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Terry O'Leary Dec 2013
Ill-fated crowds neath unchained clouds: the Silent City braved
against a sudden flashing flood, unleashing lashing waves,
which stripped its stony structures, blown with neutron bursts that laved.

Its barren streets, although effete, resound of yesterday
with chit-chat words no longer heard (though having much to say)
since teeming life (at one time, rife), surceased and slipped away.

Within its walls? Whist buildings, tall... Outside the City? Dunes,
which limn its frail forgotten tales, in weird unworldly runes
with symbols strung like halos hung in lifeless, limp festoons.

Above! The dismal ditch of dusk reveals a velvet streak,
through which the winter’s wicked winds will sometimes weave and sneak,
and faraway a cable sways, a bridge clings hushed and bleak.

Thin shadows shift, like silver shafts, throughout the doomed domain
reflecting white, wee wisps of light in ebon beads of bane
which cast a crooked smile across a faceless windowpane.

Wan neon lights glow through the nights, through darkness sleek as slate,
while lanterns (hovered, high above, in silent swinging gait),
whelm ballrooms, bars, bereft bazaars, though no one’s left to fete.

Death's silhouettes show no regrets, 'twixt twilight’s ashen shrouds,
oblivious she always was to cries in dying crowds –
in foggy neap the spirits creep beyond the mushroom clouds.


No ghosts of ones with jagged tongues will sing a silent psalm
nor haunt pale lips with languid quips to pierce the deathly calm,
nor yet redress the emptiness that shifting shades embalm.



The City’s blur? A sepulcher for Christians, Muslims, Jews –
Cathedrals, Temples, vacant now, enshrine their residues,
for churches, mosques and synagogues abide without a bruise.

No cantillation, belfry bells, monastic chants inspire
and Minarets, though standing yet, host neither voice nor crier -
abodes and buildings silhouette a muted spectral choir.

A church’s Gothic ceilings guard the empty pews below
and, all alone amongst the stones, a maiden’s blue jabot.
The Saints, in crypts, though nondescript, grace halos now aglow.

Stray footsteps swarm through church no more (apostates that profane)
though echoes in the nave still din and chalice cups retain
an altar wine that tastes of brine decaying in the rain.

Coiled candle sticks, with twisted wicks, no longer 'lume the cracks -
their dying flames revealed the shame, mid pendant pearls of wax,
when deference to innocence dissolved in molten tracks.

Six steeple towers, steel though now drab daggers in the sky!
Their hallowed halls no longer call when breezes wander by –
for, filled with dread to wake the dead, they've ceased to sough or sigh.

The chapel chimes? Their clapper rope (that tongue-tied confidante)
won’t writhe to ring the carillon, alone and lean and gaunt –
its flocks of jute, now fallen mute, adorn the holy font.


No saints will come with jagged tongues to sing a silent psalm
nor bless pale lips with languid quips to pierce the deathly calm,
nor pray for mercy, grace deferred, nor beg lethean balm.


Beyond the suburbs, farmers’ fields (where donkeys often brayed)
inhale gray gusts of barren dust where living seed once laid
and in the haze a scarecrow sways, impaled upon a *****.

Green trees gone dark in palace parks (where kids once paused to play),
watch lifeless things on phantom swings (like statues made of clay)
guard marbled tombs in graveyards groomed for grievers bent to pray.

And castle clocks, unwound, defrock with speechless spinning spokes,
unfurling blight of reigning Night by sweeping off her cloaks,
and flaunting dun oblivion, her Baroness evokes.

The sun-bleached bones of those who'd flown lie scattered down the lanes
while other souls who’d hid in holes left bones with yellow stains
of plaintive tears (shed insincere, for no one felt the pains).

The wraiths that scream in sleepless dreams have ceased to terrify
though terrors wrought by conscience fraught now stalk and lurk nearby
within the shrouds of curtained clouds, frail fabrics on the sky.

And fog no longer seeps beyond the edge of doom’s café,
for when she trails her mourning veils, she fills the cabaret
with sallow smears of misty tears in sheets of shallow gray.

The City’s still, like hollowed quill with ravished feathered vane,
baptized in floods of spattered blood, once flowing through a vein.
The fruits of life, destroyed in strife... ’twas truly all in vain.


No umbras hum with jagged tongues nor sing a silent psalm
nor lade pale lips with languid quips to pierce the deathly calm –
they've seen, you see, life’s brevity, beneath a neutron bomb.


EPILOGUE

Beyond the Silent City’s walls, the victors laugh and play
while celebrating PEACE ON EARTH, the devil’s sobriquet
for neutron radiation death in places far away.
Rockie  Jan 2015
Deathly Moor
Rockie Jan 2015
Cuts and wounds and scratches
Set deep in your skin
They create little tracks
Like Daddy's motorbike on
That deathly moor

Cuts and wounds and scratches
Creating red blood
To swell to the surface
Like Daddy's body on
That deathly moor

Cuts and wounds and scratches
They are
Deep
Angry
Ugly crevices
On the map of your body

Cuts and wounds and scratches
Deep enough as crevices
To fall and sink into
Just like Daddy did on
That deathly moor
Robin Carretti Jul 2018
The burr shaking in a
Bohemian Awakening
(Long) vintage stare how
her words were spelled
out snake tongue (Short)
The Death
Whats Up* Chap of a sport
Whats Up Doc
Going tick tock Mr. Rick
Don't trick this document
Oh! where did it drop
What!! He made the drop
dead gorgeous dress?

Born to die last lip of the spoonfuls
Cut to the chase with my chap lips
More deaths on the rise to deliver 
 
How love was the
mind controller
Hands out of the grave
couldn't hold her
Like the Boulder Chief head
Hothead on her shoulder
The better herbs of medicine
His racing car hot flame
gasoline

The Rapsody of her melody
holding on to her life
What a unique wife
Until time changes her moods
Opening up her world of flower buds
A different silence of home goods
We do believe we can be

The Champions

But the fallout of promises
Or jobs never big advances

Oh! Christ
Her chapped lips needed some
time to heal where is her next meal
The heat catching a death of cold
But staying alive the second
wind hot Ferrari Italian drive
Feeling deathly-sick faking
your death was no trick


Who disappeared never
really certain
if it was truly their
Building the fire mountain
Don't keep complaining
where the time went
Death of a cold wishes
not to die
where is our youth
Only takes one amazing birth
Lips kissing the fountain
The fortune teller booth

Who would want her chapped lips
Baby Ruth crunchy bar
down the mountain
The love confused her the
death would be
faster going once or twice up
Guilty trip or the graveyard shift
Hangover ski lift with her
Beeswax for chap lips
Taxman on the number rise flirting
What a good chap
In her coffee cup a little Robin birdie
told you

