Gentlemen of Courage and Ladies of Excellence,
Toast to stolen prayers with rarer player’s hands;
Soft in defiant laughter,
when drinking their wine from the bowels of brines

Sing along the Ballads of Heritage with Melodies of Exception;
Boast, not a breathe,
though sullen heirs ghost to fairer wearer’s air(s) of land—
A settlement of Rapture and Resurrection, arid, amid dirt and sand

and King and thy Kingdom sprout flowering tomb, and rosebud temple reach to the sky during the showers of spring
Devours the crescent Moon

in big pink petals of bloom;

A garden so fertile
it could look pretty in wartime—
with Gardeners of Courage and Laborers of Excellence;
(Lapse, not into digressions of Being and Essence
but hands in the soil and planting the actions of kingdom come,
       patient building of Spring Reign sure
as the flame, the architect of rising Sun is
(Daughters and Sons of kingdom came,
      the soldier in a land been conquered and named; abandoned
for the greenness of hope.
)May it never come, Be All The Same; (


be gentle, though whispering wind)

Seeds of Nextyear and the spores of Awhile,
carried by the Wasps and the Clouds
To the Gentlemen of Excellence and Ladies of Courage,
illuminated, eyes from the flora of stars faraway forest floor of foreign

      fears,
      as the hungry Owls of Time prepare a final feast—
      Consume the years between Here and Now;
      Watching from blank perch, among
      the Trees of Afterall; a place beyond expectance.
      Sing the branches of experience, to wake
      in Siren’s cipher; inelegant forms
      of waking,

ugly sleep on rocks of seabed; once was aboard a marooned skyline—

Those Who Are Will Be
again, again a serf in a wave of Time’s refraction. Neverending neverbeginning;

                          Those Gentlemen of Courage and Ladies of Excellence,
on the Day That Is, arrays of seers sayers doers displayers
optimists and pessimists, toast to them
        and their rarer player’s hands,
Boast they, not a breathe, though sullen heirs ghost
to fairer wearer’s air and land;
Laugh and howl and dine, they drink their wine
from disemboweled gourds
        of their own divine—
Warped, in jowls of hungry fix,
no feast they fear, for they prey to the Owls of Time.

I.  Father
A folded spiral delicately assembled, nestled in modernity feigning a place in nature. Round and round her made and found ingredients turn, creating a circle whose beginning and ending sit so close that they almost touch. Her circle extends far beyond the nest she is building, extends without shifting into her mother’s laden cycle. Bird, earth, man; at the extremities of their existences they are separated no longer. The old man’s limbs sit heavy, their frailty relieving them of the weight of gravity that had, in their youth, banished the wind. Quietly he sways, lost in the rhythm of terrestrial orbit that seems to beat louder with each passing day. I see the thoughts move about his stoic face, like midwinter ice-skaters whose tracks become his wrinkles and whose unraveled scarves are caught in the same current that graces his cheeks like a kiss. I think he must have found the answer for which I am still seeking the question. I think he must know that the feathered ***** of native energy that speed like backyard bottle rockets through the air and pull worms like loose threads from the fabric of our mother’s coat will see morning’s glory blossom, and drink of its sweet nectar, and that he will become those flowers and breathe their roots up from  humid soil. I do not know where he goes when his eyes close like the wooden shutters that will soon be taken from the old brick house’s covered windows to close over a more somber cradle. I know when I mimic his tacit gesture I am in the singing robin’s nest at which he so tranquilly gazes, crying to the universe from the raw cords in my fragile neck for nourishment, for some magical substance, some divinely instructive stardust that would explain to me why the leaves shake just so and why, when our brilliant star hides his smoldering stare behind curved lids, I follow suit. I am new and unrefined and awake, and I can count the days of my existence like my still-wet and vital feathers that are too young yet to catch the wind. In this place God is a burgeoning emotion in my chest that speaks to the earth’s fertility, an abundance fed by the bodies of her fallen children. I am all of this and I know that in truth the old man thinks of nothing but the glowing atmosphere that fluctuates in both temperature and hostility, but is, at this moment, swaddling his broken form like the arms of a mother he will soon reclaim. The still branches of night are so laden with stars that they threaten to snap and come crashing down on the planet that sees them only as the ripened fruit of cosmic energy. Out of the night the emancipating wings of my consciousness flourish and are carried on stronger tides to see human expiration as the agent of enduring rebirth. Flight of body and soul bridge the gap between what was and what will be, closing the circle and guiding my solemn realization to fruition. The old man sleeps amidst a shower of home and sweet ****** bird-song. The wind that fails to wake his aged form smells like beginnings.



