there are so many places to hide,

in my home at 17th and South screaming death threats at my roommates laughing diabolically playing  videogames and Jeopardy cooking quinoa stretching canvas the dog going mad frothing lunging  spastic to get the monkeys or the wookies or whatever random commandments we issue forth  drunken while Schlock rampages the backdrop,

at my uncle's row house on 22nd and Wallace with my shoes off freezing skipping class to watch March  Madness unwrapping waxpaper hoagies grimacing with each sip of Cherrywine or creamsicle  soda reading chapters at my leisure,

in the stacks among fiberglass and eternal florescent lima-tiled and echo-prone red-eyed and white-faced  caked with asbestos and headphones exhuming ossified pages from layers of cosmic dust  presiding benevolent,

in University City disguised in nothing but a name infiltrating Penn club soccer getting caught after  scoring yet still invited to the pure ***** joy of hell and heaven house parties of ice luge jungle  juice kegstand coke politic networking,

at Drexel's nightlit astroturf with the Jamaicans rolling blunts on the sidelines playing soccer floating in  slo-mo through billows of purple till the early morning or basketball at Penn against goggle- eyed professors in kneepads and copious sweat,

in the shadow tunnels behind Franklin Field always late night loner overlooking rust belt rails abandoned  to an absent tempo till tomorrow never looking behind me in the fear that someone is there,

at Phillies Stadium on glorious summer Tuesdays for dollar dog night laden with algebra geometry and  physics purposely forgetting to apply ballistics to the majestic arc of a home run or in the frozen  subway steam selling F.U. T.O. t-shirts to Eagles fans gnashing when the Cowboys come to town,

at 17th and Sansom in the morning bounding from Little Pete's scrambled eggs toast and black coffee  studying in the Spring thinking All is Full of Love in my ears leaving fog pollen footprints on the  smoking cement blooming,

at the Shambhala Center with dharma lotus dripping from heels soaking rosewater insides thrumming to the  groan of meditation,

at the Art Museum Greco-fleshed and ponderous counting tourists running the Rocky steps staring into shoji screen tatame teahouses,

at the Lebanese place plunked boldly in Reading Terminal Market buying hummus bumping past the Polish  and Irish on my way to the Amish with their wheelwagons packed with pretzels and honey and  chocolate and tea,

at the motheaten thrift store on North Broad buried under sad accumulations of ramshackle clothing  clowning ridiculous in the dim squinting at coathangers through magnifying glasses and mudflat  leather hoping to salvage something insane,

in the brown catacombed warrens of gutted Subterranea trying unsuccessfully to ignore bearded medicine

men adorned with shaman shell necklaces hawking incense bootlegs and broken Zippos halting conversation to listen pensive to the displacement of air after each train hurtles by,

at 30th Street Station cathedral sitting dwarfed by columns Herculean in their ascent and golden light  thunderclap whirligig wings on high circling the luminous waiting sprawled nascent on stringwood pews,

at the Masonic Temple next to City Hall, pretending to be a tourist all the while hoping scouring for clues in the cryptic grand architect apocrypha to expose global conspiracies,

at the Trocadero Electric Factory TLA Khyber Unitarian Church dungeon breaking my neck to basso  perfecto glitch kick drums with a giant's foot stampeding breakbeat holographic mind-boggled  hole-in-the-skull intonations,

at the Medusa Lounge Tritone Bob and Barbara's Silk City et cetera with a pitcher a pounder of Pabst and a  shot of Jim Beam glowing in the dark at the foosball table disco ball bopstepping to hip hop and  jazz and accordions and piano and vinyl,

in gray Fishtown at Gino's recording rap holding pizza debates on the ethics of sampling anything by  David Axelrod rattling tambourines and smiles at the Russian shopgirl downstairs still chained to  soul record crackles of antiquity spiraling from windows above,

at Sam Doom's on 12th and Spring Garden crafting friendship in greenhouse egg crate foam closets  breaking to scrutinize cinema and celebrate Thanksgiving blessed by holy chef Kronick,

in the company of Emily all over or in Kohn's Antiques salvaging for consanguinity and quirky heirlooms  discussing mortality and cancer and celestial funk chord blues as a cosmological constant and  communism and Cuba over mango brown rice plantains baking oatmeal chocolate chip cookies,

in a Coca Cola truck riding shotgun hot as hell hungover below the raging Kensington El at 6 AM nodding soft to the teamsters' curses the snagglesouled destitute crawling forth poisoned from sheet-metal shanty cardboard box projects this is not desolate,

at the impound lot yet again accusing tow trucks of false pretext paying up sheepish swearing I'll have my  revenge,

