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tee2emm Feb 2015
You are either black, white or brown.
Not yet, don't frown at this myopic poem
It's just a momentary flicker of thoughts
Read till its home
Else don't dare judge.

I was saying,
When you look, this is what you may see.
People come in black, white and brown shading
At least, that's what the eyes reveal
So our treatment of each other follow these same shadings;
Black, white and brown.

"Blacks are dubious and evil
Whites are righteous, just a little corny
Browns are drug lords and...... something," don't ask me.

Racial conflict
Each struggling to be distinct
Superiority tussle
Utter show of psychological and mental muscle.
Complexity expunging simplicity
Even the weaver-spider is now entangled in its weaving.

If we will but wear our true and innocent eyes,
Everything we look perfect and right
But we have all lost our minds
Even flat grounds now make  tedious climb.

We are neither blacks, whites nor browns
We are just human beings,
Human beings that are lost
Lost in the refraction of many colours
Same which was designed to make us appreciate each other more.

Now pardon this Radom thoughts
Are we blacks, whites and browns
Or just human beings in different colour shading?
They are always with us, the thin people
Meager of dimension as the gray people

On a movie-screen.  They
Are unreal, we say:

It was only in a movie, it was only
In a war making evil headlines when we

Were small that they famished and
Grew so lean and would not round

Out their stalky limbs again though peace
Plumped the bellies of the mice

Under the meanest table.
It was during the long hunger-battle

They found their talent to persevere
In thinness, to come, later,

Into our bad dreams, their menace
Not guns, not abuses,

But a thin silence.
Wrapped in flea-ridded donkey skins,

Empty of complaint, forever
Drinking vinegar from tin cups: they wore

The insufferable nimbus of the lot-drawn
Scapegoat.  But so thin,

So weedy a race could not remain in dreams,
Could not remain outlandish victims

In the contracted country of the head
Any more than the old woman in her mud hut could

Keep from cutting fat meat
Out of the side of the generous moon when it

Set foot nightly in her yard
Until her knife had pared

The moon to a rind of little light.
Now the thin people do not obliterate

Themselves as the dawn
Grayness blues, reddens, and the outline

Of the world comes clear and fills with color.
They persist in the sunlit room: the wallpaper

Frieze of cabbage-roses and cornflowers pales
Under their thin-lipped smiles,

Their withering kingship.
How they prop each other up!

We own no wilderness rich and deep enough
For stronghold against their stiff

Battalions.  See, how the tree boles flatten
And lose their good browns

If the thin people simply stand in the forest,
Making the world go thin as a wasp's nest

And grayer; not even moving their bones.
Mitchell Feb 2013
Goodbye Prague, to a city I never thought I'd know.
Goodbye Prague, to a heaven that is lined with shattered beer bottles and stamped out cigarettes the junkies and the hobo's here still manage to get a  few puffs out of.
Goodbye Prague, to a hell that was once hovering with the feelings of control, manipulation, and more control, but now is twirling top speed to a land unknown.
Goodbye Prague, you seductive ***** with your cheap liquor, beer, and cigarettes, smelling of aged mahogany mixed finely with an acidic burst of fresh *****.
Goodbye Prague, I do not know when I will see you again, but I hope that I do and that I never grow so old that I forget you.
Goodbye to your abstract animals smeared black, screaming in the exploding summer sun. Goodbye to freshly cut pigs heads and cow flesh, hanging in your storefront window, tempting every passerby like the *****'s of Amsterdam.
Goodbye to every cobblestone that shines after a fresh rain or snow, slippery to the newcomer, an annoyance to the amateur, thoughtless to the old timer.
Goodbye to the potraviny's stocked with two crown marked up ***** and space vegetables shaped and colored in a one and only kind of vernacular; without you, I would have half-drunkenly stumbled home towards dreams of menial headaches and shadowy beer or perhaps to The Oak to drink alone.
I scream so long through faint puffs of carbon nicotine clouds made illuminated by the icy orange street lamps 800 years old glow!
I scream so long to late metro's and early trams!
I scream so long to the roaring rocks who reflect the faces of aging clocks!
So long to passed out bums and unforgiving metro officers. So long to dollar fifty beers and the fear of getting deported. So long with counting silver crown to make even, seeing my math prowess has lessened. So long embedded needles and bottle caps deep within the snowy cobble. So long listless wanders all their money thrown away until the month of May comes to knock on their door. So long alleyway romance 100 crown notes and old men in their rickety fishermen boats. So long sad masked faces who in their forward march sit stunned seeing fortune picks only some. So long through the grey mist stabbed with neon signs that attract the youth and the mad. So long to the feeling everything I had to say was the wrong thing. So long to feelings of foreign familiarity whose ball and chain were slowly starting to rust away. So long in song to the player's of Riegrovy hill whose voices I just couldn't stand. So long I've come to understand everyone's got a choice to live or wish they did. So long to the wide swept hills of Petrin, where angel's of lore go to rest atop dusted fresh snow, among the dotted new born vine. So long to the sound of wet metal against metal, a scream of order carried on the blue man's shoulder. So long to a city whose architecture reminds me of old men's faces and whose color reminds me of elderly women's dresses. So long to smoking in front of children without a second thought for their health. So long to racism that is wicked, but grunted genially - the executioner smiles at the accused - the gravedigger's weep for the dead - the ant makes a break for a hill not his. So long forlorn love whose only remedy for a cure is the beer sitting in front of you. So long to wondering what's going on in the world, when all I want and got is what's right in front of me.
Farewell Prague, you shadowed street walker, a cloak of stars around you, finding all that owe you  your due.
Farewell Prague, you in the morning eyes half mast, snow crunching underneath stony white.
Farewell Prague, miss-handler of crooked time pieces stating the obvious, ignoring to blame bluntly on youthful alcohol abuse.
Farewell Prague, you took me up the hill and through the woods where ravens, black as gutter ice, crackled down at me like showers of New Year's fireworks.
Farewell Prague, you gave me peace where I once thought I was unable to have.
Farewell Prague, you befriended me, then ordered me a shot that made me cough, then ordered me a beer so we could sit and truly feel what it is to sit and wallow in our time here.
Farewell Prague, you entranced me with view after view to a city to stubborn to die.
Farewell Prague, I leave you like you would leave me.
Farewell Prague, to your fat snow flakes that drop into wide eyed children mouths, tasting of iron whiskey rye, though they do not flinch at the taste.
Farewell Prague, I leave you with a hush of a whimper, bitter as the cold, and indifferent as the server's over at Cafe Lourve.
Farewell Prague, with a thousand miles of graveyards, where ghosts barely have the strength to weep.
Farewell Prague, I admit I never knew how to love until I came to visit you.
Farewell Prague, as I stare out your cracked and smoky tram windows, my thoughts not my own, shop windows and naked, screaming men, their cigarettes bouncing in between their lips like a jack of spades on smack, where at last we see that life is only a worth a **** if lived.
Farewell Prague, I see the cards there on the table and you're winking at me while I stand at the backdoor, and what's more, there's a secret you've got to give that I refuse believe.
Farewell Prague, to your open sore catastrophe of society, KFC on every block, and Starbuck's on every other, and on the other other are the lined' wino's shaking open handed and spread for a case of cardboard vino.
Farewell Prague, to the nasty smoker's in trams that just stopped caring.
Farewell Prague, to a city rhythm generated by an ignorant originality and uniqueness, where the same has no name and the the plain jabber on about their jobs in their pretty blue jeans.
Farewell Prague, because to say goodbye would mean we don't have that friendly tone.
Farewell Prague, I see to sacrifice oneself for the comfort of the elder or the opposite fills me with agitated obligation stationed in a vessel older than I've ever lived - yet I know it, for it is me.
Farewell Prague, you are a lost lullaby caught in the wind of an elastic multi-colored pin-wheel, shining riches of the rainbow into the eyes of children, who all whistle when they snore.
Farewell Prague, a button upon the Earth, like every man.
Farewell Prague, a love song sung in the depths of a damp grey hall, rivers all around, so the sounds too much to drink were outlandish in high emotion, juvenile commotion.
Farewell Prague, we were young - not caring about the future, but of course, with worry in our hearts for worry is a sign of human being human; yet, still, we asked nothing of one another and you gave and I gave and you took and I took and we walked underneath one another's blanket's until we were no longer cold and the winter showed to be just an annoying individual at the party.
Farewell Prague, to your lack of complications, making simplicities acceptable again.
Farewell Prague, to the snow that never stops falling, all while slumbering within dream until the seam is ripped so the old can die.
Farewell Prague, I've shined every marble staircase and washed every tram window; you owe me nothing because I like you.
Farewell Prague, to the long nights bleeding away at the table alone, the lady fast asleep, lit by the dim orange glow of the twisted streetlights below.
Farewell Prague, to the long nights forgetting pains of existence and accepting every solution to ward of resistance.
Farewell Prague, our long talks and hovering walks, always forcing me to balk.
Farewell Prague, at last you got the praise you have always deserved.
Farewell Prague, to hot humid nights filled with *** and butter in the summer and cold bitten cold of ***** and juice a la winter.
Farewell Prague, to bad service but good drink and food.
Farewell Prague, you curious tale the bravest man would waver to say.
Farewell Prague, to bridges galore and more dead leaves then wrinkles on my crooked face.
Farewell Prague, at night the sheen of liquor wears off only if you let it be so.
Farewell Prague, to all the those lonely mornings bent head into book on the way to work.
Farewell Prague, how long till you grow to be young again?
Farewell Prague, how long till I admit my defeat to you?
Farewell Prague, how long until I accept I'm the last fool in this world?
Goodbye Prague, the last soldier is standing, but the war is not yet won.
Goodbye Prague, to your hazy stars glimmering and shining for an indebted audience.
Goodbye Prague, the sun breaking through ink spilled colored clouds, the birds chirping, the dogs barking, and us wondering where we started.
Goodbye Prague, your churches are empty so the sins of man run rampant and at last the prayers of men go unanswered; we now abandoned to fend for ourselves.
Goodbye Prague, the puncturing purity of your ways make me giggle in delight as I listen to the cool piano man play; his eyes on the horizon shattering like toppled china.
Goodbye Prague, at last there is a time where we both get what we want.
Goodbye Prague, the verandas are chilled with the dew of winter and the snow glitters like bitter diamonds as the fool tips his hat to shy away the sunlight.
Goodbye Prague, every rain drop that fell upon me was a gift you can never take away.
Goodbye Prague, the fool adheres to agnostic rules but the cruel here see no reason to sue.
Goodbye Prague, I think therefore the dust of escape reflects the waves of the river Vlatva.
Goodbye Prague, to your lack of vowels.
Goodbye Prague, when the night wavers hear the Beherovka weep into its own glass, love leaving her forever making no note to Kissy.
Goodbye Prague, tram driver's unforgiving in their merciless need for schedule.
Goodbye Prague, the last homage to the war standing like a shining diamond neath chipped and shattered rubble.
Goodbye Prague, a listless memory mentioned only in drifting dream.
Goodbye Prague, every loving glance smelling of freshly poured beer over newly fallen snow.
Goodbye Prague, to your hardness, your beauty, and your madness.
Goodbye Prague, your days wet with rain, stricken by sunlight, reflecting white emerald into the window panes of passing trains.
Goodbye Prague, at last you got what you deserved.
Goodbye Prague, now I can weep and say I have trampled upon your cheek and slunk through your veins and trudged through your blood and skipped through your hair and saw every line - both sought after and nought - you have acquired through time.
Goodbye Prague, there is no reason to get excited, you are free.
Goodbye Prague, I see the silhouette of the trees that line your hills and I am forsaken to see the leaves turning from jovial yellow greens to disregarded and disparaged furnaces of dim fire reds and browns.
Goodbye Prague, the people within you deserved all of the credit.
Good Prague, the people outside of you deserve what ever they believe they do.
Goodbye Prague, you family to families with common sense and love rampaging through your barley stained veins.
Goodbye Prague, perhaps there is nothing under your rubble, maybe already all is lost for everyone, everywhere, but maybe, you living the simpler life, can show all that life can be so.
Goodbye Prague, you gave me letters, words, lines, commas, apostrophes, and dashes, paragraphs, pages, and eventually, a story; I leave you marked.
Goodbye Prague, an old friend whose hand I shook but knew would one day turn my back on.
Goodbye Prague, the bite of your cold generosity and your bustling love leaves man with nothing but to bike back with no chance of triumph.
Goodbye Prague, street cleaners clean up your wear and tear from the mothers and fathers that bore you, some 800 years ago; ageless, you loom longer than they would like.
Goodbye Prague, battling sleep as the ***** raps for more and more, none that the man has.
Goodbye Prague, the night is curling in as the wave crashes to the short and I am the lost sun looking for a place to rise, trying to get to the sky.
Poetic Artiste May 2016
There is something about the beauty of a woman,
it shines in the whites of her eyes,
and the pearls of her teeth,
it is in the melanin of her skin,
and the black of her hair,
it is in the warm browns,
midnight blacks,
and the pinkness of her hidden flesh,
it is in the smell of her skin,
and the natural pheromone scents,
There is something about the beauty of a black woman,
that keeps pulling me in...
Brandon Navarro Sep 2014
A picturesque sky hidden
behind apartments and trees.
Remind me of home,
the proverbial one I was born in
and seen twice.

