'Tis damp, cold and lonely - not much bigger than a closet
But the little room within me is mine.
It has no niceties such as an address but
To one side – when pressed upon hard enough –
The walls open revealing the many hidden chambers inside.
But the walls have no doors and until now no one has ever
Stayed long enough to find out the secrets hidden inside.

Then here you come along – you who has scarcely warmed
Yourself against these thoughts when I feel that look.
You spin around and around in the small wit that I am -
With the most perplexing look I have ever seen.
With words I press upon you to sit here within my thoughts
But the case of your look is the case all by itself.
All I can feel is your resentment for bringing you in here.

My hard planked thoughts and plastered breaths are not
Favorable - even to my own sensations – as if I am trapped
In some sort of desolate, silly omnipotence –
But I dare not mention my little hidden room within.
Though not a thing is left to be wished there is nothing
As terrible in it as the knowledge that you think I am possibly
Absent of the capacity to supply you with your inner most basic needs.

The glow of health and happiness somehow leaves your cheeks
And your brisk lively conversation seems forever removed.
Like a stone in the road, I seem to bring you
More distress and I wonder what stupidity had led me
To bring you here to fumble around in my mind.
As if we are both too delicate to communicate -
Our tangled tongues and fingers say not a word.

I want to say,
“Please, please press harder against these walls
And you’ll see, you’ll see that the muscle and tendon
That covers these internal walls are
Just a parody for my own protection.''
I feel the mistake of moving this thought closer to you now.
At first you squirm to get further away from it
But in doing so you struggle and push against the thought.
But herein - a single thought falls from my mind.

I watch as you ****** it up an unfold it and
Proceed to open my imagination to this wrinkle entitled
“The Little Room Within.''
I watch you as you read peering through my facade.
You proceed to pull out another wrinkle
Then another - and another
Until the room within me is no more.
We enter deeper and deeper inside of each other
Like children on our hands and knees –

– And I –

I
follow
you
all
the
way
to
the
inside
of
me......

The red light’s red but I’m turning right,
The coast is clear – no cars in sight.
I make the turn and I make it slow
On the corner sat a huge cop on his hog.
Sirens blazing like he was late for his grog,
Behind me he flew with lights all a glow.


Pulling over to honor this beast's demand
I already had my license in hand.
He brought his big carcass up to my window
Grabbed my license and ask me what I’m into.
Nothing I said, I’m just headed home,
Then he dripped some sweat onto my chrome.

All at once he started swatting at what he thought was a bee
I said it’s just a horse fly so let it be.
He bent over and looked at me through the window
While asking me, what the hell is a hoss fly?
Not a hoss fly – a horse fly – I said through the window
You know – it’s a fly that flies around and around a horse's ****.

He got a little closer and pushed down his shades
And asked me if I was calling him a hoss’s **** in spades.
I said – no sir – not at all – I would never ever
Do anything like that at all – that for me would be too terse.
He said something that I couldn’t understand
When then the fly lit on his Foster Grants.

Cross-eyed he handed me back my license
And began swatting at the thing creating the offense.
But the horse fly was faster than he and had more sense
As he slapped his shades off across into a fence.
The fly flew around and around his head
While he backed out into the street like something ******.

I reached through the window and pulled him out of the street
For a car was coming and they were sure to meet.
Realizing now what he had almost done
He shook my hand and said I could go that we were done.
But one more time he stuck his sweaty face in mine
And asked me once again if I was calling him a hoss’s ****.

Again I said - no sir, absolutely not but that I couldn't lie -
Sir, you know - you just can’t fool a smart horse fly.

The hottest lines - one after the other I devour
Salty - sultry - tasty - juicy sweet like a toasted flower.
The ink runs from the corners of my brain,
Oh God, have I been eating poetry again?

I made the mistake of swallowing one set of rhymes when
The librarian appeared, putting on her necklace chained
Reading glasses while looking down her nose.
Her eyeballs rolled, her head shook out her woes.

Tearing off another page with her walking toward me,
She was about to release the dogs - I had nowhere to flee.
She stomped her feet and began to weep
As I crumple the next page into a heap.

She backed away as I snarl and I bark,
Crunch, crunch, crunch - swallowing all the way to the question mark.
Finding her nerve she approaches me with a moan,
Then I watch in amazement as she tears off a page of her own.

Folding it up in the palm of her hand, she smiles
And growls and shoves the whole page in while
Pulling out another book from a hidden pocket in her dress.
We sneak off together into a hidden recess.

