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.

There once was a man whom the gods didn't love,
And a disagreeable man was he.
He loathed his neighbours, and his neighbours hated him,
And he cursed eternally.

He ****** the sun, and he ****** the stars,
And he blasted the winds in the sky.
He sent to Hell every green, growing thing,
And he raved at the birds as they fly.

His oaths were many, and his range was wide,
He swore in fancy ways;
But his meaning was plain: that no created thing
Was other than a hurt to his gaze.

He dwelt all alone, underneath a leaning hill,
And windows toward the hill there were none,
And on the other side they were white-washed thick,
To keep out every spark of the sun.

When he went to market he walked all the way
Blaspheming at the path he trod.
He cursed at those he bought of, and swore at those he sold to,
By all the names he knew of God.

For his heart was soured in his weary old hide,
And his hopes had curdled in his breast.
His friend had been untrue, and his love had thrown him over
For the chinking money-bags she liked best.

The rats had devoured the contents of his grain-bin,
The deer had trampled on his corn,
His brook had shrivelled in a summer drought,
And his sheep had died unshorn.

His hens wouldn't lay, and his cow broke loose,
And his old horse perished of a colic.
In the loft his wheat-bags were nibbled into holes
By little, glutton mice on a frolic.

So he slowly lost all he ever had,
And the blood in his body dried.
Shrunken and mean he still lived on,
And cursed that future which had lied.

One day he was digging, a ***** or two,
As his aching back could lift,
When he saw something glisten at the bottom of the trench,
And to get it out he made great shift.

So he dug, and he delved, with care and pain,
And the veins in his forehead stood taut.
At the end of an hour, when every bone cracked,
He gathered up what he had sought.

A dim old vase of crusted glass,
Prismed while it lay buried deep.
Shifting reds and greens, like a pigeon's neck,
At the touch of the sun began to leap.

It was dull in the tree-shade, but glowing in the light;
Flashing like an opal-stone,
Carved into a flagon; and the colours glanced and ran,
Where at first there had seemed to be none.

It had handles on each side to bear it up,
And a belly for the gurgling wine.
Its neck was slender, and its mouth was wide,
And its lip was curled and fine.

The old man saw it in the sun's bright stare
And the colours started up through the crust,
And he who had cursed at the yellow sun
Held the flask to it and wiped away the dust.

And he bore the flask to the brightest spot,
Where the shadow of the hill fell clear;
And he turned the flask, and he looked at the flask,
And the sun shone without his sneer.

Then he carried it home, and put it on a shelf,
But it was only grey in the gloom.
So he fetched a pail, and a bit of cloth,
And he went outside with a broom.

And he washed his windows just to let the sun
Lie upon his new-found vase;
And when evening came, he moved it down
And put it on a table near the place

Where a candle fluttered in a draught from the door.
The old man forgot to swear,
Watching its shadow grown a mammoth size,
Dancing in the kitchen there.

He forgot to revile the sun next morning
When he found his vase afire in its light.
And he carried it out of the house that day,
And kept it close beside him until night.

And so it happened from day to day.
The old man fed his life
On the beauty of his vase, on its perfect shape.
And his soul forgot its former strife.

And the village-folk came and begged to see
The flagon which was dug from the ground.
And the old man never thought of an oath, in his joy
At showing what he had found.

One day the master of the village school
Passed him as he stooped at toil,
Hoeing for a bean-row, and at his side
Was the vase, on the turned-up soil.

'My friend,' said the schoolmaster, pompous and kind,
'That's a valuable thing you have there,
But it might get broken out of doors,
It should meet with the utmost care.

What are you doing with it out here?'
'Why, Sir,' said the poor old man,
'I like to have it about, do you see?
To be with it all I can.'

'You will smash it,' said the schoolmaster, sternly right,
'Mark my words and see!'
And he walked away, while the old man looked
At his treasure despondingly.

