It is full winter now:  the trees are bare,
Save where the cattle huddle from the cold
Beneath the pine, for it doth never wear
The autumn’s gaudy livery whose gold
Her jealous brother pilfers, but is true
To the green doublet; bitter is the wind, as though it blew

From Saturn’s cave; a few thin wisps of hay
Lie on the sharp black hedges, where the wain
Dragged the sweet pillage of a summer’s day
From the low meadows up the narrow lane;
Upon the half-thawed snow the bleating sheep
Press close against the hurdles, and the shivering house-dogs creep

From the shut stable to the frozen stream
And back again disconsolate, and miss
The bawling shepherds and the noisy team;
And overhead in circling listlessness
The cawing rooks whirl round the frosted stack,
Or crowd the dripping boughs; and in the fen the ice-pools crack

Where the gaunt bittern stalks among the reeds
And ***** his wings, and stretches back his neck,
And hoots to see the moon; across the meads
Limps the poor frightened hare, a little speck;
And a stray seamew with its fretful cry
Flits like a sudden drift of snow against the dull grey sky.

Full winter:  and the ***** goodman brings
His load of ******* from the chilly byre,
And stamps his feet upon the hearth, and flings
The sappy billets on the waning fire,
And laughs to see the sudden lightening scare
His children at their play, and yet,—the spring is in the air;

Already the slim crocus stirs the snow,
And soon yon blanched fields will bloom again
With nodding cowslips for some lad to mow,
For with the first warm kisses of the rain
The winter’s icy sorrow breaks to tears,
And the brown thrushes mate, and with bright eyes the rabbit peers

From the dark warren where the fir-cones lie,
And treads one snowdrop under foot, and runs
Over the mossy knoll, and blackbirds fly
Across our path at evening, and the suns
Stay longer with us; ah! how good to see
Grass-girdled spring in all her joy of laughing greenery

Dance through the hedges till the early rose,
(That sweet repentance of the thorny briar!)
Burst from its sheathed emerald and disclose
The little quivering disk of golden fire
Which the bees know so well, for with it come
Pale boy’s-love, sops-in-wine, and daffadillies all in bloom.

Then up and down the field the sower goes,
While close behind the laughing younker scares
With shrilly whoop the black and thievish crows,
And then the chestnut-tree its glory wears,
And on the grass the creamy blossom falls
In odorous excess, and faint half-whispered madrigals

Steal from the bluebells’ nodding carillons
Each breezy morn, and then white jessamine,
That star of its own heaven, snap-dragons
With lolling crimson tongues, and eglantine
In dusty velvets clad usurp the bed
And woodland empery, and when the lingering rose hath shed

Red leaf by leaf its folded panoply,
And pansies closed their purple-lidded eyes,
Chrysanthemums from gilded argosy
Unload their gaudy scentless merchandise,
And violets getting overbold withdraw
From their shy nooks, and scarlet berries dot the leafless haw.

O happy field! and O thrice happy tree!
Soon will your queen in daisy-flowered smock
And crown of flower-de-luce trip down the lea,
Soon will the lazy shepherds drive their flock
Back to the pasture by the pool, and soon
Through the green leaves will float the hum of murmuring bees at noon.

Soon will the glade be bright with bellamour,
The flower which wantons love, and those sweet nuns
Vale-lilies in their snowy vestiture
Will tell their beaded pearls, and carnations
With mitred dusky leaves will scent the wind,
And straggling traveller’s-joy each hedge with yellow stars will bind.

Dear bride of Nature and most bounteous spring,
That canst give increase to the sweet-breath’d kine,
And to the kid its little horns, and bring
The soft and silky blossoms to the vine,
Where is that old nepenthe which of yore
Man got from poppy root and glossy-berried mandragore!

There was a time when any common bird
Could make me sing in unison, a time
When all the strings of boyish life were stirred
To quick response or more melodious rhyme
By every forest idyll;—do I change?
Or rather doth some evil thing through thy fair pleasaunce range?

Nay, nay, thou art the same:  ’tis I who seek
To vex with sighs thy simple solitude,
And because fruitless tears bedew my cheek
Would have thee weep with me in brotherhood;
Fool! shall each wronged and restless spirit dare
To taint such wine with the salt poison of own despair!

Thou art the same:  ’tis I whose wretched soul
Takes discontent to be its paramour,
And gives its kingdom to the rude control
Of what should be its servitor,—for sure
Wisdom is somewhere, though the stormy sea
Contain it not, and the huge deep answer ‘’Tis not in me.’

