The coldness without is covered with cloth, the coldness within can't be covered by cloth , yet if you see someone who is cold outside give him cloth but if they are cold within too give them warmness with your heart, give them kindness and melt their ice.  

- Aroody
© 2015 AROODY

the catholic nurse
all sensitive
caring noticing
everything
what can she think
of my hot/cold torment

always near blowing it
living in the fast lane
so friendly kind
the girls
dewy eyed
wanda abandoned me
bolton is in my hands

and yet my coldness
hurts
the more emotional
they stay
trying to find a reason
for my ice-like suspicion
fish eyes
coldly indifferent eyes
suspect everything that moves

socialising just to be loud
compensate for cold
lack of essential trust
warmth
i love them
despite myself
my desire to love
is unconscious and gigantesque

i never know
when i'm going to miss someone
strange coldness perplexing
i've got to work to get devotion
but once i get it
i really get people on my side
there are my people
who can survive
my shark-like coldness
and there are those
who want something
more personal
i can be very devoted to those
who can stay the course

my soul is aching
for an impartial love of people
i'm at war with myself.

Coldness does not want you either. It does not want your trembling muscle and pallid skin and hunched figure. It desires you no more than you desire it. The difference is that you invited the coldness in and it is your guest. Coldness is an absent of heat, you see. Where is your heat? Coldness did not come for you - your slow death called out its name and it had no choice but to respond. Why did the fire stop vibrating within your hands? The sun used to be inside you - what happened to it? You cannot blame the coldness when you are the coldness.

by John Greenleaf Whittier  (1807 – 1892)

“As the Spirits of Darkness be stronger in the dark, so Good Spirits which be Angels of Light are augmented not only by the Divine Light of the Sun, but also by our common Wood fire: and as the celestial Fire drives away dark spirits, so also this our Fire of Wood doth the same.”

        COR. AGRIPPA,
           Occult Philosophy, Book I. chap. v.

“Announced by all the trumpets of the sky,
Arrives the snow; and, driving o’er the fields,
Seems nowhere to alight; the whited air
Hides hills and woods, the river and the heaven,
And veils the farm-house at the garden’s end.
The sled and traveller stopped, the courier’s feet
Delayed, all friends shut out, the housemates sit
Around the radiant fireplace, enclosed
In a tumultuous privacy of storm.”

                                       EMERSON

The sun that brief December day
Rose cheerless over hills of gray,
And, darkly circled, gave at noon
A sadder light than waning moon.
Slow tracing down the thickening sky
Its mute and ominous prophecy,
A portent seeming less than threat,
It sank from sight before it set.
A chill no coat, however stout,
Of homespun stuff could quite shut out,
A hard, dull bitterness of cold,
That checked, mid-vein, the circling race
Of life-blood in the sharpened face,
The coming of the snow-storm told.
The wind blew east; we heard the roar
Of Ocean on his wintry shore,
And felt the strong pulse throbbing there
Beat with low rhythm our inland air.

Meanwhile we did our nightly chores, —
Brought in the wood from out of doors,
Littered the stalls, and from the mows
Raked down the herd’s-grass for the cows;
Heard the horse whinnying for his corn;
And, sharply clashing horn on horn,
Impatient down the stanchion rows
The cattle shake their walnut bows;
While, peering from his early perch
Upon the scaffold’s pole of birch,
The **** his crested helmet bent
And down his querulous challenge sent.

Unwarmed by any sunset light
The gray day darkened into night,
A night made hoary with the swarm
And whirl-dance of the blinding storm,
As zigzag, wavering to and fro,
Crossed and recrossed the wingàd snow:
And ere the early bedtime came
The white drift piled the window-frame,
And through the glass the clothes-line posts
Looked in like tall and sheeted ghosts.

So all night long the storm roared on:
The morning broke without a sun;
In tiny spherule traced with lines
Of Nature’s geometric signs,
And, when the second morning shone,
We looked upon a world unknown,
On nothing we could call our own.
Around the glistening wonder bent
The blue walls of the firmament,
No cloud above, no earth below, —
A universe of sky and snow!
The old familiar sights of ours
Took marvellous shapes; strange domes and towers
Rose up where sty or corn-crib stood,
Or garden-wall, or belt of wood;
A smooth white mound the brush-pile showed,
A fenceless drift what once was road;
The bridle-post an old man sat
With loose-flung coat and high cocked hat;
The well-curb had a Chinese roof;
And even the long sweep, high aloof,
In its slant spendor, seemed to tell
Of Pisa’s leaning miracle.

A prompt, decisive man, no breath
Our father wasted: “Boys, a path!”
Well pleased, (for when did farmer boy
Count such a summons less than joy?)
Our buskins on our feet we drew;
With mittened hands, and caps drawn low,
To guard our necks and ears from snow,
We cut the solid whiteness through.
And, where the drift was deepest, made
A tunnel walled and overlaid
With dazzling crystal: we had read
Of rare Aladdin’s wondrous cave,
And to our own his name we gave,
With many a wish the luck were ours
To test his lamp’s supernal powers.
We reached the barn with merry din,
And roused the prisoned brutes within.
The old horse ****** his long head out,
And grave with wonder gazed about;
The **** his ***** greeting said,
And forth his speckled harem led;
The oxen lashed their tails, and hooked,
And mild reproach of hunger looked;
The hornëd patriarch of the sheep,
Like Egypt’s Amun roused from sleep,
Shook his sage head with gesture mute,
And emphasized with stamp of foot.

All day the gusty north-wind bore
The loosening drift its breath before;
Low circling round its southern zone,
The sun through dazzling snow-mist shone.
No church-bell lent its Christian tone
To the savage air, no social smoke
Curled over woods of snow-hung oak.
A solitude made more intense
By dreary-voicëd elements,
The shrieking of the mindless wind,
The moaning tree-boughs swaying blind,
And on the glass the unmeaning beat
Of ghostly finger-tips of sleet.
Beyond the circle of our hearth
No welcome sound of toil or mirth
Unbound the spell, and testified
Of human life and thought outside.
We minded that the sharpest ear
The buried brooklet could not hear,
The music of whose liquid lip
Had been to us companionship,
And, in our lonely life, had grown
To have an almost human tone.

As night drew on, and, from the crest
Of wooded knolls that ridged the west,
The sun, a snow-blown traveller, sank
From sight beneath the smothering bank,
We piled, with care, our nightly stack
Of wood against the chimney-back, —
The oaken log, green, huge, and thick,
And on its top the stout back-stick;
The knotty forestick laid apart,
And filled between with curious art

The ragged brush; then, hovering near,
We watched the first red blaze appear,
Heard the sharp crackle, caught the gleam
On whitewashed wall and sagging beam,
Until the old, rude-furnished room
Burst, flower-like, into rosy bloom;
While radiant with a mimic flame
Outside the sparkling drift became,
And through the bare-boughed lilac-tree
Our own warm hearth seemed blazing free.
The crane and pendent trammels showed,
The Turks’ heads on the andirons glowed;
While childish fancy, prompt to tell
The meaning of the miracle,
Whispered the old rhyme: “Under the tree,
When fire outdoors burns merrily,
There the witches are making tea.”

The moon above the eastern wood
Shone at its full; the hill-range stood
Transfigured in the silver flood,
Its blown snows flashing cold and keen,
Dead white, save where some sharp ravine
Took shadow, or the sombre green
Of hemlocks turned to pitchy black
Against the whiteness at their back.
For such a world and such a night
Most fitting that unwarming light,
Which only seemed where’er it fell
To make the coldness visible.

Shut in from all the world without,
We sat the clean-winged hearth about,
Content to let the north-wind roar
In baffled rage at pane and door,
While the red logs before us beat
The frost-line back with tropic heat;
And ever, when a louder blast
Shook beam and rafter as it passed,
The merrier up its roaring draught
The great throat of the chimney laughed;
The house-dog on his paws outspread
Laid to the fire his drowsy head,
The cat’s dark silhouette on the wall
A couchant tiger’s seemed to fall;
And, for the winter fireside meet,
Between the andirons’ straddling feet,
The mug of cider simmered slow,
The apples sputtered in a row,
And, close at hand, the basket stood
With nuts from brown October’s wood.

What matter how the night behaved?
What matter how the north-wind raved?
Blow high, blow low, not all its snow
Could quench our hearth-fire’s ruddy glow.
O Time and Change! — with hair as gray
As was my sire’s that winter day,
How strange it seems, with so much gone
Of life and love, to still live on!
Ah, brother! only I and thou
Are left of all that circle now, —
The dear home faces whereupon
That fitful firelight paled and shone.
Henceforward, listen as we will,
The voices of that hearth are still;
Look where we may, the wide earth o’er,
Those lighted faces smile no more.

