‘Twas but a rare, snowy day in Paris,
a January day, as all the lights of the city
rested, as dancers of the Moulin Rouge
fixed their make up during the intermission

And in the graveyard of Père Lachaise
there stood a solitary figure of an old man,
his hands gathered together politely,
in front, clenching on to a tattered flat cap

The man stood in front of a grey wall,
“a tomb without a cross or chapel,
or golden lilies, or sky-blue church windows,”
but with an equally lonesome little plaque
that read, ‘Aux mort de la commune,
21 28 Mai 1871’

He lit a cigarette, from which he took just one puff,
stuck it upside-down on a patch of dirt,
then notwithstanding the thunderstorm
of camera flashes from Japanese tourists,
he started to sing, with a hoarse yet firm voice,
“Debout, les damnés de la terre,
Debout, les forçats de la faim…”

As the wrinkle on his forehead began to stretch,
the dusty particles of ice piled higher and higher
on neighboring graves commemorating
French members of the International Brigades
and Spanish maquis of the French Resistance
-apparently the 3,400 meters height of Pyrenees
was merely a backyard *****
for ideas and fates to tread over barefooted-

His song was a ballad of unrequited passion;
when he got to the chorus about some final struggle
and the unity of human race in a silly hymn,
a song that was never played on a radio,
for which no cool kid would ever
spend $0.99 on iTunes store,
his voice started cracking in amorous choke

The old man was a lifetime lover
in the truest spirit of a Frenchman,
spent all his life trying to charm a girl named Emma Ries,
and whenever he dreamed of holding
the eloquently bruised hands of that sixteen years old seamstress,
his eyes swelled of nostalgic heart,

And he used to cry joyfully,
dropping tears of bullets back in the days,
whether by the guillotine in Place de la Concorde,
behind the barricades of Belleville amidst the cannonballs,
******* in front of the Gestapo firing squads,
or under the truncheons of gendarme in Quartier Latin

As the expired old ******* moaned wet dreams,
hallucinogic delusions of his bygone youth, however,
the chilly, soggy winter of 20th arrodissement piled on,
the ashen slums of Ménilmontant depressingly ugly as always
with brownish-grey molten snow spattered all over
the streets trotted by drug dealers and wife beaters,
and neither the fiery oratory of Maurice Thorez
nor the sanguine grenade of Colonel Fabien
was around to arson the frost into the proletarian spring

In the same winter that the old man sang
the first, only, and last lovesong of his life,
it had been more than two decades already
since the Berlin Wall had tumbled down
and the ruling parties in Greece and Spain,
both socialists,
had just driven 500,000 workers out of their jobs

-J.P. Proudhon, Marx and Engels, Jean Jaures, V.I. Lenin,
Leon Trotsky, Antonio Gramsci, Leon Blum, Abbie Hoffman-
by the time the old man muttered an old pop-song nobody cared for,
all of those names were as relevant as some Medieval knights,
characters from an obscure chronicle centuries ago,
who died by charging horseback into windmills,
mistaking them for giants that held whom they thought as
a princess of an ugly peasant woman,

Eventually, right before his voice cracked
into an embarrassing fuddle of choked-up tears,
impressive for a seventy something years old,
the man finished the song from his memory,
all the way up to the sixth stanza;
yet the curvaceously splintered palm of a seamstress,
it was still so far away from his hands that’s been pleading
since 1871 for that glorious *******
which once stood so proudly in the face of a Czernowitz magistrate

When the cigarette he stuck upside down on the dirt
burned all the way down, he reached into his coat,
took out a rose, laid it softly, like his own infant child,
in front of the plaque which golden inscriptions
turned grey from unwashed grimes of ages
and as the old fool walked away,
his back turned away from the solemn wall,
there was but one little patch of dirt in the whole of Paris
uncovered by snow, still hoping for the spring to come.

Sitting in the asylum
voices of the infirmed
call to each other.
A young man hums to himself,
keys jangling.
They carry their preferences under their arms,
judging each other by the objects in their hands.
And here I sit,
in the atrium
listening to the mad men heeding the sirens that call to them.
They obey
and beat their rhythms upon ivory tables
bone-wracked as wooden bridges slip out of their grooves
horses and trees united
in the Sistine Chapel ceilings of the lunatic's mind
epiphany and entropy painted on the skull canvases
of bridled souls.
The floor shudders as a hundred feet tap their heartbeats
in different moments.
Seizures of enlightenment
are what brought them here,
and similarly,
what will keep them.
A sired calls from a locked room
and the ivory tables shatter.

