Stung by an angling fad
He took a fishing rod
And sallied onto the nearby stream
That leaped down a rocky shelf
Forming small cascades
But running down into plain ground
With a placid demure face
Uttering soft murmurs sweet

Aiming at the darting Trout
That made the still waters into spiraling whirls
He swished the rod in the air
With the alacrity of a practiced bowler

Looking at the line sinking low
He waited for the fish to nibble at the bait
Meanwhile, inhaling the salubrious air
And watching the limpid movement of the stream

As the hook line went taut in his grip
Hopefully he pulled it up

But alas! With no ***** to boast!

Patiently sat he there for hours
Like a sculptured God upon a rock
Oh! It requires immense patience
With adroitness to boot
To be an angler, no doubt
That sure is a sedate man’s pursuit!

Angling rarely fetches any major luck
Except now and then a fresh fish upon one’s plate

Yet following one’s heart’s pursuit
Is worth more than all tangible reward it brings!

I'm drunk and the skies are a little hazy, and the stars, a little like Van Gogh's, but tonight, I'm still an astronaut angling metaphors from the mesophere and you're still the moon to which these poems orbit around.

Plenary veils...infinitely unveiling the bride--
her face will never be seen, ovoid porcelain,
angling candles...upon a UFO altar.
The relentless Hand that pinches and lifts her
veils...has seen her face, and kissed her lips
so many times--that her infinite unveiling...
is love's ****** regress...a deathless imagining
made real.

The vines have turned the color of the season —
as red as the wine their grapes will spill.
I peer back up the hillside into the circling sun,
an infinite swath of yellow. Below it surges
Homer’s wine-dark sea, repeatedly, endlessly, effortlessly
spreading. Except the sea is never red in Greece or Italy,
or even in France, where I stand amid a sea of wine-red leaves,
in silence, under the sun, holding back the flood of invaders below.

From the crumbling wall of the vineyard,
I survey the village of Riquewihr in all its medieval splendor,
gorged with tourists like an unfortunate goose
gagging on grain forced down its gullet:
foie gras for the shopkeepers, who crowd the cobbled courtyard
in all its chaos and cacophony.
“Sample a macaroon for free under the ramparts.”
“Buy a reproduction of a one-of-a-kind watercolor of the bell tower,
built in 1291. (Only 400 Euros for the original),” the artist says.
“Reserve it now for Christmas.”

His stocking cap needs cleaning, I think.
I eye the village fountain, the half-timbered shops, the claustrophobic
stone houses, brightly painted, squeezed into walls like tiny fortresses.
The artist tells me how hard it is to make a living —
the global economy his impenetrable wall, which holds back a flood
of buyers from Germany, China, New York.

I decline his offer to buy and climb the steep hill out of town,
the wine-dark hill of the vineyard.
This is what it means to inherit the world:
to stand apart, high, distant, above the sea
of other tourists, just like yourself, who yearn to stand apart,
just like yourself, laden with bulky guidebooks,
just like yourself, looking for the perfect souvenir, just like yourself,
the one that will sit perfectly on their mantle. Just like yourself,
they seek a memento that will remember for them — remember
all they could have had if only they had had the village to themselves.
If only you had had the village to yourself, to make it your own.

On this sunny afternoon, the village is my own — for a moment,
from a distance, awash in gray-blue shadow. Only the vineyard beams:
isolated, fecund, teeming with dreams; ever gaining on the harvest;
angling closer to the giant wine press that will spew the scarlet juice
at my feet, the earth turned the color of blood.

I resist the urge to pluck a baby cluster of grapes, nestled safely
beneath a leafy wave of this wine-dark sea, these purple berries
springing from the ground: so many earthy bubbles, born to burst.
Le terroir in French: The dirt makes all the difference.

A handful of soil would prove the perfect souvenir, n’est-ce pas?
sitting pretty on my mantle. The dust and debris would blow away
day by day, like ashes spilled from a funerary urn,
the sacred remains of my travels.

Let me be buried, then, in memory of the fertile furrows of Alsace.
Let me push up this hillside, along its ample paths of abundance;
its ripening rows of fruit; its wine-red passageways through leaves
and vines, steep and luminous; the sea of blood yet to be pressed
from the soon-to-be-crimson grapes.

