the dark of my room,
the dark of your eyes.
both so convincing and so consuming.
both so safe and so relaxing.
i wish the clounds would go away
and leave us here to breathe,
i wish the sun would shin all day,
and leave us here to see
the beauty in this world is all around
in the homeless,
in the hopeless,
in the wealthy,
in the secured.
everything had a touch
and a smell that is familiar to our forgotten memories,
or thoughts locked away in old rusty caves.
they come out to play,
when you ask what i did when i was young.
i am young-
when i'm with you
in your strong arms
when we are lying in your bed,
whe you are stuck in my head.
my head it sounds like a beating drum,
i swear you should hear it
it starts when your around.
around around this emotional merry-go-round
a shot in the dark
the target was you,
you in the dark with me, always leads to something new.
ideas fly through me,
of running away
or maybe just to stay.
who knows what roads we will take to get us there.
there and here,
home is where the heart is,
the heart is where the mind will follow,
my mind on you
and the beauty in the dark
of this fake wonderful world.
goodnight.

No one knows the horrible thoughts within my head,
I grow tired of faking normal.
I look into the mirror and hate who is staring back.

The daymares are worse than the nightmares because they come without warning.
It is hard to fake normal when the daymares come and tears stream and the shaking begins.
I run for a place to close a door and lock it.
Lock out the world and grab my hair and pull and pull so hard that I try to pull the scenes out of my head.

I see them over and over every day. I hear the sounds. I lose my breath when the triggers come.
I tell my doctor that I am tired of faking normal.
I ask for medicine that will make me feel numb.

He asks me, "When was the last time you were happy?"
I pause, I think. I don't  remember.
My family doesn't understand so I have to fake normal.
I tell him I don't know how much longer I can hold on. Do something.
He says. I want you to seek counseling.
NO. It doesn't work.
Please.
NO. Just give me something so I won't think anymore.

I know that this PTSD is winning. Faking normal is coming to an end.
My doctor looks at me for the first time with the saddest eyes and says, "I'm worried about you."
I think to myself, You should be.

I wrote this while waiting my turn at Baragwanath Hospital...it suddenly came to me, that I had been speaking to these wonderful ladies at **** Crisis Scotland nearly every day before I came here and started to heal.  Im forever, and ever...grateful ***

"While I wait…"

Today I was thinking,
I had so much time,
Waiting for hours and hours,
Patiently in line

Apprehensive, nervous,
Yet somewhat assured,
I let my mind wander,
Back and back it was lured

Im out of my body,
Now an empty shell,
Going back to the past,
Going back to …hell

It feels dangerous,
Thinking back,
I feel so vulnerable,
It hurts to look back

But here I am,
Waiting in line,
A different person,
To look back, it is time

But who was I?
What was going on?
The fear, the shame,
I had almost no one

Its darkness and pain,
Unbearable pain,
Not trusting anyone,
Even myself, never again

I was something else,
Torture, torture, torture,
Hating myself,
Was I a murderer?

The panic, the fear,
Not knowing myself,
Not knowing inside,
Wanting to **** myself

All of this now
Seems so much worse,
As im getting better,
Im learning to trust

The pain in my stomach,
Thinking back to that time,
Stuck in my house,
Completely out of my mind

Time had stopped,
But I still had to live,
Existing was painful,
It was a nightmare to live

I don’t recognise myself,
Don't know who I was,
But the feelings are still with me,
More traumatic than all else

My blades were my friends,
Taking the pain each day,
Numbing my mind,
Allowing it to “go away”

Cut cut cut,
Every day,
I look at my scars now,
I’ve had to explain

Back there I was me,
But I was totally lost,
Like living a virtual reality,
So totally totally lost

An empty shell,
Yet shaky and trembling,
Wanting to die,
For being a burden

Suddenly
Im lost for words,
Just feeling feelings,
Its too much for words

There was nothing left of me,
Now that I know,
And knowing causes me pain,
How could I have got so low?

