riding out the highs of life
with manic ferocity

until

the minutiae of life
drag you down into the depths of despair

a pure loyalty like no other
hidden by a dramatized emotional facade

always there to bring you up,
simultaneously bringing themselves down
it's a slippery *****--
emotional support

Oh, to be Mercutio--
is to be the eye of a hurricane,
winding about a center
--that may not be
as stable as it seems

In this, my last hour of rhyme,
with stains uncontainèd by shaking hands
Spreading like red soldiers running wartime
untempered by generals shouting commands
Then laughing like drunkards, drowning in wine
that rich purple spills out from its barrels
Then lying on bartops, eyes shine porcine
and unheard soft voices hiss curses and carols.

O, woe be on me if I speak out of time;
out-tumbling come innards, spewed from a mouth
Which whispered sad prayers in corners of grime:
hints of spring-season on trips to the south;
Watch them out-tumble, watch horri-divine
like the death of the tragic, acted but true
Yet laughing old minstrels declare it quite fine:
and friends ensure royal-men breathe not from the blue.

Hours fly past on wings of the Sun
who turns misted eyes from child-fight below
And lives lives of many, but cares not for none
not least merchant servants, throttled in the snow.
I fade and I fade: a blossom once watered
and love of the stage is clogging my throat
It changes my words: I fight it, I fought it
and hot-wet floods up with drowning and choke.

This minute, these words: I defy death.
And cold, outward slipping: my slow final breath.

I was alone in the cold room,

Waiting for the bell of my doom,

Looking toward the sky and praying for help,

Who could have guessed mercury would rise so fast?

I am Madness and my heart melts,

Swords in my soul, stabbed to death,

Never believe in what you thought was true,

My words are part of you…

I am what I am, and You are what they want you do be,

Because in the future you will come and realize that today

Was the instant where my life and dreams collide.

I am Madness, I am light.

I am the friend, I am the fright,

I am the power and the anxiety,

Of falling in love maybe…

I die in your arms, and you cry for me,

Am I doomed to death to be truly free?

You learned me how to love and be loved in return…

Yes, today, I watch my world burn.

In fair Verona where Will set the scene
Belle Fortune moves the markers up and down.
Two households both alike in dignity
Fiercely compete for fear of losing ground.

When Juliet saw Romeo at the dance
Events were set in motion that, perchance,
Would see fair Juliet as our Romeo’s bride
but ultimately result in her suicide.

With Tybalt and Mercutio both dead,
And Capulet and Montague estranged.
Young Paris sought fair Juliet to wed
not knowing of her loss of maiden-head.

Romeo was banished for his crime,
a sin for which a peasant would have died
Their two households, joined because they wed,
remained divided by their foolish pride.

Summer’s fierce heat shimmered in the air,
oppressive in the absence of a breeze.
With Friar Lawrence’s help, Romeo’s girl played dead,
as if struck down by some unknown disease


Romeo , in Mantua, heard that his Juliet
Lay dead amongst the sleeping Capulets.
A draught of deadly poison he obtained
So they might sleep together once again.

When Romeo met Paris at her tomb,
Words led to swordplay, leaving Paris dead.
Would not the world have been a better place
if Romeo had kept it sheathed instead?

Unshriven, Romeo drank the poison down-
the only son of Montague now dead.
Perchance just then fair Juliet revives
Bereaved, she took his Dirk to bed instead.

Authorities, arriving at the scene,
could only mourn a brace of kinsmen lost.
Capulet and Montague were reconciled
Their amity bought at a fearful cost.

Discoboli of African poetry has now sparked above aphasia
The aphasic silence today breaks eardrums with cacophony
Of the world audience in the by standing duty of workshop tubes,
Executing poetic experiment on the origin of **** poeticus
To link the archaic baboonish proteins to the black chimpanzee
Cradling African man, the sire of all and their poetry.

That when the Chimpanzee blood we poured
Into the African veins of vena cava and aorta,
Feeding the heart with viscosity of nutrition,
And the Chimpanzee blood fell into deadly
Tomperousness like Shakespearean impetuosity
Once seen in Romeo and Juliet, giving timely Birth
To untimely half the yellow Sun
That juxtaposed planet of poetry
Behind the star of tribe as a priority
Condemning to stark oblivion all the fated,
in full uniform of tribal dimunitions, or mimesis.