“Does this vast vineyard hold any secret worth journeying halfway
around the world to find?” That is the question I scribble in the dirt.
“Does this village? Does this vision? Does this ancient, failing wall?”
Even if the answer is “No, no, no,” I shall reply, “Yes, yes, yes.”

Yes, let me be buried in Alsatian soil as a lasting souvenir.
Yes, let me lie here, as I stand: free and upright,
lighted by the autumn sun, unchanging, set apart
to revel in the marvel of red blood seeping into the soil.
Yes, let me make this stained patch of dirt my own.

The vines have turned the color of the season —
wine-red, wine-dark, blood-red.
And I have turned the color of the vines,
in silence, under the sun, holding back the flood.

Five thousand trees between his knuckles
Crushing the bark, choking the oaks
Straining through leaves with makeshift sieves
Angling to find an ankle or two
Praying that even a toenail would do
But all to be found was her mountain laurel crown
Still tangled with strands of burnt-birch down

Lil' Israel, today, scuttled the long struggled for 'Iran ...Deal',
an acheivement of the Obama Presidency, although he failed on his
promises of "...watching the robots..." (20 % of "Bernie Or Bust
'Bots", the "hacker 'bots", and hackers globally, etc., biological
machine parts of 'la machine', mega, mecha, techa vs. orga, soma,
Gaia, which were central to the invisible coup that, with the tug, the
S.S. Tea Party, to the tune of their manifest destiny rag, dragged
'The U.S. Constitution', our Ship of State, into the 'Plymouth Rock'
Of this nation's original sin, imperialism, as they landed on it
while it landed on "...we(e),...", Native Americans, Turtle Island,
derailing democratically directed progress and installing Trumpler in
the klukahouse) and "closing Guantonomo", etc., he kept many, making
him singular amongst the number of the fingers of one hand at the top,
The "Presidents Club".  His legacy includes allowing the intelligence
industrial complex, of the corporate structure's convolution, to
purposely not prevent the hacking of the Presidential Elections of
2016, yet also includes such acheivements as the A.C.A., and the
'Iran ... Deal', it being the best possible foreign policy endeavor
To move forward with Iran.  Yet, Trumpler's feuhrer, Netsenyahoo's,
putting on a show of shiny cd's, old intelligence that didn't even
support his delusional projections, was all the cover 'The Donald'
needed to follow his channeling of his inner-worst yahoo and "scrap",
Racistly, that epitome of foreign policy success, "...because it was
Obama's...", as was Trumpler's campaigning on his desires to
"...update and use nuclear programs and weapons...".  For, it's been
common global foreign affairs knowledge for half a century that any
nuclear war is the extinction of humanity in a can, thus 'containment',
not proliferation', was the eternal order of the day.  So, His Trunc-
ularnesses not understanding why "...a country has weapons if they're  
not going to use them...", was not just a confession of his utter
criminal insanity, it was also one of his intent to break the "Non-State
Agression" part of the Nuremburg Accords that was central to the lessons
learned from WWII, like if you're not taking bullets you're making them,
By globally selling not just unending war, but nuclear ones, discarding
containment for proliferation, 'cause war pays extremely more than peace.  
What do you get when you mix imperialism, materialism, racism, religious
bigotry, patriarchy, oligarchy, notsee Germany before it annexed Austria.
Trumpenstein, blasting the keinder and gentler imperialism of remocrats,
Is warring on dempublicans, voting, women's rights, healthcare, health,
Et al, exterminating non-rem voters, etc., now he is angling for a Sunni
wished for unending worldwide war on the Shiite, Iran, to be nuclear, ****
all non: US citizens, Caucasians, upper-middle-class to rich, supposed
Christians, as our notsee war machine has ever been oiled by the blood
of, for more (like merx for more thru to mercs for unnecessary unending
worldwide war).  Separating the real religion which all religions,
etc., are a front for, avarice, from the State, as is dictated by our
Constitution, is not only a necessity for "a nation and an individual",
like Gandhi said "abhaya, fearlessness", is, it's now a necessity for
the existence of humanity, neigh, all life and the Earth.  He will end
U.S. if we don't protect the vote, GOTV, vote, and impeach him a.s.a.p..