Blue skies
as if painted onto a canvas
with puffy cotton ***** for clouds.
Cut up by the bland browns and reds
covering the buildings separated by soft hues
of greens and browns.
Ironically making
a skyline.
May
Come queen of months in company
Wi all thy merry minstrelsy
The restless cuckoo absent long
And twittering swallows chimney song
And hedge row crickets notes that run
From every bank that fronts the sun
And swathy bees about the grass
That stops wi every bloom they pass
And every minute every hour
Keep teazing weeds that wear a flower
And toil and childhoods humming joys
For there is music in the noise
The village childern mad for sport
In school times leisure ever short
That crick and catch the bouncing ball
And run along the church yard wall
Capt wi rude figured slabs whose claims
In times bad memory hath no names
Oft racing round the nookey church
Or calling ecchos in the porch
And jilting oer the weather ****
Viewing wi jealous eyes the clock
Oft leaping grave stones leaning hights
Uncheckt wi mellancholy sights
The green grass swelld in many a heap
Where kin and friends and parents sleep
Unthinking in their jovial cry
That time shall come when they shall lye
As lowly and as still as they
While other boys above them play
Heedless as they do now to know
The unconcious dust that lies below
The shepherd goes wi happy stride
Wi moms long shadow by his side
Down the dryd lanes neath blooming may
That once was over shoes in clay
While martins twitter neath his eves
Which he at early morning leaves
The driving boy beside his team
Will oer the may month beauty dream
And **** his hat and turn his eye
On flower and tree and deepning skye
And oft bursts loud in fits of song
And whistles as he reels along
Cracking his whip in starts of joy
A happy ***** driving boy
The youth who leaves his corner stool
Betimes for neighbouring village school
While as a mark to urge him right
The church spires all the way in sight
Wi cheerings from his parents given
Starts neath the joyous smiles of heaven
And sawns wi many an idle stand
Wi bookbag swinging in his hand
And gazes as he passes bye
On every thing that meets his eye
Young lambs seem tempting him to play
Dancing and bleating in his way
Wi trembling tails and pointed ears
They follow him and loose their fears
He smiles upon their sunny faces
And feign woud join their happy races
The birds that sing on bush and tree
Seem chirping for his company
And all in fancys idle whim
Seem keeping holiday but him
He lolls upon each resting stile
To see the fields so sweetly smile
To see the wheat grow green and long
And list the weeders toiling song
Or short note of the changing thrush
Above him in the white thorn bush
That oer the leaning stile bends low
Loaded wi mockery of snow
Mozzld wi many a lushing thread
Of crab tree blossoms delicate red
He often bends wi many a wish
Oer the brig rail to view the fish
Go sturting by in sunny gleams
And chucks in the eye dazzld streams
Crumbs from his pocket oft to watch
The swarming struttle come to catch
Them where they to the bottom sile
Sighing in fancys joy the while
Hes cautiond not to stand so nigh
By rosey milkmaid tripping bye
Where he admires wi fond delight
And longs to be there mute till night
He often ventures thro the day
At truant now and then to play
Rambling about the field and plain
Seeking larks nests in the grain
And picking flowers and boughs of may
To hurd awhile and throw away
Lurking neath bushes from the sight
Of tell tale eyes till schools noon night
Listing each hour for church clocks hum
To know the hour to wander home
That parents may not think him long
Nor dream of his rude doing wrong
Dreading thro the night wi dreaming pain
To meet his masters wand again
Each hedge is loaded thick wi green
And where the hedger late hath been
Tender shoots begin to grow
From the mossy stumps below
While sheep and cow that teaze the grain
will nip them to the root again
They lay their bill and mittens bye
And on to other labours hie
While wood men still on spring intrudes
And thins the shadow solitudes
Wi sharpend axes felling down
The oak trees budding into brown
Where as they crash upon the ground
A crowd of labourers gather round
And mix among the shadows dark
To rip the crackling staining bark
From off the tree and lay when done
The rolls in lares to meet the sun
Depriving yearly where they come
The green wood pecker of its home
That early in the spring began
Far from the sight of troubling man
And bord their round holes in each tree
In fancys sweet security
Till startld wi the woodmans noise
It wakes from all its dreaming joys
The blue bells too that thickly bloom
Where man was never feared to come
And smell smocks that from view retires
**** rustling leaves and bowing briars
And stooping lilys of the valley
That comes wi shades and dews to dally
White beady drops on slender threads
Wi broad hood leaves above their heads
Like white robd maids in summer hours
Neath umberellas shunning showers
These neath the barkmens crushing treads
Oft perish in their blooming beds
Thus stript of boughs and bark in white
Their trunks shine in the mellow light
Beneath the green surviving trees
That wave above them in the breeze
And waking whispers slowly bends
As if they mournd their fallen friends
Each morning now the weeders meet
To cut the thistle from the wheat
And ruin in the sunny hours
Full many wild weeds of their flowers
Corn poppys that in crimson dwell
Calld ‘head achs’ from their sickly smell
And carlock yellow as the sun
That oer the may fields thickly run
And ‘iron ****’ content to share
The meanest spot that spring can spare
Een roads where danger hourly comes
Is not wi out its purple blooms
And leaves wi points like thistles round
Thickset that have no strength to wound
That shrink to childhoods eager hold
Like hair—and with its eye of gold
And scarlet starry points of flowers
Pimpernel dreading nights and showers
Oft calld ‘the shepherds weather glass’
That sleep till suns have dyd the grass
Then wakes and spreads its creeping bloom
Till clouds or threatning shadows come
Then close it shuts to sleep again
Which weeders see and talk of rain
And boys that mark them shut so soon
will call them ‘John go bed at noon
And fumitory too a name
That superstition holds to fame
Whose red and purple mottled flowers
Are cropt by maids in weeding hours
To boil in water milk and way1
For washes on an holiday
To make their beauty fair and sleak
And scour the tan from summers cheek
And simple small forget me not
Eyd wi a pinshead yellow spot
I’th’ middle of its tender blue
That gains from poets notice due
These flowers the toil by crowds destroys
And robs them of their lowly joys
That met the may wi hopes as sweet
As those her suns in gardens meet
And oft the dame will feel inclind
As childhoods memory comes to mind
To turn her hook away and spare
The blooms it lovd to gather there
My wild field catalogue of flowers
Grows in my ryhmes as thick as showers
Tedious and long as they may be
To some, they never weary me
The wood and mead and field of grain
I coud hunt oer and oer again
And talk to every blossom wild
Fond as a parent to a child
And cull them in my childish joy
By swarms and swarms and never cloy
When their lank shades oer morning pearls
Shrink from their lengths to little girls
And like the clock hand pointing one
Is turnd and tells the morning gone
They leave their toils for dinners hour
Beneath some hedges bramble bower
And season sweet their savory meals
Wi joke and tale and merry peals
Of ancient tunes from happy tongues
While linnets join their fitful songs
Perchd oer their heads in frolic play
Among the tufts of motling may
The young girls whisper things of love
And from the old dames hearing move
Oft making ‘love knotts’ in the shade
Of blue green oat or wheaten blade
And trying simple charms and spells
That rural superstition tells
They pull the little blossom threads
From out the knapweeds button heads
And put the husk wi many a smile
In their white bosoms for awhile
Who if they guess aright the swain
That loves sweet fancys trys to gain
Tis said that ere its lain an hour
Twill blossom wi a second flower
And from her white ******* hankerchief
Bloom as they ne’er had lost a leaf
When signs appear that token wet
As they are neath the bushes met
The girls are glad wi hopes of play
And harping of the holiday
A hugh blue bird will often swim
Along the wheat when skys grow dim
Wi clouds—slow as the gales of spring
In motion wi dark shadowd wing
Beneath the coming storm it sails
And lonly chirps the wheat hid quails
That came to live wi spring again
And start when summer browns the grain
They start the young girls joys afloat
Wi ‘wet my foot’ its yearly note
So fancy doth the sound explain
And proves it oft a sign of rain
About the moor ‘**** sheep and cow
The boy or old man wanders now
Hunting all day wi hopful pace
Each thick sown rushy thistly place
For plover eggs while oer them flye
The fearful birds wi teazing cry
Trying to lead their steps astray
And coying him another way
And be the weather chill or warm
Wi brown hats truckd beneath his arm
Holding each prize their search has won
They plod bare headed to the sun
Now dames oft bustle from their wheels
Wi childern scampering at their heels
To watch the bees that hang and swive
In clumps about each thronging hive
And flit and thicken in the light
While the old dame enjoys the sight
And raps the while their warming pans
A spell that superstition plans
To coax them in the garden bounds
As if they lovd the tinkling sounds
And oft one hears the dinning noise
Which dames believe each swarm decoys
Around each village day by day
Mingling in the warmth of may
Sweet scented herbs her skill contrives
To rub the bramble platted hives
Fennels thread leaves and crimpld balm
To scent the new house of the swarm
The thresher dull as winter days
And lost to all that spring displays
Still mid his barn dust forcd to stand
Swings his frail round wi weary hand
While oer his head shades thickly creep
And hides the blinking owl asleep
And bats in cobweb corners bred
Sharing till night their murky bed
The sunshine trickles on the floor
Thro every crevice of the door
And makes his barn where shadows dwell
As irksome as a prisoners cell
And as he seeks his daily meal
As schoolboys from their tasks will steal
ile often stands in fond delay
To see the daisy in his way
And wild weeds flowering on the wall
That will his childish sports recall
Of all the joys that came wi spring
The twirling top the marble ring
The gingling halfpence hussld up
At pitch and toss the eager stoop
To pick up heads, the smuggeld plays
Neath hovels upon sabbath days
When parson he is safe from view
And clerk sings amen in his pew
The sitting down when school was oer
Upon the threshold by his door
Picking from mallows sport to please
Each crumpld seed he calld a cheese
And hunting from the stackyard sod
The stinking hen banes belted pod
By youths vain fancys sweetly fed
Christning them his loaves of bread
He sees while rocking down the street
Wi weary hands and crimpling feet
Young childern at the self same games
And hears the self same simple names
Still floating on each happy tongue
Touchd wi the simple scene so strong
Tears almost start and many a sigh
Regrets the happiness gone bye
And in sweet natures holiday
His heart is sad while all is gay
How lovly now are lanes and balks
For toils and lovers sunday walks
The daisey and the buttercup
For which the laughing childern stoop
A hundred times throughout the day
In their rude ramping summer play
So thickly now the pasture crowds
In gold and silver sheeted clouds
As if the drops in april showers
Had woo’d the sun and swoond to flowers
The brook resumes its summer dresses
Purling neath grass and water cresses
And mint and flag leaf swording high
Their blooms to the unheeding eye
And taper bowbent hanging rushes
And horse tail childerns bottle brushes
And summer tracks about its brink
Is fresh again where cattle drink
And on its sunny bank the swain
Stretches his idle length again
Soon as the sun forgets the day
The moon looks down on the lovly may
And the little star his friend and guide
Travelling together side by side
And the seven stars and charleses wain
Hangs smiling oer green woods agen
The heaven rekindles all alive
Wi light the may bees round the hive
Swarm not so thick in mornings eye
As stars do in the evening skye
All all are nestling in their joys
The flowers and birds and pasture boys
The firetail, long a stranger, comes
To his last summer haunts and homes
To hollow tree and crevisd wall
And in the grass the rails odd call
That featherd spirit stops the swain
To listen to his note again
And school boy still in vain retraces
The secrets of his hiding places
In the black thorns crowded copse
Thro its varied turns and stops
The nightingale its ditty weaves
Hid in a multitude of leaves
The boy stops short to hear the strain
And ’sweet jug jug’ he mocks again
The yellow hammer builds its nest
By banks where sun beams earliest rest
That drys the dews from off the grass
Shading it from all that pass
Save the rude boy wi ferret gaze
That hunts thro evry secret maze
He finds its pencild eggs agen
All streakd wi lines as if a pen
By natures freakish hand was took
To scrawl them over like a book
And from these many mozzling marks
The school boy names them ‘writing larks’
*** barrels twit on bush and tree
Scarse bigger then a bumble bee
And in a white thorns leafy rest
It builds its curious pudding-nest
Wi hole beside as if a mouse
Had built the little barrel house
Toiling full many a lining feather
And bits of grey tree moss together
Amid the noisey rooky park
Beneath the firdales branches dark
The little golden crested wren
Hangs up his glowing nest agen
And sticks it to the furry leaves
As martins theirs beneath the eaves
The old hens leave the roost betimes
And oer the garden pailing climbs
To scrat the gardens fresh turnd soil
And if unwatchd his crops to spoil
Oft cackling from the prison yard
To peck about the houseclose sward
Catching at butterflys and things
Ere they have time to try their wings
The cattle feels the breath of may
And kick and toss their heads in play
The *** beneath his bags of sand
Oft jerks the string from leaders hand
And on the road will eager stoop
To pick the sprouting thistle up
Oft answering on his weary way
Some distant neighbours sobbing bray
Dining the ears of driving boy
As if he felt a fit of joy
Wi in its pinfold circle left
Of all its company bereft
Starvd stock no longer noising round
Lone in the nooks of foddering ground
Each skeleton of lingering stack
By winters tempests beaten black
Nodds upon props or bolt upright
Stands swarthy in the summer light
And oer the green grass seems to lower
Like stump of old time wasted tower
All that in winter lookd for hay
Spread from their batterd haunts away
To pick the grass or lye at lare
Beneath the mild hedge shadows there
Sweet month that gives a welcome call
To toil and nature and to all
Yet one day mid thy many joys
Is dead to all its sport and noise
Old may day where’s thy glorys gone
All fled and left thee every one
Thou comst to thy old haunts and homes
Unnoticd as a stranger comes
No flowers are pluckt to hail the now
Nor cotter seeks a single bough
The maids no more on thy sweet morn
Awake their thresholds to adorn
Wi dewey flowers—May locks new come
And princifeathers cluttering bloom
And blue bells from the woodland moss
And cowslip cucking ***** to toss
Above the garlands swinging hight
Hang in the soft eves sober light
These maid and child did yearly pull
By many a folded apron full
But all is past the merry song
Of maidens hurrying along
To crown at eve the earliest cow
Is gone and dead and silent now
The laugh raisd at the mocking thorn
Tyd to the cows tail last that morn
The kerchief at arms length displayd
Held up by pairs of swain and maid
While others bolted underneath
Bawling loud wi panting breath
‘Duck under water’ as they ran
Alls ended as they ne’er began
While the new thing that took thy place
Wears faded smiles upon its face
And where enclosure has its birth
It spreads a mildew oer her mirth
The herd no longer one by one
Goes plodding on her morning way
And garlands lost and sports nigh gone
Leaves her like thee a common day
Yet summer smiles upon thee still
Wi natures sweet unalterd will
And at thy births unworshipd hours
Fills her green lap wi swarms of flowers
To crown thee still as thou hast been
Of spring and summer months the queen
Jo Nov 2014
Ah!  Another hero
Washed with bleach
Like the Son,
Who is only holy
When rinsed of his
Melanin.  

I wear a white coat
That browns in sunlight -
It appears the moon and I
Will be good friends.

How deep must I scrub
To rid my pores of
The southeast Asian sun;
To wash my hair of Pacific salt?
(Even my mother painted herself
With a European brush).  

How can I know myself
When denied the magma
In my blood?  

It's of no fault of mine
That I've been stripped
Down to resemble a
Colonial caricature -

I've been taught
The victories
And learned
Medals are smelt
In white gold,
But mostly
I've been told
That mixtures separate
And I am mostly
Creme with a dash of coffee.  

A shame!  
Us beige babies must be
Assigned colors
As if palettes were for paintings
Not people -

My family tree has
Cane fields and apple orchards,
So don't act like
You're surprised
When I mention
White isn't the only
Color of my skin.
Some mixed race angst for you.
The word, defining, muzzles; the drawn line
Ousts mistier peers and thrives, murderous,
In establishments which imagined lines

Can only haunt.  Sturdy as potatoes,
Stones, without conscience, word and line endure,
Given an inch.  Not that they're gross (although

Afterthought often would have them alter
To delicacy, to poise) but that they
Shortchange me continuously:  whether

More or other, they still dissatisfy.
Unpoemed, unpictured, the potato
Bunches its knobby browns on a vastly
Superior page; the blunt stone also.
Indigo Morrison Jul 2018
My body is the makeup of both hard and softness
The reds, browns, golds...
The light and darkness of all my ancestors.
Some men have lost themselves here,
Some men have found themselves here
Most women stand stronger next to this.

I am both war grounds and silent cities.
I am both girl trying not to drown in all this sadness, all this loss...
And woman trying not to drown in all this sadness, all this loss.
I am your blonde roast that starts a riot in you first thing in the morning
And your dark roast that goes down smooth, leaving you to want for a little more...

I am both the scab healing over bruised skin
And the area surrounding it.
I am both strong legs and soft lips
...Brown skin deep enough to hide flaws still.

I am the softness in light...
And the softness of honey, but still thick enough to swim in.
I am the hardness of knees on ground, praying to the man or woman who has made me both hard and soft.

I am the woman who cannot forget enough to truly forgive,
But human enough to help you if the light goes out.
I am consistent no's and the yes that matters,
I am shattered glass and spilled milk.

This skin mirrors both the earth and everything you give the universe on a new moon .
I am both woman dancing in nothing, but a skirt to the rhythm of the ocean ...
And the ocean kissing the shore wishing to be as free as that woman.

Sometimes this mouth...
Sometimes my words bite,
Creating harsh weather,
But I am tired of making storms of people, storms of my relations.

I am both soft belly and strong back.
Something you can count on,
A woman you can be sure of.
You can bet on me,
You can stand near me,
You can fall in my presence.
...You can be both hard and soft with me.
tm Jul 2018
live life in warm yellows
when the sky is a dark gray and the clouds are a loveless black
live life in light pinks
when the trees are dying browns and the flowers are wilting ebonys
live life in bright blues
when the waters are a wild taupe and the sand is a rough onyx
live life in the colors of life;
for life is exquisite
but to see such radiance and beauty,
one must be appreciative and live life in warm yellows
reds,
oranges,
greens,
blues,
indigos,
and violets.
life is full of color, but one must be able see that to truly enjoy living
Advice
bulletcookie Aug 2018
Where footling trees do grow
nature, apologies need not know
vistas look back at you with eyes of snow
stones, high meadows, and silver timber knots

purple lupines and fire-**** that blush pink
held firm in gravel hands meet lichened erratics
where mountain's complexion in eon's blink
altered antonym of greens and browns chromatic

Where footling trees do grow
clouds shoot over passes round
to sprinkle, clap showers or to plow flows
marmots don down and burrow to ground

seeds and feathers take to their wing
branches' memories bend to storm's prowl
with constancy of change born on this wind
brutes in caverns and caves utter growls

Where footling trees do grow
a precipice of nascent springs leap
into; pine, spruce, ericaceous woodland below,
to gush as creeks, washout to river's slow keep

dappled light and streaming ray divides
fall forest floor with lulling murmur flutters
there bridge a span in wood knock strides
where clinging moss rolls bread and butter

-cec
Stephe Watson Aug 2018
I’ve sat on a bare-damp chair.
out on the North deck
where the moss blurs the lines
between itself and algae and lichen
and me.  Me, who wouldn’t know such a line
if it were less blurred...I’m not so sharp as all that.


I set my glasses down on a stone table.
Beside the cold-soon tea.
I watch the wind coming, first through the reeds.
And then shifting the banana leaves.
And soon the birch curtain crowding out my
writing place.  My righting place.

The labyrinth is hosting some flowers.  A dragonfly alights on an altar of crystal
and stone and birch branch.  And offerings.  
The dragonflies seems to (me to) re-write spider lines
or maybe ley lines.  A frog just leaped from a tree past my feet.
I’ve lost my word lines, my throughline.
This frog is now in the leaves by the ivy under the bees.
Looking so green.  Leaf droppings dropping on its head.
It’s green head.  Like an emerald in a mountain’s side.

