I have something within me that I cannot
Bear the burden of of its insinuation.
In the sport-ability of chit-chat I have
Often tried to conquer these thoughts
And with infinite pain I have hazarded
A thousand things hidden within myself.

“Excuse me,’’ I said upon seeing his face
Coming toward me while walking in Central Park.
“Are you who I think you are?’’ I asked.
“I suppose that depends on who you think I am,” he replied.
Not wanting to be made out a fool I asked
“OK, are you best known as JFK?”
“Well not exactly, he was my father,” he said with a smile.

I stuck out my hand like an idiot – but -
He offered his hand and shook mine like a man.
“I can’t believe it,” I said, “You really can
Bump into anyone in the big apple.”
He said that he had to be going, had to finish
His walk and get back to the office.

I asked him if I could tag along, just walk with him.
He said, “Sure.”
He kept a brisk pace, it was a cool day but comfortable.
The leaves were turned, mostly all fallen and
Then I realized that it was November 22nd.
“I’m real sorry about your dad,” I said,

“It broke my heart when I was a child.”
He nodded his head and sort of slowed his pace.
“How old were you?” he asked.
“I was 9”.
“I was 3”, he said looking at the ground.
“Yeah I know,” I said, “Everybody knew.”

He stopped and turned toward me,
Tilted his head to the left and point blank said,
“You know the story about my dad’s assassination
Is all BS don’t you?”
He caught me completely off guard but before I
Could say anything he turned back around and starting

Walking away from me like I had the plague.
I stood in my tracks but after he had gotten about 10 paces
He stopped and turned, “Well, do you want to walk or not?”
I half jogged to catch up with him and when I did
I couldn’t think of anything to say.
“Look I don’t know you and you don’t know me, “ he said
In a rough almost angry voice.
“Can you keep a secret?” he asked.
Still half jogging to keep up with him I answered,
“Sounds like you need someone to talk to.”

He slowed a bit, “I just got confirmation on who killed my dad.”
OK, about this time I’m like you saying a few choice curse words
In my mind – like holy sh…. You know..
“What are you going to do?” I asked.
“Hell I don’t know,” he said, “It’s all circumstantial.”
Coming to a complete stop, “There’s got to be a way that I
Can tell people, let the whole world know that I know who did it.”

He turned to me, “What would you do if you knew who took your dad
Away from you when you were just a baby but if you told anyone about these
Murdering, slime ***** they would most likely **** you too?” he asked.
“I don’t know sir,” I said shrugging my shoulders.
“If I had your money I’d figure out a way though,” I continued.
With a questioning look he asked, “OK, if you had my money what would you do?”

“I don’t know, man,” I said - “Maybe name a building after them or a street
Or something that everyone knew you named.
You know, like a hint or a clue or something.”
His eyes got big, “That’s it,” he said, “By God that’s it.”
He shook my hand again and asked me my name.
And a few short years later he was gone too.

But the name – the name he named his business – there’s your clue

The red light of the sun
Slowly descending
The sky is all I see
It’s never ending
We could fly
You and I
On a cloud

Music on the hillside
Piano in a villa over there
Violin below
Fireworks above
A beat – a beating heart
Someone begins to sing

The red light of the sun
Slowly descending
The sky is all I see
It’s never ending
We could fly
You and I
On a cloud

Is this place real
The ocean below
The red sky above
The music
Romance on the wind.
Sing with me

The wind plays with the leaves
The weather turns colder
But as long as we believe
Love doesn’t get older
We could fly
You and I
On a cloud

Only after one leaves
Does this place become real
A crown jewel midst a rocky cliff
A place so beautiful its
Memory etches itself into your soul
Food to die for
Drinks to fight for…

On a journey of the heart
There’s so much to see
When the sky is dark
You’ll be right here
Right here with me
Good morning I vow

(Prelude: This piece is a parable with the imagination of a female named Allison with a ghostly presence residing in a suit of Knight's armor).

“They are of a better order” said the armor,
“A better order of beings in heaven.”

“Have you been to heaven?”
Allison asked the armor and
Quickly upon his ancient, blank steel gaze
She instantly felt a civil triumph
Hidden within her inquiry.

“Strange,” he responded,
"Strange it is that it is so far away
And yet it is right here
Inside of us all along.”

She gave him the hint of a
Curious gaze before placing
Her hand on her chest while saying,
“Are you saying heaven is in here?”

He replies,
“You think about it for a while and
When you have sufficiently parodied
The thought we shall think
Upon it again for I give
Up the argument for now -
I must retire” - and so he went
Wherever a ghost goes to rest.
There he wandered around
In the infinity of his mind until
A knock on the steel helmet came.
He answers through the opening,
“Who is it?”
Knowing all the while whom it was.

He opened the visor,
Showing the emptiness within.
She looked in his visor and
Giggled a girlish giggle
Saying, “I would carry this picture
With me to my grave -
My self professed conscience standing
Here in the doorway of my life
Looking into a metal head as
Empty as a hollow balloon,”
She giggled some more.
She pushed the visor open wider and
Stuck a finger in without
Any further solicitation
Saying as she looked about the emptiness,
“Shall I set foot in your dominion?”
Then she turned to him placing her hand
On her chest again as before,
“Or shall you set foot in mine?”

McDermott peaked thru to answer
Allison to find her now sitting on the edge
Of the bed – skillfully untying and
Removing her shoes as
She looked about the room.

Before he could answer and
Just as skillfully
She changed the subject, “You have a
Fine room here, quite roomy,
I think it must be twice the size of mine.”

The sun was setting outside the doubled
Windows and through the curtains
The light that filled the room tinted the
Contents of the room a crimson red.

There they were, quite all alone,
Her sitting on the bed,
Him encased in his Knight’s suit of armor.
Each waiting for the other
To make some sort of move.
Turning away from her,
Not to avoid the inevitable but
To experience the possible –
McDermott says,
“But this is your room.”
Pointing to the room receipt
On the top of the dresser,
“See, it has your name on it.
I am merely a figment of your imagination,
Something you have conjured up.”

“I know, I know,
You have said all this before,”
Pounding her fists into the
Bed as she cries,
“Cannot you for once come
From inside that
Silly suit of armor so that I may see you?”

“Look at the receipt, what does it say?” McDermott answers.

“I told you, I know,
It has my name as the registered
Guest of the Knights Inn, so what?
Have I not been coming here
Every year for three years,
Every year for the week of All Saint’s Day,
Just so that I can be with you?
And every year it’s the same old thing –
You speak like you are
Somewhere in a barrel,
And I never see you, I just feel you.”

“It is not with your ears that you hear me,
It is with your heart,”
McDermott explains,
“You come here year after year
Looking for truth –
Can you accept that I am
Only here if you are here?”

Sprawling out backwards across the bed,
She replies with disgust,
“Truth – what truth is this –
That I have lost my mind?”

“One can only loose what one has
Not unlike one cannot
Have what one wants,
For having and wanting
Are diametrically opposed,” he explains.

“Stop with the philosophical
Mumbo jumbo,” she says as she
Turns to scream into the pillow.
“I’m so sick of it that I could die.”
At the moment of that last syllable spoken, Allison can feel another
Weight joining her on the bed.
Daring not to whisk the feeling away
She holds her breath, listening –
Feeling for more confirmation.

“You cannot love another until you learn
To love yourself,” McDermott whispers.

Jumping off the bed and to her feet,
“You’ve told me all this before,
But why am
I here if it is not to love you?
And if you are as you say you are,
Just another
Of my creations, then pray tell me,
Why can you not accept that fact and just
Simply be here with me?
Why else am I here?”

“You are here to find out who you are.
That’s why anyone comes here.
That truth is something that No ONE can
TEACH you.
It is something that you
Have to remember.”

Looking about the empty room
Allison once again turns and
Sits on the bed.
“OK, I give in –
YOU tell ME, WHO AM I?”

“Just lie down and get comfortable.
You need your rest.
We’ll talk in your sleep.
We have much territory to cover tonight.
Tomorrow is All Saint’s Day, your day.
But tonight we must explore
All the wonders of you,
For in the morning you
Shall awaken knowing
The real you – the one that you
Have been searching for.”

Slithering out of her dress and
Removing her bra
Allison turns her head to the empty
Pillow beside her,
“You promise?” she asks.

“I promise,” McDermott replies.

Drifting off into a shallow sleep,
Allison is listening as
McDermott recites poetry.
It’s an odd recital but somehow it seems
As if she has heard this verse before.

“Sand sifting through my fingers
Measuring the time ‘til our bodies linger.
To know the smell of the center
Of your hand,
To see into those deepest of eyes -
Oh, to feel those sighs.

Sometimes I don’t think I can wait
Not another day but then it’s too late.
How can I know that all this is real
When I’ve not even a finger to feel.
Thoughts, visions of heart –
Feelings of soul –
Up to now that is all that I know.
So if you find me lost in this moment,
Please release me from this sweet torment.
For inside the fire is burning
Hotter than hell and so full of yearning.

Maybe this is not the right place -
Maybe this is not the right time.

But I ask you, is it a crime
To watch the sand as it rhymes?
Measuring the time ‘til our bodies linger
And I have the you – lost in my fingers.”

“What is the title?” Allison asks in her sleep.

“Oh you know the title very well,” McDermott answers.
“Think about it and you will remember.”

Allison’s eyes move beneath the
REM sleep with closed eyelids,
Back and forth, back and forth,
Looking for the title to the poem.
Then she answers with a smile,
“Hourglass, the title of the poem is,
Hourglass.”

“Very good,” McDermott confirms.
“See you do remember.”

“But how do I remember –
Something tells me that
I am not supposed to remember.”

“Your mind tells you that you
Have no memory of the poem
But your heart tells you that you do.”

“Yes.” she answers.

“Could it be that just when
You find your dearest love
That you also meet your greatest fear?
Then too avoid the fear –
You try not to remember."

“Why do you say that?” she asks.

“Because those are the two sponsoring
Thoughts behind all human endeavors.
All of the human emotions stem from
Either love or from fear.”

In her sleep Allison turns
More toward the empty pillow,
“Who are you?”

“Have you not determined
To call me McDermott?
Why do you struggle to believe that
I cannot be unless I have a name?”

“I suppose it’s because everything
Has a name.” Allison responds.

“No, everything of this world
Has something that it is called,
That does not exactly mean that
It has a name or needs one.”

“Then who are you?”
She asks breathing in deeply.

