.
Honeybees, birds and blooms unfurl
an enchanting spell
when spring comes by here

Memories waft 'neath burled rustic trellis
where flowered tendrils grasp fleshly
like the newness a love once tenderly embraced

Songbirds in your garden sing
of swooning memories rapture.., of velvet eyes,  
the fragrant spicy nectar hidden within her walls                            

A song of honeyed bees'  sweetest stinger,
and the poignant ***** of intoxicating surrender
lingers, bemused spellbound by a thorny heirloom rose

Sharp beauty beloved like a blameless trap
caught blissfully, breathlessly inbetween
all you wish for and all your wanton needs

Desire 's wellspring an unspoken passion
coquet swollen buds adorn blossoming,
sensual, untamed carnal grace

A picture perfect natural beauty;
sunlit chassé … feathered brush, demure blush
dancing with basket of lace petal’d perfume

For to colour a heart's blank pages
rapt in the poesy a joyous ecstasy ..,
enrapture with rainbow's luscious taste

What seems lost is but a tender vestige unfound
a passing moments innocence lost
to steal away like rumors of gold

These silent reveries seep from a hole in my heart,  
as if ripe strawberries of yore, gently weeping sweetness
when pricked by a thorny rose  

The ides of spring do still bleed a timeless ache
onto the page ... sweet naivety stung
by a mesmerizing dart to the heart

Songbirds in your garden do sing
of sweetest things immersed in nature's nectar
blissful memories sleeping in the petals of a rose



Sung to the wind by a song sparrow — ♪ ♫...✩ ☼✩ ✩☺✩

As the sins partied the night away the sun came rising in the country Tranquility.
"Are you ready to spend all eternity together?" Loyalty asked Love as they stood on their balcony.  "My dear, dear, husband soon to be, you already know the answer to the question you ask" said Love.  As Loyalty and Love stand locked in a warming embrace being kissed by the rays of the sun the two share a kiss of their own.  Beep, beep, beep.  "Well this is a perfect time for my communicator to beep" said Love.  Breaking her embrace with Loyalty, Love answers her communicator.  "Hello Faith how are you?" asked Love.  "I'm fine Love and how are you?" answered Faith.  "I'm ready to start this new era in my life" said Love.  "I'm looking over your wedding file.  Are there any last minute changes you want to make?" said Faith.  "No Faith everything's perfect" said Love.  "I'm outside your house waiting on you Love.  Let's get going" said Faith.  "I'll be right down.  I have to go Loyalty" said Love.  Grabbing Love by her waist and pulling her close Loyalty whispers in her ear "Are you sure this is what you want?"  "I wanted you when I first saw you.  Now if you'll excuse me Faith is waiting for me" said Love.  When Love exited her house she found Faith hovering in her brand new transporter.  "Wow Faith this is beautiful" said Love.  "Thank you Love.  This is the new Neo 7000.  It was the last one left" said Faith.  Interrupted by her communicator Faith answers her call from Loyalty.  "Hello Loyalty what do you want?" said Faith.  "Why you have to ask like that Faith?" said Loyalty.  "Just make sure Knowledge have you at the chapel on time.  Now if you'll excuse me I have things to do"  said Faith.  "C'mon Faith we don't have time to play with Loyalty" said Love.  Rising higher in the air Faith and Love zoomed away.  As they flew through the sky Faith asked Love about her humanitarian organization S.O.U.L.  "How was your peace keeping mission in the country Limbo?" asked Faith.  "The citizens there had a lot of raw emotions from the war.  There is a big scar dividing the country" said Love.  "Your organization S.O.U.L. has a lot of strong positive influence.  How long has S.O.U.L. been active in the humanitarian field?" asked Faith.  "Five years" answered Love.  When Faith and Love landed at the chapel Wisdom was waiting for them.  "Love and Faith I've been waiting patiently for the two of you.  I've spoken with Loyalty on my communicator.  He and knowledge will be here shortly and then you can pledge yourselves to each other" said Wisdom.  Just as the three was speaking Grace walked out of the chapel.  "Hello Love and Faith it's about time the two of you showed up" said Grace.  "It's good to have a star for a friend who's gifted in all the arts" said Love.  Love threw her arms around Grace and gave her a big squeeze.  "Let's get you in your wedding dress.  If you'll follow behind me to your dressing room we can get started" said Grace.  As Love and Faith followed behind Grace, Knowledge and Loyalty landed at the chapel.
Written by Keith Edward Baucum

Infinity - The name of the planet where the story takes place.

Eternity - The name of the main Continent where the story takes place.

Darkness - The name of the country where the sins live.

Chaos - The capital city in the country Darkness.

Tranquility - The name of the country where the virtues live.  

Glory - The capital city in the country Tranquility.

