Axel, who never had a rocking horse, once rode a bright blue tricycle. He called it his ‘Athenian Rhapsody’. He loved to play the tuba in bed, and when he was feeling particularly happy, would sit on the loo in the outside shed, pants around his ankles oompa-pa’ing till the cows came home.

That was quite a while ago; the tuba and the tricycle have gone, yet he can still hear the triangle sound the bell made on his tricycle, and still remembers the scraping of the old keys on the ancient tuba.

Axel listens to old sounds very well (all the time): he loves Bach, Mendelssohn and Donovan. He loves to eat crumpets with honey and drink a large white mug of milky tea; it reminds him of summer fishing trips to Lake Eucumbine, mushrooms and gnats in the full-sun morning air, (he loves to talk fishing when he’s playing chess with Carl the orderly, often quoting from his favourite magazine, ‘Modern Fly Fishing’).

Axel was once an expert at fly fishing; tying the ‘super moonshadow’ to perfection (he named the fly after what he thought was a Donovan song, written by Cat Stevens).

When the hospital staff remember to buy him a new box, Axel loves to drink Lady Grey tea made from tea bags, he prefers tea bags, he feels that somehow they bring clearer definition to tea making.

Axel thinks a lot about definition, noting how the edges of his bed are very clearly defined by the clean-blue hospital blankets that drop suddenly to the ocean of the grey linoleum floor. He likes the smell of cleanblue, it’s somehow a new sea to sail and sometimes the feel of his favourite jumper when he was a boy: a definite edge of beginning and end. He knows that soon he’ll cross the floor-grey ocean, sailing under a white sheet. But this is not a thing Axel dwells on for very long, he prefers to think of such things as his next chess move and flirting with Miriam the night nurse.

—

Axel has just beaten Carl in a game of chess. He’s said goodnight to Miriam, a long quiet goodnight, a good long, good night. He won’t wake again, he senses this  –  and is peaceful.

When his last breath comes he hears; a faint scraping sound and a single precious note from a triangle bell on a bright blue tricycle.

They’re good sounds.

They are old sounds.

They bring him…

This is for the soul searchers
This is for the song writer who feels like who he is doesn’t fill the space

of who he was meant to be. This is for the depressed cigarette smoking chain smokers.
This is for the poet who writes a thousand lines and keeps them all to
herself, because nobody else deserves to hear them.
This is to fight the starless sky of every midnight wanderer who looks up
wondering, cause if there were more like you the night time streets wouldn’t be so empty.
This is for the traveler who never got a chance and lies below a rock with
his name.
I don’t even know if I’m old enough to say it, but it’s for the generations
of baby boomers of old women and men whose ideas and values are shushed by an obnoxious generation.
This is for the wedding planners whose weddings never seem to come.
This is for the beautiful girls that somebody told otherwise.
This is for the 15 year old gang member who can’t leave.
This is for the second place finishers and the C students.
This is for the guitar strings never threaded and the scripts never
written and the thrill voices that never cried hallelujah because they didn’t believe they could.
This is for the incapable,
Because you and me both are incapable.
This is so you can look at me differently like I was an amputee.
And what I’ve had cut away was my expectations.
I was supposed to be huge—
I was supposed to be the first rose ever planted in the desert—
I was supposed to be the first paint on the ceiling in the Sistine chapel—
I was supposed to be either Axel Rose or Frodo Baggins, and whether
you’re cool or not you understand that line.
I was supposed to be the first pope with a full body tattoo—
I was supposed to be Neil Armstrong—
I was supposed to be the first life on another planet—
I was supposed to be bleeding iron and nails—
If you saw me as I was supposed to be the contrast between me and the
rest of the world would be unbearable, but I’m incapable.
‘Cause nobody ever pushed me,
Nobody ever pushed me,
Nobody ever pushed me and said:
Be something bigger,
Be something bigger,
Be something!

Nobody ever told me I had the power to leave a hole when I withdraw
my hand from water or move a crowd with mere words or play notes on a piano like bullets to your eardrums.
And in all of this, I wonder if the big things know how important they
are, because I’m a mustard seed and nobody expects me to move a mountain,
Or even cover its slopes in yellow.
But I still feel vastly important, so what then?
So this is my push, my push that you may never get from another person, ever. So, listen carefully:

I EXPECT A LOT OUT OF YOU.

Don’t be discouraged when you can’t cross one line, ‘cause you’ll pass a
hundred others learning you can’t go over one.
This is a dare: go to your fridge and get out all your eggs and put them in
one basket and tell me if you’re still incapable.
And if you are, go back to your fridge and get all your egg based
products, ‘cause you missed them, you missed them and you need them and the neighbors not lending any ingredients.
And when you get there, wherever it is that I pushed you to, don’t worry
about telling me—
Cause I
Will notice
And most of all remember that if you’ve been pushed, if you’ve really
been pushed, you’ll be dearly missed when you’re gone.

