INSTEAD OF A PREFACE

During the frightening years of the Yezhov terror, I
spent seventeen months waiting in prison queues in
Leningrad. One day, somehow, someone 'picked me out'.
On that occasion there was a woman standing behind me,
her lips blue with cold, who, of course, had never in
her life heard my name. Jolted out of the torpor
characteristic of all of us, she said into my ear
(everyone whispered there) - 'Could one ever describe
this?' And I answered - 'I can.' It was then that
something like a smile slid across what had previously
been just a face.
[The 1st of April in the year 1957. Leningrad]

DEDICATION

Mountains fall before this grief,
A mighty river stops its flow,
But prison doors stay firmly bolted
Shutting off the convict burrows
And an anguish close to death.
Fresh winds softly blow for someone,
Gentle sunsets warm them through; we don't know this,
We are everywhere the same, listening
To the scrape and turn of hateful keys
And the heavy tread of marching soldiers.
Waking early, as if for early mass,
Walking through the capital run wild, gone to seed,
We'd meet - the dead, lifeless; the sun,
Lower every day; the Neva, mistier:
But hope still sings forever in the distance.
The verdict. Immediately a flood of tears,
Followed by a total isolation,
As if a beating heart is painfully ripped out, or,
Thumped, she lies there brutally laid out,
But she still manages to walk, hesitantly, alone.
Where are you, my unwilling friends,
Captives of my two satanic years?
What miracle do you see in a Siberian blizzard?
What shimmering mirage around the circle of the moon?
I send each one of you my salutation, and farewell.
[March 1940]

INTRODUCTION
[PRELUDE]

It happened like this when only the dead
Were smiling, glad of their release,
That Leningrad hung around its prisons
Like a worthless emblem, flapping its piece.
Shrill and sharp, the steam-whistles sang
Short songs of farewell
To the ranks of convicted, demented by suffering,
As they, in regiments, walked along -
Stars of death stood over us
As innocent Russia squirmed
Under the blood-spattered boots and tyres
Of the black marias.

I

You were taken away at dawn. I followed you
As one does when a corpse is being removed.
Children were crying in the darkened house.
A candle flared, illuminating the Mother of God. . .
The cold of an icon was on your lips, a death-cold
sweat
On your brow - I will never forget this; I will gather

To wail with the wives of the murdered streltsy (1)
Inconsolably, beneath the Kremlin towers.
[1935. Autumn. Moscow]

II

Silent flows the river Don
A yellow moon looks quietly on
Swanking about, with cap askew
It sees through the window a shadow of you
Gravely ill, all alone
The moon sees a woman lying at home
Her son is in jail, her husband is dead
Say a prayer for her instead.

III

It isn't me, someone else is suffering. I couldn't.
Not like this. Everything that has happened,
Cover it with a black cloth,
Then let the torches be removed. . .
Night.

IV

Giggling, poking fun, everyone's darling,
The carefree sinner of Tsarskoye Selo (2)
If only you could have foreseen
What life would do with you -
That you would stand, parcel in hand,
Beneath the Crosses (3), three hundredth in
line,
Burning the new year's ice
With your hot tears.
Back and forth the prison poplar sways
With not a sound - how many innocent
Blameless lives are being taken away. . .
[1938]

V

For seventeen months I have been screaming,
Calling you home.
I've thrown myself at the feet of butchers
For you, my son and my horror.
Everything has become muddled forever -
I can no longer distinguish
Who is an animal, who a person, and how long
The wait can be for an execution.
There are now only dusty flowers,
The chinking of the thurible,
Tracks from somewhere into nowhere
And, staring me in the face
And threatening me with swift annihilation,
An enormous star.
[1939]

VI

Weeks fly lightly by. Even so,
I cannot understand what has arisen,
How, my son, into your prison
White nights stare so brilliantly.
Now once more they burn,
Eyes that focus like a hawk,
And, upon your cross, the talk
Is again of death.
[1939. Spring]

VII
THE VERDICT

The word landed with a stony thud
Onto my still-beating breast.
Nevermind, I was prepared,
I will manage with the rest.

I have a lot of work to do today;
I need to slaughter memory,
Turn my living soul to stone
Then teach myself to live again. . .

But how. The hot summer rustles
Like a carnival outside my window;
I have long had this premonition
Of a bright day and a deserted house.
[22 June 1939. Summer. Fontannyi Dom (4)]

VIII
TO DEATH

You will come anyway - so why not now?
I wait for you; things have become too hard.
I have turned out the lights and opened the door
For you, so simple and so wonderful.
Assume whatever shape you wish. Burst in
Like a shell of noxious gas. Creep up on me
Like a practised bandit with a heavy weapon.
Poison me, if you want, with a typhoid exhalation,
Or, with a simple tale prepared by you
(And known by all to the point of nausea), take me
Before the commander of the blue caps and let me
glimpse
The house administrator's terrified white face.
I don't care anymore. The river Yenisey
Swirls on. The Pole star blazes.
The blue sparks of those much-loved eyes
Close over and cover the final horror.
[19 August 1939. Fontannyi Dom]

IX

Madness with its wings
Has covered half my soul
It feeds me fiery wine
And lures me into the abyss.

