by John Greenleaf Whittier  (1807 – 1892)

“As the Spirits of Darkness be stronger in the dark, so Good Spirits which be Angels of Light are augmented not only by the Divine Light of the Sun, but also by our common Wood fire: and as the celestial Fire drives away dark spirits, so also this our Fire of Wood doth the same.”

       COR. AGRIPPA, Occult Philosophy, Book I. chap. v.

“Announced by all the trumpets of the sky,
Arrives the snow; and, driving o’er the fields,
Seems nowhere to alight; the whited air
Hides hills and woods, the river and the heaven,
And veils the farm-house at the garden’s end.
The sled and traveller stopped, the courier’s feet
Delayed, all friends shut out, the housemates sit
Around the radiant fireplace, enclosed
In a tumultuous privacy of storm.”

                                       EMERSON

The sun that brief December day
Rose cheerless over hills of gray,
And, darkly circled, gave at noon
A sadder light than waning moon.
Slow tracing down the thickening sky
Its mute and ominous prophecy,
A portent seeming less than threat,
It sank from sight before it set.
A chill no coat, however stout,
Of homespun stuff could quite shut out,
A hard, dull bitterness of cold,
That checked, mid-vein, the circling race
Of life-blood in the sharpened face,
The coming of the snow-storm told.
The wind blew east; we heard the roar
Of Ocean on his wintry shore,
And felt the strong pulse throbbing there
Beat with low rhythm our inland air.

Meanwhile we did our nightly chores, —
Brought in the wood from out of doors,
Littered the stalls, and from the mows
Raked down the herd’s-grass for the cows;
Heard the horse whinnying for his corn;
And, sharply clashing horn on horn,
Impatient down the stanchion rows
The cattle shake their walnut bows;
While, peering from his early perch
Upon the scaffold’s pole of birch,
The **** his crested helmet bent
And down his querulous challenge sent.

Unwarmed by any sunset light
The gray day darkened into night,
A night made hoary with the swarm
And whirl-dance of the blinding storm,
As zigzag, wavering to and fro,
Crossed and recrossed the wingàd snow:
And ere the early bedtime came
The white drift piled the window-frame,
And through the glass the clothes-line posts
Looked in like tall and sheeted ghosts.

So all night long the storm roared on:
The morning broke without a sun;
In tiny spherule traced with lines
Of Nature’s geometric signs,
And, when the second morning shone,
We looked upon a world unknown,
On nothing we could call our own.
Around the glistening wonder bent
The blue walls of the firmament,
No cloud above, no earth below, —
A universe of sky and snow!
The old familiar sights of ours
Took marvellous shapes; strange domes and towers
Rose up where sty or corn-crib stood,
Or garden-wall, or belt of wood;
A smooth white mound the brush-pile showed,
A fenceless drift what once was road;
The bridle-post an old man sat
With loose-flung coat and high cocked hat;
The well-curb had a Chinese roof;
And even the long sweep, high aloof,
In its slant spendor, seemed to tell
Of Pisa’s leaning miracle.

A prompt, decisive man, no breath
Our father wasted: “Boys, a path!”
Well pleased, (for when did farmer boy
Count such a summons less than joy?)
Our buskins on our feet we drew;
With mittened hands, and caps drawn low,
To guard our necks and ears from snow,
We cut the solid whiteness through.
And, where the drift was deepest, made
A tunnel walled and overlaid
With dazzling crystal: we had read
Of rare Aladdin’s wondrous cave,
And to our own his name we gave,
With many a wish the luck were ours
To test his lamp’s supernal powers.
We reached the barn with merry din,
And roused the prisoned brutes within.
The old horse ****** his long head out,
And grave with wonder gazed about;
The **** his ***** greeting said,
And forth his speckled harem led;
The oxen lashed their tails, and hooked,
And mild reproach of hunger looked;
The hornëd patriarch of the sheep,
Like Egypt’s Amun roused from sleep,
Shook his sage head with gesture mute,
And emphasized with stamp of foot.

All day the gusty north-wind bore
The loosening drift its breath before;
Low circling round its southern zone,
The sun through dazzling snow-mist shone.
No church-bell lent its Christian tone
To the savage air, no social smoke
Curled over woods of snow-hung oak.
A solitude made more intense
By dreary-voicëd elements,
The shrieking of the mindless wind,
The moaning tree-boughs swaying blind,
And on the glass the unmeaning beat
Of ghostly finger-tips of sleet.
Beyond the circle of our hearth
No welcome sound of toil or mirth
Unbound the spell, and testified
Of human life and thought outside.
We minded that the sharpest ear
The buried brooklet could not hear,
The music of whose liquid lip
Had been to us companionship,
And, in our lonely life, had grown
To have an almost human tone.

As night drew on, and, from the crest
Of wooded knolls that ridged the west,
The sun, a snow-blown traveller, sank
From sight beneath the smothering bank,
We piled, with care, our nightly stack
Of wood against the chimney-back, —
The oaken log, green, huge, and thick,
And on its top the stout back-stick;
The knotty forestick laid apart,
And filled between with curious art

The ragged brush; then, hovering near,
We watched the first red blaze appear,
Heard the sharp crackle, caught the gleam
On whitewashed wall and sagging beam,
Until the old, rude-furnished room
Burst, flower-like, into rosy bloom;
While radiant with a mimic flame
Outside the sparkling drift became,
And through the bare-boughed lilac-tree
Our own warm hearth seemed blazing free.
The crane and pendent trammels showed,
The Turks’ heads on the andirons glowed;
While childish fancy, prompt to tell
The meaning of the miracle,
Whispered the old rhyme: “Under the tree,
When fire outdoors burns merrily,
There the witches are making tea.”

The moon above the eastern wood
Shone at its full; the hill-range stood
Transfigured in the silver flood,
Its blown snows flashing cold and keen,
Dead white, save where some sharp ravine
Took shadow, or the sombre green
Of hemlocks turned to pitchy black
Against the whiteness at their back.
For such a world and such a night
Most fitting that unwarming light,
Which only seemed where’er it fell
To make the coldness visible.

Shut in from all the world without,
We sat the clean-winged hearth about,
Content to let the north-wind roar
In baffled rage at pane and door,
While the red logs before us beat
The frost-line back with tropic heat;
And ever, when a louder blast
Shook beam and rafter as it passed,
The merrier up its roaring draught
The great throat of the chimney laughed;
The house-dog on his paws outspread
Laid to the fire his drowsy head,
The cat’s dark silhouette on the wall
A couchant tiger’s seemed to fall;
And, for the winter fireside meet,
Between the andirons’ straddling feet,
The mug of cider simmered slow,
The apples sputtered in a row,
And, close at hand, the basket stood
With nuts from brown October’s wood.

What matter how the night behaved?
What matter how the north-wind raved?
Blow high, blow low, not all its snow
Could quench our hearth-fire’s ruddy glow.
O Time and Change! — with hair as gray
As was my sire’s that winter day,
How strange it seems, with so much gone
Of life and love, to still live on!
Ah, brother! only I and thou
Are left of all that circle now, —
The dear home faces whereupon
That fitful firelight paled and shone.
Henceforward, listen as we will,
The voices of that hearth are still;
Look where we may, the wide earth o’er,
Those lighted faces smile no more.

We tread the paths their feet have worn,
We sit beneath their orchard trees,
We hear, like them, the hum of bees
And rustle of the bladed corn;
We turn the pages that they read,
Their written words we linger o’er,
But in the sun they cast no shade,
No voice is heard, no sign is made,
No step is on the conscious floor!
Yet Love will dream, and Faith will trust,
(Since He who knows our need is just,)
That somehow, somewhere, meet we must.
Alas for him who never sees
The stars shine through his cypress-trees!
Who, hopeless, lays his dead away,
Nor looks to see the breaking day
Across the mournful marbles play!
Who hath not learned, in hours of faith,
The truth to flesh and sense unknown,
That Life is ever lord of Death,
And Love can never lose its own!

