Through an open window, I hear
      the Big Thompson's steady music
drifting up from the valley below.

May breezes and gentle rains
     coax the snow-capped peaks
to surrender their alabaster cloaks
      downslope into gathering streams.

Silhouetted by light from the waxing moon,
      a cinnamon bear lopes along water’s edge,
pauses for a draught and meanders on.

A bull elk newly coifed with velvet antlers
        folds his legs beneath its belly
and kneels into grasses beside a tranquil pond.
        while the Big Thompson rushes on.

Spring beauties, calypso orchids and geraniums  
       shake off their winter's sleep and
dot every vagabond trail and verdant hill
        while fresh new leaves adorn the aspen boughs.

The Big Thompson inexorably presses on
        bound for rendezvous with time and space
and tumbles into the always patient sea.

© 2017 by Robert Charles Howard

I look out the window--an endless sky. The clouds are like nothing else--bold explosions and everywhere in the sky, infinite, above and still in time and space--Madness and Horror are said to have their own faces and names. Can't Beauty? Beauty has its own life--not a distinctive face, not a concrete identity--Beauty is breathing, standing, growing above us--the Clouds. I know that it's a bit foggy, I know what is actual is only actual for the one time and standing moment that it is there--maybe the Clouds move, travel, fade--but they never leave us. They're long, still and colossal enough to be viewed, admired, stricken, crushed beneath. I'm on a bus, travelling through San Francisco--a mystery on its own, mad like a spiral or giant--one with a heart and soul that is difficult to pinpoint and seemingly jolting, constantly moving throughout--down streets, through alleys, intensifying in the dazzling Golden Gate Bridge and boundary-less San Francisco Bay--a testament Olympian and profoundly simple, such a straightforward bridge with so many possibilities and tragedies. It's my destination, too.

I go to the Podesta Baldocchi--a flower shop, quaint, small, almost non-existent in the vertigo of San Francisco, but immortalized in another Vertigo--and inspiring search and enigma on its own--the vision of James Stewart chasing hills, corners, all the trails and paths for Beauty--a Beauty with two feet, a name, experiences--Beauty named Kim Novak. He follows Her, from the shores to the grave--She, praying at a cemetery, a faded figure in grief, He, watching obsessively like a predator--He finds Her on the cold shores, of the endless, alien seas--along the Golden Gate Bridge--on the verge of jumping. He saves Her, a metamorphosis of prey and personal freedom is triggered.

That's one of the many beautiful passages of Vertigo that I remember--passion, memory, disappearance, insanity, aggression. "Here I was born, and here I died", says the woman, named Madeline--a fatal, empowering woman of Beauty and melancholy, complex and deceiving. Chris Marker saw this too--a reservoir of thought from his Sans Soleil--the movie, the moment in time where memory and the Great Enigmas had finally been touched by skin and light. February, 1983.

Memory works that way.

That is one of the things I love most; memory. Memory is fading and escaping from me. I look down at my wrinkled hands--grief and nothing else--losing myself. I step onto the cliff where Madeline, where Grace stood. The sea is a rapture. Endless, everywhere, surrounding me from all corners--dozens of people have taken their life here. They jump from the bridge, they slip into the water and drown. Their entire breakdown and loneliness and humanity is silenced and stated in a small slip into the bay, or a thin, white splash--a miniature, but Greater Fall--beneath the bridge in all its magnificence and profundity, beneath the clouds, a silent act of Tragedy and Horror with a face, surrounded and drowned in Beauty and Rapture--breathtaking and cruel.

I am tired and lifeless. I can't stand it. I remember all the beaches, skies, nights, visions of the sun and daughters I've seen in my life, all the smiles I've faked, breaths I took--I hadn't thought of this until the nineties or so, in my wrinkled, tired years. I was remembering Marie--my only girlfriend and wife one I had met in the 40's--compassionate, dangerous, magnificent she was, like Madeline. Perfection and grace and danger. I had grown, loved, lived, watched everything and took every step with her--before she had died in 1989. She was my only care, my only love. I couldn't grip myself then. I hear my parents speaking, my mum and dad--dead now--my children, beautiful things--I couldn't keep them. I couldn't. I couldn't, their eyes porcelain--I went insane over all of it, a time to foggy to look back on. Time is the same stretch, place is the same and distilled--but memory is everywhere--one thing I love and can't stand.

