There is little in this world that consistently causes our hearts more pain or which produces in us more need for forgiveness than rejection, especially from those whom it has cost us so much to love. It is universal anathema to the soul, and much of our lives can be unconsciously governed by the fear of it. So we find ourselves naturally asking, "Joy in the midst of rejection? Is that even possible?" Oh, yes! Not only possible but commanded of us who are believers in Christ. And not only commanded of us but ready to be gloriously bestowed on us like the most precious of pearls.

It's in the season of greatest rejection that we enter the season of greatest opportunity to discover the fullness of God's joy by discovering the fullness of His own heart. Walking in intimacy with Jesus through this searing pain may be one of the most priceless privileges of grace granted to us on this earth, for it opens up one of the widest doors for us to enter into the fellowship of sharing in His sufferings, and there is no more obvious chance to die to ourselves and live for Christ than in that holy communion of suffering with Him.

It's there that we're most able to clearly see Him and best prepared to clearly reflect Him, and it's then that we're empowered to live our lives here on earth from the very throne room of heaven, seated in the resurrected presence of our Bridegroom, where the joy always runs full and over. So our deepest heartaches will turn to deepest joys when we embrace them for the sake of Christ, to gain Him and be found in Him, to know Him in intimate detail through excruciatingly sweet experience. We will discover that the Lord entrusts the most luscious of blessings and the rarest of secrets to the most desperate and thirsty of souls, and that He delights to place the loveliest of wings on the lowliest of worms.

The gifts of myrrh's sorrow which the Father pours into the vessels of our lives are poured first into the hands of His own Son and flow through His nail-pierced scars before they ever touch us. And as we choose to graciously receive them as such, we are filled up with Him and enabled to pour Him out into the lives of others, even those who continually scorn and despise us.

The gift (yes, gift) of rejection is the high privilege of being asked by our Commander to become His flag bearer, receiving the esteemed honor of marching beside Him at the center of the front line, into the heat of the battle and into the face of the "enemy" (the rejecter), armed with no gun and carrying only His banner of love over our head for all to see. It's a sacred invitation into a certain death for the sake of knowing His love more intimately and for the service of displaying it more gloriously.

And if tempted to refuse the privilege, let us remember these two things: this life is so much more freely, joyfully lived when we have finally learned to count ourselves dead to it and alive to Christ, and the flow of His agape love through us will only be as strong as what it costs us to demonstrate it. The greater the cost, the purer the love; the purer the love, the more we are made like Him; the more we are made like Him, the more attuned we will be to His own heart's breaking and to our own breaking of it.

Oh, that we might be purged of ever thinking again that our neglecting of His love does not matter to Him! May He cause our hearts to break and break until we see how much it does! May we know the world's rejection again and again until we are finally scoured clean of our own despicable tendency to reject Him in favor of all our worldly playthings! No lover has ever endured more rejection than our Lover at our own hands and by our own hearts. And no lover continues to love through rejection with the determination and desire, suffering and sacrifice, tenderness and tenacity of our own Bridegroom. Can we not endure whatever He has called us to suffer for Him? Can we not allow it to drive us more fervently to His heart?... Lord, capture us by Your mighty hand and consume us by Your mighty flame, and may we pant and pine only for You, for Your love sets us free to dance in the midst of the fire!

How humbling, mystifying and worship-evoking it is to realize that the One we have so grievously rejected is the same One Who so perfectly understands and longs to comfort our own heart's grief when we are rejected. And to not run to Him now for that fellowship of healing would be to reject Him all over again and to break His heart once more. What could hurt Him more than our stubborn resistance to share in both His sufferings and His comfort when there is so much joy and intimacy waiting to be had with Him? Whatever ache our own heart knows, however deep and scathing, it cannot compare to the ache of His own heart when we let anything pull us away from Him, for He is rightly EVERYTHING to us—Father, Husband, Lover, Best Friend, Brother, Confidante, Kindred Spirit, Counselor, Nurturer, Rescuer, Healer, Hero... Behind the pain of every rejection is a legitimate need or desire that He is waiting to fill in us, and we have to let Him get to it by dying to our fleshly ones.

Or do we suppose that we might ever find true and lasting joy apart from dying to ourselves and abiding in Him when He died so that we might fully live in the joy of that abiding? No, true joy will only follow abiding; abiding and dying walk hand in hand, and rejection throws open the door for all three. Man's rejection is central to God's wooing, for it shatters our false expectations of human love and stirs in our hearts the longing for a perfect one. So let us not shrink back fearfully from that which can do us such good and teach us to love as Christ has loved us. With renewed passion, let us ask Him to wrap every affection of our hearts more tightly around Him that every desire might be united with His own and that we might learn to love in a way that sets our lives and the world around us ablaze!

To be despised and rejected and, still, to love—that is the ultimate triumph of Christ in our hearts, for we are never more like Him, never more full of Him, never more surrendered to His heart and His work than when He pours out His love through us to those who will not love us back. When we can stand in the face of bitter, cutting words, contemptuous looks and shaming mockery and still love fiercely but with a gentle and quiet spirit, we will know without doubt that it is His Spirit moving gloriously through us... Lord Jesus, Who so willingly floods our hearts with Your most precious gift, Yourself (and You are Love!), teach us to ever know You more and to rely fully on the love You have for us and ARE for us in infinite supply. Teach us to feast on the abundance of that love, and let it flow freely out of us to the ones who would reject, scorn, mock and hate us, so that they too might one day taste and be consumed by Your perfect love which drives out all fear—Your infinite, immeasurable love which heals all wounds and fills all emptiness and gives meaning to all of our pain. You alone, O LORD, are able to truly and purely love through rejection, but You live gloriously in us, so unleash Your mighty waters through us. Your love is everything, for You are Everything!...

Our all-sufficient Bridegroom is able to work His agape love most perfectly in us when that love poured out to another is not ever reciprocated, for it forces us to finally let Him fill us with Himself alone and to rely completely on His love instead of on the love of another to meet our heart's deepest hunger. The need for His filling IS our deepest hunger, and so our soul comes most alive not when it is loved by our fellow man but when it receives and pours out Jesus' love to our fellow man, expecting nothing in return but more of Him. Thus His love is made complete in us whether they ever love us back or not, and the fear of their rejection is eventually driven out by His perfect and perfecting love.

Even if love is never returned...never even received...it is never in vain, for "love never fails." To love someone, though we mean nothing to them, may seem too cruel a burden for the heart to bear, but the only thing worse than not being loved is to not love, and so the greatest tragedy of love spurned or lost would be to stop loving. For to cease loving that which causes us pain would be to let the pain win, but for as long as we love, really love with Christ's own heart, no matter what else happens, we win.

Love without pain remains unproven and, therefore, is meaningless, but love through pain invokes nothing less than the miraculous and inspires even the incredulous. The purer one's love, the more pain it causes when it is rejected, but only continued love can redeem the pain of loving, and only a perfect Love can heal love's scalding wound; the more scalding the wound, the better primed it is to receive that perfect Love fully into it.