We tread the paths their feet have worn,
We sit beneath their orchard trees,
We hear, like them, the hum of bees
And rustle of the bladed corn;
We turn the pages that they read,
Their written words we linger o’er,
But in the sun they cast no shade,
No voice is heard, no sign is made,
No step is on the conscious floor!
Yet Love will dream, and Faith will trust,
(Since He who knows our need is just,)
That somehow, somewhere, meet we must.
Alas for him who never sees
The stars shine through his cypress-trees!
Who, hopeless, lays his dead away,
Nor looks to see the breaking day
Across the mournful marbles play!
Who hath not learned, in hours of faith,
The truth to flesh and sense unknown,
That Life is ever lord of Death,
And Love can never lose its own!

We sped the time with stories old,
Wrought puzzles out, and riddles told,
Or stammered from our school-book lore
“The Chief of Gambia’s golden shore.”
How often since, when all the land
Was clay in Slavery’s shaping hand,
As if a far-blown trumpet stirred
Dame Mercy Warren’s rousing word:
“Does not the voice of reason cry,
Claim the first right which Nature gave,
From the red scourge of ******* to fly,
Nor deign to live a burdened slave!”
Our father rode again his ride
On Memphremagog’s wooded side;
Sat down again to moose and samp
In trapper’s hut and Indian camp;
Lived o’er the old idyllic ease
Beneath St. François’ hemlock-trees;
Again for him the moonlight shone
On Norman cap and bodiced zone;
Again he heard the violin play
Which led the village dance away.
And mingled in its merry whirl
The grandam and the laughing girl.
Or, nearer home, our steps he led
Where Salisbury’s level marshes spread
Mile-wide as flies the laden bee;
Where merry mowers, hale and strong,
Swept, scythe on scythe, their swaths along
The low green prairies of the sea.
We shared the fishing off Boar’s Head,
And round the rocky Isles of Shoals
The hake-broil on the drift-wood coals;
The chowder on the sand-beach made,
Dipped by the hungry, steaming hot,
With spoons of clam-shell from the ***.
We heard the tales of witchcraft old,
And dream and sign and marvel told
To sleepy listeners as they lay
Stretched idly on the salted hay,
Adrift along the winding shores,
When favoring breezes deigned to blow
The square sail of the gundelow
And idle lay the useless oars.

Our mother, while she turned her wheel
Or run the new-knit stocking-heel,
Told how the Indian hordes came down
At midnight on Concheco town,
And how her own great-uncle bore
His cruel scalp-mark to fourscore.
Recalling, in her fitting phrase,
So rich and picturesque and free
(The common unrhymed poetry
Of simple life and country ways,)
The story of her early days, —
She made us welcome to her home;
Old hearths grew wide to give us room;
We stole with her a frightened look
At the gray wizard’s conjuring-book,
The fame whereof went far and wide
Through all the simple country side;
We heard the hawks at twilight play,
The boat-horn on Piscataqua,
The loon’s weird laughter far away;
We fished her little trout-brook, knew
What flowers in wood and meadow grew,
What sunny hillsides autumn-brown
She climbed to shake the ripe nuts down,
Saw where in sheltered cove and bay,
The ducks’ black squadron anchored lay,
And heard the wild-geese calling loud
Beneath the gray November cloud.
Then, haply, with a look more grave,
And soberer tone, some tale she gave
From painful Sewel’s ancient tome,
Beloved in every Quaker home,
Of faith fire-winged by martyrdom,
Or Chalkley’s Journal, old and quaint, —
Gentlest of skippers, rare sea-saint! —
Who, when the dreary calms prevailed,
And water-**** and bread-cask failed,
And cruel, hungry eyes pursued
His portly presence mad for food,
With dark hints muttered under breath
Of casting lots for life or death,

Offered, if Heaven withheld supplies,
To be himself the sacrifice.
Then, suddenly, as if to save
The good man from his living grave,
A ripple on the water grew,
A school of porpoise flashed in view.
“Take, eat,” he said, “and be content;
These fishes in my stead are sent
By Him who gave the tangled ram
To spare the child of Abraham.”
Our uncle, innocent of books,
Was rich in lore of fields and brooks,
The ancient teachers never dumb
Of Nature’s unhoused lyceum.
In moons and tides and weather wise,
He read the clouds as prophecies,
And foul or fair could well divine,
By many an occult hint and sign,
Holding the cunning-warded keys
To all the woodcraft mysteries;
Himself to Nature’s heart so near
v That all her voices in his ear
Of beast or bird had meanings clear,
Like Apollonius of old,
Who knew the tales the sparrows told,
Or Hermes, who interpreted
What the sage cranes of Nilus said;
A simple, guileless, childlike man,
Content to live where life began;
Strong only on his native grounds,
The little world of sights and sounds
Whose girdle was the parish bounds,
Whereof his fondly partial pride
The common features magnified,
As Surrey hills to mountains grew
In White of Selborne’s loving view, —
He told how teal and loon he shot,
And how the eagle’s eggs he got,
The feats on pond and river done,
The prodigies of rod and gun;
Till, warming with the tales he told,
Forgotten was the outside cold,
The bitter wind unheeded blew,
From ripening corn the pigeons flew,
The partridge drummed i’ the wood, the mink
Went fishing down the river-brink.
In fields with bean or clover gay,
The woodchuck, like a hermit gray,
Peered from the doorway of his cell;
The muskrat plied the mason’s trade,
And tier by tier his mud-walls laid;
And from the shagbark overhead
The grizzled squirrel dropped his shell.

Next, the dear aunt, whose smile of cheer
And voice in dreams I see and hear, —
The sweetest woman ever Fate
Perverse denied a household mate,
Who, lonely, homeless, not the less
Found peace in love’s unselfishness,
And welcome wheresoe’er she went,
A calm and gracious element,
Whose presence seemed the sweet income
And womanly atmosphere of home, —
Called up her girlhood memories,
The huskings and the apple-bees,
The sleigh-rides and the summer sails,
Weaving through all the poor details
And homespun warp of circumstance
A golden woof-thread of romance.
For well she kept her genial mood
And simple faith of maidenhood;
Before her still a cloud-land lay,
The mirage loomed across her way;
The morning dew, that dries so soon
With others, glistened at her noon;
Through years of toil and soil and care,
From glossy tress to thin gray hair,
All unprofaned she held apart
The ****** fancies of the heart.
Be shame to him of woman born
Who hath for such but thought of scorn.
There, too, our elder sister plied
Her evening task the stand beside;
A full, rich nature, free to trust,
Truthful and almost sternly just,
Impulsive, earnest, prompt to act,
And make her generous thought a fact,
Keeping with many a light disguise
The secret of self-sacrifice.

O heart sore-tried! thou hast the best
That Heaven itself could give thee, — rest,
Rest from all bitter thoughts and things!
How many a poor one’s blessing went
With thee beneath the low green tent
Whose curtain never outward swings!

As one who held herself a part
Of all she saw, and let her heart
Against the household ***** lean,
Upon the motley-braided mat
Our youngest and our dearest sat,
Lifting her large, sweet, asking eyes,
Now bathed in the unfading green
And holy peace of Paradise.
Oh, looking from some heavenly hill,
Or from the shade of saintly palms,
Or silver reach of river calms,
Do those large eyes behold me still?
With me one little year ago: —
The chill weight of the winter snow
For months upon her grave has lain;
And now, when summer south-winds blow
And brier and harebell bloom again,
I tread the pleasant paths we trod,
I see the violet-sprinkled sod
Whereon she leaned, too frail and weak
The hillside flowers she loved to seek,
Yet following me where’er I went
With dark eyes full of love’s content.
The birds are glad; the brier-rose fills
The air with sweetness; all the hills
Stretch green to June’s unclouded sky;
But still I wait with ear and eye
For something gone which should be nigh,
A loss in all familiar things,
In flower that blooms, and bird that sings.
And yet, dear heart! remembering thee,
Am I not richer than of old?
Safe in thy immortality,
What change can reach the wealth I hold?
What chance can mar the pearl and gold
Thy love hath left in trust with me?
And while in life’s late afternoon,
Where cool and long the shadows grow,
I walk to meet the night that soon
Shall shape and shadow overflow,
I cannot feel that thou art far,
Since near at need the angels are;
And when the sunset gates unbar,
Shall I not see thee waiting stand,
And, white against the evening star,
The welcome of thy beckoning hand?

Brisk wielder of the birch and rule,
The master of the district school
Held at the fire his favored place,
Its warm glow lit a laughing face
Fresh-hued and fair, where scarce appeared
The uncertain prophecy of beard.
He teased the mitten-blinded cat,
Played cross-pins on my uncle’s hat,
Sang songs, and told us what befalls
In classic Dartmouth’s college halls.
Born the wild Northern hills among,
From whence his yeoman father wrung
By patient toil subsistence scant,
Not competence and yet not want,
He early gained the power to pay
His cheerful, self-reliant way;
Could doff at ease his scholar’s gown
To peddle wares from town to town;
Or through the long vacation’s reach
In lonely lowland districts teach,
Where all the droll experience found
At stranger hearths in boarding round,
The moonlit skater’s keen delight,
The sleigh-drive through the frosty night,
The rustic party, with its rough
Accompaniment of blind-man’s-buff,
And whirling-plate, and forfeits paid,
His winter task a pastime made.
Happy the snow-locked homes wherein
He tuned his merry violin,

Or played the athlete in the barn,
Or held the good dame’s winding-yarn,
Or mirth-provoking versions told
Of classic legends rare and old,
Wherein the scenes of Greece and Rome
Had all the commonplace of home,
And little seemed at best the odds
‘Twixt Yankee pedlers and old gods;
Where Pindus-born Arachthus took
The guise of any grist-mill brook,
And dread Olympus at his will
Became a huckleberry hill.

