You stood like
A hundred dominoes;
At the foot of my bed, like
At the foot of Vesuvius,
The permanent
Shadow puppets
You left on my walls,
Of Snow Leopards and
Yellow-Eyed Penguins, in
Wilderness,
Smelling of magnolias
And silk.  

-Jamie F. Nugent

We lifted the gates to move them
Over towards the hey-shed,
Spanning out our arms
As to balance the great weight,
Then we fixed them into place,
With twine and knots -
Sharpened a knife with a side-stone
To cut apart a hey-bail
Into more manageable parts      
Then we tossed in in to the pen,  
For nine Holstein calves -

-Jamie F. Nugent

Through the gloom,
The air's brisk bite
Shovelled through and
Down my throat.

As I stood with them,
But alone
Outside your window;
Inside,
Memory
Came back to a mind,
This mind,
Scatterbrained and
Singing lyrics we
Once bellowed to eachother.
You sing and laugh in there still.

The things done in that room which
I'll never set foot in again.

Catharsis and chocolate
Coat shingles of my mouths roof.
This is what happens
When you run out of nothing -
When only a Viking funeral pyar
Would do
For you,
All of you,
Even the parts you couldn't get back,
When you smoked a James Joyce,
While the nurse let you out
For a cigarette.

Girls in tears,
Boys choking on bones of regret.
We're just children
Wanting, teething, weeping;
With a few more grays,
A little less grace, and
Every heart swelling with love,
Bursting into song,
tears, flames.

In nights with no sleep,
Only conversation,
The morning was years away.

It was when my waking eyes
shank into the dent in the bed
                                that I knew.

Torpid, little tense in the neck
the phone dead,
my hand snaking through
       a mesh of wires
to get to the muzzy
                  crux of it,
it was yourself
I turned up tangled in,
found ensnared, redrawn,
in throws, and throngs
            of a clonic cupidity.

That was us
who mangled in the night
like cobras with empty stomachs
Churning round
small nocturnal animals
         in the dark,
even in the dark,
I swore your skin was pellucid.

Sleepy-headed still,
I skedaddled outside
to swallow the rain,
and slumbery remember summer,
when I hopped as light
as bird from brier,
up rises my spirit,
down falls the foot
caked in muck,
schlepping slowly
through the mire.

You've slept in my bed
it seems, for as long
as memory serves,
just one of the many things on Earth
I've noticed and subsequently
           can't unnotice,
like the way in one hears a clock
tick.....tick.......tock......
only when one is listening.

I have noticed
that dent in my bed
grow into a dozing silhouette,
noticed the garden-gate
creek in F minor,
silver cobwebs in the loft,
               distant dogbarks
and a pomegranate stain
on your mother's blouse.

Once, so thickly laden
with expectancy,
                     now I know
that I am
                        no longer
                           Waiting.

Where the sun is down
And the moon is pretty,
Out of town,
Away from the city,
The inside of your mouth tasted like milk,
And all of your skin felt of softest silk,
It wrapped around every bone in your body,
It said leave me alone everybody,
You circle around my soul,
A dead goldfish in a grimy bowl;
So after you blow out all of your candles,
Finished your drink
And slip off your sandals,
What do you think?
Won't you shut off your alarm-clock,
Won't you come see me,
You've got the impenetrable lock,
I have in my pocket, the skeleton key.


-Jamie F. Nugent

I never could play the violin very well,
Unlike banjo, bass or guitar,
Violins require that delicate touch
And precise bow.

It is easy to pluck a banjo
And make it talk.
It is easy to slap a bass
And make it walk.
It is easy to hit and strike a guitar
And make it weep.

And it inconceivably simple
To make a violin stretch,
Just drag the bow,
Be it horsehair or the wood
Across four unbroken sliver strings,
Like a knife.

Making sounds that birth cringe and shiver,
Sickly shaking notes that winge and quiver.