There is great romance to be found in unrequited love that keeps loving, though it is beyond any human emotion or fleshly capacity or mortal understanding. It is a most sacred mystery which cannot be grasped with the head or even the heart but only with the spirit, for it is a love whose connection to Christ remains unsevered. There is perhaps no intimacy to compare to it, for it drives us to Him like nothing else will. It is a love whose longing for the other gives us the greatest insight into God's own aching longing for us. Only when it has cost us everything to keep loving do we begin to understand the smallest fraction of the wildly extravagant love Christ has for us or of the brutally scandalous pain which it has cost Him, and it will leave us in utter awe of Him and in love with Him like we have never been before.

As our focus is turned more and more toward His love for us and toward all of our previous rejecting of it, we will come to clearly see that agape love and rejection have everything to do with the the hearts of the lover and the rejecter and nothing to do with what the beloved and the rejected have done or deserve. For obviously we have done nothing to deserve God's love and He has nothing to deserve our rejection, yet He never stops loving us and we keep rejecting Him in ways we can't even comprehend. No one has ever known more rejection than the only One Who is completely worthy of love. Every time we sin we reject Him in favor of something else, but still He loves us without fail and without end. He loves us because He is love and because He has chosen to set His love on us. We are absolutely and irrevocably loved and accepted in Christ Jesus, and nothing and no one can ever change or mar that love. Our identity is completely secure in Him simply because of Who He is and who He says we are to Him.

Therefore no amount nor depth of rejection by anyone changes anything about who we are in Christ or our worth to Him. We do not need any man's love or acceptance to validate our worth, for it has already been established in the heavenly realms by the only One Whose verdict carries any real and lasting weight. We are significant and precious and holy to God regardless of what anyone else thinks of us or says of us or does to us. What has their rejection got to do with us? Nothing, for we are His! We are chosen and we are beloved! And so we are freed from the fear of rejection when we see that it cannot define us or taint us in the sight of the only One Whose opinion or judgment matters. It's a glorious thing to finally care what no man thinks of us, only the Master, for then we begin to be free to love all men as He loves them and to pray with deepest sincerity, humility and fervor even for those who spitefully reject us.

And even for that one who has hurt us most deeply, who has crushed our heart and thrown us to the wind like chaff without so much as a glance back, we will pray, no longer with only a slight and distant hope that he would return to us but now with a passionate desire to see the prodigal return to the heart of the Father. We will pray, not with a focus on life with him but with a focus on life for him. We will pray for a total and glorious restoration of his life to Christ, even if we will never be there beside him to share in the fellowship and joy of his homecoming, even if we will never get to experience up close in this life the thrill of seeing the Lord make something beautiful yet of his ashes. And this may be the hardest and truest test of our love for him—this painful sacrifice of desiring his absolute best apart from us. It is a wrenching blow to our pride and to our will (not to mention our codependence), for we had so longed to play the Muse and to awaken that beauty in him. So we know we could never yearn or pray for this out of our own strength or wisdom; it is simply too painful to our flesh. We must be led into it and through every delicate step of it by our loving Redeemer, our Bridegroom, as if He were leading us out under a canopy of the starry host and into the most intricate and intimate of moonlit dances. And so we begin to pray and to dance...

But even wrapped in Jesus' arms we are clumsy, stumbling miserably over our own feet. The music is perplexingly unfamiliar and the steps wildly unpredictable, and our toes feel terribly pinched in these new shoes. Maybe this dance is just too hard for us. Maybe we are not yet ready. Maybe we should sit it out for now and try again later when our shoes are a little more broken in or when our heart is a little less broken apart. So we pull away...

But He tenderly beckons us back: Dear and beloved bride, broken-but-beautiful one whom I have made My own, do not push Me away now, not after I have brought you so far. I have many more secrets to share with you and so much more to show you of Myself. But you are not letting Me lead this dance, beloved. Why are you so rigid in My embrace? Why so worried over the next steps? Let go of everything and abandon yourself to My love. Enjoy Me...Follow Me...Lean into Me...Keep watching My face...Let Me move you however I desire us to go...Trust Me...Love Me. Shall we dance, then?

Yes, we shall and we do! As He draws us into Himself, into the prayer of His heart and the dance of His Spirit, and as we give ourself over completely to the impulse of His leading, the details of our words and the precision of our steps give way to the desire and passion of His will, and the pulsating of our heart swirls to the rhythm of His own. The further He pulls us into union with Himself, the more we find ourselves desiring this same intimacy-with-Him for the very one who has so badly hurt us, for we see how badly he himself is hurting without it. We realize now that his running away from us and toward another is just as much a reflection of his insatiable yet misunderstood craving for God as was all of our running toward our own idols (including him). Our soul aches for his redemption and his healing and for his lost sheep's heart to be brought out of darkness and into the marvelous light that shines from Jesus' face, that he might truly know the pleasure of knowing the One Whose pleasure he was created for.

Somehow, through this heightened and mysterious intimacy of prayer for him, we are now discovering a strange and new kind of intimacy with this very one whose intimacy had so often given us the slip, this one whom we had so long loved and lived with but failed to uncover at all, and the fresh wind of it drives us even deeper into the ache of God's own heart for him and for us. It is at the center of that ache that we are finally able to let go of the hurt and the man and leave the matter entirely in God's hands, understanding that the Shepherd's aching heart knows fully all whom He has chosen and will never stop dealing with or seeking after any of His own sheep. And so...


                        We release to Him with a heart of trust
                        This one whom we love and always must
                        We can let go the man and rest because
                        It's out of our hands and always was


But the dance, like the feast, goes on and on, and the more we dance and the more we feast, the more we heal. Our Bridegroom wounds us by His own providence but washes our wounds with His faithfulness and binds them up with His love. The wounds and their healing make us beautiful to Him. They teach us to know Him, to hunger for Him, to enjoy Him and to please Him. And they get us perfectly ready for that most glorious of dances and that most joyous of feasts which are still to come but, perhaps, much closer than we might dare to imagine. It is time to awaken, dear bride of Christ, and to break in our dancing shoes!

Ill-fated crowds neath unchained clouds: the Silent City braved
against a sudden flashing flood, unleashing lashing waves,
which stripped its stony structures, blown with neutron bursts that laved.

Its barren streets, although effete, resound of yesterday
with chit-chat words no longer heard (though having much to say)
since teeming life (at one time, rife), surceased and slipped away.

Within its walls? Whist buildings, tall... Outside the City? Dunes,
which limn its frail forgotten tales, in weird unworldly runes
with symbols strung like halos hung in lifeless, limp festoons.

Above! The dismal ditch of dusk reveals a velvet streak,
through which the winter’s wicked winds will sometimes weave and sneak,
and faraway a cable sways, a bridge clings hushed and bleak.

Thin shadows shift, like silver shafts, throughout the doomed domain
reflecting white, wee wisps of light in ebon beads of bane
which cast a crooked smile across a faceless windowpane.

Wan neon lights glow through the nights, through darkness sleek as slate,
while lanterns (hovered, high above, in silent swinging gait),
whelm ballrooms, bars, bereft bazaars, though no one’s left to fete.

Death's silhouettes show no regrets, 'twixt twilight’s ashen shrouds,
oblivious she always was to cries in dying crowds –
in foggy neap the spirits creep beyond the mushroom clouds.


No ghosts of ones with jagged tongues will sing a silent psalm
nor haunt pale lips with languid quips to pierce the deathly calm,
nor yet redress the emptiness that shifting shades embalm.



The City’s blur? A sepulcher for Christians, Muslims, Jews –
Cathedrals, Temples, vacant now, enshrine their residues,
for churches, mosques and synagogues abide without a bruise.