A careless boy that night he seemed;
But at his desk he had the look
And air of one who wisely schemed,
And hostage from the future took
In trainëd thought and lore of book.
Large-brained, clear-eyed, of such as he
Shall Freedom’s young apostles be,
Who, following in War’s ****** trail,
Shall every lingering wrong assail;
All chains from limb and spirit strike,
Uplift the black and white alike;
Scatter before their swift advance
The darkness and the ignorance,
The pride, the lust, the squalid sloth,
Which nurtured Treason’s monstrous growth,
Made ****** pastime, and the hell
Of prison-torture possible;
The cruel lie of caste refute,
Old forms remould, and substitute
For Slavery’s lash the freeman’s will,
For blind routine, wise-handed skill;
A school-house plant on every hill,
Stretching in radiate nerve-lines thence
The quick wires of intelligence;
Till North and South together brought
Shall own the same electric thought,
In peace a common flag salute,
And, side by side in labor’s free
And unresentful rivalry,
Harvest the fields wherein they fought.

Another guest that winter night
Flashed back from lustrous eyes the light.
Unmarked by time, and yet not young,
The honeyed music of her tongue
And words of meekness scarcely told
A nature passionate and bold,

Strong, self-concentred, spurning guide,
Its milder features dwarfed beside
Her unbent will’s majestic pride.
She sat among us, at the best,
A not unfeared, half-welcome guest,
Rebuking with her cultured phrase
Our homeliness of words and ways.
A certain pard-like, treacherous grace
Swayed the lithe limbs and drooped the lash,
Lent the white teeth their dazzling flash;
And under low brows, black with night,
Rayed out at times a dangerous light;
The sharp heat-lightnings of her face
Presaging ill to him whom Fate
Condemned to share her love or hate.
A woman tropical, intense
In thought and act, in soul and sense,
She blended in a like degree
The ***** and the devotee,
Revealing with each freak or feint
The temper of Petruchio’s Kate,
The raptures of Siena’s saint.
Her tapering hand and rounded wrist
Had facile power to form a fist;
The warm, dark languish of her eyes
Was never safe from wrath’s surprise.
Brows saintly calm and lips devout
Knew every change of scowl and pout;
And the sweet voice had notes more high
And shrill for social battle-cry.

Since then what old cathedral town
Has missed her pilgrim staff and gown,
What convent-gate has held its lock
Against the challenge of her knock!
Through Smyrna’s plague-hushed thoroughfares,
Up sea-set Malta’s rocky stairs,
Gray olive slopes of hills that hem
Thy tombs and shrines, Jerusalem,
Or startling on her desert throne
The crazy Queen of Lebanon
With claims fantastic as her own,
Her tireless feet have held their way;
And still, unrestful, bowed, and gray,
She watches under Eastern skies,
With hope each day renewed and fresh,
The Lord’s quick coming in the flesh,
Whereof she dreams and prophesies!
Where’er her troubled path may be,
The Lord’s sweet pity with her go!
The outward wayward life we see,
The hidden springs we may not know.
Nor is it given us to discern
What threads the fatal sisters spun,
Through what ancestral years has run
The sorrow with the woman born,
What forged her cruel chain of moods,
What set her feet in solitudes,
And held the love within her mute,
What mingled madness in the blood,
A life-long discord and annoy,
Water of tears with oil of joy,
And hid within the folded bud
Perversities of flower and fruit.
It is not ours to separate
The tangled skein of will and fate,
To show what metes and bounds should stand
Upon the soul’s debatable land,
And between choice and Providence
Divide the circle of events;
But He who knows our frame is just,
Merciful and compassionate,
And full of sweet assurances
And hope for all the language is,
That He remembereth we are dust!

At last the great logs, crumbling low,
Sent out a dull and duller glow,
The bull’s-eye watch that hung in view,
Ticking its weary circuit through,
Pointed with mutely warning sign
Its black hand to the hour of nine.
That sign the pleasant circle broke:
My uncle ceased his pipe to smoke,
Knocked from its bowl the refuse gray,
And laid it tenderly away;
Then roused himself to safely cover
The dull red brands with ashes over.
And while, with care, our mother laid
The work aside, her steps she stayed
One moment, seeking to express
Her grateful sense of happiness
For food and shelter, warmth and health,
And love’s contentment more than wealth,
With simple wishes (not the weak,
Vain prayers which no fulfilment seek,
But such as warm the generous heart,
O’er-prompt to do with Heaven its part)
That none might lack, that bitter night,
For bread and clothing, warmth and light.

Within our beds awhile we heard
The wind that round the gables roared,
With now and then a ruder shock,
Which made our very bedsteads rock.
We heard the loosened clapboards tost,
The board-nails snapping in the frost;
And on us, through the unplastered wall,
Felt the light sifted snow-flakes fall.
But sleep stole on, as sleep will do
When hearts are light and life is new;
Faint and more faint the murmurs grew,
Till in the summer-land of dreams
They softened to the sound of streams,
Low stir of leaves, and dip of oars,
And lapsing waves on quiet shores.
Of merry voices high and clear;
And saw the teamsters drawing near
To break the drifted highways out.
Down the long hillside treading slow
We saw the half-buried oxen go,
Shaking the snow from heads uptost,
Their straining nostrils white with frost.
Before our door the straggling train
Drew up, an added team to gain.
The elders threshed their hands a-cold,
Passed, with the cider-mug, their jokes
From lip to lip; the younger folks
Down the loose snow-banks, wrestling, rolled,
Then toiled again the cavalcade
O’er windy hill, through clogged ravine,
And woodland paths that wound between
Low drooping pine-boughs winter-weighed.
From every barn a team afoot,
At every house a new recruit,
Where, drawn by Nature’s subtlest law,
Haply the watchful young men saw
Sweet doorway pictures of the curls
And curious eyes of merry girls,
Lifting their hands in mock defence
Against the snow-ball’s compliments,
And reading in each missive tost
The charm with Eden never lost.
We heard once more the sleigh-bells’ sound;
And, following where the teamsters led,
The wise old Doctor went his round,
Just pausing at our door to say,
In the brief autocratic way
Of one who, prompt at Duty’s call,
Was free to urge her claim on all,
That some poor neighbor sick abed
At night our mother’s aid would need.
For, one in generous thought and deed,
What mattered in the sufferer’s sight
The Quaker matron’s inward light,
The Doctor’s mail of Calvin’s creed?
All hearts confess the saints elect
Who, twain in faith, in love agree,
And melt not in an acid sect
The Christian pearl of charity!

So days went on: a week had passed
Since the great world was heard from last.
The Almanac we studied o’er,
Read and reread our little store
Of books and pamphlets, scarce a score;
One harmless novel, mostly hid
From younger eyes, a book forbid,
And poetry, (or good or bad,
A single book was all we had,)
Where Ellwood’s meek, drab-skirted Muse,
A stranger to the heathen Nine,
Sang, with a somewhat nasal whine,
The wars of David and the Jews.
At last the floundering carrier bore
The village paper to our door.
Lo! broadening outward as we read,
To warmer zones the horizon spread
In panoramic length unrolled
We saw the marvels that it told.
Before us passed the painted Creeks,
A   nd daft McGregor on his raids
In Costa Rica’s everglades.
And up Taygetos winding slow
Rode Ypsilanti’s Mainote Greeks,
A Turk’s head at each saddle-bow!
Welcome to us its week-old news,
Its corner for the rustic Muse,
Its monthly gauge of snow and rain,
Its record, mingling in a breath
The wedding bell and dirge of death:
Jest, anecdote, and love-lorn tale,
The latest culprit sent to jail;
Its hue and cry of stolen and lost,
Its vendue sales and goods at cost,
And traffic calling loud for gain.
We felt the stir of hall and street,
The pulse of life that round us beat;
The chill embargo of the snow
Was melted in the genial glow;
Wide swung again our ice-locked door,
And all the world was ours once more!

Clasp, Angel of the backword look
And folded wings of ashen gray
And voice of echoes far away,
The brazen covers of thy book;
The weird palimpsest old and vast,
Wherein thou hid’st the spectral past;
Where, closely mingling, pale and glow
The characters of joy and woe;
The monographs of outlived years,
Or smile-illumed or dim with tears,
Green hills of life that ***** to death,
And haunts of home, whose vistaed trees
Shade off to mournful cypresses
With the white amaranths underneath.
Even while I look, I can but heed
The restless sands’ incessant fall,
Importunate hours that hours succeed,
Each clamorous with its own sharp need,
And duty keeping pace with all.
Shut down and clasp with heavy lids;
I hear again the voice that bids
The dreamer leave his dream midway
For larger hopes and graver fears:
Life greatens in these later years,
The century’s aloe flowers to-day!

