When the Himalayan peasant meets the he-bear in his pride,
He shouts to scare the monster, who will often turn aside.
But the she-bear thus accosted rends the peasant tooth and nail.
For the female of the species is more deadly than the male.

When Nag the basking cobra hears the careless foot of man,
He will sometimes wriggle sideways and avoid it if he can.
But his mate makes no such motion where she camps beside the trail.
For the female of the species is more deadly than the male.

When the early Jesuit fathers preached to Hurons and Choctaws,
They prayed to be delivered from the vengeance of the squaws.
’Twas the women, not the warriors, turned those stark enthusiasts pale.
For the female of the species is more deadly than the male.

Man’s timid heart is bursting with the things he must not say,
For the Woman that God gave him isn’t his to give away;
But when hunter meets with husband, each confirms the other’s tale—
The female of the species is more deadly than the male.

Man, a bear in most relations-worm and savage otherwise,—
Man propounds negotiations, Man accepts the compromise.
Very rarely will he squarely push the logic of a fact
To its ultimate conclusion in unmitigated act.

Fear, or foolishness, impels him, ere he lay the wicked low,
To concede some form of trial even to his fiercest foe.
Mirth obscene diverts his anger—Doubt and Pity oft perplex
Him in dealing with an issue— to the scandal of The ***!

But the Woman that God gave him, every fibre of her frame
Proves her launched for one sole issue, armed and engined for the same;
And to serve that single issue, lest the generations fail,
The female of the species must be deadlier than the male.

She who faces Death by torture for each life beneath her breast
May not deal in doubt or pity—must not swerve for fact or jest.
These be purely male diversions—not in these her honour dwells.
She the Other Law we live by, is that Law and nothing else.

She can bring no more to living than the powers that make her great
As the Mother of the Infant and the Mistress of the Mate.
And when Babe and Man are lacking and she strides unclaimed to claim
Her right as femme (and baron), her equipment is the same.

She is wedded to convictions—in default of grosser ties;
Her contentions are her children, Heaven help him who denies!—
He will meet no suave discussion, but the instant, white-hot, wild,
Wakened female of the species warring as for spouse and child.

Unprovoked and awful charges— even so the she-bear fights,
Speech that drips, corrodes, and poisons—even so the cobra bites,
Scientific vivisection of one nerve till it is raw
And the victim writhes in anguish—like the Jesuit with the squaw!

So it cames that Man, the coward, when he gathers to confer
With his fellow-braves in council, dare not leave a place for her
Where, at war with Life and Conscience, he uplifts his erring hands
To some God of Abstract Justice—which no woman understands.

And Man knows it! Knows, moreover, that the Woman that God gave him
Must command but may not govern—shall enthral but not enslave him.
And She knows, because She warns him, and Her instincts never fail,
That the Female of Her Species is more deadly than the Male.

The weight removed
From my very chest
Heavy and debilitating  
                Breathe
My thoughts silenced
Only for a moment
Then back again
                Breathe
Self hatred inside
My soul being drained
Earthly body fragile
                 Breathe
Breakable with touch
The weight lifted
Lungs are full
                **Breathe

I wish that I
could fall in love
with a female,
for she would make
a far better muse than
the gruff sailors and musicians
and drunks and men
in general that I am
inclined to crave.

to write about
a painted pout or
skin that brushes against
your own like nylon,
sunlight shining through
the window onto a Cupid's bow
and dancing down to
a delicate clavicle, or
black eyelashes that bat
and blink remorse
into your cavernous heart,
to muse over such aesthetic
delights, would be
ecstasy for my poetess heart.

I linger, staring, at beautiful
women, androgynous women,
delicate, feline women,
stringing words
together in my head
over long legs and
hair that flutters like silk,
and they think I'm crazy
or in love with them.
well, maybe I am crazy,
but I crawl into bed each night
with my snarling, gleaming,
mahogany gentleman,
and I love him madly,
my rugged muse.

I feel I am the living dead,
A staggering soul wandering
Across brittle, rocky, dark terrain,
Which has still more life than I.

Through lifeless eyes I still can see
That I am but a stranger here -
An undeterred tourist
With no purpose
And no path,
Merely here
To enjoy the scenery.


All those
Who I once knew
Are still the same,
Have never changed,
But it is instead
Me
Who has changed,
And so it might as well
Have been
That they did, too.