Now a rustle.  Just beyond.  But not that far.  Like feet away.  But beyond.
Another distance.  Another limit.  Another world.  A bank-robbery escape-mode
Squirrel is making off with what it made off with from the free-to-all and undefended
(and legal, too) pear tree in the far yard.  It leaped upon the birch trunk and then, startled to find me unstartlingly well...just here.  And unstartled.  Paused to set its claws in bark.
It teeth gripping as fifth grip the rind of an unripe pear, its size, if I might compare,
the size of its head without the ears, without the hair.  This unrepentant squirrel leaped                  from
     here
to
     there
all of which was over there but just there so basically here.  (Just not here here, more there.)  It found its place to contemplate me.  To observe.  It made no offer.  But of itself.  Which, really, is all that we can do.  It chuffed a few times but it seemed to me that this was more to do with why-not-give-this-a-try-but-I-don’t-know-why.  It’s belly flush to gray birch bark.  It’s tail extended, and caught by a breeze that the leaves were not informed of.  A deceiving breeze.
Soon - which wasn’t soon, it was minutes - the squirrel scrambled up the birch and branch-to-branched its way to overhead and then out of sight.  I may have smelled of peanuts as I’d just emptied a jar.  I may have been the deceiver.  I may be the lone believer that I might know at all.

The frog hasn’t yet moved.


Something is buzz-whistling.  In the grass?  The trees?  The soil?  The sound rises and the tone
shifts.  The pitch lifts.  I cannot say if it is insect.  I cannot say if it is amphibian.  I cannot say if it is electric and thus man and thus unwelcome.  Cicada?  Frogs?  A hummingbird just fooled me into thinking I knew something about speed.  Something about color.  Something about birds.
Something about Nature.  Something about need.  Something about life.  Something about something about my self.  A partial-second lesson.  The teacher came and went.  The teachings stayed behind in mind.  I have so much work to do.

The far birch, placed in the yard for a long-ago dog
seems to offer up a peach harvest this year.
(At least when my glasses are off.)
The landscaper says that all the birches are yellowing this summer
this year this near to the midsummer and this far from the far flung
and far colder cold slumber of December and November and October.

The blue spruce has a still-for-the-first-time-this-season small flock
of oriole.  Or sunset-breasted, warbler wren throated tipped somethings.
I count seven.  Or six.  No, eight.  Wait.  Nine.  Uh, now eight.
Oh, there’s one!  Oh, no matter.  There’s some.
Too flighty and flittery each blur-glance I’ve had all year.  And I've tried each time
to secure them (sharply) in my lens.

The ducks converse as they arrive at the pond’s far edge.  About to traverse the
turtle-hiding waters, the en-flowered pond’s surface, the distance between heard and seen.
I reach for my glasses.  The birch leaves in yellow have fallen and lied.  Belied to believed.
There are no birds in the tree.  That I can see.  That I care to see.  Autumn come early.

A hawk glides past my edge-of-can’t-quite-see.  It’s loping-like arc its own pleasure...to me.
And, I imagine, it.  The meadow is blushing in purple, ironweed.  The jewelweed, too is a star-field of twinkling orange.  A constellation by day.  A bowl by the winter-blooming something (jasmine?) is concentrically coming awake as drip drip drippings are drop drop dropping.  A yellow-spiked caterpillar treks through the detritus of the unkempt bits of the beside-the-garden which isn’t so much a garden as a place I once planted and once planned.  A spider fast-ropes down to investigate and, as it happens, to pester.  The caterpillar twists and tumbles.  Righting itself, it plods on in its stretch-curl way as the spider ascends to the invisible upper home in its way.  The frog hasn’t moved but I notice and note its **** has two bumps.  Like its bulbous eyes in its front which, as I notice and note is spear-shaped as is its hind.  I wonder at defenses.  It is still.  It still is still.  It’s stillness is still stilling.  Until...I move on.  My fastest is not footed but mindful.  Not mindful but of mind.  I am of a mind to move the mind along.  The caterpillar closes the distance.  What a distance to it it must be.  It’s face is black as an undersea shadow.  It has spikier spikes of black here and there.  Likely in some pattern but my mind has moved and so, here and there it will be.  My story.  My pattern.  My refusal to change.

The mushrooms where the spider met the yellow fellow, though.  Sesame-seeded.  Decorated.  Pimpled.  Bejeweled.  A tawny cup beside a stone behind the frog.  Soft mustard-dotted.  But now!  A new frog where the old new frog had been.  This one a leopard toad.  I think.  (I shouldn’t think.)  Browns upon browns with stripes and blots and dots.  Tans and browns.  At the end of the birch twig is now the first frog.  The green-headed bumpy-butted one.  The leopard in tiger lily patches watches the caterpillar (a different one?) clamber though the unswept unkempt.  

The frog, beside me in ceramic keeps time for the timeless.  The throat bellowing.  As though feeding a fire somewhere where Earth is turned to plow.  We all make our own ends, don’t we?
Peppyraindrop Jul 2018
Colors mix in the vainest of ways,
in the strangest of states.

A sunset makes sense
blue, pink and yellow shine soft,
exchanging compliments.

but if a bird shares his view
blue is how to fly, how to wash,
and how to feed.

What does that mean?

Pastels know how to dance.
Have you watched them before?
They lift hearts and tickle hairs.
They don't care what's on your mind,
but give each thought a chair.
It's a world of wonder through
their eyes. Let us explore.
Let us try.

If you’re feeling bold,
mix in some orange, wild green,
rich plum.
Ramble and embrace and relish
in the present tick of the clock,
before the paint dries
and we‘re back to the start.

When we're curious,
change the palette to gold.
Add some earth to the mix,
browns and tans to keep us grounded.
Canary to teach us courage,
honey to give us a hold.
You are every shade of yellow,
all at once, never cold.

Can I tell you a secret?

There is wonder in the deep hues.
Magic in the woods.
The night sky is brilliant
if you think to look,
look up,
with purple swirls
and silver ideals.
Mystery fills the lavenders
and the periwinkles and the crystal cyans
and whimsical teals.
There is uncertainty in the depth.
The ocean waves are fierce,
hard to control,
the dreams free,
the souls impossible to mold.
There is extraordinary wisdom,
Every heartbeat a way to pray
new ways to see in the twilight,
perspectives that are invisible in the day.

Is that what scared you away?

For I am the blue,
the cornflower petals
far from the path
the space between the sky
and the world
when the sun goes down
the sapphire glints floating far from the learned,
from what you know.

When I asked you to stay,
and you promised me time,
I thought it was in our shade
it was yours, not mine.
Do you mind?
Being stuck, dried up in the fear of it all?
Yes. You can stay in the hues
you know all too well.
Maybe ask amber for a dance,
have coffee with cream,
snuggle close to mustard,
hold on to bronze's warmth.
Don't mix too carelessly,
Be careful the paints don’t touch,
the brushstrokes don’t show
It could ruin the lines.
Remember your lines.
Stay safe. Stay yellow.

What if we turned the wheel?
There is curiosity in your blood,
I can feel it waiting to bleed.
Like watercolor,
Searching for the canvas to accept its gift.
You are eager to skip into another palette
you are ready to see another world.
Let's feel all the hues,
use every shade,
dance with the primaries,
one two step, one two.
Mix up the tone with their creations,
until we invent new pigments,
until we run out of names
for all our formulations and hues
Let us walk the rainbow.
Turning light to color
Back to light again
Let me show you my view.

I know. You know.
You never know
what you'll get.
Painting with the rain
instead of an arranged set
can lead to a storm, nothing but grey,
nothing but dark,
but at least even then
there's no regret.

Yes, colors mix in the vainest of ways, the strangest of states.

And perhaps yellow and blue don't have any more skies to paint.
ANANDO SEN Dec 2009
Thirty feet tall Madonna, is one of the things-

My ultra-stylish city that grew up,

Rave, raunchy catwalks beneath those chandeliers-

The Toyota drives by the Manhattan Beach, amidst bikini wardrobe.

When I read those Taxi-dance barbettes-

I wish I could lost in their growling gowns,

All my wishes fulfilled one day and flew me down there-

My boasting finance job and some pals were African browns!

It was that ultimate visa down the Fashion Avenue-

Most of their lipstick glosses were supported by Chelsea revenue.

I could not breathe the invisible virus against my immunity,

The enigmatic pleasures that lived inside the skyscraper community-

I had no qualms while cherishing the barbeque restaurants poisoning,

My fascinations without imaginations had no logical reasoning-

Many of us at Saint Clair’s ward#3, NYC, were at once there fugitive-

Now moaning like chickens to be butchered, we are all *** positive!


Did you know that…

Pop diva Madonna is a gay icon and the gay community has embraced her as a pop culture icon. She was introduced to the gay community while still a teenager. It was her ballet teacher, Christopher Flynn, a gay man, who first told Madonna that she was beautiful. He introduced her to the local gay community of Detroit, Michigan, often taking her to the local gay bars. Flynn encouraged Madonna to walk away from her full scholarship to the University of Michigan and to move to Manhattan.



The disease of AIDS…
Was first uncovered in homosexual men
From Manhattan


Synopsis

What happens when your dreams turn into reality? It’s a paradigm that you celebrate, live life to the fullest. There is however, life that exists beyond this celebration, sometimes good and sometimes not so good like you expected. And when it becomes not so good like you expected, you spat with bitterness and associate the term bad. Anything against your wish and will is then bad and one day you might fall into live with this bad. All I can say is that they are individual retrospection.

This is what Manhattan Dreams exactly captures. The first half can successfully open the door of fascinations that a college teenager in search of a lucrative career and living might jump into- “Style, fashion, exuberance, beaches, skyscrapers, stardom and what not!” Everything is colorful about Manhattan, even the way it is spelt and pronounced. A financial job inside a long cherished skyscraper, international friends, restaurants, pubs, smoking, the kind of gay evenings are not only meant for Hollywood films but can happen to someone like you. And then one day, the world economy complains your presence there as a fugitive, you are fired from your job and your world crashes to a clinic or a hospital confirming you *** positive. What will you do then?

That is what you are getting from the second half of the poem. As if the drama has reached a ****** like after the interval in a film. There seems a sudden pause in life from where there leads the road to uncertainty, disappointment and delusion. This is where the poem ends, because this is where the human mind stops thinking often. A never before kind of bitterness cataracts the dreamy visions and the object of your dream becomes an excuse of your current defeat.

Manhattan Dreams is not a criticism of the gay culture. Neither it attempts to de-criminalize the society nor does it pollute the appeal of Manhattan at all. It is the victim’s individual retrospection in the other side of his celebrated life which is no more a celebration now. The stylish Manhattan is both a dream and a reality. It has nothing to do with your personal glory or agony. Depending upon the situation in your life it might serve as your forefront or background.
J Nov 2020
Brown. I said brown was my favorite color. Deep, dark, opulent brown, like coffee, like the dirt, tree trunks, hair, the deepest of honey, like dark chocolate. Brown, I said. Brown, you remembered. But you see, as I've told you before, this color was associated with disgusting, horrid things. It was associated with a psychotic, abusive, manipulative, ****** person, associated with the screams and tears and blood left in his wake. I took the word, the letters, and I weaved them with meaning and memories and forever promises and the phrase "forever and always" which was something that used to be very important to me. I promised very few people that, and by few I mean one other aside from him, and that was Kenzie. I told them "I'll love you, forever and always." Kenzie and I made it first, and then we both made it to our partners, the partners that we believed would last. She's married now, with a kid, to that man, and I? Well, here I am now. I don't say it anymore, it means nothing to me now. Albeit brown is lovely, and after the said past promise-breaker left I tried not to think of it as eye color, I struggled to see it more akin to nature, as something natural. "Earthy tones, right?" You said earthy tones, without hesitation, when we were taking those online quizzes about personalities, it was the question was about my favorite color, so I know that you remember. "Browns and greens, right babe?" Greens and browns, the Earthy set colors, not those ****** betraying eyes of a Ryder. He told me my eyes were green. He often told me about the green storm that threatened to flood the very existence of himself. My eyes change color, according to friends. Brown, green, sometimes they get this weird blue color, sometimes they're two different colors, one being green and the other brown, but I'm not sure. But anyhow, I thought that was my pull. I thought that if I had to get specific and create the perfect person for myself, I'd at least know what eyes I wanted them to have. You see, I love things that are underappreciated, everything in the category is something to admire, as long as you leave me out of it. But now, Sydney, now? Now I know, the hottest fires burn blue.

  To this, your eyes are no exception. Brown was the Earth, still is, and it's what lurks in trees, the ground, the beverages and food we ingest, but Frenchie, love, eyes like yours? They burn those trees, the grass, physical objects, and then they demand hearts to ashes. They turn universes upside down, OH LOVE! your eyes drive people mad- they drive ME mad. Eyes like yours BURN, not the freeze everyone swoons about. Your eyes don't drip tears, they let off smoke in warning, and though the flame may seem like a liquid, it's not in any sense. Your blue is not the sky, your eyes are not something to gaze at, half-mindedly wondering and completely misunderstanding. You're not something to zone out for, towards, or to. No, your blue needs to be watched carefully, your blue cannot be left unattended. Your eyes don't hold people captive, they don't make people pause and romanticize them(at least they shouldn't), they trigger the fight or flight. Your eyes are not sad, they are not the ocean. Fire is not something to jump into, nothing about it symbolizes drowning. Oh no, no no no, Frenchie, love, your eyes, YOU, are a force to be reckoned with. Hell's fire, that's what I see rather than some stupid cliche body of water, Satan envies the heat. They're not something to submerge yourself in, they won't clean or wash away the sins I have, they'll burn the physical, mental, and emotional flesh, and then said flesh will wilt off, simply floating away as if they were petals stolen by the wind. Burnt ashy peach petals, that's all to be thought of the skin, hair, thoughts that are charred. Hear me, lovely, eyes like yours make the cigarette burns seem like a mosquito bite, they make blades dancing across skin feel like kisses, they make these thoughts of hate feel like vows of forever in love. Your eyes betray those who don't pay attention, because, yes, at a first glance, they're like the ocean. They're like an ocean, I mean, if you're basic and OH WOW BLUE! BLUE EQUALS SKY! BLUE EQUALS OCEAN! Oh yes, yes! The same way that salt looks like sugar, like coke looks like tea, just like water looks like bleach, the way that I look like a girl, but, ****, I don't know what the hell I am. They have similarities, but we all know there's a significant difference. Your eyes **** a soul, your choice on how rapidly this happens, though, and it lets the soul believe it's in love with the feeling. Being in love with the feeling of decomposing, can you imagine? I know I can. I suppose I don't need to be telling you this, do I? Because you knew. You've always known that part of you didn't come from the ocean, but much much lower. Hades granted you this gift, no turning back now. But I suppose I'm fine with others mistaking blue for water, I'll know the truth, I'll know some part of you in this writing, even though you've admitted I don't know you at all. Maybe I'll find you out, hell, maybe I won't. Regardless, my lips forever will work to light those eyes of yours up, I'll always be your pyromaniac, but what's the difference between fascination and contemplated arson.

  Love, colorblind love, allow me to show you my colors as we find yours, yes? Will that be okay? You're so sure that I'm finding me, but all I've done is realized I'm coming back with pieces missing, even after doing something as simple as sleeping. I lose myself in my words, and then they flake off like trauma, which is to say they don't disappear at all, just bury themselves under the flesh that I yearn to flay. We don't know who we are, and maybe we're both losing ourselves, but we have to drop off some things to pick up more, don't we? Maybe I'm dark shades of brown, lighter even, or maybe I really am green, maybe I'm white. Until either of us really know, I'll show you exactly what you've been missing. You see, we'll lose ourselves to our respected colors, and from there we'll find each other again, and drain ourselves against one another to create something entirely new, just for us, and then we'll weave ourselves in and out of the universe until we're nothing, and yet everything. The greys that plague you, your little stand-ins for my obvious surroundings, will shine like neon, The colors, they'll take you in, pull you down, and you will bask in the glory your past kept hidden, you will be one with the colors you can't yet imagine. And through this, I'll be your glasses and your coordinator, I promise to magnify and guide. I will be your sword and your shield, love, use me as you wish and I'll take the damage. Whatever you need, whoever, whenever, I'll be here, I'll be it, I'll be yours, forever with my hand out for you to grab hold of, to steady or to comfort, and we can be better together, happy together, simply together. We can be safe, against anyone else, against the world if you'd rather, and I? I will show you this. I will hold you into the blues, into the greens, and in-betweens, past the whites and blacks and... and we will be the rainbow, you and I. Unlike anyone can be, I am here now, and I will paint you exactly what love should have been for you, what life should have been. It should have been soft, like silk, not rope. We accept the love we think that we deserve, and even though I'm not anywhere near that blasted rope, I know that's why you're with me, for I'm not exactly silk, either. I'm something of leather, perhaps. I'll make you feel beautiful, powerful, but I won't last there forever, you know. I'll flake off, you'll grow tired of the mask, you'll grow tired of me, but at least I'm not rope. And we both know that you wouldn't want the silk for yourself. But until I'm something in a pile that you can remember rather fondly, allow me to be the reason you're smiling and walking like that, leaving flames for a trail.