To burn with one clear flame, to stand *****
In natural honour, not to bend the knee
In profitless prostrations whose effect
Is by itself condemned, what alchemy
Can teach me this? what herb Medea brewed
Will bring the unexultant peace of essence not subdued?

The minor chord which ends the harmony,
And for its answering brother waits in vain
Sobbing for incompleted melody,
Dies a swan’s death; but I the heir of pain,
A silent Memnon with blank lidless eyes,
Wait for the light and music of those suns which never rise.

The quenched-out torch, the lonely cypress-gloom,
The little dust stored in the narrow urn,
The gentle XAIPE of the Attic tomb,—
Were not these better far than to return
To my old fitful restless malady,
Or spend my days within the voiceless cave of misery?

Nay! for perchance that poppy-crowned god
Is like the watcher by a sick man’s bed
Who talks of sleep but gives it not; his rod
Hath lost its virtue, and, when all is said,
Death is too rude, too obvious a key
To solve one single secret in a life’s philosophy.

And Love! that noble madness, whose august
And inextinguishable might can slay
The soul with honeyed drugs,—alas! I must
From such sweet ruin play the runaway,
Although too constant memory never can
Forget the arched splendour of those brows Olympian

Which for a little season made my youth
So soft a swoon of exquisite indolence
That all the chiding of more prudent Truth
Seemed the thin voice of jealousy,—O hence
Thou huntress deadlier than Artemis!
Go seek some other quarry! for of thy too perilous bliss.

My lips have drunk enough,—no more, no more,—
Though Love himself should turn his gilded prow
Back to the troubled waters of this shore
Where I am wrecked and stranded, even now
The chariot wheels of passion sweep too near,
Hence!  Hence!  I pass unto a life more barren, more austere.

More barren—ay, those arms will never lean
Down through the trellised vines and draw my soul
In sweet reluctance through the tangled green;
Some other head must wear that aureole,
For I am hers who loves not any man
Whose white and stainless ***** bears the sign Gorgonian.

Let Venus go and chuck her dainty page,
And kiss his mouth, and toss his curly hair,
With net and spear and hunting equipage
Let young Adonis to his tryst repair,
But me her fond and subtle-fashioned spell
Delights no more, though I could win her dearest citadel.

Ay, though I were that laughing shepherd boy
Who from Mount Ida saw the little cloud
Pass over Tenedos and lofty Troy
And knew the coming of the Queen, and bowed
In wonder at her feet, not for the sake
Of a new Helen would I bid her hand the apple take.

Then rise supreme Athena argent-limbed!
And, if my lips be musicless, inspire
At least my life:  was not thy glory hymned
By One who gave to thee his sword and lyre
Like AEschylos at well-fought Marathon,
And died to show that Milton’s England still could bear a son!

And yet I cannot tread the Portico
And live without desire, fear and pain,
Or nurture that wise calm which long ago
The grave Athenian master taught to men,
Self-poised, self-centred, and self-comforted,
To watch the world’s vain phantasies go by with unbowed head.

Alas! that serene brow, those eloquent lips,
Those eyes that mirrored all eternity,
Rest in their own Colonos, an eclipse
Hath come on Wisdom, and Mnemosyne
Is childless; in the night which she had made
For lofty secure flight Athena’s owl itself hath strayed.

Nor much with Science do I care to climb,
Although by strange and subtle witchery
She drew the moon from heaven:  the Muse Time
Unrolls her gorgeous-coloured tapestry
To no less eager eyes; often indeed
In the great epic of Polymnia’s scroll I love to read

How Asia sent her myriad hosts to war
Against a little town, and panoplied
In gilded mail with jewelled scimitar,
White-shielded, purple-crested, rode the Mede
Between the waving poplars and the sea
Which men call Artemisium, till he saw Thermopylae

Its steep ravine spanned by a narrow wall,
And on the nearer side a little brood
Of careless lions holding festival!
And stood amazed at such hardihood,
And pitched his tent upon the reedy shore,
And stayed two days to wonder, and then crept at midnight o’er

Some unfrequented height, and coming down
The autumn forests treacherously slew
What Sparta held most dear and was the crown
Of far Eurotas, and passed on, nor knew
How God had staked an evil net for him
In the small bay at Salamis,—and yet, the page grows dim,

Its cadenced Greek delights me not, I feel
With such a goodly time too out of tune
To love it much:  for like the Dial’s wheel
That from its blinded darkness strikes the noon
Yet never sees the sun, so do my eyes
Restlessly follow that which from my cheated vision flies.