And now I am here. The beauty is pastoral, distant, glowing and also deadly--like cloudy figures of steel and glass, concrete with fountains and blood in the shape of landscapes and towers--branches, cold, in a lonely place, fading from truth and Truth, identity and Greater Life--a thousand misty passions and poses stretched and scattered. I'm hopeless, I'm lonely, I'm cold. I'm wary, tired, confused with nothing left in me. I'm leaving, Reconciling beneath, below, and everywhere around Beauty.

I understand any doubts. I cannot take my nerves or my senses. They've failed, broken down on me--I've lost myself, very permanently this time.

I fall. I see nothing, feel everything crushing, me lying in the crystal bay--it fades. I can't see. I can't speak--I can't love, embrace, understand--I open my eyes, dizzy and faded, in a house, a rather cluttered, yet homely one. I believe I am small, looking up to my great pale towering mother, breats and lips and glowing limpid eyes... a fireplace, some warmth, some haze and some tears of joy. It is falling apart, where I am, but it is of embracing memory. I'm being looked and smiled at. I don't know where this is.

I close my eyes, I stand and open them seven years later. Cold water at my feet and sand--I look around to see a beach, stretched infinitely--past boundaries or understanding. The sea is dizzying. I look up to see that Beauty--still standing, moving across and thinning--that Beauty is sunless. Nothing but Clouds--an illusion, foggy and slippery of sorts--impossible and unbearable to experience. I stumble.

I look up, and there's now a ceiling--tall, blazing gold, marmalade and kaleidoscope--everything is blurring and melting. I'm in a hallway, with parents--a father and mother, loving, caring and safe; the only thing in front of me is a painting, swirled and swerved shore to thunder and graceful and passionate so distant--Holy, Andalusian girls from a Utamaro madman; thinly, finely lined, velvet in color and delicacy, colliding and cracked in shape, memory or sense. The painting falls, crashes, and the ceiling falls and opens to voices and laughs. I stumble, tremble, get knocked staggering, look down the hallway. It's crashing to black--I stumble to anyone; my father, the mad size of him, I rush and cling still around his arms--a shadow--then his terrible branches rising, fading, and everywhere--complete pitch black--coming for me? Far and off and a way a place cold and a lone in the Fall long and thundering--rippled--moving--then white--then clearly.

My next vision I can comprehend without running terrified is in Japan. It's 1964, I am 25. A television set, murky like playing out my dazed oxygen-starved hallucinatory real-fake mindbursting memories. Headlines, people, looking down at me. I can feel my knees again, and my heart. It's the Year of the Dragon, I'm nervous uncontrollably. Night after night, each one passing by as I blink, walking, everything changing, changing from me, I can feel. Or maybe I can't. I keep my eyes open, and don't lose my breath, hiding in rooms and feeling and apart torn so vast. I look at my surroundings--I don't know where I am--I think in my last passage? passed on through a thousand miles and faces and every conscious and spirit. My last one. I can't hide, though. I'm dying, my last breath and vision being me fading through time--such a quick thing--spinning and burying the Earth As I Have Watched It Through The Years in snow and rain and static and the Dead--I can only stare at the streets. I'm with my girlfriend Marie, it's November 28th, 1975.

She says to me, "What's wrong? You're on the balcony alone. You've been there for hours."

Marie, hold on tight, please. I'm lonely, terrified, frightened--I made a mistake, life is coming and going with all radiance and fleeting and darkness and closing doors. I've witnessed my birthday from another room. I've thought of my life again. I've seen it, distorted, everywhere, in colors and in heaps of broken fragments, images and ruins. I need your help--

"Nothing, just enjoying the city. It's beautiful," I say. It's nightfall, blinding rain, in Paris. That's where we spent our vacation, me and Marie. I love her; she'll be gone the next morning.