Yet, haply, in some lull of life,
Some Truce of God which breaks its strife,
The worldling’s eyes shall gather dew,
Dreaming in throngful city ways
Of winter joys his boyhood knew;
And dear and early friends — the few
Who yet remain — shall pause to view
These Flemish pictures of old days;
Sit with me by the homestead hearth,
And stretch the hands of memory forth
To warm them at the wood-fire’s blaze!
And thanks untraced to lips unknown
Shall greet me like the odors blown
From unseen meadows newly mown,
Wood-fringed, the wayside gaze beyond;
The traveller owns the grateful sense
Of sweetness near, he knows not whence,
And, pausing, takes with forehead bare
The benediction of the air.

Written in  1865

Open bramble gate, morning lets itself in,
eyes open in welcome. Water stirs – a

glance outside. A jade tiger rises,
blue herons fly to South Mountain.

~~~

Forage through herb abundance on South
Mountain sunlight pooled in cassia leaves.

It’s why you reclused here, hermitage entwined
in viridian mists. I find your footprints

headed to the clouds, so I leave this
poem on your wall and on a whim

ascend South Mountain ridges. Sticks
snap underfoot – blue herons startle away.

~~~

Boundless and empty to townsfolk,
South Mountain peaks. But here

immortals dance among indomitable pines.
Above the sun blue herons fly into

paper crumpled clouds – clouds the body,
clouds the wings. Sonorous bird song -

radiant clarity – makes mountain forests
sing, each beat moves the clouds, red

dust cleared from rivers and peaks,
ochre streams flood forests and fields,

canyons and gorges, jades and emeralds rise.
Petals scatter on crystalline swells, night

lengthens slowly – coldness wanders by
but I will linger here, a little longer.

Version 2

South Mountain peaks, boundless and empty to townsfolk.
But here immortals dance among indomitable pines.

Above the sun blue herons fly into paper folded clouds
- azure heaven change – clouds the body, clouds the wings.

Sonorous bird song radiant clarity – makes mountain forest sing,
each beat moves the clouds, red dust cleared from rivers

and peaks, ochre streams flood forests and fields,
canyons and gorges, jade and emerald rises.

Petals scatter on crystalline swells – night lengthens slowly -
coldness wanders by but I believe I will linger here, a little longer.

Version 3

South Mountain peaks, boundless and empty to townsfolk.
But here immortals dance among indomitable pines.

Above the sun blue herons fly into paper folded clouds
- azure heaven change – clouds the body, clouds the wings.

Sonorous bird songs radiant clarity – makes mountain forests sing,
each beat moves the clouds, red dust clears from rivers

and peaks. Streams of ochre flood forests and fields,
canyons and gorges, jades and emeralds rise.

Scattered petals on crystalline swells – night slowly lengthens -
coldness wanders by but I believe I will linger here, a little longer.

It's been 2 months
Since we parted
But we've been
Together for 2 years
It's probably warm
Where you are
But I'm still here
Recovering from
The coldness of
Your words
It's so hard to
Wait for closure
From someone like you
But you're worth it
So I'll wait.

In Chibok,
An IED finds it way
Into the mind of a savage sect
And made good use of the emptiness therein.

In helplessness,
Some school girls are bundled up
From their school compound;
Taken for a noisy ride into Sambisa;
From where they will forget
Their mothers’ voices.

On the tube,
There is a very loud lady
Anathematising the “sharing” of blood
In Borno.

When she is done,
The media is awash with the sound of
‘Na only you waka come?’

As if it is a joke
To ****** young Nigerian girls
From the four walls of their classroom
Into the coldness of the wilderness
To dwell amongst wild beasts.
To learn new lessons;
Weird lessons.

In bed at night,
My wife talks of
Church bombings;
Internally displaced persons;



Slaughtering of citizens
And the role of government in all of these
And the security of our country
And I pulled at the hairs
From around her second mouth
To make her change the topic
And she falls for it and changes the topic.

The white bearded Mallam
On the rickety bus to Yola
Fixes his eyes on me
Like some foreigner
And I feel the fire
All through the trip
And I burn and burn and burn
Like the victims of Nyanya motor park blast
It feels good though to know
What it takes to
Be burned into countless degrees.

But after three weeks
I am back to normal again
I can feel again
My senses are back again
Working optimally
And I can hear again
As the presidential pit-bull
And the black parrot
The one that used to be
In the fourth estate of the realm
Begin to mete and dole out
Slippery speeches, speeches you can’t hold
That comes upon our ears
To push out every substance
From our heads


Everything except this load of hopelessness

This bitter bile in our mouth
This unwanted fetus
That no one would claim

And then the hash tags;
The media craze;
The count down
The women in red
And the men that joined
The bring back our girls
The Michelle Obama
The celebrities from across
The noise, the sweat, the blood
The ****** thighs of those girls
Their torn underwear
Their wails, their sobs, their pains
To say the least
The echo, the deafening echo
And how we wave them all aside
And look the other way.
Like it did not happen at all
Like it was just a movie
Directed by a director
That must be a sadist  
We sweep it under the carpet
Like our other numerous
National issues

But I won’t write another story on betrayal
I won’t write another poem
On how a nation
Could forsake her innocent children
Instead I would write of a country

Steeling, steeling, growing
Growing resilient to emotion;
Becoming many times dead

To any feeling
Tearing its tissues to pieces
And building new ones
That will be senseless
Lifeless
Bloodless.

And the noise
And the noise
And the noise.






















In Chibok,
An IED finds it way
Into the mind of a savage sect
And made good use of the emptiness therein.

In helplessness,
Some school girls are bundled up
From their school compound;
Taken for a noisy ride into Sambisa;
From where they will forget
Their mothers’ voices.

On the tube,
There is a very loud lady
Anathematising the “sharing” of blood
In Borno.

When she is done,
The media is awash with the sound of
‘Na only you waka come?’

As if it is a joke
To ****** young Nigerian girls
From the four walls of their classroom
Into the coldness of the wilderness
To dwell amongst wild beasts.
To learn new lessons;
Weird lessons.

In bed at night,
My wife talks of
Church bombings;
Internally displaced persons;



Slaughtering of citizens
And the role of government in all of these
And the security of our country
And I pulled at the hairs
From around her second mouth
To make her change the topic
And she falls for it and changes the topic.

The white bearded Mallam
On the rickety bus to Yola
Fixes his eyes on me
Like some foreigner
And I feel the fire
All through the trip
And I burn and burn and burn
Like the victims of Nyanya motor park blast
It feels good though to know
What it takes to
Be burned into countless degrees.

But after three weeks
I am back to normal again
I can feel again
My senses are back again
Working optimally
And I can hear again
As the presidential pit-bull
And the black parrot
The one that used to be
In the fourth estate of the realm
Begin to mete and dole out
Slippery speeches, speeches you can’t hold
That comes upon our ears
To push out every substance
From our heads


Everything except this load of hopelessness

This bitter bile in our mouth
This unwanted fetus
That no one would claim

And then the hash tags;
The media craze;
The count down
The women in red
And the men that joined
The bring back our girls
The Michelle Obama
The celebrities from across
The noise, the sweat, the blood
The ****** thighs of those girls
Their torn underwear
Their wails, their sobs, their pains
To say the least
The echo, the deafening echo
And how we wave them all aside
And look the other way.
Like it did not happen at all
Like it was just a movie
Directed by a director
That must be a sadist  
We sweep it under the carpet
Like our other numerous
National issues

But I won’t write another story on betrayal
I won’t write another poem
On how a nation
Could forsake her innocent children
Instead I would write of a country

Steeling, steeling, growing
Growing resilient to emotion;
Becoming many times dead

To any feeling
Tearing its tissues to pieces
And building new ones
That will be senseless
Lifeless
Bloodless.

And the noise
And the noise
And the noise.


In Chibok,
An IED finds it way
Into the mind of a savage sect
And made good use of the emptiness therein.

In helplessness,
Some school girls are bundled up
From their school compound;
Taken for a noisy ride into Sambisa;
From where they will forget
Their mothers’ voices.

On the tube,
There is a very loud lady
Anathematising the “sharing” of blood
In Borno.

When she is done,
The media is awash with the sound of
‘Na only you waka come?’

As if it is a joke
To ****** young Nigerian girls
From the four walls of their classroom
Into the coldness of the wilderness
To dwell amongst wild beasts.
To learn new lessons;
Weird lessons.

In bed at night,
My wife talks of
Church bombings;
Internally displaced persons;

Slaughtering of citizens
And the role of government in all of these
And the security of our country
And I pulled at the hairs
From around her second mouth
To make her change the topic
And she falls for it and changes the topic.

The white bearded Mallam
On the rickety bus to Yola
Fixes his eyes on me
Like some foreigner
And I feel the fire
All through the trip
And I burn and burn and burn
Like the victims of Nyanya motor park blast
It feels good though to know
What it takes to
Be burned into countless degrees.