O for one grand unselfish simple life
To teach us what is Wisdom! speak ye hills
Of lone Helvellyn, for this note of strife
Shunned your untroubled crags and crystal rills,
Where is that Spirit which living blamelessly
Yet dared to kiss the smitten mouth of his own century!

Speak ye Rydalian laurels! where is he
Whose gentle head ye sheltered, that pure soul
Whose gracious days of uncrowned majesty
Through lowliest conduct touched the lofty goal
Where love and duty mingle!  Him at least
The most high Laws were glad of, he had sat at Wisdom’s feast;

But we are Learning’s changelings, know by rote
The clarion watchword of each Grecian school
And follow none, the flawless sword which smote
The pagan Hydra is an effete tool
Which we ourselves have blunted, what man now
Shall scale the august ancient heights and to old Reverence bow?

One such indeed I saw, but, Ichabod!
Gone is that last dear son of Italy,
Who being man died for the sake of God,
And whose unrisen bones sleep peacefully,
O guard him, guard him well, my Giotto’s tower,
Thou marble lily of the lily town! let not the lour

Of the rude tempest vex his slumber, or
The Arno with its tawny troubled gold
O’er-leap its marge, no mightier conqueror
Clomb the high Capitol in the days of old
When Rome was indeed Rome, for Liberty
Walked like a bride beside him, at which sight pale Mystery

Fled shrieking to her farthest sombrest cell
With an old man who grabbled rusty keys,
Fled shuddering, for that immemorial knell
With which oblivion buries dynasties
Swept like a wounded eagle on the blast,
As to the holy heart of Rome the great triumvir passed.

He knew the holiest heart and heights of Rome,
He drave the base wolf from the lion’s lair,
And now lies dead by that empyreal dome
Which overtops Valdarno hung in air
By Brunelleschi—O Melpomene
Breathe through thy melancholy pipe thy sweetest threnody!

Breathe through the tragic stops such melodies
That Joy’s self may grow jealous, and the Nine
Forget awhile their discreet emperies,
Mourning for him who on Rome’s lordliest shrine
Lit for men’s lives the light of Marathon,
And bare to sun-forgotten fields the fire of the sun!

O guard him, guard him well, my Giotto’s tower!
Let some young Florentine each eventide
Bring coronals of that enchanted flower
Which the dim woods of Vallombrosa hide,
And deck the marble tomb wherein he lies
Whose soul is as some mighty orb unseen of mortal eyes;

Some mighty orb whose cycled wanderings,
Being tempest-driven to the farthest rim
Where Chaos meets Creation and the wings
Of the eternal chanting Cherubim
Are pavilioned on Nothing, passed away
Into a moonless void,—and yet, though he is dust and clay,

He is not dead, the immemorial Fates
Forbid it, and the closing shears refrain.
Lift up your heads ye everlasting gates!
Ye argent clarions, sound a loftier strain
For the vile thing he hated lurks within
Its sombre house, alone with God and memories of sin.

Still what avails it that she sought her cave
That murderous mother of red harlotries?
At Munich on the marble architrave
The Grecian boys die smiling, but the seas
Which wash AEgina fret in loneliness
Not mirroring their beauty; so our lives grow colourless

For lack of our ideals, if one star
Flame torch-like in the heavens the unjust
Swift daylight kills it, and no trump of war
Can wake to passionate voice the silent dust
Which was Mazzini once! rich Niobe
For all her stony sorrows hath her sons; but Italy,

What Easter Day shall make her children rise,
Who were not Gods yet suffered? what sure feet
Shall find their grave-clothes folded? what clear eyes
Shall see them ******?  O it were meet
To roll the stone from off the sepulchre
And kiss the bleeding roses of their wounds, in love of her,

Our Italy! our mother visible!
Most blessed among nations and most sad,
For whose dear sake the young Calabrian fell
That day at Aspromonte and was glad
That in an age when God was bought and sold
One man could die for Liberty! but we, burnt out and cold,

See Honour smitten on the cheek and gyves
Bind the sweet feet of Mercy:  Poverty
Creeps through our sunless lanes and with sharp knives
Cuts the warm throats of children stealthily,
And no word said:- O we are wretched men
Unworthy of our great inheritance! where is the pen

Of austere Milton? where the mighty sword
Which slew its master righteously? the years
Have lost their ancient leader, and no word
Breaks from the voiceless tripod on our ears:
While as a ruined mother in some spasm
Bears a base child and loathes it, so our best enthusiasm

Genders unlawful children, Anarchy
Freedom’s own Judas, the vile prodigal
Licence who steals the gold of Liberty
And yet has nothing, Ignorance the real
One Fraticide since Cain, Envy the asp
That stings itself to anguish, Avarice whose palsied grasp

Is in its extent stiffened, moneyed Greed
For whose dull appetite men waste away
Amid the whirr of wheels and are the seed
Of things which slay their sower, these each day
Sees rife in England, and the gentle feet
Of Beauty tread no more the stones of each unlovely street.

