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Tempestuous longings from behind the screen of life’s moving picture
You stare back at me, in a glimmering, shimmering afterthought
Laid low by foregoing passion
In a moment’s torrid glimpse from our hollow reflections
Fragrant evenings during seasons of filming
Solemnly captured and revised then experienced
The all encompassing struggle with context and setting
Abides a steely night, in the rustle of autumn branches
Requiem for an unremitting beloved!
Sung in the valley between piercing peaks of sorrow
She floats through the scene as distinct aura and vague essence
An embrace from the trail of vapors and misspent gestures
All emanating from a glass of cider beneath nostrils
Gracefully, you embank on the wind of time’s shadow
And nudge my cheek with impetus and vigor
Lashing out at my skin in ambivalent revelry
As if my follicles were vacuous caverns
Catching the callous moments which flutter the ***** of hillside tents
The unearthly gusts of banality extinguish the projector’s gleam
While nature embodies your beauty furthermore
Toward the end of the pathway
And the credits of the film
And the allegro of the score
And the solitude of eternity
And the rustling of the branches
Marooned

Vapid beauty of this room
Frothing carpet, ocean blue
One wall me, the other you
What lies between is residue

Scribed on soggy, shipwrecked parchment
Questions asked, time forgotten
Who are we?
What do we know?
Into these questions Summer flows
And thrashes at your Autumn’s brinks
Yearlong they torment my brain
Infringing on every season

If not for the manic scheme
To love and having loved be loved
This correspondence to a distant land
With stars, more numerous and brightly lit
Than my burgeoning highway exit
Would by no means have left my hand

But if, against all odds, it will prevail
Extolling truth’s folly, my sorrowful tale
Quells with reason my groundless pride
At having docked on your passionless harbor
Unloading platonic cargo during our youth’s ebbing tide
Must not create union of body or mind
You swallow my horizon, like the sun twilight
Though, one need not chase that orange orb for tomorrow

In this night without fortitude, lewd humor consumes me
Singing with the mouth on my head and your voice inside
I plunge into darkness
Skimming its silky surface
Before zipping it behind me

Shall I drown, as I have lived?
In vain, my dreams your subjects
Taken for ransom in your heart’s Tripoli
Not surmising recompense, I forfeit this
A note belying resonance
Of my heart’s last echoed throe
One desperate effort, giving up
Feed every vestige to the void
Wading, torso encumbered
Each sullen relic of your memory
Falls to the deep’s frigid ebony
Then, only too late am I cognizant
That my own breath is tribute yet spent
Therefore if I were to float or swim
I’d give you every ounce of who I am
Convince you to relinquish me
From your tepid, spurning sea
Then lying beneath moist underbrush
Slowly, breathe no more
MMX

This is basically a revision of my poem Anstoss

My recitation here:
http://youtu.be/v7LdsUwUCEM
So, it came to pass in those days
the last of the wild things crept
into their dens, caves, nests and burrows,
and passed from the knowledge of man.
The fish stopped swimming
and the birds...stopped flying,
the flowers stopped blooming
and man noticed not.
In those days,
the sea died
and the land became sterile
except for the places kept alive by force.
And all that remained living,
was suffered to exist
in order to feed,
clothe
or amuse mankind.
Their abodes spread like a blight
across the surface of the earth
and the light from their habitations
blotted out the stars
but no one looked skywards.
And in those days,
God bowed his head and disowned his creation
but man ignored his orphanage.
There was nothing left divine,
just profits and loss
and everything had a price
but nothing value.

Then one night a freak accident happened
the lights went out
and the stars appeared.
Great men ran in the streets
weeping in fear at the unknown sky.
They were certain that the end had come.
Slack jawed they stood there staring,
until they realized
that their all powerful machines had fallen silent
and the world was quiet.
No breeze caressed their cheek.
No wind rustled through the trees
for there were no trees,
and no birds sang,
not even a funeral dirge.
There were no ripples on the pond
or waves upon the sea,
just the silence of the dead.
And in that time, man understood
what he had done
and understood he was alone.
He hung his head to cry
and none were there to sympathize.
His heart ached at the knowledge of his fate.
So it came to pass in those days
that the ***** of man failed and lust died.
And mankind, shamed before his own eyes
bowed his head and walked into the void
unmourned.
 Oct 2010 Rachel Sterling
Lucan
Say you want a cat. A dog's too easy,
would wag when wag is inappropriate,
and slobber on the guests. You'll take the cat,
so different and strange, it drives you crazy,

its shiftlessness, its ins-and-outs, its chi.
You call. It does not come. Is this a pet,
this Dharma ***? You say you can't accept
its vacant gaze, its scorn, who yearned to be

at home with feral grace, with all you're not.
But you're a Body safely locked from Mind,
that Problem no Mind solves. This point's defined
for you by ****, who's not the pet you thought

but Otherness, one owned by God, or none.
Cat sleeps for hours, wants out. A job well done.
an angry,
angry refrain

you failed again
again
again

but that’s not the problem
you are

you,
are.

doing something once
is simple and
real

but
doing it over
and over and over
is when there’s something

wrong

the x factor
in the equation
and you refuse
to change it

an angry,
angry refrain

you look at yourself
and weep

you failed again
again
It begins
With one breath
And ends
With one hundred
One hundred hearts
Beating as one
Thunder in our blood
Lightning in our lungs
Notes fell like rain
Down
    Down
        Down
Onto our parched and thirsty tongues

Feast your ears
Close your eyes
And let bass notes hum through you
As the sopranos soar above
Let the altos
Catch your heart and squeeze
Just a little
Just a little
As the tenors serenade you

Come and join us, friend,
Come and dance with us!
Drink with us
Of Melody
And be quenched
By Harmony
Let your heart be freed
Fly high, oh soul!
Soak up our joy, friend,
Let us lift you up and then
Gently
So gently
Set you down
With a whisper
With a prayer

With one breath
One hundred souls
S i g h
And, so, they sleep
To wait for the rain
To come again
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