Lust - The wife of Greed and the mother of Anger.  Lust is a ******* and a ****.  Her husband Greed is her ****.  Lust has an affair with Hatred and becomes pregnant.  She gives birth to Anger.  Lust and Envy are best friends.  

Greed - The husband of Lust, the older brother of Envy, and the step father of Anger.  Greed is Lust's ****.  Greed is a ****, corrupt politician, gangster, and a ***** businessman.  Greed is Pride's right hand man.

Hatred - The father of Anger and Cruelty.  Hatred has an affair with Lust.  She becomes pregnant and gives birth to Anger.  He also has a fling with Envy.  She becomes pregnant and gives birth to Cruelty.  Hatred rapes Love.  Hatred is a terrorist, an assassin, and a cold calculated killer.

Love - The wife of Loyalty, the mother of Kindness, and the older sister of Truth.  Love is a humanitarian and a healer.  Love is ***** by Hatred.

Loyalty - The husband of Love and the father of Kindness.  Loyalty is a soldier and a warrior.  He gets revenge on Hatred for ****** Love.

Kindness - The daughter of Love and Loyalty.  She is the niece of Truth.

Anger - The son of Lust and Hatred, the stepson of Greed, and the half brother of Cruelty.  Anger is best friends with Ignorance.

Faith - The wife of Truth and the mother of Hope.

Hope - The daughter of Faith and Truth.

Pride - The elected commander who rules over all the sins.

Cruelty - The daughter of Envy and Hatred.  She is the half sister of Anger.

Envy - The younger sister of Greed and the mother of Cruelty.  Envy has a fling with Hatred and becomes pregnant.  She gives birth to Cruelty.  Envy is best friends with Lust.

Truth - The husband of Faith, the father of Hope, and the younger brother of Love.  Truth is the uncle of Kindness.  Truth is a soldier and a warrior.  He gets revenge on Hatred for ****** Love.

D.E.A.T.H. - A terrorist organization created and operated by Hatred.  D.E.A.T.H. stands for Darkness Engulfing All Things Holy.

Knowledge - The younger brother of Understanding and Wisdom.

Understanding - The brother of Wisdom and Knowledge.  Understanding is a teacher.  He and Mercy have a romantic interest in each other.

Wisdom - The oldest brother of Knowledge and Understanding.  Wisdom is the elected commander who rules over all the virtues.

Sloth - The wife of Gluttony and the mother of Ignorance.

Gluttony - The husband of Sloth and the father of Ignorance.

Ignorance - The son of Sloth and Gluttony.  Ignorance is best friends with Anger.

S.O.U.L. -   A humanitarian organization created and operated by Love.  S.O.U.L. stands for sharing our undying love.

Grace - She's a singer, entertainer, and a a performer.

Mercy - She is a member of S.O.U.L.  Mercy is best friends with Love.  She has a romantic interest in Understanding.

Limbo - A country that's in the middle of the two countries Darkness and Tranquility.  Darkness is to the west of Limbo and Tranquility is to the east of Limbo.  The country Limbo has a river of blood running down the middle.  There is a civil war taking place in the country Limbo.

Deceit - Deceit is a master of disguise.   It is a male and and a female.  Deceit is a member of D.E.A.T.H.

Written by Keith Edward Baucum

vulnerable you touched me
vulnerable you touched me
vulnerable you touched me
vulnerable you touched me
vulnerable you touched me

im always so vulnerable with you

you told me you only let yourself be touched when you cant feel
when the alcohol
when the drugs
when the substance has mutilated your insides so that when they are inside they do not touch you vulnerable

but you touched me vulnerable
would you not let me kiss your neck because its outside?
because that intimacy is closer than all the men, all the women, that have been inside you
because you would feel the spasm of every one of my lips muscles contracting and convulsing against your skin.
because my kiss on your neck would demand to be felt,
like a knock, like a doorbell wanting to be inside, an echo that you can't ignore.
breaking the blood vessels just on the surface of a cavity holding your air to existence...
would i break your existence?

a bruise for you to feel on the surface
a bruise for you to feel the exposure
a bruise for you to feel what can be lost in memory with every heavy sigh you take in
a bruise reminding you that you took my breath away
that you took my innocence away
that you took my virginity away
that you touched me vulnerable...

you made me stop...
in your taunting saftey word phrases, in your pauses, in your avoided eye contact
i felt your vulnerability most

i confessed once that i love when youre vulnerable

you said youd walk around later hearing "let me let me let me" as i whispered at your throat
begging for you to let me into something more than your mouth, something more than your body
does it haunt you like the doorbell?
does it haunt you like the echo?
do my words stay at your throat like the kiss that never made it there...like an invisible threat or torment to your vulnerability?
do my words strangle you and suffocate your air?
are my words grasping prsion bars from the outside?
trying to touch something locked away...
would my kiss have broken your existence?

