Atticus Fife plundered his tomes and fondled his books with his milky eye. A shade of grey has crept into his blue, and The Help is more helpful as of late. He shuffles, having lost his gait, but never does he wander off... Atticus Fife glissandos over the parchments and leather-bound lungs. He inhales the Past; elated. His limp eyes galloping over the deserts of his un-simple mind, past the creekbeds of his revery, and the unspoken Hopes of his Frailty.

Atticus Fife, leads a very fine Life... Like a Destiny.

Or a lamb to the Doubt.

Happily.

Want me to go with you
where the rain don't shine
and the sun's a moon?

No. I'm cool right here.

thought i might Not
be fooled.
i have a habit of shunning derelict thoughts -
and got my Heart to Think Of.
but You drive a dark bargain,
And I remember those -
for the False Gods d'Arte!
i refused them the Temple
of my Best Guess -
and drove a Bloodstream into my Heart.
Instead...
but you can keep on
Stopping
to Stop.

But nah.... I'm cool right here.

Judith Broom had a knick-knack drawer like everybody else. She absentmindedly tossed her keys there too, amid the random screws to lost things, and spent tubes of glue. Love letters got snagged in there, along with stale coupons and inexplicable dust. It was dust like glass and horsehair. Judith Broom rummaged with her bare hands to the very back of her knick-knack drawer, groping for a shape she remembered. She conjured a sphere that fit the palm of her hand, and the Talisman hummed like a newborn sun in her undergarments. She took nothing for granted.

And nothing could harm it.

can't blame rainbows for everything.
so sleep in a barn. you'll wake up refreshed
and far from sleep. you'll have straw in your hair -
and all manner of parasols.
you'll have intuition.... and exactly no -
Idea.

just where did all the underworlds
find a map to mine? how did they come to fold space
and suffer no glimpse of heaven; only dead-on
into my living hell... placing a crease
in my placid infernos?

how did all the stars know i had no right to despair?
while i had every opportunity to love their corpses
and never looked up.

Bo Boggs sat on a Pappy Crush Soda crate, smokin' a roach in a graveyard. The headstone read " Here lies Pinnochio Earle... Face Up. Take Care Where You Sit. " . Bo could see the Landry hog farm, over the tombstone and his mind was fishing for some cosmic corollary as he stared into Space grippin' a cold one. The summer breeze came at Summer's End, bringing with it, a hint of Fall, and far off barbeque. Bo Boggs sat on a Pappy Crush Soda crate in the bossom of a garden of stone. listening to Bluebirds forget the music they had never rehearsed in the first place. And he almost laughed.

Then he wrote that down.

the music of the rats in the alcohol
has no tune. all the wet creaking suspended in caramel
caressing a cube of ice. the clinking pause.... all work together
to defeat what it is.  an uncharted scar....