34 / Milton's HP FIFA Street, London Oxford [3] (3 starring Emma Clark, BBC, BBC), Russians and bats with silicon cubes, Charles B., US desires units former president George W. Bush 22 billion. President Bush (34) Home / Credits: Giorgio Nintendo (100) Mymar Blume (62) (12) USA (44) XXXIV 3100 Asia / Russia / Giorgio's Ariel Positives 1683 (2), (12,300)
and B (Boston 12 600) in the ring, Italy, Japan's victory over Jia's light, Colorado 8M), 342 medical model of Russia, Georgia ... 16 (nationalities) (10) (Martian's weight, advertising, Russia, Co. seams of interest, sea water, the timing for 3 hours, 22 LF, ... Deer Gomansa cake 44 / Eddie Stacey, no, 2100 father (12) and the destruction of roasted barbecue bymyma to 34 m 35 (16) (a) 500 300 (2), call (12) BBC 1000 21 (3 GL L) 23 January 2001 (i) 10 0 Dimensions (9 0k00k 0k00 Greek) 100100410000 (Boston, DC 13) 8) Agriculture, 2005 (Russia) 342 6, 16, 16 and 342 days warranty (10) (Arbanaja, Italy, Japan, Georgia, California), EE. UU (21) - Systems, the | number is a device. · Charles C. (34) for example (35) Russian Julia Bush 23 1074231683 / B / line hundred billion dollar construction, Khryrtu, 34-2008 FIFA RENNVILS 12 minutes byutmtp coin investigator London 4 US (George, 1000 04: 00 C George, 04 ) Stacey Dekemvrio toux 1683 22163 TV / common rooms (300), George Nintendo Birds, including Bymyma 16 3300 edition, (c), Hiroshi Blum (62) (12) (44) 35 3100 Asian / Russian border George, 10, 00 Blood / Ball Parasites (Greece (2) Rule (10 **** Ltd.) (Steve Bingham, Georgia), 8 (2005, 100 and 100,000 g) State (Boston, 600, 12), 8) 3-42 Georgia Russia, Miguel May 12, 2005 (Standard), May 10, 2010 (Italy, Japan, Georgia, California, 34 / b HP Milton FIFA Street, London, Oksford [2]  | (3 star Emma Clark BBC, BBC), Russian silicon and 22 billion cubes of Charles' ****, US President George W. Bush. Bush (34), home / trust George Bymyma Nintendo (100) Hyrum Mymar Bram (62) (12) United States (44) XXXIV 3100 Asia / Russia / George Ariel "Hats are new on television 300 163 16 3 3300 22:16 father of Stacy Lynn and (2) 1683 will || soon be sustainable by Susie's miter eye (12 300) and BB (Boston, 600 12) 8) 342 and medical model of Russia, Georgia .. 16 (citizenship) (10) (weight - eye-ring, Italy, beaten, Japanese, Jia will play, Colorado M. Martin, advertising, Russia and the United States Minister of Interest - 03:22 LF oil monument ... (12) bymyma (a) 2100 m 34 35 no roe, Dry characters, Burger 4.4 / Ed Stacy, father (16) 500 300 (2) call (12) BBC 1000 21 (3 GLL) Jnvri 23, 2001 (i)) 10 0 Product / capacity meters (9 0k00k.0k00 Greece |
100100410000 (Boston, D.C.C. 13) 8) Georgia, 2005 (Russia) 342 on ... 16 May 16 June. Security (10) (Arbanija, Italy, Japan, Georgia, California), America (21) - Systems, that number is the tool. Charles C Love (34) (35) Russia Julia Bush, 100,000,000,000 1074,231,683 23 / B / road maintenance, they said, 34 2008 - FIFA RENNEVILS 12 minutes London four Americans (George 04:04 George 1000). George Nintendo Bymyma (a), Hiroshi Bram (62) (12) (44) 35 3100 Asia among them / Russian border George on (300) 16 3300 Summary of 1683 Area 22.163 TV / Bird typical Khryrtu, Bradley, Stacey, 12, and his father, (2) line (10 **** Ltd. (Stadler BBC Georgia), 8 (2005, 100 and 100,000 grams) before 10:00 pest blood / football (Greece)100100410000 Countries (Boston, 600, 12), 8)
3-42 Georgia Russia Michael, Miguel May 12, 2005 (default), May 10, 2010 (Italy, Japan, Georgia, California, USA, delivered US 21)