-Jamie F. Nugent

Emerging like an aftertaste:
I only notice now
how sober a light
streams through
the curtains to
smear your cheek
In a milk white wash.

You far off there
wrapped in blankets
like a parcel,
limp limbs wrapped
around and about me,
the bent legs
and elbows jutting
in every direction.

A black trickle of hair
pillowclung,
Peppers its fragrance
like the soft tang
that gingerbread
imparts on the mouth.

We, wordless
and breathless,
were more than a little
ill suited to this,
like two sprawling dogs
on a hot trampoline.

I look real handsome,
In the blind-spot of your eye,
Don't move a muscle.


-Jamie F. Nugent

I want you,

Like a spoiled little child,
Watching that other boy play
With the toy I do not have.

But you are prettier then a doll,
Better put together then Lego,
But you are a Rubik's Cube,
With a thousand colors,

I doubt I can solve.



-Jamie F. Nugent

Standing in the ally to meet a backstreet ***** grinder
With barbed wire wrapped around my ankles,
Lord knows my day could have started out kinder,
And all the Marlboro's under my boot-heels are tangled,
And I found her there with her contagious smile
Even her half-finished glaze that she does twice
Is so infectious and temptingly concise,
It's like a love-letter she writes on the back of your eyelids,
See it glowing in the dark in shades of turquoise, it forbids
Crying out that on one else will ever read it,
Because lots of people want that, few of them need it.

-Jamie F. Nugent

Hard stomaching my insides
even before
these dull black undulations
of Guinness inside of me.

Sequestered in the echoes
of disembodied chatter,
the flagrant words
splutter to the floor;
whereas those same words were before
streamlined in marble aqueducts,
dispatched like love-songs to G-d;
meanwhile a door has opened.

I felt you take my temperature
in a fever-dream, I felt
even in dreams, your quart-clear hand
on a pale damp forehead;

The cold silver stethoscope
counting percussion in my chest,
with no whale-song nor rainfall,
no sound at all save for
the sirens and the foxbark.

Then after a while,
a night of mostly true silence
that left you with nothing to hear,
                 only the ****** functions:

Internal blood pulsations
rhythmically throbbing you find
some cells dying, others being born;
the anti-bodies of body,
the anti-thoughts of my mind.

She will make it better,
at least alleged to,
when, while her nocturnal
might she, with brown bandages
might have still acutely concealed
lips (now purple),
and the same eyes: Blue.
And I knew
that whenever the daylight lit,
didn't I slouch toward it
to be born?

Me, then, knowing no better,
to be warm,
and not yet cold,
not knowing of coldness
or anything at all,
any of it,
this 'this'.

When we shook off the mud,
and all in all in all, with
a wind westerly breaking
foreshadowing shatterings
of antarctic brass monkey *****.

Still some mutterings of mite,
practically blue and purple,
still some mutterings of 'might',
wherever first you felt a light go off
and slouched toward me,
with that stigmata your palm caught
in the crux of a rose-bush.

Wilting on a winter morning,
when foxholes sighed like
moon-creators that have
never know sunlight.

When all things thawed
and turned towards daylight
and shook away the frost;

Windblown brittle bird-nests quivering,
same wind that lashed your
goose-pimpled skin
beneath your raincoat,
your spine shivering,
beneath our blue creaked
lips twist two pairs
of gnashing white teeth
again,
This.

'One glass per person' said the garçon,
I already had more then one and
Didn't really care all too much about it.
But Dayna **** that rule and
Tossed it swiftly out the hotel window.

She started to take glass by bubbly glass,
When the server had his back turned,
There she was, a silent assassin
Gulping in clandestine mouthfuls
Of twos and ones, rarely threes.

Then and only then, when that failed,
Dayna flicked the switch on her
Light-bulb of charm and it shone,
Right into the servers eyes, it shone,
Just enough for a few more glasses.