No cantillation, belfry bells, monastic chants inspire
and Minarets, though standing yet, host neither voice nor crier -
abodes and buildings silhouette a muted spectral choir.

A church’s Gothic ceilings guard the empty pews below
and, all alone amongst the stones, a maiden’s blue jabot.
The Saints, in crypts, though nondescript, grace halos now aglow.

Stray footsteps swarm through church no more (apostates that profane)
though echoes in the nave still din and chalice cups retain
an altar wine that tastes of brine decaying in the rain.

Coiled candle sticks, with twisted wicks, no longer 'lume the cracks -
their dying flames revealed the shame, mid pendant pearls of wax,
when deference to innocence dissolved in molten tracks.

Six steeple towers, steel though now drab daggers in the sky!
Their hallowed halls no longer call when breezes wander by –
for, filled with dread to wake the dead, they've ceased to sough or sigh.

The chapel chimes? Their clapper rope (that tongue-tied confidante)
won’t writhe to ring the carillon, alone and lean and gaunt –
its flocks of jute, now fallen mute, adorn the holy font.


No saints will come with jagged tongues to sing a silent psalm
nor bless pale lips with languid quips to pierce the deathly calm,
nor pray for mercy, grace deferred, nor beg lethean balm.


Beyond the suburbs, farmers’ fields (where donkeys often brayed)
inhale gray gusts of barren dust where living seed once laid
and in the haze a scarecrow sways, impaled upon a *****.

Green trees gone dark in palace parks (where kids once paused to play),
watch lifeless things on phantom swings (like statues made of clay)
guard marbled tombs in graveyards groomed for grievers bent to pray.

And castle clocks, unwound, defrock with speechless spinning spokes,
unfurling blight of reigning Night by sweeping off her cloaks,
and flaunting dun oblivion, her Baroness evokes.

The sun-bleached bones of those who'd flown lie scattered down the lanes
while other souls who’d hid in holes left bones with yellow stains
of plaintive tears (shed insincere, for no one felt the pains).

The wraiths that scream in sleepless dreams have ceased to terrify
though terrors wrought by conscience fraught now stalk and lurk nearby
within the shrouds of curtained clouds, frail fabrics on the sky.

And fog no longer seeps beyond the edge of doom’s café,
for when she trails her mourning veils, she fills the cabaret
with sallow smears of misty tears in sheets of shallow gray.

The City’s still, like hollowed quill with ravished feathered vane,
baptized in floods of spattered blood, once flowing through a vein.
The fruits of life, destroyed in strife... ’twas truly all in vain.


No umbras hum with jagged tongues nor sing a silent psalm
nor lade pale lips with languid quips to pierce the deathly calm –
they've seen, you see, life’s brevity, beneath a neutron bomb.


EPILOGUE

Beyond the Silent City’s walls, the victors laugh and play
while celebrating PEACE ON EARTH, the devil’s sobriquet
for neutron radiation death in places far away.

I arrived--
though I needn't a formal invite,
for you and I, we are two old friends.
Companions walking along
a similar trail.
The leaves distort and distress the
yellow and gleaming light of the
victorious Sun, who has once again
conquered Night and all
her iniquities.
Scents and colors fill the air,
pinks and reds and greens mix and match
and blend together, forming
a rich atmosphere of synesthetic remarkableness.
Each atom and molecule
of the wind
shivers and shakes atop their
invisible chariots,
perhaps the true location of Atlas
and those great, big hunks of
shoulders;
"Man, what a man."
Take it because you know you like it--
we are social creatures,
creatures of logic
of habit
creatures of horribly idiosyncratic and idle instinct,
rulers of fleshy bodies
which we hardly understand.
The Sun grimaces as it
retreats back to the negative air,
once again,
not to poke its radiant face out until
the next morning.
The Moon came shimmering out,
smiling furtively and compactly,
looking down like
my oldest confidante.
After all,
who else but our fair
Luna atop the stars
is the keeper of all our deepest
and most primal
secrets?
In the cover of her noxy cloak
we sin and hide,
pushing every secret under and between
the cracks in her space,
patching up time and
keeping dark and brooding Atlas
good company.
"You're one of the few great guys."
Oh, my fat and failing Atlas,
lover for the Night and
of my night,
you are a temporary stop on
my trail,
a brief twilight in my
life's journey.
The Sun creeps its
spindly, golden fingers under
the cloak of the Moon,
Night: the stitchings and
sewings of the sins of mortal men.
Playfully, the light stretches out,
first dancing along the stage of the horizon,
then inching closer,
desperate for living contact,
for the greatest warmth of
over 2 billion hearts
all beating at once--
perfectly,
in time.
Our world is a note on
this Cosmic sheet music;
you are barely a splotch on the sheet.
Our existence is the single beat
out of infinite others,
without a beginning but
possibly and end.
I know that
there will be twists in my path,
bending and curving to avoid the
stars' wrath and the Suns'
might,
but,
might it be
that our two trails
are simply
not meant to meet?

I am confidante
That I will be able to change
My behavior by  working
******* it
I am confidante that I
Will be able to control
My anger without
People helping me
I am confidante
That I will need to  make more
Friends in my life
That will support me
In my daily life
I am confidante
That tonight I will
Have a good night sleep

****** Errata
by Michael R. Burch
I didn’t mean to love you; if I did,
it came unbid-
en, and should’ve remained hid-
den!



Less Heroic Couplets: Marketing 101
by Michael R. Burch

Building her brand, she disrobes,
naked, except for her earlobes.



Negligibles
by Michael R. Burch

Show me your most intimate items of apparel;
begin with the hem of your quicksilver slip ...



Warming Her Pearls
by Michael R. Burch

for Beth

Warming her pearls,
her ******* gleam like constellations.
Her belly is a bit rotund ...
she might have stepped out of a Rubens.



Cover Girl
by Michael R. Burch

Cunning
at sunning
and dunning,
the stunning
young woman’s in the running
to be found **** on the cover
of some patronizing lover.

In this case the cover is a bed cover, where the enterprising young mistress is about to be covered herself.



First Base Freeze
by Michael R. Burch

I find your love unappealing
(no, make that appalling)
because you prefer kissing
then stalling.



Nun Fun Undone
by Michael R. Burch

for and after Richard Thomas Moore

Abbesses’
recesses
are not for excesses!



Less Heroic Couplets: *** Hex
by Michael R. Burch

for and after Richard Thomas Moore

Love’s full of cute paradoxes
(and highly acute poxes).

Published by ****** of Parnassus, Lighten Up Online and Poem Today



Retro
by Michael R. Burch

Now, once again,
love’s a redundant pleasure,
as we laugh
at my childish fumblings
through the acres of your dress,
past your wily-wired brassiere,
through your *******’ pink billows
of thrill-piqued frills ...
Till I lay once again—panting redfaced
at your gayest lack of resistance,
and, later, at your milktongued
mewlings in the dark ...
When you were virginal,
sweet as eucalyptus,
we did not understand
the miracle of repentance,
and I took for granted
your obsessive distance ...
But now I am happily unbuttoning
that chaste dress,
unhitching that firm-latched bra,
tugging at those parachute-like *******—
the ones you would have gladly forgotten
had I not bought them in this year’s size.