But after three weeks
I am back to normal again
I can feel again
My senses are back again
Working optimally
And I can hear again
As the presidential pit-bull
And the black parrot
The one that used to be
In the fourth estate of the realm
Begin to mete and dole out
Slippery speeches, speeches you can’t hold
That comes upon our ears
To push out every substance
From our heads

Everything except this load of hopelessness

This bitter bile in our mouth
This unwanted fetus
That no one would claim

And then the hash tags;
The media craze;
The count down
The women in red
And the men that joined
The bring back our girls
The Michelle Obama
The celebrities from across
The noise, the sweat, the blood
The ****** thighs of those girls
Their torn underwear
Their wails, their sobs, their pains
To say the least
The echo, the deafening echo
And how we wave them all aside
And look the other way.
Like it did not happen at all
Like it was just a movie
Directed by a director
That must be a sadist  
We sweep it under the carpet
Like our other numerous
National issues

But I won’t write another story on betrayal
I won’t write another poem
On how a nation
Could forsake her innocent children
Instead I would write of a country

Steeling, steeling, growing
Growing resilient to emotion;
Becoming many times dead

To any feeling
Tearing its tissues to pieces
And building new ones
That will be senseless
Lifeless
Bloodless.

And the noise
And the noise
And the noise.

This coldness reminds me of the ice in my heart
it reminds me of the avalanche that threatens this winter
upon the snowy mountain in my soul formed by the tension of her absence
and the compressional forces of loneliness
this weather wants me to have another start
but I doubt there's more in my embrace but a cold shoulder
I doubt a lifetime could melt away this ice brought by your lies
every such morning I realise maybe I'll never get over this winter
unless I find one who will summer bring
  there's no such person, none can bring even spring
so much as I'd wish for warmth, I must find it in the rain
albeit I crave pleasure of belonging,I belong to the pain
to the hurting and taunting past I can never have
with the innocent beautiful girl,the only one I love
the beauty cast away and innocence she lost
if only I could can find her among the white walkers, her ghost
this chill reminds of how losing her was a big deal
it was the an inferno in paradise and it's burning still
how will I rediscover the warmth when I'm content with frigidity
how will I change my heart,how will I bend its rigidity
this coldness is a mirror that reflects  ain't over you at all
it reminds me of heaps of flakes piled in my soul

your old socks haunt me
as they linger in my drawer

Touching all my innocent matched pairs.

you had slipped them to me
one frosty night when the cold nipped at my toes

An act of a gentleman.


but now what am i to do?
you're gone, but your socks remain

Each opening of my drawer kindles the coldness I feel.

you and your socks betrayed me
none of you comfort me anymore

*But at least the socks decided to stay.

I'll be eaten alive one day:
one day, i see it in my mind
so close to closure along an empty street
late at night
(owls just retired and birds
not yet up),
orbs of light tethered to tall electric poles
cast dappled circles on cracked pavement;
illumination and safety
(for that two metre radius).

Stepping between them
like a girl child on stones
across a garden,
I anticipate each missed step
as sinking into sand or frightful waves.

Singing drunk back-alley lullabies
i'll soothe the skelebabies in their sleep,
their poor crusted noses snuffled against
a cold shift of air
(their private torment plastered over billboards
with corporate logos and dim colours,
suggesting the city's lights have gone out and
the local government is in frantics.
That is, after all, what you'd focus on)

Girl child games were so tipsy and magic
(and so close to real coldness);
between two orbs of light i'll slip
through the cracks
in the pavement.

THE END.

(eat me alive,
eat me alive,
eaten alive by the
wolf at the door)

In frames as large as rooms that face all ways
And block the ends of streets with giant loaves,
Screen graves with custard, cover slums with praise
Of motor-oil and cuts of salmon, shine
Perpetually these sharply-pictured groves
Of how life should be. High above the gutter
A silver knife sinks into golden butter,
A glass of milk stands in a meadow, and
Well-balanced families, in fine
Midsummer weather, owe their smiles, their cars,
Even their youth, to that small cube each hand
Stretches towards. These, and the deep armchairs
Aligned to cups at bedtime, radiant bars
(Gas or electric), quarter-profile cats
By slippers on warm mats,
Reflect none of the rained-on streets and squares

They dominate outdoors. Rather, they rise
Serenely to proclaim pure crust, pure foam,
Pure coldness to our live imperfect eyes
That stare beyond this world, where nothing's made
As new or washed quite clean, seeking the home
All such inhabit. There, dark raftered pubs
Are filled with white-clothed ones from tennis-clubs,
And the boy puking his heart out in the Gents
Just missed them, as the pensioner paid
A halfpenny more for Granny Graveclothes' Tea
To taste old age, and dying smokers sense
Walking towards them through some dappled park
As if on water that unfocused she
No match lit up, nor drag ever brought near,
Who now stands newly clear,
Smiling, and recognising, and going dark.

What a lovely thing it is
Varied by its coldness
Differ in designs
It is distinct
Whereas every drop weighs
It has purity in nature
and cleanliness in color
Disastrous it may seem
It blinds living species
A fuss in human's eye
But a thing is certain,
The coldness within
signifies it's exterior
Turn the world upside down
It will always be cold
Can you feel its coldness my love?
Embracing every part of your body
Tracing each wrinkles in your skin
Fighting that fiery soul inside you
Yes you've felt it,
It was strong
But what I have is stronger
And how come you don't?
My pain shows
Colder than any snow

Four seasons,
but
only winter he loved,
When
he let the coldness
caged in his heart
set free,
disguised as
the cold December winds.

A smile fell in the grass.
Irretrievable!

And how will your night dances
Lose themselves. In mathematics?

Such pure leaps and spirals ----
Surely they travel

The world forever, I shall not entirely
Sit emptied of beauties, the gift

Of your small breath, the drenched grass
Smell of your sleeps, lilies, lilies.

Their flesh bears no relation.
Cold folds of ego, the calla,

And the tiger, embellishing itself ----
Spots, and a spread of hot petals.

The comets
Have such a space to cross,

Such coldness, forgetfulness.
So your gestures flake off ----

Warm and human, then their pink light
Bleeding and peeling

Through the black amnesias of heaven.
Why am I given

These lamps, these planets
Falling like blessings, like flakes

Six sided, white
On my eyes, my lips, my hair

Touching and melting.
Nowhere.

All strung
out
       on
sadness,
empty shells
of needles
      that injected
the next defense
      to keep me going
splayed upon
the coldness
            of metal
somewhere in a place
lower than
the floorboards
of the nether regions
of a private hell,
where no one sees
      the truth behind
the doors of
           beaten swords
of silken pictures
in frothy shades
of effervescent green
a smiling happy family
in which the
sounds of drowning
can only be
             vaguely heard
a faded gurgle
       in an ocean of sighs

Somewhere, there,
the pain in my veins
spreads like
a self-administered
                       drug
only it's not
my prescription, at all
just a parody
from the very
    sick doctor
who shares
          this house,
meant to
be a home
one who thinks
he knows it all
but knows nothing

In this dreamlike weaving
of staring blankly
into alternative spaces
when all is so heavy
that even breathing is a task
I suddenly remember
   who the **** I am
and push my gaze through
the ceiling cracks
to look up at
         the stars,
receiving their
            shadows
           of light
      like a blessing
   upon my
   nettle-stung
    tongue
and
       rise

the darkest hour, the longing
is gone, no look back, nor remorse,
only scars and internal bleeding,
the time of sorrow is past, no remorse
nor songs of regrets, futile are the sorrow
songs,

despair is good, like love or an ******,
after the secrets behind the dress, loving
wanting the female scent, can smell you,
as lion to his prey, as bees on honey,
looking at the female eyes, loving silently,
longing lascivious touch, in the heat of lust,
falling as a sinner for her ****** doors,

the hour of lust never goes, is cursing
every moment and every piece of flesh,
like the merchant of Venice, taking your skin
as mi own, devouring the placer of
making her *** and letting her go.

us  poets souls, loving without remorse
feeling and making love threw words,
in a shallow world, full of badly lust, the lust of us,
is sour but never cold, only shallow souls
can't make love, us always trying to love,

the darkest hour, the longing is on,
mesmerizing the lascivious touch,
looking at you'r ******* face,
sweet as hell feeling mellow and fool
as a little boy, in the hour's of hates,
there is no remorse after those gay boys
in shallow hall, even them knows who is not

some loving threw phones,
us ******* threw words, like the
first lover threw words, mister George
lord of us all, the poets following the trails,
of love and lust, looking the fleur du mal,
reading the maldoror, and watching
at abysmal thoughts, of greats and crazy lost,
how many of you **** with words,
as Baudelaire says,
hypocrite reader mi brother, the truth
is on our souls, she watch for us all.