Then he smiled to himself, for it was his!
He had toiled for it, and now he cared.
Yes! loved its shape, and its subtle, swift hues,
Which his own hard work had bared.

He would carry it round with him everywhere,
As it gave him joy to do.
A fragile vase should not stand in a bean-row!
Who would dare to say so? Who?

Then his heart was rested, and his fears gave way,
And he bent to his *** again. . . .
A clod rolled down, and his foot slipped back,
And he lurched with a cry of pain.

For the blade of the *** crashed into glass,
And the vase fell to iridescent sherds.
The old man's body heaved with slow, dry sobs.
He did not curse, he had no words.

He gathered the fragments, one by one,
And his fingers were cut and torn.
Then he made a hole in the very place
Whence the beautiful vase had been borne.

He covered the hole, and he patted it down,
Then he hobbled to his house and shut the door.
He tore up his coat and nailed it at the windows
That no beam of light should cross the floor.

He sat down in front of the empty hearth,
And he neither ate nor drank.
In three days they found him, dead and cold,
And they said: 'What a queer old crank!'

Another copycat,don't do that it's all been done before and one more pretender shown the door,
swing out
swing in and another cat comes ring a ding, ding.
I need uniqueness
I want to feed on the sweetness of novelty,there seems to be less and less of that deliciousness and not much of that newness I can claim for my own,
I think I'm fading into the woodwork,full of knots and gnarlings and look at me darlings as I disappear.

No copycat here,
this is a first time,straight from the bread line into a basket case and how can I possibly face that which is new?
New is getting fewer and the few who do new don't know and never knew what few could be in this land of lots and plenty for me.
I was told that old is the new folding currency and that doesn't suit me,too many wrinkles,too many nooks and nannies with crooks,like little Bo-Peep,I wish they'd all sleep,
there is time for the sheep to try on for size,oh my dear Lion what gigantic eyes,
is that a bit new or just me cooking stew?

A copycat like folding currency folds flat and I'm having none of that,I like the chinking and clinking of real gold and that don't fold.
So beware if you share and don't credit the writer,who with meagreness in his pockets pulls his belt a bit tighter,one more notch he can't feel,,one more meal never felt in his gut,but
copycat see,copycat do,copycat never think anything new.
What are you?

do you ever start chinking away
breaking, cracking the stone, hard mineral, steel cold
barrier of your heart
so it'd be impossible for someone else
to do it for you?

white wine pungent, soft
clinking glass against an empty chasm
sunlight
hard wood draped in sleeping veneer.

cascading drapes against
violet
         dark
                 stagnant bruised skin left alone and slowly freezing over.
smoke leaking through whispering
dry lips chapped with desert words
lack of moisture creating canyons
hidden inside desperate mouths.

it's breaking like a frozen over
ashy, navy, drowning lake.
my own fault,
i always start breaking my own heart.
my own form of life insurance.

it's fogged over like a magnifying glass,
cracking across the two foot surface because
the strangled fish can't breathe under all
the permafrost and ice.

i'm waiting impatiently for summer;
i hate this cold.

Boudicca, long hair tangled and bunched; fiery flame red hair.

Warrior queen of the Iceni, daughter of these isles of tin.

Defender of freedom, leader of men, slayer of legions.

Through the mist the Britons, Celtic in origin; saw the legions.

Row upon row of tightly packed troops, shields locked together!

Flanked on either side by cavalry.  Above the silence orders could

Be heard echoing across the field, the leather harness’s creaked

Metal chinking, horses stomping and snorting, in the stillness.

Through the mist came the first rays of sunlight glinting on sharpened

Swords and spearheads; horns began to blow as the steady

Stomp of the legions moved forward in formation.

Boudicca’s eyes peered out from a face of blue woe. Bow strings

In turn began to creak death, as archers pulled back on their bows.

A slow chant from the Iceni, slow at first, began to build into a crescendo

Of noise, as the boom, boom of sword and axe rapped against wood shields.