“It matters not what you call me –
That has been one of the great
Mistakes of human nature,
What is more important is that you know
That I am, just like that
I know that you are.”

“Are you God?”
She asks shaking her head.

“See, there you go again,
Be careful of those labels,
Once you put a label
On me, then by that labeling
Do you place upon me your expectations.
And once something is expected
To do something in a certain way,
Then have you created boundaries,
In essence,
You have created walls around me,
Walls around your own thoughts -
To the degree that we can
No longer communicate.”

“How would you prefer that I think
Of you?” Allison asks.

“Do not “think” of me in terms of
Mere words,
For words fall far too short
Of explaining any of truth
Of who or what I am.
You should think of me as
You would think of yourself for
Are we not one in the same?
If I said that I am the great 'I am'
And if you were to believe that to be true,
Would not that make you the
Great 'I am' too?”

“I’m sorry, I do not understand,
Are you saying that you are me?
Am I talking to myself?” she questioned.

“You are asleep, when you awake,
Would you say that we are talking?”

“No, I would say that I was dreaming
And that you are like you said that you
Were before I went to sleep,
I would say that you are a
Figment of my imagination.”

“Does that explain how it is that you
Know the name of the poem?”
McDermott asks.

“I don’t know, I’m dreaming I suppose,
Dreams don’t have to make any sense.”

“Is that how you feel?”

“Not really,” Allison answers.
Even though she is asleep
She can feel herself
Turning over and pushing away
Some of the bedding.
“Give me an incontrovertible way
Of knowing that you are real.”

“Oh Allison, the only way that
I could ever give you such proof
Is if I were
To physically touch you and to do that
I would need a physical form.
Yet I say to you,
I have no need of anything physical
For all of your physical reality
Is but a part of the grand illusion.”

“Grand illusion,
Are you saying that my life
Is just one big illusion?” Allison questions.

“In a sense, yes.
For it is you who does create
Your own reality.
And if what you create is
Not what you want,
Is that creation not what
The definition of “illusion” means?”

“But why would I create anything that
I do not want?” she asks.

“Good question, why don’t you tell me?”

“Who’s to say that I truly have not created you?”
Allison asks.

“Another good question, what do you think?”

“Why would you talk to me?” she asks.

“I talk to everyone all the time.
The question is not to with
Whom do I talk,
But who listens?”

“I’m listening.” Allison exclaims.

“Another good answer.
Maybe it would be easier if
We exchanged the word
“Talk” for the word communicate,
I think that’s a much
Better descriptive word.
If we try to simply just talk then we
Are restricted by the limitations of words.
I do not communicate by words alone,
In fact, I rarely do.
I usually communicate through
Feelings for feelings are
The language of the soul.
For this reason,
If you want to know
The truth about anything,
Look to how you are feeling about it.
Hidden in your deepest feelings
You’ll always find your higher truth.
I can communicate with thought
But don’t confuse thought with feelings.
When I communicate with thought
I often use images, sounds or pictures.
Are they not much more descriptive?
I also use experience to communicate with.
The fact that you remembered
The name of the poem
Is a communication by experience.
It is only when feelings,
Thought or experience
Fails that I use words.
However, words are the least effective
Communicator because words
Are too easily misinterpreted or confused.
Words are not a good way to get
To the truth for they are part
Of the illusion of trying
To convey the feelings,
The thoughts and the experiences.
The irony in this is that
So many place their feelings,
Thoughts and experience in the words
That they try to say and very little
On the experience of who they are.
The same is true of how
You define who you are.
You define yourself within
A set of words and
Lose all reality of who you really are.
Therefore you create
The illusion of yourself
Just as you have created
The illusion of me.”

Allison turns on her side into
The fetal position,
“You said that tonight
That I would discover who I am –
Does that mean that in order to discover
Who I am that I must learn
To know who you are?”

“You are not learning anything.
You are remembering who you are
For you always were and
You always will be.
You cannot learn what you already know.
You can only remember.”

“And what is that?” she asks intently.

“You are your creation,
I come from you so that you
Might know yourself.
That is why I exist,
So that you may experience yourself.”

As Allison drifts between the alpha of
REM sleep and the delta of REM
Into stage three of tonight’s slumber,
She carries with her into her deepest
Sleep the thoughts of herself
As one with all of God’s creation.
“God the father, God the son,
God the holy ghost,”
She whispers aloud.
“Are we all your sons and daughters?”
She asks.

“Yes you are,
The trinity would not be complete
Without you,
Not without every one of you.”

“So that is who I am?” she whispers.

“Welcome to who you are,
Who you have always been,
Who you ever shall be,
Today, it is All Saint’s Day,
What reality will you create today?

Always remember,
There are only two base emotions,
Love and fear.
You can choose to act out of love
Or you can choose to act out of fear.
The choice is as always –
The choice is yours.”

“Will you be with me today –
To help me to choose?”

“I am always with you.”

“Will I find love today?” Allison asks.

“You question is improper.
“You should be asking yourself,
Will I create love today?”

*“But wouldn’t that be another illusion?
Another figment of
My imagination?” she questions.

“Is there a difference?
And even if there was, does it matter?
All that matters is that
Through your own experience,
You remember who you are
And experience
What you really want to be.
That is the truth of creation.”

Drifting off into the deepest sleep
Of her life,
Allison listens to McDermott
Reciting his poetry again and again.

The mistress of my hereafter stole me away,
As she so oft does,
To a few minutes of quiet conversation.
In her silenced voice I could read my own
Long since Christianed anguish,
So near it is - but so ****** far away.
If only in Faraway we had us a private cottage,
Maybe then we could retire to our dreams.

The dressing room there
Would always be yours.
For I make everything yours
And call it so beforehand.
Thus making you the mistress
Of my entire hereafter.
My alpha - my omega.

This “Hereafter” is but a melancholy term ‘lest
We find ourselves stole away whilst
Communicating through our spirits.
For in spirit we have already met and
Shall surely meet again.
Let the certainty of it
Brighten us with its forth coming.

Thou surely must be the author
Of the utmost of our faith.
Faith in that day of heaven’s thought where
In Faraway the cottage nestles between
Twin peaks in the sweetest valley
Ever laid at your feet while eyes
See every days' blue azure sky.

There we dine together by candlelight
In the middle of the day while we
Cater the meal toward happiness.
In Faraway, all around us lives
In a rapturous praise along with all that ever was.
And if you should ever find my wit oppressing to
Your kindness, then show your disdain and
I will surely take my leave.

As we look together through the candlelight
Let us see only the highest values in each other.
Let my eyes put your name on notice
That if I were so employed as to be a slave
In this land called Faraway, then my heart
Would be no less than the prophet accommodated
Somewhere within your walls.

There with a stool and a candlestick
I would sit patiently waiting for your unmaking.
There my soul could be at peace from this world.
I’d lean against your wall with the candle in my hand,
I’d look into your eyes as I blew out the light.
The cottage would then come to life
As would the hearth within us.

We’d breathe in each other fueling the fire.
For love is the fuel that burns here in Faraway,
Our sweet vapors rising high into the sky.
They are bless'ed fires that never end.
Come - blow out the candle once more and
Let's lose our disguises–
Later I'll relight the candle so we can
Blow it out and do it all over again.

Do you hear the music?
Does it give you ease?
Hold my hands and lean far back
Look up into the trees.
The answers there
That no one sees,
Imaginings to anyone who believes.
That magic
Can’t be deceived,
Open arms to be relieved.
Move with me
And be believed,
Cherished, loved
And well received.
Just dancing with the trees.

Sunlight flickering through a canopy of incandescent leaves
A gentle cool wind blowing to a background of confident blue.
All around me are the dancing trees.
Rejoicing it seems in their bright prancing hues.
Oak, hemlock, cottonwood, spruce and pine
All swaying together in perfect time.
I walk the path in awe of it all
Listening to the spreading news.
The earth it seems
Has reached the dawning of a new day
Reproducing itself along the way.
I wonder if that’s really true
A year – can it be just a day?
If it is then I’m a part and so are you.
As we pass through this earthly delight
Another day of romance is on the way.
All the trees are out dancing tonight
Having put on their Sunday best.
Tonight they too can find this life's zest.

(Now move your body with the rhythm of the wind blown trees)

Let’s dance with them just for a little while.
Listen to the music of the air.
You move right – I’ll follow with a smile.
Then move left – the movement in your hair.
Living life with but one care
Taking this time to be aware.
Open your heart – no fear to share
Should or shouldn’t we dare?
This wonderful evening we are there.
Move again, I’ll take your hand
To and fro we say – isn’t it grand?
Waltzing – can you feel the breeze
In with a troop of trees?
I bow straight to my knees,
You follow and begin to see
Life and love and harmony
Peace of mind be seized.
Now holding on tight – still on your knees
Still moving to and fro I ask you please
Do you hear the music – does it give you ease?
Hold my hands and lean far back
And look up into the trees.
The answers there that no one sees
Imaginings to anyone who believes
That magic can’t be deceived
Open arms to be relieved
Move with me and be believed,
Cherished, loved and well received

Just dancing with the trees.

If you knew everything there is to know,
Then how could you ever learn anything or grow?

If you somehow knew all that will ever be
Could any decision that you decide upon ever make you free?

If your mind was everything and everything was in you
Could their ever be anything else for you to do?

And there you are – right in the middle of this inquisition,
A slave to your own reality – chained to your own constitution.

But it is you who has allowed yourself to be caught in this net
You came here not to remember anything but to forget.

You have forgotten who you are and in your own grand illusion find
A dream of freedom and free will which further confuses your mind.

For knowing everything is a girdle of limitless limitation,
But here we have a place of both the known and the unknown – called creation.

In this ignorance you have something to choose,
Freedom from perfection – there was no other way to lose.

So you see – only if you know yourself as that which is not true,
Only there could you be free to select whatever you want to.

Within a single mind, two hands and two eyes; you think, feel and see
These envisioned experiences – only now they can truly be.

Yes, free will also gave you the choice to forget from where you come,
Yet, the closer we return to that place – the happier we become.

I learned to control my awareness and thus I can oft return,
But the closer I get the less choice remains for me to learn.

Though I long for and receive more and more of the infinite’s touch,
The more I also long for the finite in me not to know so much.