I met a girl today
Well, I was busy doing some stuff and my phone…told me…I met a girl today.
It said “Ring, ring you have a match. Say hey!”
****, I remember swiping right on her last Tuesday.
How you been?
You see, I live my life window shopping women 5 pictures at a time
Jenny is 7 miles away
Mary wants no strings
Sarah’s sick of *** boys

And Tinder says were all a perfect match!
And now that we’re messaging
And I committed your profile to memory
I remember my reasons for not wanting to be here in the first place

But still I cast out some witty one-liners
Acting as an angler angling for your affection
by employing instruments of artful articulation aimed at ever increasing your awareness of the me
I’m projecting to be.

Because in my head I’m a jack of all trades.
I can change my oil, I can change a diaper
I can make a 3 pointer, I can make a cake
I can build a house, I can build a family
I can make you forget about your last man, I can make you forget about the tears you cried when you were 12.
I can make you feel ****, I can make you wet.
I can make you feel loved and I don’t even love you yet.

Because I haven’t actually met you
I’ve asked you about your favorite book but haven’t had the honor of being told your daddy issues actually come from a guy friend freshman year and that’s why you won’t wear another man’s sweater.
You know my favorite ice cream. But haven’t born witness when I whisper my history of five formidable years of foster care and how that made me the man that I am, and the boy I am not.
You see, Tinder put us in touch but keeps us apart.
With every hour between messages we have ample opportunities to build each other up in each others mind.
But I don’t really know if the me I gave you is the me I see with my own eye or the I I hope you see when we first meet.
And I don’t know if the you I’m getting is the you you’re selling when I buy our first dinner or the you you see when you take your make-up off at night.
That’s the us tinder never brings to light.

So maybe I prefer to have met you in person.
When your personality cannot possibly be poisoned by the internet’s preferred first impressions.
Because in person I can count every freckle on your forehead and kiss every mole down your back.
Because in person I can see firsthand how your nose creases crinkle when you snort instead of laugh.
Because in person I can do so many things that I just cant do with 5 ******* photographs.

So maybe I want a love that wasn’t born from my phone.
Maybe I want to cross paths in real life
Maybe I want to get that feeling you get
Where I look at you, you look at me and cupid starts stirring our chemistry set
My heart begins bubbling beyond the boiling point
Because I saw out of the corner of my eye
Your eyelids flutter.
One of which is worth more than all of the swipes and all of the matches


Maybe I just want to be old fashioned, like an archaic kind of light
Maybe I want to meet you someday and never have to swipe right.

For one month Odysseus toiled and
Built up the house that stood so great before,
Clearing away the cobwebs that had been.
Twenty years since truly being a home,
Twenty years since being filled with laughter
That was more than lust of insolent men.
And so Odysseus sent for his son
That they may set out on an angling jaunt.
Whilst they were making their way in the deep,
A strange singing filled the air and they were
Surrounded by fog as thick as the stew
Telemachus’ mother often prepared.
Out of the mist strode a Nereid with skin
The color of the purest of milk creams.
Silky hair fell in lush amber waves down
Her flawlessly curved back, flowing smoothly
Such as the Nile river in the wind.
And she said unto them, “Friends, do not be
Frightened, for I shall bear you no harm. You
Who have come from years of fear and anguish,
I now call to bear a terrible task.
There is a great daemon in these waters,
An archfiend who calls herself Lamia.
She eats any children who dare descend in
Waters where she lurks hidden in shadow.
She snatches at the ankles of the young
Like a solicitous epistle grasps
At the heartstrings of those who read it. She
Is a sickness that has no remedy,
A war with no end. She is the dark thought
One cannot be rid of. She is pure death.
Please, great Odysseus, vanquish this thing
Haunting every step of the innocent.
I give to you this costume that one may
Receive the breath of life underwater. ”