-Jamie F. Nugent

I am trying to drown out these thoughts of you,
With the crescendo of a piano,
As it weeps in the key of C minor,
And by the pluck of string
After ***** string,
The drone of musettes melancholic,
The THUMP and SMASH of drums,
Getting louder all the time,
Until this room shakes;
Then I'm not the only thing shaking,
I can't feel it in my head,
Just the magnificent thunder in my chest,
And the pounding thud in my stomach,
I wonder how much I can truly take?
I doubt it is much more then this,
I am giving up this fight,
I can't make your heart like mine,
No matter how hard I try,
There will be no encore.    

-Jamie F. Nugent

Memories you modify
To bring out the best of the erstwhile past,
Recollections like confections,
Constructions of reminiscence
That have been build rather then lived;
Sandblasting reality,
Sometimes
You can't take your eyes off actuality,
Sometimes
You don't know where to look.


-Jamie F. Nugent

Sitting on the floor cross-legged,
Leaning against the radiator,
We looked at one another fervently
Through opposite ends of the telescope,
Are you seeing craters on the moon?
Or just the cracked pours of my skin?
When I took my turn I looked down,
Peering into your wishing-well eyes,
That glared through the gloom, like
A kerosene fed Victorian chandelier.

-Jamie F. Nugent

Thoughts about you,
songs about you,
These people about you,
no worries in this world
when they're about you,
nither do I,
I try,
I try not to try to try,
but you've settled down,
gotten comfortable
as if at home,
alone, dinner for one,
all up in my skeleton,
But did I made you up?
No -
you took me down
to the underlying
side of a
melting iceberg,
where the penguins sit upon it
as the sun beats away
like a burning want,
strange animalist desire -
There's no magnetic field on Mars,
There
I wouldn't be pulled
one way or the other way,
There we would
just drift, like
melting icebergs
along red sand,
along mountains
the height of Everest,
almost as high
As I hold
you in my mind,
My closed first,
An open mouth,
could wait,
but it's
adolescent
fantastic fanatic fantasy,
maybe once,
not now,
not later,
but after later
at least,
at last -
45 minute blissful stints
better
the days
after days
after days
of the dull,
and nights
underneath
nights
inside
nights
Of null.

The crab scuttles along the sand,
The tide scuttles over the shore,
A lifeless jellyfish washed up by waves,
In its seaside grave, forevermore.

Dolphins jumping out of the the water,
Over the read sun
Under blue blankets of waves,
On the bed of its horizon.

The seagulls look on and laugh,
The fishes listen and smile,
We will swim in the shallow sea,
And then walk for a while.

Watching the ships return from their voyage,
As they sail slowly into the marina,
The sailors walk by us - nodding-
Into the café brimming with sounds of a concertina.

We stay there 'till the sun's daily death,
In the crowed café under the moon,
And over the skull session, you asked in my ear;
'Shall we leave later or soon?'

It doesn't really matter much to me,
I ask you what do you think,
Taking the endmost of wealth from my pocket,
It is enough for one last drink.

Now, the sea-turtles are gone to bed,
The seagulls, away they have flown,
Drink to health and stub out that cigarette,
For it is time to go home.

-Jamie F. Nugent

Hot tears, streaming down cheeks
like raindrops hitting
on spaceship windows,
just before it leaves this world,
and all it's thin white worry;
Even Lazarus must have counted
the ticking of the clock,
just as his soul imploded
inside the crux of a blackstar;
He blindfolded himself
so we would not see what he saw,
and he never knew the people
he made weep,
but they understood him.

-Jamie F. Nugent

A shaky hand that
possesses paper cuts
and letters of lovers' past
is bleeding brilliant
as a sunset.

Bespectacled milky eyes
twitch in and out
of consciousness
like a revolving door
with no exit.

Misshapen ballerina feet
seize up and cramp,
often their hue goes from
the colour of raw meat,
when until becoming still,
settle into blue.

Warmth goes,
the whole of the body
like a pound-shop doll
after too much play,
is reduced to
an artifact only to be
handled by white gloves,
in a dim room smelling faintly
of dust and mahogany.