How long wilt thou - this generation of deceit and joy – detain,
Starve, and defraud the people of our holiest reign?
Content ingloriously wasted to pass by as our falling days,
Like the flooding rains, as virtuous fools chase each other’s praise:
Till all thy fleshly allegories, now dimmed once shined so bright
As the multitudes grow stale - tarnished with each day’s new light.
Please believe me, ye youth by whose royal fruit thy must be
Gathered before ripened - else ye rot upon the tree.
Heaven itself must be sufficiently allotted, soon of late,
Like some unlucky youthful revolution born purely out of fate.
This false fate whose notions if we watch with skill,
For does not human good depend on human will?
Fortune rolls upward like lava, smoothly it does ascend,
From its first release, it takes not the bend.
But, if un-seized, it glides away like the wind
And leaves us - a late repenting fool far behind.
Now to meet with you, the you reading of this glorious prize,
As I spread these wisdom words before you as above you he flies.
Had thus Old Noah, from whose ***** we all offspring,
Not dared, when fortune called him to be the lead offering,
At the bottom of the ocean in exile he might still remain
And Heaven's sacred anointing oil would have been in vain.
Let Noah’s successional ages to your heart engage
And not shun the examples of this prophesized declining age.
For behold soon there comes three days of darkness to the skies,
As the shadows lengthen into the airs and then we slowly vaporize.

When my time passes
And there’s no breath left in me,
Take my ashes to the oceans
And set my spirit free.
There I can rejoin my friends
There I will not be alone.
There I can make my amends
There I won’t be unknown.

Far too much blood spilled onto this planet
Makes its way to the sea.
The raining of blood by droplet
Rejoining there finally.

Don’t leave me in the cold, cold ground.
No – No imprisoned tomb for me.
Let the waves be my stone bound
An anxious tide, my cemetery.

There I can float on endless waves
A moving monument to see.
And if you leave a tear on my grave
I can float it away with me…

My nature, once pleaded for one of these darling ones!
The amazing hope only found in the fair women down here.
A strength found only in the wilderness having the ability
To drink bourbon until dawn being absolutely naughty
And then the next morning to show you how to properly
Use a fork and knife while signing thank you cards.
To be raised up to all the heights any man could bear:
Has my God ordained my fate to be southern reborn?
Perhaps he has indeed given this soul another turn.
Gullied without a patriot's name, have I lost my sense?
Yet to be treated as if I were by law a prince.
Am I so brave or just this Belle’s tool?
I never saw a patriot yet that wasn’t a fool.
Here comes she now with religion and the laws
Should I be Absalom or should I be David's cause?
But I am the instructor, or have I lost my place?
She has taken me over with so much grace.
Good heavens, how fast must a patriot pant!
She stole me away by saying “A saint I ain’t.”
Pulling off my shoes as she pulls me down from my throne
I cross my eyes as I moan and I groan.
A kingly battle within the sweetest of torments,
Was their ever a prerequisite or my consent?
The look in her eyes – flames, fire and fury – nothing to lose.
Inferring this infernal night is ours to depose;
Oh God it’s true she’s petitioned me to approve her by choice,
But are not my hands still powered by my voice?
So my pious subjects, for my safety please pray.
I do think this Belle has taken all my will away.

I close my eyes and in the darkness
I see you, my enchanting ecstasy, walking
Down a cobblestone street in silhouette.
Carefully placed footsteps echoing the
The pavement - without the slightest of regret.
Through the faint gas lit corridor
Vintage smells and a whispering wind
Accompany my meandering thoughts.
No matter where I go -
No matter when I go –
Footsteps going forward
Revealing the past.

In a cumbersome transom blended
With a tap-ta-tap, tap-ta-tap
Of a horse drawn carriage –
Therein a song is revealed.
Where else but in silent music do dreams
Blend reality with one’s emotions?
Aye - there in my mind’s eye -
Tap-ta-tap, tap-ta-tap, tap-ta-tap.

Do I have any life but this? Tap -
If not - let me lead it from here. Ta -
No death there be ‘lest - Tap -
Dispelled from there. Tap -
Nor any ties to earths to come. Ta -
Nor any action in any effort of new. Tap -
Except in the blessed extent - Ta -
Of this other realm of loving you. - Tap -

And in my mind’s eye –
The music,
Tap-ta-tap, tap-ta-tap -
Of cobblestone and hoof –
Ta-tap
Returns me to ....

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.

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.

Found on the date of nine – two – three – two – oh – one – seven -
Barely more than one month after the grand eclipse of heaven
The revised twelve stars of Leo crown the head of the ******.
In her land of milk and honey, her labors merge in.

Jupiter encircles the womb while within the Holiest of gastronomes.
Mercury, Mars and Venus conjoined with Leo’s nine making the dozen.
Seventy-five days prior the New City’s Trumpet has merged with Put In
Calling for Levant’s retribution which will divide ancient Ebian within.

The ******’s head newly crowned with the temporal twelve stars of Leo,
At her feet quiver the sun and moon awaiting the arrival of Palladio.
She being with child cries in the pain to deliver.
The earth quickens the mystery in perfected position, as both quiver.

Nine months prior the consummation completed by NATO’s resolution
Casting out the promised land – this is real – this is not the imagination.
Jubilee last appeared on the eave of the six day war
Marked by half centuries, Jubilee returns this year once more.

The revelations of tribulation are set by a single star that does always appear
Every two thousand years and four thousand years ago it founded Israel.
Two thousand years ago this same star led the three kings to the king of all kings.
This star is visible for two years and appeared in September two thousand and fifteen.

And yet another sign appears in the heavens: behold a great fiery Red Kachina
Having seven followers and ten outcasts with seven headbands in the arena.
The Red Kachina drawing in a third of the stars, hurling them toward the earth.
This Kachina standing at the ******’s feet waiting for her to give up the birth.

The Red Kacina’s vile evilness waiting to consume Jupiter’s birth failing
To devour the newborn who is to lead all nations with a rod of iron.
But the child remains in the heavens with it’s mother to feed grazed
By the Red Kachina for one thousand two hundred and twenty six days.

A view of blue leading a glaring eye
Toward a deathless heaven’s sigh.
Softly sinking the trembling sun,
As haply as I look upon you as I run.
In these thoughts I find myself desiring
God’s art within this simple man’s inspiration.
I look to the East, I look to the West
Looking for the primmer, Heaven’s Rosetta Stone, lest
It all be to difficult to keep it in heaven's focus.
I clean the lens and offer its richness
To a legendary creature somewhere adrift.
She gazes through my eyepiece bereft
Of the inner truth that she sees.
Focused ahead of you, you see the Helix Nebula
Otherwise known as the Eye of God, the Alpha,
The Omega, the Beginning and the End.
It’s then you see your body transcend.
You look from the eyepiece and then into my eyes
And I feel us tantricly knowing that we are soul mates.
“What do you see?” I ask as you turn back into the scope.
You answer, “I see the thread of hope
That holds the entire garland together.
I see that we are small and the world is big.
I see that we came from the one end and forever
We will return to the other."
Looking away from the scope she continues;
"In between in this life there is a contradiction
A duality – And if we are to ever experience
This oneness, the one mirrored in this eyepiece,
Then we as a pair need to break
Through the apparent reality and take
Hold of the hidden reality."
Looking back through the eyepiece
She continues, "That which I see
Is at the source of our dual niche.
Accessing, manifesting..
Mastering this duality returning us always
To source.."  

I wish I were only a half an inch tall
You’d look at me and say, “Is that all?”
I could ride a pine straw falling
Or surf a snow flake over the treetops calling.
I could sneak about without a trace
Even watch you make that silly face.

A piece of gum would be a feast
It would last me a month or two at least.
To a flea I would be a frightening beast
And I could hide away inside your crease.
I could wear your ear ring clip upon my head
But at night you could not take me to bed.

You'd have to be careful where you’d place me dear
At one half inch tall I could drown in a tear.
But I couldn’t give you a great big hug
All I could do is to give a hair a tug.
To move a pencil would take all night
This poem would take me years to write.

If I were only a half an inch tall
You could leave me anywhere at all.
You could hang me from a string
Or leave me on just about anything.
If I could just get myself out of the way
You'd have more space to sit or lay.

Hi Tonto, what’s up?

How Butthead.

Tonto, why do say how?

Why white man say hi?

I don’t know Tonto, maybe it’s slang for hello.

Funny, white man put the word hell in greeting
Then convert to hi, which mean way up there.
Human being say how instead.
Means same thing.
Means, how high is hell.

Oh come on Tonto, you’re pulling my leg.

Tonto no pullem leg, Tonto tellem truth like totem pole.

Speaking of totem pole, Tonto, why do you call it a totem pole?

Cause no matter where human being go
He tote truth and pole with him so remember
From where human being come.

OK, tell me the story of your totem pole.

The lowest level on totem pole about time
When male part of human beings was slave to
The females of tribe.
Male have power but woman have strength.
Strength and power not same thing.
Strength beats power always.
Man have to use power to serve woman’s strength.
Woman was Goddess, ruled supreme over
All human beings.
Time was peaceful, never need warriors.
No one equal but opportunity for all.
Then woman have boy child.
This one boy child was bad seed and not mind.
Before long, boy child drive all crazy.
Strength tell power to take boy child into woods.
Boy child survive and sometimes sneak back into camp.
Boy child steal what he need to survive.
Sometimes, boy child dress like woman,
Sometimes like man.
Strength scared of boy child.
Power see strength afraid.
Power say, man protect woman from devil boy child.
Woman agree.
Man gain power, woman lose strength.
Man see that lie gives him control.
Woman now become servant.
Man continue lie for many moons.
Man appoint another man as shaman
Or religious leader to continue lie.
Male become more powerful as woman
Depend on man’s God to protect her from devil.
Many moons later, woman forget she Goddess.
Male just meant to serve – but now he in charge.

That’s a neat story Tonto.
But I know it isn’t true.

How?

Oh, now I get it, that’s why you say – how.

Yes, men greet other men by saying how
As reminder of how we overcame women’s strength.

But it’s a fairy tale, Tonto.

What make you say that, Butthead?

Ok, if it is true what happened to the child that
Was put out and left in the woods to die.

Devil child became white man. He lose all his color.
You, Butthead, you are truth of human beings’ story.
Human beings no longer live in peace.
Man have power but still have no strength.
Woman give up strength for security and protection.
Earth still in turmoil.
Will always be in turmoil until man learn what
Woman already know.
Might does not equal right.
No two people are equal.
But all human beings deserve equal opportunity.
Your kind, Butthead, you part of bad seed.
You perpetuate the lie that man make good leader.
Only woman have sense enough to lead.
Man too busy beating chest and fighting
For females to know how to lead.
But woman, in her the hope of the next generation lives.
But as long as Butthead on top of totem pole,
Human beings live afraid of devil.
Fear rules, not with strength but with power.
World remain always in heap big mess.
Man beats chest and control females.
All because of the threat of the bad seed
Hidden somewhere out there in the woods.
Boy child should have got **** beat.
Boy child become Butthead instead.