   I'll first show you a better white, white outside supremacy of course because white is nowhere near a dominant color to me, but I know that you've seen enough black for now. I will lay next to you in a field of lilies, snowdrops, hyacinths, dahlias, and daffodils with the beautiful floral scent filling our senses. We will be surrounded by all that is pure, soft, safe. Dandelion will fly around us, make a wish if you must, they'll fall everywhere; you can wish for everything in the world and still have excess seeds. On milk-colored cotton blankets, we'll gaze into the night sky, where foggy shapes spread around the chalky Moon, capturing Her beauty rather nicely. In this perfect world, Scorpio and Cancer will be right next to each other. Relax next to me, go ahead and put your guard down, as I weave my hand into yours, the peach and creams of your existence make me feel olive in comparison. I could be olive for you, but olives and milk don't go together, so perhaps I can be a soft caramel, very soft, I'm not too entirely tan, but I like the thought of that. It's further proof of my imperfections and proof of your opposite. Caramel and Cream. Beneath the pearly light, we shine quietly, soft glowing fae, you and I. We're goddess's, y'know. Crowns of the pale flowers on top of your head, now that I think about it they make you slightly coral in comparison, then lace down your arm, around your fingers, covering the parts you wish to hide. Can't you see you're a perfect representation of something to worship? Goddess of Comedy, of ****, of What Love Should Be, of Selflessness, of Cuteness, of Protection, of Not Knowing How To Control Anger, of Music, of Koalas, and I? Suppose I'm some sort of gender-neutral Goddess of Laughter, Magick, Crying, Being Overdramatic, maybe of Poetry, maybe of Avoiding Issues, maybe of Frogs, and maybe of Empathy. Oh yes, and I'll show you this. I'll show you the alabaster watercolors and paint and pencils, I'll show you how a Goddess paints the stars, but I won't ever(EVER) show you those ****** impressionable Crayolas again. They're childish in their waxy ways, Frenchie, and you don't deserve that anymore. White Crayolas are pointless and deceiving anyway, aren't they? You deserve so much more, so much better, so, I shall provide stability and vision.

  And this? I will show you.

  Because words are empty. And you need to see to believe it.

  You see, I am in debt of your presence. I am in scars of your truths. That might not make sense. To explain, I try so very hard to keep my own blank face when you're talking to me because I'm afraid I'll give you the wrong expression. You need understanding, not to be singled out and felt like an outcast the way that I know you feel already. I do this because I know what you've been through, but you say I don't, that I would never get it. Maybe not in exact ways, but I do in some fashion. But I don't know you, so maybe I'm just blathering. Anyways, I try to keep a straight face, hearing of your abuse, your insecurities, your everything that you slowly open to me. Do you know how that makes me feel? I'll tell you. I'm angry that such things could be done to you. You don't see this, I make sure of it, but it takes everything in me not to hunt them down, Sydney, because why. WHY. Why would anyone do such a thing.. to you? To you. You didn't deserve it. ****, no one does, but you especially didn't. Hearing this pains me emotionally, mentally, physically. But I keep a straight face, please don't assume it's because I don't care. Please never assume that it's because I'm bored with the topic. Because I do care, I care so ******* much, I just don't want to make you feel like I'm afraid. I'm not. The thought of losing you, THAT'S what scares me. The mere thought of you loving someone else the way that I love you, that's breaking away my soul with its phantom grip. I refuse to lose you, I can't. I don't think that you quite get this yet, but there's something about you that makes me worry so much that I get sick when you don't reply for mere seconds. It's like I need to constantly hear from you. Like if I don't, I'll be dead, alone, because I know better than most people how quickly a life can be taken. I know that I get mad easily and that sometimes my overdramatic selfishness gets overwhelming, but I really don't want to shove you away or make you annoyed by me. I just want to talk, and show you these flaws, so that you know I mean no harm, that I'm getting better, that I can be good for you. I also understand that such is impossible, you're bound to not want something about me, I know I won't match you in every way that you need. But I do want everything of you, I want your anger and your sadness and your insecurities. I want you in tears for me, because I know I will always be here to clear them up for you, but I always hope to never be the cause of your crying. I will never purposely make you cry, I will never try to make you leave me(unless I think that it's best if you do so). You say that I helped you, that I was the reason you felt that it was good you're not dead. One of them, I know, but still. When you wrote for me, it was something interesting. You see, people don't write for me. They write for themselves, they write about themselves, they write to feel quirky, they rarely write about others, hell I know I do. I don't get written about, and if I do it's lies. He-who-shall-not-be-named wrote a few things for me. In his letters or texts, promising his life to me, vowing that he'd never leave, never hurt me, never cheat on me. He gave me empty words and full-blown everything else if you catch my drift. He showed me that words were nothing, never to trust them. "I love you" is the biggest and most frequent lie that I get told. But something in me believes you when you say it. Because you said it without getting anything back for such a long time. You could have given up, moved on, walked away, but you didn't. You stuck by me, even when you had the world of people you could go with, you wanted me. Me. And so I owe you at least a little bit of trust when you say that you love me, and doing so should make you see that when I say it back I also mean it. I've never written this much for anyone, you make me want to write even if it all sounds ******* cliche and mushy.

  Deep breath.  

  I will kneel for you, Goddess, and be here, waiting. Here, ready. Here, open for you. Pick me apart, I'll show you my inner mechanisms, do with me as you please. I'm going to work for this, just give me time. I don't know you, you don't know me, that's what we agreed with. We hide behind these words, YOU DON'T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT ME! because we're afraid that if we DO know something about the other, we'll die for it. We'll be hurt because knowing is knowledge and lack of something new to tell is weakness, is it? That's what you've been taught, that is what I've been taught, but listen. I have nothing to hurt you with. You've always known that you're stronger than me. I can't hurt you, right? I can't.
  
  I will always be full of stories, as will you, just tell me them. Just talk, I'll be quiet for once, you can tell me everything. You offer to listen to mine, say that you want to hear about me, but God let me just distract you so you'll talk about something, anything, else. I'm so stupid, I know you want to talk. I'll be quiet for once, let me work harder for you, I don't want to pretend that it's easier not to know you. We have to know each other. We have to, don't you want to stay with me? I know now that it is I who is the toxic one, let me try to be better for you. You told me that you didn't think that I stopped cheating, that I stopped being toxic because I met you, but I did. Sydney, I did. Or at least I've gotten better. I don't cheat, I've never cheated on you. I won't. But I know that you said that only because you were mad and overthinking. Or maybe you really meant it, I know everything that you said had some truth to it. I'd let you in if I could. Truth is, I'm an open book. For ****'s sake, I'm emptying this **** onto a ******' website, I don't have any ****** secrets. . . okay, I have a few, but only because I don't know how to bring them up. And yes, there's a lot of my past that you don't know, but there's also a lot of yours that I don't know. You have secrets you'll never tell, this is just truth, everyone does, yes? Do you want to know everything? If it will make you feel better, I'll tell you the world, the world of J, everything, you can have all my secrets, I'll be nothing but empty for you, you can have me. Would you like that?

  I'll erase the past lovers who made me fear, made me mad, made me, well, me, just for you. I won't mention him anymore, just don't leave me, okay? I'll stop talking about it, I'll stop getting so mad at you, I'll stop twisting your words, I never meant to. I never meant to. I always seem to make you feel as if you can't open up. You can. You can open to me, always, forever. Please. I can be better. Just for you. Always for you, only for you, please. I'm sorry. I say that so often, but that doesn't mean it has any less meaning, I am sorry. Quite often, I admit. I'm sorry for thousands, millions, trillions of things. I promise I'll get better with that, for you, just tell me how, tell me what to do, I will. I'll do anything. See, my past people weren't good at many things. Some could write a bit, some could sing, or both, or neither. Some could just talk right. But they all were good at one thing: leaving a scar. I remember you compared your past lovers to people with rentals, aka you, that they trashed. I think that if I could compare them to anything, they were feelings that I couldn't quite let go of because I knew that if I did, I wouldn't know what to do. I liked fear, maybe, I liked being hurt. I was used to it, it felt like little kisses, it meant they loved me. Manipulators do that, they make you feel like you need them until, bam, it's been almost a year and ****, you're alive aren't you? I feel things too deeply. One person's favorite thing would become an obsession for me. I don't know if that will change, because here I am telling you that, honey, you can be my addiction. But I wouldn't compare you to you a drug. Not the way Edward called Bella ******, how toxic, you're not ******. You're wine. You're champagne. You're "Veuve Clicquot." I know I don't really have to say this, but drugs are ******. They make you feel ******, that's why I won't ever relate you to them. You don't make me feel ******, not always. Admittedly so, sometimes you upset me, and sometimes you make me want to die, but that really is more along the lines of my fault, because we know me- I'm really overdramatic. And you, you say you're bad, that you're entirely something to stay away from. I think that's funny, really, cause I'm an alcoholic, I've bathed in poison, and Honey? You don't have its burn. I'll say it, you're not perfect, not in a sense that everyone will understand, but you are to me. Even your unobvious toxins are things that I find perfect. See, those things, they're deep down, but you're not toxic, you're not entirely deadly. But of course, you can be, if not handled with care. Though everyone can be as well, so please stop acting as if you're something that needs to be locked away from people. You're a person, a good person. Stop telling me that I'll never understand you. If you want to shove me away, my goodness, keep trying, but I've been told much worse by my own self, love, and I love being degraded. You're safe with me, and I will love you, though I know my affections can be quite unorthodox. You're my drink, not my drug, but somethin' I'm very much so addicted to. You feel good going down, hell you make me feel like a ****** lightweight, but god you show me what it means to be carefree, warm, happy, it's like I can do no wrong. You feel right for me. So, I'll drink and drink, and I'll dance and dance, soft yellow, and you? You will be swaying beside me. Mixing our hopes with our pride, you and I can twirl.

  "Distance makes the heart say you want her, distance makes the heart grow fonder."

  Regardless of the forevers between us, infinity called miles, I want you. Even though you **** me off really often, I want you. I don't like you sometimes, but I want you. I think that you're perfect for me, but I want to choke you. Often. But I mean it lovingly because I want you. See, I'm allowed to choke you, I'm allowed to want to at least, but no one else is. I don't actually dislike you in the slightest, I just think I have a lot to work out with myself. I didn't actually mean it when I said that I hated the things that you loved. I think the word was envy. I envy the things that you love, I envy being able to like things, being able to handle things, because **** I can't handle anything for large amounts of times. And I do envy the things you love because some part of me(I'm sure there's a name for it somewhere) wants to be the only one, the only thing for you.  I get frustrated so easily, I'm ****** I know. I'm so ****** used to being in this little fantasy I have for myself that I don't know what it really means to be in this reality. People don't act the way I want them too, I lose control of everything when I find I can't make people do as I please. In my world, you love me completely, so completely that you don't need anyone but me. But in reality, if anyone left your life, you'd break down.
In reality, you don't need me. You just happen to want me, you love me right now, but you don't need me. I'm not oxygen, or food, or water. And to be honest, even if I was, you'd be able to live without me for a bit. You avoid those things anyhow, don't you? I want you to see that I do love you, that I do want you, that I would never cheat on you or hurt you in that way because I want to be different from what you're used to with your lovers. I want to be something that you remember quite fondly if we don't end well. I want you to be able to say, "yeah. Yeah, they weren't ALL bad. There was this one person... J, I think, yeah. J. They weren't too bad."

  See, you're a blue flame that tastes like that yellow champagne, but I'm Agave Reposado. I mellow as I age. My natural citrus and spice round out as I grow, creating these complex notes of dry chocolate, chilies, vanilla, and cinnamon. Some prefer me with mixes of something else, say Cognac or wine, which might **** with my flavors even more. Parts of me are hardy enough to support cocktails, while the subtler parts are best sipped neat or over ice. Take that information and do what you will with it. I only speak these words so they'll have some sort of meaning to you. I taste like that gold tequila, but I'm nothing more than a candle.

  "I know we'll never grow old together, cause you'll never grow old to me."

  I will want you until you decide you don't need me, and, even then, I'll want you. YOU. You alone. You, Sydney Grace Collins. Because once I love, Darlin, I don't stop until something dies. The things that usually do are patience, longing, energy, faith. Will you get tired of me, no longer wish to see me, be finished with my absolute *******, not trust that we will last any longer? Will you wake up one day, see me and realize, "****. I'm done. I don't want THIS. I don't want this anymore, ever again." I said not until something like that dies, but I don't really think that I'll stop. I don't think that it matters if you love me or not, because I'm going to love you. I mean, it definitely matters if you do or don't, but it doesn't affect the way that I feel. See, when you stop loving me, I'll pretend I never did. But I'll know the truth, and when you read or hear this you will too. If I cared about you, even after you-know-who and everyone before him, it means that you're something very special to me. Even though I really wish I didn't give a ****. It would just be easier that way, I think, easier not to want you or care or worry, I would much rather not ever worry about you again. BUT. We both know it's not really something that I can choose, so until YOU leave and cover up your tracks, because I can be a hella good FBI agent,(or stalker, whatever you wanna call me) you're stuck with me, huh? Which shouldn't be taken as a bad thing, being stuck with me, and if it is I think that maybe I should probably tone it down, but, seriously, when have I ever really toned anything down?

  I can think of at least two times where you've asked me why I love you, what draws me to you, and I think that I've finally ******' figured it out. It's your laughter, love. It's like I said before, you do that cute little wheeze when you laugh before the cute musical notes of the actual giggle erupt, and in the middle of this, you find ways to take breaths. You toss your head back, and then you double over before you proceed to rock back and forth like that. I love seeing you happy. I love seeing you be THAT happy, and I like that most of the time that I see you do that is because I make you, I give you a reason to. I can't really deal with things other than laughing at them or making jokes, it's a serious flaw of mine, but I like that it can help you sometimes because, hell, you can't deal with your **** much either. It's the way that your eyes crinkle when you smile at me, or the hopeful look on your face when you sing, or the eager face you make when you're talking, or the simple resting ***** face, or the way you sleep, breathe, exist. It's the way that you reach for leaves with your burning touch, you reach for things that fall eventually on there, and you save them when you tuck them into your pockets. Little stars, little shooting stars we'll call them. It's the way that you can brush off an entire tree falling on you, but heaven forbid a leaf fall on your loved ones. It's the way that your anger flares when something happens to hit you the wrong way. It's the way that you dance. It's the way that you eat. It's the way that you talk, sound. It's the way that you tuck your issues down into that same pocket as if your crumbling life was a loose strand of hair falling onto your face.

  I like that about you, about how you bottle things up, sweep them away, avoid things. I love it, really, because I've always liked to research, to figure things out, and I know that I'm not too good right now, but I'm going to help you. Oh, yes, I am. I'm going to figure you out. Run away from the words I'm saying, but it's true. And you'll either accept that, or we'll fall apart. Not because I want to, but that's what happens without communication. You've gotten so very good at talking about your issues though, so so so very good, love, and I'm so very proud of you, not to mention grateful. But I know that it barely scratches the surface of that pain, I know because you've told me. So tell me, blue flame, where's the source? Where do I patch up, where do I sow, and what can I do to make sure it doesn't happen, let me help you. I want to patch you up, and then I want to love the scars. There's nothing wrong with you, did you know that? Nothing at all. You're perfect. I love everything about you, even the things that I don't know about you, I love them. All your secrets and thoughts and plans, I love them. I yearn to be a part of them, but I know that takes time. I'll wait, and I respect it but don't ever forget that I am right here, even if I won't understand the pain I know that it's relieving to be able to just ******' talk about it. I'll listen.

  You're so ******* important to me.

  Look at me, baby. No, seriously, look at me. I want you to keep this in mind, love, this face, the look of my room, how I talk when I tell you all this **** that goes on in my head, look at how I'm opening for you, for YOU. Remember this round, unorderly face. See my eyes, love, as I read this to you, this other poem-related thing I'm writing, notice how wide they get? They're passionate, they are, do you see that? Passionate because of you, the thought of YOU, love for YOU. Do you see how your hoodie looks on me, and if it isn't on at the moment, your chain. Look at me. I will make you want to stay, look how tiny I can be for you. You can put me into your pocket too if you'd like. I can make you want to stay, right? I can make you miss me, I know it. When you do leave, I'll make sure I haunt you with this voice, these eyes, these I-love-you vibes, Darlin, you won't leave without an extra soul following. Cause you're gonna remember, you're going to remember me even if it kills us. You'll remember the way it felt when my lips crashed into yours, you'll remember laying in my lap while my hands roamed your face, you'll remember it all. You see, I don't remember things very well. For instance, I don't remember exactly when I first realized I loved you, which was after I had loved you but before I could admit it to myself much less to you. I only remember wanting to hold you, the times where you were the only one that could make me happy, and I know that's still how it is, at least on my end. Something about you makes the green storm halt. I don't remember what made me want to say that I loved you back, but I do remember trying to find something funny, just to say, to show, so that I could watch you laugh again. I love your laugh, Sydney Collins, I love you. I don't remember what made me fall for you exactly, but I do remember noticing you were being quiet when I finally stopped talking about myself once, and I remember knowing that I would do anything to make sure that you're okay again. See, I **** at really helping, but I want to, believe me. I want to help so many things. I want to help the voices and the thoughts get easier. I want to help the anger and loneliness, I want to help you. I want to be YOUR person. Forever. I want to protect you, let me check under your bed for beasts, back into the closet I go for monsters, I REMEMBERED, but you see, you don't need me to do the second part. The secrecy and skeletons, the ones you lay to rest, you keep it shut for a reason, don't you? Locked and sealed, like your mouth, never opened long enough for anyone to know what's going inside, but I will check regardless, and if you say, " J, don't say **** about that body," I'll smile and ask "what body?" and shut the doors, find my way back to you, and tell you that you hide the smell very well. Because I'm on your side, love, I'm not the enemy. And, just so you know, I always bring a shovel with me, should you need it. Closets can only hold so much, and you'd understand that, wouldn't you? Wouldn't we? GOODNESS! My heart is ******' POUNDING.