In such rooms
often there are
recollections of
the whole of the body,
dancing dances
of rapture and grace
on the tips
of ballerina feet.

A morning that should be bright by now,
But it is just a cacophony of wet leaves,
The back-braking ice marrying the road’s cheek,
And now I stand in it, but I never said goodbye,
How could I?
I was too busy holding on to the bones of a tree,
To get away from swirling drains of
Puddles, eleven stories deep,
Washing away into temporal streams,
My shoes are falling apart and
My mind is wringing wet.

-Jamie F. Nugent

Past-Midnight, post-agrument, pre-dawn,
You make a sudden entrance in this somber room,
Without words or warning,
Your head is buried deep in my shoulder;
You still remain speechless,
But your tears speak volumes,
You wear those teardrops on your cheek
Like the soft silk res dress you wore whilst
Taking my arm and leading me to a rock n' roll dance-floor,
Sway, Sway, Sway in this blaring ballroom,
Sway, Sway, Sway in my arms as you shake, break, weep,
But it will be better in the morning,
When the sun is up,
When your head is clear,
When your mind is right.
Disregard the gloom of last night,
And return back,
In dawn's early bright light.

-Jamie F. Nugent

She boarded the train,
Slowly sitting down in
The seat to my front left.

It was late and
The carriage was bare,
With sleepy passengers
On the night-train,
The near-naked-train.

A few quick glimpses -
Scared she'd see -
I went to retrieve my bag
The other end of the carrige,
On my way down the narrow isle,
More so as to pass her,
Then get my luggage.

I caught her side-profile,
Perfect as a silhouette
Inside a heart-shaped locket.

Her chestnut hair fell down to
Her chest but there it stopped
To smell of hazelnut chocolate.

The beginning of a crack in
Her spectacle lenses and
How her teeth slight showed,
Even her flaws were perfection.

-Jamie F. Nugent

And the kisses became fewer,
The sentences became shorter,
The light-bulb was just about flickering,
The cigarette was just about ash now,
The fire on its deathbed;
Coughing its burning lungs out,
The odds became the ends,
That *****-tonk piano grew more out of tune,
Until there were no tunes at all,
The butterflies flew from our stomachs,
The wild-swans soared from our gardens,
Leaving us to sing our own swansong.

-Jamie F. Nugent

Outside a country cottage,
where the road trails off like a song,
and the paint of its pebble-dash walls
play off the sky's complexion,
your indifferent eyes behold
the curdling clouds above
and scrutinize the strangers under them;
the expectations met like
a faulty firework firmly
mounted in the Earth.

In the garden stands
a Spaniard perplexed
by the novelty of fog
stranded on the hillside
and the absurdness of it
existing outside of a horror movie.
In the course of
a near imperceptible drizzle,
it seemed that the clouds
forgot how to float;
At other times, elsewhere, a refusal
to be so gentle,
to became fused with other things,
to be born from
the seepage of smoke
of more than a million chimneys,
some slink home through it
holding hand-cranked lamps,
others: smaller, older,
wrapped in white sheets,
cough up a whole city.

But we are not there,
we are outside this worn-out cottage,
where all the white cats have blue eyes,
where a bike rests and rusts on an oak tree,
where incredibility is murmured  
in hushed tones of veiled dialect,
where the conversation tapers off
like a half-learned hymn.

We amble on in.

People live in the shadows
Of each other,
People ride on the coattails
Of each other,
People hand out their
Fairweather friendships
To each other,
(But only temperately)
People build walls around
Each other,
And around themselves,
Some people will **** you
With a smile,
Or a kiss,
That drags you down to
The deepest frozen depts,
Until you're at the bottom
Right with all the rest.

- Jamie F. Nugent

The tulips laid in a purple flower-***,
On the dresser top the way she laid
On velvet sheets of a big brass bed;
The radio-void was filled up gently
With classical music and static,
And her innocence showed
In the way she ****** on
A strawberry lollipop
Under velvet sheets
Of the brass bed.