Lord - if only I could be as wise as I am witty
Within as much enjoyment as I measure my melancholy,
Another thousand years of things have I to proclaim to you.
For in such a reason my mind lags along
Wanting you here inside of me to say them to.
But alas, aren’t you so far away now even as you hear me?
And what is such wisdom to a foolish heart anyway?
Yet I sing not a melody of broken spirit,
I sing of you, you who teach me daily – of fortitude
Blended with tender qualities which make you such a precious thing.
The kindest of protectors whose passive courage holds up
More than I could ever hope to overcome.
With little wit and in my truest form I must say to you,
Is it possible that you forged me out of some mistaken being?
For I feel as though I must be your total opposite.
For if I was made of the same cut as you, perhaps
I could know you more.

“Even the great oak can be cut into smaller and smaller segments.
But did not each part once live as the whole?
Is that not what we are?
What cut would you be if you were not cut from me?
What sap runs through my trunk that does not runneth into your bud?
I myself watch as you flower into your abundance.
But even the smallest of trees, the Dogwood, its leaf does bleed
Upon the whitest satin tenderness in display of my earthly sacrifice.
Think upon yourself like this:
Even upon the creation of the earth, it appears as if the lands are separate.
Were they not once a shared shore, similar to your soul.
I laid them out postulate by the great ocean’s force.
Yet is it not also true that what appears as two great separate
Bodies above the surface,
Are they not actually joined together underneath the abyss?
Neither ocean nor any rift could ever separate what roots below.
So I can hardly do it now.
To thee and thine art, which is at my root,
They are the object
Of which these acts of mine are directed.
Indeed, do I not interfere with your every project?
You rise and you go to sleep with me on your brain.”

My heavenly father - your mastery is but a sweet interference.
And if by your interference I manage to conduce any
Segment of happiness to you,
May they all be the proof of my affections of thee.
May all my inquiries become just one, one holding your honor,
Your conduct and your truth and your regard for my every direct step.
Movements measured within my desires with your assistance and assurance
Of those things that support all life.
Do you hear my declarations?

With the warmness of his hand on my shoulder with my eyes closed
Focusing on the light within me - I listen and then I know,

**“Dear one, one day we will again return from another delicious walk of your deliverance.
A walk that we will tread upon a thousand years all over again.
Here in my garden I will watch as you
Swing your arms walking within my covenant with you.
Should we pass the great oak tree cut into pieces we will ponder
The us that once laid there.
We will count the rings that measured the years that
Bear witness of the time we were separated.
I will have you always beside me, as I do with all of my children.
For hours and hours we will share in the wonders of each others' council.
I will look back on your art form, and I will admire you for it!
Every trinket that you have ever given me has within it my equaling force.
If for no other reason than for the art form that I inspired in you.
Just always try to remember that I walk hand in hand with you
In this life or in any other.
One ring around another in a never ending circle of life.
Be like the mightiest of Oaks,
Grow tall so that you can be seen by all.
All the while reaching higher and higher toward my skies.”

If I could read you like a book
I’d read you from cover to cover.
What would I find as each leaf turned over
To find me more and more hooked?

Your expression the preface?
Your walk the reference?
Your thoughts - the appendix?
You should copyright all these.

Your table of contents
Your chapters and headings,
Short stories or pretense,
Or expression of longings.

Each page a blessing
Reader and writer forever conjoined.
Read/Writing without resting
No writer’s block or pages deformed.

One page flying into another
As the story of you unfolds.
Could I be a footnoted lover
With a love that remolds?
Or perhaps the main character,
One to gray and grow old?

Placing one hand on your spine
While the other opens the divine.
Oh if only I could read you like a book
I’d read you from cover to cover

Memorize every line.

Riding backwards on a train
Leaning my head into the window
Seeing my own reflection – Clackity
Clack – Clickity Clackity Clickety Clack,
Don’t talk back, Clackity Clack.

What I see in the passing frames
Bridges, houses, brown fields
And rough terrains.
Clackity Clack, Clickity Clack
Don’t talk back, Clackity Clickety Clack.

There goes an old barn beside an Azores tree
There goes an Azores tree beside an old barn
My God there goes another one – that’s three
Clackity Clack, Clackity Clack, Clickity, Clickity
Don’t talk back, Clickity Clack.

Telephone poles all passing as one
Streets and warehouses, street signs
And red lights – green and now a nun
Clackity Clack, Clackity Clack
Don’t talk back, Clackity Clickity Clack.

Into the tunnel we clamber and scramble
Concrete walls all painted with daises
So close to the glass we go into this gamble.
Clackity Clack, Clickity Clack, Clackety Clickety
Are we coming back, Clackity Clack.

Deep under the bay we travel
As loud and deep as the devil.
All held back by nothing but gravel.
Clackity Clack, Clickity Clack
Please don’t crack, Clackity Clack

When all at once into the terminal we fly
We made it – me – myself and I
Slowing to almost a crawl - good-bye!
Clackity, Clackity, Clackity Clack
Next time I’ll check my Zodiac.

These things that we masteringly cover
With layers of wrinkle free sheets -
Covering the warmness that never was.
A weighted depression left behind
In a never ending circle of hidden desire.
Tightly tucked, pillowed and shammed -
Soft coolness inviting remorse.
Spirit of lighted darkness awaits the unmaking,
From dawn to dusk dreams plunder
Molding obsessions into sleeping reality.
The comforter only slightly moves,
This place made up for now tonight becomes…

Haloed in darkness, dreaming real.
A breath resounds hidden
In the softness just before twilight.
Listening for a whisper
Calling out my name.
Dare I to open my eyes
In fear of loosing all again.
Through closed eyes I gaze
Upon the eyes’ crystal hue.
Hair vivid with no color
Inhaling tender features – thy very essence.
A dreaming splendor anew.
If reality can come but in a dream
Then in dreams I shall reside.
Ever mournful of the morning light while
Caressing dream’s eye covering
The warmness that never was.
Dream weighted impressions, asleep
Tightly tucked, pillowed and shammed.
Dreaming in splendor of …

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.

Where am I?

Where do you think you are?

I don’t know, that is why I am asking you.

You are where you wanted to be.

But what does that mean?

Oh I think you understand.

Is this an NDE – a Near Death experience?

There is no such thing, you are either here or you are alive.
There is no in between. There is no such thing as - Near Death.

OK, is this an after life experience?

What would you have it to be?

Am I dead?

Do you feel dead?

No, I feel very much alive.
Again I ask you, where am I?

You are where you wanted to be.
You are in the now, the one you created.

What does that mean?

You are here in the everything.
You have become the everything.
There is no longer anything that you are not
And in this new experience, this ALE – as you choose to call it –
You are experiencing the grandeur of yourself.

But I am not anything grand.

Oh yes you are for the almighty has been and is now experiencing
Himself/Herself – through you.
In my purest form – I am the absolute.
And in that, you too are a part of that absolution.
I am absolutely everything.

Are you God?

From this absolute purest form, I am whatever you make of me.

What do you want?

I don’t want anything of you.
I simply want what you want.

I want peace.

To find peace you have to also be everything.

I can’t be everything.

But you already are.
If you are not everything, then there is something to need,
Something to want, something to demand.
And from there – you cannot have peace.
For without everything one can only create chaos.
And I am everything that I am and that includes you for
To be every thing one must also be any thing.

If I am this every thing – am I not as you made me?

What do you make of yourself?

Somehow I remember you made of me.
I see myself now in purest form – the one I cannot forget.
The one I am now returned to.
Anything else of me must be fiction.
Something I made up.

Is the one you made up a jealous person?

Sometimes.

Are you jealous now?

Who could be jealous when one has and is everything?

Is the one you made up in life an angry – wrathful person?

Sometimes.

Are you angry now?

What would cause me to be angry when I no longer can be hurt
Or damaged in any way?

Is the one you made up in life a vengeful person?

Sometimes, I guess.

Are you vengeful now?

Who would I take out my vengeance on?
Am I not a part of the everything?
Do we wish to punish me for what I was?

Why would I want punish you – a part of me
That I have created?
And even if you considered yourself apart from me,
Why would I create you and then give you the freedom
Of choice to create whatever you wish to experience,
Then punish you forever for making the wrong choice?

That’s what I’ve been taught.

I tell you this, I would not do such a thing.
And in that truth let it free your heart from
The fear and tyranny of a jealous, vengeful and angry God.
For in your purest form, those are not your attributes either.
So what you’ve been taught is all wrong.

Then why am I here?

You can come here anytime that you wish.

That’s right, I did choose to be here didn’t I?

Yes, you did.
We can be together whenever you want.
The ecstasy of your union with me is yours anytime you want me.
Not just here but at the drop of a hat or the feel of the wind
On your face, or the sound of a cricket under a silvery moon.
And especially in a new born babies breath.

I felt you in my last breath.

Yes, I am always there.
I’m there in your first living thought as with your last.
I am here with you now, even until the end of time.
Your union with me is always complete.
It simply always was, always is and always will be.
For you and I are one – both now and forever more.

I didn’t do right by the gift of life that you gave me, did I?

But you are here with me now, is that not what you wanted?

But if I hurt myself, I must have hurt you.

You created your own reality, that is the gift that I gave you.

And I abused the gift, did I not?

I will not judge you for what you chose to create.

I’ve never felt so much love.

It’s because you’ve never chosen to know of it.

Is it possible for me to make another choice?

Always and forever – anytime you do not like what you have
Created you can think again and create a different reality.

I think I want to do that.

There you go, just put that word “I” in front of what you
Want to create and know yourself in that reality.
Go now and re-make your life as a statement of our truth.
Cause your days and nights to be filled with your reflections
On the highest ideas within you – the ones you now know.
Do it through the expression of our love,
Eternal and unconditional for all those lives you might touch.
Be a light unto the darkness and curse not the light.
Be a bringer of light.
You are that, my son.
So be it.*

*“We’ve got a pulse.”
“Give him some oxygen.”
I heard those words and shortly thereafter
“Welcome Back” as I opened my eyes.