Then I go back. Different times, warm times, times like beauty and solid, everything going racing and wayward that I can't see a color and then white then eyes pale and hyacinths all over the place--I see Marie in the distance, oh Yes like poised like drips like canvas all around surround floating laying, kissing me, the Day I'd wrapped gently around her now I can see it like a reflection, and O I can't take it--that very last look, her face vivid--and I can't look back and I can't look down or up--just her face, lovely, wrapping more and Closer and oh Yes all around me and my mouth is going insane so tired and limpid losing words and tract and

And I can see you so lovely so gracefully and yes I will kiss you and gently cradling and your skin like rose and blossoms with the smooth touch from an Eve in flesh shrouded red and raw and when I feel anything else running through my veins like clockwork oh Yes it blazes all lovely like a reflection and the last lonely place left to fade to is only the Clouds and Sea and oh yes with all the magic of the Rite of Spring and the fogs and streaks of August O but then now I see I see O Lord I see the one-thousand-one dead poses and faces like this marie not the one I know but her Beauty erased a lying a loft a living Girl a shape a branch and yet still loving in her stone face-without-a-face so Anonymous so Kiss Me Deadly leave me taking me sprawling around me creeping crouching touching growing up my skin and veins and conscious watching all the artifice leave me and all colors and thought coming up lashing melting seething roiling yes oh yes just like a reverie like genuine insanity haunting and boiling like sweet crazed Narcissus in all the Moorish vines so thorny so lost so complicated and savage rose gardens is all one can see like solid waves--in the distance, the bold-coifed Wooden Duke, the blue Queen, away from the warped, whirling war scape outside and cold and I'm taken back a bit now bundled away from all the rows and thorny laces of buildings among buildings way in the distance out the window like crooked Van Gogh details and the noir jagged edges and tete-a-tete feeling of Life and Hope that the neons floating down streets give you when all seeping and spraying in your eyes and O the tangled webs and thorns and spiders of the panes and glass and shards and sharp'n'smooth curls and spiraling rings of it all and O the strewn of flesh like insect and myth and negative space and city all coated and sprawled I'm going to explode and I look up to see every bit of sand, waves, bold lines and streaks above and beyond me, all those curves and rods very dizzying and all beating and throbbing like mad and my vision went like some frothing beast held and dissected under light and shape oh Yes I say and I tell you while being dragged through all the Andalusian flowers and raindrops beside and above me and the Universe and the Love that could've been it's all above me too like a rose growing and blossoming with all the melting grace of a Holy girl oh Yes I say and state as clear again so rapturously like a living poem and as I leave everyone and leave this illusion I can sigh and pause and oh my goodness it's all spinning and apart and transcendent like the first Clouds and Grace above a monochromatic world--a speck--Nothing in its embrace--I stop, gaze with the recollection of every gesture of love and love's death in my life--I'm somewhere, everywhere, from the cosmos to the sea--and the ****** comes before me--Marie, Marie--and I burst and split like dust--she speaks to me. She listens, she hears, the only thing, milky, porcelain eyes and skin like nothing else--I ask her where I am. She opens her mouth, bestridden and humbled like a shadow or a monument. Glowing like birth, she told me--solemn, silent, fuzzy--she told me that I'm dying. "Life is slipping--all of you, your raw hands, your face, your memory--everything is slipping, gently. You're being erased from the world, experienced, dismaying--you're far from it."

I asked, "Where?"

She stared, bled, disappeared into thin air and continued, "I always get lost, thinking or looking into the sea or sky. Infinite, lovely. It never ends. Never, ever ends. I look at it and cannot help but forget about every bit of land, forget any shore, stone, or war, or the clearest whisper--because it fades away from me, so clearly, and I can't help but stare down the endless waves and curls, because they go on forever. They're everything. They're all mist and unbearable, simple and Everything--I think you're at the end of Everything."

My last Beauty.