-Jamie F. Nugent

The further out West,
The madder the mad people,
I love the mad ones.


-Jamie F. Nugent

It's always  
so vacant
It's always
so empty inside,
When there is
plenty, and
When there is
plenty to hide -

I love you,
but
sometimes
I mess up,
clasp onto
Apologies
that fit
in a cup -

It's always  
the exact same,
When we (again)  
play this game,
like puppet and
puppeteer,
There's no winner
(or loser) here,
just an imperfect
trifling heart,
Then we go  
right back  
to the start -

-Jamie F. Nugent

I

Bright blues and youthful yellows induce a daze of derealization,
Heavy haptic perfumes fill the nose,
All that is heard is soft music and softer chatter,
Standing among the spring dresses,
Feeling like an odd hallow mannequin,
As pretty girls and ugly women pass by,
The dumb blonde fakely smiles to my aunt;
Who holds up a spring dress.

II

It it Ireland's biggest lingerie section I understand,
I read that....somewhere...



-Jamie F. Nugent

Ro was one of
The prettiest girls
I have ever known,
Her smile was never faked,
Her eyes were rarely anger,
She exuded happiness -
She did not even care
About style or fashion,
She would wear whatever
Fell from her wardrobe first,
She did this unpretentiously,
Never 'trying' to seem nonchalant
As all her cloths were plain
Yet cool as vanilla,
But on the nights outs;
Ro looked like something else,
You should have seen her
With her glasses off and
Her, in her make-up and dress,
She was almost a different girl -
Ro baked cakes, but to say that
Would be an understatement,
They were not 'just' cakes,
They were flowers in pots,
Animals in spring, birds
And trees, and anything else
She could imagine - To me
Ro always seemed to be
More of an artist then a baker -
I hope that some day,
She'll open a little shop
That sells cakes decorated
By her kind hands,
Because I know that
That is Ro's own modest dream,
Because I know that
That would make Ro smile.

-Jamie F. Nugent

I admire the cluster
of photographs
hanging perfectly askew
as you carefully
put our preferred ingredients
between slabs of bread
that you place on plates
then place on the table.

Right now,
as the cat does a figure eight
around my legs
under the table,
you are one billion seconds old  
and have left the tea brewing for too long,
you say, assuaging:
'It takes on a slight bitter taste, but that's about it.'

Seeing her smile
Is like
Reaching into
Your coat
Pocket and
Finding a
Mars Bar
And a
Cumpled €10 note,
Slightly sweeter,
Slightly richer,
Now.


-Jamie F. Nugent

The black cloud will shroud
The multicoloured rainbows -
A hard rain is going to fall -
The honey bear won't wake
From her hibernation,
She will dream of placing
Her paws into golden beehives.

The swallows will migrate swiftly
To African shores of green and blue,
They won't be coming back soon.

Our black-cloud sky
Will be composed of ravens and crows,
Squawking tuneless nocturnes
Whilst pecking at our windowpane.

Where are our rainbows?
Where is our sunshine?
Where have our honey bears
And our swallows gone?


-Jamie F. Nugent

Physically falling apart
Like pound shop Barbies do
After a touch too much -
Love letter paper cuts
Juxtaposed between
Some sordid sore fingers,
The scarlet blood that gushes
Brilliant like a sun-set,
Twitching and gloaming
In, our and around
Consciousness like it is
Revolving door,
Spinning,
Spinning,
Spinning
On ballerina feet,
Turned pink to scarlet,
Made misshapen
By dances
Of rapture
And grace-

