They want to know the impression I left,
not the procrastinator; the cud-chewing goat.
-
I can’t sleep being held,
or if I feel someone’s breath in the still.
I start to feel the urge to burrow
into the quiet quilts; patchwork Promised Land.
I cater to the crowd that caters to themselves,
but I’m no Utilitarian. Fox and Lion.
-
I have cousins like brothers,
and I have brothers like strangers.
Stray cats with names
and a copy of The Mahabharata that I stash my money in.
I’m sitting on a sunny pier with my hook in the water;
avoiding conflict with no bait.  
-
Paper cuts from the gold leaf
on the edges of hymn book pages
with burgundy leather covers.
These guilty cuts, bleeding for what seems like hours,
while we steadily forget that anyone was singing.
Alone with our thoughts in the crowd.

I love things you dislike about
yourself.
you are more beautiful to me
now than ever.

I watch your details.
discover something new about
your laugh daily.

angles, lighting, a line revealed,
a curve.

collecting every little imperfection,
seeing their whole as

perfection.

your voice soothes me.
your touch rebuilds my
confidence.

any movement you make now,
is dance.

We* often *Owned, what We don’t Own.
Being  Possessive, We become Invasive.

                 - We often Neutralize, what We can’t Realize.
                     - Full Realization comes after the Actual Destruction.
Creating our own Ending.



*© Pax

they say the way to a mans heart is through his stomach,
i guess they never met a poet,
id take feeling and a fountain pen,
feelings soft and vibrant whims,
eyes of fire and knowing grins,
soft spoken; knowing flames dont end
but schnitzel wouldn't hurt either.