Boudicca flame haired warrior queen stood proud and fearless on her chariot;

Daughters on each side of her, defiant against Gaius Suetonius Pauline’s

And the might of Rome.

Oh what a sight it must have been!

The stars aren't as tasteful
       as I'd hoped they'd be,
You fickle moon,
You eclipse of a lover.
           Vinegar.  That's what
those cosmic light bulbs we
call stars taste like.          Raw
and savoring, bold & eccentric.
          Kissing summer on winter's lips
          The cheek of spring still stings from autumn's hand
And I'm marooned in this fine
                            red wine hour,
  nostalgic in the art of reading
          The hum of dragons pulse~
The whisper of the wolven breath,
                         This time around your blood
                                        was thinner than ice.
Twisting the tendrils of our thistled love
across my snowy throat,
            Crimson is so ******* beautiful
It was your job to swallow sunsets and it
was mine to throw up sunrises.           We
followed the commandments branded on
my cheeks.  
                         It was the only bible we had,
                         Because my scars were worth
                                                         "s­omething"
When the roof of the sky meets the jaw of
the sun, the teeth are the clouds & constellations.
I fed the world my spine because it was starving.
         chinking off marrow, and mouthfuls of my flesh,
Devour me.
                    And in my wake you shifted the lapis void,
                     forcing my eyes open as gold tears spilt
Streetlamps groaning at midnight,
will you watch the ravens with me at 3 a.m?
I'm not one for fate but,
          destiny is mine for the taking.
Bones wish they're bending,
     yet promise they're not breaking.
I bargained my soul and sins with Lupus,
and now I am his poet.
                       A daughter of aurora borealis,
                     buckets full of silver  sloshing admist
                           my eyes.
                      When I no longer love you,
                               it will be silent,
                                and tragic.
.

Transactions have redundant residuals
The remnants of commerce and trade
In pockets the small dust of currency
The left over cash of price paid

The clinking froth of things purchased
The metal remains of exchange
the leavings of costs and desire
the chinking bulk of loose change

It fits in you grasp like genitals
Warm, round with a vague sense of sin
What used to be golden and silver
Is now mainly nickel and tin

We are tired of the weight in our pockets
We are shamed by the drag of its need
For if it should fall from our fingers
We forsake our grace for our greed

For there is something quite reassuring
When you empty your pockets at night
You glimpse a glance of old memories
The sixpence of childhood’s delight

Get it, India head
This is no bed of roses
Poses in prime positions
Are sublime repetitions
Of what has gone
Before

Karma comes knocking
Knowing
Falling flat on your face
Bindis race
First fast then erased
From your forehead
Forever more

Rickshaws run a mockery
Round rubbled ruins
Of modern mishapes
Monarchy's mistakes, perhaps
Perfect pictures of
Predictable
Misadventures

What everyone tells you
Pre plane departure
Setting one belief in front of another
One foot behind
Is what it does
To your stomach
Shaking heads full of
Heavy sighs

Cares to be taken
Clothes to be carried in case
For climactic changes
Of course
What to withstand
Understand
Undertake
When to be undeterred

When to stand your ground
Back down, barter
Bask
Busk your way through town
What to battle over
Where to bathe and how
When to show the colour
Of your mother's money

How to save a dollar
Raise a rupee
Meditate on more that
You could Be
Do the deed
Be caught in times of need
Phone home and find
No-one waiting for your call

All of this and more
You carry on your back
A rucksack full of love and
Missed kisses
But - the greatest part of this is
What no-one tells you -
What it does
To your heart

What you find
When your mind adjusts
And your eyes unwind
And great gusts of understanding blow you free
When you hand over the key
To your list of demands
And give in
To the easy unplanned

Exploring
Imploring looks
Hook your sympathy
Bait you easily at first
The worst
Are always
The kids
Thing is, how could you deny them?