                                                         -Marty Schoenleber III

Amid the verbose magicians
Seeking kinships
And sailing deep into their arduous mists
Watching them peddle their afternoon
To a handful of smiling children holding their breath
Amazed in gentle body trick

The older men of age
Leaning deep into their creased chins
Stroking the grizzled fat
Blinding light of soul
Staring down the barrel of life
Striking the enemy one last time
And yet smiling
sober,
Met of match,
taking care of their kids.

Then there's the cold-clocked dudes
On the phone pushing buttons
In a button-up raglan
Lost indistinct
the promised land
The golden shores swept away by
inconvenient time
Left shopping in an auto mall
"Won't you look at the time?"
7.07 APR
Boy what a steal!
And Steve maddened and screamed
As the lines blurred instinctual between opposing teams
And the oven dinged a great alabaster slant
Leaning towards the new millenitants

Rise up!
***** the wheel
Turn the axel from pistons
To alkaline metal
And doubt with great monumental
Quality
That the machine borders all
And we cannot retreat

And while I sift bouyantly between the waves
Searching the puzzle piece within the molecules
Reconnecting with the things
And representing
dreams on a 66 hertz screen
I call rather failing
Towards a black rocked shore
Towards the sweet Dorigen
Of my dreams
Finding an integral of time
And space

And calculating the intangible *****
Of my desmise
With the imaginary constiutent
Of that lighted mind.

”good night, good travels, pitch black”

depending on how one counts,
cause size matters,
do have I
one small blessing


though little do I get, more-less,
in each twenty four measuring cup,
when the sleep gas has come-for-inhaling,
lidded heavy with greatful/tearful anticipation,
it’s less than sixty seconds till
dispatched to where all poems
plead like unborn angels for
good parentage

the spoken good night ritual signaled and completed
with a perfect half turn skating axel onto ones side,
preceded by, a single solid smacking of
an innocent but flaccid, equally tired pillow,
then lost in pitch black galaxy travels
with other sleep-drunk little princes

instead of the wavering, singular word,
a traditional goodnight,
a parting and a haling simultaneous mumbling issuing,
undebated and a wish shot to all within dream-shot, a title,

“good travels”

to places where ferment the aging words under
the winemakers watchful caring eyes opening,
names or titles, same difference, for the newborn babes

What does it mean to be a Modern Man?
In the way in the Renaissance you were a Renaissance Man?
Knowing all there is to understand,
and learning all the skills you’ll need with your hands.
Fluent in English, American, and Ebonics.
Part IT Guy to fix everyone’s electronics.
Part Guru to share your health advice.
Part Farmer because who can trust anything,
you buy in the stores these days.
Part Eagle Scout so you can impress everyone,
because you “still get out to the woods once in a while.”
Part Mechanic to work on your fuel efficient car,
and your wife’s giant dual-axel turbo diesel truck.
Part Biker, because Man was born to be free.
Part Hippie, because EVERYONE WAS BORN TO BE FREE.
Part Hill Billy because they’re doin’ it right.
Part Libertarian, part Socialist, part Anarchist.
Part Patriot, part Activist, part Terrorist.
Part whatever the **** I want because I don’t give a ****.
Part of a government watch list.
Part of a Humanitarian Project.
Part of a Rebellion,
Part of a Revolution,
yet to come.
Part of you,
because our conscience,
is the same.
Part of the whole,
because it is impossible not to be.
Part of god,
because by now you’ve realized,
it is you,
and there’s no turning back.

it is difficult to write in a hammock
not to find the words
the words are children hiding
desperate to be sought

fickle wind jostles
ecstatic chimes
traffic sounds like the ocean
if you listen

and that smell
fresh rain,
grass
a barbecue ignited

this hammock holds my heart
it is my lotus
supporting me so that I may be
in the world, yet not of it

floating higher and higher—
glimpse her now before she is
but a speck in the sky

swaying, yet somehow perfectly still
tress rustle
leaves spackling the air, don't miss a spot
fill in the cracks

a raindrop kisses my lip
Welcome Home I've Missed You
if it weren't for the chill in my back
I'd stay here forever

no one wants the hammock
on this dreary afternoon—
lavender ice clouds
carved out with silver streaks, axel lift

you see, hammocks are not just
for sunny days
in fact, you won't learn a **** thing
from a hammock
on a sunny day

their secrets aren't safe
in the sun

...time to loose... "This" time...
upon your very own endangered world.
an ice skater's triple axel...with no
round of applause.