  You make me see gold when things are black.

  We are Not Veronica and JD.

  I have to admit something to you. When you talk like, oh it's happened so rarely, but like.. that. I freak the **** out because, wow! how do you do that to me? DO I DESERVE IT? No, no, no. OH, no I don't, I could never. I don't deserve a lot of the things that you tell me. But I think of you, I think of you so often. When I'm alone, I imagine you're touching me, I think I need your touch. You breathe sometimes and these knees buckle and this heart swoons and I cry out "ASEXUAL" because holy ******* **** *** with women seems so scary, and oh **** how do I hold myself back. I just want to see you smile, hear you breathe a sigh of relief, and listen to your sweet nectar laugh when flattered by one of my compliments. I want to feel the warmth of your skin while your body is wrapped around mine, and hear the beat of your heart while I lay against your chest, though I'm happy if you'd listen to mine instead, I know how you prefer to lay. I want to watch your chest rise and fall as you sleep and kiss you until you wake up. I want to feel safe with you. I want to feel...small.. with you if you get what I'm saying. I want to trust you.

  Let's talk about our issues from now on, rather than ignoring each other, please.

  I really don't care if I have to cross a sea of vulnerabilities and emotion, I would do it all for that time you said that my, MY, smile made you happy. Because when you're happy, I'm happy. And ****, my chest feels all fluttery whenever our eyes meet, and jeez I'm just a frikity freakin' mess whenever you make me laugh, and GOD I love it when you call me baby or princess or kitten or whatever name because hell I don't have to be a girl for those names to mean the world. I'd love anything that you call me, just as long as I can call you mine, still. I will say this, love, I will tell you that I'm gay, just for you. I'm a ******, I'll scream, until my mouth grows numb, tongue forgets how to speak, teeth rot out. Until I die I will cry your name, and from then I'll sign it, and you'll teach me how won't you? I will never NOT want you, Sydney. You're part of my life now, a big part of it, and that means that even five years from now I will remember you. We can't go back, now, these are important memories. I'll write I love you until my fingers forget how to hold, how to touch, how to be fingers, I'll write until said fingers break and ******, I'll write until my fingers forget how your hands feel wrapped in mine, until my poems no longer reek these cliche pitiful words, and then I'll continue because I will never stop. I will look for more ways to make sure that you are HERE! In my heart, in my eyes, in my head.

  "All I wanted was you."

  There are very few things that I can be sure about, and one of the only things that I'm sure about is the fact that I mean it when I tell you that I love you. YOU cannot help how I feel, and, quite frankly, neither can I. Nothing will change it unless I want it to, and of course, why would I want that? your voice whispers a gentle need back, I know you feel this too. So I beg of you to call me a thousand, billion, trillion times, tell me that you want me, too, just me, only me, that you love just me, only me. Babe, I'll write your name times infinity between each phrase, I will love you more than you love me, and you'll drown, fire child, in my love. you'll hiss, I'll cool you down, but I will not ***** you.

  For I am just a candle.

  And you're the flame that takes me away.
sometimes I just feel like writing, and that's okay. usually, it isn't much. I struggled with a title for this, so I just started to write until it was okay again. I think that some of these things don't really make sense, but I scramble to hold the things I write. They escape a lot. I read this to her out loud, she said that she had never been compared to a flame, not like this. she said that her ex compared her eyes to the ocean, so when I said, "they are not the ocean, not something to jump into" she smiled. that made me happy to know, that I did something like this right.

I edited this a lot after reading it to her, and after listening to what she said. I apologized. I told her "Yeah... Yeah, apologize. Words are ****. But that's all I have. Yknow? I'm sorry. I'm sorry for assuming that I knew you, for saying that "I get it" even though I couldn't possibly get it. I'm sorry that you're losing yourself, and that I twist your words when you try to talk about me, or about your ex's, or about anything. I'm sorry that I'm one of the people around you that's always ******* up their arm. I'm sorry that you think I won't love you unless you're funny. I'd love you even if you were a tomato. I'd love you even if you were coffee. I'd love you even if you were my worse nightmare. I'm sorry that I got mad, I didn't understand, I'll try to be better with that. I'm sorry that I took you listening to music as you not wanting to talk to me, I forgot that you have other things. You're more than what meets the eye, I'm sorry I forgot that, I'm sorry I assumed things. I'm sorry that I won't understand your mind, I only ask that you help me try. I'm sorry for shutting you down. And mostly I'm sorry that you think I never changed from my past, that I'm still toxic, that you don't doubt I'll cheat or have. I haven't. I won't. I'm sorry that I'm toxic, I'll fix it, I'll get better. I'm sorry that I said I tell you things that everyone knows. I'm an open book, like you said I'm easy to read. I shouldn't have said it in that way, truly I have nothing to hide. I'm sorry that I keep repeating my past mistakes. I'm sorry. And I love you."
She was supposed to call me, but she didn't get the chance to. it's almost three in the morning, I'm pretty sure she's sleeping. I'm very glad she is, though, because I know her insomnia has made it really rough on her.
anyhow, enjoy yet another one of my entries.
would you even call what I write poetry?
Nat Lipstadt Dec 2013
Photographs by Avedon

This was written in a friend's home in the Berkshire Mountains, on a Saturday morning, a few years ago.  Up early, I went exploring their bookshelves and found a book of Richard Avedon's photographs of average Americans out west.  Google "richard avedon photos of the american west" - then read the poem.  Please, for without seeing the faces, for this will make all the difference.  In the Berkshires, it is always chilly there, even in the summer sun.  This and other obscure references are better detailed in the notes.


Join my warmth and
my chill,
as the nine o'clock sun,
a 45 degree steeplechase
warms,
but still not
strong enough
to dispense
the lingering,
residual, remaindered,
breezy chill
of the prior eve,
that hides in,
emanates from,
the shadows
of the
deep wooded hillocks
of the
Berkshire Mountains.

Join my warmth
and my chill!

Upright jolted,
head kicked awake,
entranced and revolted,
excited and repelled,
emotive, yet, stilled.

For oh so casually,
this heroic city dweller,
brave and fearless
bookshelf explorer,
retrieves a book,
to find a new route
thru time and space
to the center of his brain.

Photographs by Avedon,
of my fellow Americans,
the Have Nots,
his "Havedons"
of the
American West.

These uncommon people
with whom I share
uncommonly little,
these drifters, the carneys,
the would-have-been cowboys,
busted blackjack dealers,
rattlesnake gut n' skinners,
coal and copper miners,
the hay truck drivers,
dirt so deep in
their pores ingrained,
colors and bloodies their souls,
browns their veins,
are the ones that
too oft,
go off first to
fight wars
in my name.

Photos untitled,
words unneeded.

In this far corner of our
shared contiguous space
called the
United States of America,
top of the line here
would be
insurance agents,
secretaries and maybe even,
the waitresses.

But their eyes,
oh their eyes!

Words I do not own
to fair share with you,
the clarifying gaze
of measured dignity and
immeasurable ache,
heritage pride,
heretical heartbreak,
that marks and unites
these disparate and dispirited
vessels of humankind.

Disjointed,
the noon suns finally,
raises my body temperature
browns my surface...

Yet, nothing eradicates
this ******* chill
in my soul
or calms my consternation,
as black and white
eyes discolor
my comfortable existence,
as I ponder
Avedon's words:

All photographs are accurate but none tell the truth

Pass over,
pass by,
The Evil Son at Passover
asks ever so sly,
what have they to do with me?

It is the Sabbath.
We luxuriate in our rest.
Rest is the greatest luxury

What is this Sabbath?
Heschel's cathedral -
existant both
in space and time,
and one enters
when and where
one can.

Do my distant,
(both in space and time)
American cousins
share my Sabbath?

Are they allowed
this luxury,
or is it endless exertion,
severity and deprivation,
all and every day
of their lives?

Constant risk every day.

Who cannot fail to see the
precipitousness of life
edged in the lines of their
hearts and minds?

Day to day hardens them
and teaches the
discipline of
severity unended.

Is the prudence of
self-forgetfulness,
their morning bitter pill
they must swallow
to carry on?

Among the resolutions
I need
to claim a
life fulfilled is this:

How to end this poem,
close this can of worms,
accidentally kicked open.

Will sunset end these
troubling questions
of which you have
your own,
more personal variations?
(what about the ...)

Perennials flower everywhere,
in Auschwitz,
along the Tigris,
even in Kabul and Somalia,
along the highways
that lead
to the mecca of
Las Vegas.

Perennials flower everywhere.

In warmth and cool,
in time and space,
they flower in my heart and
my brain and in
my prayerful tears.
flowing down my cheeks,
as I lay me down to sleep,
to dream these of
impoverished words

Havdalah^^ thoughts,
separations celebrated.

Distinctions noted,
even celebrated tween
holy and common,
light and dark,
Sabbath and
the six weekdays
of labor,
between sacred and secular
and
between me and
my American Brothers
of the American West.


I know
just one thing
to be true:

The Sabbath Cathedral is
open to all,
whatever day
you choose to
abide there

I await you,
my American cousins,
with wine and bread
and the
holy of holiest words
of comfort and sooth.

I will wash your feet and
lay you down to
restful sleep
in the
Sabbath Cathedral
in my heart.

Together,
at last,
we will be joined,
in warmth and chill.



August 29, 2010
Lanesboro, Mass.
----------------------
* "In The American West" by
Richard Avedon

** many of the phrases in this stanza were taken from an article "The Few, The Proud, The Chosen" in Commentary, September 2010

^ Abraham Joshua Heschel, a modern Jewish Philosopher.  Elegant, passionate, and filled with the love of God's creation, Abraham Joshua Heschel's The Sabbath has been hailed as a classic of Jewish spirituality ever since its original publication-and has been read by thousands of people seeking meaning in modern life. In this brief yet profound meditation on the meaning of the Seventh Day, Heschel introduced the idea of an "architecture of holiness" that appears not in space but in time Judaism, he argues, is a religion of time: it finds meaning not in space and the material things that fill it but in time and the eternity that imbues it, so that "the Sabbaths are our great cathedrals."

^^ Havdalah is the ceremony to celebrate the end of the Sabbath, and realize the distinctions between the holy day and the workweek, the day and the night, light and day...
Arreonna Frost May 2016
Fall is like death.
Like bipolar.
You gradually fade away,
then you are completely gone.
Falling!
Swaying in the wind,
as you hit the ground.
Brittle.
Easy to crumble.
Dying!
Your colors use to be so bright,
so vibrant,
and alive.
Joyous!
Then...
Your colors begin to fade.
One by one.
Reds,
Oranges,
Yellows,
then browns...
Your life is now dull,
brittle,
fragile,
and dead...
like the colors of the leaves.
Face it,
you are dying inside.
Fading away.
Piece by piece.
You eventually,
come back.
Slowy begin to grow,
and get your color.
Your vibrant colors...
You feel on top of the world,
for a short while.
But...
All it takes,
is that down state,
to go crumbling,
to the ground again.
To die,
and fade away....
November 2015
JJ Hutton Jul 2013
The first time a man ever pointed a gun at me and asked me to love him was at Granny's Kitchen in Greensboro, North Carolina.

The waitress, a soft spoken white woman with her hair pulled back in a bun, had just dropped off my plates --- a simple mix of scrambled eggs, two pieces of greasy bacon, and a short stack of pancakes. Now, no matter how cheap, I always feel like I'm cutting loose at breakfast places for the sheer abundance of plates. While I'm sure the eggs and bacon could have shared real estate, each component had its own china.

The waitress lingered at my table, her fingers fidgeting with straws in her apron. I made eye contact. Well, my eyes contacted hers; she was staring at my lips.

Sure I can't get you something to drink? she asked.

This was approximately the tenth time she'd made sure. She was uncomfortable that I had supplied my own beverage -- a Big Gulp. But even more than that, she was uncomfortable by the deep red stain taking over my lips. Contents of the Big Gulp: merlot, boxed.

(That is an unnecessary detail. I've only written it so I never do it again.)

Before Greg hopped up on a table and announced to the restaurant, If I could have your attention, my name is Greg and this will only take a second, blah, blah blah, I poured a copious amount of syrup on my pancakes. Then I moved the bacon to my pancake plate. In my experience, very little in this life is better than syrup on bacon.

I shut my eyes for that first bite, just like the commercials. The syrup dribbled a bit onto my beard, and when I opened my eyes, I discovered it had also landed on my shirt. I grabbed a napkin. Heard a chair slide backwards. I started with my beard, peering around the diner, making sure no one saw. I think I heard someone gasp. But I was busy, working that napkin then against my shirt. Jesus, I thought. My grandma, who's got a splash of the Parkinson's, could eat with more grace.

If I could have your attention, my name is Greg and this will only take a second, a very official voice boomed behind me.

I turned around to see if I recognized him as one of those cuffed jean-sporting, wild plaid-loving NPR hosts. He wasn't one of those. He was a sunburn with mop hair in a black tank top and hemmed jean shorts. He did, however, have a cleft chin. That's actually worth noting. Don't see a lot of them these days.

I know you guys are busy, he said. I know that like me, you guys are probably broke as hell. I mean no offense Granny's, I love this place, but it ain't exactly four stars. Or three. Anyway, all I want from each of you is five dollars. If you ain't got five, give me four. Ain't got four, three. And so on.

He started with the stringy Japanese couple on the west side of the restaurant. Nobody really seemed scared, not the freckled brat in canvas sneakers, not the liver-spotted gentleman with a copy of that day's paper.

My old friend Jerome used to say that white folks are the only romantic criminals. He tacked it up to that whole Bonnie and Clyde crap. Greg, it seemed, was privy to that information, too. He smiled and thanked each person as he robbed them of a few presidents. The victims, smiling back, seemed to be thinking of their names tagged at the end of some newspaper dialogue. A few even gave more than he asked.

Here, take fifteen. Times will get better.

Aren't you just a charmer.

It was all very moving.

So he gets to me, and of course, I don't have any cash. I carry a debit and an arsenal of credit cards like a normal American. I don't know how he made it to me before running into this particular problem.

No, I don't have one of those iPhone card swipers, he said. Well, you gotta give me something.

I offered a gift card to Harold's Clothes for Men, it had like two bucks on it, but he wasn't interested.

What's your name?

Henry.

How much do you weigh?

Enough to keep me prohibited from most amusement park rides.

I like you, Henry. Well, let me ask you something. Have you ever loved a man? he asked, pointing his smudgy revolver just past my ear.

I shook my head no.

Me neither. I've always been curious, though. You been curious?

There was a time when I was thirteen -- Blake Hinton was changing after basketball practice -- and I remember thinking, that is an incredible chest. These lines just sprawled from his sternum, lines leading to these almond *******, and I specifically remember wanting to eat them like, well, almonds. But that hardly counts as curious. So, I said, No.

To which Greg responded: Get curious, boy. You're coming with me.


In the spirit of honesty, I was in a bit of a haze before Greg made me climb into his beat up Cavalier. Not just from the Big Gulp brimmed with merlot, no, I hadn't slept in two days prior to the whole gun-in-face incident. Reason being, I was, as Greg would say, broke as hell, and the rent was due. I stayed up both nights conspiring (and drinking). So, really I was pretty thrilled to be kidnapped away from the whole situation.

I had visions. I guess from the lack of sleep. Maybe they weren't visions, maybe just dreams, or fever dreams, I don't know. All I know is I blinked, and we were in the Appalachians. And there was a grey longbeard in the backseat rattling on and on about how change is easy, movement is easy; it's that whole nesting thing that takes courage and strength, blah, blah, blah. I told him to be quiet. Greg told me to get some sleep. I blinked.

We were in a karaoke bar in Madison, Tennessee. There was a gin and tonic in front of me. I took a drink. There was a water with lime in front of me.