That's when I understood
While listening to my alien delirium
That I must hand the victory
To it.

However much I nag
However much I beg
It will not let me take
One single thing away:

Not my son's frightening eyes -
A suffering set in stone,
Or prison visiting hours
Or days that end in storms

Nor the sweet coolness of a hand
The anxious shade of lime trees
Nor the light distant sound
Of final comforting words.
[14 May 1940. Fontannyi Dom]

X
CRUCIFIXION

Weep not for me, mother.
I am alive in my grave.

1.
A choir of angels glorified the greatest hour,
The heavens melted into flames.
To his father he said, 'Why hast thou forsaken me!'
But to his mother, 'Weep not for me. . .'
[1940. Fontannyi Dom]

2.
Magdalena smote herself and wept,
The favourite disciple turned to stone,
But there, where the mother stood silent,
Not one person dared to look.
[1943. Tashkent]

EPILOGUE

1.
I have learned how faces fall,
How terror can escape from lowered eyes,
How suffering can etch cruel pages
Of cuneiform-like marks upon the cheeks.
I know how dark or ash-blond strands of hair
Can suddenly turn white. I've learned to recognise
The fading smiles upon submissive lips,
The trembling fear inside a hollow laugh.
That's why I pray not for myself
But all of you who stood there with me
Through fiercest cold and scorching July heat
Under a towering, completely blind red wall.

2.
The hour has come to remember the dead.
I see you, I hear you, I feel you:
The one who resisted the long drag to the open window;
The one who could no longer feel the kick of familiar
soil beneath her feet;
The one who, with a sudden flick of her head, replied,

'I arrive here as if I've come home!'
I'd like to name you all by name, but the list
Has been removed and there is nowhere else to look.
So,
I have woven you this wide shroud out of the humble
words
I overheard you use. Everywhere, forever and always,
I will never forget one single thing. Even in new
grief.
Even if they clamp shut my tormented mouth
Through which one hundred million people scream;
That's how I wish them to remember me when I am dead
On the eve of my remembrance day.
If someone someday in this country
Decides to raise a memorial to me,
I give my consent to this festivity
But only on this condition - do not build it
By the sea where I was born,
I have severed my last ties with the sea;
Nor in the Tsar's Park by the hallowed stump
Where an inconsolable shadow looks for me;
Build it here where I stood for three hundred hours
And no-one slid open the bolt.
Listen, even in blissful death I fear
That I will forget the Black Marias,
Forget how hatefully the door slammed and an old woman
Howled like a wounded beast.
Let the thawing ice flow like tears
From my immovable bronze eyelids
And let the prison dove coo in the distance
While ships sail quietly along the river.
[March 1940. Fontannyi Dom]

FOOTNOTES

1 An elite guard which rose up in rebellion
   against Peter the Great in 1698. Most were either
   executed or exiled.
2 The imperial summer residence outside St
   Petersburg where Ahmatova spent her early years.
3 A prison complex in central Leningrad near the
   Finland Station, called The Crosses because of the
   shape of two of the buildings.
4 The Leningrad house in which Ahmatova lived.


First published Sasha Soldatow Mayakovsky in Bondi
BlackWattle Press 1993 Sydney.

I'm still afraid of letting go.
Letting go of the bed
I only know how to sleep in
with the AC roaring.

Afraid of what my life will look like
without the seductive smoke
and twist off bottle caps.

I'm just as afraid of walking out the back door,
keeping me inside,
holding me together.
Afraid of the weather
my body has not yet adjusted to.

There's no harmony in heat and some days I think I'll never stop sweating.

Look on these trees, full of white caps
River flowing down the hill, so clean
There is not only dust as on other planets

We have variety of colors within flowers
Amounts of shapes, symmetries and heights
There is not only dust as on other planets

So many types of animals, their diversity
And mankind. Human, You, man and woman,
There is not only dust as on other planets
And no loneliness. Nope. We are each
other neighbor. How lovely is it!

Can you see this miracle? Can you feel it?
We have billions of chances to get feel
magnificent, to get feel surrounded.
There is not only dust as on other planets
Never alone. Praise that miracle!