Originally published by Erosha



Poppy
by Michael R. Burch

“It is lonely to be born.” – Dannie Abse, “The Second Coming”

It is lonely to be born
between the intimate ears of corn . . .
the sunlit, flooded, shellshocked rows.

The scarecrow flutters, listens, knows . . .
Pale butterflies in staggering flight
ascend the gauntlet winds and light
before the scything harvester.

The winsome buds of cornflowers
prepare themselves to be airborne,
and it is lonely to be shorn,
decapitate, of eager life
so early in love’s blinding maze
of silks and tassels, goldened days
when life’s renewed, gone underground.

Sad confidante of worm and mound,
how little stands to be regained
of what is left.
A tiny cleft
now marks your birth, your reddening
among the amber waves. O, sing!

Another waits to be reborn
among bent thistle, down and thorn.
A hoofprint’s cleft, a ram’s curved horn
curled inward, turned against the heart,
a spoor like infamy. Depart.

You came too late, the signs are clear:
whose world this is, now watches, near.
There is no ****** for the heart.

Originally published by Borderless Journal



Virginal
by Michael R. Burch

For an hour
every wildflower
beseeches her,
"To thy breast,
Elizabeth."

But she is mine;
her lips divine
and her ******* and hair
are mine alone.

Let the wildflowers moan.



If Love Were Infinite
by Michael R. Burch

If love were infinite, how I would pity
our lives, which through long years’ exactitude
might seem a pleasant blur—one interlude
without prequel or sequel—wanly pretty,
the gentlest flame the heart might bring to bear
to tepid hearts too sure of love to flare.

If love were infinite, why would I linger
caressing your fine hair, lost in the thought
each auburn strand must shrivel with this finger,
and so in thrall to time be gently brought
to final realization: love, amazing,
must leave us ash for all our fiery blazing.

If flesh’s heat once led me straight to you,
love’s arrow’s burning mark must pierce me through.



Plastic Art or Night Stand
by Michael R. Burch

Disclaimer: This is a poem about artificial poetry, not love dolls! The victim is the Muse.

We never questioned why “love” seemed less real
the more we touched her, and forgot her face.
Absorbed in molestation’s sticky feel,
we failed to see her staring into space,
her doll-like features frozen in a smile.
She held us in her marionette’s embrace,
her plastic flesh grown wet and slick and vile.
We groaned to feel our urgent fingers trace
her undemanding body. All the while,
she lay and gaily bore her brief disgrace.
We loved her echoed passion’s squeaky air,
her tongueless kisses’ artificial taste,
the way she matched, then raised our reckless pace,
the heart that seemed to pound, but was not there.



She Was Very Pretty
by Michael R. Burch

She was very pretty, in the usual way
for perhaps a day;
and when the boys came out to play,
she winked and smiled, then ran away
till one unexpectedly caught her.

At sixteen, she had a daughter.
She was fairly pretty another day
in her squalid house, in her pallid way,
but the skies ahead loomed drably grey,
and the moonlight gleamed jaundiced on her cheeks.

She was almost pretty perhaps two weeks.
Then she was hardly pretty; her jaw was set.
With streaks of silver scattered in jet,
her hair became a solemn iron grey.
Her daughter winked, then ran away.

She was hardly pretty another day.
Then she was scarcely pretty; her skin was marred
by liver spots; her heart was scarred;
her child was grown; her life was done;
she faded away with the setting sun.
She was scarcely pretty, and not much fun.

Then she was sparsely pretty; her hair so thin;
but a light would sometimes steal within
to remind old, stoic gentlemen
of the rules, and how girls lose to win.



Cold Snap Coin Flip
by Michael R. Burch

Rise and shine,
The world is mine!
Let’s get ahead!

Or ...

Back to bed,
Old sleepyhead,
Dull and supine.



Song Cycle
by Michael R. Burch

Sing us a song of seasons—
of April’s and May’s gay greetings;
let Winter release her sting.
Sing us a song of Spring!

Nay, the future is looking glummer.
Sing us a song of Summer!

Too late, there’s a pall over all;
sing us a song of Fall!

Desist, since the icicles splinter;
sing us a song of Winter!

Sing us a song of seasons—
of April’s and May’s gay greetings;
let Winter release her sting.
Sing us a song of Spring!



The Unregal Beagle vs. The Voracious Eagle
by Michael R. Burch

I’d rather see an eagle
than a beagle
because they’re so **** regal.

But when it’s time to wiggle
and to giggle,
I’d rather embrace an angel
than an evil.

And when it’s time to share the same small space,
I’d much rather have a beagle lick my face!

*

Over(t) Simplification
by Michael R. Burch

“Keep it simple, stupid.”

A sonnet is not simple, but the rule
is simply this: let poems be beautiful,
or comforting, or horrifying. Move
the reader, and the world will not reprove
the idiosyncrasies of too few lines,
too many syllables, or offbeat beats.

It only matters that *she taps her feet
or that he frowns, or smiles, or grimaces,
or sits bemused—a child—as images
of worlds he’d lost come flooding back, and then ...
they’ll cheer the poet’s insubordinate pen.

A sonnet is not simple, but the rule
is simply this: let poems be beautiful.

Everyone says
That trust
Trust
Is a hard thing to earn.

But really
When you see someone for the first time
Your mind
Tells you whether
Or not
You trust them.

Trusting someone is easy.
Knowing someone is hard.

When I met you,
My dearest uncle
uncle
I knew
Right away
That you were
The greatest
Man
I
Had
Ever met.

I am glad I met you.
Blessings to you, my writing confidante.
When I finally
Compile
All of these thoughts
Into a book,
The book will say
Three pages in
"To uncle Percy
"Thank you for believing in me."

presumably presumptive
as you got zero clue  of
what stuff God made me,
where I lay me down in
the cool of moonbeam light,
unsure if another sunrise
will heat my body to awakening,
surrendered to the unknowing
knowingly, for I am so sure of
so little, that I query with every
torrential rain, why did I deserve
this un-expectorated baptism for
which and why, what I got, no clue

piety poet of the way spends his every
waking glance thinking stinking, why?
All the angels look away, forbidden
to barest hint minimalist to protect
and provide this rank random single specimen specific of living kind, his
purpose for which creation came his way?
so I’ll save you instead and the trouble of thinking for the correct answer to the question posed,
hell sure, you my confidante of this
confidence man,
a lousy truth teller,
and an even worse liar

write, God?

this is truly a welcome break from:
freeing all the drafts -
which i imagined to be equivalent, or rather:
the 2nd parallel of the original adjecent -

i imagined it would feel like:
releasing doves with laurel branches firmly
lodged in their beaks -
just as the waters of the flood would recede...

but it truly felt like:
the inversion of the diarrhoea-constipation
"paradox"... because it felt like both,
but never giving me a clue as to
what was more prominent -

the sharp edge of a knife -
or the horizon when the sky becomes
the sea far away....

i'm not ashamed to throw this onto the fore...
it happened to me once...
but on purpose...
i wanted to compensate marquis de sade's
antic in a brothel when he implored
the ******* to turn the crucifix into
a ***** into his decapitated precursor
of a mary antoinette... puppet...

profanity in images and all the other seances
of the senses...
i wouldn't go as far as to make the crucifix
profane... or do anything profane
with it...