I can’t stop the tears,
The confusion, the fog,
Was so intense,
Not knowing who I was

The daymares,
The nightmares,
People grabbing me,
People hurting me

I look at my arm,
I look at my legs,
Nowhere is my body spared,
Apart from my face

I felt *****,
Ashamed,
A burden,
On Society

I disgusted myself,
Yet not knowing why,
Even for calling the helpline,
I felt I should die

Its much like a fog,
Feeling my way through,
Occasionally bumping into things,
My mind says “thats you”

I was so very sick,
I only know now,
Just thinking how sick I was
Makes me physically ill now

It wasn’t me,
Id gone somewhere,
The pain too much,
And the shame, to bear

I break down now
When I describe these times,
I was in contact with people,
Begging them to take my life

It still comes back now,
Triggers, so im told,
I beat myself up,
Hit my head on the wall

It can be overwhelming
When it comes back,
Whether its the ****,
Or just the cruelty I faced

People were cruel,
So so cruel,
They hurt me so deeply,
That I thought I was cruel

I think back to times
I was abused by police,
I was abused by doctors,
In fact, all authorities

They just hurt me more,
They put me through hell,
The pain they caused me,
Left a story to tell

They were cold, suspicious,
Filling me with shame,
Making me believe,
That I was to blame

They traumatised me more,
More than ever before,
Or perhaps I should say torture,
I felt ashamed to my core

So much I could write,
But im struggling for words,
They hurt me, they did this,
Now I realise their curse

I cannot forgive them,
I cannot go back,
Here life's a struggle,
But my trust is coming back

I feel sad for time wasted,
Knowing Pamela would help me,
It pains me now to think
How I just could not let her help me

She believed in me,
Was ready to listen,
She understood,
Even spoke to the policeman

But I always feared
Asking for help,
For I was a burden,
Perhaps id feel worse getting help

They put this in my mind,
….a burden on society,
Dealing with the **** was one thing,
But this was a different story

Pamela tried so hard,
She took me to get help,
But it never materialised,
Instead, I totally lost hope

The days were long,
The nights were longer,
The man in my house,
Or is it my mother?

I didn’t want to exist,
I blocked out my life,
Then remembered what I didn’t want to,
My brain attacking me like a knife

There was no hope,
People are so cruel,
Do they enjoy it?
Watching people become ill?

I didn’t know how sick I was
Until I started getting better,
Im in a better place now,
But with a past full of horror

Its been a long time,
I think it had to be,
For me to find myself,
And to feel free

Now is the time,
Looking back on my life,
There were people, a helpline,
That physically saved my life

Although I was confused,
Not allowing myself to believe,
They told me again and again,
The one thing they did was believe

A have so much respect,
A deep connection too,
To these selfless women,
Who give up their time, for you

There wasn’t much you could do,
But you did everything and more,
You never gave up on me,
As I sat glued to the floor

Im healing slowly,
Reclaiming my life,
But I want to thank you ladies,
You did save my life

I appreciate everything you did so deeply it brings me to tears, thank you from the very bottom of my heart. .

Whole day I carry a burden of load in mind
A way out of this maze I desperately try to find
Rewinds it like a flashback in a slow moving film
Was he at fault or wasn’t I unfair to him?

Then there’re words that I would rather not have said
They raised some eyebrows a few enemies made
In course of the day they make me sulk and fret
Agonizing mishaps breeding gallons of regret!

Add to that my actions that might have caused a hurt
Sweet bonds loosening relationships coming apart
I’m tormented by these diurnal horrors the recurrent day-mares
Be sure they’re much scarier than any of your nightmares.

Just because I cannot sleep
does not mean I cannot dream.
In fact, I have nightmares
everyday.

a google-whack for the ultimate news reel: #jigo'hudami.