Upon agreeing to the colossal
Undertaking, Odysseus and his
Progeny initiated their search
Across the marine for the beast behind
The mask of trepidation. However,
‘Twas not long until Lamia herself
Appeared to them and made to devour
Telemachus himself, for he was a
Young man, young enough to vex her temper.
This thing that had risen out of the depths,
She had a beautiful face matched closely
Only by Venus herself. But beneath
The splendor is that of an animal
With the scaled, winding tail of an immense
Serpent and talons ending her long hands.
She apprehended the son of our great
Hero in a clawed fist and began to
Raise him to her massive gaping gullet.
Before the harm was done, Odysseus
Seized a sarsen from a near formation
And heaved it at Lamia’s beautiful
Head. The boulder succeeded in breaking
All of her shining teeth, preventing her
From consuming Telemachus. She
Fulminated for a moment, and then
Hastily withdrew to her cavernous
Space.
           Odysseus followed, retrieving
A bronze sword from a shipwreck he passed in
His haste. Brandishing his weapon fiercely,
He charged. Managing to scarcely avoid
Lamia’s lashing tail and slashing claws,
He climbed to the base of her neck and plunged
The sword into the soft flesh that was there.
He tore the blade back and forth, severing
The pronounced head from her ghastly body.

After slaughtering the daemon, the two
Swam for shore, Telemachus breathing by
Way of keeping hold of his father’s suit.
Once at the surface of the sea, they were
Met once again by Amatheia,
The Nereid who’d charged them with the duty,
Who rewarded Odysseus with a
Magic bag that could hold any item,
Size or shape, and never got heavy, no
Matter its load. When given, it held 100,000
Drachma, a great deal of money for them.

After thanking her freely and being
Thanked in return, the men were magicked back
To their home on Ithaca, where remained
Penelope, wife to Odysseus.
They lived quite happily off the money
Gifted graciously to them, and were graced
By the great Gods forevermore for the
Grim duties performed by Odysseus.

Please remember to remember not to forget to remember
We braced the chill and last shared voices in November
When with reasons unknown you suddenly lost your temper
And in faceless avenue unseen you put it all in a damper


Please remember to remember not to forget to remember
Two minds steep in years hoping to revive a dying ember
Angling wisely for the solace of light in a peaceful chamber
Rising for noble ideals each a worthy conscientious member


Please remember to remember not to forget to remember
I stoke flames and called out doves in days before September
Not for glory or gain but in delight to fly a friend wishes tender
Homage to a smile Lisa, like that made by da Vinci the painter


Please remember to remember not to forget to remember
Now its time to seek the Sun afar in the land of greens and timber
soothing words that shows the grace and give of a friend keeper
Remains aloof to a joyless onerous mind that will only get sadder

Please remember to remember not to forget to remember
Empty pride rousing clouded mind makes it fittingly simpler
Strength and clarity to atone chimes only wit now't sinister
A truer pilgrim seeks pardon and deftly shames attitudes insular
To the wise what cost affinity in the garland of true harmony



Copyright. LaurenceA31stJuly2018.Allrightsreserved.

After being released by the raptor, far above her home-world, the girl child put her arms straight down by her sides and dove. She plummeted. Angling her body so that she was falling head first toward her planet. She was absolutely fearless. Unlike the seraphim, who had wings, Natalheme was completely humanoid. Her tunic billowed around her as she fell.

The gravitational pull of her world was approximately the same as earth. In fact her entire solar system was very similar. But Sephiahm (pronounced sef-eýe-em) was slightly larger, and had 5 moons.

Na-mé (her parent's nickname for their 3 year old) kept her large lavender eyes open as she swooped down. She admired her beautiful Seph as it closed in on her. All of a sudden she spread her arms and legs wide. Her tunic began to catch air and she fell more slowly. But the tunic was hardly a parachute. She didn't need one. Soaring up from beneath her the eagle-creature positioned itself perfectly. She landed on its neck and clung tight with her knees bent 'round its wings! It swooped up catching the Mist once more...

The bird dropped down gracefully upon the balcony in front of Natalheme's bedchamber. She held onto it for a minute or so, stroking its mottled crystaline feathers.

"Thank you, Tikeerah", she said softly. The Mooshoré shrieked its pleasure and satisfaction, and shrugged the child off of its shoulders.

She went to a bowl of fruit, which had been arranged on her balcony for her breakfast, and selected a piece very reminiscent of an acorn squash.

She brought it to the bird, who ate it hungrily. The pulp mooshed all over its copper beak, and Na-mé wiped it with a small napkin. The deep red juice would have temporarily stained her fingers...

"Good?" She queried the raptor.