What even Cromwell spared is desecrated
By **** and worm, left to the stormy play
Of wind and beating snow, or renovated
By more destructful hands:  Time’s worst decay
Will wreathe its ruins with some loveliness,
But these new Vandals can but make a rain-proof barrenness.

Where is that Art which bade the Angels sing
Through Lincoln’s lofty choir, till the air
Seems from such marble harmonies to ring
With sweeter song than common lips can dare
To draw from actual reed? ah! where is now
The cunning hand which made the flowering hawthorn branches bow

For Southwell’s arch, and carved the House of One
Who loved the lilies of the field with all
Our dearest English flowers? the same sun
Rises for us:  the seasons natural
Weave the same tapestry of green and grey:
The unchanged hills are with us:  but that Spirit hath passed away.

And yet perchance it may be better so,
For Tyranny is an incestuous Queen,
****** her brother is her bedfellow,
And the Plague chambers with her:  in obscene
And ****** paths her treacherous feet are set;
Better the empty desert and a soul inviolate!

For gentle brotherhood, the harmony
Of living in the healthful air, the swift
Clean beauty of strong limbs when men are free
And women chaste, these are the things which lift
Our souls up more than even Agnolo’s
Gaunt blinded Sibyl poring o’er the scroll of human woes,

Or Titian’s little maiden on the stair
White as her own sweet lily and as tall,
Or Mona Lisa smiling through her hair,—
Ah! somehow life is bigger after all
Than any painted angel, could we see
The God that is within us!  The old Greek serenity

Which curbs the passion of that

there's a marital dispute
between squirrels
in my chest, stomach and head.

she flings lamp and liver
while he slings obscenities
about her barrenness.

by midnight
they'll ****, then sleep
and then I can watch John Oliver.

but their problems aren't resolved.

Underneath the anger, there are tears. Beneath the fury, there is hurt, a river
of affliction - the day that possibility evaporated. I knew, the moment
it was gone. Telos obscured, like a mist, had left me.

Frost in February, morning at the local coffee house, perseverating, sedate
in privatized, cogitations - certainty dissolves into irony, the transient
collective with predictable cadence and singular objective. Borrowed
energies - preferred anesthetic in defiance of the placid, quotidian horror.

Angst wrapped in skin, clothed in remorse, like a muslin coat unable
to keep me warm, the palette of truculence, dislocated savant,
with guarded aversion - faces enucleating in tacit harmony, the muted tragedy
of the forgotten.

Yoked, the metaphorical satchel, freighted with the sentient debris, sifting
the fuckage, memoirs of failure, privation of venture and honor, objectified as
mere portent. [Existence] - the daily riot, becomes the necessary crucible.

Dissonance and detachment resonate the cultural banality, [being] displaced
by icon; [branding], ideas about ideas, life several times removed,
emblem over essence.

Existential renegade, exploiting the counter intuitive, the paradigmatic prodigal,
favor squandered, in the absonant passage, bearing fruit of the undone.

Bones of contention lament, interminably, like a false friend, present in absence,
perceived in the lack, subtraction, slip-stream - the disheveled
palaver of the broken.

Acutely self referential, misery enfleshed, its own reward, a post-war
discontent inhabiting sorrow, compressed and narrow, begetting
apathy in springtime.

Commodity of youth, the currency of beauty -permuted, commerce of the
ethereal and diaphanous. Human caprice, post-modern fog,
the flattened self,
the enemy of us is us, drowning in the decorum of narcissism.
the fattened calf,
immolating on the sword of autonomy.

Recycled grief, a recursive loop of gestating thoughts, marinating fluidly
within the interpretive grid. Confessional cyber community - exposed wounds
and concrete suffering, abstracted from virtual solidarity, refracted through a
reductive sentimentality, maybe they will ‘like’ it.

Iconoclast in exile, inhaling the incense of barrenness , surrounded by synoptic
drivel in understated - present tenses - alight in the now, axial axioms of the privileged,
who genuflect to the god of unfettered freedom.