We sped the time with stories old,
Wrought puzzles out, and riddles told,
Or stammered from our school-book lore
“The Chief of Gambia’s golden shore.”
How often since, when all the land
Was clay in Slavery’s shaping hand,
As if a far-blown trumpet stirred
Dame Mercy Warren’s rousing word:
“Does not the voice of reason cry,
Claim the first right which Nature gave,
From the red scourge of ******* to fly,
Nor deign to live a burdened slave!”
Our father rode again his ride
On Memphremagog’s wooded side;
Sat down again to moose and samp
In trapper’s hut and Indian camp;
Lived o’er the old idyllic ease
Beneath St. François’ hemlock-trees;
Again for him the moonlight shone
On Norman cap and bodiced zone;
Again he heard the violin play
Which led the village dance away.
And mingled in its merry whirl
The grandam and the laughing girl.
Or, nearer home, our steps he led
Where Salisbury’s level marshes spread
Mile-wide as flies the laden bee;
Where merry mowers, hale and strong,
Swept, scythe on scythe, their swaths along
The low green prairies of the sea.
We shared the fishing off Boar’s Head,
And round the rocky Isles of Shoals
The hake-broil on the drift-wood coals;
The chowder on the sand-beach made,
Dipped by the hungry, steaming hot,
With spoons of clam-shell from the ***.
We heard the tales of witchcraft old,
And dream and sign and marvel told
To sleepy listeners as they lay
Stretched idly on the salted hay,
Adrift along the winding shores,
When favoring breezes deigned to blow
The square sail of the gundelow
And idle lay the useless oars.

Our mother, while she turned her wheel
Or run the new-knit stocking-heel,
Told how the Indian hordes came down
At midnight on Concheco town,
And how her own great-uncle bore
His cruel scalp-mark to fourscore.
Recalling, in her fitting phrase,
So rich and picturesque and free
(The common unrhymed poetry
Of simple life and country ways,)
The story of her early days, —
She made us welcome to her home;
Old hearths grew wide to give us room;
We stole with her a frightened look
At the gray wizard’s conjuring-book,
The fame whereof went far and wide
Through all the simple country side;
We heard the hawks at twilight play,
The boat-horn on Piscataqua,
The loon’s weird laughter far away;
We fished her little trout-brook, knew
What flowers in wood and meadow grew,
What sunny hillsides autumn-brown
She climbed to shake the ripe nuts down,
Saw where in sheltered cove and bay,
The ducks’ black squadron anchored lay,
And heard the wild-geese calling loud
Beneath the gray November cloud.
Then, haply, with a look more grave,
And soberer tone, some tale she gave
From painful Sewel’s ancient tome,
Beloved in every Quaker home,
Of faith fire-winged by martyrdom,
Or Chalkley’s Journal, old and quaint, —
Gentlest of skippers, rare sea-saint! —
Who, when the dreary calms prevailed,
And water-**** and bread-cask failed,
And cruel, hungry eyes pursued
His portly presence mad for food,
With dark hints muttered under breath
Of casting lots for life or death,

Offered, if Heaven withheld supplies,
To be himself the sacrifice.
Then, suddenly, as if to save
The good man from his living grave,
A ripple on the water grew,
A school of porpoise flashed in view.
“Take, eat,” he said, “and be content;
These fishes in my stead are sent
By Him who gave the tangled ram
To spare the child of Abraham.”
Our uncle, innocent of books,
Was rich in lore of fields and brooks,
The ancient teachers never dumb
Of Nature’s unhoused lyceum.
In moons and tides and weather wise,
He read the clouds as prophecies,
And foul or fair could well divine,
By many an occult hint and sign,
Holding the cunning-warded keys
To all the woodcraft mysteries;
Himself to Nature’s heart so near
v That all her voices in his ear
Of beast or bird had meanings clear,
Like Apollonius of old,
Who knew the tales the sparrows told,
Or Hermes, who interpreted
What the sage cranes of Nilus said;
A simple, guileless, childlike man,
Content to live where life began;
Strong only on his native grounds,
The little world of sights and sounds
Whose girdle was the parish bounds,
Whereof his fondly partial pride
The common features magnified,
As Surrey hills to mountains grew
In White of Selborne’s loving view, —
He told how teal and loon he shot,
And how the eagle’s eggs he got,
The feats on pond and river done,
The prodigies of rod and gun;
Till, warming with the tales he told,
Forgotten was the outside cold,
The bitter wind unheeded blew,
From ripening corn the pigeons flew,
The partridge drummed i’ the wood, the mink
Went fishing down the river-brink.
In fields with bean or clover gay,
The woodchuck, like a hermit gray,
Peered from the doorway of his cell;
The muskrat plied the mason’s trade,
And tier by tier his mud-walls laid;
And from the shagbark overhead
The grizzled squirrel dropped his shell.

Next, the dear aunt, whose smile of cheer
And voice in dreams I see and hear, —
The sweetest woman ever Fate
Perverse denied a household mate,
Who, lonely, homeless, not the less
Found peace in love’s unselfishness,
And welcome wheresoe’er she went,
A calm and gracious element,
Whose presence seemed the sweet income
And womanly atmosphere of home, —
Called up her girlhood memories,
The huskings and the apple-bees,
The sleigh-rides and the summer sails,
Weaving through all the poor details
And homespun warp of circumstance
A golden woof-thread of romance.
For well she kept her genial mood
And simple faith of maidenhood;
Before her still a cloud-land lay,
The mirage loomed across her way;
The morning dew, that dries so soon
With others, glistened at her noon;
Through years of toil and soil and care,
From glossy tress to thin gray hair,
All unprofaned she held apart
The ****** fancies of the heart.
Be shame to him of woman born
Who hath for such but thought of scorn.
There, too, our elder sister plied
Her evening task the stand beside;
A full, rich nature, free to trust,
Truthful and almost sternly just,
Impulsive, earnest, prompt to act,
And make her generous thought a fact,
Keeping with many a light disguise
The secret of self-sacrifice.

O heart sore-tried! thou hast the best
That Heaven itself could give thee, — rest,
Rest from all bitter thoughts and things!
How many a poor one’s blessing went
With thee beneath the low green tent
Whose curtain never outward swings!

As one who held herself a part
Of all she saw, and let her heart
Against the household ***** lean,
Upon the motley-braided mat
Our youngest and our dearest sat,
Lifting her large, sweet, asking eyes,
Now bathed in the unfading green
And holy peace of Paradise.
Oh, looking from some heavenly hill,
Or from the shade of saintly palms,
Or silver reach of river calms,
Do those large eyes behold me still?
With me one little year ago: —
The chill weight of the winter snow
For months upon her grave has lain;
And now, when summer south-winds blow
And brier and harebell bloom again,
I tread the pleasant paths we trod,
I see the violet-sprinkled sod
Whereon she leaned, too frail and weak
The hillside flowers she loved to seek,
Yet following me where’er I went
With dark eyes full of love’s content.
The birds are glad; the brier-rose fills
The air with sweetness; all the hills
Stretch green to June’s unclouded sky;
But still I wait with ear and eye
For something gone which should be nigh,
A loss in all familiar things,
In flower that blooms, and bird that sings.
And yet, dear heart! remembering thee,
Am I not richer than of old?
Safe in thy immortality,
What change can reach the wealth I hold?
What chance can mar the pearl and gold
Thy love hath left in trust with me?
And while in life’s late afternoon,
Where cool and long the shadows grow,
I walk to meet the night that soon
Shall shape and shadow overflow,
I cannot feel that thou art far,
Since near at need the angels are;
And when the sunset gates unbar,
Shall I not see thee waiting stand,
And, white against the evening star,
The welcome of thy beckoning hand?

Brisk wielder of the birch and rule,
The master of the district school
Held at the fire his favored place,
Its warm glow lit a laughing face
Fresh-hued and fair, where scarce appeared
The uncertain prophecy of beard.
He teased the mitten-blinded cat,
Played cross-pins on my uncle’s hat,
Sang songs, and told us what befalls
In classic Dartmouth’s college halls.
Born the wild Northern hills among,
From whence his yeoman father wrung
By patient toil subsistence scant,
Not competence and yet not want,
He early gained the power to pay
His cheerful, self-reliant way;
Could doff at ease his scholar’s gown
To peddle wares from town to town;
Or through the long vacation’s reach
In lonely lowland districts teach,
Where all the droll experience found
At stranger hearths in boarding round,
The moonlit skater’s keen delight,
The sleigh-drive through the frosty night,
The rustic party, with its rough
Accompaniment of blind-man’s-buff,
And whirling-plate, and forfeits paid,
His winter task a pastime made.
Happy the snow-locked homes wherein
He tuned his merry violin,

Or played the athlete in the barn,
Or held the good dame’s winding-yarn,
Or mirth-provoking versions told
Of classic legends rare and old,
Wherein the scenes of Greece and Rome
Had all the commonplace of home,
And little seemed at best the odds
‘Twixt Yankee pedlers and old gods;
Where Pindus-born Arachthus took
The guise of any grist-mill brook,
And dread Olympus at his will
Became a huckleberry hill.