It lifted its beak and screamed into the air. Its cry resonated in the crystals which sprang from the ground...

"YEEESSS!" Other-worldly music bounced from one crystal to the other!

Natalheme sent up a cry of her own, "GOOODDD!" The crystal-music took on the characteristics of her voice also, and the melodious "echos" lasted many seconds....

... and The One smiled.



SøułSurvivør
(C) 7/22/2017

Southwestern Dis-United States of Memory*

Piñon smoke and sagebrush, voice of New Mexico night driving into an Arizona dawn rising over dreaming pueblos, low-ridden plazas, kivas and ruined cities’ rubble traced and highlighted by sunlight, Anglo angling into Aztec toward Zuni over arid zones… A to Z to El Dorado; a voice covers the high hills with a dusting of snow—every word hangs in the notes of the song: music to fall apart to, breakdown to, hurling the soul  into the bottomless well of psychotic nostalgia: *música de cavanga, falling into the depths. Melody pushing to the threshold of a bar and leaving you there with cash in your pocket and no ride home. The warmth inside beckons—you step across as the song fills, swells, intoxicates, then excavates the wall of the dam until it collapses. The fatal mistake: you read too much into the lyrics of shallow love songs. The deathwish beast of despair arises, the flooded plains dazzle your eyes, the Indian girl smiles on the rim of the grand canyon, the tattooed cholo pulls a knife in the trailer park, the dark waters under the bridge murmur and surge with regret; el río de Las Animas, Durango CO, Aztec calligraphy on the wall: Las Cruces, NM; Clifton, Morenci, Globe, AZ: stepped pyramids of copper tailings, gang-warred walls in fallen barrios covered in Chicano hieroglyphics, the ruined huts of shepherds and cowboys, pit-house dwellings’ flaked arrowheads and pottery fragments scattered forever in the coyote laugh of desert dusk. Crepuscular colors on the names of mountain ranges: Santa Catalina, Sangre de Cristo, Sandia, each one a separate sunset delirium—then you ride through the night to the city of palm trees and the orange-lined boulevards of Heaven.

The singer herself grew old but her YouTubes live forever.

Clementine deleted Joel
from her mind. Joel tried to
forget her; he couldn't, so
he got rid of her too. You
try, I know, to get rid of me. I
try, you know, to pretend that
the world isn't spinning so fast
in the hope
that we will fall of its spinning-top edge
and stumble, clumsily, gracelessly, into
each other. We're spinning so fast with it-
the world- so this is unlikely, so we both
pretend that it's an accident when we fall
into each other,
again and again, as
We play spin the bottle while
The world spins instead.
Suddenly.
Now that that same world has stilled itself for
us: we don't know what to do without its
rotationary madness angling us
towards old age and crumpets (together?). That
same world has stilled itself until
tomorrow when that same world will spill
itself out from day to night to day again
as we take our respective first drafts
of our poems written about each other
and

Edit.

out that same mad spin
that made us
us
just like
Joel and Clementine forgot-
on purpose. We forget, on purpose
with purpose
but,
we'll still meet each other in Montauk where
that same world will still itself
as we wrap our fingers around each other's
fingers
in the cold
where you might finally reciprocate
my lacklustre
confessions.

You too,
right?

Rose petals thick and heavy
Just ready to wrinkle
Strong, firm, delicate
Simple
Feigning delicacy.
Tighter and tighter to their middle
Lips curling back
Pouting open
All eventually revealing the
Veins!
Veins
Veins
Veins on the roses
From the underside spread upward,
Uncurled,
Veins.
Some so proud and broad
Some coy and curtseying
Some wide open, greeting you.
——
Some angling to the light
——
Some fading their color at the tip
——
Some!
Some doubling inward. Two twists inside!
Why? Overcrowding.
Petals wide,
petals too ready, petals broad
And she made herself a lover
——
Some older, wiser
By quicker death wisdom grows
The peaked face within
Afraid
Afraid of what is coming faster for her.
Something her beauty could not slow
An aging ballerina, refusing to retire her slippers
——
Some wider
More careless
Hippies
——
Some like a dance
Such a vulnerable entrance  
Opening up her lips, her arms, her legs,
Spouting out her tiny tongue
Aroused
——
Some so full
Hiding herself in her layers
More of her.