The faded flicker of the far off clock was my only source of light. Until I picked up my phone and let my 2 A.M. thoughts run rampant. They made my fingers race across the screen. Made them play tag. They swiped and pinched until finally there you were. At 2 A.M. you were in my hands again. You're smile was as wide as ever and your eyes held the same glitter like they did when you used to talk to me. And You spoke about me even more. People would often come up to me and say that my name was all that would slip off your tongue. And I remembered that snake. The first time it brushed against my lower lip wanting access like a lion knowing that there was more to life than it's own cage. But to everyone, you spoke of me like I was the one who made the sun rise, who put the stars in the sky, who made the wind blow, and who made your world as you knew it turn.
My 2 A.M. thoughts made my fingers dance again. And another you appeared before me. All dressed up. Like we were married. But far from it. We sat like we had to save space on the Mayflower. I was in your lap and your arms were around my fragile frame. And I knew I would never love someone as much as I loved you that night. And my 2 A.M. thoughts brought me to the messages. Where are little "I love you more" fights were held and our futures were voiced. Remember that?
I was only a few months older than you. And I remember saying that I had to wait longer for my soulmate to come to me. And there you were again. In my head talking to me when we were bestfriends. While tapping on the plastic on the screen, the fingers fought for their right to voice the will of my 2 A.M. thoughts.
And I wrote about how I met you so far, way back when. I wrote about the dances we went to, the dates we laughed about. And then ultimately the 2 A.M. thoughts brought me to the deepest places I never wanted to let set free again.
And they scrambled on the keyboard of the phone! CAPS LOCKs, sorrys, pleads, and begs. Explanation after explanation and so many what if's. And I read it and read it. And only now did I realize that I was choking on the tears that you left me with. And I continued with the rant, and blamed you for what happened and blamed you for the causes. And then I stopped. And wept into the cold tear stained pillow, screaming into it like it was my last shot at everything I could ever have been. And once I felt numb enough to pretend that it wouldn't bother me anymore I let the small sobs escape my quivering lips and I destroyed the barrage of words that was my 2 A.M. thoughts. And instead willed my hands to let the fingers dance once more as I typed:

You're coming back, right?

_____

You're coming back right (sent 2:35 A.M.)
  (read 2:36 A.M.)

. . .

And the dots they came.
And I waited.
But inevitably,
Just like you,
They left me with the question:
You're coming back, right?

Dear Sarla
people look at me
and all they see is you
I hate that
and it makes me hate myself
you make me want to die
and hell if my pain tolerance
were higher I swear that I
would cut them off myself
because all they see is my
outsides and my double D *******
and even if I carved the word
boy in all caps
into the soft plush of my ******
a little lump that is always too small
to be seen as an ***** *****
they would still only see the
******* shoved away in the back
of my dresser drawer
cuddled up next to my sports bras
that does nothing to hide my *******
and I have been living inside you
for ten long years
my ***** are ready to drop
I even started shaving the little
peach fuzz stache your father shamed
you into bleaching
I let my leg hair grow out
and willed the chest hair to grow
around my navel and then into
the fleshy V
that my hips create
all of my body hair grows freely now
to keep me warm
but mainly to spite you
and ****** what they see
when they look at me
eyes coming up from my crotch
to my chest
is the shadow of a girl
they see a beautiful blossoming
young woman
and yeah okay
I can see that too
you would have been beautiful
but I cut and snuffed out
your life in the middle of the
prime of your youth
I killed you
and have been in the hospital
three times because of this
because of you
and when my first hospital doctor
told me that my coming out was
just a diversion tactic
it felt like the week old cuts
on my wrist
opened up and all of you that
was left inside of me
bled out at his fancy shoed feet
you were pepto-bismol pink
and my empty husk filled up
with the blues of a thousand
unshed tears
I was a raging ocean of boy
my waves crashed onto your body
until you were drowned in it
and then you were gone
but when people look at me
all they see is you
and my blood is blue on the inside
but when they cut me open
they didn’t see the blues
they saw my ******
and my tubes
and the folds of my womanhood
hell yeah though
they still saw my fat
fat thighs
fat stomach
fat arms
fat fat fat
they still see my scars
and my crooked glasses
and my *******
people still ask if I have
a ****
as if my genitals are any of
their ******* business
and probably if I did
get surgery
my cosmetic scars would still
label me as a freak
I still wouldn’t be enough of a
man for them
my ***** would never be big enough
no man or woman would ever be
able to love me with the lights on
because hell
I’m still not able to pleasure myself
your body is a landscape
albeit a barren one
filled with mines
and I am too clumsy to
traverse it
your ******* only become ***** from
the cold and the only wetness in
your boxers is blood
and I am afraid to look at you
in the mirror
because even I can’t will something
to grow that wasn’t programmed
from the start
and even the friends that never
even knew you
they hold you over me
I’m not a boy because I haven’t
had The Surgery yet
what bathroom do I use
I don’t count as a boy because
of my huge ****
I can’t be a boy because
I like pink shorts
and the only things that have
change are my name
and my hair
I am a *****
a girly boy
but ****
I’m enough of a man for myself
I will never be a mother
and I will only let them ****
me like a man
the swaying of my *******
as I bend over a constant
reminder that I am wrong
but the only boyfriend
I’ve had since sixth grade
only asked me out because
he had a crush on you
I have to tell people that I am
a boy and remind them of the pronouns
that I use
over and over again
but technically I’m still a girl
well technically *******
honestly though Sarla
I wish people would be able to
see through to me
because when my light does
distinguish I don’t want to
be buried in a dress
don’t want my mother to cry
over her little girl
I think my sister would cry
for me though
she calls me her older brother
and once called my ****** a peen
she has come around
with flying colors
and she really gets it
I know that when it seems
like the world is against me
I will always have her
she sees through you
to me Priestly underneath
and Sarla
as long as I have her
I know I’ll be okay
it makes the wait for people
to come around a lot easier
I love my sister so
and someday you really will be gone
***** and period and all
I’m going to have a proper burial
for you when I get home
but until then
I’ll take good care of your body
and I know you’ll be watching over us
Love Priestly