A careless boy that night he seemed;
But at his desk he had the look
And air of one who wisely schemed,
And hostage from the future took
In trainëd thought and lore of book.
Large-brained, clear-eyed, of such as he
Shall Freedom’s young apostles be,
Who, following in War’s ****** trail,
Shall every lingering wrong assail;
All chains from limb and spirit strike,
Uplift the black and white alike;
Scatter before their swift advance
The darkness and the ignorance,
The pride, the lust, the squalid sloth,
Which nurtured Treason’s monstrous growth,
Made ****** pastime, and the hell
Of prison-torture possible;
The cruel lie of caste refute,
Old forms remould, and substitute
For Slavery’s lash the freeman’s will,
For blind routine, wise-handed skill;
A school-house plant on every hill,
Stretching in radiate nerve-lines thence
The quick wires of intelligence;
Till North and South together brought
Shall own the same electric thought,
In peace a common flag salute,
And, side by side in labor’s free
And unresentful rivalry,
Harvest the fields wherein they fought.

Another guest that winter night
Flashed back from lustrous eyes the light.
Unmarked by time, and yet not young,
The honeyed music of her tongue
And words of meekness scarcely told
A nature passionate and bold,

Strong, self-concentred, spurning guide,
Its milder features dwarfed beside
Her unbent will’s majestic pride.
She sat among us, at the best,
A not unfeared, half-welcome guest,
Rebuking with her cultured phrase
Our homeliness of words and ways.
A certain pard-like, treacherous grace
Swayed the lithe limbs and drooped the lash,
Lent the white teeth their dazzling flash;
And under low brows, black with night,
Rayed out at times a dangerous light;
The sharp heat-lightnings of her face
Presaging ill to him whom Fate
Condemned to share her love or hate.
A woman tropical, intense
In thought and act, in soul and sense,
She blended in a like degree
The ***** and the devotee,
Revealing with each freak or feint
The temper of Petruchio’s Kate,
The raptures of Siena’s saint.
Her tapering hand and rounded wrist
Had facile power to form a fist;
The warm, dark languish of her eyes
Was never safe from wrath’s surprise.
Brows saintly calm and lips devout
Knew every change of scowl and pout;
And the sweet voice had notes more high
And shrill for social battle-cry.

Since then what old cathedral town
Has missed her pilgrim staff and gown,
What convent-gate has held its lock
Against the challenge of her knock!
Through Smyrna’s plague-hushed thoroughfares,
Up sea-set Malta’s rocky stairs,
Gray olive slopes of hills that hem
Thy tombs and shrines, Jerusalem,
Or startling on her desert throne
The crazy Queen of Lebanon
With claims fantastic as her own,
Her tireless feet have held their way;
And still, unrestful, bowed, and gray,
She watches under Eastern skies,
With hope each day renewed and fresh,
The Lord’s quick coming in the flesh,
Whereof she dreams and prophesies!
Where’er her troubled path may be,
The Lord’s sweet pity with her go!
The outward wayward life we see,
The hidden springs we may not know.
Nor is it given us to discern
What threads the fatal sisters spun,
Through what ancestral years has run
The sorrow with the woman born,
What forged her cruel chain of moods,
What set her feet in solitudes,
And held the love within her mute,
What mingled madness in the blood,
A life-long discord and annoy,
Water of tears with oil of joy,
And hid within the folded bud
Perversities of flower and fruit.
It is not ours to separate
The tangled skein of will and fate,
To show what metes and bounds should stand
Upon the soul’s debatable land,
And between choice and Providence
Divide the circle of events;
But He who knows our frame is just,
Merciful and compassionate,
And full of sweet assurances
And hope for all the language is,
That He remembereth we are dust!

At last the great logs, crumbling low,
Sent out a dull and duller glow,
The bull’s-eye watch that hung in view,
Ticking its weary circuit through,
Pointed with mutely warning sign
Its black hand to the hour of nine.
That sign the pleasant circle broke:
My uncle ceased his pipe to smoke,
Knocked from its bowl the refuse gray,
And laid it tenderly away;
Then roused himself to safely cover
The dull red brands with ashes over.
And while, with care, our mother laid
The work aside, her steps she stayed
One moment, seeking to express
Her grateful sense of happiness
For food and shelter, warmth and health,
And love’s contentment more than wealth,
With simple wishes (not the weak,
Vain prayers which no fulfilment seek,
But such as warm the generous heart,
O’er-prompt to do with Heaven its part)
That none might lack, that bitter night,
For bread and clothing, warmth and light.

Within our beds awhile we heard
The wind that round the gables roared,
With now and then a ruder shock,
Which made our very bedsteads rock.
We heard the loosened clapboards tost,
The board-nails snapping in the frost;
And on us, through the unplastered wall,
Felt the light sifted snow-flakes fall.
But sleep stole on, as sleep will do
When hearts are light and life is new;
Faint and more faint the murmurs grew,
Till in the summer-land of dreams
They softened to the sound of streams,
Low stir of leaves, and dip of oars,
And lapsing waves on quiet shores.
Of merry voices high and clear;
And saw the teamsters drawing near
To break the drifted highways out.
Down the long hillside treading slow
We saw the half-buried oxen go,
Shaking the snow from heads uptost,
Their straining nostrils white with frost.
Before our door the straggling train
Drew up, an added team to gain.
The elders threshed their hands a-cold,
Passed, with the cider-mug, their jokes
From lip to lip; the younger folks
Down the loose snow-banks, wrestling, rolled,
Then toiled again the cavalcade
O’er windy hill, through clogged ravine,
And woodland paths that wound between
Low drooping pine-boughs winter-weighed.
From every barn a team afoot,
At every house a new recruit,
Where, drawn by Nature’s subtlest law,
Haply the watchful young men saw
Sweet doorway pictures of the curls
And curious eyes of merry girls,
Lifting their hands in mock defence
Against the snow-ball’s compliments,
And reading in each missive tost
The charm with Eden never lost.
We heard once more the sleigh-bells’ sound;
And, following where the teamsters led,
The wise old Doctor went his round,
Just pausing at our door to say,
In the brief autocratic way
Of one who, prompt at Duty’s call,
Was free to urge her claim on all,
That some poor neighbor sick abed
At night our mother’s aid would need.
For, one in generous thought and deed,
What mattered in the sufferer’s sight
The Quaker matron’s inward light,
The Doctor’s mail of Calvin’s creed?
All hearts confess the saints elect
Who, twain in faith, in love agree,
And melt not in an acid sect
The Christian pearl of charity!

So days went on: a week had passed
Since the great world was heard from last.
The Almanac we studied o’er,
Read and reread our little store
Of books and pamphlets, scarce a score;
One harmless novel, mostly hid
From younger eyes, a book forbid,
And poetry, (or good or bad,
A single book was all we had,)
Where Ellwood’s meek, drab-skirted Muse,
A stranger to the heathen Nine,
Sang, with a somewhat nasal whine,
The wars of David and the Jews.
At last the floundering carrier bore
The village paper to our door.
Lo! broadening outward as we read,
To warmer zones the horizon spread
In panoramic length unrolled
We saw the marvels that it told.
Before us passed the painted Creeks,
A   nd daft McGregor on his raids
In Costa Rica’s everglades.
And up Taygetos winding slow
Rode Ypsilanti’s Mainote Greeks,
A Turk’s head at each saddle-bow!
Welcome to us its week-old news,
Its corner for the rustic Muse,
Its monthly gauge of snow and rain,
Its record, mingling in a breath
The wedding bell and dirge of death:
Jest, anecdote, and love-lorn tale,
The latest culprit sent to jail;
Its hue and cry of stolen and lost,
Its vendue sales and goods at cost,
And traffic calling loud for gain.
We felt the stir of hall and street,
The pulse of life that round us beat;
The chill embargo of the snow
Was melted in the genial glow;
Wide swung again our ice-locked door,
And all the world was ours once more!