The voice was a feminine voice and she was holding my hand.
So I’m here again, now.
So when you read what I write,
Read it with this in mind.
I am no longer a jealous, vengeful nor angry being.
It’s still me but I’m not the same.
I was dead before I died.
And now I live life in the hereafter - the one after I arrived.

My wild ambition loves to slide - ye all must understand
But fortune's ice prefers only the most virtuous of hand.
In Malaga I grew weary and wanton to possess
The most colorless canvas, one easy with a lazy happiness,
Disdained by golden fruit to the viewer be
As I passed the crowd to gently shake the tree.
Now manifest in paint, inward contrived and long since
I stood in bold defiance with the heart of a prince,
Held up on the square by one wanting to buy my latest cause.
Against the wind I held it up in spite of all the laws.
Do they wish to thicken my lot among all their other mistakes?
What circumstances find you this? -This is what my mind makes!
The buzzing of my emissaries fill my ears
With many solitary jealousies and fears,
Arbitrary thoughts brought forward into the light,
Contemplating existence, must it prove my vision right?
Weak are the arguments! Which the true artist knows full well,
Where weak minded people curse my renderings or are easy to rebel.
For am I not governed by the moon and by the far off stars?
Tread lightly on me and don’t put me behind your own bars.
And once in a shard of time let the Annunaki’s scribe record,
That my vision once rendered could somehow affect their lord.
The unrecognized Enki still wants to be a chief, yet none
He created was found as fit as barren Adam.
Not that he wished his greatness to create,
For leaders should wish not to be called great.
But he like I know our titles are not to be allowed.
For titles are useless and only dependent upon a crowd,
Those are kingly powers, thus ebbing us out, they might be
Drawn by the dregs of a falsely acclaimed democracy.
But in my paint I attempt, with studied arts to ease,
And shed the unholy venom with visions such as these.
On the other side of the canvas, not much escapes my eye –
But once in front of it – nothing escapes the me that I call I.

Having summoned an Uber I walked
Into the Remise to await for its arrival.
Unusual, the owners of this 1750’s building
Had refused to knock down the Remise
And as it was snowing and cold it sure was
A comforting place to wait out of the weather.

I imagined how it must of looked in its heyday
Full of fine coaches and horse tack.
For a moment I could smell a horse all bridled
And strapped with new leather – something which
Stirred up an agreeable sensation within me;
I could feel the churlish beast chomping at the bit.

Twiddling my thumbs as I waited I wondered if
There were anyone left to construct such an ancient
Horse drawn carriage or was there even anyone left
Who could ever think of using it.
But as oft I do I let my mind wander to
Those good old days, though not one of which I knew.

Closing my eyes, I swear that I could smell the oak fire
Of a blacksmith’s furnace and I could hear the
Gent solidly hammering out a new set of gaited horseshoes.
In my minds eye I could see the Remise all
Full of carriages, each hooked to a fine stead -
What a grand sight it must of truly been.

It was then that I felt a hand in mine and when I
Turned toward the hand – to my wandering eye -
I had a hold on the most intriguing creature that God
Had ever given a man to hold, I dared not open my eyes.
She looked into my soul and asked me,
“Sir, which carriage?”

At about 8 paces in front of us was what I suppose
Was the best equipped of the lot and as its driver
Stepped down and made his way toward me/us
I noticed the lady was as taken with it as myself.
So Monsieur De La Dessein – the driver – or at
Least that was how he introduced himself,

Then he asked me if we cared to take the Grand Tour.
He led us up to the door of the chaise and as he opened
The door I said, “This one will not do,
It is hardly big enough for one.”
The lady, without hesitation, pushed me toward the
Door whispering, “Get in.”

Upon her insistence I climbed aboard taking up
All but about 4 inches of the seat cushion
When the lady put her head and foot in the
Carriage saying, “Move over.”
With no place to move I tilted up on one cheek
With my legs – one atop of the other.

Now my lady was climbing in full bodied and all
To find that she too must sit on one cheek facing me
With our knees knocking against each other.
The driver shut the door as the lady said, “Abarth.”
The horse sprang to life as the “La Grand Tour” began.
Face to face, body to body this buggy ride was …

How should I say it ….

Wonderful….

And then I did the stupidest thing that I’d ever done.
I opened my eyes to find the Remise empty -
No carriages, no horses, no blacksmith and no ravishing beauty.
Just an empty place to get in out of the weather.
My heart sank lower than it had ever been before.
What mind is this that can wander so ****** far from reality?

A little tiny car whipped into the Remise and right in front of me
It turned a half moon pulling up to me.
I noticed the labeling on the front of the car – Fiat.
The back windows were all blacked out.
The driver got out coming toward me on the passenger side.
As he opened the back door I asked him what kind of car this was.

He said it was a Fiat Abarth and he hoped that
I didn’t mind sharing the ride.
As I bent over peering inside the driver said his name
“Monsieur De La Desein” and sitting on
One cheek in the back of this mutant automobile
Was – that intriguing creature that I had just dreamed about.

Carefully – more expertly this time – I crawled into
The back – on one cheek – face to face
As the Uber driver asked me, “Where to.”
In perfect unison – we in the back replied
“La Grand Tour please.”

God, please don't make me open my eyes...

Clouds rolling across our azure sky
As far as my eyes could see.
The white man told us another lie
For he just couldn’t let us be.
Behind us all of our homes were burned,
Nothing as far as they were concerned.
Destroying us and all our years
Marching us onto the trail of tears.

Behind the mask they wore a disguise
In an attempt to cover their lies.
Teardrops falling like rain
While our blood spilled again and again.
One in front of another across our sacred land,
Oh if only we could have had our last stand.
Destroying us and all our years
Marching us on the trail of tears.

First the weakest fell, then the old
Then the youngest, all turning cold.
First my Aunt, then my mother,
Then father, my son, my brother.
I carried them all as far as I could
While the soldiers beat my manhood.
Destroying us and all our years
Marching us into the trail of tears.

I focused on one soldier with a crooked cross
As he told us it wasn’t far off -
I must killed him a thousand times.
He laughed and spoke in white man’s rhymes
As my feet began to bleed.
Cold, hunger, thirst, the water we need -
Denied to us and all our years
Marching us down the trail of tears.

More than a thousand miles we walked
And yet today my people are un-talked.
Could you walk barefoot in the cold that long
When all those you loved fell so wronged?
All for nothing but a gold filled piece of land
From which we, my people were banned -
Removing us and all of our years.
Crawling us along in our trail full of tears.

To this acquaintance,
A rendezvous with midnight.
A gentle Déjà vu and in some sense
I wonder if an unspoken invite
Has played a part or two.
Does the past ever ensue?

Words do become an addiction.
Layer upon layer of repeated satisfaction
Interjected, felt and spewed.
Silken sheet’s confessions are
Best made in the ****.
These words, why are they so bizarre?

Oh let me write it right
Let me dream tonight
Upon this unarmored stage.
Let me free the fight
All through the night
Releasing it from its cage.

With a candlelit smile upon a face
The sheets do gently part.
What fills my heart
Is the gentle art
Of a finger painting slowly traced.
It has not been done by the ones
Lessening love absent of these notions.

What lies beneath must lie beside
As the past becomes renewed.
A gentle kiss a midst a torrents tide
The naked beach subdued.
Wet sand shaping dry demands

Déjà vu be wooed.

I could build you a fortress,
Drape you like the moon does the sea.
But without the real you to know,
We are just the color of an empty fantasy.

Something we think of?
Something we need?
Time knows all the answers,
Especially the present portrayed
In these shaded words of please.

It takes two hands to make a strong hold.
Inside the grasp the ink unfolds.
Two touches to erase the long winter’s night.
One lover’s moon ‘til
One morning’s light.

These flakes that fall - ever so effortlessly,
They bathe my mind with their peace and liberty - tranquility.
They have no rule and yet no precedence found
No law circumscribed - falling flawlessly upon the ground.
They cover the wildest desires of the woods and caves,
Turning these savages into bitterly cold slaves.
Snowflakes times billions, to and fro they blow,
Making fresh and clean of all they forego.
Hidden within the silence - a gentle song they bring.
Listen, listen can you not hear them sing?
They recover every note and they give their best,
Laughter, loving, so cold yet only the warmest expressed.
Beckoning me to play along so they can be obeyed,
I place one keyboard on the handrail I made,
Turn it on and listen intently to what they create.
Yearning to learn from my new classmate,
Random bolts at first with no formal design,
But somehow begging for me to join.
With another keyboard I listen and strain,
Allowing the snowflakes to quietly reign.
I close my eyes and touch the keys with their wise delight,
Saw searing sounds, honest and right.
In contemplation I feel their deepest of scars,
As they cover the memory of all the civil wars.
They moderate the worst of men, now disqualified,
Inclined in the balance taking them to the better side.
With calmness my fingers manage it well,
And my hands find no occasion to rebel.
Listen, listen can you hear the love as it leans,
Be careful Devil, the flakes will erase all your means.
Softly covering all those ill desires,
The good old cause revived, this their plot requires.
Darkness turns to a powdery white erasing all of everything,
Raising up the common-wealth, covering the evil kings.

A major storm was brewing as I
Alighted back to the hotel when the porter
Told me that a young woman in a yellow hat had
Just moments before inquired about me.
I thought nothing much of it other than of its odd nature
Taking my leave from the porter with a thankful nod.
Entering the towers making my way – not to the elevator-
But to the stairs – for I often opt for the more difficult path.
As I went up the stairs coming to a landing 5 floors below
My own, I met a young woman in a yellow hat coming down.

I stopped to nod and give her free passage down the staircase –
Making sure not to fail in waiting upon her to pass - she stood
Staunch still in front of me saying, “I was afraid you had left town.”
Then she asked, “Do you have a letter for me?”
Somewhat bewitched I tried to think of what she was referring to
But my mind was so full of the yellow hat and those inquisitive eyes
I had not the presence of mind to understand her question, let alone
The ability to search for any logical conclusion.
“A letter?” I asked thinking only of the scarlet letter.