Three children sit behind a dumpster
outside of the Pier Pizza Parlor
unaware that they are children
Seven years later walking past Bridge Square
a girl remembers

**** we're out of cigarettes
and my mom's fucken car is locked. man.
and joints rolled with single ply toilet paper
burning through precious *** in the seaside woods where Indians
used to die

She, curling hands,
flattens a photograph of three kids in swimsuits and baseball caps
crouched under the rainy eaves of a waterslide
lighting a one hitter and gazing at their tiny dying world
now like a centerfold
it's covered in lubricant sweat and spittle
after too much time under the wrong beds

She sits on this small fountain
wistfully blinking and ******* down the cigarettes she wishes she could lock back up
kneading her dead legs and wondering
if it's better to have a past smudged by erasers
or mottled with bruises

I scroll down
The same story flashes by
I see this simple outward gesture
You taunt me because I won't do the same
It isn't out of hate

I think the way to make a difference is to listen
Or to smile
To forget about labels and just breathe a sigh of letting go
Not by shouting words of hate
In caps lock letters
The way to stop any form of abuse
Isn't through harassing others
Because they don't share your opinion

Some people think it is an abomination to be gay
Others judge that it is a sin to judge
And there is too much hate in the world
On both sides

So stop changing your profile picture
And start kindness.

Take it from someone who works customer service
People aren't kind
Not usually
Instead of fighting against this fight
Just everyone... Take a deep breath
Count to 10
And stop fighting

That is the only way we will ever have peace.

Nigeria, a Dying country,
Her kinsmen will gather in war to share her sweat
More troubles for the unborn and her growing heirs,
The unfolding dread non-soldiers at heart like me.

Nigeria, she spring forth from the dark soil
Her past never stop to echoe, her Iroko turned void
Blessed with milk, honey and seeds with hearts fixed to the creator,
The sword bearer of coal  war-ful gladiators.

A vineyard in the days of her reckoning
A different story after her great hair home coming.
Tale of a true black race
And the  down laying of her good moral ways.

Just like how a river side tree dries,
So does her firewood also cries.
Her genuine red caps are nowhere to be found
Her wind, her seed will have to make do with the feeble dust in character around.

Shaking is her government seat on the rock
Still steady is her opposition in their secret walls.
They keep killing her vision in disguise of trying to unlock
While they battle to pluck away all her roses.
The voiceless murmur and watch,
Her pocket papers fly and run
While a once great country keep dying on.

On the end table by the bed
A tiny Styrofoam cup
Full of unwrapped candy

In child’s writing
All caps and struggle

HAPPY HALLOWEEN
I AM SORRY
MOM

It is hard to stay angry
When you have an imagination

I picture her at a round table
******* a hospital bracelet

There are other people with her
Some have construction paper
Some have glue
There is glitter
And painted fingertips

I still get homesick
For places I have never been to
Sometimes miss people
I never even knew

There is a city inside my chest
It bustles
Pre pollution
But ***** is still legal

I have made homes there
You have a home here
In a city with
No hospitals
No graveyards
Just a cul-de-sac that starts at my throat
And double loops along my lungs
So many streets
My chest x-rays look like upside-down trees without the leaves

And when you leave
There is a house
Inside the city inside my chest
That stays empty forever

So much left behind
There is no room for anger to stay long

It exits like forgiveness
When you’ve given up all hope
When you can only reimagine so much

Some of these homes are condemned

Though it is hard to stay angry

it's 9:41 pm at night

it's 9:41 pm at night and
i'm thinking about when Chris
told me no one would ever love
me as much as him--and I'm thinking
about you too. Because I know that love
is not a thing to be measured, and if it were
we wouldn't do it with time or space or the edges
of old wooden rulers tapped briefly on knuckles

and tonight you're wrapped around my ankles like
a tabby cat--somewhere out there with your ropes
untied and shoes unlaced, your straps all in an organized
tizzy, with your caps off, windows open, and an empty
dresser drawer that you never know what to do with--    but i do

and I'm not asking you to come find me because that would be
too easy and I know you'll settle in at just the right time
probably in no hurry, supposedly passing through but
you'll find that you're woven into the threads of an
earth so familiar, and the girl at the counter seems
to be asking if she can dance with you without
lifting a finger, because the way she moves is
not at all unique, but you've seen her before.
you've seen her before, somewhere in a dream
in a memory beyond your body.

