Smoke scintillated by ***** lights
Scent of cheap beer and cigarettes
Arms and legs and heads and butts
                mashed
      mangled
            mingling

In a space ejecting bravado
responding to the auricular bludgeons
plucking veins and boiling blood
arms and legs flailing like spiders
hammered by raindrops

Calloused voices scream through feedback
eking out of anguished amplifiers
while jungle drums synchronize hearts
to their frantic pulse

New friends old friends celebration
in sweaty embraces chanting screaming
stumbling outside the gates of eternity
sidewalk where we gathered round the sordid soapbox
and cast beleaguering gargantuan buildings
and endless cataclysmal streets
into abeyance

to prance along these old sidewalk cracks
stumbling along cigarette butts and beer cans
efflorescing under amative neon lights whose bombinate glow
tingles our skin and dazzles our eyeballs
rolling back into our skulls in the wake of ecstasy
billowing over our ambulant bodies

Friday nights
     Saturday nights
              Sunday nights
skipping school on a week day
braving city night life to find us in the nooks
they forgot to sweep out
where trash collects and pretends
to be unwavering and implacable
for a moment

Til it's back on the streets we spill out upon like puke
like the beer sticking to checkerboard floors
and we float home on the feedback high singing in our ears to sleep
dreaming of these ecstasies as something perennial
in punk lover's dreams

Pure when we're filthy.

Should be crying but I want to laugh
And dance in glee
Where are my tears?
The rivers are dry and the sun beats down

I perused through the catacombs
gliding my fingers along your innumerate spines,
picked you up where you blossomed in my palm
and breathed archaic mysteries into my face.

I felt myself trembling
as I dared enter the hallowed corridors,
opening doors and peeking inside
in hopes to catch a semblance of your touch,
your taste,
your voice.

A fingerprint,
a coffee stain,
clues and the origins of bricolage
that left me breathless
and teary-eyed
as the weight of this sacred place
bore itself entirely upon me.

A part of your soul
encased within each one of your treasures:

I heard your stereo in a jazz history,
heard you ponder within Dostoyevsky,
saw your wry smile and charm within Fleming,
and your humor within Vaudeville--

and as I perused onward,
and the archetype bore itself naked in a holy privilege,
I closed myself within that impalpable bubble
and wept at the gates of Eden.

As I removed my hands from your ribcage,
and withdrew the breath from your nostrils,
walking away with your words and fragments of your soul
I soon realized--

You Are What You Read.

When you celebrate virtue to deliver
The entire universe just works in  favor
Every heart you are bound to conquer
A man of candor remains staunch lover

Never take along any shadow of vice
Lest then you will have to pay the price
Being nice you will have taste and spice
It is good to be just clear and precise

Be in love and cherish aspects to all
Be open in goodness don't ask for call
Be valiant cross every hurdle and wall
A lover with heart shouldn't think fall

Col Muhammad Khalid Khan
Copyright 2016 Golden Glow

I didn't jubilate the anniversary
this year. The song is still one
of my favorites, but I've forgotten
your voice singing softly,

only for me to hear in a room
of twenty other kids. It was the happiest
I had ever been; that moment you noticed me

as more than the girl who sat
next to you, and pined for you for two years then,
and nine years after. But I realized
it is not exactly an anniversary

       if you don't share it with me.

You are not your age,or, the size of clothes you wear.
You are not a weight,or,the color of your hair.
You are not your name,or,the dimples in your cheeks.
You are all the books you read,and all the words you speak.
You are your croaky morning voice, and the smiles you try to hide.
You're the sweetness in your laughter,and every tear you've cried.
You're the songs you sing so loudly when you know you’re all alone.
You’re the places that you’ve been to,and the one that you call home.
You’re the things that you believe in, and the people that you love.
You’re the photos in your bedroom, and the future you dream of.
You’re made of so much beauty,but,it seems that you forgot.
When you decided that you were defined by all the things that you were not.

Randy McPeek

Surprise! Surprise!
It's your birthday today!
Many gifts, many presents, you'll open before the next sunrise?
Happy birthday!
Here are your presents!
Merry birthday!
You feel my presence.
Yes, yes! It is today!
As you know, I am your friend,
I know what's best.
And as I am your friend,
I am your guest.