in the afterhour streets practicing trashcan kung fu and cinder block shotput shouting sauvage operatic at  tattooed bike messenger tribesmen pitstopped at the food trucks,

in the embrace of those I don't love the names sometimes rush at me drowned and I pray to myself for  asylum,

in the ciphers I host always at least 8 emcee lyric clerics summoning elemental until every pore ruptures  and their eyes erupt furious forever the profound voice of dreadlocked Will still haunting stray  bullet shuffles six years later,

in the caldera of Center City with everyone craning our skulls skyward past the stepped skyscrapers  beaming ear-to-ear welcoming acid sun rain melting maddeningly to reconstitute as concrete  rubber steel glass glowing nymphs,

in Philadelphia where every angle is accounted for and every megawatt careers into every throbbing wall where  Art is a mirror universe for every event ever volleyed through the neurons of History,

in Philadelphia of so many places to hide I am altogether as a funnel cloud frenetic roiling imbuing every corner sanctum sanctorum with jackhammer electromagnetism quivering current realizing stupefied I have failed so utterly wonderful human for in seeking to hide I have found

in Philadelphia

Though you've barely had a ramble
are no wayward canine daddy of note
that brief encounter in our brambles
has left the experts fearing a cancerous growth

So we starve you of your pine nuts and bacon rinds
so we can feed you anaesthetic
and betray you to the thief of time
only to make you, I imagine, feel pathetic
And you often so full of life's exasperate scurry

I worry
will the shine stray from your eyes
those hazel pools of so much of
my feeling mature, just for
pertaining to a creature's care

 we all seem in too much of a hurry
to stifle what little spirit
that surrounds us
to wear
down on every minor aspect
of childish delight
in this silent sacrament
of the aging process
and with arguably years
of your fatherhood left
in the very ***** some dry eyed savant
decides it correct we should tamper with

Tomorrow I will snuggle you in favoured, bouncy eiderdowns
that will blanket your unknowing
and treat you as if
you were an eastering child
on cured hams and other saltiness
after you awaken
from those strangest enforcements of sleep
and through our eyes we will trade more secrets to keep

And we will hope, as we only can, that it was for the best
For you, Yorkshire's son, or Sheringham's
And consider with all of your
exhuming breath
That we meddled, stilling over life
To cheat a slightly delayed death.

See the Rabbi.  See him tormented by choice.  See his people.  See them wracked by hate.  See the others.  See their anger radiate outward in glowing spokes, exploding firebrand in a tinder city.

On a night like any other, the moon at sixth house, fulcrum of pinwheel zodiac, the Rabbi, awash in lidless starlight, rises somber and makes his choice.  And when the sun is furthermost, he and three of his others gather at the murmuring riverbank where the brown clay is most pliable and begin to dig, sifting rock and root from trundled earth.  Hours spent exhuming the clay, molding it, kneading its muscles, tracing its veins, baking its skin in the starlight.  More hours spent in whispering prayer, the words bent and somersaulting over themselves like tumbling books.

See Truth drawn on its forehead, life etched from clay and word.  As the sun rises, so it does, wavering at first, but steadier, lapping at the river, and their faces move slowly across the water.  See the Rabbi speak to it, his words winding its mechanism.  See it stride past the ghetto, wade through the market, and into the borough, siege unto its own.

See the others scream for mercy from the kiln of its stare, from their flaming tenements, their crumpling rooftops.

See it wade back through the market, past the ghetto, back to the riverbank to kneel in the underbrush.  See it tilt its head to the lilt of a stranded daisy caught in a vagrant gust.   See it caught, too, and see it see.  It sees the colors of Eden in the ferns.  It hears the river churning sediment, fossils, gravel, whirling over driftwood.  It touches moss on a rock; gently rotates its hand to let a grub complete an oblivious circumference.  See it sit in silence.

See the Rabbi meet with the others, then his others.  And on a day like any other, when the sun is at its apogee, they slip down the riverbank where it still sits, still.  It ignores their autonomous logic, their homunculus rationale.  They are perversions of variety cloaked in righteous intention.  So it remains.

See the Rabbi and his others gather at the murmuring riverbank, shadow conclave in shifting sunlight, then rise somber and decided.  They pin it to the earth as the Rabbi chants, invoking the void in which forbidden knowledge spirals.  It squirms under the power of the Word, mind-forged manacle as incantation.  See the Rabbi draw to a close.  His hand is arbiter, swooping down to smudge Truth from its forehead.  What is left but Death.