only the words...
hic (est) mea corpus - hic (est) mea cruor...
this is my body - this is my blood...
and i am aware the mead is the gods' ****
when they're in a good mood - all... jolly...
and that beer is the gods' **** when
laughter hits a dry run...
and that ms. amber or whiskey is but:
the blood of the gods...

i had to corrupt it...
to prove to myself: that i am not a god...
it was quiet simple...
once upon a time i was drinking
a glass of wine...
and as you do... on a whim...
i decided to **** into it...
perhaps all that drinking prior would
give me something to elevate the palette
of exploration that was to come...

hmm... at least that sorts out
hic: mea cruor... *** urinae...
but back then i did that on purpose...
and if only this was a desert scenario...
and i would have to drink my own *****
to survive...
well... i just thought: here's to starving
from a lack of better imagery...

i will come unto some Horace in a minute...
i don't know how i managed to find
this citation - it's only very losely related...
and yes i will showcase another draft from
May of last year...

but today i was unsure...
did i leave yesterday's pepsi max bottle
with only the stale pepsi left...
or did i forget to do the lazy sly wee whizz
jumping out of bed in the middle of
the night...
but i already poured this "cocktail"
over two shots of whiskey...
and i'm hardly desperate but...
my original intention of alligning myself
to the profanity of the crucifix...
i had to somehow make profanity
of the wine...

since i am... thinking how to compensate
being satisfied with wine...
how the ancient world was always
satisfied with wine...
the story of the 3 ambers of the north...
the beer, the mead and the whiskey...
all in a varying degree...
but i will not bow before the blood of a god
that's so... diluted...
whiskey yes... that can be blood indeed...
otherwise it's down in the trench
with gods' **** - mead if they are in a good
mood... beer if they are in a talkative mood...

thank god i wasn't thinking:
better salvage those two shots of whiskey
and drink this cocktail of the "ultimate" surprise...
and apparently eating a woman's
placenta is good for you...
as was... apparently once... breastmilk...
funny... give me the milk of a cow or a goat
and i'll show you: one dislocated thumb...
one dislocated distal + intermediate phalange
from the index finger of the right hand's
proximal phalange... no broken bones...

knock-knock... who's there? touchwood superstition.

it's not as bad as it sounds...
stale, yes...
but i am also known for sometimes
performing the antithesis of drinking tequilla...
*****... i'll sprinkle some cigarette ash
onto my hand... lick it... take a shot of *****
then throw one or two black peppercorns into
my mouth for the crunch...
each drinker and his own myths... right?
i call that the black cracovite...
cracow being so close to aushwitz...
and once it snowed and they thought it was
snowing... sure... ash from the furnaces
of aushwitz... here's my ode to... the dead...
in a drink...

hell better a cracovite than a cracowite, white?
i mean: right? seriously: low hanging fruit,
the elephant's testicles...

i will never understand this whole veneration
of wine: in vino veritas...
these days wine is better drank by women
and castrated monarchs of the clergy...
i had to check... so i ****** in my holy grail...
and guess what didn't come out
the other end? gods' **** (beer and wine)
or gods' blood (whiskey and wine)...
just this stale, almost bland...
water with a pinch of grape that has been
left to sit in a puddle on some
industrial estate in dagenham enjoying
the ripe downpouring of chemicals
that leave it with a rainbow of diluted
petroleum...

akin to: try shoving that sort of doughnut
into this kind of pile of ****...
not that i would...
but i have also been prone to test
99.9% spirits... or 96% absinthe...
with a locust mummified in the bottle's neck...
from Amsterdam...

i had to rethink: why become engaged...
when chances are...
to the displeasure of someone who read:
but never bought my work...
the self-editorial process...
the self-publishing process could be...
guillotined on a whimsical constipation
of a "dear reader"...
as it might happen...

again... Horace and the perfect example
of poetry with conversational overtones...
poetry as prosaic...
my god... paper was expensive back in old
Horace's days... surely you would need
something spectacular to write:
like a psilocybin trip account word for word:
wrong!
a certain don juan said to a certain
carlos castaneda: don't bring back words from
such experiences...
but of course: they did...
upon once upon a time loving the beatniks...
i started to abhor them...
getting drunk and smoking "something"
is one thing... exposing the altars of solipsism
of such experiences: words intact...
is a profanity...
each dream is individually curated
to the dreamer... the introduction of words
to relate back... for some next be disciple...
the "drugs" / portals of escapism are already
contaminated...

why wouldn't i: even if these are only
objective recounts of an experience?
perhaps because... they are subjectivelly null...
there are only the comparable heights of Gideon...
such experiences are best: kept to each individual's
right to enjoy... a freedom of thought...
and of silence...
each keeps a secret...
but what secret is left?
when the objective parameters have already
been stated?
i see no point... better down and finding
it at the end of a bottle...
or... ******* into a glass of wine
and drinking it...

they have been contaminated by words that
have been retrieved from such experiences
that (a) no one should talk about...
(b) surprise! the objective reality already
being stated as altered...
am i going to a ******* cinema with my body...
or am i going to a surprise
gallery with my thought?
doesn't matter... word contamination...
bigmouth struck his final last time!
at least the remains is what gives me
the labyrinth... the blood the **** you name
it the three sisters amber... for all i care...
it's readily available: make do...
with what's already been given.

me? i drink for that very special date...
monday 9 march 2020...
when all the orthodox jews get drunk...
that's one of those celebrations i wouldn't mind
being a part of... purim, festival of Lots,
funny... that period of history...
the Persian aspect of the hebrews...
never made it to the big screen...
seeing modern day Iran as day-old Persia
in muslim garbs...
we're still only seeing the: African adventure...
perhaps once the dust has settled...
we will get the Persian installement...
and then... oh... **** it...
we're all in it for the long run...
then when christianity is no longer useful...
the Roman bit of history...
and how the hebrews conspired with the greeks...
2000 years later we'll probably see
some prince of egypt cartoon movie
of the pristine romance and a mention of germany...
not yet... ****'s still to ripe to entertain
the universal child and children...
no screen adaptation from "their" time in Persia...
songs... we have songs!
Verdi's Nabucco - the chorus...
perhaps only in song from Persia and always
with movies and hieroglyphs when from Egypt...

but the festivity... of course! i'll celebrate...
cf. though... Puccini's coro a bocca chiusa -
the humming chorus...
before the band enigma... i am pretty sure my mother
would crank up the volume to at least
one of these songs... should they come on the radio...
i'm still to hear christopher young's:
something to think about - to be on air...
and to also be treated as a piece of classical music...
if wojciech kilar's dracula soundtrack can be treated
as classical music... what's wrong with a little
bit of hellraiser?!

perhaps, "again" is this desecration of the sacred not,
simply hanging in the background,
all, the, ******, time?
who is to celebrate wine giving it a god's blood
status in sips? one is expected to somehow become
drunk on the passion!
no one is here for crumbs of sips!
first they came for the loaf of bread...
and said you should fast and eat only a crumb...
then they came for the bottle of wine...
and said you should abstain and drink only a sip...
then they came for *** and by then
vatican was a monaco with better tax protections...

it's an investement: having to **** into a glass
of wine you're about to drink...
worse... you accidently "forgot" about
******* into some left-over pepsi max
and you're making yourself a cocktail
with one of the graeae ambers - 2x -
and you wonder: is this the proper state
of carbonated water, stale?
but i'm hardly going to bash the crucifix...
i'm here for the words...