Peripatetic intervals of isolation, self-imposed, hidden in a sanctuary of derision,
colliding with immutable otherness , the waters of chaos, calm.
The proleptic display, announcing eschatology. An ancient text written on the interior
expressed in myth and narrative the courier. The carnal and cerebral
arise, rightly flourishing.

Sense thresholds stirring, surprise and turbulence, reverberations of altered
domains merging - the temporal and ubiquity, the indissolubly resplendent
inversion - the invisible made visible. Opaque intrigues subsumed into the
balm of reconciliation - the first shall be last…

©2012 W.S. Warner

have you ever felt shot into space
with nothing to hold to without any trace
of the one who was always around
who could laugh really hard and without any sound

and you fear that someday he will see
that you're mind is a strange one indeed, yet it's free!
to be up in the air and then down
hear that music that plays like a carnival sound

and it's something that's deep in your soul
from the day you first met he's been making you whole
cause he won't let you feel afraid,
fix you up when you're ****** and knows his first aid

Five of us kids to take care of
and all within seven short years
Leno then Beano then Bonzo then Labo then Damo
all laughter and tears.

It seems that we share the same feelings
about our ol' dad, and it's said
much better to share them while we are alive
than to wait until after we're dead.
  
and so I will write about Daddy
and because I am long with my word
my poems I will say can go on for a day,
and a night or so that's what I've heard.

To Tony, Loretta would cater
she cooked for the man who would date her
they married and so, and what do you know
three children would come along later.

Born October two four, nineteen hundred
and twenty eighth year of our Lord
at home, the first child of Tony and Rhetts
baby Vinny, was cut from the cord.

This sweet little Vincent Morrone
raised up in by my Nonna and Tony
quickly stuck in his ways, from the start of his days
and could size up the truth from a phony.

He grew up in old Jersey City
where he polished the width of his witty
had a sister named Claire who remembers him there
dear old dad, handsome lad, and she's pretty.

Their brother was born sometime later
our sweet uncle Jerry Morrone
Handsome and good and well liked in the hood
got those genes and that same funny bone.

 After Highschool, staff sergeant in Air Force
guiding take offs and landings, his post
Four years of St Pete, put him smart on the street  
and he left for the likes of our coast.

He was offered a job down in Jackson
elementary dear Watson, it's said
he would fall for another young teacher, a screecher
whose sassiness got to his head

He married our mother, that's Jacquie
they really were some kind of a pair
she knew he was smart, liked his looks and his heart
and respected the good that was there.

So five days a week Dad would teach
and he liked those nine months of the year
but he lived for the summers at Jenkinson's beach
where that salt water pool was so clear.

in a torn old white sweatshirt and plaid shorts
he was sharing a Bud at the fence
loved his mower and pool, and that backyard was cool
much more like a park, you would sense.

we know how he hated the gurlic
and that onions would just make him hurlick
my mother would never use any such thing
he could drive her to sing like Steve Urlick.
( did I do that?)

No qualms about eating cold hotdogs
and cheddar in chunks from red foil
liked his eggplant cut thin, and his gravy could win
a blue ribbon, the secret? No spoil!!

Could deliver a joke like Bob Newhart
or a pun just for fun was sublime
he was always aware, but for crowds, didn't care
unless it was harmony time.

Best one on one at a party
but the life when it came to his cracks
made small talk okay, but preferred just to stay
to the side and be watching the acts.

Old Spice and that weekender stubble
did his thing and his speaking was soft
he was never a man to cause trouble
but he'd tell you when something was off.

McDonalds and corn on the cob
smoked a pipe, did not curse, and was never a slob
though I know he was not always neat
he was clean, never smelled, never spit in the street.

taught us never to take wooden nickels
and he loved a fresh jar of those kosher dill pickels
drove a large Orange bug in the day
with a driver side  SPEBSQSA

he wiped off my face with his thumb
that he'd lick first to clear away jelly and crumb
and he'd always be there in a pinch
if I needed his help, he was there, not a Grinch!