See its hand crumble in its passage as it reaches for the stranded daisy.  See the colors of Eden darken in its eyes, its own body the dust that denies it light.  See it collapse into itself, the clay that was once animate spilling onto the riverbank.  See the Rabbi and his others shimmer then fade into city grey.

The daisy stands still.

Mouths meeting rushing to be fed and feed
Tongues mingling and exploring
Hunger and thirst crushing need
Passion’s fire roaring

Bodies and hearts entwined
Soul and mind thriving
On all they find
On a journey bereft of depriving

Passion’s fire consuming
A life unto its own in their head
Exhuming
What lay buried, lost, undiscovered, forgotten or dead

Born anew or resurrected
Nerves, thoughts, and emotions it imbibes and revives
By passion’s fire new life injected
Brings new purpose and experiences to their lives

Passions kindled now burning so hot
It sears, mind, body, heart and soul
Delivers everything they sought
Two lost, now one tempered and made whole

Passion’s fire, burning growing as they explored
*****, freaky, and debauchery with revel
With passion's fire they soared
FInding the primeval

In the chasing
In the wooing
In the embracing
In the doing

In the B, in many ways
In the D, defining each other’s roles
In the S, setting new trails ablaze
In the M, reaching dark corners of each other’s souls

~Wes Noneya

course fur
tangled up
matted down and
entwined with nature herself
She yawns exhuming
releasing all troubles
as they float on up
silhouette outline shades inside filling up
coloring in the lines and
all you can make out is
an incandescent glow as
twilight sky
streaked watercolor beckons
as the stars line up
take their positions
spelling out the truth
always watching
always shining bright
lighting the way home for all
who find themselves
lost and alone
looking for the answer

Rise!
Rise I say!
Rise with the sun, the eternal fire
of the world's glory,
burning on and spreading
wildly across your face
piercing your eyes,
and yes, piercing
into your soul.
It's breath
exhuming the shadows
that surround you.

I am born of light and color.

I am alive, once again.

And I am reminded of a Power
far Greater than I.
But am I worthy?
Do I have the right
to bask in, let alone,
witness this ascension
this celebration
of such authority?

And because you are generous
Time has painted
An entire symphony for you:

Of dancing ribbons of yellow and orange hues
Of the deep, profound murmurs of the earth
The whispers of the trees
that are carried with
the songs of the wind
and the birds in flight.

Flight---yes, you are flying.

Even starlight
accompanies your path
as you descend into the horizon.

The final note?
You beg to differ.

Rise!
Rise I say!
Rise with the sun, the eternal fire
of the world's glory,
burning on and spreading
wildly across your face
piercing your eyes,
and yes, piercing
into your soul.
It's breath
exhuming the shadows
that surround you.

You are born of light and color.

I do not wish
to remember you
during noon or night
but with daybreak
where you are alive, once again.

~
Wake, no wake

He dreams of obituaries
And toe tagging

Exhuming dearly departed dollars
And biting the nails
Of his cadavers

Forensically speaking
He can talk of the dead

He's one lucky stiff

Pushing up daisies
All over the yard
Of his rose cottage

This life at rainbow's end
Each day mortiferously expires

It's all there in the brochure
~

I see you there, impatiently disdaing my arrival
Turning head from side to side
Your eyes relentless, open wide
It’s funny that you've only ever seen me as a rival
For we’re much the same, both you and I
We sometimes laugh, and often cry
Lost somewhere within the everything you've never done
Lies the essence of a memory
Of all we were and all we’d be
How did you so blindly miss the nothing you’d become
Every time that you abandoned me
Exchanging freedom for a key

With every time you lied to me
Convinced that I am but a fool
Another link in slavery’s chain
To keep yourself bound further
Than you ever thought you’d go against the grain

But still you sit and wait for me
The one you hate, but hope you’ll see
So you can blame me once again
To make yourself feel better
You spit me out so tastelessly
Each time you sink your teeth in me
And here…you’d have me once again!
Such truth in every letter
This message that I write for you
Will never quite sink into you
For you can only see it
From your dark side of this glass
This message that I send to you
Refracts within your thoughts of gloom
You place the blame, not own it
As each sentence comes to pass

Each time you see the truth in me
You twist it into such a tool
To harvest every ounce of pain
Continuing to ******
Every broken piece of mind that peace would claim

You’re winning

I’m losing

I’m just your reflection

Hair thinning

Confusing

Such lack of attention

Refusing

Demanding

I’ll show you the end

Exhuming

Disbanding

Such lies you defend

Revealing

Ignored

Still held in contempt

Repealing

Abhorred

Yet you make no attempt

You glare at me with such hatred…

When I’m only what you've allowed yourself to become