Wind whips me
Sharp blades against my skin
Maybe I'm a *******
I don't mind
This icy thrill

Cold air
Sleek against my lungs
Filling me up
With a frost
I can't get enough of

the breeze is cool
my skin is rose
I'm alone and
you're a ghost

the sun, it sets
and color fades
my night kissing
shades of grey

...
even though
I love this life,
I can feel
such pain inside

He likes the blue collar,
Pants with the stains.
Comes home from work with black hands and back pains.
There's just something not there, a difference in taste,
Which makes me so different from him.

I'll wash the whites but not white wash a lawn chair.
I'll read a book but I won't shoot a black bear.
I know what I want and I know how to get there,
Not by chopping down trees and developing chest hair,
But by using my mind                
And taking the time  
To make sure the words at the end of the line rhyme.

C. Alexander Blum

A dark night, lit only by snow acting as soft moonlight,
Leaves one feeling the stiff air,
making itself comfortable inside one's bones.

There are no birds here, to delight with their songs.
Nor is there life- the winds pulling it from the leaves which hang so effortlessly on a night in June.

The only sound being of dry, cold air
sweeping through black branches.

With overwhelming tones of emptiness in the air,
It is a wonder that, in a few short months,
the life will be bountiful and the snow
will be missed.

C. Alexander Blum

Those sleepless nights,
Those petty fights,
The look in your eyes
When I held you tight.
How our hands fit so well
When they clasped together
I think of your voice,
But I just don't remember.

I think of your face,
I can see it so clear.
I think of the three words
I once held so near.
I remember your scent,
How your touch was so tender.
But the feelings I felt,
I just don't remember.

C. Alexander Blum

I'm not a poet, i just pretend to be.
i string some words in a line
to make you understand the impact of my empathy.
to give you a sense of security, ambiguity
that manifests the power that only creativity can make you see.

this diction means only what you want it to
but you have to look inside yourself
to find that certain thing you really want to do.

Never limit where your mind can go.
don't give power to your hesitation
fuel imagination in a world of gray.
its the causation that gives you augmentation.
don't settle for simple non fiction
when the world can give you pure affliction

                     embrace it.

cause its that pain that makes you grow and
see the best in every situation.

its those vicarious moments that help to keep you on your feet.
you should never have to choose between
the person who they want to see and
who you truly want to be.

i know you but you don't know me.

                                          yet...

i've tried to be a thousand people in the time i've been alive.

the most important thing i've learned is that it pays to be yourself.

when everybody else seems to have their whole life figured out,
its hard to focus on what counts
when self-created clouds of doubt begin to shroud
the one thing you're allowed to be proud of and that thing is yourself.

i'm certainly not in the position to provide a dictionary definition
of overcoming opposition.
but my first hand admonition
is to have full faith in your own ambitions.

you have these dreams for a reason.

C Alexander Blum

I thought u loved me as i love u babe bt know my heart is as broken as a broken home with no one talking 2 each other,i loved u,U were the 1 u bring life 2 my world the 1 who make the wind blum,U were the sun shine of the flowers that grow in my world knw without u my world is diying as a world with no sun the is no longer life in my world

Your like a flower ready to Blum as the sun sets in the middle of June , the leaves fall as I saw a young beauty,beside the tree of dream; shook  as my

Eyes stop and stare as wind blows her hair, she smiles as I get close her eyes schange to hazel blushing; as my mind was open.

Opening the door of her heart, bit by bit kissing her forged, she smiles..

Arrive to leave

Salem.
Asylum.
For all.
Reaching.
Frantic.
Friday.
Evening.
Someday.
Antisocial.
Nev­er.
Rush.
Flash.
Such.
Wandering.
Navigating.
Endless.
Vibrant chaos.
Crusading.
Blum.
Continuos.
Relinquish.
Embraced.
Distorti­on
Within.
Grasp
Taunting.
Disappeared.
In agony.
Collection.
Mural.
Saga.
Certain of.
Past.
Parasite
Of waves.
Confined.
Seeking.
Redemption.


Garrett Johnson & Eleesha Mayo.