the... transfiguration of the wine into blood...
and i say of my gods:
and here is their **** - beer and mead...
and here's their blood: the three graeae ms. ambers...
see no: clearer? no... happier?

i will get onto ancient roman poetics
with its conversational overtones in a minute!
first we have to settle the sacraments!
the metaphors and the sacraments!
i have no ivar the boneless claim of god...
season 6? to be honest...
i'd rather watch an english soap opera...
at least the intricacy of the plot remains...
even though it has been recycled
so many times...

i can't **** out the gods' ***** even if it was
stale beer... or ideal mead...
as i can't leisure a Seneca's bath filled
with the blood of the immortals...
problem solved... "problem":
as if it ever was...

why, Horace? a very short rhetorical retort:
if Dante had his Virgil...
why can i have my Horace, as guide?
again... what Roman poet could venture for
ambitions among the myths -
or extend his "consciousness"
to devastate the land and become
the mad Xerxes wanting the waves
of a sea whipped into submission?
why, Horace? if Dante could have his Virgil...

poetry... at least among the roman poets
there's no boxed in a box "without" a "box"...
the conversational overtones are ripe...
the almost complete lack of
character dimensions... beside their dimensions
from anecdotes...

to difuse wine, to desecrate the hic mea cruor...
**** in it!
then drink it...
or have one of my antithesis of a tequilla surprise
with me...
smoke a cigarette... drop some ash on the lick-part
of the space between the thumb
and the index metacarpal... lick it...
follow it with a shot of *****...
then throw some black peppercorns
into the hades of your gob
and we've arrived at the black cracovite...

and also the day when the orthodox jews
recant their story of their time
in Persia... the festivity of Lots...
when they become blind drunk and pretend to
have the sort of alcohol intolerence as
the Japanese... 1 shot! just 1 shot:
and hey! they throw their kippahs in
the air and we can all dance the ukranian 'opak!

looks good to me!
but only looks good...
when there's this plump drunk playing the accordion:
i.e. me,
and there's the sort of adrew rieu directing
an upcoming crescendo of a poliushko polie...
and we can all leave the auditorium
feeling, less than russophobic...
and then i can be told...
you young to be old yet still
profane pan-siberian peasant root!
indo-european leftover!
well... at least then i have been allowed
the scrap i'm supposed to see
before i showcase my *****, frost riddled fangs!
of the lesser wolf that i am:
as a rabid dog!

since the crescendo will come...
what better fathom of it...
esp. just beside a cemetery... twirling to the music...
ear-plugs out seancing my time in a grand
orchestral hall... plucked from the ears...
the crescendo is coming...
but... plucked... the orchestra of buffalo-sized
snowflakes... and... the worst kind of ballet...
a male soloist... doing his crazy
ukranian folk... maestro! the music never ever
dies! even in the silence of the universe!
however micro- or macro- this theatre will take
form... the music remains playing: uninterrupted!

but the snow was there,
the "ballerina" was also there...
the night was there,
the music was there -
albeit no grand orchestral hall -
couldn't ask for a better canvas
than a cemetery -
and all the heart's content!
comparative "literature"
to love like a muslim...
or to love like a sparrow...
or to love with a grudge like a crow...
mind you; site note...
i have been many a pigeons attempt
fornication unabashed...
i've never seen two crows attempt it...
perhaps they do "it" in the night
and never in the open?

crows... pedantic priests of the kingdom...
and where the widower king
and the widow queen among the swans?
where i and you will have probably left them...
admiring a family of ducks...

as asked by the serpent of the swan...
you and me of the same birth in a Fabergé egg...
me with serpentine spine...
while you: with a crooked neck?
silly... it really is...
of a being.... that was once
a t-rex roar... now a pickled brain
in pickle jar... boasting about being...
pure spine and tingles and...
the better part of what... becomes the mammalian
hibernation...
hibernating "hibernating" upon the
impetus of digestion...
a serpent would ask a swan about
a crooked neck?

because what would a **** sapeins look toward,
as he is always prone to to look elsewhere?
if not to borrow the fixed, rigid ontology
of other animals?
i better from the birds, solely...
the swans and the crows...
perhaps the fox...
rarely something that has lent itself
to being curated by man's leash and grip...
collective the known herd...
otherwise the refined bonsai tigers...
perhaps the fish without a knowledge
of a tide or a wave...

i call a dog the noble friend,
the swan the sombre monogamist...
the crow the priest...
the furry spider one's own reflection
dealing with aracnophobia...
the snake the old "say-what?"
or that pickled spine with a brain
the worth of brine juices...
the extinguished remnant
of a dinosaur's toothache... or some
transcendental exploration
of the carpals of the wrist
extending into the length of a spine...

i'm not going to cry over this one...
skål!
i feel disinhibited from writing a memorandum!
slàinte!
gasoline to the peddle and... off... we, go!

i am bound to get this translaton right...
at some point of hinging-on... i.e. beginning with...
and most probably at the opposite end
of having to finish...
hence "open bracket"... prefix-
and -suffix allowance given the archeological
excavation began with:

-seu pila velox molliter austerum studio
fallente laborem, seu te discus agit, pete cedentem
aera disco: *** labor extuderit fastidia, siccus,
inanis sperne cibum vilem; nisi Hymettia mella
Falerno ne biberis diluta. foris est promus,
et atrum defendens piscis hiemat mare: *** sale
panis latrantem stomachum bene leniet. unde putas
aut qui partum? non in caro nidore voluptas summa,
sed in te ipso est. tu pulmentaria quaere
sudando: pinguem vitiis albumque neque ostrea
nec scarus aut poterit peregrina iuvare lagois.
vix tamen eripiam, posito pavone velis quin
hoc potius quam gallina tergere palatum,
corruptus vanis rerum, quia veneat auro
rara avis et picta pandat spectcula cauda:
tamquam ad rem attineat quidquam.
num vesceris ista, quam laudas, pluma?
cocto num adest honor idem?
carne tamen quamvis distat nil, hac magis illam
inparibus formis deceptum te petere esto:
unde datum sentis, lupus hic Tiberinus
an alto captus hiet? pontisne inter iactatus
an amnis ostia sub Tusci?
laudas, insane, trilibrem mullum,
in singula quem minuas pulmenta necesse est.
ducit te species, video: quo pertinet ergo proceros
odisse lupos? quia scilicet illis maiorem natura modum
dedit, his breve pondus: ieiunus raro stomachus volgaria
-temnit.

it's translated, isn't it? no
stefan gołębiewski or no 1980 warsaw...
is to know...