You made your own grave
time on my side or hanging
by a thread of stitches
Hats off up and away
Getting a green facelift of witches
You lived so far the good life
Feeling so wanted
he cooked your meals
He cleaned up your mess wearing
The Chef Apron 
 *He's Wanted
the sign
All over the world,
his face is wanted
The fool lips the fuller up lips
The heart went out of touch a deathly cold
She is wearing her heart-shaped lips
Doing what she is told
How the world has been
smudged with
rules
Noone knows where here

All her cracks of her lips
The cute button nose
Not Rudolph the Reindeer
The hunt for the ****** nose
Up close and personal
Lip to his lip journal
Such odds of numbers
So many even deaths
like tumblers
Through the loopers
Love and resentment
The world is a village commitment
Mcdonald Man beef and the
melted lady
cheese
whooper
You got an alert notice
The cast of spells the
fire went high
You couldn't even put it out
The death of a Salesman novice
Papercut snip computer nasty chip
The charcoal grill felt like it burned you
The fires new hires of California
The peace sign
Imagine people with no

Holy water
Whose mind is in order
The Dementia patients
Your own flame so many hot flames
The rest of the world caught a death
of a cold like an old flame

*The Goddess of Venus

The darker edge his cool hummer
Going on a shoot with chapped lips
Who is really keeping tabs

There was nothing to believe in to hold
To restore how do we balance the world
But we are not Gods
Chapped lips caused
such an alarm
All things take time then
it's in harm's way
Someone will understand to pay
Like a settlement
Deathly gray hairs on the pavement
Getting hurt but the best Godly soil
is still their like dirt
There was no reception hell broke
loose riot
Everything was naked sound
No time to sing a duet to
feet on the ground love couplet

That snow drift fall on your face
Who will be where you are in
the next century place

Perhaps your last picture
before you die
How the singer live on
to be remembered
  Why are we not discovered
Can we be saved from redemption
Like you have been squirted on
Like Heinz Ketchup did you catch up
To get his kiss did he feel your death of cold
But never to exist
What is on our bucket list?
This was something I thought of not everything we breath is pure that we adore
times are changing don't you feel your getting a death of a cold to think about it
Ayad Gharbawi Dec 2009
WOMAN BUTCHERED



Ayad Gharbawi


Child that gathered knowledge
Knowledge frightening to human nature
Girl-child was awakened
Herself she awakened
Saw the glow of eyes buttery
Glow of hatred molten
Glow of **** howling
Child, pretended innocence pretty
Child smiled all along the paths unknown
Yet, her body recognized colours unimaginable in their serenity sublime
Figures in her sleep strange, yet beautiful
Songs of sweet sleep, yet alerting in their soothing abilities
Little girl, who are you?
Why won’t you let us
Define you?
Little girl
Honourable lady woman
Did you grow up at all?
Or did you just die in your infancy?
As so many before you have
Did you come
To feel and understand
Your sensitive dimensions?
We would have made sure that you would be mature
If you were submissive enough for us!
Child girl, laughs uneasily and seriously
Child girl, sees lofty, exalted visions possessive
Visions of history’s episodes are expressed pointedly in your compulsive embraces
The foolish martyred are reading holy sermons for their self remembrance
Soldier unknown unmasking his face mangled to the surprised horror and utter disgust
Of his family, friends and other serious clowns
Singing an anthem of Fate’s real truth and nature and essence
Heroine unnumbered, chained to deformity
And becoming a mirror of what they did chain you to
Child girl scarred and petrified by disturbed scenes committed lovingly and lavishly by Man
Child girl curls, yet anticipates
Listen! The foot-steps frighten you once more
The shrieking manic clown has arrived again, red eyed and even more
Laughing dreary, spitting words jumbled and aloud
Figure of shame stands in front of you
Intents pre-arranged by his late father
Little girl!
Are you a woman yet?
Hearing swirls of delirious, sickening
Madness, uncontrollable panic and deathly angst
Hearing painter’s brush strokes that scream their gasps of breathlessness out
Loudly and chaotically
Hears the anguish of colours’ contrasts and contradict each other to the point of
Serious suicide
Little child! Sees the begging deaf pleading for choirs heavenly to sing seriously
Sees the miserable, emaciated crumbles crumbling,
Yet foolishly searching for a non-existent tenderness in darkness painted by drunken Satans
With the foulest, blackest oil colours in their leprous fingers
They try to paint you; define you
Analyze you; dissect you
Categorize you; classify you
Little girl; woman; ******?
Alone and sincerely and deceptively guided by complicated, intertwining hatreds
That severely despised the existence of each other’s truths and falsities
Feeling sovereignty abused by casual, bored
Unconcerned sub-humans in powerful positions on earth
Pierced in pain
My sweet girl, you are now
Pierced in deathly, unforgiving
Pains and hatreds never forgotten
Sweet Humanity
Sweet Man
Sweet human beings
How sweet you all truly are!
Staff Sgt. Joseph D'Augustine
a proud Jersey son
whom Thou hast blessed
laid in St. Luke’s ground
for his heavenly rest
April 4, 2012

1.

in a far off province of
God forsaken Helmand,
our dear son Joey
met his untimely end

an explosive crack
a most terrible sound
felled a beloved Jersey son
to the cold cruel ground

working the live wires
of a well placed IED
a deathly burst killed him
it was awful to see  

Staff Sgt. Joseph D’Augustine
in solemn duty fell
fellow brothers in arms
will forever reverently tell

of courage and character
of a dear fallen friend
and how the valiant warrior
met with death at his end

for he was always faithful
to his beloved corps
comrades couldn't ask
a valiant marine for more


2.

details of his death
are not the real story
selflessness and bravery
are but part of his glory

is it brash to
question why he fell?
in a useless bitter war
an embroiled senseless hell

a generation mustered
to fight in the war on terror
serving four tours of duty
in a lost decade of errors

two tours in Afghanistan and Iraq
could a nation ask a man for more?
for he was always faithful to the call
upholding pledges he hath sworn

3.

the burden of war
to a  few confined
it rarely crosses
an American’s mind

incessant war machine
drones on apace
the horror of conflict
so cleverly displaced

with afternoon baseball
and super bowl parties
big disco paychecks
and other selfish priorities

pay hollow tribute
to dear weary troops
when valor is mentioned
we gather in groups

we’ll raise the flag
sing stirring anthems
than its back to the party
pay it no more attention

self styled patriots
wave handfuls of flags
but ask them to contribute
the zeal soon lags

its left to the few
to shoulder burdens of many
fairness is lost
its a democratic calamity

four tours in a decade
an inhumane task
burdens require sharing
its only fair to ask