II. Son
The man is an ocean. He is reaching out to distant shores, spreading himself so thin at the edges that people can’t see where he ends and his country begins. The boy is a buoy, caught in a tide that never stops to wonder about the things it is moving. Buoys trust the ocean because they have to, they never had a choice. The two stand soul in soul at the crossways station of anticipation. The boy is silent. “He must know the way”, he thinks. “We’ve fought this war before. It was in a dream I had. I wrapped your arms around me like a cape and gravity couldn’t tell us what to do anymore. It was raining, I thought. Now I think those might just have been your tears coming back down on me. When gravity returned that was the first thing it took. It was so easy to cry when we could pretend the distance was only physical.” In this hub of passing voices and trans-Atlantic potential fear is a wide-eyed monster pretending to be a saint, wishing to be a child.   boy leaves Siddhartha’s white and glowing temple. The temple is surrounded with iron birds like transformers let loose from the pages of his comic book, rolled and folded like a hammer in his fist. His mind is an iron kettle whistling in the dark. His changing voice walks miles with words like his father’s back pocket bullets, shouting “I loved something once. Its name was a feeling. Its hands were the way the wind feels when you’re far from home. Its loneliness was a stone tower that I’m still trying to climb.” He sings an ode to a modern ocean, oily verses of pollution and corruption sinking morals like ships to be consumed and reborn to a better earth. He calls it a lullaby. I did not hear the last note played. His father forgot to sing it before his heels turned towards the old continent.

III. Spirit
Broken colors, reassembling, slow as the breeze that wanders and mocks the stationary world. I’m caught in a metamorphosis of mind, dancing a waltz of confession towards reality. Faces have faded, have bloomed from myth to speak in mortal voices, though their tongues be made of steel. Clouds of dust, caught in stray rays of northern sun, hang low over the aquatic murk, the impenetrable field of elemental strangers, and through them appear two figures. The first, his shoulders a bit too hunched and his gait a bit to staggered to be of this last generation, traces the perimeter of the pond with a studied poise; the latter figure comes into focus as he approaches the shore. I hear him calling, asking. I know he is asking even if the language he speaks is a foreign one. He pulls from under the surface a log, bent and creased like the aged arm that reaches out to assist. I am a ghost. I observe but rest immobile as if I am alive only in essence, existing for a moment in the corpse of the past. A fly on the wall whose chiseled stones tower over this piece of eternity. There is so much of forever piled within these walls, and in a desperate search for meaning I am left to drift away on waves that crash miles above this fortress of sand and early-summer expectance. The two continue, the boy taking two steps for every one of his grandfather’s. The possibility is never brought forth that they will reach me; I am not a part of the scene unfolding, I do not hold a piece in this game. Still… the wind coaxes the breath out of my silent lips, left powerless by the immensity of the incommunicable. I’ve forgotten the boy, forgotten his red jacket and his boots that slap the mud and his legs that propel his body up and down just to hear the sound the earth makes when he lands. He is beside me. I know this like I know the location of my own two feet, currently sunk into the shaded conglomeration of dirt and fallen leaves that makes up the bottom of the inky pond. I turn and for a moment wonder if he can see me, for I am but a ghost in most modern senses of the term. But he doesn’t know that- he has yet to see death or destitution. He knows nothing of ghosts, and therefore sees me clear as the blue eyes through which he looks in wonder. Those eyes! How could I forget their inquisitive stare, whose innocent gaze stole from my image all that it could not accept, all of the melancholy reflection and grief of which it knew not. Long and long he stayed unblinking, tugging on loose threads of my being, ever unaware of their significance. Somewhere by the path-side, under trees that bow and sway his grandfather calls- his voice is heavy with a familiar tone that I am unable to identify, like the call of a bird whose name you remember only when you are asked to recall it. Old and young part, hands intertwined in their forever-dance of humanity, playing games with age and expiration, laughing at the distance as if it were only there to make the known road less hospitable. The world is still. I am a spirit, no longer a ghost, rid of darkness, at least for the time it takes to refill my lungs with the gold-spun fabric of the universe, all bluebells and stardust at this moment and forever, and exhale away.