-Jamie F. Nugent

While I glance across the road
You're there looking bored
It's me your walking toward,
Tell me something you've adored,
And I'll tell you something that I hate,
All these feelings that are poured,
All those chances too late,
When they are laid to rest,
You hope for the best,
But you expect the worst
Because you think you should &,
You feel that you must
When there's no one you trust,
Except your mother & aunts,
And your pen pal in France,
Because she's not lost in lust,
She's just too scared to love
& you feel the same,
Like life is just this game,
That goes on & on,
Your head weighs a tonne,
Because you're still not done,
Deciding where to run,
When you run away,
when you don't want to play,
This game anymore,
It's really such a bore,
It sends slivers to your core,
It quivers down your spine,
You have your worries,
And I have mine,
But I still would not mind,
Spending some time,
With you,
I'll be true,
Through & through,
Never stumble,
I'll never fall,
I will just call,
Out for you,
All that I drink,
Is water from your sink,
Along with the pill,
That stops me from being ill,
That sails down my throat,
Like a barge or a boat,
I swallow it down,
Along with my pride,
I've everything to say,
I've nothing to hide,
And I would have lied
If I were to say
'You did not take all of my
Breath away'
When you smile that way
From across the street,
Where our eyes meet,
I become undone,
I will run
Over to you,
My darling one.

-Jamie F. Nugent

He slipped those chords in, because
She was a Goth and he thought
She'd be impressed.
He had always been a sucker for
The type she was.

He could not help but submit
Into her being,
Into her eyes, her dark green eyes,
Into her voice, her soft as silk voice,
Into her brown hair, dyed darkest black,
Into her red rosy lips,stained shades of purple lipstick,
Into her ghostly pale skin, forever untouched by a sun,

Her name was Susan, but she rathered Siouxie,
That was what he called his obsession,
His teenage lust.
That burning feeling, that stumbled over him,
Like the edges of the sea crawling over the sand,
Until there was nothing left in him,
But that feeling, and
His knowing that he had to do something about it.

-Jamie F. Nugent

I have measured out
Your sweetness with teaspoons,
I love you without sugar.

I have watched in awe,
As you sat down in the hallways
Of muscle museums and catacomb churches,
I love you without wax.

-Jamie F. Nugent

Filling in the blanks,
The spaces on your mouth,
That have not seen a kiss before,
That space nobody knows,
That place nobody goes,
Shinning candle night-lights on the floor,
I suppose I will just have to do,
I did not believe in anything,
But I believed in you,
Sing to me,sing to me,
Like a ghost burning and bursting
With a long love lost,
Of a 1000 years,
Just give me something that
I can hold on to,
Something I can believe.

-Jamie F. Nugent

Such a love, such a stranger is
A delusion sitting in the rocks,
Inside the water's waves,
A protruding razor-sharp
Mouth pierces the surface,
No other voice sings to me like this
Convincing doppelgänger
In tangled hair like a bird's nest -
It could not hurt that much,
The waters can't be that deep-
It is so easy to kiss lips
That are not that far away,
But In the end;
The animal dies
With fear in his eyes.

-Jamie F. Nugent

Maybe not just now,
It might not be tomorrow,
Soon, we'll wait no more.

-Jamie F. Nugent

I clean when I'm stressed,
The house is spotless right now,
I just try my best.

-Jamie F. Nugent

Under a blue blanket
I taste a breath
like sweet mandolins

rolling over
like some great green wave

out on the grounds
they plucked
plebby-skinned mandarins  

untouched by noon,
stepping gingerly
over the soft roots in the grove
with garbled syntax
worried about a tax on sin
plucking all the grays
from their skulls

untouched by night
plonked in a bed
never dreaming
but sometimes
wishing to be a bed,
or a wardrobe  
or an old chandelier
or dead.

Perfect and elegant, like some statuette,
Impossible to touch
She seems just like a silhouette.
Behind brown eyes,
Behind the looking glass,
She sees
All the men, who've fallen for her,
Their shattered knees.
Unbalanced, I'd become,
Upon passing her on the staircase,
As she'd walk, in her quick pace,
Hair, brown, curly at the ends,
Brushing the banisters top,
Sweet and addictive,
Like a narcotic lollipop.

-Jamie F. Nugent

Loader then bombs,
What happened was unspeakable,
You kept it in your mind,
And Oh My God,
What happened here?