Joey was always faithful
to the task at hand
willing to step forward
to serve his homeland


4.

in the wake of 9/11
a nation deeply shaken
young patriots stirred
liberty’s call not forsaken

a call to serve answered
to quell the rise of terror
a clear clarion alarm
marks the nature of the era

Joey boldly came forward
to train and learn
the art of warriors
his bright patriotism burned

deployed to Afghanistan
to capture Osama
routing the Taliban
without much problem

but a pacified Afghan
not enough for Bush
he invaded Iraq
another military push

we rolled into Baghdad
adorned with victors garlands
Saddam’s statue toppled
our troops were honored

deposing a dictators
soon turned to occupation
a ****** mission transformed
to build the Iraqi and Afghan nations

once honored liberators
now a conquering force
bestriding broken nations
on a civil war course

military industrialists
stood to profit most
sweet protracted conflict
record earnings to boast

lives bartered for lucre
a region held hostage
the conflict deepened
hostilities hardened

America dipped into
a great recession
the war machine
bled money and
kept on ticking

scooping up contracts
rewarding investors
the dividends of war
heaven sent treasure

continuation of hostilities
preys on a nation's youth
as casualties mount
ill portents forsoothed

a fraction of citizens
bare heartaches of war
gulping measures of despair
to guard a nations door

a nation always faithful
to the holy pursuit of profit
a highest citizens calling
put money into your pocket


5.

our beloved Jersey son
gave a full measure of devotion
in dress blues they shipped him
back across the ocean

on the Dover tarmac
they received his remains
for a last ride northward
to his hometown terrain

repatriated body
bereft of soul saluted
solemn escort knelt
hearts trembled, tears muted

a hearse for a gallant man
flanked by state troop cruisers
to escort the funeral train
assure an honored movement

one last trip up
old thunder road
the storied highway
Joey often trod

the last detail legged up 17
reverent firefighters saluted  
from overpasses
to honor  the woeful scene

as the motorcade passed
the Garden State Malls
frenzied consumers
failed to notice at all

busy window shoppers
didn't to turn an eye
as Joey rolled home
to the sweet by and by

vets interred at the
Old Paramus Church
gently stirred in their graves
reasons for war they search

Channel 12 Chopper
circled its eye in the sky
televised the sad parade
captured many teary eyes

the early spring blooms
colorful petals displayed
maples and forsythias
a royal carpet laid

spring remains always faithful
as the new season turns
offer sunshine and glory
as our sinking hearts burn

6.

motorcycle escort
northbound lane clear
rolling homeward
Waldwick was near

leaves exploding
green shoots budding
****** white maple blooms
natures accolades stunning

the oaks yet bare
just waking from slumber
winters death passing
a sad day put asunder

the motorcade passed
Joey’s home on Prospect Ave
few  envision lifes endings
this woefully sad

red chevy pickup idles
in hoop crowned driveway
never to drain jumpers again
departed children can’t play

the eye in the sky
framed neighbors in mourning
welcoming back a fallen hero
unsettled emotions dawning

neighbors waved Old Glory
from painted stoops and curbs
unsure how this tragedy
visits this blessed suburb

green grass of home
always flush with spirit
tears welled in the eyes
most difficult to bear it

last cruise of the town
sad neighbors stand witness
paying final due respects
and ponder from a distance

what purpose is served
by this man’s passing?
the dead cannot speak
rationale is for the living

the terrible herse
death circles our town
moves through our day
hope of spring drowned

murderer of sunshine
killer of young flowers
budding trees breaking
our hearts an ashen pallor

we remember the beauty
of Joey’s stout face
as it looked on your finest day
exuding pure honor and grace

old vets gather
donning caps and pins
boasting semper fi jackets
jutting tear dripping chins

shaking hands, giving hugs
bearing tattered banners
the hearse ambles onward
we head home in solemn manner

good folks are always faithful
where beloved ones grew
the death of our children
we sadly cannot undo


7.

the bells of St. Lukes
called out from the sky
platoons of limping vets
marched in with pride

pomp and circumstance
requisite dress blues
family, friends, townsfolk
overflowed the pews

doleful bells resound
tolling a mournful reckon
the cost of war mounts
a family’s loss beckons

the casualties of war
falls upon a nation's youth
a seasons page not  turned
a flowing wound not soothed

the wistful cornet calling
floats on the fluted air
the bereaved ***** gently sounds
a congregations somber despair

an unsettling dirge
the parish grows uneasy
nationalist bravado wanes
in the forlorn sanctuary

both church and flag
draped in colors of war
mock stain glass windows
communicants adore

is it a betrayal of the flag
to offer enemies
psalms of reconciliation?
where does true loyalty lay
with God or a warring nation?

afterall this is a sanctuary
where peace and harmony reigns
are we not called to beat swords
into ploughshares as the highest
calling of our Lord?

we are always faithful
to the pathways to war
when the practice of peace
is what we should adore

8.

coughing and whispers
incessant low murmur
a baby cries out
we sit and remember

the crucifers process
in solemnity to greet
subtle ***** notes salute
a coffin draped in Old Glory sheets

the beloved child welcomed
to his eternal repose
priests splash holy water
within the sacred dome

an amazing grace revealed
lifted by marine pallbearers
dearly departed body presented
gently placed at the altar

a grief struck sister
lovingly eulogizes
recalls tonka trucks,
GI Joe’s and cool transformers

a punch in the nose
an approaching wedding
beckoning Eastertide
vacation plans left begging

my second grade class sent
Christmas cookies and cards
to dear Joey and warrior friends
he said it warmed stark winter hearts

he was raised in this church
taught trust and reconciliation
the comfort of the Lords peace
may it surely go with him

for he was always faithful
to sisters, family and faith
his resurrection service
imbues sacredness
to this space

9.

sharp in dress blues
Eddie T USMC Gunny
big 50 caliber smile
offers his eulogy

Bada Bing Jersey Humvee
we called him Joey Calzones
good mood, loved sausages
he tickled the funny bone

always willing to sacrifice
loved the Patriots Tom Brady
a women dominated household
gave him a way with the ladies

his calling explosive ordinances
he said he was livin the dream
March 6th last time we met
knocking frost off cold ones
man whatta scream

a gallant marine,
beloved brother,
a sure friend
he was always faithful
I’m deeply wounded
by his untimely end


10.

the gospel read
the homily offered
Ecclesiastes wisdom
a time for everything
proffered