Hail native Language, that by sinews weak
Didst move my first endeavouring tongue to speak,
And mad’st imperfect words with childish tripps,
Half unpronounc’t, slide through my infant-lipps,
Driving dum silence from the portal dore,
Where he had mutely sate two years before:
Here I salute thee and thy pardon ask,
That now I use thee in my latter task:
Small loss it is that thence can come unto thee,
I know my tongue but little Grace can do thee:                      
Thou needst not be ambitious to be first,
Believe me I have thither packt the worst:
And, if it happen as I did forecast,
The daintest dishes shall be serv’d up last.
I pray thee then deny me not thy aide
For this same small neglect that I have made:
But haste thee strait to do me once a Pleasure,
And from thy wardrope bring thy chiefest treasure;
Not those new fangled toys, and triming slight
Which takes our late fantasticks with delight,                      
But cull those richest Robes, and gay’st attire
Which deepest Spirits, and choicest Wits desire:
I have some naked thoughts that rove about
And loudly knock to have their passage out;
And wearie of their place do only stay
Till thou hast deck’t them in thy best aray;
That so they may without suspect or fears
Fly swiftly to this fair Assembly’s ears;
Yet I had rather if I were to chuse,
Thy service in some graver subject use,                              
Such as may make thee search thy coffers round
Before thou cloath my fancy in fit sound:
Such where the deep transported mind may scare
Above the wheeling poles, and at Heav’ns dore
Look in, and see each blissful Deitie
How he before the thunderous throne doth lie,
Listening to what unshorn Apollo sings
To th’touch of golden wires, while **** brings
Immortal Nectar to her Kingly Sire:
Then passing through the Spherse of watchful fire,                  
And mistie Regions of wide air next under,
And hills of Snow and lofts of piled Thunder,
May tell at length how green-ey’d Neptune raves,
In Heav’ns defiance mustering all his waves;
Then sing of secret things that came to pass
When Beldam Nature in her cradle was;
And last of Kings and Queens and Hero’s old,
Such as the wise Demodocus once told
In solemn Songs at King Alcinous feast,
While sad Ulisses soul and all the rest                              
Are held with his melodious harmonie
In willing chains and sweet captivitie.
But fie my wandring Muse how thou dost stray!
Expectance calls thee now another way,
Thou know’st it must he now thy only bent
To keep in compass of thy Predicament:
Then quick about thy purpos’d business come,
That to the next I may resign my Roome

Then Ens is represented as Father of the Predicaments his ten
Sons, whereof the Eldest stood for Substance with his Canons,
which Ens thus speaking, explains.

Good luck befriend thee Son; for at thy birth
The Faiery Ladies daunc’t upon the hearth;                          
Thy drowsie Nurse hath sworn she did them spie
Come tripping to the Room where thou didst lie;
And sweetly singing round about thy Bed
Strew all their blessings on thy sleeping Head.
She heard them give thee this, that thou should’st still
From eyes of mortals walk invisible,
Yet there is something that doth force my fear,
For once it was my dismal hap to hear
A Sybil old, bow-bent with crooked age,
That far events full wisely could presage,
And in Times long and dark Prospective Glass
Fore-saw what future dayes should bring to pass,
Your Son, said she, (nor can you it prevent)
Shall subject be to many an Accident.
O’re all his Brethren he shall Reign as King,
Yet every one shall make him underling,
And those that cannot live from him asunder
Ungratefully shall strive to keep him under,
In worth and excellence he shall out-go them,
Yet being above them, he shall be below them;                        
From others he shall stand in need of nothing,
Yet on his Brothers shall depend for Cloathing.
To find a Foe it shall not be his hap,
And peace shall lull him in her flowry lap;
Yet shall he live in strife, and at his dore
Devouring war shall never cease to roare;
Yea it shall be his natural property
To harbour those that are at enmity.
What power, what force, what mighty spell, if not
Your learned hands, can loose this Gordian knot?                    

The next Quantity and Quality, spake in Prose, then Relation
was call’d by his Name.

Rivers arise; whether thou be the Son,
Of utmost Tweed, or Oose, or gulphie Dun,
Or Trent, who like some earth-born Giant spreads
His thirty Armes along the indented Meads,
Or sullen Mole that runneth underneath,
Or Severn swift, guilty of Maidens death,
Or Rockie Avon, or of Sedgie Lee,
Or Coaly Tine, or antient hallowed Dee,
Or Humber loud that keeps the Scythians Name,
Or Medway smooth, or Royal Towred Thame.

Fake
A world prewritten
She planned on being unscripted
Her world is now unpredicted
She still knows someone else is in control
Depicted
Still a hope of making her own decisions
Yet there is nothing told
Destination unfolds
Still not powerless
She radiates greatness in a self-consciousness way
Expectance is decayed
Now only false hope and a piece of paper save the day

I wonder... Have you
aged enough, upon grief,
came to love this matching heart?