And then went down to the ship,
Set keel to breakers, forth on the godly sea, and
We set up mast and sail on that swart ship,
Bore sheep aboard her, and our bodies also
Heavy with weeping, and winds from sternward
Bore us onward with bellying canvas,
Crice’s this craft, the trim-coifed goddess.
Then sat we amidships, wind jamming the tiller,
Thus with stretched sail, we went over sea till day’s end.
Sun to his slumber, shadows o’er all the ocean,
Came we then to the bounds of deepest water,
To the Kimmerian lands, and peopled cities
Covered with close-webbed mist, unpierced ever
With glitter of sun-rays
Nor with stars stretched, nor looking back from heaven
Swartest night stretched over wreteched men there.
The ocean flowing backward, came we then to the place
Aforesaid by Circe.
Here did they rites, Perimedes and Eurylochus,
And drawing sword from my hip
I dug the ell-square pitkin;
Poured we libations unto each the dead,
First mead and then sweet wine, water mixed with white flour
Then prayed I many a prayer to the sickly death’s-heads;
As set in Ithaca, sterile bulls of the best
For sacrifice, heaping the pyre with goods,
A sheep to Tiresias only, black and a bell-sheep.
Dark blood flowed in the fosse,
Souls out of Erebus, cadaverous dead, of brides
Of youths and of the old who had borne much;
Souls stained with recent tears, girls tender,
Men many, mauled with bronze lance heads,
Battle spoil, bearing yet dreory arms,
These many crowded about me; with shouting,
Pallor upon me, cried to my men for more beasts;
Slaughtered the herds, sheep slain of bronze;
Poured ointment, cried to the gods,
To Pluto the strong, and praised Proserpine;
Unsheathed the narrow sword,
I sat to keep off the impetuous impotent dead,
Till I should hear Tiresias.
But first Elpenor came, our friend Elpenor,
Unburied, cast on the wide earth,
Limbs that we left in the house of Circe,
Unwept, unwrapped in the sepulchre, since toils urged other.
Pitiful spirit. And I cried in hurried speech:
“Elpenor, how art thou come to this dark coast?
“Cam’st thou afoot, outstripping ******?”
        And he in heavy speech:
“Ill fate and abundant wine. I slept in Crice’s ingle.
“Going down the long ladder unguarded,
“I fell against the buttress,
“Shattered the nape-nerve, the soul sought Avernus.
“But thou, O King, I bid remember me, unwept, unburied,
“Heap up mine arms, be tomb by sea-bord, and inscribed:
“A man of no fortune, and with a name to come.
“And set my oar up, that I swung mid fellows.”

And Anticlea came, whom I beat off, and then Tiresias Theban,
Holding his golden wand, knew me, and spoke first:
“A second time? why? man of ill star,
“Facing the sunless dead and this joyless region?
“Stand from the fosse, leave me my ****** bever
“For soothsay.”
        And I stepped back,
And he strong with the blood, said then: “Odysseus
“Shalt return through spiteful Neptune, over dark seas,
“Lose all companions.” Then Anticlea came.
Lie quiet Divus. I mean, that is Andreas Divus,
In officina Wecheli, 1538, out of Homer.
And he sailed, by Sirens and thence outwards and away
And unto Crice.
        Venerandam,
In the Cretan’s phrase, with the golden crown, Aphrodite,
Cypri munimenta sortita est, mirthful, oricalchi, with golden
Girdle and breat bands, thou with dark eyelids
Bearing the golden bough of Argicidia. So that:

were you a 50's
godchild in the city,
wing-tipped feet
running the streets
all week, ketchin hell...
then you gots that check
come friday
and needed a taste of heaven...

you and the dog pound
swung mid-town
to broadway & 47th
after 9,
and joined the line spilling
from the royal roost round 48th...

by 10, the joint was jammed
with gents well-coifed,
matching honeys, and the sounds
of money being made:

chime of silverware ~ cling,
and the cash register's ~ swish cha-ching,
and the chatter of guests,
servers and bartenders
doing their thing ~ wah da bing

then the lights dimmed
leaving a semi-dark haze
of gray smoke swirling
over the crowd,
and mc symphony sid
grabbed the mike:

"...welcome to the friday nite jam session
at the metropolitan bopera house
ladies and gentlemen...."

hysterical hoots and applause
followed
as  the circular spotlight paused
center stage,
unveiling:

~ the miles davis nonet ~

featuring,
max on drums,
john on keys,
gerry and lee on sax
and a genius
on trumpet

'twas the birth of cool
and soon the rhapsody
of modern jazz
waxed hypnotic,
casting a spell
over god's children
when budo chased lady bird
down allen's alley,
spittin'...
          riffin'....
boppin'...,
          po­ppin'.....
superfluidity
like acid through
varicosed veins

the earth stood still
it seemed
for 4 thrilling hours
as heaven rained a rifftide
onto the lucky crowd...

and dewey's sublime trumpet
exorcised the devil
from the week that was...