Say what you can say--that's me. Here's your chance.


Here's your chance.

Time flies like a baby fruit fly to a banana
buzzing through a brand new day through the fractal lakes
cleansing my body in peppermint amethyst vibrations
as the gyrations of the water ripple and drip down my back and waist
tickling the skin into submission--
I'm on a love mission feeling the splish-splash nefelibata mind
within my glowing gold-hazel eyes as I realize my potential.
The world isn't simply my oyster
my voice can make a difference
if I wish and believe me I've kissed Aladdin's lamp
but my mind is filled with vagary so I plant the seeds
in my magic garden and watch them grow--
burst through the ground and glowing
some like emerald embers
and others like electric chalcopyrite
as my third-eye shines and pops calico corn
crackling in the back the ideas simmer on the grill
near the chilled ZuZu Juju honeydew wine
while the electric blue hip panther cat croons
away on her guitar in ancient star languages saeng
when we were all just haranguing through the ONE-light
all bright sun's right to shine a vine of fire rays
into our future past selves
now aligned with burning designs of moons, suns and AUMS.
The animal pixie band manipulates the sounds around us--
the cicadas sing a lotus chorus while the tiger-painted rabbits rapidly
strum rainbow hieroglyphs on their magic harps
while the jazz sax racoons all dressed in jasper suede jackets
and backwards newsboy caps
play a theta vibration so meditatively
we dance in digambara dream catcher trance
of enhanced meraki enchanted atoms
and cells boiling in passionate blood.

After all the eating and dancing we play in the clay mud
recreating our animal forms and budding faces blooming
and swooning as our winged auras sling us
into the dusk sky
to sway and zoom in the rain.
later we enter Father Sky's cloud castle
for a peaceful night curled up by the azurite lightning fireplace
roasting marmalade maple marshmallows
with those rasta angel fellows token
on the diviner's sage sippin mugwort tea.
And as we third eye-gaze into and through each other
seeing our past and future time tubes
aligning into a sacred golden flower sphere,
we giggle like silly fox children
we've forgotten hours have left our pockets
cause to us it only seems like seconds have gone by...

Smoke some cigarettes
laugh at the process
  meet the woman you longed for
and have a beer or two.
Tell her that her eyes are like bottle caps
   something inside of her is worth
every drop of intake
  and that her lips are soft as the pillows you rest on after a 8 to 5 job.
She's all the rest you need  
you're being captive by a soul
that sheds every time you are one step
away from her
And now that you have her
she'll turn to wine
and loving her gets better
as the years go by

It was a cool, overcast and windy Sunday morning in March 2014. We were about 50 miles from Paris, at my Grandmère’s (grandmother’s) farm. She lives in Paris, but she owns a Château and surrounding 1,100-hectare farm that she calls her “fall retreat.”

Between three and five hundred people work on the farm, the Château and its surrounding shops (some work is seasonal). The shops sell wool, cheese, wine and ice cream produced on the farm, as well as touristy things. Many of the employees live on the farm, rent free. Their homes, owned by the farm, form a hameau (village). I didn’t understand much of this at the time, I was 10 years old.

My Grandmère was dedicating a new store just off the village green. The green wasn’t square, like those in the UK and it didn’t have swings or a slide, as I’d hoped. You’d think I’d know a hamlet my Grandmère owned but this place was alien to me. I’d arrived as part of her entourage but as the presentation ground on, I got bored. So, I took Charles by the hand and off we went.

We (my little nuclear family) were living in the UK then and we were visiting Paris for the Easter holiday. The fall before, as the school year had started, a girl in my grade (4th grade or year 5 in the UK) had been kidnapped and murdered on her way home from school. My Grandmère was “having none of it,” and hired Charles, a burly, red-headed, just retired, ex-NYC cop, as my security, escort and practical nanny. He’d been with me for about half a year, at that point, and we’d become fast friends.

It was the height of the pre-summer, Easter season. In addition to the villagers, there were tourists everywhere, picnicking on the grass, visiting the shops and playing football (soccer). Most of the tourists seemed to have small children that ran around. The townspeople sat on benches, eating ice creams and playing dominoes or quoits, a horseshoes-like game, played on a sand pitch.

You couldn’t mistake the two groups - the natives and the tourists. The towns folk were plainly dressed, the women in simple smocks and sweaters, the men wearing slacks, tweed jackets, berets or tag hats. The tourists spoke other languages - there were Italians, Britts, Germans and even Americans - who wore sports logoed t-shirts, shorts, sneakers and baseball caps.