a season inferne, trying to love her
and making her keep the ******* soul,
soulless girl is already lost, crazy paths to her,
lost, but never stain my soul, in the darkest hour,
loving as i let go, feeling nothing, but the stain of
children blood in her hands, lost the soul, but trying
as never, to making her feel the love and lust in a
poets souls, beast are we all, of love and lust,

in this darkest hour, lost the heart but not my soul,
she is the love i make threw words, and lust is not
a game on her phone, or sexting foolishness,
where is thou lascivious touch, your heaven reach's,
gone. and never to return, too much connection
but no touch

lust is not a game, is an act of love,
pain and placer, lust and love,
flavors of the same drug, the drug of love,
every ****** is connected too us all, poetry
is ******* and loving threw words,
old pigs and lion and wolves,
making and matting and feeling it all.

the pain is part of lovers and lust, in
the empty streets of the days gone,
y can still see her with my eyes closed.
old lover of days far gone, still see you
with my eyes closed, the darkest hours
are gone and never to return, children's
blood stain the soul, of a soulless girl,

the our of darkness is not close to home,
i'm a poet in a crazy world, with out malice
or remorse, just a lover in the shallow halls,
full's of badly lust, and empty hearts with out the soul.
at the house of hell, immortality is far gone,
at this port of love and lust, are all vessels and boats
getting to the shore, or drawing in deep waters of
blood pain and lust, by not loving it all, pain and remorse
fear and love, lust and shame, all is there to feel it all,
there's  no escape for the truth in our souls, nor
ever going to be a safe port, the deep waters are
full of drawing boats, in the sea of life and love
let her go, and never look back as she lost her soul

the salt sculpture was looking back, now she is gone,
***** was full of badly lust, now she is a salty wall,
beneath hashem eyes she lost the ******* soul,
now and then never let the stain get's the soul,
is your only escape from hem, and his burning home
away the darkest hour, know that she is gone,
new dawns and new days, for this poet to love,
some day the cold will let her heart feel the eternal
fire of a poets soul. a burning heart full of love,
pain and lust, as the vessels sail on,
away far the boats are gone, beneath hashem's eyes

did he love, some will say, in deed he love,
and that is all, beneath the shallow halls
of love and lust i'm still alone in this ******* cold,
empty thoughts and lover soul's, is full by pain and lost
behind the eyes of a poets soul, is the abysmal truth
in the poets clothes, lust is nothing with out the love,
empty and vain, as a tick drinking flames of dragons yawns.


in the darkest of all hours i fell the pain of being alone,
no shame nor remorse, only the coldness, of being not,
a poets truth is on his soul, lucid thoughts in dark rooms,
and lost is not  a part of the all, the strings connect us all,
even the creepy lost, are part of us all, with o with out the soul,
but never he could stain my soul, beneath the shallow walls of
lust and love, some are lost, and alone, is a cold world, for the one with soul, evolved and ready for all, sill the soulless ones are looking for love and lust, even in shallow hall, their trying to be loved in return,

in the hour of lust and love, still the head need to be lost,
cause the pain was bigger then the love, even then i knew
one day i will going to love or try to, do,
i never be but alone, still can smell the sweetness,
of the lady's love, and make them feel adored,
and wanted, but still the head need to be lost,
the hours of pain are still near the bed,
looking as a drag remorse, or a foul lust taken by force,
or stolen in sleep, still the stains of ****** ****'s,
pollute what once  was full of love.

now is all full of lust and pain, never the soul
or the pain, take of nothing but shame,
of this poet's soul.
that even after the rapes, or  games
of creepy shames, lose the head or let the shame
direct my game, what once was stained, some will wash,
with love and lust, and honey tears, will take the stains
and love the flames in the poets heart.

nor shame nor remorse, just the truth and the flames,
never the blame will command my flames or foul my name,
connected are the strains of us all, as a mouse, as a lion
she will never pollute my name, or her shame will be minor,
the children s blood in her scent pollute the air,
and her bleeding hands are a ******* disgrace.

still the pain was washed away,
and the heart break was healed, after
all those years in pain, living in poets hell,
decadence as a way of life, despair and pain
***** my second and third name, now i'm clean
alive and well thoroughly clean is the soul of this,
project of man, sane and plain,

the darkest hours pass and where gone
alone and free, simple, smelling some
Madeleine in the sweet morning air,
the loner past, is gone with her lying eyes,
away i sail in this vessel, away the port, looking
for clean air, a woman with soul,
and this loving flame called poetry.

perhaps the most complex feeling
is feeling everything at once
the sympathy of a lover
the cold from a friend
everything shattering at once
residue of a rainfall

pain flares
and the cold blooms
the heat of freezing
the coldness of mistakes
everything finally stood still
residue of a rainfall

the soft pitter patter pulling me through the night

at the end of a hallway
looking out the window at night
there is a sense of coldness seeping through my warm blood
going through me and taking over

under the bed
inside of your head
is there a demon waiting?
lurking through the cover of darkness
stealthily destroying all sense of confidence

where is the light?
i can't find the switch
i'm just reaching out into the dark
a void filled with the unknown

the present is all you know
and maybe some of your past
and your future is all that's unknown

The snowman to the scarecrow, “Hahahaha you’re just a stick figure…. and your hair’s straw.”
The scarecrow to the snowman, “Watch who you talk about whenever you open your mouth, for all the coldness in your words will still melt to the ground along with you as soon as the sun comes out.”
Owned!
“You’re such a chump…” the snowman said… “…two words for your ancestry, tree stump.” the snowman said
“You’re fat… you have a carrot for a nose, and what’s up with that stupid green and red coloured hat?” said the scarecrow
Well played
“I work all year round… you’re here for a season, did you really think you could hold your ground against someone that is here for a reason?” the scarecrow added
The snowman cringed, but then had a comeback
“At least I don’t wear the same filthy clothes every day of the year… what? Are you trying to bring ‘brown’ back?”
Point for Snowman
“It’s better than being fat and going naked.” Scarecrow brought it back

Scarecrow is consistently winning right? I know… I know man!
If he made you a fan, stick around for an autograph… I will throw in mine too
For more on the war of words between these two
Watch this space for round two.

The mind of that girl is a pain sanctuary
whose aching decreases due to a world that's imaginary.

From home she goes out to get away,
and all those nights in stranges she relies.

The soft morning breeze
tenderly dries the tears in her cheeks,
and childishly it peeks
through her bloodshot eyes looking for a trace of peace.

Nobody could really tell
if she, bones and flesh, is still alive
or if she's just a wanderer ghost.
Probably the only one of her kind.

The dark circles under her eyes
are a proof of the restless crying nights.

The tangled auburn messed up hair
tells she didn't sleep at home, but no one cares.

Picking up flowers on the way back home,
humming songs that once made her feel whole.
She rests for a few hours and once awake she grabs a pen,
she writes down a poem before she gets drunk again.

Somehow she finds calm
in the simple things of life,
and she tries not to think
about the coldness in her eyes.

Barely getting through, day by day,
trying not to be absorbed by all the grey.

Amassing countless heartbeats
to the final point where life she quits.

An old red cement flooring,
Empty walls painted in gray,
Litted by a faint yellowish bulb,
A cozy place to sit with a person by my side.

Holding tightly as the ice candy melts,
Burning my palm with its coldness.
In this awkward state hiding in silence
I want to break it but maybe just comfort myself.

Didn't you notice that, maybe because you are busy;
Staring at that noisy tv.
Do you want to do something else?
Do you want to go somewhere?
Didn't you notice I was struggling my mind?
I wanna know if you do.

To me eternity lies in thy eyes,
and thy rejection my demise.
If so but accept and heal me likewise;
whilst shun and stab my sore heart, otherwise.
Thou hath always been to me a surprise;
Though a doubtful, but sparkling surprise,
So any dejection of thine shall be odd,
And a thousand times bitterer than a cold rapid retort;
For thou art pure; and sometimes too pure and fine
As how thy immortal soul stayest still, and growest not old
And in toughness and roughness is to remain,
So long as thy dried flesh shall age, and afford;
And with such songs so prolific as prayers
By friendly laudations like bewitching storms
Thou shall forever stay, and newer grow fader
And in such coldness thou shall offer me warmth;
Beside yon raging fire, and about thy manly arms,
Thou shalt but lull and cradle me like a baby-
until sleep comes and whispers dreams onto me,
Thou shalt be far more tender and smart-
Unlike that ungrateful preceding heart,
Which claimed to be civil, but uncivil,
United but then left my unsuspecting heart apart;
So unlike thee, who is but a smart little devil
Thou who earnestly tempted my soul, and lured my blood
Thou returned my blushes, and caught away my heart
Ah, and now-whenever I thinkest of thee,
All pain and gloom shall revert to oneness,
But how still I know not, as whose days remain but a mystery
For everything in which is at times barren and colourless;
But when alive, they are just as simple
as those brief dreams of thine and mine,
With a love but too sufficient, majestic and ample
Delicately shall they turn troubled and unseen,
But caring and healing and blinding and shaking,
taking turns like oceanic birds which go about
swimming and singing and strumming and swinging,
like a painting of prettily sure clarity-but unseen,
or perhaps a pair of loving, yet unforgettable winds.