Clasp, Angel of the backword look
And folded wings of ashen gray
And voice of echoes far away,
The brazen covers of thy book;
The weird palimpsest old and vast,
Wherein thou hid’st the spectral past;
Where, closely mingling, pale and glow
The characters of joy and woe;
The monographs of outlived years,
Or smile-illumed or dim with tears,
Green hills of life that ***** to death,
And haunts of home, whose vistaed trees
Shade off to mournful cypresses
With the white amaranths underneath.
Even while I look, I can but heed
The restless sands’ incessant fall,
Importunate hours that hours succeed,
Each clamorous with its own sharp need,
And duty keeping pace with all.
Shut down and clasp with heavy lids;
I hear again the voice that bids
The dreamer leave his dream midway
For larger hopes and graver fears:
Life greatens in these later years,
The century’s aloe flowers to-day!

Yet, haply, in some lull of life,
Some Truce of God which breaks its strife,
The worldling’s eyes shall gather dew,
Dreaming in throngful city ways
Of winter joys his boyhood knew;
And dear and early friends — the few
Who yet remain — shall pause to view
These Flemish pictures of old days;
Sit with me by the homestead hearth,
And stretch the hands of memory forth
To warm them at the wood-fire’s blaze!
And thanks untraced to lips unknown
Shall greet me like the odors blown
From unseen meadows newly mown,
Wood-fringed, the wayside gaze beyond;
The traveller owns the grateful sense
Of sweetness near, he knows not whence,
And, pausing, takes with forehead bare
The benediction of the air.

Written in  1865

ground zero
i become aware of boundaries
i am a dog chasing cars
i sing your voicemail to sleep
there are no surgeon general warnings
to tell me that
the objects in the mirror
are more depressed than they appear
so how do i tell you
that there are parts of my life
that move slower
without you in them?
or that i look for you every day
in emails & unanswered calls
in the sunrises
i didn't choose to be awake to watch
that i sometimes still stare at doorways hoping you would walk through them
   *stage 1 you tell your new lover you've got a splinter and they pull the sound of your body falling asleep on mine out of your fingertip
   stage 2 your new lover says something at dinner that makes you choke so they call 911 & the paramedics do the hymleich not knowing you would ***** our promises all over the the restaurant
   stage 3 your new lover surprises you by cleaning the house & washes the shirt you kept next to the bed, not knowing it was the last thing you had that smelled like me
after
people always ask
what was loving her like?
after a really long silence
i just say
"it must be nice"
but i never say
it's watching paint dry
i never say
it's a window seat in hell
i don't tell anyone
about the dreams
where i am reading you
bedtime stories
each one is a different way you die
& every time i can never save you
dreams where what i think
are angels in my bedroom
are just homeless versions
of myself you never loved
i have dreams
where i pay someone to shoot me
just to see if you would cry
just to see
if you would cradle my body
i don't tell people
that loving you is like
playing piano
for someone who can't hear
that it's hitting repeat
on my favorite song
& forgetting the words
every time it starts over
that it's finding out
there's no milk after you already
poured yourself a bowl of cereal
it's getting locked in the dark
& being told to
look on the bright side
that loving you is like
being reminded of what it felt like
the first time
you accidentally let go
of a balloon as a child
it's drowning without the water
it's the feeling you get
when you start to dance
& the song ends

Written 03.27.16

I am the boy who sits next to you in class. I glance sideways at you more times than you catch me, and we share laughs. I criticize your taste in music; it’s too loud and angry. You just smile and turn it up louder.  I am just the boy who sits next to you in class.

I am the one who texted you first because I had seen a movie that reminded me of you, and I told you about it as I watched the fireworks from the top of a parking garage on Independence Day. I am a friend, but I am not someone to whom you would tell your stories. I am the one who texted first.

I am your friend, and we spend hours on end, texting or FaceTiming as I harass children on Club Penguin and you scold me for being so mean. I am your friend and we send each other BuzzFeed quizzes and YouTube videos. I can tell that you like me but I can’t tell why. You are so much more fun than I am. You are much louder, and better at everything. But I am your friend.

I am the voice on the other end of the line when you don’t think you’re going to make it through the night. Days are getting shorter and nights longer and I’ve become the person you tell your stories to. And you tell me all of them, through tears or laughs, or both. And through tears or laughs I listen. I share with you my stories too, but for some reason they don’t seem as interesting, or important, or funny. You are more than me and I feel like you want me to be bigger. But I am the one who makes it okay.

I am yours. Now we fall asleep on the phone every night, and tell each other “good morning” before we open our eyes. You are with me all day. You are my everything. I do not show it, because my father taught me not to. But you are mine. And I am yours.

I am the one who makes you happy, and I take these months for granted. I do not know that in less than 4 months you will be packing your bags, screaming that I never do anything to make you smile. I take you for granted, and it is the biggest mistake of my life. But for now, I am the one who makes you happy.

I am the shirt that you only wear because it’s comfortable. You don’t necessarily like the way it looks, and you don’t love that it’s a little faded and a little small, but it fits you well in the right places, and sometimes makes you feel thin. You tell yourself it’s your favorite shirt anyway.

I am the one you need. I am the one you love. But I am not the reason you get out of bed anymore. The reason you get out of bed is the hope that maybe today will be better. Maybe today I'll do something right. I am the one you need, but I am the one who lets you down every day.

I am the stuffed animal in the corner of your bed that is falling apart, but you can’t throw it away because it has seen you at your worst and you would miss holding it.

I am watching us disintegrate as I stop being the one you go to, because I am so unreliable. I can only offer you words and you need more than someone who is just good with words. You need someone who can make you feel like you’re on top of the world, and that someone is not me. But you desperately want that someone to be me. You tell me you love me, and I answer quickly I love you too but each of us doubts the other, and neither of us believes ourselves.

I am listening to you suggest that maybe we should like... take a break and neither of us knows how long this will be, and neither of us knows if we’ll ever come back.

I am still telling you goodnight, and I still walk you to school because I still love you. But I am realizing that you better off without me, because you stay out all night to avoid thinking about me, and you don’t like coming home anymore because your bed reminds you of me. But I still hold on to you because I can’t bear to see you go.

I am just your bedtime story, whispering into the phone when you can’t sleep. And after you fall asleep I whisper my feelings to you, because I’m not allowed to speak them when you’re awake anymore. I am just your bedtime story because that’s all you need me for anymore. And that’s okay, because I don't need you to love me back, I will make sure you fall asleep before I close my eyes and I will call you in the morning if I haven’t heard from you yet to make sure you didn’t oversleep and I will still call you baby but only after you fall asleep and I will still kiss my hand before I hang up the phone and I will still pick you flowers and buy you donuts and walk you to school and remind you about the vocab quizzes in english class so you don’t **** yourself cramming the night before and I will continue to listen to the music I used to criticize once upon a time, long after you stop thinking about me. I will continue to love you and I will continue to be your bedtime story if that’s all you need me for.

I will forever be your bedtime story.

Written 08.21.16**

I am rereading these words and am made sick by the pathetic, desperate clinging words of my former self, less than 6 months ago. I tell myself I will never fall this deeply again, I will not lose myself to someone who stops appreciating me. I will not destroy myself anymore. I am healthy, and I am not ashamed of my emotions anymore.

This is Not Glandular - Dan O’neil


I don’t use excuses. I never liked them.
The people who say “they were born this way”.
Husky….Stocky…. Big-*****…
Let me start by putting your minds at ease.
This is not glandular. So, i am not a fat man..  
I am a FAAATT man. And i am **** proud of it!
I am proud of this body.
I chose to be this size.
Chose a body as BOOMING as my voice ,
with the softness to counter my sharp tongued words.
Chose puppy cheeks,
so my grandma will always have something to pinch.
Chose hands that look like hot-dogs glued to a baseball,
because thats really funny to picture.
I chose to be a mountain of a man,
just incase any ladies were feeling adventurous
and wanted to hike to the summit.
Trust me, this is not glandular.