and not another Shakespeare to come, #blues,
and not another Milton to come, #blues,
and not another Beckett to come, #blues,
an not another unforced Bukowski to come, #blues,
and not another papa Ginsberg to come, #blues,
and not another fusion of poetry and jazz, #blues -
not another, the lost interest in jazz,
the it's been done, and only in America, #blues -
and not another Dostoyevsky to come, #blues,
and no one is digging digital trenches like at Ypres
             capitalising on the gambling of
giving it all, even if it means giving it for nothing
imagining daymares of homelessness, #blues -
and no more fusion worked from the stale juggernauts
of voice in the wilderness, or voice among aghast silence -
and no one is writing intoxicated odes in a Dionysian
woodland shade naked or at least half naked - #blues,
and no one new knows how having voyeuristic eyes
not looking at your poetry on the internet feels like,
before the broadband hyper super hyper mega tron
optic wires before the ancient tee p p **** dial to
connect - rotary dial telephones and aesthetic patience -
dial-a-meaning now, collect, appropriate, discard -
super-communicative efficiency like the Chinese
but in lesser number - lesser number - a moment to
unwind - choose a graphic for the front-cover -
Dali? really? quote: morbid and dark and a surrealist?
surrealists wrote their poetry at the beginning of the
20th century - again, what a treat, cook up a 21st century
manifesto - overshoot the mark - the macabre non-Gothic,
and so no angel with a sword near the chapel entrance
but a gargoyle - a gargantuan bore - agreed...
and not another william blake to come, #blues,
and not another richard brautigan to come, #blues,
dual citizen of the world - from one underworld to another,
Morse code typescript, or telegram poetry -
poetry telegramic - the reinvention of the cut-up technique,
but less paper clippings of single words shoved in
a hat like someone about to wear latex gloves and write
a ransom letter - telegramic poetry - the cut up is more
linear, less word from newspapers cut and then picked
at random, hoping for the big winner - conscious of
the river course - telegram! - opening page from
l'Étranger (e.g.):
mother died - - - - - - - telegram - - - - - - - at Marengo - - -
2 days leave - - - - - absurd already, apologies for death -
- - - - - (yes, a reader, not the narrator, and not - - - - - - - -
explicitly like a telegram) - - - - (self-explanatory auto-) -
- exactly, at every turn some excuse, but what a grand
excuse, god's turn, excuses after the fashionable 15 minutes -
nothing prior - - - - lunch at Céleste’s restaurant - - - - -
starting to look anti-autobigraphical (i.e. written much too
late, not day-by-day, *Kronos Witold Gombrowicz) - - -
calls Emmanuel to be lent a black tie - - - joke, karate - -
not so funny - - - d'uh, belt - - - mourning band - - - - - - -
with a white ******* rotated 45° from that famous
re-interpretation - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - good something -
running for the bus - - - soldier's shoulder, sleep - - - - -
warden absent, waiting with a chatty doorman - - - - - - - -.
well it could work -this telegram style, it's the easiest style
to read, the Nova Express proves it, the Soft Machine
proves it, Naked Lunch proves it - the incoherent distraction,
well, coherently incoherent - sometimes you want to
see a tornado rather than an open stretch of road in a desert -
a ****** tornado - whirling and whirling with Loki
playing a flute - and something about the great milkman
being choked by a marshmallow monster in the sky -
or, of course, with the sensible people - an Ikea assembly
manual for a chair - with one but the most crucial ***** missing:
metaphor for the 10% books, that's 10% in, 20% up on sales
of audiobooks - hyper-readers, ages: 18-24 - 24-35 (21%) -
and then thick mud ahead, an opera of yawns and a gym
membership one tier above the no-fun zone of sometimes
an index wet and a judo flick of the page - or any other
comparison - but on the plus - and not another Walt Whitman
to come - #bangersandmash, and not another Pound
to come - #blues - in with the pretentious you say out
with the feral? maybe... maybe not - but all of this for only
one sentence: to be nervous over ethnicity and vocabulary -
shouldn't exist - to pursue active censorship of a person's
vocabulary is to undermine them completely -
when corporations copyright words because they're logos
i can understand - but people copyright words something's
obviously wrong, somehow i imagine corporate influence
at having taught this lesson - it should exist - or... in what tone?
but already, people what inoffensive and frail - they
want cushions but don't want stones - and it's every single
time - where once words flowed freely no words stumble
against everyone being politicised - it's hard to do your job
these days, whatever it might be - some would say once
the figurehead a throng of courtesans and you knew of importance,
you were so far away from the seat of power you enjoyed
one sq. mile rather than daydreaming about if you ruled
the world - cost-effective inefficiency of politics -
life? unaffected - and it's not even some glorious technique
behind it - the same children that lied have simply
learned to evolve lying into negation - ah, whatever, #blues,
#Rakı.

My sleep is crowded
With recurring nightmares
Of failing Grade 12 French;
Standing naked and exposed;
Seeing the one you love
Love someone else;
The anxiety of an empty back pocket;
Swerving cars,
Crap falling from planes;
The inevitable chase and stumbling
Just ahead of the apocolypse.
The morning daymare news
Is definitely more frightening,
The end times more certain.

