Even the idea was worthy of a fight
and all too much preparation.
We dolled ourselves up for alienation,
even though the faces present
were so familiar and etched into memory.

Who are you Mr.Cool?
If that is your real name.
Whiskey breath and filterless smokes
only impresses the girls in the movies,
with scripts written by clueless men
like you, who can't supply injury
so they bring only insult.

You are a secretary bird,
a mime, and the copycat kid.
Trying to be a bad boy and hide
amongst the spoiled brats you claim.

Keep on burrowing and severing ties,
ravishing resources leads to ruin.

You say you've heard rumors?
Well, I've heard facts.
I've seen facts!

Your parasitic disguise will crumble
under the weight of your genuinely selfish persona.
While the company I keep will only know
the side you wished to reveal
in front of all the pretty boys and girls.

The tree was the lord of the neighbourhood
For it looked down over all,
Grown on a hill by a sparkling rill
It blossomed from Spring to Fall,
Its vibrant life flowed up from its roots
And broadcast through its leaves,
The warmth of a wise old autocrat
As it nestled into the eaves.

The tree had been there before the house
For a hundred years or so,
The builders wanted to cut it down
But the owner answered, ‘No!
There’s something magic about that tree
And I fear, if its timber falls,
The house you build will be cursed, you see,
I’ll be left with cold stone walls.’

The house changed hands as its owners died
But the tree grew on apace,
The other trees in the valley there
Were humbled by its grace,
Its topmost branch you could see for miles
It was marked on many a map,
They said, ‘Look out for the giant tree
On the hill by Calder’s Gap.’

The house was sold to a man called Binns,
A miserable kind of man,
They said he’d framed the dollar he’d earned
As a boy, while shifting sand,
But wealth had sharpened his temper, he
Was rude, to one and all,
The locals whispered behind their hands,
‘He’s headed for a fall.’

He looked from his bedroom window, and
He said, ‘I hate that tree!
It hides the view of the countryside,
The view that I paid to see.
You mark my words, it’s coming down,
It scrapes my window pane,
And wakes me up in the dead of night
It’ll go by the winter’s rain.’

The branches stroked on the window frame,
The frame was made of wood,
And passed to the tree its tale of shame
The tone of the owner’s mood,
The tree had shuddered, sent waves of pain
Abroad in the midnight air,
Like a cry of help, and its one refrain
Was, ‘Cut me, if you dare!’

The mile-a-minute responded first
Entwined and blocked the door,
Invaded the little garden shed
Where the axe lay on the floor,
It grew incredibly, overnight
As a shield around the tree,
To say, if a vine could really speak,
‘You’ll have to get through me!’

But Binns crawled out through a window,
Red of face and fighting mad,
‘What’s going on with this garden,
Where’s the gardener I had?
He went and got a machete, and
He slashed away at the vine,
Freed the door of its tendrils, and
The shed, in double time.

He found the axe on the earthen floor
And he took it to the tree,
‘You may have stood for a hundred years,
Now you’ll have to deal with me!’
He swung it once and the handle cracked
And splintered up his arm,
There wasn’t anything made of wood
That would do the old tree harm.

The splinter entered a major vein
And his blood dripped on the ground,
Apart from his scream and a sudden hush
There was just one other sound,
A violent cracking above his head
As a tree branch came away,
That hurtled down like a spear, and pinned
His heart to the ground that day.

The tree still towers above the rest
And sways in the slightest breeze,
It stands as a lord of the countryside
For it brought a man to his knees.
The house is ruined, a few stone walls
Still stand, and the curtains flap,
For nobody’s game to build again
Near the Tree by Calder’s Gap!

David Lewis Paget

My language is a dance. When I am excited, the tempo speeds up into a tango; characterized by marked rhythms and postures and abrupt pauses. I am small, but my voice is loud. I will not slump my shoulders, but I will take three steps forward, and no steps back. I will be in your face and I will pronounce my words with my history and I will say "soda" instead of "pop". I will make you hear me.
I speak to myself quietly and talk about pink satin sheets when I'm just trying to talk about the way I feel when I see him walking with her. My feelings are not words, they are colors. I will throw rocks through my own windows just by talking about myself. My language is sliding my test paper a little further past my arm when I can tell that you need help. I will help. My language consists of eye contact and tiptoeing around the question. I spend a lot of my time cursing the name of God in front of Catholics, but I do not mean to. My language is how I was raised, following angry parents through hallways and repeating words that should not have been repeated. I stumble and trip over my words like tree roots when I read out loud to the class. My language is not unique because I trace my words over everything that has ever been said around me. When I'm sad, my language is a slow dance in a burning room because I'm repeating everything bad I've ever said about myself, I'm repeating everything bad I've ever said about myself. My language is my environment; it is not unique, it is just there. My catch phrases are built on bruises caused by being shoved into lockers, but this is not sixth grade anymore. People are not "*******"; they are human, and I am sorry. Language is built upon every bad thing that has ever happened, and every reaction to it.