I chose this body because of the women,
because the ladies love the funny fat guy!
Because any girl who won't take me if i'm fat ,
is not anyone i'd want if i was thin.
Because I am 230 pounds of cuddling,
bearing down on you like a force of nature,
and there is NOO escape from my snuggling.
Because i am a teddy bear,
whose heart is on “E” and desperately awaits the next woman to refuel him

I chose this body because of the FOOD.
Because there are 6 meals in a day.
Breakfast,brunch,lunch,siesta, dinner ,and the taco bell drive thru.
And theyre ALL the most important meal of the day.
Because just like lonely , ***** ,and angry. We all get hungry.
Because my mom told me that some people show love by cooking.
So i got cookies instead of hugs, meatloaf instead of kisses.
And fried spaghetti sandwiches, replaced bedtime stories…
And i cleaned my plate every time because it was all i can do to say.
I love you too.
I mean i never knew my dad, and Rick.
Rick was never the hands-on step father.
Unless you consider the occasional slap on side the head.
So food became my surrogate fathers. Kernel Sanders and Chef Boyardee
Became my models for manhood.
Which explains my obsession for weird hats..

I chose this body because of 7th grade PE
Because if just one fat guy is confident when changing clothes
it makes others more confident, because dodge-ball is a ****** sport
so who cares if i get knocked out first? Running the mile is TORTURE!
But so are the jokes.. If the fat guy can't finish.

I chose this body,because other people not liking my body is not a good enough reason for me to change it.
So to the bullies, the lunch ladies , to the women who NEVER gave me a chance.
And the football coaches who berated me with insults. To the jerks and the jocks
And the doctor who joked when i stepped on his scale. To Rick and Kernel,
and ANYONE who ever used F A T as an insult. You can do what i did for the last 2 decades.
of my life doing. YOU CAN EAT IT.

Because i love pies,  i love hamburgers ,french fries ,and lobster, and deep fried twinkies
I love me some rice-a-roni and salisbury steak, microwaved burritos ,
cooler ranch doritos and ice-cream , the kind that you push that had Fred Flintstone on it.
I love cake. I love everything about who i am and the life i get to live
No. This ..is .. not ..glandular. Its just fat .
And for the first time in my life. Im proud of that.

I want something to calm me down at bedtime it is the only way to be
Everyone should be calm at bedtime oh yeah we should
It is good to be calm and it is
Good to be cool
But being calm at bedtime oh yes indeed
Dreaming of going to space to play around with the dead
Like my uncle Stan and ray
And my good old dad
It is really good to be calm
At bedtime
And think about the parties
You will have and don’t forget to say as you are planning to go to bed it is a happy thing to be
Welcome to Australia Britain
Or France i turned to the party
In my underpants just my underpants nothing more
If you plan a good birthday party
Plan it after bed
Because you will get really tired
Oh yeah my Aunty said
You see plan your life never turn back yeah mate yeah it is fine
It is good to be calm at bedtime
Dreaming of silly things as well as smart
Getting drunk in methane smoothies and you feel very cool
You will always break the golden golden rule
Being calm at bedtime is cool
Don’t you think
Welcome to Australia Britain or France I turned up to my party in my underpants just my underpants nothing more
Nothing more nothing less
It puts me to the test
You see being cool at bedtime
Oh yeah that sounds fine

i always thought
you were thru traffic
that you were just jet lag
background noise
the kiss in the rain
i've never had
but what if you aren't?
what if this
was the thousandth time
i have loved you?
what if this is just a fresh coat of paint?
what if god
keeps a handkerchief
soaked in the day we met
next to his bed?
maybe theres a reason
i reach for no one in bed
the way i would
if someone used to be there
you know, they say
the road behind us
is littered with things
we couldn't hold onto
i wonder how many times
you've slipped through my hands
like hour glass sand
do you know
how much erosion you've caused?
i heard cupid
stopped keeping count
of how many times
we came together
just to come apart again
maybe it was just a rumor
it makes me think
about how many times
i've almost had you
like if all this talk
about history repeating itself
endlessly replaying is true
i wonder how many times
things have happened already
like the time
i tried talking you
into loving me back
back fired
or the time i could have sworn
jesus & lazarus were playing chess
with my heartbeat
but it was only you smiling
how many times
have i tried to tell you
how many times
have you read this poem
how many times
have i tried not to meet you
in my dreams anymore
it's like sleep tries to warn
me of what's happening
before it does but
i keep having this dream
where i tell you bedtime stories
and each one
is a different way you die
and in every one
i can never save you
it's like you're this song
i have on repeat
and every time it starts over
i forget the words
it's like you picked up the book entitled "us"
and the back cover
said you'd leave
so you never bothered reading it
tell me you aren't
going back in that bookstore
just to do it again
or will you tell me tomorrow?
or is this the time
you don't say anything at all?
if this has all happened before
if we call it quits
before we begin
again
from the beginning
i just want to ask you
to be my fire
because i am tired
of these old lives
and i'd like to see them
burn

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Save my tears for bedtime
you,ll hear me laugh
you,ll see me smile
but im still sad
alll the while
saving my tears for bedtime

i joke around
and act the clown
but deep inside
i still feel down
saving my tears for bedtime

i talk the talk
i act the part
but i still got
a broken heart
saving my tears for bedtime

got to be strong
for my kids
but my whole life
has hit the skids
saving my tears for bedtime

the tears i cry
no one will see
just my pillow
for company
saving my tears for bedtime

the sun will never see my tears
only the moon and stars will know i cry
wen you see me in the daylight
i,ll always have a smile in my eye
cos i,m saving my tears for bedtime

In frames as large as rooms that face all ways
And block the ends of streets with giant loaves,
Screen graves with custard, cover slums with praise
Of motor-oil and cuts of salmon, shine
Perpetually these sharply-pictured groves
Of how life should be. High above the gutter
A silver knife sinks into golden butter,
A glass of milk stands in a meadow, and
Well-balanced families, in fine
Midsummer weather, owe their smiles, their cars,
Even their youth, to that small cube each hand
Stretches towards. These, and the deep armchairs
Aligned to cups at bedtime, radiant bars
(Gas or electric), quarter-profile cats
By slippers on warm mats,
Reflect none of the rained-on streets and squares

They dominate outdoors. Rather, they rise
Serenely to proclaim pure crust, pure foam,
Pure coldness to our live imperfect eyes
That stare beyond this world, where nothing's made
As new or washed quite clean, seeking the home
All such inhabit. There, dark raftered pubs
Are filled with white-clothed ones from tennis-clubs,
And the boy puking his heart out in the Gents
Just missed them, as the pensioner paid
A halfpenny more for Granny Graveclothes' Tea
To taste old age, and dying smokers sense
Walking towards them through some dappled park
As if on water that unfocused she
No match lit up, nor drag ever brought near,
Who now stands newly clear,
Smiling, and recognising, and going dark.

Before I go to sleep, read me
A bedtime story,
Read me
a bedtime story.

I would like to be young again.

That I could wake in solace
From the sleepless dream of a child's stage
Where the world is of no concern,
but only fairies and knights reside.

Such magic can only be found in their eyes.

If we could never wake up to reality
To face the crippling truth that there is no such
Happiness
In the blossoming of adulthood,
Then every day of our lives would be
Beautiful.