~ P (Pablo)
(7/24/2013)

I’ve been told to communicate with you through dreams through prayer through wishes
But I thought I’d write you a letter instead
Do they receive letters in heaven? Or hell?
After all, you chose to commit suicide. Such an ugly word; one I can’t seem to say anymore

And it was your decision to leave
To leave the stress the responsibility the pain
And I could understand all of that if not for one thing;
You left me

The man so paranoid about my safety
You locked everything and once armed me with expired pepper spray rather than leave me weaponless
But now you’ve left me unprotected
An easy target for anyone wishing to throw darts or shoot a gun

Speaking of guns
Where’d you get that shotgun and where did you hide it?
Such a messy and grisly weapon of choice
For the man with the perfectly coifed hair and the immaculate shirts and sweater vests

I got my driver’s license
And now, everywhere I drive, your voice echoes suggestions in my head
And I remember you saying so recently that you couldn’t wait to teach me how to drive in snow
Why would you say that?

And why did you end everything so close to my birthday?
Was the goal to see me turn seventeen because that meant I was old enough to handle your death?
Because being 17 years and 6 days old still wasn’t old enough to handle what I dealt with
It wasn’t old enough to see you lying there

People say you didn’t mean to hurt me
You never meant for me to be the one to find you
But who else was going to do it?
I mean you must have thought of that

But I don’t want you thinking I was your perfect unblemished daughter before this
I’ve made out with a boy I’ve drank alcohol I’ve sexted
If you even know what that means
Plus, I’ve been dealing with Mom’s cancer for a number of years now

Speaking of which, I don’t know if you’ve heard
But Mom’s cancer is back and she’***** the jackpot this time
It’s in her pancreas and she hasn’t got very long to live, so maybe you’ll see her soon
That is, if you are in heaven

And that brings us to the question doesn’t it: why couldn’t you have waited?
Waited for me to get my license for Kristen’s Sweet 16 for my graduation
Was life really that unbearably bleak that you couldn’t have lasted one more month?
Because I’m lasting

Even though now life seems like a cruel joke
An unfair game where things get taken away with no notice and for no reason
And that childhood pastime Kristen and I had of pretending to be orphans
Doesn’t seem so fun anymore

I can’t make wishes anymore either
Because the things I truly want to wish for with all of my heart can’t come true
***** the Disney princesses because even a thousand eyelash wishes couldn’t bring back
Just one of your deep belly laughs to wake me up in the morning

And I know this wasn’t your intention, at least I hope it wasn’t,
But you’ve left me feeling kind of worthless
Because I wasn’t worth saying goodbye to or writing a letter for
I wasn’t worth holding onto

And ever since you’ve left, Dad, I’ve felt empty
And all of that empty space must be filled with tears because I constantly feel like crying
All I want is for you to hold me, just for a minute,
But you can’t always get what you want, right?

I guess the emptiness makes sense
Even if it’s sometimes a paradoxical emptiness because I’ve been suffocating ever since
I opened that door
And fell into the abyss

I sat there staring at her from across the table
as we shared yet another quiet meal together,
observations buzzing around in my already crowded mind.
Her face looked clean and resheshed,
her hair soft and coifed and freshly washed,
her white gloves unstained and clamped snuggly
around her slender arms.
Would she noticed my threadbare coat,
the circles underneath my tired eyes,
the cloth cap that used to sit upon my head?
Was I truly good enough for her?
Her smile said yes, but the condescending
grimaces on the faces of her parents upstairs said
no.
I didn’t need to see them to know that they were there.
I just knew it. I just knew.
How discouraging.
I looked at her, watching her silently from across the table,
eating with one hand
and fumbling the lump in my pocket,
running my fingers over it,
meditating whether or not I was foolish enough
to claim her,
whether or not I was selfish enough
to want her to be mine.
I was a narcissist to even think of it.
What would her parents say?
I bit my lip and pulled the parcel out,
summoning her attention toward my hand,
eyes glowing with curiosity and anticipation.
I stood up, but paused.
Just say “Will you marry me?”
It’s that easy. Only four words. Just say it!
As I opened the box with numb fingers,
I began to stutter the words,
like my humble tongue had been enchanted with some
kind of curse.
Cowardice.
I slid the parcel back into my pocket,
having been defeated without even having fought.
The look in her eyes shifted and it took me a moment
to fully process what was going through my
beloved’s head.
As she slowly returned to her meal,
I recognized it as disappointment.
Somehow, the feeling was mutual.