Ever predated on when tribes form nations.
A time to try the chimpanzee blood in the veins
Of white humanity, battling cynosure
Historically evinced in Antony and his father,
Or Tybalt and Mercurial of mercutio,
Or Macbeth and counterparts
Or Hamlet the Danish and the inheritors of his mother,
As the white blood cells of the white blood,
Militantly attack the white corpuscles
Of the misfortunate chimpanzee,
Converting the later into
A chewer of misfortune.

his muscles tense.
he hears unsteady steps,
the clapping
of bare feet
against concrete,
the unnatural moaning.
he clenches his fist
the leather of his glove
whines at his movement.
"Don't worry Benvolio, you will sup deeply soon enough."
he looks at his left hand
and realizes that his fingers
are dancing with one another.
"And you as well Mercutio."
the macabre applause of feet and concrete
is getting steadily louder.
the boy is barely a man
and yet his face is steady and sure
as one many times his age.
he stretches his back
and cracks his neck.
he takes a couple quick breaths
and one last deep one.
"Hunger no more my sweet destoyers!"
he exclaims as he leaps from the momentary safety of his dark corner
and is met face to face
with a fell creature of nightmare.
the first thing to hit him is the smell.
its' putrid stench,
strong enough
to make him lose some of his momentum.
he toddles back on the heels of his feet
and stops
looking at this thing of evil in disgust.
its blank eyes leak some manner of dark liquid.
its lips are cracked
and caked black with the old blood
of past victims.
these lips split to reveal
a tongueless maw
with six rotting teeth
three on top
and three on the bottom.
it let's out a bone chilling gasp
that sounds like a breeze
blowing through the grass
of a graveyard.

a zombie.

for longer than he should have
he simply stood there
his eyes locked on
the nauseating visage
of the monster.
and then his hands began to twitch.
with a start he was brought back to reality.
he looked down at his hands
made perfect by the smooth black leather of his gloves.
he looked back up only to realize that he had
allowed himself
to be surrounded by these slow
ponderous
beasts.
he smiled
"It's time to eat."
the zombie closest to him
groaned as if in agreement.
he flexed his shoulders
and cracked his neck
and went to work,
furiously flashing
his two companions
back forth at an unnatural speed
three hits send it's head flying
as if blown off by a shotgun.
he feels the cold tight grasp of something
on his shoulder
one quick breath
and then one swift and perfect motion
he spins
to faces his adversary.
one quick breath
and he releases Benvolio.
he feels the power rise
from the bottom of his foot
up through his twisted hips
and into his massive back and shoulders
to pool inside the knuckles of his fist
for less then a second
and explode
into the side of the head of the soulless corpse,
his vicious right hook leaving
an eruption of ichor
where the creature's head once was.
his eyes light up
with the joy of a madman
as he charges through the scattered crowd
of undead
dozens of grasping, gripping hands
try to stop his momentum.
he just keeps plowing
and keeps laughing,
cutting through the swath
like a scythe to barley,
leaving headless corpses in his path.
he finally breaks free of them
and runs harder than before,
still laughing to himself.
he rushes down the mountain of asphalt
with the speed of an olympiad.
it isn't until he finds another
dark hiding spot
that he realizes how hard he is breathing.
gasping,
wheezing,
fighting for air.
his chest heaves
as he looks down
at the blood drenched leather of his once
pristine black gloves.
the noisy rattling of his heavy breathing
makes him shake
"No more gasp today. I need to wheeze I need to rest."
his hands quiver in protest
"No more. Not today. I need...sleeeeep."
and he collapses in exhaustion.
the noise is loud and clamorous
and the white eyes
of reanimated bodies
look up in the direction of the disturbance.
but he doesn't know,
he's sleeping deeply.

This is the story of my Juliet;

Of her Montague and his Capulet.

Roses smell sweet with no care of their name,

But with “Montague”, this just isn’t the same.



As a cruel joke, fate bonded their hearts,

For fate knew too well that they’d be torn apart;

Torn apart like the brawling in the public square,

Where Montagues and Capulets disagreed there.



I am the one whom Romeo loved,

Before he’d first seen his Capulet dove.

It happened quite fast, and inside the year,

We were something akin to the three musketeers.



We knew if the secretive lovers were caught,

They’d both be destroyed; impaled on the spot.

So I covered for them, and I helped them along,

And I did my best to sing over their song.



I witnessed the wedding, the friar’s compliance

In hopes that the families would form an alliance.

And while I had my doubts, I kept my lips sealed;

I allowed them to hope the tooth fairy was real.



Soon after that, I was with Romeo and his friend,

When Tybalt came along and caused Mercutio’s end.

I ran after Romeo, begging “Please! Use your head!”

But it was to no avail, and soon Tybalt was dead.



So Romeo was banished, and I sat with his wife;

I comforted her as she wept of her strife.

She was almost alright, but fate slipped on its gloves,

And she was betrothed to a man she couldn’t love.