Every day
would end with the last pages
Of a happy ever after.

okay so i’m beginning to believe i was born asleep and still haven’t woken up, or caught in a day dream where my name is the answer to all your security questions. okay. a thousand years of wondering and all i can come up with is that you fell in love with me at a picnic in my imagination. the lemonade we always talk about swimming in sugar and tiny handmade sandwiches from my kitchen, your favorite, extra pickle. don’t forget about the pickles. of course the clouds march in stomping out the sunshine, of course. it was dark and there was lightning so much lightning. don’t be scared just now darling don’t be scared. in the middle of the night we only talk about your version of the story. how i’d ask you to stay, asking you to tell me what’s real asking you with my hands asking you with maps, a country called please listen to me, you should know by now that it is an island too far to sail to according to you. i know i know, who dared name an ocean lonely when all the ships are sinking. we can go back we can turn around where the sky is the gentlest shade lavender, we can go back and have a conversation that has never happened before. when everything is the color of day old bruises i won’t let you down. i promise when i get home i will count every freckle every one. when i get home can we open one of those mason jars full of fresh air because i can’t breathe. i remember that day, although i pretend it was more recent than it was. you were there in a swell of green grass in a dress that makes me blush, and there i was blushing. i’m not sure how i made it out alive, skipping the part in the song where you, long gone come busting through a doorway, through the well air conditioned living room and and across the kitchen tile, to the refrigerator where just like in elementary school, my fourth grade heart wrote all your favorite things on flash cards in the blackest magic marker so i could memorize the things that made you happiest. and you turning around in slow motion to see my face, or where my face should be, the only expression i can make anymore, realizing that you realized that i only ever wanted to be something that made you happy. suddenly you’re tired, and i’m tired too, goodnight goodnight, i’m falling asleep because it’s the only thing that doesn’t burn. i’m falling asleep to go back again. everything glitches and i’m underneath your perfect teeth. you say “i would never hurt you” and i say “just like that?” and the layer starts over again, always back to the moment i asked you in my bravest of voices if i could hold your hand. you probably don’t remember that moment, or maybe you do but don’t particularly share the same sentiment over its importance. you see, i’m always fine until the part where i have to say it out loud, and then time stops. i have always wanted to tell you that something happened inside me that night and now i’m not the same me as i was before. so if you ever cross a bridge. if you ever get my voicemail, if you need me, i’ll be sketching up the dramatic parts in my head and they’ll happen just the way i imagined just you wait you wait. the last scene the very last one, the bottom layer, knee deep in mud knee deep in i told you so, you say “i would never hurt you” and instead of saying “just like that” i reach up to kiss you and the room evaporates. so if you want lemonade and bedtime stories, if i can make a believer out of you, if you want bucketfuls of november if you want grace if you want the courage it takes to ask for grace, you’re over the train tracks you’re almost home you’re almost there. what else can you say besides “okay pumpkin okay sweetheart, in my head everything was beautiful" the doorway now filled with people who send you birthday cards saying welcome back welcome home we’ve missed you, hello. hello. the time spent waiting, chorus of rain, i only invited you over so we could make perfect sense. i only gave my hands away because you didn’t want them anymore. and days later a man with a shark tooth necklace asked if i was okay and i lost it i just lost it. all the little red bricks with their little names carved into them, how they don’t feel comfortable under your feet, how there were hundreds of flowers but somehow we took a picture of the same one the very same one, and how we can’t talk about things like that anymore, how i was sitting on a bench and i didn’t hear you call my name, shaking hands on accident with your parents hello sir hello mam, your daughter is my favorite ghost.

As dawn unfolds today beyond my fractured windowpane,
a breeze beguiles the ashen drapes. Like snakes they slip aside,
revealing wanton worlds that race and run aground, insane,
immersed in scenes obscene that savants strive to mask and hide.

Outside, the twisted streets retreat. Last night they seemed so cruel.
While lamps illumed lithe demons dancing neath the gallows tree,
their lurking shadows shuddered as they breached the vestibule.
Within the gloom strange things abound, I sense and sometimes see.

Perdu in darkened doorways (those which soothe the ones who weep)
men hide their shame in crevices in search of cloaked relief.
The ladies of the evening leave, it’s soon their time to sleep!
The alleyways are silent now but taste of untold grief.

Distraught nomadic drifters (dregs who stray from street to street)
abandon bedtime benches, squat on curbs they call a home,
appeal to passing strangers for a coin or bite to eat.
Rebuffed, they gaze with icy eyes that chill the morning gloam.

Observe with me once more, beyond my fractured windowpane,
the broken boy with crooked smile, the one who's seen the beast.
With tears, he kneels and clasps the cross to exorcise the stain.
The abbey door along the lane enshrouds a pious priest.

At nearby mall, Mike needs a cig, and stealth'ly steals a pack.
The Man, observing, thinks ‘Hey Boy, this caper calls for blood’,
takes aim, then shoots the fated stripling six times in the back.
Come, mourn for Mike and brother Justice, facedown in the mud.

The shanty town has hunkered down engaged in mortal sports
while shattered bodies' broken bones at last repose supine,
and mama (now bereft of child) in anguished pain contorts,
her eyes drip drops of bitter wrath which wither on a vine.

Fatigued and bored, some kids harass the crowded alley now.
To pass the time, Joe smokes a joint and Lizzy snorts a line.
The NRA (which deals with doom) can sometimes help somehow,
though Eric died with Dylan in ‘The Curse of Columbine’.

Marauders scam the marketplace (with billions guaranteed)  
while babes with bloated bellies beg with barren sunken eyes,
and (cut to naught) the down-and-out (like trodden beet roots) bleed.
Life's carousel confronts us all, though few can ring the prize.

Yes, Mr Madoff, private bankster (cruising down the road,
with other Ponzi pushers, waving magic mushroom wands),
adores addiction to the bailout (coffers overflowed),
and jests with all the junkies, while they’re bilking us with bonds.

A timeworn washerwoman totters, stumbling from a tram -
she shuffles to her hovel on a dismal distant hill,
despondent, shuts the shutters, prays then downs her final dram -
a raven quickly picks at crumbs forsaken on her sill.

Jihadist and Crusader warders faithfully guard the gates,
behead impious infidels, else burn them at the stake
(yes, God adores the faithful side, the heathen sides He hates),
with saintly satisfaction reaped begetting pagan ache.

All day the watchers skulk around our fractured windowpanes
inspecting all our secret thoughts, our realms of privacy,
controlling every point of view opinion entertains,
forbidding thoughts one mustn't think, with which they don’t agree.

Our rulers (kings and other things) have often made demands
of populations breathing air on near or distant shores
and when they didn’t yield and kneel, we conquered all their lands
with sticks and stones, then bullets, bombs and battleships in wars.

Come, cast just once a furtive glance… there's something in the far…
from towns to dunes in deserts dry, the welkin belches death
by dint of soulless drones that stalk beneath a straying star
erasing life in random ways with freedom’s dying breath.

But closer lies an island, where the keepers grill their wards.
Impartial trials? A travesty, indeed quite Kafkaesque.
The guiltless gush confessions, born and bred on waterboards.
No sense, no charges nor defense. A verdict? Yes, grotesque!

Now dusk is drawing near outside my fractured windowpane
while mankind wanes like burnt-out suns in fading lurid light;
and scarlet clots of grim deceit and ebon beads of bane
flow, deified, within a corpse, the fruit of human blight.

Once upon a time there was a girl that couldn’t tell stories.
One night, she wanted to tell someone a story
Because it was dark and she longed to sleep
And she never seemed to be able to sleep
Even though she had heard so much *******
About counting sheep and drinking hot cocoa
She knew none of it worked
And it was no use being hopeful
But little children always asked to have bedtime stories read to them
And she guessed it helped
Because children sleep and they dream and they imagine
…she wished she could imagine

So she tried to tell a story
Because there was no one to tell her one
But because there was no one to tell her a story
There was no one to hear her story
She was lonely
So lonely that she didn’t even want to talk to herself anymore
(Something she did with frequency)
Even she wanted to leave herself alone
She was irritated by her shadow
And this was why she wanted to tell stories
So she could forget about the loneliness
And sleep

But when she tried to think about something; about anything
She found it hard to imagine
Because her dreams weren’t images anymore
Only feelings
So she decided to tell a story to nobody
About how she felt
Rather than what she couldn’t imagine
And couldn’t create

It was about what she hates
And how uncomfortable she is

So… she fixated her eyes at a spot on the wall
That would listen to her intently
She took a breath
And said:

“Once upon a time…
…
…
…
I hate. I’m uncomfortable.”

“sweetie”
“yes daddy”
“it’s time for bed’
“daddy”
“yes sweetie”
“i don’t want to got to bed”
“sweetie”
“yes daddy”
“it’s past your bedtime”
“daddy”
“yes sweetie”
“if i go to bed. will you pet me”
“yes sweetie”
“daddy”
“yes sweetie”
“will you stroke my hair”
“yes sweetie”
“and kiss my tummy”
“yes sweetie”
“daddy”
“yes sweetie”
“will you kiss me down there”
“only if you go to bed”
“daddy”
“yes sweetie”
“i’m in bed”

Outside of a bar in a North Carolina strip mall, stone cold sober because I am scared to use my fake, I feel drunk as you sit next to me. Perhaps I am. I'd have to be to think maybe, maybe, maybe, when I know, I know, I know.