looking back and forth
from you
   to her
     to them
        & the others
and i wonder...
who of you are sincere
which of you go home in complete & utter contentment?

   you...
wearing plastic smiles
             coifed hair
      painted eyes
   and lips
             gelled
     sprayed
          sprinkled &  spritzed
                   iron out
     blown out
      shaken & tousled
for what?

to add to the alcohol induced facade
   of the similar?

no, i am not unique

i'm just better at showing what's real
than most.

An elderly , regional dame in a pretty lavender and white flannel coat checks her mailbox with the help of a metallic walker ... Her yard remains meticulously coifed and maintained just like the persnickety , perfect hairstyle she's worn for the last fifteen years ...
A stunning , curled cotton mane with impeccable , multi -colored dresses for church on Wednesday and Sunday , the Queen of a small town in middle , rural Georgia ..
Her castle is a sixties period brick ranch with beautiful Hostas and Tulips on all four corners ... Cherokee roses and Azaleas , Honey Locust and well kept Concord Grape arbors ..
A gas light stands guard by the front door , her prized chihuahua patrols the front of the estate from a kitchen window ..
On Spring days she waves from her white rocker on the front porch ..
Early Summer mornings she can be found tending her flowers , giving the grass a brief shower , reading her Bible beneath the carport and chatting with family and friends on the telephone ....

I cannot breathe, I cannot breathe
any more, blue mind
in which I have lived like a prisoner
for thirty years, manic and lonely,
barely daring to fill my lungs.

Sylvia dear, it’s time to say goodbye.
You’ve lived much too long——
marble-heavy, a bag full of God,
frightening effigy with cracked lips
silently holding your breath

and a head in the feverish oven
where it pours red over snow white
with the children asleep in the next room
I used to pray to recover you
oh, you.

In the American tongue, in the British town
blinded white by the tongue
of winter, winter, winter,
but the sadness within is old.
My British friend

says there have been a dozen or two
so I never could tell where you
put your mouth, your pen and ink,
I never could talk to you.
The words trapped in my throat.

Swallowed in a sea of tears
I, I, I, I,
I could hardly speak
I thought every woman was she.
and the looks pitiful

the madness, the madness
leaving me to be a lunatic.
A lunatic to Daddy, Teddy, Mother.
I began to write like a lunatic.
I think I may well be a lunatic.

The whites of my eyes, the memories of Boston
are no longer full of light and truth
with my average looks and mediocre mind
and my Bible and my Bible
I may be a bit of a lunatic.

I have always been scared of you,
with your books, your gobbledygoo.
And your coifed curls
and your German eye, mousy brown.
Crazy girl, crazy girl, O You——

not sane but locked up
so tight no eye could peep through.
Every man enjoys a Mother,
child suckling the breast, the mad
mad mind of a madness like you.

You stand tall and proud, Sylvia,
in the pictures I have of you,
a twitch in your hands instead of your eye
but no less a devil for that, no not
any less the deranged woman who

shattered my fragile mind in a million pieces.
I was scarcely a girl when I met you.
At twenty I tried to die
and get back, back, back to you.
I thought even the bones would do

but they pulled me into the spotlight,
and painted a shiny new coat on me.
And then I knew what to do.
I made a model of you,
a girl in blue with a look of despair.

And a love of the noose and pills
and I said I do, I do.
So Sylvia, dear, I’m finally through.
The telephone line is dead on this end,
the voices just can’t hear through this madness.

If they’ve killed the spirit, I’ve killed the body——
the ghost who said she was you
and drank my blood for a year,
ten years, if you must know.
Sylvia, you can close your eyes now.

There’s a gas in your brilliant, blue mind
and the other women never liked you.
They are praising your dead body.
They always knew it was you.
Sylvia, Sylvia, you witch, I’m through.