Soon enough
Is enough
“Sister!”
“Look mister, I ain't no fool
And I ain't a millionaire either -
Leave her alone and go home.”
Thing is, how could you feed them all?

You triumph on trains
Blaspheme the buses
The driver's on drugs
Or a suicide trip
You skip rice-based breakfasts
For weeks
Seek out cereals then
Suddenly...you don't

Chinking chai glasses
Chomping on chocolate
A lot
More than most
Coasting roads
Filled with cows
On a scooter scuffed with sand
And stuffed to bursting point

Dogs with holes in
Infecting imaginations
Over masala dosa
Noses signalling distaste
This taste?
Hmm, tamarind - trees?
Try over there
Between the neem and the new banana circle...

Too many memories to mention
There's always one question
When you return to the beginning
Grinning, they ask
How was it?
But how can you say
It was everything
You've never seen
?

India
Get it?
INDIA!!
Get it India
But be warned...
You may never
Get her
Out-ia
Head

The merry world did on a day
With his train-bands and mates agree
To meet together where I lay,
And all in sport to jeer at me.

First, Beauty crept into a rose,
Which when I plucked not, “Sir,” said she,
“Tell me, I pray, whose hands are those?”
But thou shalt answer, Lord, for me.

Then Money came, and chinking still,
“What tune is this, poor man?” said he,
“I heard in music you had skill.”
But thou shalt answer, Lord, for me.

Then came brave Glory puffing by
In silks that whistled—who but he?
He scarce allowed me half an eye.
But thou shalt answer, Lord, for me.

Then came quick Wit and Conversation,
And he would needs a comfort be,
And, to be short, make an oration.
But thou shalt answer, Lord, for me.

Yet when the hour of thy design
To answer these fine things shall come,
Speak not at large: say, I am thine;
And then they have their answer home.

All the humid nights in summer, the ones that keep you up at night. Crickets chirping, fan whirring, heat rolling off my skin, as I close my eyes and listen. The end of my insomnia, creating comfort in my suffering soul. The tall glass of sickly sweet southern ice tea is all the twinkling stars above my head and the chinking of glasses of celebration. All the red in my veins and when my heart pumps it whispers his name like a well kept secret, but everybody knows. Salvation like an arrow to the heart, so much pain but so much saved.

To hold a pen, all trembling nib and leaking tip,
At your mercy, supple in your hands,
Over the skin of soon-to-be words, people and places:

Gently exploding ink bombs of which I cherish total control –
Until I have to let them go -
until they are released and left to their own free will.
They bend and curl
And I bend and curl with them – through a place of rubble and debris,
Of clear water on emeralds and grey, creamy smoke.
A wasteland – but far from empty – a silvery mire filled with all the things of this earth.
Something both post and pre-apocalyptic that smells of old wood and heady incense,
Nostalgia and new memories.

Accidentally, messily, flawlessly crafted.

I wait for more sporadic dark poolings,
And they happen within quick succession of one another;
Splaying,
Isolated limbs and drops of a purple chemical
Spreading, bleeding, dissolving
Over the grainy paper.

The page is torn and frayed at the edges
Where almost fabric-like fibres
Were unable to withstand the impact of a knife’s blade,
Ripping all the tiny seams which bind them together,
Coming apart,
Undone,
Strand by dusty strand.

What is finished, what is done –
Is what has been given kindness,
And settled to rest.
As if drunk, sleepy, disorientated but somehow acutely aware of exactly where you are.
The feeling of dizziness where everything is hazy, fuzzy, blurry –
Inducing a comfortable, ***** slumber
In an old *** and vanilla shop.
Aureate, bronze pearls slide over each other, silky and luke-warm,
As you peer through glass and lace,
The spheres chinking together, a thousand times over.

A pen held above the paper, now still and impassive.
It is mine and I am its,
And we stand alone on the corner of a pavement,
A streetlamp
Rendering the scene golden in the rain.

