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I.
Lain down, unconcealed
toward the window
shoulder to hip -- a shadowy cursive
perhaps penumbra

II.
Seated, face in utter profile
standing, sorting laundry
washing dishes, guarding
the radiator

III.
Hair eschewed in
conjugated waters
double-exposed
roots and
foliage -- wisps
of sugarland
in subtext
their dark net
cast over a pearly bright sea
discovery left
to the imagination
For Eleanor Callahan
To Thomas, Keeper of the Bones

You cradle the restless marrow of midnight musings— those skeletal whispers that rattle beneath the skin of sleep. Where others dream and forget, you scribble resurrection on the back of darkness.

Your pen is a lantern in the fog of sirens, a net cast deep into the kraken’s yawn. You fish for ghosts and feed the starving soul with lines that bleed and bloom.

Bravo again, you old conjurer— you’ve made the bones dance.

M.
For dear Thomas W Case conjurer of words, rattler of bones
and poetic supremo
Of "Writing Through Storms"
and still I have to stop and think, is it forwards, backwards, and do they know about Daylight Savings TIme, saving who from what,
I jokingly ask myself, to give my sweet angst, a a better coloration,
though these days, constant comets pass over us daily

but he is savvy smart, and yes, extraordinarily ****, and  knows my routines (he thinks), better than me, so when I drive  to  run in Santa Monica, alternating days, he texts in simultaneous harmony a minute after my too early alarm has me stumbling into semi-Cali-
quake-fulness

we are years apart, not so many that it's remarkable, just big enough gap, to make life problematical; his  career launched, serious guy,, me well, i'm a perpetual student, when not modeling, and my mom, GBH,  and my over pestering, now single parent, demonstrate her mathematical abilities by telling me how closehow close  is 30 is when one subtracts  my "aging pores," & how little sleep she gets because she in in her EST zone

but when he calls, he calls at irregular times, "to better gauge my mood," how he, my day surveils, so he can adjust to my chemical imbalance, an area of his expertise; and its sweet, and it works, and too often, I ramble while listens, for his day is ending, and mine is far from fulfillment

he is European, full of genteel words and english language quips,
especially since he believes he can still sway with his sophisticated
endearments;  but what he doesn't know in the late afternoon, his bedtime, while  he is conducting a sweet nothing roundup of   adoration, my hand slips between my legs, and my envisioning of his lean, broad body being in my interior so tight, for I have crossed my crushing legs behind his back pushing him inside, it nearly makes  breathing impossible

HE LOVES MY SOfT TONES, at this hour, my distracted noises, til he says you sound so tired, I'll let you go; and I willingly, comp-licitly, give him my heated best love notes, and teary gasps, when I mumble
see you soon, thinking in my dreams, for I know his schedule, and exactly when I'll be landing and exactly how long it will be,
till we, are within each other, without any interference, of lairs and
sun flaring interruptions,
from time
and space, those scientific laws of this tiring
annus horribilis
She takes what isn't hers like a burglar.  
Her spouse wed his lover.  
She shut her eyes and once more she lost him to that witch.  
She views him as all-powerful.  
Finally! She wears his ring.  
Now it’s time to hold her tongue and demonstrate to the world that she belongs to Master Shingh.  
What goes around comes back around; karma is a trickster.  
Now it’s casual intimacy with Tess the slutty switch.  
He smiles; she chuckles.  
He slows down; she accelerates.  
He sneezes, she responds with “bless you.”  
She embarked on her new life without hesitation.  
To her, the man is all-powerful.  
She reverses the ground he treads.  
“Yes, master; no, master”—somehow, she manages to love, respect, and obey.  
She takes things like a thief.
I am not a poet.
I am only a wanderer in the marketplace of words,
a fool who follows the glimmer of syllables
as others follow the scent of bread.
Poetry is not ink on paper.
It is the pulse beneath the page
a breath moving through the hollow reed of the poet,
a secret that leans close to the ear of the heart.
When I meet a poem, I bow.
I circle it once,
then twice,
then again,
as though it were a shrine whose mystery
can never be entered in a single step.
Each reading strips away a veil.
Sometimes the veil is my own blindness,
sometimes the poet’s mercy in hiding the flame
until I am ready.
There are nights I leap from sleep crying, I have it!
and mornings when the truth laughs,
gently reminding me:
Child, that was only the shadow of the meaning
come back, and drink deeper.
Poetry is a journey without map or return.
It is the caravan of joy
that passes through my heart again and again.
Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
Dispatches for the Colonial Office

                         As You Sometimes Gently Remind Me…


                                One day I'll suddenly recall:
                                The sun exists!

                           Pasternak, “About These Poems”1


When the world focuses on a sheet of paper
In a little room where hopes have come to die
The pen can’t write out a prescription for life
Or limn the remedies for a fallen world

We begin our days as did Pasternak
A cup of tea against the fear, the fear
Unsure of the conflicting daily edicts
The babblings about ballrooms, tariffs, and arrests

Pasternak opened a window to light and fair

And to the children playing in the snow he cried,
“My dears, what century is it outside?”


1Translations vary
I hibernate like a bear, but not from winter, from the world.
When I witnessed a rare fragility of the rain unbecoming—pouring its madness, tears following the wind that brings me to a place where I knew I witnessed an unfortunate crime, an absence of an absolute evil—cruel crime I would not be able to forget; the great tragedy of what was once.

It was all I saw.
It was all I felt.
It was all I knew.

The comfort and the gruesome thought of being a witness to it all—to the chaos, the fraudulent rage of the supposed love I knew; until I became a victim of it.

…and the absence of my answered prayer turned to basking in idiotic romantic fantasies I had built. All that interested me was the world I created inside this big rotten head of mine.

What an unfortunate time to be a witness in an unfortunate crime called: the absence of love.

While odd things create reality, dreams do come true, a bittersweet goodbye turns to a sweet return. All I know is once in a while, there comes an absence. How do I return the sparks back?
for the love that disappeared quietly. in a rushed hush tone, familiar random day a few years back.

song: lover, you should’ve come over - jeff buckley
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