He was always the Good Humored one
bought us Ice cream and took us to places for fun
an occasional "word to the wise
you've cashed in your chips
and don't hand me your lies."

and the one who would walk me not once
but twice down the aisle of heartache and gloom
as a wife I have failed, a dunce
yet dismissing that elephant out of the room.

and tried not to laugh at my lot
at my barrenness, troubles and all of that snot
took me back to this place for some peace
never charged me a dime, not a landlord with lease
but a man with the mercy he knows
he understood sometimes that's just how life goes

and suddenly everything's changed
I am fifty two times around, feeling deranged
and it's not because I need a crutch
feeling lost in this world  
which I've lived in and such

but that I have been shot into space
having lost what I loved, it's my dad's loving face
and I'm here in the house that he bought
it's the one where we loved and the one where
we fought

and I cried here at length at the table
feeling shot into space, as if I am unable
to cope with the loss of my dad,
with the loss of his smile  and the voice that he had

and the place that he had in my life
in my heart....in my head...in my mind...So I climbed
to room where my dear daddy slept
and I laid on that bed and I wept and I wept
feeling shot into space I recalled that man's face
and I reached for the  tissues he kept in that place

and in one second flat, as I blew
from the nose of his likeness,  I knew and it's true
I was beamed back from space
into someone's embrace
and believe me, as if my dad knew...

For my father was known to be punny
always quick with the wit, such a honey
he would tell me to write, for it was his delight
that his children were his kind of funny.

I am never to think I am odder
for I am what I am, my dad's daughter
I hear distant strumming and now my dad humming
the theme song from Welcome Back Kotter.

http://youtu.be/5VlGyMG0ksg

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fem in isms,
i imagine Sapphic eyes:
bad *** advert coruscates elite
fairness sensing slavish blind
in gestate calm affirm
in genders More numerous of Windows--
Superior--for Doors--
O harsh judgement foiled,
as a foil, as unknown truth
foil-doubles in the brow,
abject symmetry to systemize
a fertile lack of sterile barrenness,
i am a mediatrix rend,
nirwaan, hijra wonderment aside
from transemotion's ground swells
demeaning to be understood.
i celebrate and face the same
to be what paperwork tests being
normal being, freely chosen
atom each belonging moves
an asterisk of paths
of mutate art of nature social darwin maze.
i imagine Sapphic eyes,
ginko soft they pile up all cobble
memories themselves concretely
cloistered  fame
spray of salty waves,
macho screams symbol
for dismissal ease
for tearing at an inner unsaid war
with lists offense of proper taste
to what posterity intends
an undulation womblike seeming nourish safety sounds.
i imagine Sapphic eyes
past
debauched
meanderings
where hyster-clarity rejoins its titular
and reliable escapisms curl the lips
of maleness found
here and there  smile  sneer love
i imagine Sapphic eyes
linguistic pirouettes
congest that wisdom nonetheless
the moment passed  on to a
feigning truth in pretty rhyme
ornamenting time with fine  meter  fine
vernacular chimes peter in
to juggle perspectival paradox,
redichotomize the twilight idols,
resolve the conflict like a dawn
Aurora,
i imagine Sapphic eyes
running plastic with Alaskan wolves,
toga floats to snow
to let us see the purest fairness form
a ****** circle,
Hypatia ascends from tenebrous grave,
Impregnable of Eye is pregnant now
with Wollstonecraft revered
in liberation's fount
families held exemplar gaze of
Taylor, ******, Cady,
Anthony resanctified
to vote entitlement's
empathic origins, waxen mold
of nascent categories,
narrow hands spread wide to panoply anew
the manifest evolve in true unknowns

Darkness, shadows,
Twisted thorns,
Twisted trunks,
Like hunched hags,
Crooked trolls,
Thorns and vines,
Twisted,
Intertwining,
Like a maze,
A thicket,
All around,
Casting shadows,
Darkness,
Creepy,
Thorns piercing,
Blood black in the moonlight,
Shining through the branches,
Tree trunks,
Vines and thorns,
Stillness,
But movement,
Half seen,
Small,
Creeping,
Spiders,
Mice,
Rodents,
Lizards,
Life hidden,
Forgotten,
Unknown,
Where only barrenness was known,
A creature,
Sitting,
Watching,
Looking up,
Through slitted eyes,
Like a frog,
But grey,
Something from deep within,
Clinging to the thorns,
To the branches,
Spirit or animal,
Phantom or subconscious image,
In this forest,
This warren,
This thicket,
Dark beauty,
Life within the lifeless,
The depths of a soul.

Lying on the bed
I think of what to write...
....words don't flow out
of my pen
my mind is clogged
vaccum surrounds me
I've ****** all the noise
into my self.
It's waiting to explode.
I realise I am too conscious
of myself,
I realise I am trying to pretend.
My pen leaks out
a random flow of ink
shaped in words
I strike them out
they don't manifest my feelings.
I don't want farce to appeal
to the eye,
I want honesty to touch
the heart.
I am waiting
for my words
to strike a chord
with the strings of my heart.
I am longing
for clarity
that will give my writing
a sense of purpose
and shorn it
of its randomness.