The hottest lines - one after the other we devour
Salty - sultry - tasty - juicy sweet like toasted flowers.
The ink runs from the corners of our brains,
Oh God, have we been eating poetry again?

With baited eyes we snarl and bark
Chomping with joy in our bookish dark.

Your votes could have established dark powers over all control,
Such votes could have made the smallest part exceed the whole.
Only groundless clamoring’s do the protests approve,
Instead, now the power is ours to punish and to remove.
But now false gods and evil cast their wares and express,
Defending their own evil servants or their own rhetoric’s distress.
Oh that my powers of saving truth were not confined,
I’d show you how you are being forced to believe that evil is best for your mind,
Making an example out of every one of our kind.
Must I at length wield the sword of justice and then withdraw?
Ore the cursed effects of trying to confuse the law!
How ill our fates are by their blood thirsty scam.
Beware my people! Of the fury of a patient man.
The law is what patience requires, watch the law show her single face.
And don’t be content to depend purely on grace.
Oh yes, her words are always true with a glaring eye,
She can erase terror and she will never die.
By their own evil arts 'tis her righteousness decreed,
Those dire artificers of lies shall finally be the ones to bleed.
Against themselves their own witnesses will swear,
Till viper-like their sinister plot they themselves shall be ensnared.
For they **** from the nutrients of their own ****** gore
Which was always their principle of the evil long before.
With Belial and with Belzebub they themselves will fight,
Once comrades, now foes, even their foes shall do them right.
Do not doubt this event as felicitous mouths engage,
They tell lies and show only of their own brutal rage.
Then let them all take their own resisted course,
To Guantanamo to finally find their long deserved remorse.
But when they stand up all breathless late at night,
Let their guilt rise up in them with redoubled might.
For lawful is powerful and still is still superior all around.
Even when long driven back at length it must stand its ground.
They all took their oath and gave their solemn consent,
So there will be no appeals under this firmament.
Henceforth a series of new times shall begin,
Though many painful years in long procession has woefully ran.
Once more this nation will be restored,
And all other nations will know the law is our lord.

Insane, insane what follows old
This tragedy you're about to be told.
Though we walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
It is love that we most of all bequeath.
Amongst green pastures grows a flowering field
One not tainted by what this life yields.
Somewhere in the withered forget-me-knots
It lives long enough to be what it ought.
A shining prince upon a silver steed
Riding home to find that which was decreed.
Nothing more than just a thought
Of something born here in Camelot.

Oh mastery of misery art thou my friend?
Do we have so much to gather or defend?
Send us upon this grievous plain
To battle for all that must be regained.
Oh ported soul of Arthur’s gallant lot
Send to us the dear Sir Lancelot.
He be the bravest of all hearts,
His bravery known right from the start.
He hast no legend braved in fear
Doing the right by his lady Guinevere.
Life deals us such a broken art
Of a finger painted love here in Camelot.

The quest be of ill fated charms
Where love survives the coat of arms.
To be so brave is to be a slave
Fighting for the thing we crave.
For no coat of arms can delay
Love’s onslaught once on display.
For to pour the grail back into the flask
Would be to hold love as a captured task.
For ‘tis love that captures all at last
And nothing loved can truly pass.
Though the lance laid silent Lover Lancelot
His secret survives him here in Camelot.

Whence do ye derive from all destiny so great and gigantically,
Within thy Shakespeare’s eye - doest ye see all that love is intrinsically?
Like, “Pummeled inside so many a verse we ride along for better or worse.”
Only the faithful remember where from that line dost come.
And if thou art my good and faithful friend, pray tell me, what is this curse?
Oh I’ve scored your sonnets, I’ve played your plays passing so many a day
Emulating your way and yet all I’ve written is bound to decay.
But my good and immortal friend - is all that you possess at home with me?
Ever is destiny as blind as the righteous are *******.
If the righteous met you on stage would they not see you like Yorick - beheaded?
But ‘tis only this stage which hosts your heart, to your enduring greatness.
And as your spirit comes to me in my pen, help me set it right again.
Here - I, the buskin of old that has not vanished, I push my pen
Toward thy inward powers and feel within my fingers - you move -
Doubtless swells of ink and chalice with words meant to soothe.
You trace my heart within your palette and as I watch - we appear -
One letter after the other in the affected black knowing nothing of fear.

But do I not have two hands Sir, William?
What say I scribble with the right whilst thou writest with my left?

And with the left hand I write...