Three times, I convinced her to put down her knife;

“You can do this, Capulet, don’t you take your own life!”

I spoke with the friar, and he had not a clue,

Till I formed a plan and a mysterious brew.



I sent a letter to Romeo, warning him of her sleep,

And so Juliet drank into slumber most deep.

Two days went past, then I felt my heart stop-

My letter had been returned, and Romeo’s address dropped.



I tripped a few times as I sprinted towards her grave,

All the while howling out Romeo’s name.

I leapt across ditches, I dashed around trees,

And I fount Montague, fallen to his knees.



“She is pure beauty, even in her death,”

Said Romeo as he took his last breath.

I lunged, and I screamed until my throat bled,

But bleed as I might, Romeo was now dead.



Juliet yawned, and it turned into a cry,

As the sight of his body burned into her eyes.

I stood up, hands shaking, and reached out to my friend,

But I knew this was a wound my soft words couldn’t mend.



“Juliet, don’t,” I pleaded weakly.

She shook her head sadly, said “I’m sorry, Rosaline.”

I held her small frame, and I felt her depart,

As she drove her own blade into her broken heart.



Montagues and Capulets sat together that day,

And they mourned their children and regretted their hate.

I stood up, though it pained me, and they looked distressed

At Juliet’s blood that soaked through my dress.



“This is your fault!” I yelled hoarsely at the lords.

“You ran your own children through with your swords!

If you are so noble, ordained from above,

How could you destroy their lives and their love!?”



“Don’t you dare let their sacrifices end in vain!

They were my friends, and they died so you’d change!

I hope you make peace, because your bigotry

Took Romeo and Juliet away from me!”



So it was, that the families have since lived in harmony,

But that is something that now hardly matters to me.

A rose by any name would still smell as sweet,

But if “Montague” was different…





This would not be a tragedy…

Christian0 and Juanita

A Single Act: Three scene script by Chris Chance- April/May 2010

Prologue:

There love took place over a decades  time on the island east of Manhattan and in the valleys between the northern tip of the Blue Ridge Mountains and the Tuscarora Ridge of the Southern Pennsylvania Appalachians.

He- no saint at all, felt in his heart a hero but ultimately hid behind svelte armor that protected him from a fickle and judgmental world.

She- a creature worthy of the lead lady in a classy novel- pure and once so very innocent. Statuesque and of absolute sense- commanding her world but building high walls around her red heart as she went.

The fields spoken of in this tale were accurately planted and lovingly nourished long ago and they still grow, multiplying their essence year to year. What great hope the author holds in his blue heart for their harvest. What great hopes he has for us all.

It is understood that the sins of the original garden have heft upon us, as a civilization a life of confusion, doubt and pain. It is with faith that one carries on believing in the goodness of a divine creator and master of all that you know.

Said in this story, it’s believed that he or she, the divine that is lives in two places simultaneously.

First; among the stars painted in the style of Rembrandt meeting Picasso, laughing the way Chaplin must daily at the absurd nonsesilogicalness of it all, crying like the poor ******* who’s let his whole future slip through his foolish little fingers.

And the Divine, the great source of energy in the universe also lives in a certain part- or nook - or cranny- of all things that breathe and/or return with the spring.

It is the voice you hear right now in your boney skull. It's the feeling you get when you forgive. It is the obligation you have to reach up and hold steady your fellow man.

As the author of this tale drops to his knees seeking guidance from that hidden, divine and breathy spiritualness he silently cries out in his pain.

A pain he never knew existed. He’ll silently ask to be prayed for now
and at the hour of his death.


Act I Scene I:

She could snare me in a trap by my ***** and hang me to the cherry tree. Yet my love for her wild flower remains – growing stronger- gathering and harboring the strength of welded tycoon steel.

This love you see- is no ordinary love.

It’s a love of passion and flame but one that culminates with no possible conclusion.

This love does not merely flow - but in actuality rages deep and wide- flowing so deep and so wide that the queen herself could traverse it in comfort.

And now alas, her love.

The love of ours- alone, no longer vast enough in its capacity: to carry on.

And it shall be furthermore, that I now- and I alone: will carry the weight of our time spent as one.

Our time spent as one such as the sand and the sea- Spent as one just as the mountain and valley.

Spent as one the way the very soul itself: on its own palate- feels and tastes true, sweet-sweet love.

This love I feel built around me like a velvet dream, a love now burning footsteps in my ears and setting fire to the nether regions of my soul has been banished and broken. But against better judgment still beats in my senseless and tortured eyes.