As Charles and I wandered around the village, I asked, “Can we get a sirop?” One of the most popular drinks, in France, is a grenadine sirop (soda). We stopped and as Charles bought us drinks, I wandered a way off. He found me, moments later, hanging from a tree limb, upside down, my hair sweeping the grass like a broom.

“Stop that,” he’d said, swooping me up and off the branch with his soda free hand and setting me alright. As he picked leaves out of my hair, he said, “Don’t wander away from me like that, you know better.” “Yes sir” I agreed. A moment later, he picked me up and placed me atop a low, four-foot parapet wall that ran around the village. I could feel sharp, rough stone edges through my cotton dress but I drank my sirop and didn’t complain.

“You saved me from the dragon,” I said, after my first few sips.
“What dragon?” he said.
“The dragon that had me in its teeth, over there.” I pointed at the tree where I’d been upside down.
“I saved you from yourself,” he said, as he looked around the square.
“That’s silly,” I announced, “how can someone need saving from themselves?”
“Oh, It happens all the time,” he said.

The event ended and as people began leaving, they filed by us on the sidewalk. The village men doffed their hats and the women nodded a quick curtsey as they passed. “Why are they doing THAT?” I asked Charles, “am I a princess?”
“No,” he snorted, “you’re no kind of princess. They’re doing it out of respect for your illustrious grandmother.” “Oh,” I said disappointedly.

A moment later our car pulled up and we were headed back to the city. “Did you have fun?” my Grandmère asked, “yes mam,” I answered. “Did you behave yourself?” She followed up. “Mostly,” I admitted. She nodded, pronouncing, “That’s how it should be,” as the limo turned onto the autoroute (expressway) and accelerated for lunch in Paris.

I walk behind empty gas stations
And broken windows,
My palms sweaty from the heat,
I think of the polar caps
Slowly melting away.

I open the door to my apartment,
I sit down on my leather couch,
My hands are no longer sweaty
But, I am still sad.

Something soft
I want the uncomfortable fetter
Of the carpets unruly mane
To grace my worn feet
I sleep
Your eyes open when mine close
And in my busy mind
You are the blue light that
Drives the eyelashes on my cheek
To courtesy into a smile

My lips follow suit

When my hand digs into my knees
Fleshy mountain caps
All I crave is the foreign touch
Of your fingers to
Run miles up and down my
Milky thighs
We can let the familiar feeling
Of our warmth erase the black marks of whips that woke us up from our dreams
That meant the universe to eyes so bleary and small

Fingertip felt tips festering fully, fittingly on your peachy pointer finger
Just one
The smell of lust will surround our hungry nostrils and
Dig in baby
Dig deep

We wake up to a ceiling fan bland
Wafting the leftover smell of cigarette smoke around our dusty morning
We tucked the sun away as tight as we could
But our lazy laughs and wayward smiles
Gave way to our apathy
Door closes
The airwave is fizzy
And the palm tree softly pets my luminous face
Your car starts
The screech of your tires
Nails on my melting chalkboard
Ill yell into my empty room
And pray to god ill never see you again

babe sweet makes a hasty get away
in her 57 Chevy
after robbing the bank
of its pen and pencil sets
someday she's gonna be a writer
and she don't want to run outa ink
not while the words can run like
fine wine from her stumbling fingertips
her drunkard style staggers through the clean vision
with a brush stroke that wanders between the lines
and sometimes wanders out of em
and straight to the borders of insanity
she pauses and thinks to her left behind lover
that the last ship of my life
may indeed have sailed but your not among my regrets
and that's enough for her
so she commits her pilfering of the salesclerk's pocket
and flees with relief pasted falsely on her face
babe sweet drives fast fast to the southern town
and picks up a smile she saw standing by the
side of the dirt road
but little did she realize that
some dirt don't wash off
and her new comfy smile had baggage
of his own in the form of a colt revolver
with a few spent shells
spilling outa his pocket
so they run into the night trying to escape their
separate desperate pasts
she looked at him with a lonely yearning
but he openly saw only that he wanted to get straight
with god and his mamma
if he could only work up the courage to abandon
this trail of tears
they both collapsed into a small  hotel
down in floridas treasure coast
and spent days waiting and watching the evening news
for sings that the world had even noticed them
they are there still
babe sweet and her regretful smile
look to everybody like mona lisa recovering from a ******
someday he will get the courage to get right
someday she will go home to her bed and breakfast
but for now they gather suntans and scrape a living
out of cast off bottle caps
happy enough together and sometimes that's enough

The clouds hid the red sky that day
Amid the wind and rain
No red sky meant no sailors warning
The waves broke high and hard
They passed the breakers and the kegs
They missed the red sky morning

The ships out on the water
From the shore to the Grand Banks
Were helpless in the coming storm
No choice to turn and run
The best bet was stay put
There was no port to get warm

The skies were filled with nothingness
the clouds like a sharks eye
Shades of black were all they saw
The icy waves of winter
Broke the calm of the early morn
For red sky in the morning is an unwritten sailors law