To thee whom I once loved, and now still do,
To thee towards whom my hardened heart-again, turns soft,
To thee whom my delirium is all kept safe and true,
To thee for whom I canst feel never reproach-and only love,
And to thee-ah, to thee, thee only-by whom
the grandeur of the blue sky shalt melt;
Ah, thee! And betwixt thy gaze,
All fictitious sunsets shalt perhaps become wet-
Just like those azure spirits in thy fair eyes,
Sometimes too indignant but unquestioning,
and too pure-as to whom even the Devil hath no lies;
To thee only, to whom this enduring love is ever assigned,
And forever, even its temptation be mine, and only mine,
Like unforgivable sins, which are sadly left unatoned
In its eternity standing still like a statue;
beside its wrathed, and bloodied howling stone
And to thee merely, to whom this impaired heart shall ever return,
As it now does, with cries and blows that makest my heart churn
And canst wait not 'till the morn, for on morns only,
thou shalt creepest down the stairs, and stareth onto me,
Often with eyes full of questions;
Questions that thou art too bashful to reflect,
So that turn themselves later on, into emotions,
Which withereth and dieth days after, of doom and neglect.
Ah, but still I loveth thee!
For this regret makest me but loveth thee more and more,
and urge my soul greater, to loveth thee better-than ever before.
For 'tis thee who yet stills my cry, and silences my wrath;
The one who kills my death, and reawakens my breath.
Thou on whom my love shall be delightfully poured,
A love as amiable as the one I hold for dearest Lord,
A love for thee, for only thee in whom I'th found comfort,
A comfort that is holier than any heaven, or even His very own divine abode;
Thou art holier than the untouched swaying grass outside,
Which is green, with greenness so handy and indulgent to every sight,
Thou who art madder than madness itself,
But upon Friday eves, makest my joy even merrier,
And far livelier-than any flailing droplet of rain
Showering this earth's clustered soil out there,
Which does neither soften nor flit away my pain
But makest it even worse, as if God Himself shan't solicit, nor care
Like any other hostile love, which thou might kindly find, every where.

To thee whom I once loved, and now still do,
To thee towards whom my hardened heart-again, turns soft,
To thee whom my delirium is all kept safe and true,
To thee for whom I canst feel never reproach-and only love,
And to thee-ah, to thee, thee only-by whom
the grandeur of the blue sky shalt melt;
In my mind thou art the lost eternity itself,
And by its proud self, thou art still even grander,
For thou makest silence not any more silence,
but joy, in return, even a greater joy.
Ah, thee, thou who the painter of my day,
and the writer of my blooming night.
Thou who art the poet of my past,
and the words of my courteous present.
Thou shall ******* flirty orange blossoms,
And cherish its virtue, which strives and lives
As a most sumptuous, and palpable gift-
Until the knocking of this year's gentle autumn.
Ah! Virtue, virtue, o virtue-whose soul always be
a charm, and indeed a very generous charm-
to my harmonious, though melancholy, *****.
Ah, thee; o lost darling-my lost darling of all awesome day and night,
My lost darling before starlight, and upon the pallid moonlight,
My lost darling above the reach of my sight, and height;
Thou art still a song-to my now tuneless leaves,
and a melody to their bottomless graves,
Thou shalt be a cure to their ill harmony;
Thou art their long-betrayed melody.
And even, thou art the spring
my dying flowers needst to taste,
fpr being with thee produces no haste;
and or whom nothing is neither early, nor late;
And whenst there be no fate, thou shalt be
yon ever consuming fate itself-
And by our inane eyes, thou shalt makest it
but adorable and all the way strong,
For thou, as thou now do, nurture it better
than all the other graciousness among;
Thou art the promise it hath hitherto liked; but just
shyly-and justly refuted, for the bareness of pride,
and often inglorious resistance-all along.

To thee whom I once loved, and now still do,
To thee towards whom my hardened heart-again, turns soft,
To thee whom my delirium is all kept safe and true,
To thee for whom I canst feel never reproach-and only love,
And to thee-ah, to thee, thee only-by whom
the grandeur of the blue sky shalt melt;
Ah, thee! Even in undurable haste, thou art still like a butterfly,
fast and rapid flowing about the earth and into the sky;
Thou who art grateful not for this earth's soil;
Thou who saith 'tis only the sky that canst make thou feel.
Thou who cannot sit, thou cannot lay,
but on whose lanes thou always art secure,
as though from now thou shalt live too long
And belong to this rigorous earth
to whom our mortal souls do not belong.
And as to its vigour, death cannot be delayed,
and words of deadness shalt fast always, be said.
Ah, yet but again, I cannot simply be wrong;
for thou art immortal, immortal, and immortal;
To death thou art but too insipid and loyal;
that willing it not be, to take thy soul into its mourning,
and awkward prayers so scornful and worrying.
Thou who needst not be afraid of death;
for breath shalt never leave thee, and thou shan't breath.
Unsaid poems of thine are thus never to remaineth unspoken,
and far more and more thoughts shalt be perfectly carved, and uttered;
Unlike mine; whose several mortal thoughts shalt be silenced, and unknown
And after years passed my name shalt be forgotten, and my poems altered.
But thou! By any earth, and any of its due shape-thou shalt never be defaced,
and whose thoughts shalt never, even only once-be rephrased,
for thou art immortal, and for decades undying shalt be so;
And to life thou remaineth shalt remain chaste, and undetached;
as the divine wholeness whenst 'tis all slumped and wretched,
and white in unsoiled finery, whenst all goes to dirt and waste;
For grossness shalt escape thee, and stains couldst still, not thee fetch.
To every purity thou shalt thus be the best young match;
Ah, just like my mind shalt ever want thee to be;
but thou art missing from my sight-ah, as thou art not here!
Our paths are far whenst they are but near,
and which fact fillest me still, with dawning dread and fear
Unfortunately, as in this poem, my words not every heart shalt hear;
And to my writings doth I ever patiently retreat, the one,
and one only; whom to my conscience so dear.

To thee whom I once loved, and now still do,
To thee towards whom my hardened heart-again, turns soft,
To thee whom my delirium is all kept safe and true,
To thee for whom I canst feel never reproach-and only love,
And just to thee-ah, to thee, thee only-by whom
the grandeur of the blue sky shalt melt;
How fate but still made us here and meet,
That clue shall never makest me blind, and forget!
Now blighted I am, by dire ungladness and regret,
for having abhorred, and slighting thee too much!
For should I still cherish thee before my mortal death,
and be bitter and testy not; much less grim or harsh.
For fate is what fate is, as how love is just it looks;
and God's doings cannot be wrong; and true and faithful
as words I found crafted, and deciphered in old books.
Ah, and God's blessings are to arriveth in time,
and to taste whose due I indeed needst to be patient.
Be patient t'wards the love on which I climb,
ah, as for me-and whenst the right time cometh-
thou shalt be my sole wealth; so dear and sufficient!
And so for thee, no matter how thou hath my heart now torn,
Still I canst, and shalt reward thee not-with scorn;
for thou art my fate, my path, and my salved destiny;
For of which I am assured, definite, and convinced-
with all my degrees of humble pride, and vivid certainty-
Ah, darling, and thou art my humbleness, but also too many a time-my vanity;
For whom I shan't go and venture but anywhere-
As long as thou stayest and last-verily and for yon whole eternity, by me.

1
He'd love her
and then the coldness
of marriage took love
away from him
and the coldness turned into suspicion
and then into an obsession:
and she was an inconvenience

he murdered her a Friday
night
suffocated her with her pillows
it was easy;
like Othello did
but she was no Desdemona;
and he heard her whisper with her last breath:
"I'll have your eyes"
he cut her up in manageable parts,
and buried her below the floorboards
in the study

2
It is a year later
and he is at the computer
and far below lies parts of his wife
but now his wife is smiling
she's on screen
smiling like a Greek Goddess
and he sits transfixed
and she says:
"You are Oedipus, darling -
I will have your eyes"
She is smiling
He is willing
Beside the printer are paperclips
He undoes two
She beckons; she smiles
and she whispers
that same deathbed whisper:
"I'll have your eyes"
And he is Oedipus
Just paperclips will do
He gouges one eye out
And he gouges the other too
It is easy


She lies deep below
below the floorboards;
She need whisper no longer
And he is become Oedipus,
eyes gouged,
blind like the Greek Homer