It was the darkest, stormiest of evenings in the latter part of May and
Even here in the stairwell the ozone smell of lightning was present.
When she spoke again I noticed the smell of the ozone was
Not of the typical “storm” type but rather that pleasant firmament
Was radiating from this yellow bridled – creature in front of me.
I knew I had to beat down my temptations, so again I asked, “What letter?”
“I’m sorry,” she said with a torturous half grin on her ruby lips, opening
The palm of her right hand revealing a small golden box – she continued - and as she
Continued I became aware of her accent – “My father, he past last week” –

“I’m so sorry,” I said interrupting her – “Please tell me – who was your father?”
She looked down at the box with a tear in her eye, “He is – was the count De Conti.”
Immediately I knew of who she spoke because I had had dealings with him before.
“I’m so sorry,” again I repeated purely out of stupidity not knowing what else to say.
“He said I was to find you and give this to you in exchange for your letter.”
With that said I thought I knew of what letter she meant – or did I?
“It’s in my room,” I said with no more attention to detail.
I led her back up the doubled five flights of stairs holding her by the one hand
While in the other she held the golden box.

At the door I fumbled with the card key until the little light on the door
Turned green – I opened the door to my room and she entered.
The crimson curtains – the same pattern and colors of the bed –
Were drawn closed, the lightning reflecting a more reddish hue
Than I remembered the curtains having – so warm a tint it affected the
Mademoiselle’s face – Somehow I took it as a blush so I blushed myself.
We were quite undeniably alone which induced a second blush before
The first one could get itself fully free.
It was a pleasing half-guilty blush where the blood is more at fault than the man.

My virtue flew impetuously after it – not to call it back mind you but
To make the sensations of it more delicious to the nerves.
Knowing these feelings are not sent by the righteousness of virtue,
I searched for the letter for five minutes, opening drawer after drawer then
Luggage piece after piece unable to think clearly – the devil was in me.
He I knew well as a capable adversary, whom if we resist will surely fly away
But I am not usually one to combat this formidable foe, fearing that I myself
Will be harmed in the combat – generally I don’t do anything and by my
Abstinence the devil must get bored of me and leave me alone.

The fair mademoiselle came close up behind me as if to help me search.
“Do you know what was in the letter” she asked?
I nodded yes and then she opened her handbag taking out a tissue and
Handed it to me along with a pen – “Then write it down,” she pleaded.
I wanted to yell, “Then I shall write it upon your fair lips,” but I knew
If I did I would surely perish, burned at the stake of honor – Instead I
Took her by the hand and led her to the door.
Then she did the unthinkable – she turned and placed both of her hands in mine
As if to say that all was alright with her.

It was impossible for me not to caress them in this situation.
I wished so hard to let them go but I held onto them all the while.
Her eyes looking into me with that yin and yang quest where
Her stare made me focus on her perception of myself.
No sooner did the inner struggle begin to fade than I found
Myself having to fight the battle all over again with my limbs
Trembling at every idea that filled my head.
Letting go of her hands, I took the pen and put it to paper not knowing
What to write -I scribbled something and started to speak when…

When last I noticed the bed should have been several feet from the door.
I still had the pen and paper in my hands when it happened – and I
Can give no logical account of how it happened – or why – I never asked her
Nor did I pull her – neither did I think of the bed – but so it did happen.
We both sat down.
Beside me she opened her hand again showing the golden box.
She reached first to her left pocket, then to her right pulling out a tiny key.
She put the key into my hand holding the box up toward me.
Seeing the key hole I inserted the key and turned it to the right.

As the box opened I felt her other hand on the nap of my neck.
I heard the box begin to play – “Somewhere in Time” as she crossed
Her legs beside me – I noticed that one strap of one of her shoes was loose.
Listening to the chiming melody I reached for the strap to buckle her shoe.
As I did so my guilt ridden feelings got the better of me and I said,
“I’m so sorry, I have something to confess, your father never gave me a letter
To give to you.”
After putting the strap into the buckle I lifted her foot and in doing so
I must of unknowingly threw her off center – and then
As she laid back on the bed pulling me with her -
She said, “I know, I have something to confess to you as well.
I wasn’t ever really looking for one.”

I contend that it is not my place to give testimony or
To tell what love is but that I must include love
Here now so that I can get on with my story
Intelligibly with the help of the word itself
Without any other ideas or explanation for it.

Dr. David Dosa, speaking on behalf of Oscar the cat,
Stated that Oscar was never wrong and that Oscar
Seemed to have some innate ability to know when a
Patient at the Steere House Nursing Home was going
To pass - going all the way back to when the cat was a kitten.

Dr. Dosa went on to say that the pernicious, anti-social cat
At the Rhode Island center would only cuddle up to those
Patients who were in their last 2 to 4 hours of life.
The talented Oscar has proven the medical staff wrong on
Several occasions when patients were close to death.

Dr. Rosa – when asked about Oscar’s accuracy stated
That Oscar was right 100% of the time and that to his
Knowledge or to his staff’s knowledge that Oscar had
Never gone in and cuddled up to any person who was
Not near death, something that he had to accept - that
The cat had better instincts than he – a doctor – possessed.

At present, I hope that I have sufficiently captured
The reader’s understanding that there are yet many
Things out there in the real physical world that neither
Science nor religion can understand but I know what
Oscar knows – what he knows is this thing called love.

Now that phrase is not at all to my liking.
For to say a man is fallen in love, -
Or that he is deeply in love, -
Or up to the ears in love and sometimes
Even head over heels in love carries
With it an idiomatic implication that love is

Somehow beneath the man (fallen) – something
Regurgitated in Plato’s opinion which with all his
Divinity ship – I for one hold that the thought of Love
Being beneath a man be damnable and heretical.
While Oscar the cat simply says – let love be what it will.

And possibly, just possibly - gentle reader -
Without any further current explanation, so do I now
Join ranks with Oscar as I write of a love that is
Alive and well – and if I do not come and cuddle
With you it is not because I do not love you.

Tis but my task to find those in greater need and
When I find them near death, afraid or lost
I, like Oscar, I know of their fear and of their
Desperation so with pen in hand
I purr next to them cajoling

Them onto their next great experience.

I see you sitting beside the road under a tall Elm tree
Near a thicket with a stream running by at  your feet.
Your head held up by the one hand
With your elbow resting against the tree.
Your body turned away from me on one side.
Dressed in a velveteen camisole top with a white skirt – all alone.
As I approach you - you turn your eyes toward me
And say, “Shall you not leave me too, my love?”
Looking into your eyes I see somehow that I must be invisible
Because your question was not meant for me.
It was for the very thing in the essence of love.
Tears trickle down your cheeks
As my heart and soul sits down beside you.
You allow me to wipe the tears away
And I watch as they reappear one by one -
Falling ever so slowly into my offered handkerchief.
Then I set my handkerchief into my own tears and
Then back into yours once again.
All the while feeling the most
Indescribable emotions – ones for which
I have no way to dispose of or account for.

Taking you into my arms I say to you:
“Yes, I am positive that I have a soul within me and
All the scientists, nor all the learned professors
Or all of their books combined could ever convince me otherwise.
I know it must be true, dear one –
Because you could not be so lucky as to have the only one.
If ever love does leave you –
It will be to go to heaven to make sure that
Your place is properly prepared for you.”

You lean into me, holding me
Like a lost child in a never ending maze.

And then I awaken…
Another night passes into the morning of the never was.
Are things the way they seem
Or are they simply unfinished lines - just because?

You paid me a most humble courtesy
Ingratiating my own imagination’s sensuality.
It ‘tis one of those quiet thinking moments
Where for a time – mere moments – one’s spirit bows
Down with the body telling the mind a beautiful story.
But the body does so much more than just tell it.
So as I remember it, your mind does replay it.
The pleasure – as if it were greater than an actual
Remembrance of any true physical event.

What does this mean? you ask.
My feelings – my dear – would not be worth a penny
If I had not given these memories along with it.
Within ecstasy's imagination you will always remember me.
Whatever comes of it will make you the better for it.
What is imagination but a prelude to creation?
With the creation of anything – its being reclaims the imagined.
Imagined – created – imagined – created –
It goes round – n – round making of itself
A flavored reality sprinkled with the sweetest of all that is.
The sprinkles you feel are the effect of the seventy five
Percent water that we all truly are.

What can you imagine would happen if our memory
Awakened with this capability while holding hands?
My love, I can see the innocence in us both.
Innocence does not mean that we have not known life.
Innocence means that we are not guilty of failing our love.
If you are affected by these words or by any of my others,
May all of them be received with an equaling retort.
Upon each turn, each ascent and descent – they all are but
Road signs marking out our journey.
The safety that I afford you is as real as my memories.

Let my memories wash you clean of the evil
That you endure daily – repairing all that is damaged.
Absorb my imagination in word, in song and visually
As you feel yourself evolve.
Isn’t it sweet to feel these sweet threads spun in love
Mixed with the colors of our affections?
You have never touched me before -
But you have haven’t you?

We have all by ourselves, with a liberating simplicity,
Coupled our minds which must prove that love
Can be out of our heads and for my part in it
I cannot help but have these convictions.
All I ask in return is that you wear this love
As if it were a coat of arms letting my
Imagination free you from any evil harm.
For my kiss caries within it an Apostle’s heart.
If evil should continue to stand in our way
I shall imagine that evil’s demise.
Casting out the demons with nothing more
Than the warmest of all kisses.

Can you not feel them cower now?
That is the power of the imagination my dear.
For what is imagination if it is not a wish?
And is not a wish a prayer?
And is not a prayer Divine Ecstasy?

Let this be our truth!

Oh Lord hear my plea, I imagine ….

“I think I must be incapable in properly saying
That which honors the concern you show me.”
With that she placed her hand in his and in her
Best broken French she continued….
“Marcherez-vous avec moi avalez-vous mon chemin?”
(Will you walk with me my way?)
He replies, “Naturellement fe veux mon cher.”
(Naturally I will my dear.)

There is a time when a virtuous convention,
Once created betwixt a woman and a man,
Sanctifies even those most private of walks.
This walk being as it was – in the dusk of the evening
Had within it their roads laid out the same way.
Hand in hand in a shared silence both of them
Admiring the sky’s crimson closing.
With a small tribute to such as this toward virtue
He felt her cold fingers clutch together in his and
Just then she broke the daunting silence asking,
“La beauteu ciel est-elle suelement vue par ceux
qui choisissent de la partager?”
(Is the sky’s beauty only seen to those who choose to share it?)
His answer, “ Pas plus que l’amour, moncher. Pour garder
de lui est juste comme imutile. – Quel but est-il eoins
qui ‘il soit partage.”
(No more than love - for the keeping of it is just as useless.
Of what possible purpose is it unless it is shared?)