A broken mirror of my reflection
A shriek of pain from repeating rejection
A complex scheme
To learn a lesson

****** palms as I play psalms
Picking up the pieces of a life at risk
Started out with pricked fingers
Now I'm avoiding a ****** wrist

A deteriorating gas is pressing to exit my mind
It eats away at every sane thought left inside
Where do I go when it's my true self that I have to hide

Everything I say is a constant mistake
So I grit my teeth till they ache and I mumble words until they marinate
Working on self love but the moments like these that are within myself are the ones that I hate

I search for repression but where do I begin
When this is all I know
When there's always the question of an end

Save me from myself because Lord knows I've sinned
I'd take it all back if I could run it again
I hope he doesn't lose faith in me
He's my only friend

It seems like ever since this has began I've been blessed with a beautiful curse
I ask God for the best but I still expected the worst
Maybe this is what happens
When everything is diverse

See it in my eyes
See the rift in my soul
See the angry love
Burning a hole
See the ache for expectance
Taking a toll
Skins red but it's feels cold

For the content that makes up me
It grits down like sand
All I ever wanted
Was a loving hand

They tell me I'll be okay
But I don't think they understand
For this is not a human quality
I am merely man

I am left to supply
When commitment was my only demand
Two judges and one man
Will I be enough when I take the stand

(r.n.)

Longing to express it
Not to suffer and suppress it
But you tell me I can't
you tell me it's easier
You tell me it helps
I tell you it kills me.

Regreting my expectance
Receiving no acceptance
And you tell me I can't
you can't stand to hear it
I can't hold it in
I can't turn off my emotion

Decaying so painfully slow
Dead and so horribly alone
You tell me I can't
You say you need a break
That's it's better if you do
And I can't stay awake

Already lost in my asleep
Burried so far in the deep
And you tell me I can't
makes everything worse
Tearing me apart
How do u think this helps!

Maybe it will benefit you
You think it will benefit me too
You tell me I can't tho!
And I'm lost in this storm
Of endless torture
Forever so numb

In the end when you come back
I'll be the same and not on track
Because you tell me I cant..
I've held it in for so long
It's killed me so slowly
Nothing but dust

"What a ****
You're a waste of space
Selfish brat
No one will ever like you
Ugly ******"

Words escalated after I said
"I'm a bit cold"
in 30 degree weather
Wearing a thin long sleeve..
Words from my own mother

I would like for her to repeat those phrases after she's
seen me throwing up every "snack" I've eaten in 3 days

Have her watch me cry and shake in the bathtub while slitting my wrists because a blade hurts way less than her words

Have her watch me spend hours looking at thinspo and
"how to be perfect" websites for self expectance because she's torn me down too far

I want her to watch me talk to the people at school because she sees me as the hammer I smash my ribs against with; but truly, I am gentle

I am petrified to raise my hand in class because I am so scared to mess myself up... Mommy said it was wrong to mistake.
I will cry in a bathroom stall for hours if a girl DARE tell me she thinks she doesn't look good enough for the world today because that's how I feel with reminders every hour
But,
Maybe I am selfish
Selfish to keep myself away from human engagements for so long
But mommy says it's for the better
Better if I stay away

The words I've learned to trust so much
It's the words that stab me over and over
Those words are the reason I cannot accept a compliment or state my thoughts aloud

Feeling far worse than suicide.
Self harming
Burning
Carving
Words hurt more
Her words hurt most

And now mommy might know
Why there is a tear stained note waiting for her in her bedroom tonight
And she might feel just a bit of pain
As I did everyday

Goodbye mom, I thought I loved you.

Time starts clocking by,
Like an infinite life promised,
Slowly loosing grip on its reality.

I've counted down the days,
Some go faster then others.
I'll live for expectance,
To expect fate, or my destiny.

As it wipes away my tears,
Nothing will remain.
Is this all still natural,
Or have I gone insane?

From the Swirl comes the Structure,
In the Structure feeds the Flow
and the Flow maintains the Focus.

So we can deduce
much like the pattern of life,
it begins as Freedom,
like colorful movement
exempt from rule.
While the other extreme,
the skill obtained of Focus & Form,
akin to miraculous mystery
wise sensuality
from royalty born.

Can you see the Procession
in difference yet alike?
Infancy is always Free
from Wisdom comes Sight
the Master of Vision
Magical Majesty
 ~Immaculate Precision.
 ~A Rainbow in the Light.

Deep unto the dreamy wood
Walk We, one Faerie to ‘nother
Swift~ Shift
Slighted plea
what cares of Noumenic Clemency
divide amongst they~
who do not know or care to see
forever to possess perverse tales
to talk away the mystery.
Swift ~ Shift
acrimonious possession
Sudden urgency
Cares Not~
Divide amongst Noumenic Novelty.

Coming birth of Elementals
entrancing ingenuity
foreseen such heavenly conception.
Ironic irreverence of Elements
pure Majesty
Still in Expectance of
blessed Faerie’s redemption
They ~ who do not care
will never know and ought never see.

This is about Strife.
The way one Group tends always to find flaw with another Group, finding all the differences to hate, ignoring any similarities to love.

You expect for everything to work your way
But in no way,do you accept to work for anything

AvA