For we no longer
Share a home,
No.

Home?

Do I have one?

I used to think so.

But life's incessant patterns
Continuing
With a brutal
And mocking
Repetition,
Drove me out of that land.

I needed change.

A change, yes!
Why, of course!

A shocking concept
So common
So simple
I wondered why
I had only thought of it now.

So it was over
My weary shoulder
I slung my tiny pack
Of simple things -
Hope,
Determination,
And strength,
And from no
Particular direction,
Headed in the very same,
I left.

And lost myself
Along a dirt road,
A beaten path,
Traveled by so many others
Whom no one hears from now.

They are, like me,
The living dead.
The silent travelers
Who still exist
But in a different place
From what we see.

A quiet place
Behind an invisible wall,
Which is to say
They are among us,
And we could,
Should,
See them,
If only we would look.

I am sure
So many think
That I know some of them.
I do not.
Why?
Because we
Are not a people,
Not a group
Which joins together.
Instead, we wander alone,
Looking in from the outside.

It is not our desire
To find others like us,
To exist on our own
Where no one knows we are.


It is not that we have died,
No,
We are very much alive.

But we have moved on.

We are the living dead.

We have let go of
Everything
That made us,
That once composed
Our beings
And our lives.

That pattern that I spoke of -
It is tiring, you know.
You realize that
The same routine,
The same places,
The same ways of life,
Become a rather daunting,
Exhausting task,
As opposed to being
The joy of living.

There are those
Who had no choice,
Who existed as
Limp puppets,
Having their every move
Controlled
By hands they could not see or feel,
But knew quite well were there.

I, too, have been there.

But!

Even dictating
My own rules
Was not enough.
Still the patterns
Followed me,
And with frightening fervor
Attempted to define me.

But in a moment of clarity,
A glimpse of sunlight
Through a crack
In the prison wall,
I summoned a strength
And energy
I knew not
That I possessed.

And so,
Without ever meeting them,
Speaking to them,
Or truly knowing they existed,
I joined them,
The living dead.

What it was
That we lived for,
That we strove for,
That we laughed,
Cried,
And sacrificed for,
Slowly,
Slowly,
Passed on.

With the chains
That had bound us,
All of those things
Passed away.

Dissolved into a sweet
Yet bitter smoke -
A gracious,
Graceful wisp
From a gentle power
I cannot see.

To lose your life
Is not so tragic
As they tell you.
It is but
An unreal relief
That no drug
Can provide,
Only available
To those who
Truly desire it.

To lose your life is,
In fact,
To realize that you
Were never alive
Before that moment.
You only dreamt
The things you did,
Words you said,
Faces you saw,
Hands you held,
Bonds you formed,
Steps you took...
None of it was real.

Some take longer
To leave that
Dreamland,
A place where they feel safe,
Where they believe
That everything,
Including themselves,
Is in place.

Others do not leave at all,
And so they do not exist.
They immerse themselves
In a place
Where we cannot find them,
Where they cannot be rescued.

They remain among
The common living.

But I,
I,
Through clouds
Of silver smoke
And painless fire,
Through blinding
starry nights
And endless days,
Through gentle forests
And lethal gardens,
Found my way.


It does not hurt,
No.

It is but a surreal
And binding release
Of all that you knew,
And all that you were,
Into the depths of space
From which no man,
No machine,
No lifeform
Unknown to us,
May retrieve it
In even the greatest attempts
To bring back
Into the present
What is now cemented
In the past.


I walk among the
Common living
Each day,
Wandering,
Wondering,
Watching.

Their lives
Are not so different from mine.
They only lead them
In a different world.


I feel I am the living dead.
A steady soul limbering
Across a paradisiacal plain.
Which, as you well know,
Could have no more life than I.

Your smile spreads across your face like a butterfly,
And glistens like sunlight reflecting fleeting white flashes
Off of rippling blue waves.  Only,
Your smile does not give the peace of vast emptiness
That comes from the beam of nature, alone.
Instead, it awakens a passion from numbness that

It is real, not just in some novels or the movies,

For us--Oh, how I hoped it was real!
I dreamed the monarch you showed me was intrinsically for me.
My blind heart, overflowing, pled to know you-
What your smile was for and how to make it flutter
Again and again, and you, too, would've seen mine for its essence,
Understanding that one was special, secure, reserved for you.