Lying on the bed
I think of what to write....
....my mind is a clean slate
I want to colour it
with thoughts
and feelings,
I want for it to
lose its barrenness
and be fertile
with imagination.
I want for it to
be bereft of fear
for it is,
the place
where revolutions were conceived
and philosophies were born;
the sole reason
for Man's greatness.
It boasts of coveted freedom,
which,
feared tyrants failed to ******,
it is a guiding light
to the often faltering humanity.
It has been
subject to manipulations,
deceiving history
into changing its course;
scripting moments
of momentous change,
all, of course,
owing their occurrences
to the enchanting influence
it wields over the body.

Lying on the bed
I think of what to write....
....my mind is deluged
with a rush of thoughts
flowing in and out,
a haze of colours
mesmerises me,
letters, words
dance before my eyes,
songs play out in a loop,
a multitude of
smudgy-outlined faces
gazes at me....
....And I realise
with an epiphany,
It is this very train of thoughts
I shall elaborate on!
Lying on the bed
I think I know what to write on.

.             <Well, ShallowMan’s ne’er at a loss>
              <for voicing shallow thoughts that gloss.>
              <With trenchant wit he reaps the dross>
              <when seeking sense in applesauce.>

              <But to his aid flies FactoidMan>
              <who always has a Fact at hand;>
              <with him, who needs a whether-man>
              <to answer “if?” or “but?” or “and?”?>

“Oh ShallowMan, let me explain
the Facts of life to you, so plain,
yet flush with truthful thoughts arcane.
When understood, you won’t maintain
that callowness you think urbane.”

                              “Oh FactoidMan, give benedictions,
                              save me from all contradictions
                              with your knowledge, no restrictions
                              finding Facts, avoiding fictions.”

“Well, when in doubt, you always may
request my help to find your way
through shades of black and white and gray,
and from the Facts you’ll never stray.
Yes, ShallowMan, I’ll make your day.”

                              “Since yesteryear I’ve wondered why
                              I’m served a piece of humble pie
                              whene’er attempting to descry
                              just what’s a Fact, and what’s a lie,
                              and which be Facts one can’t deny.
                              With candor, can you edify
                              me with some recondite reply?”

“Well, as you know, my Facts are Facts
which naught nor nothing counteracts
and things that do, mere artifacts
in dim myopic cataracts.”

“A lie’s a thing which disagrees
with Facts I utter, if you please,
and hides the forest from the trees
ignoring all my verities.”

“And this reminds me of my youth,
with axioms defined as truth
which I selected as a sleuth
(abetted by a sweet vermouth);
I being now so long of tooth,
to contradict me’s hardly couth.”

                              “That certainly helps me clarify
                              whom I can trust: yeah, you’re the guy!  
                              Now, furthermore I’ve wondered why
                              the moon can’t fall and clouds can fly.  
                              What’s called that law those facts defy?
                              And mightn’t I just give a try
                              to make a guess to verify?”

“If you link your facts to law
(ah, please excuse a gruff guffaw)
you’ll certainly flaunt a flimsy flaw
that strains belief and breaks the straw
of what you’ve heard and thought you saw.
(I‘ll leave you with some bones to gnaw
that leave you holding me in awe
when once you’ve grasped and gasped ‘aha’).
So tell me now your ideas, raw,
but keep it short, your blah, blah, blah.”

                              “Umm, could it be just gravity
                              (well, something like a theory
                              that some call Relativity)
                              which pulls the apple from the tree
                              and puts a strain upon my knee;
                              or is that fact absurdity?”

“Ahem, a theory’s just a theory,
not a Fact, it’s all so eerie,
something which should make you leery
as explained until I’m weary.”

                              “If Relativity’s a theory,
                              and a theory’s not a Fact,
                              is it a fiction I can query
                              when I’m falling, ere I’m whacked?”

“Though theories might be based on Fact,
a theory is, in fact, not backed
by any cause, effect or act
which might be salvaged when attacked.
For you, this Fact may seem abstract,
plumb depths where shallow thoughts distract.”

“Yes, what goes up must soon come down
is quite a Fact of world renown.
But theory’s just a heathen gown
to deck the naked King in town,
and when he falls, he breaks his crown
which leaves him wearing but a frown.”

