For you, on whose
Oil painted skin the stars did sleep
For you again,
Who wept, wept in vain

I’d tie a butterfly to the unwavering sky
If only as a frail worm to
lure the fish
But did we not swear to leave the winged
alone?

Yet, there they are
Causing a reckless havoc
Trying to tear open the blue
And I’d shoot them down
But the ground is ours you see

Wounded and bleeding
The dying, as a fish, squirms
A broken spear pinning him in place

And I will keep on burning this dirt
To bricks
One betrothed to other
With cement,
Your own strange creation
The one you pour out your flutes
And pluck out them strings
Like fresh born weeds
dried and crushed

Songs upon songs
We set free up the yonder

But here is a bubble that will not be butchered
Like our sacrificial blooms
Ripened and fat,
This untouched pomegranate
Ravages itself

Long did our labor weave tales out ruin
To build us a shell
Within which we now reside

Unhatched

How do we do? It is pretty
A sight
The sky chokes on dirt and dirt
Drowns in the blue
Time, a trapped moth, flutters about
It collides around in its blind frenzy
And will not settle

I keep on
Painting our dry clouds
Birds still peck at gleaming stars
And you
You live, live in vain

1
In petrified personal history
far back in a page, this image-
a boy, eyes shut
lays supine embraced by
mother earth.A wakeful dream.
His bare body, smells
sweat, hay, mud, pollen
and grasshopper songs,
resonating in his ears still,
the sacred morning mantras;
his Hindu mother's incessant chants-
to appease mother earth.
* Shanthi..Shanthi..Shanthi
Peace descends on magical wings.

2
He feels time standing still
like trees frozen on a windless morn,
Earth was the mother, the presence,
that poured in to consciousness
music without sound,
an warm embrace without touch,
that painted the inner world with
her myriad colors.

3
Earth where secrets spurt, spread and die down as ashes,
my windy bed, gentle balm, end of every hunger,
I've dug deep in to yielding earth,
on those days of rustic childhood,
in a frenzied exploratory spirit,
prompted by a deep primordial urge,
that kept churning my dark inner caves,
with unknown currents, perhaps a wish
to go back as far  as possible,
to the past and find the nest where memories slept,
where my history lay buried in layers,
unhatched eggs of dinosaur past,
waiting to be discovered,
by the probing hands of present and future.
Perhaps a desire to reconnect with past,
now crusted secrets of an uncertain time,
that would talk to me in cryptic codes
of life, death and transcidence
and in a flash reveal what it all means
to an intergalactic traveler on eternity's wings.

4
My eager body gets smeared with soft earth,
covered at places with sticky mud that exudes
a sensuous scent,
                           feel of a woman, that takes one
to the unreal plane of a savage urge,
that arises from depth, a yearning to melt in to her,
to give birth to a future that would bring back
in a new form, the histories of yore,
on   the starting point once again.

5
Earth, is the sensuous woman, I relentlessly seek,
the destination of my destiny in the end,
the womb, where seeds of my dreams take root,
when I come back to her, to create me all over again,
with her elements, minerals and salts.
                            

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

           Fire Ants Devouring the Corpses of Unhatched Wasps


                      Nature does not, in the long run, favour life.

                  -C. S. Lewis, “On Living in an Atomic Age,” 1948


A formation of formicidae trekked north-northwest
Across a vast and lonely sunbeaten expanse
Their imperial quest a fallen wasps’ nest
Between a lawn chair and a potted plant

The ants greedily ripped open the paper shells
Like Christmas crackers for the goodies inside
The ghastly drippings of pupae in their jaws
Fragments of dead wasplings for their demanding queen

A formation of formicidae trekked east-southeast -
What, then, is the number of an unnumbered beast?

That subtle taste
of your love and affection,
was common at first,
but you've proved your possessions
through spirit and presence,
Admiring all of your visions,
missions we cater,
Like a striking viper,
you know what you wanted,
all this time,
your hair, scented.
lovely as the stars,
your eyes makes me melted
when I am wasted
you unhatched my other side
making me free
unleashed, no rules we abide.
to love one another,
is our promise to keep,
we leap, we soar,
we are what we give.
you see my soul,
while I see yours,
my dearest,
always a chase.
this is for keeps,
my one and only grace.

I sought signs both poorly and all too well,

Temporal desecration, deceived amid allies in a chemical orbit

My eyes, coal-black freezing eggs shivering in the expansive contract

To remain unhatched, their interior activity unnoticed, casings devoid of fissures

They deemed this New World for the whole Indian Ocean, whilst bobbing in a tidal pool

Lonely flotsam, overbargained destination, peered the cobalt with sunburnt backs

Washed in seawater, mistaking the mast on the horizon for the splinter in my cornea

I sought signs both poorly and all too well,

Cornered by God, pushed through into the ethereal,

Found the pattern, heard its airy whisper coat my thought,

Gave in at the threshold, suffered fealty to this breached actuality,

My fey qualities shining, I could glimpse the moon at midday,

Sense the aroma of heartache; savor the essence of autumn’s submission to winter

during awarenesses of spectral subtleties, the heretic’s hints, that waning occidental divination.

no use using your energy just to pretend
i hate to bring this up again and again
if things were different, if we could figure it out
the pace of our lives, feelings i'd rather live without
maybe it would be easier, maybe it would be better
if we could forget about each other
but there's no use in using your energy just to pretend
because we still lose our cool again and again
if we were older, maybe we would figure it out
our feelings remain inseparable from our doubt
i've been trying to come to the rescue of what we want to trust
while you cross your arms and mutter, "if you must."
i don't know how to be honest with you
and you don't want me to tell you the truth
there's no way to float alone with such weights attached
i placed all my eggs in one unreliable basket
and you think it's best to leave them unhatched

I am going
to disappear--
stay awake
until 6 am
when everyone
begins.

They will
look for me
under the
covers, but I
will not be
there.

I will evaporate
into the secret
air of all the
people who
cannot sleep
at night--we
fly into darkness,
because it does
not hurt our
eyes and all
our dreams
cannot die while
they are still
unhatched eggs.

We do not
have to love
anyone, except
from a
distance--they
are perfect there,
held in time
as all the good
things and good
smiles we remember
them as.

No one has
to love us.

I wonder what the hell the world sees
when they look in my direction.
I mean, sure I have a bright personality
but some have seen me fiery and smoldering
and I burn those who stand too close.

I wonder what the hell the world sees
when they look in my direction.
They certainly don’t realize I hide
a much softer side behind each rant.
The fluff and feathers go unhatched in my shell.

I wonder what the hell the world sees
when they look in my direction.
My laugh certainly can draw a stare
as it rumbles up out of my chest
and tinkles to the ground like crystal.

I wonder what the hell the world sees
when they look in my direction
and the rage from forever-hurts flare.
My fire lashes out and tears betray me
as I hope to be secretly strong.

I wonder what the hell the world sees
when they look in my direction
and realize I know I’m not much to look at, at all.