Greg asked, Where did you go?

I told him, your dreams, trying to be cute. He turned and asked the bartender for a Yeager bomb. Reaching for the server in -- granted -- an overly dramatic gesture, I said, Make it two. We made it three. We made it four. Seven. Then some vague, but perfect number, because my head rang right. The words came right. And I was a journalist, asking Greg all the right questions.

I'm not a criminal, he said.

I was just bored, man, he said.

You see, I was in a rut, he said. Last month I put up a personal on Craigslist. I know, it's pretty ******* desperate. I've read the kind **** people put on there. But mine was different. I just wanted some time with my ex-wife. Some couch ***, you know? We hadn't done it on a couch since I dropped out of college, and I hadn't even really thought about it until a couple weeks after the divorce. Then it was all I could think about.

A black woman, whose teeth glowed under the black light, began singing "Wild Horses." Then he read my mind, I think.

Yeah, she answered it. Did our thing on her sofa. It was nice and all, and like all nice things, you just want more, but she said I couldn't have no more, this was a fluke, a one-time, or no, a one-off thing, she said. Had to relocate, so that's why I did that whole thing at Granny's.

You ever get it on a couch? he asked.

No, I said. I've see a bra though --- two actually.

He took that as a joke, which was good.

Though wild horses couldn't drag me away, a gasoline horse could.


He handed me a courtesy breath mint after I finished throwing up. The Nashville skyline looks perfect, he said. Especially at night.

My stomach was gravel in a washing machine. Masculine love. At gunpoint, I had agreed to indulge it. I was going to make love to a man -- not just a man -- a criminal. Not something to write about on a postcard.

Mr. Winters, my esteemed landlord,
Apologies about the rent. Got kidnapped by a *******, and I'm presently banging and being banged by him in Music City, USA.


I blinked.

We laid on opposite ends of the queen-sized mattress.

I always liked Super 8s, Greg said. I don't see the point in spending so much on a hotel. A bed is a bed.

And I tried to be funny with something about the confidentiality of dark bedsheets, but it fell flat.

Greg cried. I love my ex-wife, he said.

Can I help?

Will you hold me? he asked.

The air conditioner kicked on in the already freezing room.

I'm sorry. You don't have to, he said.

I scooted against him. He smelled pleasant in a family-vacation-kind-of-way, like a fresh pretzel covered in salt. I put my arm under his neck. He buried his face into my shoulder. I blinked.


The front end of his Cavalier was held together with copper wire and coat hangers. It was a two-door. Both doors dented from, according to Greg, hit-and-runs. It had a Vermont plate on the back. It was red. I mention all of this to say: if we kept moving, we were bound to get pulled over.

In the parking lot of 3B's Breakfast, Burgers And Beer, Greg asked me to retrieve his revolver from the glove compartment. You kinda have to uppercut it, he said. And I did.

I don't want to do it again, but we have to. I'm not staying put, not until I hit the ocean. But don't worry, I'm not going to hurt anyone.

He showed me the revolver. No bullets. I nodded, in approval, I guess.


The second time a man ever pointed a gun at me and asked me to love him was at 3B's Breakfast, Burgers And Beer in Bellevue, Tennessee. Of course, it was the same man, Greg, but the circumstances were a little different.

I went with two orders of biscuits and gravy --- or B & G as my dear friend Chance affectionately calls it. Four bites in and I'd yet to hit biscuit. For a moment, I wanted to tell Greg, C'mon man, ***** the ocean. Tennessee does gravy the way God intended. Nobody would find us in this suburb. We could be sharecroppers. Do they still have sharecroppers?

Do you like fresh corn? I asked. It was the first crop that came to mind.

Greg didn't answer. I noticed his plate of hash browns and eggs -- sunny-side up -- were untouched. You okay?

He was, he said, trying to get in the zone, that's all.

Alright.

Our waitress looked like a poster child for ******'s Youth. She couldn't have been much more than sixteen. She had blonde -- almost white -- hair. Her eyes changed color with the intensity and direction of light, a gradient between seaweed and dark ocean blue. She appeared to be an amish girl gone defective, and I was about to inquire into that very supposition when Greg stood on the table, and said, If I could have your attention, my name is Greg and this will only take a second.

Tennessee is not North Carolina. In North Carolina, they got a healthy aversion to firearms. In Tennessee, however, once a babe can walk, the *******'s got a BB gun and an endless supply of empty soda cans for target practice. I say that, to say this: when Greg stood on the table, so did three other men. Their three guns pointed right at him.

Lower that gun, brother. You ain't gettin' any money out of us.

Hate to shoot you in front of your boyfriend.

Coffee spilled and ran off the tray our waitress held. She shook so hard, it wasn't clear how many women she was.

Greg's cleft chin centered on one gunman, than the other, than the other.

Just drop the gun, *******.

We don't want to ruin no one's breakfast.

Fellas, I said, he doesn't have any bullets in his gun. We need a little money that's all.

That ****** is just trying to protect him.

I'm calling the cops, a purple-haired old woman yelped from under her table. Silverware clanged against the floor. Then the buzz of a fly. Then the pop of fries drowning in grease. Then the bell chimed as some idiot walked inside.

Greg's arm was shaky as he pointed the gun at me. Do you love me? he asked.

I blinked.

And I was at 3B's in Bellevue, Tennessee.

I blinked.

And I was at 3B's in Bellevue, Tennessee.

I blinked.

And I was at 3B's in Bellevue, Tennessee.

I put my arms up. Slid my chair back a ways. Stepped on the chair, then unto the table.

Do you love me? Greg asked.

His breath smelled like last night's alcohol and that morning's coffee. He was a child, a sunburnt child with a cap gun. He wasn't going to hurt anyone.

I put my hand on top of the revolver and lowered it. He crumpled, as if I were scolding him. They still pointed their guns at us. But for the first time in my life, I felt secured, tethered to a space.

I lifted Greg's chin up with my index finger. Covered his eyes with the palm of my hand. And I kissed him. I kissed him, keeping my eyes closed tight.
SexySloth Dec 2014
Evening light is gentle, slow
Caressing leaves, metal roofs, soil
Plants, flowers, pavements and gates
Clouds are the mothers - they shield us
Lest the sun shines too much.

Take a breath and look around;
The sweet and tranquil garden will take it away.
All colour blend in synchronised harmony;
Blues and browns, pinks and whites
Crossing into and over each other like
oil paints,
Warm, welcoming, beautiful.

It is soothing - the sound of nothing
That disrupts; razes; hates
Disturbs; curbs quiet insight;
One's imagination is the lone
source of maximum sound
That vibrates through the garden.

My grandfather, my grandmother's brother,
Smiles as though the sun shines through his teeth
Dresses in a pale blue shirt
Black shorts
Both well-worn
Ready to play
some basketball.

Oh, the joy, the fun
The refreshment arising from this game in a courtyard
In grandfather's garden
Among young trees, leaves and other green growth.
There stands a home by hand made
Basketball stand,
A concrete base with metal support hands
Floppy strings of hoop
To shoot the ball into.

The garden has been bathed, it is fresh
It is refreshed.
Grandfather demonstrates, I listen and follow,
To throw the ball into the hoop
With precision and care; throw some force
Into the air.
The ball dances around the circle
then drops to the concrete floor.

We take turns
As I throw and grandfather returns
9/10 of the time my aim's bad
but the ball grandfather throws, I actually catch!
(Or it will tumble on wet soil)

Exciting, the thumping
of rubber ball against ground;
Keen eyes and agile hands and feet
To catch the stray ball;
With swift movements the ball flies!
From sideways, afar and near,
Into the hoop successfully, finally.

Back into the house we go,
As the sun leaves for home.
The garden prepares for night;
So do grandfather and I;
Grandfather washes up; I talk to
Grandmother in the garden;
waiting for night, to
fall
fall
fall,
into infinite darkness -
poignant memories
Originally written on Dec 9, 2014.
Nigel Morgan Nov 2013
Think of an imagined orchestra. But there is no resonance hereabouts, so the imagination gives next to nothing for your efforts, and even in surround-sound there’s so little to reflect the dimensions of the space your walking inhabits. Sea hardly counts, having its constant companionship with wind, and sand hills absorb the footfall. A shout dies here before the breath has left the lungs.

Listen, there is a vague twittering of wading birds flocked far out on the sand. The sea rolls and breaks a rhythmic swell into surf. There’s a little wind to rustle the ammophila and only the slight undefined noise of our bodies moving in this strip between land and sea. Nowhere here can sound be enclosed except within the self. There’s a kind of breathing going on, and much like our own, it has to be listened for with a keen attention.

There is such a confusion of shapes making detail difficult to gather in, even to focus upon, and to attempt an imagined orchestration – impossible. We’ll have to wait for the camera’s catch, its cargo to be brought to the back-lit screen. Once there it seems hardly a glimmer of what we thought we saw, what we ‘snapped’ in an instant. It’s too detached, too flat. So thankfully you sketch, and I feel the pen draw shapes into your fingers and their moving, willing hand. On your sketchbook’s page the image breathes and lives.

You can’t sketch music this way because the mark made buries itself in a network that seems to defy with its complexity any image set before you. Time’s like that. You end up with a long low pitch, pulsating; a grumbling sound rich in sliding harmonics. You see, landscape does not beget melody or even structure and form, only tiny, pebbled pockets of random sound. Here, there is no belonging of music. Only the built space can adequately house music’s home. We might ****** a few seconds of the sea’s turn and wash, a bird’s cry, the rub and clatter of boot on stone, and later bring it back to a timeline of digital audio and be ‘musical’ with it, or not.

Where we hold music to landscape is something we are told just happens to be so; it is the interpretation’s (and the interpreter’s) will and whim. It is an illusion. The Lark Ascends in a Norfolk field. We hear, but rarely see, this almost stationary bird high in the morning air. We can only imagine the lark’s eye view, but we know the story, the poem, the context, so our imagination learns to supply the rest.

What is taken then to be taken back? On this November beach, on this mild, windless afternoon,. Am I collecting, preparing, and easing the mind, un-complicating mental space, or unravelling past thoughts and former plans? I can then imagine sitting at a table, a table before a window, a window before a garden, and beyond the garden (through the window) there’s a distant vista of the sea where the sun glistens (it is early morning), and there too in the bright sky remains a vestige of a night’s drama of clouds. But today we shall not put music to picture from a camera’s contents, from any flat and lifeless image.

Instead there seem to be present thoughts alive in this ancient coastline, abandoned here the necessary industry of living, the once ceaseless business of daily life. Instead of the hand to mouth existence governed by the herring, the course strip farming below the castle, the herds of dark cattle, the possible pigs, some wandering sheep, seabirds and their eggs for the ***, the gathering of seaweed, the foraging for fuel: there is a closing down for winter because the visitors are few. We need the rest they say, to regroup, paint the ceilings, freshen up the shop, strengthen the fences, have time away from the relentlessness of accommodating and being accommodating. Only the smell of smoking the herring remains from the distant past – but now such kippering is for Fortnums.

We step out across and down and up the coastal strip: an afternoon and its following morning;  a few miles walking, nothing serious, but moving here and there, taking it in, as much as we can. We fill ourselves to the brim with what’s here and now. The past is never far away: in just living memory there was a subsistence life of the herring fishers and the itinerant fisher folk who followed the herring from Aberdeen to Plymouth. Now there are empty holiday lets, retirement properties and most who live here service the visitors. Prime cattle graze, birds are reserved, caravans park next to a floodlit hotel and its gourmet restaurant. There’s even a poet here somewhere - sitting on a rock like a siren with a lovely smile.

Colours: dull greens now, wind-washed-out browns, out and above the sea confusions of grey and black stone, floating skeins of orange sands and the haunting, restless skies. Far distant into the west hills are sculpted by low-flying clouds resting in the mild air. Wind turbines step out across the middle distance, but today their sails are stationary. As the bay curves a settlement of wooden huts, painted chalets then the grey steep roofed houses of stone, grey and hard against the sea.

Does music come out of all this? What appears? What sounds? What is sounding in me? There is nothing stationary here to hang on to because even on this mild day there is constant change. Look up, around, adjust the viewpoint. There’s another highlight from the sky’s palette reflecting in the estuary water, always too various and complex to remember.

Music comes out of nothing but what you build it upon. It holds the potential for going beyond arrangements of notes. Pieces become buildings, layers in thought. My only landscape music to date begins with a formal processional, a march, and a gradually broadening out of tonality the close-knit chromatic to the open-eared pentatonic. There’s a steady stream of pitches that do not repeat or recur or return on themselves, as so much music needs to do to appease our memory.

In this landscape there seem only sharp points of dissonance. I hear lonely, disembodied pitches, uncomfortable sounds that are pinned to the past. The land, its topography as a score grasping the exterior, lies in multi-dimensional space, sound in being, a joining of points where there is no correlation. There’s a map and directions and a flow of time: it starts here and ends there, and so little remains for the memory.

Yet, this location remains. We walked it and saw it fortunately for a brief time in an uninhabited state. We were alone with it. We looked at this land as it meets the sea, and I saw it as a map on which to place complexes of sound, intensities even,. But how to meet the musical utterance that claims connection? It is a layering of complexes between silences, between the steady step, the stop and view. There is perhaps a hierarchy of landscape objects: the curve of the bay, the sandhills’ sweep, the layerings of sand, and in the pools and channels of this slight river that divides this beach flocks of birds.

Music is such an intense structure, so bound together, invested with proportions so exact and yet weighed down by tone, the sounding, vibrating string, the column of air broken by the valve and key, the attack and release of the hammered string. But there is also the voice, and voices are able to sound and carry their own resonance . . .

. . . and he realised that was where these long drawn out thoughts, this short diary of reflection, had been leading. He would sit quietly in contemplation of it all and work towards a web of words. He would let their rhythms and sounds come together in a map, as a map of their precious, shared time moving between the land and the sea, the sea and the land.
Mara W Kayh Nov 2014
outside it's browns and greys
Inside an orange glow permeates,
skimming the surface
a Ravel march serenade.
the scent of burning pumkin.
You're in the garden planting tulips for
Spring.
when it arrives,
will kindness bloom anew
alongside the rows of colour..
or will we witness the beauty out there
Separately?
a snap shot of the moment. sitting at my computer, trying to make soup. :-)  in a light mood while it's grey outside. with a tinge of fall/winter blues
Paul Holmes Jan 2012
SPRING

I slowly unfurl to the World
Stretching up to the sky blue
And sense an early morning chill
Of Spring waking me anew.
Each day grows a little warmer
As daylight hours extend
Making this leaf feel fresher,
Tothe bright sunlight I bend.

SUMMER

I’m at my most greenest now,
Hot sun burns upon my veins;
How glad am I to finally enjoy
Those cooling, copious rains.
At which point, I pour in drips,
A refreshing, rousing trickle
That falls on grass and buttercup
Teasing them with a tickle.

AUTUMN

Mists have now arrived, enshrouding
My form with heavy dew;
The greens has all but leached away,
Bled from veins no longer new.
Down below the tree are vivid reds
Browns and translucent golds
Which, increasingly each day now
People their captivation holds.

WINTER

The first frost of Winter
And a biting, northerly breeze
Cut into me,and scores of others
Were torn from their trees.
I’ve fallen now, to the ground
All wrinkled, and utterly fragile
Awaiting my final hour
Until, I meet my funeral pile…
envydean Nov 2015
Driving into the city
The early morning
Just stirring
The street lights still glow
Their ***** orange

But the sky
The sky is amassed with colour
From the deep dark blue of night
Where I can still see the stars
And the moon shines bright
It melts in the east
To pinks and oranges
Almost browns and purples
Mixed with the light blue
Of the crisp chilled air.
You can't see the sun
Not yet
The clouds  are sparked grey
But no rain is forecast
Perhaps we'll get snow
It seems cold enough.
Thought about this as I drove to work this morning. The sky was astounding, I wish I could have taken a picture
JC Lucas Aug 2015
I drove while she slept.

We were both tired,
******,
maybe a little drunk still.
I had the music turned up
to try and convince myself I was awake enough
to manage a ton of galvanized steel on fire
down the highway.
Somehow she still managed
to wrap herself around my arm
and breathe easy.

We got back to my place at the other end of town
and she curled up in my bed
and might as well have been comatose.
I lay there for a few minutes contemplating how warm she was
next to me.
I think I fell asleep smiling.

We made hurried love for the first time
just after dawn.
In honesty, I could have been better.
I should have been better-
but I have a tendency to **** these things up
when they go right.

I cooked breakfast while she sat
and told me about her family-
hash browns and eggs.
Butter in the pan, flame at medium,
stir occasionally.
Simple.
I must have been distracted,
kissing her cheek
because all the same I burnt them.

It felt like an omen.