God never turns
an eye from the beloved
though seasons change
we are not forsaken
never unloved

as loss arrives
surely grief grows
turn away not
wisdom knows

in resignation
love lay dead
diligent intention
banishes dread

our rekindled hope
we rend and sow
our beloved Joey
knew this was so

our favorite son’s
example taught us
now rises on eagle’s wings
to claim his divine justice

Jesus faithfully tramped
the path to an awful death
Joey too fought the good fight
a warrior now gratefully at rest

The Lord holds him close
to the ***** of sure love
a cantors beatific voice incants
Joey’s spirit that forever enchants

The Lord is always faithful
to the bereaved and  beloved
no one ever forsaken
all unconditionally loved

11.

the Holy Eucharistic cup
affirms everlasting giving
tasted to nourish evermore
a libation for the living

singing the Beatitudes
praising peace makers
mercy filled voice and song  
pallbearers lift Joey’s coffin

off to seek his final peace
an earthly occupation ended
he’ll suffer worldly hate no more
down the aisle his coffin wended

the family closely followed
a mother haltingly sobbing
faithful marines came forth
to steady her wobbling

there is no sudden waking
from this terrible dream
the pungent incense rose
to the chapels sacred beams

the stained glass murals depict
the passion of Jesus’s story
illuming a consuming sorrow
in all its grace filled glory

the ***** of death slinks on again
we search for consolation
the recompense of honor blest
leaves a hollow heart wanting
no answers offered to quell the dark
of these terrible life’s moments
only the desperate need to hold onto
beleaguered treasure that sustains us

for we are always faithful
to the things we know
always faithful to the
things we refuse to let go

12.

the color guard and funeral detail
assembled in front of St. Luke’s
the cemetery right next door
the procession a short troop

the living will stumble through
the darkness of separation
seeking elusive answers
of poignant uncertainty;
all gave some, Joey gave all
nothing more required for his
journey through eternity

Joey will always be with us
his stories forever retold
as long as the machinery of
great nations engage
the gears of wasteful war

Joey’s spirit lives
in a peoples desire
for freedom, only if
our hope of peace
is greater than the
need for conflict

Joey’s lifes work
is sure to bear fruit
if those remaining
fight the good fight
by taking up the
task to protect and
expand the values
of liberty we
hold most dear

like our good
friend Jesus
Joey wears a crown
bejeweled with
a ring of thorns
hoisted on a
terrible cross
the sweet
incense of you
meets our nose
we inhale your
earthly presence
beholding beautifully
adorned crucifix,
a reminder of
unjust persecution
and a perfect
resurrection
yet this wretched
coffin remains

pledging allegiance
we rationalize our
stories, articulating
our small parts
in  heroic sagas,
reciting myths of
ourselves, recording
the grim history of
a young marine
surrounded by
a smart color guard,
feasting on todays
eucharist, this
days sweet taste
of  the daily bread
of human sorrow

The priest finishes
his graveside
commendation
of Joey D

Taps conclude
a wind rises
crows take flight
winging over
a stand of budding
Sugar Maples
exploding in white
blooms, reveling
in the glorious
sunshine of this
magnificent day

St. Luke’s stairway to
God Country and Home
smiling portrait of you
forever young

we surround your grave
to bless the earth
you've returned home
to your place of birth

our flowing pride
and salty tears bless
the anointed ground
that you loved best

a proud Jersey son
whom Thou hast blest
laid in St. Luke’s ground
for his heavenly rest

for he was always faithful
to the blessed land
forever at peace
in the soils sure hands

Charles Ives
The Unanswered Question

Oakland
11/10/13
jbm
Jay M Wong Jul 2014
Oh goody maidens and gentlemans here,
Thou engulfed in facades 'til all'st adieu,
Let'st all notion the curtains to draw'st near,
For those who upon false 'motions act true,
Shall tell'st a tale for which light'st shall share.
Among'st these halls, thee fairest maiden, lives,
Whose beauty gallants the darkly chambers,
And too thee state for loyalty gives,
'pon 'tis hammock lights fiery ambers,
'Til in deathly slumber shall life forgives.
Shall dearest queen*, thy body in deathly snow,
Wandering thee halls as'h a restless soul...
A poem influenced by a sign on a church saying "You do not have a soul, you are a soul and you have a body" - thus in death shall the queen shed her body and wander as what she truly is, a soul. A reference to a past poem by J.M.Wong entitled "Josephine, the Queen".
Sam Conrad Dec 2013
So I've got this story...
And it goes a little something like this-

There's a girl that I hurt really bad on way too many occasions that I love more than anything. Pretty much everything I write on here is about her. She became the love of my life, and I told myself she was the one I wanted to spend my life with. Except I was a ****. She was going somewhere to an event that lasted 2 weeks and was really important to her and let's just say I ****** it all up really really bad. She made a lot of friends there and it was a great experience for her, kind of like camp is for some people, how boy/girl scouts are for some people, and she learned a lot there, and had lots of fun too. I was so horrible to do what I did.

At least we're young though, and there's still time to grow...right? I'm only 18, she's almost 18, and we both have lives to live ahead of us. I feel like I need her though. She treated me perfectly in our relationship. I mean, looking back, there's nothing I can fault her for, at all. I just got ****** at stupid crap that doesn't even matter.

Except, she's into somebody else now and probably thinks I'm no good for her. She doesn't talk to me anymore. Anyway, I'm rambling, I haven't gone to bed, I took a bunch of pills, am getting sick, and it's 7 AM...so here goes. This story is somewhat censored, though.

_________________­___________
"The Worst Weeks of Our Lives"

I met this girl and she became the love of my life. She took me places I'd never gone before and her and I fell in love like some people wouldn't believe. Ask my friends. Ask her friends. No, her friends probably wouldn't admit to it anymore. But I choose to remember the things they said. Kids were like totally rooting for us all day every day. We were so perfect. It was great.

So with a few mistakes here and there, (mostly me...all me, really) we realized we weren't perfect. But it didn't hamper out love. Nobody is perfect, right? We realized that. Overcame.

But then, we went too far. Her parents drew lines we weren't supposed to cross. Oopsies. Her mom really put me in my place. I'll just leave it at that. Asked me when my 18th birthday was, so she could mark her calendar as the "day she could touch me". Told me I was a liar. Husband in the background drunk and screaming, as usual. Except screaming "that ***** ain't sorry. He ain't ******* sorry, ******* ******* marking up my ******* daughter I can show him how to be ******* sorry"

Lots more. I'll go crazy if I speak the rest. It was a hickey on her neck. We didn't do much more.