Ancient.
Just a blip.

Trimmed from their bush. Here to die in a vase by my bed.

Sleight of hand
creates illusion
politicians the rich
in collusion.
Good slaves we
buy their Solutions
titrated diluted pollution.

They've got you wrangled
with the carrots they dangle.
I see black holes
You See Stars Spangled.

"Disseminate fear keep them numb and Confused
they'll reward our
egregious abuse"
but fools won't believe
when it's dark
they see day
so now I tell you
what's the use anyway?

They've got you wrangled
with the carrots they dangle...
You see white stripes.....
I see liberty.....***** and strangled

Keep it obscure,
then hand you a cure,  
their best phishing lure
To make you believe
that this country's great
they use a little bitty hook
and a tiny bit of bait

They've got you dangling with the carrots they're wrangling.
I see black holes
you see stars spangling

They've got you wrangled with the bait they dangle...
you  see white stripes,
I see liberty ***** and strangled

They got you dangling
with the **** they're wrangling....
Open your eyes
you'll see there angling.

Vulnerable smile, cherubic.    Vessel in the well.
  Watery eyes. First tooth.         Nameless relation.
    New birth. Memories.             New joys. Old pain.
       Overflowing love.                    Half-voice. Kin-sister.

Stars, crackling up in the creux.          A relation called
Nights. Angling; moon.                 brumeux love, half-hug,
Nets wide cast; comets pass.                folded in the wallet.

Pouring out. Half-gong.      Calling to the valleys.
Brook. Shadowy corners.    Tongues, welling up
Delight, discovery.               voices, hushed whispers
Bleating with the sheep,      hymns rising.
crying with the birds,          Conjunctions of states.
whirling with the winds;    Conjurer of fawns.

Casting; soil; roots; new growings;
smiling, spiralling around the hollow,
new life; a cherub, the new dawn.

Come live with me, and be my love,
And we will some new pleasures prove,
Of golden sand, and crystal brooks,
With silken lines and silver hooks.

There will the river whispering run,
Warmed by thy eyes more than the sun.
And there the enamoured fish will stay.
Begging themselves they may betray.

When wilt thou swim in that live bath,
Each fish, which every channel hath,
Will amorously to thee swim,
Gladder to catch thee, than thou him.

If thou, to be so seen, beest loath,
By sun or moon, thou dark’nest both;
And if myself have leave to see,
I need not their light, having thee.

Let others freeze with angling reeds,
And cut their legs with shells and weeds,
Or treacherously poor fish beset
With strangling snare, or windowy net.

Let course bold hand from slimy nest
The bedded fish in banks out-wrest,
Or curious traitors, sleave-silk flies,
Bewitch poor fishes’ wandering eyes.

For thee, thou need’st no such deceit,
For thou thyself are thine own bait;
That fish that is not catched thereby,
Alas, is wiser far than I.

creek in th'dark
w/brightest stone baubles, dappled riverbottom pebbles under moon-water,
a thousand faces glinting, smiling upwards.
school of carp in the reeds, the stalks rasping in the warm air
as the tails swish them back and forth.
the unheard steady **** of flapping, feeding mouths --
drawing in of algae, snails, waterbeetles;
soft crunch of shell and exoskeleton.

two legs on the dune by the stream wishing
there was two more legs on the dune, angling
down toward the stream.
a tender accompanying voice singing maybe Piaf
avec un accent provincial (de châtillon?)
hair wet, tangled;
sporting powder-white two-piece,
fresh from having swam with strong, slow kicks of slender pale legs,
long in that green water.
legs that look good in black heels.
their clicking imagined in the head.

When you weaned me from the waning moon,
its milky cusps, winking welcome
moods of starry surrender, I was lost
to my reflection rearranged
roughly on the window's pane.

Don't take flight yet, you said,
first take the light's left hand
and keep it from the misbehaving oak,
its frightening reach.

There are beehive-capped angels
swinging there beneath, and they're angling
to gather moony souls
together in false hope.
Their absent promise is absolute,
and absolution.

*They'll utter their nothings,
utterly sweet, if you let them,
and lull you with their yellow tongues.
Fly away with this light you now hold
and risk the falling.