Bikes pass the green park bench.
Arabs in Armani Express outerwear circle the natural beauty; I watch.
Demur English women plod past in ones, twos, and groups of elegance and young simple folly.
They breathe the freshness in, and again, I watch.
Aged men play with their grandchildren in the field.
I recline.
They see me watching, they all do, even the sun…
English boys with coifed hair cycle by in expensive jeans and extravagantly matched shirts run, bike, walk, stroll, and I watch.
Hyde Park is the richest public good that has become… or maybe always was…
The milieu for different races, ages, and sexes to converge, collapse, and coexist.
And for men to sit on green benches,
watching… and writing.

These days
Was it something in the air
Rancid spite of the right  
Or the self-proclaimed hubris
Of every self-proclaimed guru
Of certainty turned onto its left side
Two camps had pitched their tents
On opposite sides of Main Street
Rooted in the traditional
With a propensity for being right
Missionaries for some diva god
Who has come to save the planet
Kryptonite is dynamite
We’ll only use it if we need to:
Blow up the people
In order to save the world

Although they deny they’re on a mission
When they’re in remission
Hear
The bombastic roar of broadcast rhetoric
Scripted with a very felt pen
All armchair generals
Arguing with a passion
Dare not felt for one another
“I can figure out the world
But you, Sir
I have a problem with.”

The streets emptied of nonconformity
Littered and poised with positioning
Salvos of so-called sanity
Fronts and flanks
In every shade
But grey
Postings on every corner
Foot soldiers of the faithful
Rallied in like-minded circles
For comfort and confirmation
Aplomb with understandings grasped
No room for namby-pamby
Wishy-washy
Confirmation bias
Only hearing what you want
Fire if necessary.
**** what you cannot agree on
Ignore what you cannot understand.

Choice was not an option
Backed into a corner
Conformity was
Comfortable as a worn recliner
Recliner beware and be bothered
We’ve been here before
Do you remember
Words, words, words
And sticks and stones and all of that
Was never true
Every politician worth his salt knew
Speeches that sear by fireside
Emblazoned by passions ignited
And smolder in the light of day
A Colosseum of coifed gladiators
Spectators raise a sword
And toast the spoils.
Bittersweet.
Now
Words avow
Ammunition packed in a pistil
To go
More powerful than the splitting of the atom
Is the splitting of minds.
  
When it doesn’t feel right.
And you know it’s not right
Because that’s the way it feels
And feelings never lie
But people do.

A world-weary of war games
What kernel of dubious truth
Do you separate from the chattering chaff?
And cling to
Not this
Not this
Not that

Feelings
The riptide of dissension
Tearing at heartstrings
Tearing the tents apart
Mars on a rampage
Venus in an iron cage

And in the quiet of night
A respite from being right

The
Homeless & disenchanted
Walked the dark streets alone
Pitched a solitary tent
And spent the night
Under the stars
And dreamt of peace
and beauty.

when we were children,
unimpressionable
innocent,
happy children,
the nature of a liar
were ill-behaved,
put to the corner
with their pants on fire.

when we were teens,
social lives
romance?
it struggles to
survive
an educational
stress in between
to lie was a sign
of betrayal and blight
one you could detect
from mere sight and reflect.
it was a feeling
a presence
that you avoided
for fear of getting hurt.
it was a waste of time.

when we grow older,
and the jar of cynicism
freezes colder
our definitions change
like leaves in the fall
for the upcoming winter's
frosty display
liars are what bring the bad
days.
it would never release
a more pungent beast
to see them lie to your face
on something that didn’t need to be said.
As adults
we learn to value honesty
Not as the cliched policy
But as a form of establishing communication
and trust in some way.
We feel like fools
when we’re used
abused
mistreated little tools
missing the detection
of a well-coifed liar.
Whether the excuse be
naivety or hopeless desire
Personally I’d rather die
Than to be caught
Or distraught
From something so simple
So easy
As a white lie.

Dressing up in starlight
Mingled with the mess
Of all that that's good and wholesome
Finely coifed tress
Look at me and wonder
Where I came to be
Don't fear the lovely lady
Marvel at what you see