- nec meus hic sermo est, sed quae praecepit Ofellus:
these are not my words, this said the simpleton
Ofellus - neither of which of us is a laurel-leaf
adorned Orpheus...

that via a living "game": stoking up an appetite
with this entertainment the appetite increaes...
as does one health...

sorry... pagans... bloodthirty people...
trouble with the translation...
apparently the mud slinging
***** and bricks are nothing new...

or when you "minus" the disk,
litter the distance, head with the wind into
competition!
after hardships of the body is good and
the meal is simple -
(apparently all of this is still "connected",
scratch of the ol' 'ed and we're fine...
we're ******* sailing!)
Falern will not hurt "us"...
seasoned by honey from Hymettis,
before the entré. Safaz left,
the sea rumbles, the zephyr of fish it protects,
storm, fishing made unsafe;
stomach grumbles, bread with salt:
excuisite; you do not have any better! why?
taste does not reside in the scent of dishes,
but in your self alone.
toil merely increases appetite's presence.
he who over-eats, will not know the taste
of an oyster, nor a turbot, nor chickpeas,
the northern bird.
perceptions take the scalp of the mountain
above the actual taste of the dishes
(one might scalp... but never eat the scalp)...
you will not take a chicken onto a tooth,
when you are given a peacock,
you will trust your delusion:
a rare bird, worth its own weight of gold,
a most rarified tail, how it sparkles
with subtle hues!
as if the tail were to lead -
and there was no head to be found!
do you allow yourself to judge the hue
of the feathers as precursor for the adjecctive:
that's it's "also" tasty? the meat, of course?
the old - judge a book by its cover...
is the oven baked... also as delicious / beautiful?
chicken meat... or peacock meat?
almost without difference.
therefore: light... albeit...
although only vanity lures the peacock
(to be compared to a poultry)...
let's go further... i want to know: after what
do you recognise this, that a pike
with its gaping mouth was left:
from the sea... or from the Tiber fished?
somewhere among bridges... or from some
conrete estuary? idiot-kin of the surname whim...
you admire a three-pound mullet!
do you take size... for the gauge of all measure?
when you... cut the bell?
then why... why... with disgrace
do you demand in appreciation:
elongating pikes!
evidently nature: this greater gave the proper
measure... and with it: the lesser weight -
an empty stomach will rarely -
being fed a simple thing - despise -
what is...

an empty stomach - rarely despises -
simple matters.

how true... i was allowing myself the time
it would take to drink,
and translate into the vulgate...
but... from no better source...
and i am still to add to this one of my...
"freeing of the drafts"...

as promised...
"draft"...

- a most confiscated man -
no italics included...

.the original draft:

binges, worth the count
of a liter of whiskey
per night,
for a year, if not more...
become so...
so unspectular...

          the world either
screams, or yawns,
generally:
it exhaust a desire
to toss a coin,
agitate the vocab.,

a grand canyon
huddling
in the "depths" of
a glass of water...

baron science
comes with his rubric
of bore,
      and:
i find myself,
most idle:
while the world
orientates
itself in keeping
itself busy,
bothersome,
always the prime concern,

the ant-colony coup,
the:
i always find friends
in the orientations
of an empty glass,
but prior to:

i drink
before no altar,
no mirror,
no confidante...

     pure flesh revels itself
in a blank's worth
of prior to dictum's
  allowance of, a page...

bothersome
the knot of the pretentious
anti- in scold of
the passing fancy:
expression...

            poker charm
of a love's affair...

_

i sometimes entertain myself
with ancients proverbs,
one slavic proverb reads:
better a sparrow in your hand
than a dove on your roof...

what, could, possibly be,
the interpretation?
care for the small joys in
your possession,
than, for the peace of your household,
which is, on the roof,
but not in your hands...

if i were paid? would i be more
honest?
probably not...
        what i see, is what needs
to be seen...
  em... simple pleasures talk...
once upon a time,
donning long hair, implied
you were a mosher...
a metal-head...
    now? three days +,
long hair, and you're not a
grunge fanatic?
  trans-, etc.?

   a man of simple pleasures,
i know what long hair,
jealousy, associated with
putting it in a french braid,
does to a camel jockey ego...
ruins and ruins as far as the eyes
can see...
    he replicates...
he grows his hair long...
at the same time boasting about
haivng a premature beard...
then you grow a beard yourself...
you start fiddling with it...
****, ***** on my face...
and then...
the "question" of a girlfriend
flies out of the window...
i'm happy with a beard,
thank you, very much,
i don't, exactly want to wish upon
myself, a female, company...

*** protest all you want...
the *** differences between men
and women, to my sort of understanding,
are, unrepairable...
     they were, never,
bound, to being, repaired...
savvy?
            i take my route,
a woman took her route...
  we're even...
                
      since what can only frighten a freed
woman, beside a monarch,
a free man?
                   a man with...
a gamble...
         i am a man with a gamble...
i don't like being told what
to be, or what to think...
like any man,
and like any man:
i don't like being forced
ownership over a being:
that can share my sense of freedom...
so...
    i find myself,
thrilled with relief,
at now having to answer to
a woman's subjugation...
like a woman, and, i have learned
from women: i like being
my objective's self...
rather than a "self" made subject...

i like that: thank you...
i can start feedings the pigs and the peasant
the diatribe life, and lie,
of: there being an existential cricis,
a need to reproduce...
and i, and i am, being demeaning
in this, way, for a justified reason...

once the peasants attack you:
you attack, the peasants...
you demean them in the same way
they demeaned you...

once upon a time i thought:
greater good came from the number
of innocents being salvaged
than for the few great of grand bearing
being salvaged...
even if bound to an ill will:
an ill command,
of a will, predisposed to pretend
actions of the blind...
but now i see...

   the many: if beside fulfilling
their petty deeds,
having to stand outside of those,
petty deeds,
  have ambitions equivalent
to their emotions...
            akin to something worth,
pity, akin to something
worth: as little as a rat's heartbeat...
petty, primitive bull-*******...
and all the amount of sorrow,
or pity,
or mercy...
              that, these, ******* allow...
are worth the same response
Pontius Pilate gave...
       there isn't enough of water,
in this world,
to wash my hands, clean,
of these people...
   even if innocent blood plagues
them,
    not enough waters have run their
due course,
to... release me from the indentation
of memory upon my mind...
and i am plagued by an elephant's
memory...
        we've reached the conclusion
of: some people...
  just do not see an insult,
             past the insult's eloquence!

i am a most conflicted man,
i binge watched vikings
for a while now,
and right now, i'm ready for
an extraction of what i have learned...

believe me: i am not someone
who has the sort of ego-presence
to fate myself in the role
of the protagonist...
     i'm too pedantic to have to
market my body and deeds,
for the fates tio see,
and history to ascribe fame unto me...

even homer was off too war
with troy,
   and blessed he became...

because? time morphs,
the longer something is kept,
the more, "unreal" is becomes,
a fairy-tale...
esp. now, with the onslaught
of journalism...
two things in this world
are insomniac,
money never sleeps,
and, now, apparently,
journalism doesn't sleep either:
well, given its ******
bed-fellow of political liars...
why should it?

             Rolo... a semi-minor character...
but i feel his angst at the already
fervent dichotomy,
(dichotomy, modern variety variant
of schizoid-affective...
or bilingual in turn)...

            music...
                    all these modły...
gesticulations of prayer,
phantom conjuring,
               lunatics with candles
at high-noon...
                  i am fated by music,
i am perverted by music,
i am swayed by music...
who is the god, patron,
of music?
who is the angel (demi-god),
patron of music?
         i do not seek the highest
influencer...
the minor one...

   when Archangel Sandalphon
met St. Cecilia...
but as such, i am, conflicted...
even though, this is the first time
i have heard of Sandalphon...