I had died
my friends had me buried
nine feet underground
in Australia
and they drank to my memory under the Sun.

Nigel was a hired hand
he dug my grave carefully
he talks with an accent and a cigarette
he toils under the Sun for three long days
silver tools chinking away at the hard desert rock.

I took a long ride on the Flying Spoon
up and around the lover's moon
and finally I've come to rest
in this spot under the Sun
nine feet underground
in Australia.

The morning ***
Before head
back to work
This Jay Oh Bee
B is for Business / Bull Dooky

"It's just Bid ness"

No Justice
The menial  
Minimum wage / Slave to NEED
Gotta have purchase
Gotta buy to eat
Nothing comes for free

Except / accept

That moment
The whole world fears...
DEATH.
We sware to
Vanity
A Slave  - yes Sam, I am
I tell you this,
what I saw, we done-did seen...

White Grey hound buses
Parking in our Plaza
Spilling out the Orient,
          Snapping pictures with Samsungs
While I did smoke
An Ultralight One-Hundred
          I got the sense,
That they were surveying the area
Pointing forefingers painting
Tree
Miming
Expansion
GPS  e s p
Architects of
Pleased with themselves
The language of enigma
Listen
To their chatter
            chinking
Foreigners they used to be

Historical predictions now

What landscapes will look like
When remodeled
(...misguided projectiles....)

A bigger Little Korea Town

Over run...

It's the feeling
That must be panic
It's the feeling
Of being surrounded
By enemy foe
By animal control
Their tranqs. Nets & leashes,
Stunners at the ready...

Pzzt and sshhzzz....
Static mind games
Phones smarter than us,
Of course

We all FaceTime with touch screens
I'm no different,
Press Menu, the date and time
                       It's only 5 minutes 'til...
Light another ***
Before I get started ...

Here, my J.o.b. Is being...
The only employee "who a-speak a-only
English"
"Only a-one language"
Hehehe *** emoji!

Less than zilch.
Became
Like a spy spying secretly
Inside his own
Country / nation / tribe
Of the people, all
men are creating
Our own inequalities...

Done-did see, oh say so

We'll get - done got toked
Peace pipes, petrol
and the joke goes
"There's this bus, and them opportunists...
Blueprints, dispensaries,
The Imminent war..."

(Even the church has history
With puffs
            Of black and white
Rising
             Smoke / gag reflexes /
The Coughing it up)

Chang Cha-Ching!
Money.

Smoke brakes over
Gets back
To the factory
Line
Chain Gang am/way

Cracking whips on backs of us
Of those who still worship
The lamb...  Yes I am
To Uncle Sam :
In the way, another obstacle

In the way of progress
Prehistoric pedestrian painted in the landscape
Sooner pushing
Out of the way

For supermarket boulevard malls
Catering from cowering from defeat
Mean streaks
Bomb shells
Mad money and a piece
       "Glocks, 45colts, semi automatics
        *******' Guns
For the **** storm hustle...!"

Every conversation started
Shaft all up in your grill
Every question an appeal
Digging
For information is power
Axing who you be?

I works at the grocers
In the ****** area part of town
Across the ways from the dispensary
(**** Chung winks at chuck wagons)
Says I gets discounts
With my marijuana card,
Prescription coupon
******

A regular
Opportunist.

Yelp! Hollah!

we Gots what you really need
       It's only business
Don't take it personal
Minions of E.T

But Still... there is no justice....

We Prey on the Lambs
And tell ourselves to
Doubt slowly
             "Just you wait / they'll see...
Dawn will break"
Ever
Clear of smoke, no doubt

The open minds, eyes,
Done did and able to see...
The invasion
Gots
Intellectual property

Karma will be a *****
On dinosaur bones
In the crude that burns the sky
And the smoke
Breaking
Our bad /

bubble...