I got really scared. I mean, they were brutal. I wasn't used to that kind of brutal. Psychotic levels of brutal. All of the sudden I became numb. I stopped being so intimate with my girlfriend. They told me not to come around their house anymore. I started doubting myself. If I was any good for her. She cried and cried. Told me how sorry she was. For getting us in trouble, and for what her parents did. But it wasn't her fault. After all, I am the vampire that bit her neck.

After a few weeks, her parents dropped it completely. I didn't though. I was so traumatized. I'd been getting flashbacks. Nightmares. So scared, I was. I kept avoiding her, not only her parents. I mean, I didn't have a car anyways, so the only place I could go to see her was at her house. She reassured me I was allowed. But with no contact with her parents since the phone call that changed my life I was reluctant.

This was around 2 months before she was going to go to a 2 week event. A special event to her. One I'd even wished I'd gotten involved in. Really, I did wish. I just missed the application deadline. Throughout the next two months, we grew more and more distant. I was harsh on her. I hurt her. I'd get mad at her and then call her and talk to her until 3 in the morning. I made her hate herself, and then she felt bad about me feeling sorry too. "You always force yourself to be nice to me just so I feel better, but I'm ****, I'm trash, I'm nothing, I'm so sorry" she would say. Most of the time, she didn't even do anything wrong. One of my best friends died at the same time her parents killed me inside, I spent all my days sleeping and crying and when I wasn't doing that, I was getting angry at her (and quickly regretting it), manufacturing conflicts that were completely unnecessary. Not to mention I'd had health issues, and my parents kicked me out of my house a few months beforehand.

In the time before she left to her special event, I really tore her up. I said the dumbest things I've ever said to someone in my life. I'd never even said such dumb things to even an object, or myself. Why I would say them to a girl who saved me from suicide (I was very unstable and depressed when coming out of a bad relationship, and getting kicked out of home) and why I said it all to someone I wanted to spend my life with I'll never know.

The dumbest things I'll ever say to anything that breathes in my lifetime. I told her one night that the "only reason I was still with her was because if I left she'd hurt herself" (she had a history of self harm, even though she's the sweetest girl I've ever met) and another night I told her "If only she were going somewhere important I'd understand" and lots of other insensitive and selfish things that I can't even believe came out of my mouth. I mean, the whole basis of it was that her and I hadn't spent much time together (really because of my own selfish fears) and I was going all *** on her testosterone-fueled-rage style for days over and over and over.

Don't I sound like a horrible person? I was. I was horrible to her. As much as I hate to say it, I'll probably make similar mistakes again someday - It's like relapsing - but I'll make every effort I can to learn from my horrible past and never be that person again.

So when she went to the event, I was with my grandparents out of state and I downloaded my favorite sad playlist (Staind, great band) to listen to on the trip.

Yes, seriously. I told her that stuff and called her event unimportant and then I went away too. How stupid I was for what I said. I should have been slapped or something.

A day or two after I'd left, I realized how stupid it was of me. For the whole thing. That whole time. That whole span, those two months where I not only neglected her, but emotionally ****** her.

There's a song called "Tangled Up In You" that has the most wonderful and intimate lyrics and I listened to it and sung to it over and over and over late into the morning (I'm talking 3-4 in the morning) every night for like 10 days and along with a song called "Right Here" by the same band. I cried myself to sleep so extremely ashamed of what I'd just done to her.

I knew I was wrong, but what I didn't know was that she was crying her eyes out wrapped up in (someone else)'s arms at that event...
I didn't know she was getting all kinds of love and support.
I had no idea...not that it was bad, it was good because she needed it.

But it got her to thinking about me, what kind of person I was.
When we both got back, I started making more of an effort to spend time with her and go out of my way to talk to her, make her happy, and basically, stop being such a ****.
Except she just got confused and conflicted because she was numb and falling out of love, because I was nothing that anyone should love, to her, over that prior time.

Her mom broke us up about a month later, after some...you know what, I'll just leave that bit out...
I told you how the first phone call went. The phone calls I got from her and her husband in the end were just so much worse. I don't even want to think about them. I went into convulsions and kept dropping the phone.

I went back to these two songs to help keep my sanity and I belted out "Tangled Up In You" every day in my car... so loud I was losing my voice.

I'd had some communication with her, surprised her at her work one night, bought her flowers, wrote her my true feelings on some napkins, showed up when she got out of school one day, when she was deathly afraid, and surprised her with a smile and drew a heart on her hand...

Her and I were on the same page. She still loved me. She was just hurt. I still loved her. I was just trying to make up for the compromised mental state I spent so much time in. I had compromised hers too. I needed to get her out of it. She told me she would wait for me. That we were in a speed bump, that it would all be okay.

So some weeks passed, a month, and she still had my back. As strong as ever. Her parents found out I bought the flowers. They found out I'd been talking to her. But...

Knowing she still had my back, that she still loved me, and that she would wait for me...she called what her mom did (in breaking us up, in our break) a "speed bump"...I was okay with it. I mean, I really wanted to be a part of her life, but man, her parents HATED ME! (In retrospect, probably with good reason. Shame on me for the things I did to her. Really.)

We had some major issues (mostly due to my inability to shut my stupid mouth) and I decided that maybe some time to ourselves to focus on ourselves and think was a good thing. She could focus on loving herself again and I could focus on becoming a better person.

I mean, when her parents found out her and I were still talking to each other after they broke us up, they blocked my number on her phone, went to my church and made up extra stories to my pastor, (told him I'd came and banged on their door at one in the morning one night), when I called to apologize to them they didn't pick up, called me back later to cuss me out and hang up on me, logged into their daughters facebook account and blocked me, then told their daughter that I had called them when she was sleeping and cussed them both out, and that she was to have nothing to do with me again. They threatened legal action against me, too. Tried to make my life hell. They didn't want me around their daughter, ever again. A blind rage that went on for a very long time until every communication route was blocked.

She went to school and told her friends the false stories her parents told her, and her friends already didn't like me...I mean just look at what I had done before...it wasn't good. Not for me, anyway. Also her. She felt duped. Used. By her parents. She didn't know who to trust or what was real. Everyone was telling her how horrible I was.

I got a chance to talk to her one day. We talked for hours, face to face. Sat in the cold and talked. It was an amazing talk. We caught each other up completely on our lives. We talked about our love. Our past. Our emotions. All of them. Good and bad. But we told each other we'd always love each other. She stuck by me, and also reassured me that she always would. I left that conversation feeling so secure. The most I'd felt since way before I'd become a total **** to her. When her and I were so deep in love.