There’s nothing like the lovely rustic charm
Exuded by the far flung lush green country farm
Where trees in majesty sweep heaven with their crown
And birds with celestial music, the surrounding valley drown

Where the air, so pristine and sweet like the forest glade
And Heaven with rich profusion bless the country wide.
Where the rural folk in relentless toil, values and pride
With their simple, artless and modest life reside

My senses have ere long etched every sight n’ sound
Of that country side wherein my childhood inextricably bound
To those days of bliss, I would like to retreat
And splurge in memories that cascade down in surfeit.

On a beautiful day with the sun shining bright
And the white downy clouds lazily trailing west
We walked down to the creek to catch the silvery fish
And waited for them to come to the surface with a swish

On the rocky bank, breathless as we sat
Looking for the fish greedily nibbling at the bait
We felt the hook line suddenly going taut
With something from the other end pulling it tight

Of a sudden reflex as we lifted the rod upright
To our wild uproar, saw a fish dangling and twirling uptight.
“Angling in a brook on a bright sunny day
Is so much fun for the kids”, we heard someone say.

We went after dragon flies, by the side of the pond
And all through the fields and the pastures beyond
Meandering our way, chasing butterflies              
That, from flower to flower do nimbly flutter by,

We pace up and down, ever eager for the best catch
To carry home that winged thing with no other match
To shut it in a glass jar to survey it close
And watch it splay its wings in resplendent gloss.

Back from school when homework is done,
Quickly, gathering friends, we move as one
To the open ground beyond the clump of trees
To run and play in the evening breeze

As black birds wing their way across the sky
And the ruddy orb in the west is about to die,
When shadows slowly shrink and shrivel
And the dusky eve spreads a smoky veil,

Only then, demurring, we leave our play
Cursing the elements that Time doesn’t stay
****** and gritty, homeward as we plough our way
We promise once more, we would meet the next day.

As hot summer fades and dark clouds gather round,
When east wind scatters dry leaves from the ground,
When elders announce the arrival of an impending shower,
Stealthily we plan to go swimming in the nearby river.

On stormy nights as we lie, listening to the splatter of rain
Over tiled roof with the clatter of a speeding train
How swift, we drift involuntary to the castle of Slumber
To be lulled asleep by songs of magical tone and timbre!

Now, staying in the mad rush of a steaming city
With people surreptitiously chasing goals so petty
How I miss those yester years that are fled
And yearn for the sylvan paths once more to tread!!

If she’d said something
I wouldn’t be giving upon her
Any where I would have followed her.
I’d haven’t missed her, only
If I’d not have giving upon her.
I know she’ll not miss even a gleam.
And I’d have bring her ice cream,
If she’d said something.

I would have woven
and spin my life round her,
If she’d said something.
I thought she would
be an epicenter of my life.
But when strop cut, I’d gulped
whole solid salty ****.
And I’ll grow dead -eventually- in evenfall.

Nightfall ought to be peaceful,
but it clutches your way like in gears.
A constant, perpetrated picture
keep your head occupied like a
brook flows with babbling sound.
I stare at the ceiling in the dark,
with same old empty felling in the chest.

A breeze brings with aroma of violet.
I lay on sand of salty water,
tides making growling sound.
I spoke to clear sky.
And I spoke to all.

Good bye - All men die.

A radio perches on a mahogany end-table,
singing like a mechanical bird:
bellowing fuzzy jazz, reaching my ear.

Its sides are rounded
like the curves of a classic car.
The antenna is *****
like the arm of an eager child
I've had swinging in-between
phantom-bytes and sonic slush:
my mind: inexcusable and mush.

A deck of cards shrugs it's shoulders
before it climbs on top of the radio;
it's rigid joints straightening and angling.
It tucks the tab back into it's head,
concluding before singing along to
'Somewhere beyond the sea.'

The voice of the deck rattled and squeaked,
like a caged mouse doing a capella.
Shot spit of it's mouth,
like a translucent spaghetti noodle. Bloop.

- I stormed outside, inaudible to all,
unmoved by few, chosen by none -

Today I sat across from a girl --
across the room, not across a table
or across the universe --
Her hair dangled like a carrot's wig,
a carrot's impersonation of a blonde girl.