At great length I consider Aristotle’s thoughts mighty -
When sewn onto a lamp shade - but he himself is not as easily seen.
Round him were seen a flock of birds screaming
Of my tragedy’s with the wailing of a dog’s bay marking my dramas
Around as by chance, by chance I stood giant over all my terrors.
My bow is extended, the lock bolt released, words affixed
On the string, steadily aimed at your heart.
And hast not the line, “Alas, poor Yorick” found its eerie way into
The lines of Hamlet – lines that I never wrote into that play?
For they only doest exist in the collective minds of the readers.
Oh, aye, I wished for my soul that I had written that line
But it is one that I cannot claim exists in my play.
Doest thou venture forth with a hardier action now?
Thus to descend to the departed souls found in the graves here.
‘Tis here I lie in broken words to ask the prophet of where
My soul relies – to see Tiberius I come – the old Grecian –
My nature to be amused but vainly so conveying up my drama.
Oh nature, my nature, hast not thy stage tread me ventured?
Aye, and naked besides so that each rib does count.
What? What truth of old is to be seen in truth set on this stage?
I come to fetch mankind out of his own doom for there is more
To this tragedy, it scarcely is over the horizon and once it begins
It will move countless souls to a harness clad misery.
‘Tis well this philosophy of doubtless sensations refined
From the humor of the blackest infections.
Aye yes, it beats in jest of stolid and barren sorrow until
It is sufficiently moist and exhibits a graceful dance.
There entwines a solemn step which a Demigod moves
Neither for naught as we love what is Christian and moral.
Here – in the nether world - popular is homely, domestic and plain.
There are no Caesars, no Achilles, no Aristotle which appear on the stage.
Neither is there any to be seen of executives or cynics of commerce.
Only secretaries, per chance and brick layers and lieutenants read the lines.

Then with my right hand I write...

“But my good and faithful friend, tell me, what can such people meet with
That which can be called great? – that is - what great can they do?”

And my left hand answers...

What greatness? You ask – Aye, they form the cabals, they pay the mortgage
They pocket their savings and fear not where the stocks be placed.
Whence they come they oft return and derive their form from destiny’s greatness.
Greatness which rises a man up on high even when it grinds him to an incarnate dust.
Everything else is mere nonsense and not worthy of any acquaintances also,
All of our sorrows and wants – they too are here.
Wherefore then fly to yourselves if ‘tis truly yourselves you seek.
And then on that stage you shall meet your own contemptible incarnation.
There the poet is the host, the fifth act rendering the reckoning
And when crime doth become sick, virtue sits down to the feast.

All hail these small and sweet courtesies of life.
For smooth do they make the road of it.
Grace and beauty – each cut so deep like a knife.
They beg all these inclinations toward love at first sight.
Yes, ‘tis those courtesies which let the stranger in.
With tones and mannerisms - they do have such meaning.

Oh - ‘tis such a blessed thing,
One for which I could lose myself
To the honor of my aching.
I feel a heart which bears all to itself.
Oh yes, tis' open – ‘lest I shut it all out.
So I ask, “Are not my eyes the scout
For which my heart journeys?
That vision, is it not flowing through my arteries
Bringing my heartbeat’s rhythm in tune?
Oh, let that beat be mine none too soon.”

With that said, she laid out her arm in front of me.
Taking hold of her fingers in one hand, I aptly
Applied ******* of my other hand to her wrist -
Firmly - and begin counting each heart throb.
“One – two – three – four,” counting out aloud
Measuring each heartbeat as it happens –
Hoping to find the art of her fever.
I close my eyes as I continue to count – thinking –
There is no occupation in the world comparable
To feeling a woman’s pulse.
And when I had counted to twenty five
I looked up into her eyes and
At that instant I felt her pulse quicken.
She clutched my fingers tighter in the one hand
While pressing the wrist of her other hand
Harder into my account.

Is it possible for two to become one flesh and bone?
And if 'tis true, what is everything else to become?
Sometimes yours while at other times the other has it?
All the while to be generally on par tallying up the score
As we each permit the other to share in ourselves –
At least in as much as a man and a woman have the right to.
Like a bag full of pebbles which started out jagged
And rough, with very little gleam.
Only ‘tis after being years in the bag together
Do the stones, having had many amicable collisions
Wearing down their angles and edges, do they
Become well rounded and smooth with the brilliance
Of their combined luster.
Nothing to either could have been
Accomplished alone.

She looks back into my eyes as she presses her wrist into me
and asks,
“How does it beat with you?”
Placing her hand on my neck I say,
“Feel for yourself -
‘Tis an improvement –
‘Tis my evidence.”