I want to know what kind of man you are beneath
the surface.
I want to understand what makes your heart beat faster
and what you love. What makes you mad, and why it has
that power over you.
I want to learn if your anger is hot and quick like mine, or
a lingering coldness that freezes those who invoke your
wrath. Do you forgive them when the red mist subsides,
or do you hold a grudge through all of eternity?
I wish I could know how you see me through those quiet
eyes of yours. I want you to tell me if you long to stroke
my hair as we drift off to sleep, or if it’s my curves that
your hands ache for. I wonder if you would message me
goodnight before bed, so that I would never close my eyes
without knowing that I was loved. Perhaps you would
expect my heart to know that already, simply by the way
your face lights up at the sight of mine.
What do you dream of when you close your eyes? Do you
sleep peacefully until the light dapples your skin through
the blinds, or do the tigers prowl around your head,
leaving you shivering in fear in the darkness?
When you are lonely, do you ever think about my smile, or
the way that I always know how to still the demons that
scream inside you? I wonder if I am still vivid in your
awareness, or a distant memory now; a spectre bathed in
the gentle lustre of nostalgia.
Do you chase sunsets or sunrises? I love both. Does the
promise of a shimmering new dawn appeal to you more
than the glow of another day closing in a riot of colour? I
wonder where peace finds you. Will you drink hot tea with
me as the sun blazes through the horizon, reminding us
of the fleeting nature of this life? I think I would like that.
I want to learn if you prefer the bright crackle of a
burning log fire, snuggled up in blankets against the cold,
or the way that the sun plays upon warm limbs, making
them glow golden in the afternoon light. Is it summer that
brings a smile to those lips I covet, or would you
rather turn your face up to taste the snowflakes as they
fall?
I watch to see if you curse the fact that you cannot get to
work in the snow, or if you roll up your sleeves joyfully to
build a snowman. And if you do, I notice whether you give
him a stone mouth so that he might smile upon the
children that wave as they pass him by.
Do you ever fantasise about losing yourself, out there, in
the world? Do you seek the quiet solitude of a wooden log
cabin on the edge of a lake, or do you prefer the lights
and glamour of cocktail dresses in a fancy room full of
raucous laughter?Where do you want to go? What do you
want to see?
Do you hear it when adventure calls out your name and
more importantly, do you answer?
I want to know where you hide, when the world becomes
too much to bear.
Where do you take your freedom?
Is there space for another in your haven, or can I follow
you only so far, then settle patiently to await your return
to me; the reunion all the sweeter for your absence.
See, I wanna know if you have hurt people. Did their tears
rain on your heart, each drop a sharp stinging torment? I
try to imagine if you wear a mask of hardness in the face
of another’s pain, or if you are gentle as you ask for
forgiveness. Do you bleed through another’s wounds?
Can you?
Tell me how you have broken someone you loved, and
whether you were able to fix them again. Did they love
you still when the pieces were put back together? What
horrors live in the bleakest corners of your soul? What do
you think about when you go there?
I want to know the very worst of you.
Share with me the music that plays in your heart, and
whether you dance to the beat of your own drum.
Show me the colour of your love. If you could splash its
brightness onto a waiting canvas, would it burn with
passionate reds and oranges, or would it run still and
strong in a cool turquoise calm?
Tell me if you kiss softly, your lips singing mine a gentle
lullaby, or whether they would rage intently,
scorching new pathways to my heart with a desire that
refuses be stilled. I want to feel it either way.
Show me if you want a sweet girl, or a ***** one. Or a
little of each. What makes you cry out in ecstasy? Is it a
woman that makes you laugh until your stomach hurts, or
one whose beauty takes your breath away with a single
look? Do you look for the quirky ones, perhaps? The ones
who are too easily overlooked, the hidden treasures?
Tell me, would you risk it all for love? Would you fight for
what you truly want, or would you let it slip away into
nothing, never knowing what might have been, because
you never told her that your heart beat only for her? Did
you ever realise she was waiting for you to fight for her?
Will you watch someone else love her because you were
too afraid to be vulnerable with her?
Will you settle for next best, the girl you could maybe
grow to love someday, instead of the one that haunts your
thoughts today? Is that enough for you? Maybe it is.
Could you live with yourself knowing that she got away?
Tell me about a time that you cried until you couldn’t
breathe anymore. Or where you lived through a day where
you prayed for the sweet release of death. Did you make
it through? I have been there. Has your heart been broken
into a million tiny pieces and, if it has, has it made you
hard? Or are you are still open to the beauty that the
world holds for you?
Show me your pain and I will show you mine. I hope it
does not scare you. It has helped me to grow.
I want to know if you talk to the glittering stars above us,
and which one is special to you. What do you think
happens when we die? Do we join their shining ranks in
heaven or is there nothing left for us? Are you afraid of
death? I am. Will you hold my hand if I leave you first? If
you whisper to me that love knows no boundaries, not
even death, will you mean it?
Tell me about your childhood. I want to know the way
your mother’s hair smelled when you crawled exhausted
into her lap, and the way your bedroom looked when you
were 10. Did your father cry when you curled a tiny fist
around his finger for the very first time? I bet he did. I
want to know all the people that you have loved
throughout your life, so that I might love them through
you and with you.
Do you write? Do you draw? I want to know whether you
ache to capture my face with your pencil, preserving the
wonder that lingers softly there. Do you like to express
yourself through words, or action best? Will your hands
illustrate your story as you speak and will I know that you
are lying from the way your lips tremble gently as the
words tumble guiltily from them?
What is your favourite book? Explain to me why it
enraptures you so. Please? It tells me a lot about you. I
love the way people cry when their favourite character
breaks their heart, as though they are an old friend to be
adored. Who is yours? I will seek them out and befriend
them to understand why they have moved you so much.
Lend me your secrets. I’ll keep them safe and I’ll return
them when my picture of you is complete. Whisper into
my ear so that only us two may share them. Do you
believe in magic? I do, now that I have met you.
Tell me your story, for it might well become part of my
story. Let me in. Let me see you. All of you.
I want to know you.*

-Jojo Roden

I. The lifespan of a pumpkin is incredibly short. Considering the rapid pace in which a pumpkin goes from flower to fruition, it is quite literally a blink of an eye. And there is no nobility in a pumpkin death. No, it is a long and grueling process. From the beginning, the pumpkin patch is like Wall Street, 1763. Being poked and prodded, weighed, gawked at and compared to my brothers and sisters. I was chosen earlier than the rest for my robust size, even ridges, and vivid colour. I remember being severed from the vine- I know that humans don’t remember being cut from the umbilical cord, but it’s the only human experience I can compare it to. I imagine that if I had lungs I would scream or eyes I would cry, but I suppose the lack of these organs is what makes it so easy for humans to humiliate us as they do. We have no voice of our own- and who would stand up for us? Possibly vegans, but I digress.
Once inside the human home, I’m set on a “tiled countertop,” as they call it. I’m not sure what that is exactly, but it’s polished and hard and artificial. The coldness of it makes my skin stiffen. And then, as if overcome by brain fever, the smaller humans rush about their living space grabbing up “newspapers” and “paper towels” (no doubt made from abused trees) and just as I had feared, knives. More polished coldness. I know what is to come- I’ve heard the cautionary tales. When my siblings and I hung on the vine as buds, we’d swap horror stories. Of course, we didn’t think that they were real then. Though we had seen older pumpkins snatched up, we were too young to understand. And now that I know it’s all true, my fear isn’t for myself but for my kin. I know that it isn’t normal for humans to hope for their loved ones to rot, but it is for pumpkins. I hope that they will grow old, old, old until the day comes that they quietly fall off the vine and become food for the animals and the soil and their seeds impregnate the earth. And though I may be faced with this violent fate, I am not going to be afraid. I shall not sweat, nor make my skin tough to their blades. No, I will be soft as butter and dry as the sky. As the humans pick up their tools of operation and discuss what kinds of sweet treats they’ll be making with my “guts,” I yield to the steel and dare them to do their worst…

II. They’re finished now, and I’ve been gutted to within an inch of my life. My insides are piled in a white bowl beside me, my seeds rest on a tin sheet, dried of juice and covered in salt. Their skin is transparent and flaky like fish scales and the flesh underneath is toasted brown. They baked my babies! They baked my babies and now they’re popping them into their pudgy, glistening mouths like the giant who used bones to bake his bread. It occurs to me that I can see more of the room than I originally could. It makes sense… now that half my skin is gone that I should have a clearer view of the world. The oldest human walks over to the small ones.
“What did you make guys?” she asks.
“A face!” they exclaim. Was my original face not good enough?
At this point I catch a glimpse of the “face” that is being discussed. Behind the humans is a painted forest locked in by a sheet of glass. On the spotless surface I see my reflection- my smooth, rounded skin has become a hideously comical mask. Two triangles and a semicircle make up this face, the mouth being a jaunty one-toothed smile, a sweet ironical touch. A hanging man with a grin. A tiny white candle has been lowered into my hollowed out stomach and lit. The flame burns my core and scorches my skin in some places to a charcoal black.
My consciousness is sliding around now… from the kitchen to the pumpkin patch and back again… The fire in my belly has dulled to a pleasant burn… maybe because I’m so cold and now I’ve gotten colder… they’ve taken me outside… placed me on an artificial hay bale… more children appear with plastic replicas of me dangling from their polyester-draped arms… they grin and their smiles match the “pumpkins’” smiles on their arms, match mine… this is all too hilarious…
“Trick or treat!”

Who is the man who holds my gun when the world turns deathly still,
With hardened coldness in his veins as he prepares the ****?
The roaring engine, the radio chatter, all go perfectly quiet.
All that matters is ending the threat, it starts with sight alignment.

The thumb pushes the safety.  
click
Stop breathing.  Steady.  Center mass...

Who was that man who held my body?  
Is he my enemy?  Is he my friend?
Can I please meet him again?