Of course, her skin was closer to orange than pale --
but I like that stuff. I want it rubbed off on me,
physically, spiritually, mentally, emotionally.
Old-oxidized-green-coins invaded her eyes
and settled in the center of eggshell-white buffer.

Pants were as denim as a brush of shale
or the picture-pose of a flannel-clad beard,
holding a pick-ax and a dusty journal.
A journal of my thoughts, timeless
in their irrelevancy, until discovered
and claimed by someone else,
someone with a beard, a daughter, a smile;
See: Things I will never have.

What could I mean to this person?
How could I be desirable to her?
What am I but an alien,
coasting a galactic sea,
unable to relate to what I see?

- And what was your prize,
in this life? To be loved?
Or to be conquered? -

The deck of cards disappeared.
And I, I without consequence,
rummage through dust blanketed boxes,
hoping to cut my hand on something
I have mistaken as dull.

I have been told that my mother inhabits this box,
somewhere, sometime, somewhere, sometime.
A framed image, a polka dot cloth, a forever
unprecedented by a sunny-day funeral,
where I am the tail of the dying snake
that is my family: last to perish, last to wait:
a corrosive ingestion of unadulterated isolation.

My beige fingers wrap meat and bone,
but also a cheap-golden frame of my mother and us.
Our glasses are all too big, but we were all too poor.
My mother is wearing her wedding ring,
but I don't know why.

So young and vulnerable,
held by a freckled, strawberry blonde.
I don't even know her, any more.

The deck of cards reappears.

- But I've been alone for too long.
Even the winds have stopped whispering.
I have become a witness to my own death. -

And he's provocative, a provocateur, a beacon of free speech and foul speech and vague speech and pointed speech, pacing the Conference Room Alamo on the ground floor of the Hilton, testing his lapel mike, asking the crowd of eighty, ninety to move to the front rows, and he mouths something to the photographer, a dreadlock'd skin and bones white boy, and the photographer flanks the crowd, angling the shot to solidify the intended narrative: he is a provocateur, a popular provocateur, a staunch opponent of political correctness (which this bystander must note strangely equates to a champion of hate speech), a former poster child for the alt-right, but—and quoting here—he says, "I cannot be pigeonholed," and perhaps that's it, the secret to his former success, his viral, shapeless nature, a terrorist of language and persona, and perhaps that's it, the secret to his demise, his shape forming, his identity emerging from the podcast ghettos and GOP speaking gigs, and he's on the stage and he's in all white and this is intentional, this is the redemption tour, the other-side tour, and the crowd claps now as he pumps his arms (at this point in the presentation they used to shout, I should point out), and he calls Hillary Clinton "Satan's ingrown *******," and the men in the audience laugh and pant and cough, and he spends fifteen minutes on fake news and hit pieces and the nuance of video editing and how liberal snowflakes won't stop protesting his appearances (for clarity here, there were no protestors at this event), and he wraps everything rather quickly (especially for the $150 ticket price) and says he has a minute for questions, and a young man, twenty-five or so, asks for tips on becoming the God King of Internet Trolls, and he, the popular provocateur, says, "Ah. The next generation is coming up from behind."

Rule number 1: There are no rules.
Are no schools
To this life thing
No wrong thing, no right thing
Only decisions and choices
Which amplify our inner voices
Paint pictures like pablo
Are you a sinner or a saint?
Are you bold or are you faint
Like the lines I use to write these rhymes
Etched with such force they will never fade
Aesthetically brilliant like the everglades


Rule number 2: Why are you still reading?
Did you not see
There are no rules
Are no schools to this life thing
Do you not understand?
You can do what you want.
Do good or do bad,
Make another happy, make another sad
You can hug, harm, help, ****
It's always your choice
Some hesitate, many think twice
Some are reckless, some fear consequences,
Repercussions which can will haunt and terrorise you for the rest of your life
A life shrouded in regret
That you did not get


Rule number 3: What is your problem?
Did you not see
There are no rules
Are no schools to this life thing
Your life is yours to lead
Yet I give you great advice
Which you don't heed
And live a life, gasping for air
Desperate for grip
Gripping at the ledge of the window of the good life
Angling for a glimpse of the other side
Forever wandering, always wanting more
Yet you could be satisfied
Happy, joyous or content
Or a be lost without cause
And the choice is simple
The choice is yours