“It surely should be obvious,
the property of Heaviness
(like Godliness and Heaven-ness)
defines the cosmic edifice,
refuting Newton’s flakiness
and Einstein’s spooky emphasis  
on space-time’s 4-D flimsiness.
Yes, Facts like these are copious
(I count them with my abacus);
to argue would be blasphemous
displaying mental barrenness
about the push and pulling stress
when bouncing ***** rebound, unless
one views elastic laziness
as evil Satan’s stubbornness.”

                              “Well now I think I understand,
                              that gravity seems somewhat grand,
                              but’s just, in fact, a rubber band
                              that stretches through our earth-bound-land
                              constricting us when we expand.”

“Yes, ShallowMan, you finally got it,
just as I’ve long preached and taught it.
I’m so happy that you’ve bought it.
(Not a question nor an audit -
you’re so shallow, who’d have thought it?)”

              <Once ShallowMan dipped into science>
              <seeking FactoidMan’s alliance>
              <gaining, hence, a strong reliance>
              <on the Facts and their appliance,>
              <justifying strong compliance,>
              <turning down those in defiance.>

                              “Hey, FactoidMan, another topic
                              leaves me reeling, gyroscopic,
                              dealing with the microscopic
                              in a world kaleidoscopic.”

                              “Within the realm of vacuum loops
                              Dark Energy in quantum soups
                              of anti-matter sometimes swoops
                              across inflation’s Big Bang stoops
                              where space-time ends and matter droops.
                              Do you believe, or just the dupes?

“It’s nothing but a passing phase,
(a theory that in fact betrays
obscure occult communiqués
that fevered fantasy conveys)
of those who thump creation days.
Just check! The vacuum state portrays
perfection in your shallow ways
reflected in that vacant gaze
you cast upon the dossiers
of all my Facts that so amaze.”

                              “And what about the quantum theory?
                              Particles not hard but smeary,
                              just like waves? It’s kinda eerie!
                              Facts could not be quite so bleary
                              leaving Bohr, well, sad and teary.
                              FactoidMan, just tell me, dearie,
                              what the Facts are, bright or dreary.”

                              “And then again what are those holes
                              (as black as ravens bathed in coals)
                              wherein the past and future strolls
                              exploiting fields that Higgs controls
                              beneath the shady shallow shoals
                              between magnetic monopoles.”

“The science lab’s a ‘fact’ory
concocting stuff that cannot be
(like unknown realms and notably
those tiny things NoMan can see
with naked eye on bended knee
neath microscopic scrutiny)
and claim they’ve found reality;
they call their god a ‘Theo’ry
(a fig-ment of the Yum-Yum tree)
that leads them to hyperbole
about the singularity
that’s dipped in dazed duplicity
denying all eternity.”

“Here’s my advice that seems to work:
ignore the ones with ‘facts’ that lurk
behind their ‘proofs’ (which always irk),
and being challenged have the quirk
of stepping back within the murk
(indulged, I chuckle, smile or smirk).”

              <Now ShallowMan is quite content>
              <receiving FactoidMan’s consent>
              <to quibble and express dissent>
              <as long as keeping covenant>
              <with fingers crossed and belfry bent>
              <when viewing Facts in sealed cement:>

                               “The Facts you give me circumvent
                               those ‘truths’ your chuckles supplement;
                               although they might disorient
                               they can’t be wrong, I won’t dissent,
                               just using ones which you invent.“
“(No need of source in that event).”

                               “Your wise advice is simply sound
                               in cases where a game is bound
                               to parcel points out round by round
                               or else on verbal battleground
                              where know-it-alls are duly crowned.”

              <Though ShallowMan is kinda slow>
              <he still takes time to learn and throw>
              <his facts and theories to and fro,>
              <amazing facts which seem to show>
              <that theories sometimes come and go,>
              <returning strengthened with the glow>
              <of new found facts (for which to crow)>
              <that fill the gaps of long ago.>

                               “Oh FactoidMan, just tip your cap!
                               I’ve found a piece to fill the gap
                               that simplifies a mouse’s trap:
                               if triggerless, it still will clap
                               to give the mouse a mighty zap
                               that makes its tiny back bone snap.”

                               “With mousetrap type simplexity,
                               reducible complexity
                               helps arguments’ duplexity
                               with twists of crude convexity.”

“Ha-ha! That serves to prove my case:
for each gap filled, two in its place,
each growing at the doubled pace;
for unfilled gaps, I’m saying grace
(they help, indeed, for saving face)