She seemed much affected with what he had said giving it a low sigh.
He was incapable of inquiring after the sigh so
He said nothing more ‘til they came to the corner of
Tomorrows' Road and Yesterdays' Pass.
That was where they were to part today.
Waiting for the path to clear he asked, “Est-ce
Que je dois vous server le reste de la mania?”
(Shall I attend you the rest of the way?)
She replied first with a look to his hand
And then to his eyes, “Pas du tout, monsieur.
Vous pouvez cependant me server toute la manua.”
(Not at all, sir. You may however attend me all the way.)

With this he seemed to loose his French verbs for a time
And it was not until they were steadfast alone in her
Bungalo that any French returned.
Yet the French that returned said not a single word.
She was most capable though the question
She answered was never asked.
If he had to have asked he would have asked,
“Cue ferai-je avec vous ?
Devrais-je vous aimer de tout mon cœur ?
Je crois que dans la route que nous prenons,
il cause l'intersection d'entre nous..”

Only the little French in her knows…..

The grand wind blows as it hums along –
This dark and grey velvet morning - the sun barely risen.
A well dressed classy drunk smears her finger across
The doorman’s lips and whispers, “Please don’t tell anyone.”
She stumbles along while someone in her way curses -
A garbage truck outside stops and reverses -
– beep – beep – beep.

Standing there in her favorite long coat
The desk clerk seems to gloat -
Gloat over every marvelous thing she ever wanted.
In this, the one day when she is thinner -
Outside a siren shrieks repeating the tormented,
Is she a saint or a sinner?

Finally the quiet idles up there eternal
Inside her blessed Penthouse suite.
From her barred window she watches a crosswalk signal
Still standing in her long winter coat.
Across the alley she sees someone on a fire escape,
As they wrap around and disappear down the funnel.

In the serenity of the street below a Cupid like boy
Salutes his mother at the bus stop.
The mother stoops to pat him on his noggin.
Then mommy makes a sculpture of her packages,
As the boy salutes again.
Up there behind her bars the drunk thinks she is different somehow.

Taking off her coat she opens a book entitled “Value”
Finding a written sentence that ends with “come back to me now.”
She gives her legacy a second look
And thinks how absolutely - positively - wondrously dear -
If only she could believe what she had just read -

And then she disappears.

Silent Circles
Suspended in light
Spiraling eloquence
Reflecting the night

In a dance
One shadows
Then becomes shadowed
Circling each other
Within passions sight

Ruling sun rays
Lines them up
To each an audience
Rounding each other
As One

With haloed shoulders
We mask the solitude
‘Neath the starry valence
Of night
Oceans waving
Conjoined in balance
Of our ever enlightened might

Life is
As a grand eclipse
Fleeting moments
Waltzing
Around the sun

Once shadowed
We forever shadow
Dancing
Till morning’s dawn

To and fro we sway
Dancing with words
We say
Living eclipsed
As one

What cannot my praise effect in your singular mind?
When flattery soothes – or when ambition is blind!
Desire of the heart, is it an earthly vicious seed?
Yet, sprung from high, is it nothing but a ****?
But to God 'tis its glory and when love aspires,
'Tis but a spark of the most heavenliest of fires.
To the ambitious youth, thou too covetous of the flame,
Too full of the vermin running throughout thy frame.
Unwarily led astray from any virtuous ways -
Made drunk with love, and somehow debauched with praise.
Half desire, and half consenting to the ness of the ill,
For in the blood the sentiment - cannot it be still?
To thee I must reply — pray thee - what pretense have I,
To take up arms for justice or for your love’s liberty, I cry?
Love governs with an unquestioning right,
Love’s the defender and love’s the delight.
Be ye good, be gracious, be just, be observant of the laws,
And in loving wonders - be ye especially espoused to love’s cause.
Whom has love ever wronged in all its peaceful reign?
Love cannot sue for justice for any judgement would be in vain.
What millions has love pardoned or has taken on as foes?
To what revenge does love get even or even mildly expose?
Mild, easy, humble, studious and good,
Always inclined toward mercy, never spilling any blood.
If this is the love that you know put it on like a suit,
For in you -  you have God's most beloved attribute.

Praise not the barren, praise the rich consummate flower,
Fair only to those without sight, so full of internal power.
None nobler with an unlimiting petaled command,
Given by the earth’s love to all the native land.
Given a successive name, tall, short, light or dark,
Drawn from those once hidden away in the human Ark.
It is now, as when on the holiest of land
No less joyful as it spreads around my willful gland.
Covering the breach, and lengthening the strand
Rising like the Prince of Consummation’s imagined height,
Coming tumbling downward with diminished fight.
To unbetray the plot free of public scorn,
For this is our only blessing until his blest return.
To all those heaps which one petal does nigh bind,
Blown off, and scattered like tumble weeds that unwind.
What strength can you or your designs propose
With naked friends who round you upturn their toes?
If the flower is doubtful of how it should you use,
A foreign object would more satisfy its queenly news.
The proud stamen would assemble a friendship ring,
Foment the battle, and support the coming King.
Nor would this royal party ever unite
When in the flower’s arms, it strains to set it right.
Or if understood, the gripping interest soon shall break,
And by odious aid, make the reed return to the weak.
All sorts of vessels, by their successful arts,
Abhorring the panting, encountering their altered hearts.
From love’s incandescent rule, and a heart beats nature’s cry,
Thought, passion, common-wealth and health all belie
As the flower is the champion of all the public good.
As into her arms falls another chief of royal blood,
What may not the suitor hope, and to what applause
Might such a King regain by the flower’s cause.

'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......

This is not going to be a poem. Please bear with me as I try to explain something important to me. I am getting responses (Hello Poetry email) from children. I want for the Hello Poetry community to pull together and find a solution. Some of these kids are expressing to me that they do not have anyone that cares about them.

Since my NDE I can tell you that this is not unusual for me. On my property I have all sorts of animals that regularly congregate in my yard. Many different species, sometimes animals who you would think are dangerous to one another can often be seen together on my property. I’ll leave it at that other than to say that many of these wild animals have become my friends. They innately trust me and I trust them. Everything from bears, coyotes, deer, turkeys, hawks, eagles, turtles, snakes, rabbits, lizards, squirrels, and raccoons can often be seen in my yard or on my porches. You are going to say that I feed them. I do not. My property is very small but it backs up to a property that is leased and protected by the Army Corp of Engineers. I only mention this because I do believe that humans are sometimes curious about me too. Maybe this is why these children are writing to me.

I respond to these kids and tell them that it is inappropriate for me to talk to them. As one user pointed out to me, a child has a completely different mindset than an adult has. A child is a precious thing and so impressionable.  Like some of the animals that appear in my life, sometimes I help them in some way. If their injured I either help them myself or get them medical attention. If something in their environment threatens anyone of these animals I try to mitigate the threat.  That’s not said to put a feather in my cap. It’s just how I view life now. So now we come to these kids. Just like my animal friends, I feel concern for these kids. I have seen some of the writing about there being a writer on this forum who is not being a good steward when it comes to the children on this site. In the hopes to promote a better stewardship and responsibility toward the children on this site I propose that we pool our resources together and make a concerted effort to provide a safe haven for these kids. What I would like to see is a few of you woman step forward and offer to mediate for us guys who receive email from a child. Someone that we can forward the info of the child to so that a motherly individual can take part in gently leading these children into a safe or safer mode of communication.  I’m sure that I am not the only one that they are emailing. It could be that a few are not even kids. I don’t know. But like the animals that sometimes are curious enough to come to my hand when I reach out to them, there’s just something in me that I cannot turn away or ignore these kids. I need help. Maybe you guys could organize a plan for communicating with some of these kids. It just is not safe for them to be writing to complete strangers.
Email me if you feel compelled to help or if this is happening to you as well. Here’s an example of one of the correspondences that I’ve had…

A….redacted  15h
Follow me on Instagram please ? || @..... redacted
***** Shakysphere  14h
Hi and thanks for the invite but I don’t chat with kids. Have a great day and please be careful talking to strangers.
A…redacted  14h
Okay ; sorry for disturbing. You
***** Shakysphere  13h
Not a problem. Just be careful on the web.
A….redacted  13h
Got you - thanks for looking out for me not many people care about me

The above is a 14 year old.  
They say it takes a community to raise a child. I’ve raised two mostly by myself.  Any suggestions or ideas on how we as a community can reach out to these kids and help them and protect them would be appreciated.

Was there ever anything in nature
So sweet or so exquisite that it must be
Resisted before it can come to fruition?
Within natures covering malice cannot blacken
One’s heart nor shall ignorance misrepresent it.
Even such as it is I must slave for nineteen
Hours out of twenty-four with the remaining
Time to be spent reckoning for the first nineteen.
There is nothing in the world that I loathe more
Than to be interrupted in the middle of a story
Except and unless the same interruption happens
While I am dreaming the end of a story
Before I have ever written the first verse.
This is not a distinction without a difference.

For Instance ...

If I had on my head a three-cornered hat
With one and a half brims turned up
And one and a half brims turned down
Would you say that I went off half cocked?
What if I had two brims turned up
And one brim turned down would you then
Say that I was two-thirds cocked?
If this is true then if I roll all three brims up
Then I suppose you’d say that I am fully cocked.
I tell you that I can be neither half cocked,
Two thirds cocked or fully cocked
As long as my hat is on my head.

For ‘tis only when my head is bare as a
Baby’s backside can I even begin to ponder
The gray matter uncovered by some old hat.
In any event it matters not a bean’s stalk
Whether the old hat is half cocked
Or if it’s a half cocked old hat.
The difference is in the definition of
An old hat as well as in the definition
Of what cocked really means.
And you’d best be careful how you mix the two
Otherwise if I laid my old hat on the bed
And cocked it just right somebody could
Get the wrong impression.