The Captain closed the bar down
On the Digby ferry crossing
The doors were being opened by each wave
They couldn't see the white caps
Only sky and see was all
And the souls he had to save

There were fifteen boats in transit
When the storm came bearing down
Most were halfway home or so
Now they all were stranded
In the journey between heaven and hell
Which direction they were headed only God would know

Turn sideways and you'd flip it
Just sit still and you were dead
You had to ride the water hellish ride
Hatches all were battened
Windows sealed and doors shut tight
Sailors tried to stay inside

Water spouts were forming
Off the stern and then the port
Navigate the safest spot and keep low
The door to Davy Jones' locker
Was opened and ready to accept
Any boat who made the choice to venture down below

On shore the coast guard were all scrambled
Planes were sent out just in case
More to recover than to save
Families awaited word by radio
The lines from all the ships were down
Some lost to a watery grave

Each year the ocean opens up
Mother Nature takes some back
It's just the circle of life at sea
Prayers are said at the Mariners Hall
Bells are rung for the dead
The sailors soul belongs to the water and it never can be free

Are you one that lives on water?
You know one day your luck will end
You knew this fact from the start
Sailors know the sea's a minefield
It's a war with God each day
You have to fight with all your heart

Revving up the engine
of the gleaming funky machine
before zooming around, gave her
such an Adrenalin high, nonperil.
The constant ****** no guy ever could
promise, this act gives her.
She is pleased for that moment,
gets ready for the ****** rigmarole,
the very next second.

She gets jealous of her
own story, ever heard of that?
On the race course and the spread bed
alike her ebullience creates
tsunami waves,broke long standing records.

When you run fast enough
there comes a moment,when
there is no record left to break!
and the beds, you guessed right,
all are broken, made redundant.

And then the inevitable happens,
she smells leaking gas, panics,
freezes on the track, shuddering,
switches off quickly the engine
of her dream machine,her heartbeat,
makes the final escape,spontaneously,
without delay, decides to renounce
worldly pleasures altogether,
up to the Himalayas goes by foot, seeking
that thing which in life she missed all along,
Finds silver light's play on ice caps, and realize this:
she was walking through a dark, dark  tunnel ,
of self-deception,"Affluenza" was indeed her affliction.

The Himalayan snow cap, loomed large as an attraction,
in her dreams once, now seemed less formidable, at arm's length,
"What a Guru,who looked timelessly ancient,
jokingly predicted  once, comes true here"she muses.
Her trek upwards resumes with a vengeance.

I AM SAD
AND YOU
DON'T CARE
BECAUSE WHY
SHOULD YOU?
I'M NOTHING ANYMORE
AND I WANT TO
MAKE YOU JEALOUS
BUT ALL I'VE ACHIEVED
IS A SENSE OF LOSS
AND SADNESS.
MAYBE WE SHOULD TALK?

You and I
You
And
I

- I
Could drown myself in melted polar ice caps, or illusions of Niagara Falls (or does it?)
Could join a nudist colony
Could dismember my body parts 'recreationally'
Could (or will) document my own downward spiral/lay eggs in vast and immeasurable labyrinths/where the paradox of my self-pity mingles with my bragging/swaggering teen angst and date!-mate!-procreate!- into a thousand descendants of my rotting fleshhhhhh

- You
Present yourself in -
Hallways rambling in front of me with asylums spilling into corridors of confusion
Rrrrrrriiipppp of either paper pulling from notebooks or flesh pulling from bone
Virtual college applications tabbed over with two different Buy Your Own Russian Wife! websites and ignored by your -loving parents-
An arrogant 18-year-old boy standing before the Committee of Elders (pleading insanity)
Twenty-four permanent markers with generic names
The pseudo-poetic lure of "Call _ For a GOOD TIME" graffitis on the bathroom wall of a Whole Foods you spend six weeks jacking off in

- Look, that's great and all, but
I think you are a (beanstalk), no time to (talk), less of a (walk) and more of a climb - to reach your face, and when I lean to kiss it (fee fi fo fum) I smell the blood of a human one

(I'm tired of stooping and I'm tired of looking at old people)

You
And
I
Could have Been Anyone!
But no,
Just more of the same.

Stars above my head,
Gently caress of wind on my face,
The sound of song birds in the distance,
The smell of wild flowers in the meadows below me,

O life how you can be so beautiful.
O life how you can tempt me to be at peace.

Tall moutains around me tall enought to have snow caps resting on top of them,

Forests so lush with life even the deafest ears can here the songs of forest life,

O life you, you tease me with these sweets.

Even as I stand here in this meadow of flowers dressed in moonlight i can not stem this feeling of unease,

It's the knowing that at some point this will end this peace.