She's always wanted to go far away from college. She told me stories of her past and what her parents did to her, what she did to herself that were not good. Not good at all. She wanted to get away from her parents.

Meanwhile I was so caught up in the feelings she gave me when I was in her arms, I almost couldn't handle the fact that she wanted to leave. I pleaded for her to stay, in a time that her and I were both unstable and it was already taboo that we were even on the same property. But still, she said "she wanted to stay" because her and I work so well together...when we work together, that is, and I and her were both determined to work together. I told her I would do anything for her. In all of it though, I told her that the decision was in her hands and I would still love her the same if she left, and that I would wait for her. Because I loved her more than anything.

After that talk, things got quiet. I guess, too quiet. I was legally bound to stay away from her. I talked to someone she worked with and asked them to tell her hello for me. I thought though, we were on good terms following the talk, I thought she'd be elated to hear from me.

She never responded.

One day, a couple weeks later, she told me I really needed to get over her. That she didn't love me like that anymore. She told me she'd been falling out of love since the summer, and she'd gone crazy and needed space. She said she wanted to be friends, but no relationship. No relationship anymore. She said she couldn't handle it. She said she couldn't handle a relationship in general.

She made that message a bit accusatory. I'd been talking to two friends, one who I'd known for years and a new one I'd just made. Both overlapping friends with hers. Those two helped keep me sane.

She started that message with "I heard you've been messaging my friends, and to be honest, I haven't had the heart to message you back." She repeated multiple times that I needed to get over her. She told me that it wasn't anyone else's influence too. She even listed people. People who'd separated us. Hurt me. Hurt her, in a way, but encouraged her in others.

At the same time, she blocked me on facebook again. She had unblocked me when she found out her parents did it for her. Odd though...I thought she wanted to be friends. I mean, it was like the only way I was able to have her in my life at all. To read her facebook posts and her read mine. To have discussions with friends. We have a lot of overlapping friends.

Man, she killed me. One second I thought she was my soul mate and the next I was in the bathroom puking my guts out because she was telling me we'd never be together again.


So fast forward to today...I still love her. And she's basically in a relationship with someone else. She's also either on the fence about her sexuality, or decided she doesn't like boys anymore. I feel bad about that too. Its like I ruined male relationships for her. It's only been a few weeks since she told me I needed to get over her. She doesn't talk to me anymore. I go to high school events even though I graduated last year just to see her. When I don't approach her, she ignores me. I'm just another person in the room. When I do approach her, she has such a scared look on her face. She doesn't want to talk to me, but she can't be mean to me. She's falling in love with someone else and she's getting happier. She doesn't need me showing up everywhere just to depress her.

Yet I keep bothering her. Because I'm a sucker for her. I can't help it. I love her. I want her to be my future. But at this point I'm grasping at straws. So hard. I shouldn't be trying anymore. But I'll end up trying until the day I die. And only then will I stop believing in her and I. I know it's a pipe dream. But I'll hold onto it. Because it's the only thing I have left of myself now.

Last night, (I mean, right before I wrote this around 5 AM, it is now 8 AM) I played those two songs again. I forgot they were at the end of my playlist and I started shivering and crying my eyes out. I got chills. I got so cold. The tears just ran. They ran down my face faster than I've cried in a long, long time.

I'm only okay right now because I took a bunch of pills. Pills that have this kind of effect on me. They make me kind of numb. Kind of happy. Upper and downer both.

That's pretty much, my sad ending to a sad story.
I'm living the kind of life that only people like Shane Koyczan know how to explain to people.

Ironically, she loves Shane Koyczan.
I do too.
We grew up in broken homes and lived broken lives until we found each other.
Then we broke each other.

But she's falling for someone else, because I wasn't what I should have been to her, and she knows
But she doesn't believe in me anymore, the way I believe in her...because I wasn't what I should have been to her, and she can't hold onto me when I'm a 50/50 chance, of bringing her down again.
If only she would let me hug her again, kiss her one more time...I could die happy, knowing I poured all my heart and soul out into that last kiss.
But I'm a gamble. And she can't put her heart out on the line for someone who wasn't always good to her. She used to call me her "sweet boy" and she still tells me I'll always be her "sweet boy", but the fact of the matter is, it doesn't cut it to only be sweet s
I needed to write this. I've been going crazy. I told her I needed to talk to her but she's been avoiding me. If she reads this, I know its hard for her. There are more explanations I need to give her, I hope she will let me speak to her someday. I've found out a lot about myself in just the last few weeks. Stuff I don't talk about in this story. To you, my dear...if you read this, I'm sorry. I know it's tough. Its very tough. But look at the positive, dear. I'll keep living. Maybe I'll be okay someday. Your happiness is what matters to me. If you're happy, I'll keep myself going. I'm going to go to sleep now. Finally, I have some peace.
Ellis Reyes Dec 2009
Colorful, tasty
Sticky swirls, canes, and powders
Make the tongue delight.

Ambulance, paramedics
Diabetic coma; sigh
All is not what it seems
Because I was an atheist
Long before I realized I was God,
But that was much, much later
Then, at that time, I succumbed
To the lurid but exciting depths
Of freedom, the joy of love and danger
Of searching and of knowledge,
Embracing every moment;
I surrendered to ungovernable impulses
That invoked within my very existence

Still to realise the true extent of this
It's perhaps best to start before the beginning
Before the earth embalmed me
A time when Cyparisse had not
Yet set root in my belly
Nor made sap of my blood
A time when it was possible to speak
To Panza's donkey when I thought of Zanzibar
A time when the vagrancy of my soul
Had not yet embarked
On its erratic itinerary
Plunging me eventually
Into the bright light
Of tainted and squalid reality

Like oscillating libraries, noise oppressed,
Contradictions of dreams
Suddenly I took flight,
With violent wrenches of imagination
In Persia being worshipped
Beneath the moon by Gods;
Caressed by those impetuous charms
A dazzling vision
I thought of death the only sister of charity
Whose dark night has no malevolence;
Black and white, silences that migrated
In sonorous symbolism took control
Shimmering like a painting of a sorrow

Streaked with unashamed colours
A single tear from a promethean candle
I would move to lick the stain of destiny
That pillar inhaling its black perfumes
Like a communicant on his knees.
Exiled in reality, I saw what I had never saw
Or only thought I saw now condemned
To see what has never been seen

Words corralled themselves in my mind
Writhing maggots on a corpse
Wriggling for position waiting to be pronounced
How they flew, taking wings
Hovering for an instant above the page
Hunting out the detritus of man
To feast upon the putrid flesh of misery
I too went searching
For my ancient feast; for Zanzibar