Raised on my extremes with these extremes woefully denied,
An oath silently affirmed yet mournfully defied.
Words not weighed or windowed by their sheer multitude,
Inwardly swallowed in rhyme, be they rusty and sometimes crude.
To some - truth has to be dashed with the salt within their own eyes,
Their own tears to confuse the foolishness and twist them into lies.
Do any loving words have an equaling folly to befall?
Or do you believe in nothing – yes - nothing at all?
The poets’ rites are here - to - for rarely embraced,
When what is needed is a muse, who could add flavor to the taste.
Such savoring delights I offer, to a soul in need of ritual food,
Served up hot all at once – then sinfully shared in the ****.
But by force one cannot offer these to even the gods,
For only one in a million is worthy, all the rest are just at odds.
No fraud I offer you in this, my musing trade,
But writers are harder to conquer than they are to persuade.
They are busy scribes mingling within life’s refuse,
Raking around in the garbage looking for new verbiage to defuse.
Do you hear me – do my words sit on your lips?
Touch them now – gently - and let me take you away on a thousand trips.
My words on your lips – can they truly take you away?
Shhhh – my darling, close your eyes and taste them, and their gentile foreplay.
Oh this author swears it not but only you can know
How far these words can reach or where for art they may go.
If I fail you and for want I lose my common sense,
What love will come from this or be the consequence?
My words are like raging fevers boiling my own blood,
Be careful my muse, these words often float into a flood.
For love is like water always seeking the path of least resistance,
Quiet yet powerful and oft bubbling over in persistence.
Breathe my muse; take it all in as we flow into the decent
Working up the foam as we threaten to shoot the vent.
Who among are as witty as we are wise?
I watch as my words leave those lips and shine from within your eyes.
Those eyes like reflecting pools, one by two, my holly preference,
I think God must have given us two eyes so as to cross the reference.
Kiss me my muse; please kiss me until this fatal fury has gone,
Hold on tight as I write and drag you from your rightful throne.
These words raised in power amongst our fellowship.
Words, precious words, now on our hungry lips.
May we let them ooze – oh - please let them go,
Listen do you taste them now? Only you my muse -
Only you can ever know.

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.

My heart beats intermittently in this mad, mad world,
The pain of it makes it shutter so.
And as it quivers I would have you know
That many well minded people proclaim to defend
The madness hidden here within
Their deafening fog and their blinding snow.

Here where Tully stands
Amidst Horace and Homer’s hands,
And Plato watches as they go
So many years far below.
I was once with them an unlettered lad
Buried somehow now inside their fog and snow.

Is it possible to jinx this madness?
Attack the demons and spill their decadence?
Newspapers daily attacks on the sane
With words like hammers again and again.
Making a false museum out of this insanity’s row.
Falling all around within the cold fog of snow.

Are the insane the real artists?
The vandals the restorers?
The bombs - the ballast?
The lies – the words the authors’
Use to make this world less to know.
Sprinkling mysery about in the fog and snow.

Your own thoughts float down to the place where you are
Watching as another lie falls so far.
You watch it fly out the door into the misty night,
Sailing away to the dark tenements of right.
Wishing it to stay where the art is black and without a glow,
Burying yourself in the fog and snow.

Let sanity swing open in the cages of your heart
Like an eagle soaring with wings held wide apart.
Looking down with an illuminated eye.
Floating high above this mad quasi
Thinkers of thought, squelching out a reply.
No question lost in this worldly fresco -
Lost no more in the fog and snow.

Of all of these words the truest Star in heaven was first:
A name of which from all the succeeding generations burst.
With enclosed designs where my salacious counsel does fit
Sagacious she is - bold and born of a turbulence of wit.
Restless she is too - unfixed by principles or place;
Her powers unleashed with the patience of her grace.
A naked fiery soul which works out daily in her own way,
Unfettered by the gloriousness of her own body’s lack of decay.
She, the master of my mind ever beating my heart away from the clay.
A daring luxurious softness engulfing a flaming fire,
Poised with passion and waves of pleasure reaching ever higher;
Like a summer thunderstorm renders the calmness unfit,
Steering love nigh into my hands, boasting of how her touch has wit.
Of great wit we are, surely, as madness is to be allied;
As these thin partitions do touch the boundaries they divide.
Our bodies plundering our souls’ wealth loving the honor blest,
Refusing our age any needful hours of rest.
Sharing a simple body which neither alone could ever please;
For the single body alone is bankrupt, but together, a prodigal ease.
Flesh always leaves that which its touch has won
Un-feathered and four-legged making the two into one.
Oh, to my soul in my deepest huddled notions I do try;
To be reborn into the shapeless spent lump of you and I.

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.

On my evening walk about town
I passed by all the usual places.
Martini’s to my left, Betty’s cap and gown
Hap’s store on the right, the new salon called Faces.
Oh there are many more but turning the corner
Of Second and Elm I noticed an old goat following me.

He must have belonged to someone,
He seemed clean and well feed.
But no matter where I turned
He just kept following me.
Amused I was and solidly delighted.
So I led him back through town at a brisk pace
Hoping that somebody would claim him.

I came up to parson Bill and he said,
“Hey that’s a nice goat you have there.”
“Oh he’s not my goat,
It’s just my turn to walk him,” I explained
As we headed down Main Street.
Crossing a side street Officer Don was
Sitting in his patrol car, “Hey Will,
Where did you get the old goat?” he yelled.
“Oh he’s not mine, it’s the town goat -
Haven’t you heard, it’s just my turn to walk him.”

And so we went, me and this old goat bumping
Into just about everyone that was anyone.
As I made my way back across Elm Street,
My street, I met Hap, Betty, Don, Bill, Martini,
the new owner of Faces and 12 other people
All waiting for their turn.

Yep, he’s the town goat everyone now knows.
They walk him, they pet him, they feed him, they just love him -
You know
That sure is one **** smart old goat….

In a time where one and one was utterly confined
When nature itself was prompted and no law was defined.
In these non pious times before the religious craft did begin,
Long before current life filled the world we’re in.
Before earthly man was born or multiplied his kind,
In earths far away there were people already of mind.
Then when Semjasa traveled with Heaven's own heart,
Bringing his vigorous warmth to this earth to impart.
Partaking of life here he bore Adam by his own command,
Thus scattering his maker's image throughout the land.
Seth, born of such royal blood, the crown he did wear
A soul grateful to his father Adam’s care.
And so to the rest, many mothers bore
To King David, and the many sons and daughters before.
But since like slaves from his bed they did ascend,
Only the truest succession could their seed attend.
But of all this numerous progeny was none as fit to rule
So beautiful, so brave, as this star child, Jmmanuel.
Inspired by some other diviner’s gust,
His father Joseph got him without any lust.
Through his conscious destiny made he the weighed,
By other worldly fortitude - the imperials he swayed.
Earlier on the mount he won great renown,
Healing the sick while dispersing the crown.
With soft spoken peace the thoughts of war he could remove,
As it seemed as if he were only born to love.
Whatever he did, was done with so much ease,
In him alone, 'twas his nature to please.
His emotions shared in his eyes with grace,
As if paradise itself was opened in his face.
With secret joy, indulgent people viewed
This youthful image in his ancient knowledge renewed.
To all that wished - nothing he denied,
In doing so he made the whole world his bride.
What faults he had for who from faults are free?
His father could not or he would not see.
Perhaps only the warmest excesses which the profits forbore,
Were construed by a youth purged - boiling over.
And Mary called him by a specious name,
She named him Jmmanuel - not the name of his fame.
Thus praised, and loved, the noble youth remained,
While Augustus, undisturbed, in Rome reigned.
From Rome his life could never be sincerely blest,
Nature punishes the bad, and approves only the best.
The Jews, a headstrong, moody, a murmuring race
As ever tried the extent and patience of grace.
God's pampered saints whom, debauched with ease,
No King could ever govern nor could any God please.

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.”

Sweet pliability of a woman’s spirit
That can surrender itself to its own illusions
Somehow to cheat sorrow of their weariest moments.
Had I not trod upon such enchanted ground
I would have not known the smooth velvet path
Fancied by those rose-budded petals of delight.

When the evils of the world wear sores upon me
And there seems to be no retreat from them –
I take upon me 'your' course and leave this world
Of fit and anger and find that it is only with 'you'
That I have a clearer view of the Elysian Fields
Upon which your womanly heart depends.

I see those evils wave their ugly heads in defeat
Even unto their own thoughts as you cast out the shadows.
I lose myself in you all those ill wills finding
That it is only your affections worth living for.
Surely this is not walking in a vain shadow
Nor do I do injustice to you by walking with you.

A man walks in any direction because he claims to
Walk with the issue of his commotions – for no good reason.
But in woman, at times, she walks in the direction of her
Heart as she conquers any single bad sensation of
That heart as decisively as that of reason - often sorely
Defeated before there is a fight to be fought.

They say that a woman thinks more with the left side
Of her brain while a man thinks mostly with the right.
The journey between right and left is but a few centimeters.
That distance between those quadrants can at times seem
Light years apart as if the universe is turned topsy-turvy.
Neither is more intelligent than the other, or so they say but

Science also says

Men tend to do better with tasks requiring more localized processing
Such as mathematics which is attributed to the white matter of the brain.
Women are better at integrating and assimilating information from the
Distributed gray-matter regions of the brain, which aids
In language and communication skills.
This is a generalization and is not true of all men and women.

So how is a man to ever understand a woman or a
Woman ever to be able to understand a man?
I can only attest to my own case.
If a man subscribes himself upon such an injury
That he incapacitates that masculine routing of reason
Then his mind is forced to regenerate itself creating different
Avenues of his ability to be human.

If by accident or injury he somehow disables some of the
White matter of his brain then over time the gray matter
Takes over what the white matter no longer can perform.
In essence there isn’t a left and a right anymore.
When that happens a man is open to communication
In an entirely new and different way.

What once was a bullheaded ***** thinking mainly with
Parts of himself that were more important to him than anyone else,
Now he is forced to see both sides of every issue.
Words are not the same, music isn’t the same and
Neither is anything else, not even a single breath.
So whenever you read something from one of these mutant men –

Remember what has happened to get this one to that place.

And remember always, hope shortens all journeys
By sweetening them, so sing my little stanzas
As I sing them – as with the devotion of a hymn.
If you do this every morning you will arise
And eat your breakfast with more comfort for it.
Make no mistake of it – I am a man in every way
That a man can be a man.

It’s just according to science that
I think more like a woman.
For better or worse and
Whether anyone likes it or not.
Personally I think I'm somewhere in between.

Is it a warm bed on cold night?
Is it a cup of coffee shared?
Is it eyes glimmering – book ending a candle light?
Is it a kind word or a gentle touch
Or is it simply understanding much?

I think a Valentine must be
Learning - Showing,
Pushing - Pulling,
Holding on for all your worth.
Never doubting - never pouting
Knowing that seeing isn’t believing
It’s more a matter of trust.
Daring to share
Without a care
Of loosing one’s own self.

Becoming one isn’t just fun
It’s knowing someone’s there
Looking for what we call love.
Maybe sometimes it’s just a matter of lust.
But when your heart is breaking
And there’s no place to hide,
If you find my hands upon your face –

I’ll be there by your side.