By Arcassin Burnham

Kissing the ring of death , now that ain't what you want to do,
Their painting the town red ,really just to make it dead,
Unlock the third one , right in the middle of your head,
Find your power , anything to get loose,
Anything to get loose, that makes,
Other geese jealous and fly away from the one spitting all the
truth,
And we don't bother, for all you hypocritical people still on
snooze,
Soul comes alive like the crow in night when it stalks its prey,
Better hope you do,
Despite the circumstances , I still can't do,
I'm aware of this world , I'm aware of the truth,
I'm aware that they want to make slaves out of you,
I'm wishing that the most high comes through,
I'm wishing that the more that I reach for it, I could see
A better virtue.

230

We—Bee and I—live by the quaffing—
’Tisn’t all Hock—with us—
Life has its Ale—
But it’s many a lay of the Dim Burgundy—
We chant—for cheer—when the Wines—fail—

Do we “get drunk”?
Ask the jolly Clovers!
Do we “beat” our “Wife”?
I—never wed—
Bee—pledges his—in minute flagons—
Dainty—as the trees—on our deft Head—

While runs the Rhine—
He and I—revel—
First—at the vat—and latest at the Vine—
Noon—our last Cup—
“Found dead”—”of Nectar”—
By a humming Coroner—
In a By-Thyme!

1086

What Twigs We held by—
Oh the View
When Life’s swift River striven through
We pause before a further plunge
To take Momentum—
As the Fringe

Upon a former Garment shows
The Garment cast,
Our Props disclose
So scant, so eminently small
Of Might to help, so pitiful
To sink, if We had labored, fond
The diligence were not more blind

How scant, by everlasting Light
The Discs that satisfied Our Sight—
How dimmer than a Saturn’s Bar
The Things esteemed, for Things that are!

Should a primitive tribe be civilized?
Are we civilized or savage?

Leave them the aborigines to their home
in peace
their abode in the depth of forest.

But where's their abode?
we cut the jungle and made road
where would their babies be born?
in the smoke of engines blaring of horns
so hard for them to birth
on the dwindling patch of their earth
our Paleolithic ancestors' living fossils
who with iron will
fought bullets with bows and arrows
now falling by the bullies of progress
begging for last living space.

Leave them the way they lived so long
unspoiled with their own education and culture
let them retain their own way of life
and not make them civilized the way we are.

All that glitters is not gold
All you hear is not the truth
All you want is not required
All the waste it shows the proof
All the time that you've been given
All the things you should have said
All the times you could  have loved
All the times you fought instead
All the opportunities you missed
All the days you chose to waste
All the decisions not thought through
All the times you'd act in haste
All the things that really mattered
Allthe times you never cared
All the times you didn't listen
All those times you never shared
All because you chased the rainbow
The material gains you'd rather hold
All the time to loves been lost
All that glitters is not gold .................

I was visited again by Death.
Not the hooded creature, but a shadow of my own cadence
        slid across the cortex of my mind
                the place
        where the rational man falls to the unceasing siege of the animal,
        where every edge of every plane of time thrusts itself and
                interrupts our daydreams to inter seeds
                of fear
                of frustration
                of hope
                of anger
                of things gone
                of things we wish
                of things we want
                of
                        things we dare never speak aloud.

It (I) brought to me (myself) no vision of my own demise,
        no recycled image from film or phone or fable.  It brought worse:

My own house.
My own floor.
My own back
        hunched.
My own legs
        crossed.
My own head
        bowed.
My own shoulders
        heaving.
My own arms
        flaccid.
My own lap
        heavy.
My own son
        Limp.

        Brown curls on a blue forehead in a peaceful, lifeless rest.
        A pietà.

        ---

I fade away as I appeared, and revive. A searing kiss on both eyes.

        Brown curls on a pink forehead in a peaceful, mid-meal grin.
        A Cheerio.

        ---

Wake up!
Wake up! Arise! Look out!
        and See
        and Be
        and Grasp
        the Goodness of All around You.

caramel skin
like the sweet scent
of toffee & warm sugar
during a summer festival.

you called me exotic,
with black eyelashes
******* my even darker
raven eyes.

no other woman
could ever compare
with my soft voice,
strong principles,
and thoughtful nature.

you called me exotic.
but I wonder if you know,
I am a stranger within my skin,
within my community.

I am exotic
in an unsettling way--
halves and quarters,
of thoughts and ideas,
and never whole enough
for anyone.

my parents
are whole people
with a fragmented daughter;
to them,
I am a stranger--
I am exotic.

I am both
sickened and liberated
by my difference.

but mostly,
terrified.