would my kiss on the outside awaken something inside you, that if i touched, would hurt you more than the bruise at your neck
because a kiss that hard is somewhere inbetween pleasure and pain
and we both know how both,when felt together, weaken your mind, your body, and soul to be stripped down, naked, VULNERABLE, shards of self not inside or outside
and that feeling of inbetween is more vulnerable than the definite evidence of a hickey left on your outside, or the definite reaction of your body to the sensations when fingers are inside
because the phsycial cannot touch your soul
because no matter how many ******* or hickeys penetrate your body,inside and out,they cannot touch your existence

i wanted to touch your existence

i didn't want to make love
i didn't want to have ***
i didn't want to have pleasure or pain
and thats why i also confessed that when you touched me vulnerable i felt nothing
because i was waiting

waiting like the doorbell that you never came to the door to answer
waiting like the knock that you never came to the door to answer
waiting like the echo i whispered that screamed for you to "let me" in
waiting to feel your existence

to exist with you inbetween;inside out outside in

i told you once before that you felt like a soul mate to me
and you touched me vulnerable
you touched me vulnerable
you touched me vulnerable
but you did not feel me

so now when i slip my fingers inside myself i feel to see if my innocence is still there
i feel to see if my virginity is still there
and this bruise that you left on my throat i press my fingers against to feel the throb of pain so i can feel if my vulnerability is still there
and they are...
they are because i kept those when i left my existence on a tongue thats tasted many souls but never swallowed
on the fingers of hands that touched many bodies but only felt the wet that washes away with the soap...clean of something permanent
a temporary high
would you let me touch you without being high? no.

you didnt care to be my first, said it was a weapon, that the only thing you wanted was for me not to regret
i dont regret. i dont regret at all.
but i hope my existence that i left to you is a weapon that you can't fight off with the drugs or the alcohol
i hope my existence that i left to you stained your hands and is holding onto your teeth like those prison bars
so that when we ****
**** because ******* has no love and is a pitiful attempt to be ***
when we **** again
i hope that if not my existence, you at least feel my presence
my presence that will be your echo, your knock, your doorbell for the ignored and dismissed love i feel in the depths of my soul for you...

the love that you will never desire to feel more than my body (outside)
that i, more than your body, desire to feel your love-not for me or for anybody else but the love you feel for yourself (inside)
and we will never be what's inbetween

we will never be more than you touching me vulnerable but not feeling my vulnerability

vulnerable you touched me
vulnerable you touched me
vulnerable you touched me
vulnerable you touched me
vulnerable you touched me...

How do you decide?
Decide what to do,
What the future holds for you?
I don’t understand, one goal,
One goal that somehow
Supersedes them all.

How do you choose?
When passion flows through you,
For not just one, nor two,
But many life paths, careers,
It all means something to you?

I feel lost, thinking of the future.
I’m floating by, trying to find,
Something that could spark
More than mere interest,
Something that could captivate,
Hypnotize me for long enough.

Because you see, I flit from one
Passion to the next, one minute
I am drawing, the next sewing,
The next it’s animals I love,
Or how about teaching children?

And I sit here empty, not sure
Which path to take, which goal
To make, to work towards,
Because right now, I’m in
The inbetween, no job,
Not in school, what do I do?

But the reality is, I’m trying to find
That one magic passion,
That somehow works with my
Disable body, since almost everything,
I find it all exhausting.
And my mind is spinning circles,
A dog chasing its tail.

Why can’t I do it all?
Why can’t I just enjoy life, enjoy
All of the things it brings,
And take my time, because I’m
So tired, of trying to figure it all out.
Tired of planning, I’ve never been
Too good at planning, when there’s
So many things occupying my mind,
So many things that I desire.

But even then, even then, if I could find
A goal to work towards, a dream job
For right now, well that takes work
And it takes time, because it
Turns out it’s all a ladder that
We all have to climb and being disabled,
Well I feel left behind, not sure
How to move forward when
I also have to go up, and going
Up has always been so draining.

I must work now, to somehow
Get somewhere I would rather be,
But what do you do when most jobs
Require me to be on my feet,
With my level of experience,
And education, limiting me?
It’s like I have to hurt myself
In order to hopefully some day,
Live a better life, I guess that’s why
So many say, ‘suffer now, and
You’ll get your reward later’

I tried university, tried college,
But you see, being disabled,
Has made them  difficult for me.
At least, in the ways that I was pursuing.
And now I’m stuck, trying to find my way,
How to get out of this rut, this mess,
All around me while being limited
By my own body, when I’m so used
To trying so hard to keep up
With the rest of them, charging
At how much money they can earn.