However hideous pages
From the note book of the ******
Imprisoned the words, stampeded the search
Scattering it in many directions
Shattering blue-white eyes
A castrated country, century, impotent, impure
Like politics, the ******* that can be purchased by coin
Like so much bread in the market,
A thousand profanities became the popular song
But silence is the real language of the fool

For he alone bears witness to what he feels
Misfortunes not understood, weeping the popular ballad
Morality and law, parades of red robed Judges
Carcasses, a circus for carrion crows
Yet like a cannibal the dead were still buried in my belly
The gloss of reason hiding madness
Like so many veneered fronts in a proud precinct

Paraded in full view, silence is demanded and got
The words wither, fake time continues,
To count the unrelieved falsehood the chimera of life;
Reason did not imprison me
My life being not heavy enough
Was allowed to take flight
To float above the reasoned realm
Revelations of the truth realised only by detachment
Devoured my mind increased my errorless purpose
The search for Zanzibar

Accepted values; valued only;
Because of this acceptance
Are accepted as value
Thus accepted in silence
The fools resign themselves
To a false reality
One that nails them to a poisoned cross

In the gardens of the dead
Like rowed tulips that
Gardeners know how to match
I found myself, among those who had gone
Remembered yet forgotten
Whose edifice unlike their lives
Reached not upwards but down.
I smelt the scent of unknown things
The perfumes of eternity that histories bind;
Intensity, a murmur; gurgle, as in a child
Yet extreme its aberrations
Like celluloid hand that
Had never known toil
Or wiped sweat from a brow
Laughed yet grimaced
Its smile a crimson smear
The sorrow that it felt
A burnished hand upon its nakedness
To see its enshrouded presence in such a garden
One well stocked and growing
Caressed my being with its glee
To turn white feel the touch
Of its venomous fingers upon my flesh;
Its purpose, to prevent any search for Zanzibar

The stench of death
Then cast its' new
Yet antediluvian gaze
Upon its purpose
Odour of grave
Faraway nonexistent
Yet it is perfume to those
Who feast upon its scent
Moistures mingling with the air
Its common purpose
Floating like un-forgiveness
Its atmosphere ozone sans holes
Its meaning ever present
Its' outcome to halt
The search for Zanzibar

And so the stencils of oriental scribes
Like black shadows overpowered my reason
Floating high above, adrift on an expanse of darkness
However, presently that azure ink
Raised its curtain before my very eyes
Revealing the stage, the illuminated stage
On which I was to set my drama
Where the phantoms of my imagination
Would enact their mysterious mysteries;
A poetic alchemy

Then a golden spark of pure
Nocturnal light blinded me
In an instant I saw, observed
The sun drown in its deathly sea
Its healing wings spread
Fear would see it rise again
Still searching for that fatal flaw, happiness
How many lives do I need?
How many existences will it take?
Incarnations a hundred times
Searching for Zanzibar.
Awakening to continue to
Live the saddest of my dreams

Furtive footsteps through Cimmerian landscapes
Ah such enchantment, do you understand?
Ah such a charm, listen to its undying echo
Feel its charge, that siren call
Cosmic summons, the vagrancy of mind
That caresses the imagination
Whose tender touch can place you
At the apex of the universe
Can lead to Zanzibar.


And so the subtle and foolish tortures
Inflicted upon me by I, my quest began
One that would ascertain, take centre stage
Make an unheard appearance of a philosophy
That, I am everyone and everyone else is me
Eventually at some point
In time and space we are all one
All linked, for we are condemned
Yes condemned to live these lives
This is why the dead have dreams
Dreams about the tyrants and demons
Of other lives of who they were;
Who they have yet to become.
Nourished on half truths,
Forever pulling at the thread
The rotted rags of reason
Those tattered twines
Unravelling the stitching of reality
Of hallucinations, empty illusions
And tarnished dreams create a constant struggle


Therefore for every conscious thing
That happens in the world
There must be a responding reverberation
Within the human soul
Let us put a halt to the calls
For the death of imagination
And demands for imagination to be silent
Such absurdities
For imagination is the true door to reality
For only in imagination
Can there be a bearable act
Of self examination
It is memory that hurts
More than the imagination
Always prefer the imaginary to the real
Imagination is neither an exit
From our nightmares nor
An escape from reality
But the place we are all trying to get to,
Zanzibar its shared images
Its story, its own life a new reality.


Mysteriously in the midst of unknown
Mazagran landscapes I feel
The full impact of fleeting visions
Without the limitations of space or time
Feel the act of experiencing their reality
This requires no explanation, no proof
Either together or separate
Because simply they are,
Judgement, condemnation
Punishments are gone
There is no cleansing a world
Without consciousness
Landscape devoid of people
'La Lune' growling in the orchard of the sea
Calypso again one or ten
Eucharis, tempest or temptress
Take both the meaning and the experience
Taste the tear drops of the sun
Telemachus searching, searching
Zanzibar

The idol, tentacles undulating
Vibrations of collective knowledge
The blank face, featureless
Touching around the domain of Atlas
Speaking in a thousand different tongues
Moving but still, blocks my path
Disturbs the line of imagination
Makes reality quiver
Dream flowers sway in its cosmic wind.
Yet Alhazers' iridescent arch allows
The steerage of my passage
Without pious pilgrimages to empty silences that
Contain an eternity of tears
Who graciously offers coverage
For the echo of footsteps
Allowing the magic moments to come


Robbed of sunlight, artificial night shines
Its deception attempting to secure knowledge
Of a future unknown, winning only it's unattainably
Offering instead knowledge of the past
Master of silence, offers only knowledge
Of invaded consciousness
Bedlam of paradise where Eros and Pan
In congress sleep, close at Zanzibar.


Lifeless beauty that lives everlasting
Time that reason cannot change, only help.
O enchanted torture you have stolen
The taste from my mouth
Masked I against the spectre of reality
Proclaimed the age of 'hasashin'
The creator of recollections, maker of memories
Possessor of impulse giver of echo
That rings in the ear
Cloud cast its surroccoian shadow
Air tinged with the aftermath of fire
Floating in an Asian wind, so subtle
Like a breath suddenly the sound of song
Of dance rents the solitude
Silence is slashed like a canvass screen
Happiness pours forth unconfined
Unfettered, both faces of Kandinsky as one
I extinguish the light, turn to the wall
Gazing upon its Janis face
My eyes behold the giver of pleasure.