Every nightmare you've ever had,
You've cried out to your mom and dad,
And Oh My God,
What have we here?

You took your secrets,
And buried them in the dirt,
Now, I've no idea,
But Christ it must hurt,
And Oh Sweet Lord,
The tears you've poured.

And Heavenly Angels fall the furthest,
And God knows you don't deserve this.


-Jamie F. Nugent

Take whatever you want from me,
Because I haven't got that much left,
And if you ask me nicely,
Then it won't feel like theft.

I was smiling down the town hall,
With the corner of my lips I sense a dreamcatcher fall,
I said "Hey, darling, why don't you smile with me
We could stretch something sweet"
The dreamcatcher said
"Only if you stop Paris from pondering defeat".

We could close in a while,
Go south down the street and listen in style,
We all just talk until the Morse Code runs out,
It won't be long until the pretty bridge is done.

The still T.S. Elliot sleeps gracefully in the sea
He always kissed the plain train station,
And from their black coats the trumpets gaze,
They stop to touch the streetlights under the sun.

-Jamie F. Nugent

But life's just like that,
Sometimes you open
the kitchen door
to let out a bee,
and a wasp flies in.

What name can I give you?
Surely there are none
and it is pointless to try,
like giving names to
celestial bodies,
or quantum particles.  

I thought I could capture it,
that the gaps would be filled in,
like space between
crocodile teeth
clasped on a zookeeper's hand.
I thought
If I could paint like Wyeth,
I'd have my Helga.

What name do I give you?

Maybe Odessa,
laughing on the crest of a wave,
dragged by purple currents,
among gulls on Earth,
and storms in the sea?

Perhaps Athena,
with gleaming eyes
and an owl in your hand?

Or Queen Maeve,
raw with beauty,
buried upright
facing your enemies?

Infeasible,
but it must be something,
for the shake of necessity,
So as to call out when
loitering on lake's edge,
or from across a room
when I see you there,
uncanny as my reflection
in a convex mirror.

I'll call it out.

It's not that I want to,
but that I do;
Just as frogs jump,
just as the tongue
pushes on the aching tooth,
I see Venice in
cheekbone crevices,
smell Vienna in a tangle of hair.

This tropism is
an elephant stomping
the marrow out of me,
and it's alright,
it feels good,
and Wisdom is her name.

I stood there,
5'11 in secondhand shoes,
by the gate, house of god,
in the sun-drenched midday;
She drove up and parked,
as the bells rang out,
in her stainless sliver car,
newer then her leopard print hat
covering her white hair,
she approached me like a shadow,
twisted and hunting,
I stood there
by my red bucket full of change;
I did not wish her a 'good' morning,
instead just morn',
she walked up without saying a word,
but then,
when she was as close as she could get,
she said in the falsest of tone and substance,
'Good morning' and walked on,
the bucket, no fuller then before,
she walked in,
I doubt she could even spell cerebral palsy.

-Jamie F. Nugent

The sun first rose
when I set sight on you,
the one who crushed up
all credence
with mortar and pestle,
pulverized until
finer than milky
Spanish sand
under the bare foot
of a fat British tourist,
gazing at half-buried
Camels mouthing
the words

"fumar mata."

In a desert,
I waited for dawn,
I danced for rain,
I thought of you,
and that somewhere
there was a little stray
dog lapping up puddle-water,
a Polish beer bottle pressed
to a drunkard's swollen lip,  
like a hose filling up
a plastic blue paddling pool,
while the children stood in the sun.

All along the cove,
a rare pretty sight,
the beach, hot as a stove,
barely a breeze to fly a kite.

When strolling down the strand,
no matter how far I go,
always a few shoulder deep in sand,
thankful the tide is still low.

Inevitable company found here,
Whether wanted or not, fine,
men slugging warm beer,
women sipping white wine.

Lazy Sunday afternoon,
Here, no worry at all,
we leave having done so too soon,
all along the cove, just having a ball.