Your hand brushes against mine, and you're saying the most beautiful words I've ever heard, and the fire in my heart spreads up, down, left, right. But it cannot spread just four inches outside of my body. It cannot set you on fire, too.

We listen to each other and hear two very different things. You are birdsong outside of my window that I am eager to hear; I am traffic outside of your window you've learned to tune out at bedtime.  

If there are nine million bicycles in Beijing, then Beijing is my insides and bicycles are your name, because it is written on my insides nine million times. But there are no bicycles on Antarctica. There is no use for them there, just as there's no use for my name to be perched on a straight girl's ribs.

You tell me my weird hobby of listening to French rap music is awesome, that it's so cool that I'm teaching myself three languages, and that you want to be me when you grow up - I laugh, because you're several years older than me. Selfishly I catch every droplet of your praise.  I ruminate on it for hours, for days. It means more to me than it should.

My name sounds like a compliment from your mouth. I try not to say yours too often, so you don't grow tired of me being around. If I can't set your insides on fire, I want you to want to be my friend. Even that feels like I ask for too much.

In every scene, I see you in the foreground of the narrative. For me, it would be on honor to be one of your background characters. Narratives are richer with them anyway.

I look at you and you are the Harry Potter movie marathon I wait months for. For you, I am the 2 am infomercial you fell asleep to. But I don't mind half as much as I should. Even white noise has its place in someone's life.

I dreamed it, I willed it, that's how it should be
That the law of attraction would bring you to me
But now that you're here I've got to confess
I'm not sure I'm up for this kind of success.

You're the only law I'm willing to follow
Everything to this moment suddenly rings hollow
The voice of your soul commands me to move
With reckless abandon I'm ready to prove

I feel the need to break all the rules
What I'm learning from you isn't taught in school
One smile from you and I color outside of the lines,
Forget about bedtime and drink too much wine

Your laugh drives me to run all the red lights
Skip barefoot in snow and stay up all night
Kiss you in public, confess most of my sins
To hell with sportsmanship... I'm out to win

The reason you've come is the law of attraction
And there's nothing that brings me more satisfaction
That I'd feel this way for you is so unexpected
I understand now how my soul was neglected

Your interest draws out in me every cliché
You started this game... are you ready to play?
Ignoring all the signs that it can't be done
Rules are made to be broken; that's half the fun

Your hand in mine gives me all that I need
To take more chances...risk making a scene
Your eyes convey more than your lips can say
Reflecting the promise of more on the way

Supernatural forces are infinitely stronger
And I could not have waited a moment longer
We were meant to create this breathless reaction
The only rule I need is your law of attraction.

And indeedst, thou mourneth once more
When th' lover who is to thine become
Returneth not, in thy own brevities-of love and hate,
As t'is chiding ruthlessness might not be
thy just fate.

Cleopatra, Cleopatra
Shalt thy soul ever weepest for me?
Weep for t'ese chains of guilt and yet, adorable clarity
T'at within my heart are obstreperously burning
I thy secret lover; shrieks railing at my heart
Whenever thou lurchest forwards
and tearest t'is strumming passion apart.

And t'ere is one single convenience not
As I shalt sit more by northern winds; and whose gales
upon a pale, moonlit shore.
Cleopatra, play me a song at t'at hour
Before bedtime with thy violin once more
And let us look through th' vacant glasses;
at clouds t'at swirl and swear in dark blue masses.

Ah, my queen, t'ese lips are softly creaking
and swearing silently; emitting words
of which I presume thou wouldst not hear.
On my lonely days I sat dreamily
upon t'at hard-hearted wooden bench,
and wrote poems of thee
behind th' greedy palm trees;
They mocked me and swore
t'at my love for thee was a tragedy;
and my poem a menial elegy
For a soldier I was, whom thy wealth
and kingdom foundeth precisely intolerable.
How I hate-t'ose sickly words of 'em!
Ah, t'ose unknowing, cynical creatures!
I, who fell in love with thee
Amongst th' giggling bushes,
stomping merrily amongst each other
and shoving their heads prettily on my shoulder
As I walked pass 'em;
I strapped their doom to death,
and cursed their piously insatiable wrath
Until no more grief was left attached
To th' parable summer air; and rendered thou as plainly
as thou had been,
but bleak not; and ceremoniously unheeded
Only by thy most picturesque features, and breaths.
Thou who loved to wander behind th' red-coated shed,
and beautiful green pastures ahead
With tulips and white roses on thy hand,
And with floods of laughter thou wouldst dart ahead
like a summer nightingale;
'fore stretching thy body effortlessly
amongst th' chirping grass
Ah, Cleopatra, thou looketh but so lovely-
oh, indeedst thou did; but too lovely-too lovely to me!
A figure of a princess so comely,
thou wouldst but be th' one
who bringst th' light,
and fool all t'ose evils, and morbid abysses;
Thou shalt fill our future days with hopes,
and colourful promises.

And slithered I, like a naive snake
Throughout th' bushes; to swing myself into thee
Even only through thy shadow,
I didst, I didst-my love, procured my satisfaction
By seeing thee breathe, and thrive, and bloom.
I loveth her not, t'is village's outrageous,
but sweet-spirited maiden;
a dutiful soldier as I am,
my love for thee is still bountiful,
ah, even more plentiful t'an t'is cordial one
I may hath for my poor lover. Not t'at I despise
her poorness, but in my mind, thou art forever my baroness;
Thou art th' purest queen, amongst all th' virgins
Ah, Cleopatra!
To me, if rejection is indeedst misery,
thine is but a glorious mystery;
for whose preciousness, which is now vague,
by thy hand might come clear,
for within my sight of thee
All t'ese objections are still ingenious,
within thy perilous smile,
t'at oftentimes caresses me
With relief, whenst I am mad,
and corrupts my conscience-
whenst I am sad;
Even only for a second; and even only
for a while.
But if thy smile were all it seemeth,
and thy perfection all t'at I dreameth,
Then a nightmare could be mirth,
and a bitter smile could be so sweet.
Just like everything my eyes hath seen;
if thy innocence was what I needest,
and thy gentleness th' one I seekest,
then I'd needst just and ought, worry not;
for all thy lips couldst be so meek
and thy glistening cheeks
wouldst be so sleek.

Oh, sweet, sweet-like thee, Cleopatra!
Sweet mournful songs are trampling along my ears,
but again, t'ey project me into no harmony-
I curse t'em and corrupt t'em,
I gnaw at t'em and elbow t'em-
I stomp on t'em and jostle t'em-
th' one sung by my insidious lover,
I feel like a ghost as I perch myself beside her.
Whilst thou-thou art away from me!
Thou, thou for whom my breath shalt choke
with insanity,
thou who wert there and merrily laughed with me-
just like last Monday,
By yon purple prairie and amber oak trees
By my newest words and dearly loving poetry.
Oh, my poetry-t'at I hath always crafted so willingly,
o, so willingly, for thee!
For thee, for thee only, my love!
Ah, Cleopatra, as we rolled down th' hoarse alley t'at day,
and th' silky banks by rueful warm water-
I hoped t'at thou wouldst forever stay with me,
like th' green bushes and t'eir immortal thorns,
Thou wouldst lull me to sleep at nights,
and kiss me firmly every dewy morn.

Cleopatra, Cleopatra
Ah, and with thy cherry-like lips
Thou shalt again invite me into thy living gardens,
With thy childish jokes and ramblings and adventures
To th' dying sunflowers, thou wert a cure;
and thy crown is even brighter t'an their foliage,
For it is a resemblance of thy heart, but
thy vanity not;
Thou art th' song t'at t'ey shalt sing,
thou art th' joy t'at no other greatness canst bring.