This is neither history nor theology;
this is Romance:

                                       A Liturgy for the Emperor

In memory of
Patrick Joseph Donovan,
Stratiotis

Processional

How, then, will we find death?  With rifle in hand,
Perhaps, or flowing with the warm, worn prayers
That slip with beads through one's fingers and soul.
Rifle or Rosary, either will do.
One's death might rise in the boldness of youth,
Or in the wearied wisdom of old age,
In wild combat against ancient evils,
Or softly, while planting a red-apple tree
For grandchildren to summer-celebrate,
In wild red martyrdom, or obscure white.

The nights still whisper how the Emperor fell,
Fell with a faithful few upon the walls,
The old land walls of Constantinople.
But we are not to speak of martyrs whose
Transcendent beauty reproaches our times,
Our drifting dark age, drab, dreary, and dim
Our tomb-like lives cluttered with small darkness,
Our talk all common, colourless, and cold:
The thoughts assigned programmed into our souls,
Daymares programmed into us for our good,
Pitiful, pattering, prosthetic prose,
Cacophonies of casual cruelties --
No brave iambic lines for golden dreams.

But dare we also whisper truths, and speak
Of what a wind-wild people once we were,
And we will want our syllables to sing
In honour of the Martyr-Emperor
And those who followed him into his death,
And in this knowing of him we can live
Among those souls who are forever young.

Introit

In Nomine Partis, et Filli, et Spiritus Sancti

We will go to the Altar of God
To God, Who gives joy to our youth
We will go to the Altar of God
We will go to Byzantium

Kyrie

Lord have mercy -- when the shadows surround us
Christ have mercy -- when we forget the Three Romes
Lord have mercy -- when we forget You

Gloria

Glory to God in the highest
And peace to His Byzantine people
And all His peoples
Lord God, Heavenly King
who once blessed us with Emperors
Send us another
Send Your waiting people their Emperor

The First Reading

As Constantine his walls he watched, he wept,
Lost in the Gethsemane of his soul
His tears they fell upon the ancient bricks
Warm with centuries of sun, saintliness,
And the passions of a glorious race

The City!  Long reigning on the Golden Horn
The Summer Country of our childhood dreams
There playing, praying, working, selling, and,
Yes, sinning too.  Passionate *Romanoi --
What a magnificent people we were.

(fast)

When armies marched to the Byzantine beat
Sophia ruled from her Byzantine seat  
When Byzantine sails sheltered Odysseus' sea
The wave-roads of trade were open and free  
When Romanoi feasted, blood mixed with wine
Daggers drawn over a dancing concubine
A newer Helen who provoked desire,
She seared men's eyes with her own Greek Fire
When Blues and Greens howled in the Hippodrome --
Such rowdy citizens in Second Rome! --
Then even Emperors in purple shoes
Feared stoning by Greens or hanging by Blues
The rough, loud democracy of the street --
Mobs also marched to the Byzantine beat

The Second Reading

(slowly)

But –

Above all rose Justinian's gem
The holy place where God called us to Him
The Mother Church of dawn-lit Christendom
Sophia -- the Queen of Byzantium
Where Patriarch, patrician, people, and priest
Gave worship.  Then the greatest and the least
Abandoned sin to hear the sweet bells ring,
Stood penitent before our God, our King:
In consecrated hands, through wine and bread

Christos Pantocrater fed us Himself

And then all hearts were cleansed, all souls were fed

(Very slowly)

But centuries passed, and this City of God
Heart of the Empire, became the Empire,
As lands and peoples were lost forever
to the creeping new age.  When Constantine,
The last Constantine, was called to the Throne,
All that was left was The City herself,
The Morea, and islands, and memories.
The fleet whose sails had shaded the Inner Sea
Was but a few hopeless hulks in the Horn

From the dust, dark shadows metastasized,
Shadows who stole and slew their way to power
And swept the land bare of free folk and fields
And more and more the shadows grasped and held,
A dead world of slaves whose backs were bloodied
Beneath the whips of masters, slaves whose eyes
Were cast carefully, cautiously to the ground
Lest demeanour manly and bearing proud
Attract the executioners' busy blades.