And in my anguish, I berate myself with guilt and deeply scour avenues of the past- for better directions we might have chosen.

Alas and in the end- amidst tears of fallen dreams: all roads lead to you and where your heart began and where- your heart ended.

So I ask you, all of you that bear witness before me. Whose heart is it- that still beats true and free? And whose heart is it that beats dark as the stormy cloud.

Whose heart I ask?

Or better yet- a different conundrum of a similar variety.

Can any heart be free?

Free to consume its desire- whether the sun shines or not? Free to love and never to be forgotten. Free to breathe without the threat of mortality?

I challenge you my friends to define this- and to thoroughly answer my questions.

To see into my future: regardless of what must be seen and help me- please make me believe again. Make me in all my shattered and tired bones and aging skin truly, truly believe again.

To teach my sons that it is safe to love in this hard and ruthless world.
To see my love as better,  more pure- unscathed by the devilish nature of the standard human ego.  

To once and for all see love and all life- as hopeful and not bereft of commonality and truth. To see her again- my fair love.  Smiling the notion of a better tomorrow.

Act I: Scene II

Our sins derail us its true. Over time and a plethora of vanishing precepts we wash along the rocks liked laundry.

Shall we neatly and quietly burro underground in the neighbor’s green space, with fleeting air- void of light and color?

Should we swing by our necks from the orange groves it would be in vain as life is so precious and out there lays undeniable hope that there is more of life’s holiness to drink in with each passing storm?

Impossible. That is not who I am. This is not who I was. That is not who I will be.

So vanquished cries muffle in the night against vicious and angry winds and the low weeping moan is constant as I look ahead while looking backwards.

Wondering how from my grasp it ever slipped so far?

It all, each and every golden ounce slipped from my tongue in sorrow in truth I must say.  Unfiltered neurosis and faltering fear are guides that  will fail to bring you home safely.

Nefarious tides of anxiety and reflection blinded me- blinded me from the sun.

But yet still she knows or understands that the bird song of redemption is an actual place where hearts once emptied , now gather to refill that same heart with love again and again.

It is the wound of her life open, crying out and bleeding through her lonely eyes and ears. It is with shame that I admit my long standing ignorance and tardiness to the cause of her heart.

Now with the backing of angels I see the landscape and all its divine nature but yet I am unable to enter. Unable to rejoin the garden and fight a snake who speaks my unholy name off split tongue and evil notions.

Where, where my love is it that I should go from here after having come from there? Where shall I drink my clean water, where shall I rest my weary head?

And oh, the head of a sleepless and love sick man. Heavy with burden brought on by his own lack of mastery regarding the most important issue and god given task of them all, but as once ailed Mercutio in his quest for and of allegiance to Romeo. Time is of the essence.

When I lay my head it is in sorrow and the pain of real passion. Passion for remaining one as a quarter  that makes up a whole- such as the corners of the cross and the earth, air, water and fire itself in a single beating heart.

For  one hundred and eighty ****** and arrogant days and their resident risings of the sun I've been reborn- sworn to never let evil destroy good in my heart.

As you must do- you will do.  

But the tides that flow in my veins do not flow from you they flow from the divine, a divine that will protect me and forgive my trespasses as he’s surely forgiven me of mine on others.

It’s only the growing fields of our past love that concern me now. How will we harvest the wheat which together we’ve sewn? How will we slaughter and eat the meat of the heard. When will any of us drink the wine from the grapes we have grown?

The entities I’ve stated are my future and will remain  my future until arc angels guide me from this earthly tomb. The blood of our fields will reign supreme.

The harvest of our youth will produce.  Standing together or behind our backs- as we run from it. The bloom of our responsibilities as care taker of these lands will be upon us in time.

So as your heart sails to foreign shores I awake from my rage and see the sun, feel the air, breathe and seek guidance for my purpose. To continue to plow the field and fish the harbor while I settle for meager tastes.

May the work I’ve done. May the work we’ve done be a strong enough foundation for both fields to nurture, endure and produce.

And as you for my fleeting love: may the beans of your coffee be rich and plentiful, may your heart find its way back to where it once was- where ever that may be.

Between here and now, let the days shine upon you like spring light. Bathing you until your soul feels safe and fresh. Keeping you where you need to be to feel free.

But alas leave knowing that the flame I still hold- as I have from day one. For the mystic and mysterious love brought upon us by the three so many, many years ago.

How long that can burn, I know not: but as the skies bolster the heaven- my heart once black, has returned to life. To love you is all that there is. I will share my heart and tormented soul and every last breath I breathe until graying and dying days. For you and only you exist.

Act I Scene III:

The sun came out after a snowy and emotional winter but the air never seemed to warm through the long days of April.