Two weeks ago I met the most perfect boy.
I decided to shoot my shot,
and I made my ball in.
Im not ready to truly say I love him,
but I already know I do.
I know because his cologne lingers in my hair,
I know because I can ask him anything without feeling ashamed.
I know because I don't even feel jealous.
From the day that I saw him,
I knew we had a connection.
From the day that I saw him,
I knew something had begun.

My summer sweats bloom from a grass rag,
Scratch another hardly blasting out a calibrate,
Can I break, strap out hacker doozy bluemoors,
Caught from an out sound, an out frowned
Blackening the coffin sweet cough lubricate,
Shackle high tops on pipe dream loft shakers,
Clover feelers, four hitter on lucky seven collar,
Depth sin protector, **** I ain't wrath looter,
Nor do poppa sizes on some puke lips locker,
Key switch for gates hellish donor, back loner,
Course you see, I seek seep suckled *****,
Not some subtle soul (gap in skirt) poker,
Forever reaching lines, bust knuckle lifters,
Cracked rage like Nile is flooding wealths curlers,
Jewel duplicate for ruby cuts on roofless lust,
Symbolise another and I'll grabble force an honour,
Sober up soppy crotch rummage coper,
Scan cell prison ament Scholar's "repent!"
Mace battle X axel swop blunt round passel,
Cost more on pepper rubber rock relation,
Patient prep operation, cramp dilation,
Dial engage **** sudden blocked injection.
Cast nocturnals ominous above monuments,
Men fall like weak's race for joy's division,
Attend pro's vision, pure as skies probations,
Pack pampers protection tracks premonition,
Flat lines before lap times, clenching half rhymes,
Hop hotter than blues croft in dusks knots,

a Norwegian
fjord did
cut their
axel's hairpin
in the
row of
tundra that
Lapland was
their arcane
balloon on
Aegean shore
if Barents
Sea burgeoned
dialect herd
yelp in
Mike Pence
with accord.

Winter snow solstic shows us
when cold slows bones to ice stones
and muscles chilled, while blood thickens
blurry vision from frozen retnas
tissue senseless cause our sences suspend us
from the inevatable light tunnel
the funnel, the big sun dail
exiled, buried deep in a snow pile
is the there a another ice age, awaiting back stage?
Ready to turn the page to a beautiful new fase
of this planet, our only lfe cage
Osilating axel, balanced in the void of a
spiraling dust cloud of penatrating noise
Beings adapted to stellar propeller through the
dimentional divide, alone in this realm we hide
so close to cold and certain death
our sun gives us life for the oxygen of our breathe

The music is playing.
All eyes are on me.
The arena is silent.
My choreography is my enemy.

I begin my prep,
For something I’ve never done.
The Axel
The Axel
It’s the only one.

I shiver and I shudder.
It is oh so cold.
I really need to do this,
To win the Olympic Gold

My toe-pick hits the ice
And makes a loud Chk.
I go up and rotate,
Then I come back down and stick.

I did it! It was awesome!
I take a pose.
The crowd erupts.
I froze.

I looked up at the scoreboard.
I looked at my coaches so bold.
And I found out,
That I had won the Olympic Gold.

Dear Aurora,

I still remember the first time we met,
In black and red
You were gorgeous
(And you still are)

You were full of surprise
And the only precious piece
my soul recognized;

Unknowingly
Your sight soothed my eyes,
As crazy as it'll sound
I was beginning to think
that you were some enchantress in disguise;

And now after a lot of difficulties
We got together
Just know if you're by my side
Nothing else would matter;

Even how much annoying
your pranks are
And how much bad your cooking gets,

You'll always be the Aurora,
the miraculous light to my darkness
forever.......

Yours Only
Axel

Picture  a Rubix Cube.
Boxes fixed on an axel
Colored stickers plastered on each one.
If you are missing a piece,
The whole cube will fall apart.

The Cube will collapse.
Did you know?

In your mind, I bet the cube
Was shaped in a perfect box.
Symmetrical sides, 90 degree angels.
Maybe the colors in order, maybe not.
Either way, all parts in tact.

Picture a Rubix Cube.
Each box apart of me,
All Connected, with near infinite combinations.
Every side says something.
What can I show you next...

Is all in clarifying the question.
Why don't you just ask?

I am a Rubix Cube
And you will never solve me.

If you want to try
All you need to do is ask.

Just ask for the answer key!

spiked crimson flames of passion, deep pools of emerald green , a glistening smile of delicious delight, and fiery compulsion that never leaves the mind's eye. How sweet your wonderful forbidden love is, that you have kept it in so deep that you don't let others see how it pangs u to have undying tenderness for another. clasping deep into your kingdom heart.

a million goose eggs

her first toe loop and axel

suddenly a swan

Logan Robertson

5/01/2019