We ate what we could salvage
and then I drove her home.
luxury and loathing
luxury the coating, loathing at the center.
moaning and groaning despite all the
gifts your holding and
the soul you wish you had.

a love of beauty and sin in you're heart
is all that is needed to
live up to the portrait
or is it the picture?
Joan Karcher Nov 2012
blushing hues
preserving precious nutrition
the sun is moving closer
releasing fingers that once reached high
tumbling to the ground
drying out, and crinkling
the sun is turning its face
allowing the next phase to begin

insignificant
like tiny ants crowding the cracks
minuscule
like the creeper ******* nutrients
one "being" on earth
one earth, in the middle of "space"


ancient methuselah,
your mycelium branching-
entwining, and communicating
giving strength to brethren
as hibernation takes hold
birthing fungi anew

*orange, browns, yellows and reds
i give my breath away
*

Methuselah is a Great Basin Bristlecone Pine (Pinus longaeva) tree,  
Its age of around 4844–4845 years makes it the world's oldest known living non-clonal organism
MJL Mar 2019
Fescue fields in view
Electric neon butter *****
Scattered glowing beacons
Dot the greens and browns
Magnets for little hands
Tiny feet racing to keep up
Their laser focus
To pick and pick and pick
More and more and more
Fistfuls of joy
To tickle the nose
To share laughter
To put in a pocket
Then nap and forget


© 2019 MJL
Kara Jean May 2016
Suicide,
Two types of feelings in production  
The ones who have lived it in some way
The ones who have never felt it's brutality  
I can not explain it's perplexety
I can say what it is not meant to be
Selfish should never be uttered out of man kind
How could anyone let something hold so much control
A question many hold
Have you took place of another humans body or possibly telepathically inclined
You replied no then ignorant is your judgement
I have no great epiphany in reasoning
Experience is my lead

List of eating disorders inhabited my processing
Mom constantly ******* at what was taking place
She hardly  looked at my fragile eyes
She walked out the door to calm herself
I needed help
Twisted was my concept
My mom would no longer worry
My family would be free from my iniquities
I only had to count to three
Swallow plenty
I was ready
Scratching my throat
Hitting  my stomache  

My mom emotional mess walked back in
Letting me know she would fight for me
I told her time was limited
I held the pills with loss dignity  
Emergency room waiting
Heart monitor
Cords stringing around the bedding
Doctor conversing on the phone
Assuming poison control
I felt "it"
The calmest  feeling ever crossed by man
The soft bright light hitting my bronzed hair
Black went the room
I lost it
Stab went the needle into me
First tranquilizer was be fitting  
Doctor harrasing  me for my stupidity
I could only picture the sounds of Charlie Browns parenting
Brain went crazy
Who the **** was I anyways
Maybe I should **** this troll
He really is bugging
Next round in play
The needle went in again
tranquilizer two was on it's way
Falling in a blank misery sleep

Insane asylum is where you end up with dawn hitting
Incoherent was still my state
Puking in every garbage I could see
Waking up to girls standing over my head
Wanting to hear my story
Was I truly loosing grasp on reality
Adam ******* was my counsler
Recreation fun barred in
Nightly tantrums ***** shot accompanied
My visit was almost done
Circle of trust
Family plan mapped and ready  

I made it home
My distorted brain had no change
Took me passing out a couple more times on the bathroom floor
Towel upon my face fan blasting loudly
Awake I finally came
Perseverance and loss of my sanity
Pushed me
Now I'm ******* resilient to the battles of hell
Michael S Davis Feb 2013
I used to stand in awe and watch Grandma making biscuits.
She’d take her wooden bowl, then dip the floor and sift it.
As snowy flour would drift to form a mound of just so much;
She’d form a crater lake of buttermilk and shortening with her loving touch.

She would smile and watch our faces as she squeezed the flour to goop
And transform the mess she made into dough that she would scoop.
A pinch she’d take and make a ball to flatten in her palm.
Then with her thumb she’d press it down, so gently and so calm.

With care she next would take the dough and place it on a pan;
A thumb print etched in dough as she continued with her plan,
To place the pats side by side until the pan was filled
By perfect rows all laid out with hands so quick and skilled.

That cozy pan she placed into an oven warmed just right
And closed the door to seal them in and cook them out of sight.
In timely care she’d pull them free, delicious golden browns
Setting fresh hot biscuits on the table, to banish morning frowns.

Now I stand in awe and think of all the biscuits she has made,
Of all the time her thumb has pressed, as her heart has prayed.
Life finds us now, her children, in life’s wooden bowls
And we feel her loving touch as she leaves her thumbprint on our souls.

For Grandma Mary Grace Kindley Davis
On the occasion of her 105th birthday, February 9, 2007
Presented to her at her Birthday Party the next day.
©2007 Michael S. Davis
My Grandmother had 13 children, 50 grandchildren, and more than 80 great grands at the time of her passing at 105, just a few months after her birthday. As a farming family, she made pans of biscuits for her family two and three times a day and continued to so so into her 90's. She made a LOT of biscuits. She also lived up to her middle name, Grace. Even after reaching 100 years of age, those of us visiting over night would find ourselves struggling in our middle age to get down on our knees in the sitting room before bedtime for our night time prayers.  I started writing this poem when she turned 100. It took me a while to reach a point where I felt i had something to give her. i think she liked it. Her response if she heard something negative about someone or heard something she really liked was the same words. A quiet "Oh my." The negative was a short prayerful one. The positive was a one where the "my" was drawn out to show her delight. I did get the drawn out one.

She was a remarkable woman. She attended church up until just a couple of weeks before her passing. Had played the piano and sang just a few months before. I can imagine being a member of the church she attended and getting up on Sunday morning, not wanting to go to church and then saying to yourself..."I bet Mrs. grace will be there - guess I just don't have an excuse."
We miss her dearly and still feel the imprint of her remarkable life upon our souls.

We miss her dearly and still feel the imprint of her remarkable life upon our souls.
This Ain't a ******* Country Song

You know I love my Rock and Roll

I wouldn't write a Country Song

'Cause that's not how I roll

This song it ain't bout country things

Like pickup trucks and cars

You'll never find me writing

About getting drunk in bars

There's no mention here of Taylor Swift

or The Charlie Daniels Band

I wouldn't write of how the banks

are taking our farmland

This Ain't a ******* Country Song

You know I love my Rock and Roll

I wouldn't write a Country Song

'Cause that's not how I roll

I don't know **** 'bout Redneck stuff

like hunting dogs and guns

I wouldn't write of Daisy Dukes

showing off some hot babes buns

I won't write 'bout the Opry

I don't know all that stuff

Of Minnie Pearl and Grandpa Jones

And Mr. Roy Acuff

This Ain't a ******* Country Song

You know I love my Rock and Roll

I wouldn't write a Country Song

'Cause that's not how I roll

There's nothing here 'bout Bourbon

or of Racing through the fields

I don't know much about farming

or crop futures or of yields

I listen to The Rolling Stones

Trace Adkins I don't like

Lady A can go away

Kid Rock can ride his bike

You won't hear much about Zac Browns Band

or of food thats Chicken Fried

I might go to a hoedown

If I'd  just  up and died

My music, it fulfills me

It makes me who I am

But I'll stay away from country

songs, Cause I don't give a ****

No Oak Ridge Boys or Hee Haw Here

Hank Williams I won't buy

I'll never buy a Dixie Beer

It's a drink I'll never try

I won't sing about Kentucky

or of a Texas Yellow Rose

you know this aint no country song

Good god I hope it shows

There's no mohter, dogs or applie pie

no  fishin' in the dark

No Everything is Beautiful

No songs by Terry Clark

I'm really open minded

My friends they are the same

We won't buy country music

To us it's just so lame

This Ain't a ******* Country Song

You know I love my Rock and Roll

I wouldn't write a Country Song

'Cause that's not how I roll

I won't mention stuff you'll find

in songs by Nashville bands

There's nothing here about

watching football in the stands

I'll never write a country song

Cause country just ain't fun

Oh crap I just read this thing

And I think I just wrote one

This Ain't a ******* Country Song

You know I love my Rock and Roll

I wouldn't write a Country Song

'Cause that's not how I roll
WARNER BAXTER Dec 2013
IMMEDIATELY PLEASE REMOVE ALL OF MY INFORMATION FROM YOUR DATA BASE FORTHWITH.  ALSO,
ADVISE ANY AND ALL CONTRACTORS, SUB-CONTRACTORS, AGENTS, SUB-AGENTS, AFFILIATES, PARTNERS, COLLEAGUES, ASSOCIATES, CLIENTS, WEBMASTERS, WEB BASED LINKS, WINKS, TWINKS, COLONEL CLINCKS, BOSSES, CO-WORKERS, EMPLOYEES, VENDORS, SUPPLIERS, SALESMEN, ASCCOUNT REPS/EXCS, ACCOUNTANTS, BROKERS, CO-BROKERS, HACKERS, SLACKERS, WHACKERS, JERKS, PIMPS, HOES, HOBOS, BUMS, DERELICTS, DEGENERATES, DOPERS, DEALERS, TWEEKERS, GAMBLERS, RAMBLERS, SOLICITORS, SIDEKICKS, COHORTS, WINGMEN, WHEELMEN, LOOKOUTS, OUTLAWS, IN-LAWS, RELATIVES, FIANCES, GIRLFRIENDS, BOYFRIENDS, FAMILY, FRIENDS, ENEMIES, EVIL NEMISIS', CANVASSERS, INQUIRERS, QUEERS, QUEENS, COWBOYS, KINGS, ****, DRAGS, HAGS, HETEROS, HOMOS, TONY ROMOS, FEMALE IMPERSONATORS, (PRE OR POST) MALE IMPERSONATORS, *****, *****, VAN *****, **** VAN ****, LESBIANS, LIARS, BUYERS, CRYERS, CIGAR SMOKERS, CARPET MUNCHERS, RUG RATS, TODDLERS, TEENAGERS, YOUNGSTERS, SENIORS, SUCKERS, TRUCKERS, MOTHER shut yer mouth, LAW MAKERS, LAWYERS, ATTORNEYS, JUDGES, POLITICIANS, PECKERWOODS, LEADERS, FOLLOWERS, DISCIPLES, PROPHETS, EVANGELISTS, SAVIORS, SINNERS, SAINTS, SOOTHSAYERS, MEDICINE MEN, GYPSYS, TRAMPS, AND THIEVES, WITCHES, WARLOCKS, VAMPIRES, LYCANS, ZOMBIES, WAR MONGERS, PROTESTERS, SOLIDERS, GENERALS, GOVERNORS, PRESIDENTS, PATRIOTS, PACKERS, LIONS, BEARS, BROWNS, BLACKHAWKS, REDWINGS, RIGHT WING, LIBERALS, OR LAW BIDING CITIZENS, THEY ARE NOT TO CONTACT ME AND LOOSE MY NUMBER.
BUT IF YOU SEE MY MOM, TELL HER TO CALL ME.

............................................................­............BA-ZING..............................................­......................
John McCormick Nov 2010
I would like to say just a few words about my father. However, I could speak forever about him. There are some things you may already know about him and other things you may not. But I think there are some things everyone may want to know about him.

My father, James Franklin McCormick, Senior, or Frank as he preferred to be called, was 69-years-old and a role model in demonstrating a strong work ethic. He worked at his job at Dayton Stencil for 44 years and was getting ready for work the morning he had a stroke. He worked almost every day even though he was 85% disabled from war injuries.

He obtained a broken back in the Army while preparing to go to war. After his partcail recovery, he was injured again while serving overseas in the Korean War. That's the reason he is being buried wearing his Korean War ball cap. He was proud to be a Veteran.

In addition to wearing his Korean War ball cap, he had a Brown's ball cap he also loved to wear. The Browns were his favorite team.

My father didn't just work ******* his job, he also worked hard at being a great father and husband and taking care of his family. He was always there when someone needed him and always offered his unconditional love and support.

My father loved being a dad and a grandfather. He loved his children and grandchildren very much and made us all know it.

His love for my mother was always evident. He was always at her side through good times and bad. He was there through her many illnesses. When my mother had cancer and it was clear she wouldn't be able to drive for a long time, he at the age of 64, got his driver license for the first time since his war days so he could help with all the things that she had always taken care of. After he got his license, he bought a huge Ford truck that he loved driving

I feel blessed that I got to spend a few weeks with my Dad before he passed. I felt it a blessing to watch my mother with my father and see all the love they still had for each other. They celebrated their 49th wedding anniversary on September 12th, 2 days before he passed. Their love and commitment to each other is inspiring. They had almost 50 years together.

In his earlier years, my father was very competitive in any sport he participated in. He always tried to be the best and usually was. He loved golf, bowling, pool and poker. Although that last one really isn't a sport. In recent years, he loved to play Bingo. He probably would've gone to Bingo every night if he could have. He won often and had a lot of friends there. He also enjoyed hunting and fishing.

My father had a great sense of humor and would try to trick or fool you at times. However, you could always tell he was up to something by a certain mischievous grin he would get on his face that always gave him away.

Even in his last days while in the hospital, before he got very ill, he would try to tease you. If you sat too close to him on the bed or touched something that was connected to him like a wire, he would let out a moan like you hurt him in some way. But then, there you would see that grin.

I believe that was his unselfish way of comforting us while we were comforting him.
Now you know a little bit more about my father. Like I said before I could go on and on about him.

The last thing I want to say I would like to say it to my father.

"Dad, you were loved and appreciated by all your friend & family. Thanks you for being the man you were. You have helped us and will always help us to be better people for knowing you and having you in our lives. Your love and devotion as a husband, a father, a grandfather, a brother and a friend will carry us and strengthen us until we all meet again. You will be deeply missed. Thank you, Dad."

And thank all of you for being here today and for your support.
Ma Cherie Oct 2016
Somewhere,
out in the middle of nowhere,
there is a space,
where bare bones performance's
are nightly taking place,
like theatre at its best,
thrilling energy
a chill in the air,
you are creating
unique worlds on a stage
& I hear it's all the rage
a modest audience,
captivating you are
so utterly charming and memorable,
I can get lost in your woods
in that beautifully familiar rural spot,
harvesting &
catching hay fever,
running through the barns
in empty old bays
of long vacant farms,
while the cattle graze placidly,
my usung heroes beckon,
along split rail fences,
haunting..
along the old railroad beds,
down unknown highways
& on little know by ways
& drifting in skyways
through the years & the tears
as the last of the Summer flowers,
bloom and bow their head,
in the rain & the pain,
and the words you gently hear
whispered softly in your ear,
spoke clearly to the sky
as they sadly say goodbye
& promised I wouldn't cry,
I listen to exactly what they said
as they are applauded for their stamina,
& bravery, as the chlorophyll,
chokes out the beauty
in everything else,
a way to take in the natural beauty,
**** a big breath in
& waiting to exhale,
I'm hiking home, ...
to my poetic theater,
with tables scattered  about,
& mushroom stools,
a wonderland of  creatures
around weaving arts,
threads spun in gold,
of my everyday life
again it  is told,
like in a romantic candlelit
dinner date,
we sit beneath an glowing
incandescent Moon,
we are a rare & lucid,
sighting, two stars
two colors merged
from a Gods crayon box,
or a well thought out picnic
with a very special friend
farm to table wonders
delicious in every way,
you close your eyes to dream,
& all you ever need,
is an element of trust,
a sense of adventure,
appreciating the sacrifices
the pleasure fills the air
I'm traveling past,
as is if without a care
swimming in the frigid clean
& cold waters,
rolling mountains protect me on every side
come along for the ride,
down grey gravel roads,
with the heaviest load,
where trees still have some color,
as the pines & ever-greens brag,  
& envious poison ivy,
climbs the silo
in burning fiery furnace red,
golden amber browns
& deep golden mustards
crunch beneath tires
as wood is drying out
& is readied for the fires,
beyond ****** meadows
& the bog where the Moose hide
that mysterious house,
perched pretty on the hill
weathered perfectly,
seasoned & mature,
looking wise & reminiscent,
of a different era,
and a show like this
would only cost 55 cents...
World War 2
in the Pacific just after it...
you moved to Vermont
and live like a hippie,
smoking our chimney
sitting silently
in classic melodious splendor,
a tune is playing
as wheat is swaying,
a fiddle, out in the middle
of my favorite fields
counting the bounty yield,
admiring the tractors parked
for the year
some think,
your just a farce
though I know the fear,
you're not a a travesty,
in shambles
your multi tone shingles
craving a dose of stain,
your old rocking chair
never earning the critical acclaim
you deserve & desire,
  so lovely in your period costume,
as you sit there,
with ease and comfort,
awaiting patrons,
with your zany characters,
with open doors & cracking windows,
a sadness radiating,
from a broken style,
looking out at everything
glad with a frozen smile,
waving at yesterday's poets,

Getting ready for another show
and time is now, for another snow,
your solid pane's,
cheering others on saying
"way to go"...
and if...

