In the middle of the journey of your life
you had wandered from the straight path.
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood
and you took both of them.
You broke on through to the other side
but came back stateside pretty often.
Being lied about, you stopped lying.
From men and women you could sometimes require
the lineaments of gratified desire.
Clouds may wander, lonely,
but you’re pretty good at finding company.

she was my jane doe, my everything.

we flew to arizona.
she was my partner, my lover, wondering what i could be thinking about.
her. a different kind of her
"not now," she thinks,
"what about jane doe?"
i understand, and oblige.

the light stirs
we crash down and fall and almost burn
but live
others were not so lucky.

when we fell, i thought about her.
my jane doe.

this place wasn't a place of god, no matter what it said
the things they did to women
children
babies
sickening.

it reminded me of what they did to her,
my jane doe.

her, my partner, my lover
was gone, but i still found her.
we walked and knew we would lose each other again,
no matter how much it hurt us

the light continued to stir
and when it did
i saw her,
my jane doe,
my everything.

it happened so many years ago
we were children
young souls destined to go to heaven

if we were good.

if we weren't, they would lecture us, punish us.
yours was undeserved,
my jane doe.

i tried to be good. i tried to not say a word.
i knew what sin meant,
but i knew even more of your love for me

love.

the prophet said it was love when he slaughtered the women and children.
the heretic said it was love when she played with me like she did all those years ago
they didn't know. they'll never know

but i knew
when i knew you were there,
my jane doe,
my one and only,
my everything.

the child was you, the one who came back for me,
my jane doe.

it was nobody's fault; not yours, not mine, but his?
there is no doubt.
there is nothing.
but you,
my jane doe.

one last stir of light
helpless,
we would be one again.

now i lie here alone
where artificial light stirs
where voices mumble
and when two people say

they have plans for me.

Part of life is flowing,
part of life is falling,
part of life is growing,
part of life is knowing

this goes on and on. Art as Intuition,
shared by the art itself, AI says.

Orpheus
by Michael R. Burch

after William Blake

I.

Many a sun
and many a moon
I walked the earth
and whistled a tune.

I did not whistle
as I worked:
the whistle was my work.
I shirked

nothing I saw
and made a rhyme
to children at play
and hard time.

II.

Among the prisoners
I saw
the leaden manacles
of Law,

the heavy ball and chain,
the quirt.
And yet I whistled
at my work.

III.

Among the children’s
daisy faces
and in the women’s
frowsy laces,

I saw redemption,
and I smiled.
Satanic millers,
unbeguiled,

were swayed by neither girl,
nor child,
nor any God of Love.
Yet mild

I whistled at my work,
and Song
broke out,
ere long.

Keywords/Tags: Orpheus, singer, poet, William Blake, whistle, Satanic, mills, manacles, law, leaden, ball, chain, prison, song, freedom

Last night into the room she crept,
awhilst I lay in bed and slept.
My dreams there caught on sleep’s broad reef
she breached sleep’s net, the blanket thief.

Copyright © 2004 Gary Brocks

i know it’s hard to believe, love
you are so precious to me
i would give up everything for you
i’d give up my eyes
even if it meant
i’d never be able to see you
i’d give up my lips
even if it meant
they’d never touch yours
i’d give up summer days
and chocolate spread
and soft kisses
and warm baths
and sunrises
and milk and cookies
i’d give you everything
if only to make you smile

drowning, drowning under,
these voices loud as thunder,
the dragon and the tiger,
the hermit and the miser,
twist the paths of fate.

the devil was my brother,
he took me to the river
where the waters flow forever,
beside the laughing heather,
a river full of hate.

the dragon said; "i'll burn you."
the tiger said; “i’ll maul you.”
the hermit said; “i live on my own.”
the miser said; “i won’t give you a loan.”

the devil was my brother,
he threw me in the river
where the waters flow forever,
beside the laughing heather.

drowning, drowning under,
these voices loud as thunder,
i watched the laughing heather,
while the river flowed forever
and my soul was filled with hate.

  i shouted to my brother;
“devil be ******.”
“i am ******,” he replied,
“like the river of hate
  and my sister need best understand

the hell that flows forever,
beside the laughing heather.”
“but i am your sister,” i cried.
“i am the devil,” he softly replied.

To behold the daybreak!
-Walt Whitman, Song of Myself from Leaves of Grass

In days like this one,
when rain drops so light
& everything dips
into weeping grey
my sanity longs for memories.

My sanity longs
like impulsive recalling
of plummeting sadness
in greying day
sashaying mournful recollects
from sunrise to daybreak.

Remembering vanishes
in the joyful marrow of life.

There, forgetting lives.

Tell me the last time
bliss comforts your soul.

It is a transient tick
too stiff to evoke.

What about the last time
pain feigns your saneness.

Memories turned into bullets
slitting shrapnel
warping into my soul.

Happiness lasts for a second.
Sadness, a lifetime.

Tell me how to get rid
the hurting clout of ache
existing as a blunt fragment
benign yet reminisced.

Daybreak pours so hard
and my sanity like a waning light
crawls back in a miasmatic cave
along the river known
to be a home of a witch
& her cursing narrative
of throwing silver saucers
making her a spotless shadow
through vestal times
never again a thriving spirit.

Forget Blake. Forget Whitman.

Only in daybreak
where everything
churns into life,
my sanity shrinking back
collapsing
into surreal gaps.

Here & there,
my sanity longs for memories.