Money, it always comes back to money.
And money stresses me out,
Makes me more sick, gives me more
Pain that I would ever like to be in.
Well, apparently, money is
Supposed to be the solution.

Not so easy when the job market is crap,
I didn’t come from money, so I had to
Start off with nothing, and make my own way.
But where do you start, when
All your ‘now’ prospects seem
Rather lackluster and all you can do
Is prepare for a future.

Strange to think that we’re told to
Live each and every day like
It’s the last one we may ever live,
When we have to spend our beginnings
Stuck in preparing, deciding, and striving
For a future, so hard to make,
When all you started with was
A journal to write in.

I just want to live now,
I want to live everyday,
I want to spend more time
Cultivating all this passion inside
Of me, it’s bursting inside of me.

But there’s this rut, this anxiety,
This fear, of having to build a life,
No, a career. So that I can live
In the future, instead of now,
So that hopefully, we can get by,
Scrape by, by the skins of our teeth.

Tired of working crap jobs,
That I don’t really like, where we’re
Unappreciated, and paid to barely live.
Overworked, underpaid, I’m in so much pain.
My body, can’t stand in this pain,
But that’s all I can do is stand.
In pain, at a cash register,
Or making drinks, no consideration,
Of the struggle it is of being disabled.

Because we all have to able.
Able to stand, to push, to work
Your ***** off, until there’s nothing left,
You’ve given all you’ve got, and then
Some. Soul *******, career bent,
Work too hard, to fit in.
You got to be a workaholic to fit in.

Well I can’t keep up with that pace,
And I see it wearing people thin,
People that have more strength,
More drive than I ever did.
How are we supposed to live,
When you have to work to live,
And, in turn, live to work.
It’s extremely exhausting.

All of this jumbles inside me,
I can’t breathe, can’t decide,
How I’m supposed to live my life
When everything screams
On all sides, that I’m supposed to be
Running, supposed to be rushing,
And that all seems so wrong.

I just want to live a life that has meaning.
Something meaningful to me, that I can
Actually enjoy each moment as it passes
Us all by, I don’t want to rush life
Before it all ends, I’m so tired
Of trying to run in this ‘rat race’
It’s not a race, I need a slower pace.
I demand a slower place.
No more running, no more racing,
It’s time to live in the now,
No fear.

breathing the turquoise like lavender,
and sipping the blue summer.
bitter cold clouds glide and morph lava lather,
floating whispers cut by sweet pineapple sunshine.

soon, a moment, now
rhythms ripple the sky like skipping stones
we jump the music like puddles
splashing in the frequencies.

cobalt bass rumbles the earth hungry,
pumps the air with springing spirals
pushing and pulling the senses,
reverberating through cells.

heavy mud humming, stomping
echoes through our atoms dizzy;
balancing tuned body to innate electricity
the fizz of circulating lemonade energy.

we jump the music like puddles
splashing in the frequencies.

strawberry melodies spilling ribbons,
dolphin leaps of the spaces inbetween beats,
lines of colours overlapping,
colliding, mixing, merging, blending
in with the forest.

washing over souls the life fire sparkles
like a clear water cleansing harmonies,
sound waves crashing against inertia.
phosphorescent glow of re-charged love
for the world, for being, animation

flowing through burnt smoky ashes
of sapphire charcoal skies;
dimmed radiation of chlorophyll emerald days.
the smell of salt, dry bark, fluffy carbon mists,
trembling lights softening the eyes'
grip on outlines, loosening lies.

watching the cycles of patterns
tumbling colours through a mill rotating,
and the silence of listening
when the music comes to an end.

I feel at home in the liminal        in the space inbetween,
between past, future, reality       fantasy, this, that.  
In the liminal, the past and         future lap around me,
demanding waves that climb      high and share their spray.
The salt water clings to my          hair, stiffens it like straw
and I stay, ungrowing in              the liminal.
I live between thresholds             on the threshold
and sometimes the tension          tugs and tears and rips
my fingernails, my hair                my skin.
Thresholds are supposed             to hurt, to push, to compel
but it’s where I rest and               make my home.

The liminal does not rip me apart as it should.

It’s hollow in the liminal             a void that digs my insides
out. It’s a cave in there                 walls of apathy and dread.
My mind grows in on                   itself and I live in it,
where it plays in the                    liminal.
It cannot survive                          beyond the threshold
so I stay in the house                   where the windows are
clear and the doors                      are unlocked. Nothing is
keeping me in but                        myself.
I feel at home in                            the liminal, where the tensions
hurt and erode                              but it’s safe here,
or safe enough                               in the space inbetween.

I fear the sea and the tides so I stay on the shore.
It hurts but not as much as it should.