If you ever find this place,
you don't know exactly,
what all the fuss is about,

ignoring the change of weather
pulling out that old red sweater
coming to this wonderful,
magical time
a little homestead theater
generationally strong
and melodramatic
with perfect comic timing
a delight
in the night,
I'll happily play the housemaid
delivering a tray of tea
with honey and cream
answering the doorbell
inviting you in
have a seat
giving you something to eat
and this is my treat,
I'll gladly greet the guests
make them comfortable
at our beautiful little venue
our ***** little nest
as the curtains open and close
for the shows,
730 it comes and goes
in the center of my universe
caught in a time warp,
so much good fun and laughter
inspired moments in a perfect ensemble
cast by my ancestors,

I had no idea it would taste,
so amazing,
this bittersweetness,
and so very delicious
my feet ache...
worn,
tired, relieved at last
I am,
coming home to you,
at last I hear,
you say,
welcome back.

Cherie Nolan© 2016
Wow, idk inspired....
So beautiful love & life...could be... ; ):
Ronald J Chapman Dec 2014
A crisp, clear autumn day.

Looking up, I see!
A blue sky.
Wow, the autumn sky is so blue and high!

Why is the autumn sky so high that I can see the stars in the day?

Temperatures go low,
Crisp clear autumn air,
No monsoon clouds cry rain anywhere.

Nighttime sky so clear,
Cosmic explosions everywhere.

It's a wonderful time of the year.
Blues, reds, browns, greens seen everywhere.

Looking up, I see,
The high blue autumn sky.

© 2013 Ronald J Chapman All Rights Reserved.
5/6/00 3:49 PM
I am transcribing this mornings’ writings.
It is 11 a.m. I have been naked all day.  So many windows to look through, both physically and in the mind.  
I have been near silent the whole time I have been in this house.  I find it so strangely familiar here.  It fits; it all fits in the mysterious cosmic way I have yet to discover.
*I am a person who visits ‘his house when he is on trips.  And here I find myself on a trip or two indeedy.  The house, thought 1, I love his style.
It makes me think of what I want for myself.  There is fantasy and reality to indulge in here.
Reality is the space and freedom.  Space for all things special and ordinary.  I miss space and order.  He has all the thought provoking areas of interest of a real home.  The colors are rich, deep blue, burgundy, and browns, all used in an artful mix of styles.  Oddly pondering here because I would choose many of the same pieces myself.  Every room has space for dancing, which I have done naked a few times here now.
Everyone else is watching big screen movies.  I am in the other living room on a big brown leather couch; still naked, touching all of ‘his things with my body.  
I awoke this morning to the sound of the modem.  I swear it is the perfect alarm clock for me!  You know I get excited every time I here the perfect connection.  
My dreams were vivid awake and asleep because ‘he is on a trip and I am sleeping naked in the master bedroom.  There is the possibility he could have come home at anytime.  I had spent 6 hours already that night naked in his home without his knowledge.  Everyone is used to me being naked when we come stay here.  I don’t want to put clothes on here, in this house.
It is not the people around seeing me naked in the yard sunbathing, or running around the big house with big windows which have no coverings btw.
It is the space and atmosphere that draws out my facets.  This space sparks my exhibitionist in a feisty way. * All the ***** massages for me to relax and enjoy, just being papered to highs. *  
The white leather couch and a 60-inch screen for movies- others are sitting in the chairs and on the floor.
One joins me on the sofa.  Everyone is watching a movie, so am I when my eyes are open.  I am on the couch on my stomach, with a pillow under my hips and my head.  My legs spread wide, there I am being touched inside and out constantly.  I moan, open my eyes and see the many eyes on me and the ’s.  I close my eyes and smile and say “watch the movie you guys geez”, giggle, wiggle and moan again.  The surround sound covers some of my whimpers.  
As soon as the movie was over I walked to the master bedroom and turned on the light.  HIS clothes, files, and suitcases were still on the bed.  WoW he really could come home.  I wanted that bed!
-We- cleared the bed and I jumped in the middle and put ‘his pillow under my ***.  I don’t know ‘him, but I love his style and I wanted to *** on his bed and pillows.  The fact that I come here and stay naked all over his things excites me, and he has no idea.  And yes, I came all over the master bed, we ****** madly!  I know the others heard my bells and chains clinking at a feverish pace.  I listened to the sounds ‘his bed made.  I fully enjoyed his headboard, grabbing his oak poles, feeling each one up and down, as I was getting closer to coming.  Ahhh my hand finds a broken bar, I think how it must have been broken by ‘him doing what I was at that moment.  That moment I came.
My mind was so in this “space”, that after we were spent I jumped up and ran to the pool.  Everyone else was still wake and followed me outside.  Skinny-dipping after hours of pleasure is the best recovery!  Wooo Hooo!  
I was the only one naked – still, I didn’t mind and neither did anyone else.  They were announcing to me when the pool jets came on, giggles, they wanted me sitting on them.  A wind picked up and I went inside, everyone followed me in.  
We all watched Eyes Wide Shut, and then everyone went to his or her separate rooms.  
I took ‘his room, I love the big space, the many doors and windows all left open, so nice and free.  I stood beside ‘his bed and slowly dropped my chains and bells beside his slippers on the floor.  I sprawled about on his sheet and fell into a light sleep.
I was dreaming that there was a camera taking pictures of me, while I was replaying in my dream the real conversation I had with ‘him the night before.  He was asleep on the phone, I called and he never fully woke up to give my message to his roommate.  I listened to him breath, and I spoke quietly to him, softly and sweetly, he spoke back a few times and then I hung up.  But in the dream I was having it was *******, and I was talking in my sleep, in ‘his bed.  What a twist of cosmic ways.  With all the dreams: of the snap shots and the discovery of me in his bed, ****, alone and moaning **** me.   In my dream I was saying it, and I know the other people in the other rooms could hear me speaking my mind in my sleep.  The rooms are close by indeed.
Awoke by the modem with 5 hours of sleep, I was stiff bodied, yet excited to wake up in ‘his bed.  It was 8:30 a.m. I rolled over and moaned loud enough to draw attention to myself, knowing it would work .
I kept my eyes closed and softly said how sore my ribs and back were.  The hands of the night before returned to rub my body once again.  After a few minutes of morning massage, I smiled, giggled and rolled off the bed and darted to the pool.
Naked morning sunshine, I love it, jump in the pool and by the time I got fully wet the coffee came to me.  Everyone was eating breakfast poolside while I skinny-dipped my body into a limber state.  After breakfast everyone jumped in the pool with me, but I was the only one naked.  We all swam for 30 minutes or so.  I spotted the lounge chair and decided to sunbathe Seconds after my body reclined, the hands and oil came to pamper me once again.  I was spread out in full view of all in the pool, getting slicked up al over, with oil and such.  It felt great inside and out, I didn’t care that everyone was watching me get my ***** satisfied.  I was vividly aware of where I was, out in the open space and the freedom of space, as I thought my *** rose in the air and my body twitched repeatedly.  I heard the voices in the pool, and felt the sun on me as I came hard, right there in front of everyone.  Hell, I needed help getting up off that chair, and an oiled hand took mine, and led me to the master bedroom.
The master’s bed now has oil on the sheets and the headboard, and the wall.  I left myself all over his things.  He will know some of my essence whether he knows it or not, I will.  Here I sit naked in his den loving every naked minute of it.
I am back from being oil girl.  Being bent over people spreading glistening oil on nakedness, my *** got a lil bit to much sun!  I go to the master bedroom again, everyone is still poolside.  I try on things, because they are left out on the bed.  You know how I always ask what a mans' favorite pair of pants are?  Well there was 501’s in my size, I couldn’t resist sliding him on me, loving how they fit my ***.  I went back outside and paraded around showing how good ‘his pants fit me.  “Do you have underwear on?” I was asked, I laughed and said no.  I got an odd look from the people.  I danced off to the bedroom and put them back, knowing how he fit was enough.
Right now I am sitting outside writing and a camera is pointed right at my *****.  So I shall stand up for a few shots.  I got up and stood on the table and spread for some close ups, ****, ok enough sun, my **** are red.
After delivering a few drinks poolside, I return to ‘his bed, laying on my belly, thinking, pen in hand.
I hear the shower turn off and I close my legs, I feel the wet drops hit my back, as he sits on my legs.  He is holding them together with his weight.  I feel the oil hit my back, sliding down the crack of my ***.
The lower back massage becomes two bodies sliding against each other.  At first his hands slide between my tightly pressed thighs.  My hips grabbed and lightly lifted, raising my *** in the air, yet tightly holding my legs together.
A breath on my neck touched me at the same time he entered my ***** once again.  My pen never left my hand.  I was focused.
I go for a smoke and jump back into the pool, knowing its time for me to leave soon.  As I enter the main room, in just *******, I pick up my lotion and start putting it on my arms.  Hands from behind gently take the lotion and begin putting it on my sunburned back.  I defiantly feel the fact that I have ******* on as the hands reach my lower back and slowly pull them off……
This was my first husbands last attempt to keep me as his wife by taking me on a weekend to his friends house with a pool.
The story is very telling that my mind is truly not on present, but on what is not there. By saying this I almost ruin the erotica of it..but the psychology of the the story is rich too..
I wrote that day and the next paragraph by paragraph, each hour or so.
Who else was present is everyone who always saw me naked and saw it as no big deal. I was a nudist, they knew it. Its all very true...
saranade Jul 2014
DNR
my glacier blues stared down into the darkest browns.

I said, "I don't want be brought back. Be it a sudden death, stroke, whatever, maybe a heart attack.  Let me go if its my time.  If its my turn I'll gladly go, hey, even in my prime."

the darker didn't understand,  or didn't want know.
I was saying goodbye if it was my time to go....

I am DNR.
Arguing on their point to want to live. They didn't get too far.

They made threats, bickered, but I just smiled and said, "Its ok baby. I'm a sensitive RockStar..."

With a DNR
Do Not Resuscitate
Christmas for the buddhists


one day there was a young computer **** kid named Johnny Brown
who was only 13 years old, but he had these visions from one visit to a
department store sitting on Santa's lap, you see he wanted to start up
a site on the internet which was www.theredsantadepartmentstore.com
and he told all his friends and everybody laughed at him saying there is
no such thing as Santa and Johnny cried for days and that made his parents
worry and after several attempts they eventually came into his room, to see
what was the matter, and Johnny said, all the kids are laughing at me, just because i
believed in a web site to bring the magic of santa into the real worldy, and hid parents said
ok if you really think that it is the right idea, go for it, but we want to be in the loop, cause it
is dangerous for a 13 year old boy surfing the web without supervision, and Johnny went
about trying to get this website started, and he started with trying a few christmas carols
and not just kids either, he chose rudolph the red nosed reindeer and jingle bells and
silent night and mary's boy child and hark the herald angels sing and joy to the world and
christmas by the pool and when a child is born and he went into finding a way to get it all
together and then take videos of stuff relating to christmas like the local parade where he
took the photo and then did his commentary over the top of the camera, and after the
parade he took it home and did some editing and posted it on his website, and you know
he had about 5,000,000 hits and this made Johnny very happy as he decided to go to the
annual lighting of the christmas tree and he took some great videos of different singers
performing like the great galah and moby ****, and there was some great carols by the
choir, and then a great shot of the tree, yeah Johnny was having a ball and after thar he went home
to do some editing and then a nice man named Robert O'Callaghan who was 67 years old
who said he was the original Santa and it was a buddhist belief and Johnny really liked this guy,
despite his folks saying he is an evil buddhist cause he believed in enlightment, but Johnny
refused to listen and went to the Buddhist centre to meditate and Robert said to Johnny that it is ok
to have a website where you can put the magic into christmas rather than the ****** thing if Jesus
being born, and Johnny went home and posted that on his website and it caused an uproar with
a lot of churchgoers, this made Johnny's parents very angry with him, and they tried so hard to
close down his website but Robert got on the net to tease the parents to let him express himself
and they said he is our son and they said he is our son and he shouldn't suffer like that and Robert said sometimes it is good to suffer to prove a point in this world, but Johnny's parents said he is only 13,
he shouldn't suffer like that, so Robert went into Johnny's school and took Johnny out to say you
must fight for what you believe in and he told him the story of how his parents thought he was the
devil because he believes in buddhism but if you really want to keep this website happening you must
work on a speech explaining how this cansave the world, so he went into his room and surfed the web
looking for the right things to say for his speech and he first of all learnt about buddhism and he learnt they respect everyone loud and quiet, and there are some people who are Buddhists who love christmas for the peace idea, so he started to write his speech of what he learnt and he learnt that
buddhists believe in staying on earth and mending each blade of grass, which helps healing everyone,
you know christians just believe in jesus saves but what the real story is that story is that knowing there
is a chance that you can live forever will save the world cause Christians hate when people do evil things saying once a crim always a crim, and Johnny explains that Robert posts all his info on his
buddhism website and he saves more people than Jesus ever could, cause buddhists respect you
if you are consertavative or very loud, as long as you don't fight that is ok, and yes Robert says that
Buddhists think Christmas brings peace and it is handy to know Santa brings the spirit than Jesus does,
cause Robert was the original Santa Claus and he can bring peace on earth quicker than quicker than christians because knowing you will never leave this earth is good enough like if it is too late for them but if you can live forever you should try because it will be fun to beat death once and for all and i believe to start this website to one day bring the magic of Santa into the real world and really say that
buddhism is the devil, and the only devil is the phedaphiles who do harm to kids of this land, we need
the kids to be happy, christmas is about peace on earth and good will to everyone and staying on earth believing you were born before this life is sign enough to go on living life like it's a big adventure cause
you will never know what the future has in store, so just live and forget about what others are doing, after getting his speech written he brought it Robert who proof read and did a few changes and then said to Johnny yourself out, you can do anything if you put your mind to it, so Johnny went around from
department store to department store trying to get approval to set up a table to show people the buddhist belief of christmas and every department store knocked him back it ruins people's Christmas
spirit despite Johnny saying hundreds and hundreds of times that this could help the future but still christians were getting upset and were rioting for days saying evil is in the Browns house, they believe in buddhism and buddhists are evil and this got mr and mrs Brown very angry with Johnny but Johnny said, this is piece have a read, it is fun but the parents said no you should learn that you are disobeying
the christian code and Johnny said no my way is more peaceful cause Santa brings happiness to christmas and Jesus brings suffering, and the parents left thinking their son is disappearing and losing touch on reality, saying you are going to die one day and we have a place for you in heaven and Johnny being young and not knowing the buddhist code about peace said, **** heaven, even though Robert liked it when Johnny said that Robert said they sound like the devil preachers, and you need
to understand they are doing it for your own benefit but if you want to believe that, by all means spread
the word but remember buddhists aren't preachers, no it's not a religion either, it's a way of life, and those crazy christians need to understand that they are not forming the work of the devil, but you must understand your parents though they are just protecting you buddy, and on that Johnny went into his room staying there for days and was thinking of a speech to read at the carols by candlelight with everything he has learnt by Robert, and he threw out so many pieces of paper one by one, till he found out what to say and then he ran down to the buddhist centre and told Robert, and Johnny and Robert went on the net via email to get himself a 15 minute spot on carols by candlelight in there local district and  they eventually got an appointment to have an interview at 2.30 two days before to see whether
it is worthy or not and they weren't very friendly implying that they are big christian ******* who don't deserve any credit and they said leave it with us and we'll let you know and Robert and Johnny left the
office very nervous about it all and Robert went back to the buddhist centre and Johnny went back to his room to write a new buddhist Christmas carol which went like this
A ray of a candle which is lighting up the sky
on the people walking down on earth
and a silver tongue was placed
on the devil's spear like this
is the day when buddha is born
and then some monks come
glittering through the sky
and the buddhist chant is at a
volume all so high
and everyone come along
and cheer with us
this is the day that buddha was actually was born
so this is the time we celebrate this fantastic day,
you know Buddha respects Aussie American
british, africa, and the middle east and south america too
and also they help tonga, isreal, and taibet and
the great oceans of the world
and yes after many attempts to get that right, Johnny ran down to the buddhist centre and showed Robert the song and Robert said this is great, and i have some good news Johnny, we are going
to have you read your speech at the christmas carols by candlelight at 6-45, and bring this song with us, and we can see if you can sing this too, and when the day of the christmas carols by candlelight
approached Robert and Johnny right before gearing up for the events and Johnny's parents went as
well because if they think buddhists are evil, they decided to support their son in his beliefs and at 6-45
Johnny came out to read his speech and also sing his song and everyone in the crowd clapped Johnny
like he had just won an Emmy because really he really got his message across and everyone was happy from that point on, Robert felt good about being a buddhist and Johnny helped there once a week getting help understanding buddhist philosophies and learning new things as normal kids do, and
johnny's parents tried to understand more about buddhism to get on board themselves and after 3 years they helped at the buddhist centre too and everyone had a great Christmas, buddhist style.
the end

— The End —