FIN.life.
Choke.

in the emptiness
of all these lonely nights
i drift slowly to the planet in my heart
and its knock
knock
knocking
still mock
mock
mocking
and stop
stop
stopping
my every line

heels clicking
glasses chinking
the whisper of a forgotten light
flickers on and off
an endless chime

I just let the ringing echo
and in my mind
the sounds of my planet are the only peace I can find
so fluttering heart
un-still and unrefined
crack open and splutter onto the duvet
and let me listen to the sounds of the planet inside

Taken on a trip through the why don't I slip through the net?
set back from the light in the shadow  that might be the shadow of me and
who is free is he who can see the night shift its shape,
landscapes on canvas and seascapes in galleries, it's no wonder to me why Valerie went over to the other side.

Positive thinking in the tin where yesterday is chinking its chains does  my brains in,

Weary,
eyes bleary and nobody hears me,
it's that kind if say you get lost on the way, but I'm used to it.

On the tube.

I stand can't sit and these people just look and don't give a **** about me which all sounds like Valerie.

If this is the day and I am who I am, who's got the script
where is the man that I used to be

' why don't you come on over Valerie'

At the point where the afterburner turns into the foreground I look around me,
there is no Valerie and
only what's left if the dream wasn't right,
the night shifting shape
the rim on a wheel,
sometimes I feel
unreal.

smoking and drinking
anything but thinking
to this world, I am dumb
hoping is shrinking
my armor is chinking
my mind is now numb

toking and syncing
my mind has no inkling
empty out my head
the eyes of no blinking
they are set on linking
this life with the dead

So we get needled,
nickle and dimed
all of the time,
people chinking away
at our armor.

Wanting to scream
at the top of our longs
to *******,
but instead acting
prim and proper,
a residual of the Vanderbilt
school of etiquette,
******* political correctness
ruining the spirit.

Can you hear it,
see the blight,
the lack of courage
all over this land?

Christmas is a time for children
Of Santa, sleighs and snow
Of scented pines, hot mulled wines,
Icy cold noses, cheeks aglow.

Christmas is a time for family
For news throughout the year
Chinking toasts, sumptuous roasts
Well wishes and good cheer.

Christmas is a time for Baby Jesus
Of Wise Kings, angels and stars
An exhilarating night, the glorious sight
Long before computers and cars.

Christmas is a time for presents
Of bright wrappings, ribbons and bows
Of twinkling lights, breathless sights
Candlelight, carols and pantomime shows.

Christmas is a time for giving
To spare a thought for the lonely and old
A letter or gift, spirits that lift
To be remembered, not left out in the cold.

Christmas is a time for excitement
Of waiting for Santa to show
Milk and mince pies, delighted cries
From the biggest kid I know!

Aliens know
From observation
The majority
From every nation
Live their lives
In fear
For a life not here,
Not now.
We keep our lives
In control
By old beliefs,
Not what we know,
But numbers
Shrink and grow.
That's how we're held
In law and order,
To keep our souls
From hellish horror.
We keep the Alien
In the sky,
Or party on
At Mt. Sinai,
Worship a
Triangled eye,
Hold a dance
For Salome.
We wear chinking vestments,
We wear them
For the rest of us:
The gates are quickly closing,
A foggy wind is blowing
Across an Alien sky.

Dear mue
I cant trust myself
Or anyone else
Really its
All because of
You

Your dedication to
This lie was great but
Once the
Fabrication slipped
It was just chaos

We burned bright
Together
Or maybe this was
All in ny own mind

Were you just
Using me
Putting on a show
Til you
Found someone better
Like im just the
Punchline to some
Sick twisted joke

Dear muse
I trusted you to
Protect my heart
Now you're another
Scar chinking my armor

I cannot boast about worldly wealth
Nor can I boast about physical health
But what I have none can take away
I prefer my freedom any day.

I am no King with a worldly crown
With both my feet firmly on the ground
I know that life is an illusion
So nought over me has dominion.

Around me people fight for riches
The chinking sound of gold bewitches
Content does not come from worldly gain
It comes when no desires remain.