Tethered no more by this umbilical chain
We break through the shell - Burst through the seed
Fingers laced and reaching up toward the big blue
Eyes gaining sight, sight meeting light
We bathe ourselves in the warming glow
Sol's sweet kiss to ease and simmer
Terra's touch to point the steps
We haven't much further to climb
-
Tree of Life - Home - Mother - Bed
Your roots we leave for Eden
Sky of Thought - Dream - Father- Blanket
Your wind will guide our wings
We gain friend in fire, rock, and storm
To tinker with the gifts of Titans
Together we rise and seek the stars
So we may spread the songs and preach the past
-
We go by Gaea, We go by God
Underneath our pagan star's shine
At night, symphonies will charm them
And we dance together until we fade
gain we lay into the palms of dream
The fingers of sleep, clench to a fist
Grinding us down to the finest of dusts
To glow and blow into the zephyrs
-

Fed me an omelette for dinner, oven-roasted tomatoes,
Smoked mozzarella, my fav, sliced so thin and layered in.
A focaccia roll, watermelon dessert.
It was her poem for me.
But that love devil kept refilling my glass, with her beloved
Summer rose wine.

I cleaned up for that's our deal, the one she never asked for, but is only
Fair in love.

Made it to the bed and Pandora.

About 30 seconds later, someone took my tablet from my arms, from my closing eyes, kissed me, and when I awoke at 4:00am, I recalled this from my sewing box.
Now, the poem*

There are kisses to keep

(Oct. 2010)

as I am laid to sleep,
there are kisses to keep,
gently placed on my
neck and head,
as I am tucked into bed,
travel packed,
well stored,
like important facts, safe kept,
as into the nether world
of the subconscious I am swept

Mid eve, tween nine and ten,
this runner's forward motion
is stopped short of the goal line,
but his mates, second surgers,
carry him on her shoulders,
his body do they extend,
victory celebrated with
eyes shut and
body prone,
his dream skills
well honed,
with kisses to keep,
he, dispatched to the battlefield,
Poetry Gods to meet,
daily actions,
submitted for peer review,
and perhaps!
promoted and gifted a daily add-on or
perhaps! Death's tenure secured?

Unwavering to sounds of song,
ancient paths retread,
till the front edge
of danger reached,
the TSA soul search commenced,

the child of ten times six,
drugs taken,
memory enhanced whispers of
revolution(s), circularity,
in headset stereo whispered.

his comrades George and John,
wounded to the death,
nighttime friends
greet this nightly stalker,
sojourner to the middle nether-lands,
with water and refreshments

Doth he survive,
Doth he return?

Of course he does,
dear friend and **** fool,
this nighttime essay,
his just reward
and another curse for
your forbearance

His safe return,
wounds
In need of tending,
kisses he receives from a
grateful nation of one,
kisses to keep safe as he
forwards on into
daytime battle of
interest rates,
to multiple fronts dispatched
and in ten long hours
he passes thru Ontario,
turns round, heads down
to samba in Rio De Janeiro,
and on his way to
New South Wales n' Sydney,
stops for herring
on the wharves of Oslo,
washed down with a pint
from his favorite pub in London town

He is short and caught?
He is long and wrong?
For sure he is stressed,
head messed, and when the whistle blows,
the words of his
prior excursion, the night version,
call and comfort,
for he attended again with the relief
of fresh and new
kisses to keep

Words of this ilk
have been penned before, by me, I am sure,
but too bad for you
and me too,
newer versions will continue
to appear, in order that
I may deserve
fresh kisses
to keep.

This will end when one of us dies.

“Wake up dear, got something to tell you,
I have ceased to love you”.
“Oh, I knew it all along”, she said,
“but didn’t let you know I knew! ”
“I knew you were soon done with me,
but made it up by a pretense of love,
and it must have been so painful for you”.
“Why, dear? Why didn’t you tell me? ”
“cause sometimes the best place for truth
is in the heart, that’s why! ”
“what’s the truth you guarded in your heart? ”
“it matters little to you,  it was my selfishness”
“what selfishness? ”, I cried,
“loving you knowing it would not come back! ”

I woke up from the dream and knew….
I couldn’t let it out of my heart!

He lies wide eyed.

The opaque stream reflects no sky
betrays no emotions
nothing is impressed on the canvas anymore.

‘Wide eyed’
that’s how he was described by all
as he gave everything a riveting look
stopped on the way of his routine chores
lost in his own wandering thoughts
stealing and storing on those orifice
the wonders that often pass as mundane
letting not the smallest bit to escape
like a crazy collector on a wild run of filling his scrapbook.

He lies wide eyed.

His unblinking eyes still in awe of the stored marvels
and silently pleading the approaching fingers
not to shut them!

I keep telling myself to take a break from poetry
loving,

But then life
And you, insert yourself
Into me,
Pincer and Fist,
      
I am ****** once again.
I am broken once again.
Poetry patches me up, sometimes....

But any addiction is bad, even poetry, even caring.