Then I found myself in an extraordinary place
Whose skies where made of crystal glass
Water of the enchanted land was blue-grey
Bridges zig-zagged its shimmering domes
I stared as masts and parapets came to life
Its people, musicians sporting
Tangerine and white livery danced
The air filled with the sound of their music
Then as if from nowhere a light hit my eyes
Blinking, this apparition was gone
Can I not always believe what I see
Just because I see what I believe
The inhabitants at once became spectres
Engulfed in thick clouds of smoke and sulphur
Erinyies roamed, inflicting madness
A circus of the macabre sped past
Its symbols of death fluttering frantically
Around this false and fragile world
Suggested children, like creatures in an imagination
Were made ready for their rebirth
By the touch of the poets pen
A thousand Cheribino

In another, swirling sonorous scenes
Stormed the citadels of my mind
Marched through my imagination
Mab engulfed the long closed
Cemeteries of my thought allowing me
To see the dreams of others
Like precious pearls prised from their shells
Their visualisation so intense
Joy overcame me at once
Then a swarm of kisses descended upon me
Like a regiment of famished men
Feasting for the first time
I freely gave myself as the main course
In the most beautiful of banquets
In another, yielding to these seductions
I was enraptured by portraits of beautiful young men
Which appeared to be on the point of speaking
They were most mysterious their intrinsic
Charm so beautiful, stimulated desire
Whose assuagement was so pleasurable
That it might be called pure ecstasy
A perfect pleasure which had never before existed
Entirely individual and new

Thus upon the horizons of my mind
Had been shed a mysterious light
In which I now saw everything bathed
I was summoned by the Prince
Knowing dreams have no limits
I obeyed his call
For a long time failing to set
Foot on the shores of reality
Drinking from the wells of magic
While angels danced on grassy slopes
Disturbed by flames
The stars shot out their fragrance

Sweet smelling; blue abyss
On I went to the court, the court of the Prince of
Poets, a visitor to life
There I spat out the bit of liberty
Embraced the Prince
Courtesans mocked me, ridiculed
Laughed and taunted me
Their jibes merely part of
Their own deluded reality, not of mine
They did not serve my purpose
Dressed as they were
In meaningless words
Clothed in phrases of falsehood
They tried to make me compromise
There was fire burning in my eyes
Vivid dreams were eating up my mind
They wouldn't let me be
There were dead men lying
By the sides of the road
With daylight in their eyes
I saw villages under the sea
I stood at Galactic central point
Watched the earth burn
They did not know
The way to Zanzibar
Could the Prince show me?

However each morning I awoke
I found myself in a purgatorial fog
I roamed lost the alternative harbour
For my soul still distant
The Prince, I discovered, existed
In a twilight world of mysterious ailments
He denied his feelings
Such denial only immersed him
In maintaining the world of external restraints
It created emptiness, a vacancy
Filled by material concerns
I pleaded with him
The emerald gene came down
Soon the leaves of grass
Whispered another order of existence
Strangeness of sensation
Intoxication of vision
Unhinged for mortals
And as the sound increased one cannot
Describe what else it is that has been
I viewed a world transparent
Devoid of illumination within which
Was never a sea or land
Then the prophets were ******
For they were all liars
And I saw the most beautiful flower
Unfolding out of its own roots
For such a flower cannot
Unfold other than it does
I stood on the threshold of Orcus
I met Abbas Effendi the Gene without a name
Bab, Upanishads spilled music in my ears
Called to me in the most spectacular of colours
It was wonderful for the colours
Were like my dreams, red, black and green
I witnessed the three, sometimes as one
Other times as two, again and again
The self eternal and inseparable sons
Of Shakyamuni caressed me with their thoughts
Their music and colour moved about me
In ecstatic rhythm like the peaceful
Waves of the ocean as upon a shore
I read the sentences of silence
Breathed the perfume of never fading flowers
Walked in cherry blossom snow
Heard Hafiz reciting in the night
I saw for the first time
The unfinished likeness of others.

Then one day the Prince
With a sweeping theatrical and
So to speak, allegorical flourish bowed
Called me an exiled angel
Said the time had come to travel
To leave the images of naked heels
Imprinted in the clay
We wondered
Then as if by magic, suddenly the shadows
Of houses, halls, and a church
Emerged like enchanted islands in a fairy tale
The spiritualised forms of civilisation
I was approached by a graceful youth
Draped in cobweb lawn
He was pale, delicately beautiful
Spanish looking, but his name was Alexis Sonyeuse
Whose family it was said was
Related to the French Emperor Napoleon
It was also rumoured that he had
Had a tempestuous affair with the Bishop of Monaco
And once slept with his half brother Julian Apollinaire
When he spoke he was at once original
Delicious, moving, droll and discreetly melancholy
Listening to him was like breathing
The perfume of wondrous flowers
But the scent of datura hung about him
Paralleling his every movement
  Another youth, Edmond also greeted me
He was a young man with aristocratic features
A complexion pink, like a girls
And a bearing at once charmingly gracious
And audaciously insolent
His shirt was strange, the lining
A peculiarly orange colour
A flame coloured taffeta
Like the petticoats of a *****



They looked at me
Furtive glances emanated from their eyes
Training a profound stare upon my person
The two youths took me to 18 Avenue de Friedland
There two boy servants
Adoum and Outhman greeted us
Spinario's lay about its confines
Frezans caressing them
As they touched their feet
A hundred echansons moved
With dazzling delicacy dispensing dreams
In drops from crystalline cups
Here I witnessed the tragic faces of the population
Urnings, cleaning in the midst of anarchist trials
The room a fiery red, stained with light
The caress of forgotten thought
Like the thickness of a sorrow
Musicians playing on broken strings
Crimson ******, who defied the King of Naples
We moved past wretches
Like Virgil, but Danteian
Saw the usurers heard the rustling
Of lute strings the clinking of grey paper
Observed in this Minatare's lair
The purchase of a twelve penny dagger
Liberty of speech meeting its great reckoning
In a little room, Ingram the poltergeist
Of misfortune was there
Dead Scythian, who ever loved you
Loved you as you might, loved you at first sight.

This was a new and exciting world
Whose environs were populated
By the most mysterious and colourful of people
I was introduced by the two youths
To a suicidal young painter who
Was rebelling against his class
He was a somewhat forced intellectual
With an over quixotic passion for equality
Still he was warm, kind and impulsive
Poetry, he made it known
Had opened his mind to the invisible
Beside him was a painting
Exemplifying a new kind of observation
In a style absolutely faultless
Each structure clear, each brush stroke
Falling exactly into place
Inscribed in the top left
Corner were the words
"Quod me nutrit me destruit"
An introduction to himself of a tall youth
Whose eyes possessed a constant
Vagrancy of desire
Who seemed at once, for one so

— The End —