I want nothing, so my heart is free
Unattached and just content to be
Very gently with nature I blend
All is my brother, sister and friend.

Together everything makes a whole
We are units of a single soul
We have all been made blind by the “fall”
There is but one god and god is all.

Open our inner eye…we will see
Our past, present and future to be
God is not an outside entity
It is the spark within you and me.

When every ego its job has done
Then the universal prize is won
Like a picture the artist has drawn
The ultimate masterpiece is born.

All the things the world has ever known
As a child into the adult grown
Lives need to be lived and then depart
All is made perfect and becomes art.

There’s a storm Mama.
I cannot see through the rain.
Just human shapes walking.
Like people in a hall of mirrors
I have the blues Mama
But worse the blues are dark grey.
I know she’s out there
Walking with people we don’t know.
I can hear her laughter
The chinking of her wine glass.
But I can’t see her Mama.
The rain falls too hard.
I am too used
to her being there Mama.
Warming the house the gardens.
I became accustomed to
the green forest
and snow capped mountain’s.
Happiness was a habit
of my heart Mama.
But now the rain
This endless rain.

I walk these woods
Wild azaleas, ladies slippers and sweet shrub
Bobcats, deer, turkey and bear
Towering pines and hardwoods
A cushion of straw and leaves
Knee-deep in some places.

I remember rabbit hunting here as a child.
Back then, there were still open spaces
Filled with broom sedge, honeysuckle and bare red clay.
Blackberry briars and pine trees no taller than my head
Red Cedars and hollies everywhere for Christmas
We always came and cut our tree here.

It seems an untouched wilderness now
But if you go slow and look closely
You can still see faint reminders of my people

Flat stones stacked three high
The pillars for a barn or house long gone
A stone chimney half fallen
Because bees have stolen the mud chinking.

The outline of the springhouse
Where they kept the milk cool
The hole where later, when they could afford the time
They dug a well by hand.


Rusty barbed wire growing out of the center of huge trees
A reminder of better times
When there was money to buy wire
And enough neighbors that the cattle no longer roamed free

A whisky still by the creek
Dug down into a hole to hide it
The still full of axe holes
Cut by the revenuers
When they finally found it

Irish whisky to grease the fiddle
At the barn dance
To make the feet fly in a merry jig
And to drown the sorrows  
There were plenty of those

The farm next door
Where the husband went out to the barn one day
And hanged himself.

Ditches deeper than a man is tall
Zigzag across the landscape like lightning strikes
Reminders of what they learned
That the rains would wash the top soil down into the creek
Leaving nothing to nourish the crops.

In the end, the government offered assistance
Men with book learning called County Agents
Men who knew how to survey elevations
And design terraces that still curve through the deep woods

It was too little too late
But farming was all they knew
So the farmers spent weeks and months and years
Digging and damming to build
Those little pyramids of salvation
To save their soils

They were poor as the dirt itself.
And now, even the dirt was gone

It was no way to live
Finally they began abandoning the farms.
Slowly at first, then an avalanche
They went to the towns and cities
Assembly line workers
Who didn't mind 12 hour days
Or amputations.

The farms stood there
Little ghost towns on every 50 acres.
Snakes and mice moved into the houses.
The buildings burned or rotted
The storehouse, the smokehouse, the barn, the chicken coop.

These are my people
I walk where they walked
I see what was lost
I cherish what remains

The flicker of a whispered ghost
On baubled beads of glass,
Flees a world daubed dismal brown,
With mud trod over grass.

A dampness hugs the sagging sleeves
Of shoppers' weary arms:
Their stooping arch more drawn to earth
With every charmless charm.

Is inside where the magic's coiled?
Inside every ***** kitchen.
Endless chinking glasses raised with
Chunks of ice cubes glinting.

And through it all I stand and grin:
Half braced in case I fall.
I'll never last til Armageddon -
I've already hit the wall.