Ah, Cleopatra, look-and t'is sun is shining on thee,
but not my bride;
My bride who is so impatiently to withdraw
her rights; her fatal rights-o, I insist!
And so t'is time I shall but despise her
for her gluttony and rebellious viciousness.
T'at savage, unholy greed of hers!
How unadmirable-and blind I was,
for I deemed all t'ose indecipherable!
How I shalt forever deprecate myself,
for which!
Ah, but whenst I see thee!
As how I shall twist my finger into hers,
(Oh! T'is precocious little harlot!)
Thou art th' one who is, in my mind, to become my lover,
and amongst tonight's all prudence and marriage mercy
I shall dreameth not of my wife but thee;
Whilst my wife is like a cloaked rain doll beneath,
and her ******* shall be rigid and awkward to me-
unlike thee, so indolent but warm and generous
with unhesitant integrity;
Ah, I wish she could die, die, and be dead-by my hands,
But no anger and fury could I wreak,
for she hath been, for all t'ese years,
my single best friend.
Or she was, at least.
Oh Cleopatra, thou art my girl;
please dance, dance again-dance for me in thy best pink frock,
and wear thy most desirous, fastidious perfume;
I shall turn thee once more, into a delicious nymphet,
and I standing on a rock, a writer-soldier husband to thee-
Loving thee from afar, but a nearest heart,
my soul shalt become tender; but passionately aggravated
With such blows of poetic genuinity in my hands-
by t'ese of thee-so powerful, and intuitive sonnets.

Oh, my dear! T'is is a ruin, ruin, and but a ruin to me-
A castle of utmost devastation and damage and fear,
for as I looketh into her eyes behindeth me,
and thine upon thy throne-
so elegant and fuller of joy and permanent delight
Than hers t'at are fraught with pernicious questions,
and flocks of virginal fright,
I am afraid, once more-t'at I am torn,
before thy eyes t'at pierce and stun me like a stone,
an unknown stone, made of graveyard gems, and gold
Thou smell like death, just as dead as I am
On my loveless marriage day
And as I gaze into th' dubious priest
And thee beside him, my master-o, but my dream woman!
Oh, sadly my only dream woman!
Th' stars of love are once more
encompassing thine eyes,
and with wonder-oh Cleopatra, thou art seemingly tainted
with sacrifice, but delightfully, lies-
As I stareth at thee once more,
I knoweth t'at I loveth thee even more
just like how thou hath loved me since ever before
And thy passion and lust rooted in mine
Strangling me like selfish stars;
and th' moon and saturated rainbows
hanging up t'ere in troubled, ye' peaceful skies, tonight.

I want her not, as thou hath always fiercely,
and truthfully known,
so t'at I wriggle free,
ignoring my bride's wise screams
and cries and sobs uttered heartbreakingly-
onto th' gravel-and gravely chiseled pavement outside,
'fore eventually I slippeth myself out of my brownish
soldier's uniforms.
Thou standeth in surprise, I taketh, as I riseth
from my seat-my fictitious seat, in my mind,
for all t'is, pertaining to my unreal love for her,
shalt never be, in any way, real-
All are but th' phantom and ghost
of my own stories; trivial stories
Skulking about me with unpardonable sorries
Which I hate, I hate out of my life, most!
As to anyone else aside from thee
I should and shalt not ever be-married,
and as I set my doleful eyes on thee once more,
curtained by sorrow and unanswered longings,
but sincere feelings-I canst, for th' first time,
admire thy silent, lipped confession
Which is so remarkably
painted and inked throughout
thy lavish; ye' decently translucent face;
t'at thou needst me and wouldst stick by me
in soul, though not in flesh;
but in heaven, in our dear heaven,
whenst I and thou art free,
from all t'ese ungodly barriers and misery,
to welcome th' fierceness of our fate,
and taste th' merriment of our delayed date.
Oh, my love!
My Cleopatra! My very own, my own,
and mine only-Cleopatra!
My dear secret lover, and wife; for whom
my crying soul was gently born, and cherished,
and nurtured; for whose grief my heart shall be ripped,
and only for whose pride-for whose pride only,
I shall allow mine to be disgraced.
Cleopatra! But in death we shall be reunited,
amongst th' birds t'at flow above and under,
To th' sparkling heavens we shall be invited,
above th' vividly sweet rainbows; about th' precious
rainy thunder.

There he was
standing by the lake
all dressed in black
with a peek of white rose
on his cashmere suit

He reached out his hand to mine
and pulled me closer
close enough for me to read his thoughts
and so my heart softly melted
when he kissed my forehead
and bend on one knee, saying,
"how about we make a cute bedtime story
for our kids about how I proposed to you?"

He was not one of wealth and fame
And no one even knew his name.
He was just known as dad, the only father they ever had.
He worked long hours for very little pay
Yet their clothes were clean every day.
He never lost hope, yet he learned to cope.
He worked at night so he could stay with his children during the day.
He would give them breakfast then take them to school
So that they could learn the golden rules.
His routine was always the same- it would hardly ever change.
Clean the house, take a nap, and for the children prepare a snack.
Then start to prepare for dinner, which wasn’t always a winner.
Yet they ate healthy and never went without
Of that there is no doubt.
In the afternoon pick up the kids and bring them home
During the day they were never alone.
They would change their clothes then have a snack
While he took another nap.
They did their homework when he slept
In the softness of his bed.
He would then wake up and dinner he would serve
And not a complaint was ever heard
They would say grace and he would ask:” how was your day?”
Wash the dishes and put them away.
They could watch TV. until it was nine
Take their showers and then bedtime.
This was the life of a single DAD
, and it was the best part of his life he ever had.
                      CHILDREN ARE A BLESSING!

Star light star bright
first star I see tonight
I wish I may I wish I might
Find a place that has a  room

Now I lay me down to sleep
I pray the lord my soul to keep
If I die before I wake
Remember me as I was

It's cold outside
Please let me in
I have no place to go
It may not be
A wind chill night
But, the clouds all look like snow

The day is done;
O God the Son,
Look down upon
Thy little one!
O Light of Light,
Keep me this night,
And help me greet the day

Jesus, tender Shepherd, hear me:
Bless Thy child to-night;
Through the darkness be Thou near me,
Keep me safe till morning light.
All this day Thy hand has led me,
And I thank Thee for Thy care;
Thou hast warmed me, clothed me, fed me;
Listen to my evening prayer


Star light star bright
first star I see tonight
I wish I may I wish I might
Find a place that has a room

Now I lay me down to sleep
I pray the lord my soul to keep
If I die before I wake
Remember me as I was

PTSD

*The war followed me home.
It  penetrated my skin like nerve gas
Nobody could see it but it was there.
It sits by my feet like a dog.
When I go to bed with you
It lies between us keeping us apart.
I try to scrub it from my skin
In the shower but it won’t come off.
Like a heavy breathing crank call
It pants in my ear as I sleep.
Sometimes it shows me how strong it is
And holds the front door shut
and I cannot open it to go out.
At night just before bedtime
It passes me a handful of meds
I take them and swallow them
But I never ever look
straight into its  eyes.

worldly belongings
paper pencils pillows pretzels

bedtime things
blankets pillows secrets sighs

shuddering words
chill moist blossom cinder

seashell emptiness
can you hear the ocean?

Let me tell you a bedtime story. It goes
Once upon a time there was a girl born for void filling purposes, She cried till they told her to stop and she never cried again.
She learned everything perfectly and extremely well.
Then her best friend died.
Then her brother killed himself.
She decided to get high. and lost her drive but she didn't care and said all the swears. She ***** and lies but she always listened and never cried.
Her womanly emotions would not get the best of her. Instead she stuffed them into a shoe box that she hid behind all the skeletons and needles she keeps in the closets.
The Girl was born to fill a void.
Used as a vault for all the faults of those around her.
She was meant to fill a void.
But then
her best friend shot herself in the head while she watched.
then she found her brother dead.
And she lost her drive.
The girl is older now.
She still has no drive, but she has this void that needs to be filled. and tears in her eyes.

~
Learning to patch. Learning to mend.
Learning to venture. Learning to comprehend.
Learning to capture and befriend.

Inventing the berry. Inventing the cream.
Inventing sweet slices before bedtime
and the Fragaria colored dream.

Loving new life. Loving each child.
Securing the stem and raising the vine
by loving the wife.
~