Because peace never lasts long.

the other day
     it felt like overnight
spring flowers had appeared across the meadows
      cowslips  spring snowflakes   crocuses   daisies  daffodils

they tell me
in a little while  it will be spring
no matter that white caps still decorate the mountains
storms blow rain  sleet and snow across the land

the flowers know

they will not fold their leaves
grow back into their cozy soil and wait some more
they will defy a few more frosty days
slow down a little in their flow of energy
then blossom forth in all their power

show us that nature’s life renews itself again in force
no matter what our mood might be

flowers will bloom

when I carriage returns too soon
and my fingers get numb   oh well
and I don't realize MY CAPS LOCK IS ON
or I try to figure my debts up and the num lock ain't on
or I tab when I should not indent
or mmy keyboard
the m locks up
cause I mmighta spilt beer on it again
and mmy mmouse goes crazy for another window
and I type half this there
I think
it might be timme for bed

In my memories I find you.
We are infinite at every point.

Midnight on still waters
with the kayak pointed towards the moon.
You kept yourself in your pocket all of those times you wanted me to stay
and didn't say a word.
Alas, a smile can still be drawn.
And we reminded each other that this is what we live for.

Laughter shakes us in the back of the class
While to each other we confess
about love that hurts
finally able to say it
in a world that we're told that gender rules the heart.
We smile together, share the secret of the truth.
And we reminded each other that this is what we live for.

A family adopts me and I learn I'm not alone.
My smiles made real, and bus rides become
enriching to my soul.
I ripped books, bit knee caps, cried on the floor
and you always opened the door to your home
with each creek of the swinging entrance, my heart opened that much more.
Chips, soda, 3 AM fast food, video games.
What doesn't **** you makes you stronger.
And we reminded each other that this is what we live for.

New apartment, new friends.
We sat at the train station, platform 4974.
we learned about inspiration, about how two people can feed
off of each other, and find more on their plates
than when they started.
Entheogenic adventures parked in cars, laughing in trees.
We have our moments that aren't our moments, something like being crazy.
But I never told you that I need you.
The explanation always turns sour, but that's the tragedy of the poet
So much lost between the moment and the word.
Yet a smile can still find us, and we know what happy tears are.
And we reminded each other that this is what we live for.


The truth is that this is timeless.
We points on this infinite ocean.
Probability says we would have never met.
Yet I know your eyes.

I just wanted to let you know,
that this is what I live for.

The rain pelted the roof of the car
Like so many caps being popped
by eager children with hammers.

Somewhere deep within the night
a train whistle blew
near tracks that run through
the middle of town.

One long lonesome tone
moving, echoing, merging with my heart.

“We're home, we're home,”
his voice gently waking me,
running his hands along my thighs
urging me to stir.

The caps popped away
I fought the discomfort of movement
My heart yearned for one
one more whistle blow.

"I'm so tired of the burnt up planet and its lack of luster!", says my son...

I'm spent!,
writing socially conscience wit for years
I've been asking Why the ******* Sheep
will Live and Lie for radioactive Die

I see nothing great in the Powers That Be
Even my Colored Brethren can't cure the virus
Woe is me
for passing on the burdens to my future seed
But today am I ready to Bleed.

Are we ready to change no matter the cost?
I think on that Vote we've Lost,
Lost our Focus, Lost Our Souls, Lost the Will
to fight or,
to give or,
to hold back
anything for our kids
Too
Hum and Be in

Father and Mother And Holy Son makes Trinity
but here on this Earth there is no Euphony
It's so beautiful how we travel through this galaxy
Yet insist
We persist to Catastrophe
The next time you are ****** or, Confused or, Drunk or, Abused
Just look beyond this Earth and enjoy the view
Every light in the sky is a life form All its own
if we Hum the Ohm while Alone
the Vibe-Ration will lead Us home

I feel bliss when the Breeze and Ocean cover me
even though
I'm stuck on this Rock scared to Just
Hum and Be in

So when I'm tired soles worn and weary
please Just let me
Hum an Be In

A forgotten song sung in Piece
One I verse to calm the Beast
when all the Battles have been lost
When all this money has lost its cost
As the Caps melt into Waves
and Life Giving Sun beams death rays
Sing a Song in Peace and let us
Humanbeingraised

We all want the truth
But we're all liars.
Trapped before forks
Of the bed rock of love
And of momentary fires.

We all want to fly,
But we're born without wings.
Whenever we're down,
We re-evaluate our needs.
Whenever we're down,
We see several versions
Of getting down on our knees.

To a dying girl, we were betrothed.
But we held different backs
Segregated former lovers
And cheap lunch packs.
Those letters you wrote
Under your breath read
Rightly deserved curses,
O finely written verses.

Let's join our little drunken hands
In inexpensive Hong Kong sidewalks
The ***-infused sweat in our cheeks
Hasten not in hazy sweetie talks

The heat in the night
Can make the ice caps melt
But in two different poles our
Intentions got up and went.
Your eyes never looked like what it seem.
Your night felt like a lie, mine transpired a dream.