And so in the absence of all that is left , we set off.  You, in the direction that I lived in for years and me in the direction that you lived for years.

Two lovers, one point, two stories. Proverbial ships in the night is what we are- and the passing simply destiny.

Oh but for how I will remember thee. The raven hair and olive skin, deep eyes batting only in such a way as to swell my heart, that equisite eyebrow raised in point, the witty acronyms of our secret family language.

The warmth of your parent’s hearth and the surrounding family. A safe and wonderful place to even a man such as I, who took it sorely for granted along with the other neighboring fields planted and stamped with our communication, our love, our example.

Time is a tempting and vicious confidant, one that will surely lead you astray and bring mischief and havoc to your very door step.

Tread lightly if you dare to tread at all in love. Hear the heart you rest against, listen to the subtle tick tock of its rhythm. Hold a stone as it were a diamond, train the mutt as a pure bred champion, shape your mud as if it were the finest of all clays from the earth.

The whistling train only passes through the station once. Get on get off, make up your mind – change your mind – ignore your mind. Look into your heart and soul then move forth.

To where it is you should be.

Where it is you’ll be forgiven and nurtured even more revered than ever before. A place so familiar you might even call it home.  A bed so all knowing that it could only be ours. A life so new it could never be as it was.

Know this before you part my love, know that I am true: as I say- is as I pray. But your choice is your choice and yours alone: to rise or recede.

My heart pines like the losing persona in an old film. For I see the sun rising. Shining and setting in your eyes.

I see the fields as they grow under watchful eyes, I hear the wind begging us to move but I stand grounded upon all that is pure and sanctimoniously holy. Definitively tattered- but braced firmly at the center of the storm.

Waiting for the love we loved, Once. The love that we may squander if we have yet to do so already.  A love that can be repaired and grow larger and more consuming then ever imagined.

A love never to slip from my grasp again.

Narrative Ending:

So the fella in this case is condemned to be a shepherd without his flock. Sending signals by smoke along the telephone wire to complete the rendering of the fields. With mercy on his side- may he succeed in the light of the world relentlessly embittered in the dark?

Or will all in life just as after a close death, quietly move on?

Completing revolutions of the sun: that fiery ball of light, wider than the distance from here to Mars and back, with us random like ebbing and flowing on the tides lengthy pull of the moon?

Or is the strength to muster what one wants, really possible?

Can he climb the highest mountain? Could his faith be tested in lava like pits of hell? Can his heart be branded clean after so much life?

And what of her beating heart?

What of her search to dissolve the fears of her own making? How has her beauty helped or failed her. How will she look herself in the eye?
How long must I day dream of meandering through a sweet and enjoyable song with her one last time.

Unknown answers-

More unknown then I, as the player in this drama, would care or dare to admit, but hopeful ever more like the humming bird buzzing summer honeysuckle in rainy times- I shall remain.

I shall see the sparkle of her soul rent the eyes- if only for a time.
Taking both yonder to another space and time, where she’d admit she lied in vain fear and exasperation when she said:  surely she could find no love true and could simply offer no more.

When my flesh gives way to bone cover me in roses. Walk me out in the morning of your mind as a man who loved without knowing how to love.

A male clearly guilty to the highest degree, in any court, of any land: of being careless with a precious gift.

And sadly for the ones who have loved and lost- in the end  life offers only so many windows into the soul of a lover.

When thinking on everything
It's hard not to understand
Why people hope for
A greater being
Some form of deity
It's hard not
To hope for
An almighty design
After seeing
How humanity has
Killed itself
Hard not to hope

So I've come to an
Agreement
With my simple minded
Spirituality
And decided
That all of existence
Is made by some
Heavenly Author
Creating entertainment
For the almighty masses
A Celestial bestseller
So to speak

All the death
Catastrophe
Love and Hate and Chaos
All of it
In order to keep the
Pages turning

Therefore,
Just as
Mercutio was born to die

Just as
Every aspect of his character
And life
Was molded around the single
Unwavering moment
Of his death
At Tybalt's hand

Just as
He existed to serve his purpose
Between his best friend
And the tip of a blade
So must I serve
And finish a chapter
Of this epic poem

Write on, Shakespeare
I follow your lead

Listening to peculiar strangers gather in the eavestrough;
Coddling the malleable bloom of rooted trees
An immigrant to prosperity cradled by Mercutio.
-Our revels now are ended. These our actors.
Burnt sand swallows the lighthouse where the savage hang,
melancholy-tea and a pulp-fiction spread
dismal characters, behaving bourgeois
-Gather in the eavestrough