Finally, after devouring lands and souls,
The shadows coveted Constantinople,
The Red-Apple Tree where continents meet,
The City they could never build for themselves
And nothing stood between them and their lust
But one bold man: Constantine Dragases.
The faithful few who stood the walls with him,
Gathered around proud, stubborn Constantine:
Workers and monks and nuns, beggars, merchants,
Proud, arrogant Byzantines, and the few
Wild Latins From the barbarian West
Whose Greek was in their hearts, not on their lips,
Who gave their loyalty late to their liege lord,
The Emperor, who could have safely lain
A shadow's golden-caged slave, obedient,
Well-fed, well-bedded from the shadows'
Catalogues of pretty girls and prettier boys,
A memory of what had been a man.

But Constantine stood proudly on his walls,
Defiantly, bravely, sadly there on
His crumbling ancient walls, and gave his faith
To God and the City, to his people,
Even to the faithless ones, even to his death.

And others came, From Rome and Spain and France,
From Germany, and even from the Turks,
Brave, lonely men with reasons of their own
For ending their lives there on the Land Walls.

But they were not enough.  And late that night,
After the last Mass in Hagia Sophia,
The Emperor knew that his was the blood,
The blood of sacrifice that would be shed
In remembrance of ****** Golgotha,
For the people he was given to rule,
For the people for whom he chose to die,
Sheltering, protecting, until his end.


A Gospel

No angel appeared to the Emperor,
No voice of God from a burning bush
He parted himself from his followers
And for a few minutes grieved alone

And this was given Constantine to know:

The eternal Constantinople is
Never to be lost, never defeated --
In every Christian flows Dragases' blood
Every village is the Holy City
Every church is Hagia Sophia
Every prayer is a Mass for the Emperor
Every children's foot-race the Hippodrome
Every poor family's poor supper
A banquet under the Red-Apple Tree.
Constantinople will live forever.
Know that, and, laughing, give your last earth-hour,
And your joyful eternity, to God.

Credo

We believe in God's holy empire too,
Byzantium, eternally golden
The Red-Apple Tree in the eastern sun
The City that echoes with laughing light
Through memory and history and beyond.
We believe in God and His Emperor,
And we believe that in the absence of
The Emperor, even then we must be
The Emperor's subjects, stubborn and true,
Wherever God has chosen to send us.
We then must rule our passions and our hearts,
Tend our gardens as if they were Eden --
Because they are -- and care for our children
As if angels were visiting tonight,
Until our God restores our Emperor,
Restores His City where the Earth-halves meet,
And finally, some day, some happy day,
Returns Himself to sit and rule enthroned
In His Three Romes, and in Jerusalem.


Communion

Constantine shook himself, and gave commands,
Commending all to duty and to God.
Above him the dome of Hagia Sophia
Glowed eerily on that last, wild night
While lightning slashed among the sliding clouds
Byzantium rose again for one glorious hour
And the world marveled that such things could be,
That Christ and Rome and Constantinople
Could be found in one man at the end of an age.

Blood, *****, screams, and death;
blood, *****, death
Blood, *****, screams, and death;
blood, *****, screams
Blood, *****, screams, and death;
blood, *****, death
Blood, *****, screams, and death;
blood, *****, screams
The glory is that there is no glory.
Chaos.  Horror.  Stench.  Sweat.  Pain.  *****.  Death.
Hi­s -- His -- body broken again for us.

On that dark morning of a dark new age,
Constantine turned and faced its slithering shadows
With a Byzantine end to his ruler's art,
With the peace of Christ and a hero's heart.

DISMISSAL

The Mass is ended.  Byzantium is ended.  
Escape, if you can -- make Byzantium live.
Escape to live in some peace, if you can.
Escape in peace to love and serve in exile.
Escape in peace to love and serve the Lord.

"O Lord save Thy people and bless Thine inheritance;
And to Thy Faithful king grant victory over the barbarians.
And by the power of Thy Cross, protect all those who follow  
          Thee"1

Not an End at All

1Troparion for the Sunday of the Elevation of the Cross, Divine Prayers and Serves of the Catholic Orthodox Church of Christ, copyright 1938.

Many thanks to Mr. Tod Mixson and others of St. Michael's Orthodox Church for assistance at many points, both liturgical and artistic, to Dr. Dan Bailey, of happy memory, and Dr. John Dahmus of Stephen F. Austin State University.