Rome, never reached my peoples,
the Vikings did...
   weren't the ugly vikings the founders
of Kiev?
  so they must have passed via
the Polen (field) land, no?

feelings are not important,
facts don't care about your feelings...
granted...
but i'm not hear for facts,
contra, feelings,
i'm here for the rivers...
what i feel, what my heart yearns for,
needs to attain an equilibrium
with my mind...
for that: i need to clarify my feelings,
to hush my heart, silence it,
in order to listen to my mind,
and the mind, needs to feed into
heaving the heart: to do,
what, the heart, desires,
autonomous to what the heart
"thinks", is right...
                    that's how it was forver
going to work...
consolidated...
and yes, i much envy the punctuation
of king Ecgberht,
a man of cunning: much admired...
abstract thinker...
        and a reality...
        pun-ctu-a-tion...
the delivery of one's speech...
   much admired, as much as...
                the crude brawl possession...
the chief protagonist of the story?
as important as is: the required from
Atlas... burden upon burden...
a man burdened with the illusion
of freedom...

so why am i conflicted,
but becoming less and less so?
    it was always the music...

songs...

           chavelier, mult estes guariz...
wardruna - helvegen...
           da pacem domine...
             agni parthene...

you know... there's much more beside
being a jazz enthusiast or
a classical music snob...
         there's folk... there's religious and pagan
chants...
if there's one thing to benefit from,
in terms of the Byzantine context...
the chants...
        let the barbarians do the thinking
from now on: you do the sing-along...
no people ever reinvented themselves
from an ancient glory...
   new blood had to come to the fore...

like today...
       i spoke with my father and my mother...
about the names of apples...
we must have talked for an hour,
we named so many lost "breeds" of apple...
nouns i will not write,
nouns i wish death to write down,
i want Samael to have,
beside the book of my deeds in hand,
i want him to have
my dictionary in hand,
my knowledge of the sacred script,
i want to listen as he recites me the words
i've used,
notably today's conversation
            about the many types of apples...
e.g.: shogun apples...
             kox...
                    szare renety...
          papierówki...
                    marabella prunes...
that's all i ask of Samil.

“every man wants to be a tyrant when he fornicates"— marquis de sade (philosophy in the boudoir)
in murky region of my mind flickers shanty town of wickedness and all who burn betray me are tortured murdered buried on outskirts of this moot province not entirely devoted to revenge shadows dart lascivious exchanges shadow economy back alley shenanigans soundproof rooms filled with hunger for beautiful women sole source of my arousal female lust japanese silk braided ropes bowls hoses drop-clothes vibrating toys anticipating mischievous acts town’s folk love esteem me applaud my fiercest turpitude fathers offer their daughters mothers perfume girls with wild flowers in their hair whispering accommodating instructions ultimately i decline their generous offerings opting instead for steadfast soul confidante accomplice closer in age she knows how to mommy my genitals get me off and i the same for her churning simmering caldron of desires dazzling aromas through center of town runs sacred blue river constantly replenishing innocence upon dust filth criminality also many enchanting bridges connecting dark side to bright side in elegant rundown art museum hang several of my paintings next to jackson ******* ad reinhardt anselm kiefer gerhard richter albert pinkham ryder francisco goya susan rothenberg and public library shelves brim with volumes of my writings next to james joyce william faulkner sophocles sylvia plath rainer maria rilke milan kundera franz kafka gabriel garcia marquez thomas bernhard patrick suskind  pablo neruda oriana fallaci annie proulx lydia davis during mornings everyone busies themselves making things practicing yoga swimming cooking friends gather for lunch munch comically gossip about previous night’s dramas in afternoon go back to their interests at sunset all citizenry come together look to west watch fiery orange globe sink beyond purple mountains wonder reflect sniff their fingers as night falls on little village each goes about deciding what to wear then meet for cocktails in local taverns and commotion begins

On the crowded bus / from my nice downtown job / looking expensive… and smelling expensive… cuz I am / expensive that is…/ and I’m immediately ****** / cuz I’ve had a long day and I’m tired / and this homeless brother is in the back / talking loud / to his Invisible Confidante / and / without a sign or a signal / but nevertheless as a group / we do not see him…
He is to be ignored…

But my ears do not comply as he sez

It’s one thing to fight to be who you are- and another to fight just to be

And I’m like / ****… that was deep / and the poet in me needs to write this down / cuz “Crazy” follows with

My mother wasn’t nothing- wasn’t no kinda woman at all / Homeless since fifteen how do you explain that? / Nobody’s got the answers to the questions I ask / so I fight in the war / now what’s our new Black president gonna do for me? / When am I gonna get mine?

I sense a burgeoning forgiveness in the crowd / this boy’s… a Vet / but an irritation in my own spirit blossoms because forgiveness / I’m sure / is not real high on the list of all this boy needs / and I suddenly feel like I’ve been somehow negligent*

His Invisible Confidante must have interjected / as he replies

Because… / Big people don’t care about us /  David shuda gave everybody a slingshot / and if they got too big we could **** ‘em / We don’t want to have to look AFTER each other / or even AT each other / can’t even spare a dollar / Tell me to go get a job / like I didn’t try /  It’s hard to fit a camel through the eye of a needle /  So I’ma take my time / Take my time /  Take… take… take… sumthin / Just try to stay modest… just a modest sum is all I need.

The bus has slowly / gotten quieter / all pretending to be ignoring this eloquent schizophrenic / as he merges the holy bible with the u.s. constitution / and adds

Farmers usta run thangs but now Man and God together made satan / I know what I did for my country but what’s my country gonna do for me?

And by now he’s making a jacked-up kind of sense / to more than just me alone... / as he continues

It’s always the black people who think they cool with whitey / I go to the justice center / and they say "leave us alone” / it makes ‘em feel so good / that they could quit THEIR OWN jobs.
  
Which brought to mind the last time WE had to ask for help / Caught myself just in time-- cuz I’se classy now / But I almost said out loud “Say That!” / And he was on a roll…

“I’m sorry” / they say / “go to church” / they say / and at the same time they lookin’ at me / and I know I could never be part’a they church

Somewhere in the front / a sistah couldn’t hold it / and said "Ump!" / In agreement / as only a Black Woman can

And he was speaking…

They say / “I give to charity” / but charities don’t give to the likes of ME… / but people gon be people / so I aint trippin' off that  

I need time and I need help / But I’m a take my time… take… take… my time.  Yeah…

At this point / there is no pretense / we are all actively listening to this accidental poet / this inadvertent incentive to being your brothers keeper / as he says

They act like my mental defect is THEIR disability  

****… that’s ****** up

And so I guess I’m supposed to go downtown / and be all nasty and ***** / just so I can get their little piece of paper / and- smoke- some- cigs- and- smoke- some- crack-and- be happy / is that it?
but they don’t know / In the end it’s not about gettin’ high /  it’s about gettin’ by
Right …? / Yeah…

Here / he finally / mercifully / signals his stop / and prepares to leave his Invisible Confidante with

Thanks for lettin’ me free my mind, baby /  Like inna waffle house… / drinking so much coffee… /  I just wanna be inna room again… / Maybe even a cell… / Where I can read a paper and think deep about today

Wow... / With that one / we collectively exhale / and look at / our hands / or our laps / or out of our respective windows

Changed

By one of our own
Surprisingly well groomed
Oddly articulate
But deeply wounded
Sons

As he
Head hanging
Shoulders slumped
Disembarks from the number twenty-three city bus
And leaves on us
The residue
Of his melancholy…
  

Note:  Usually when the "Crazy" leaves the bus-  a vocal "Whew, I'm glad that's over!" circulates.  But when this broken young man was gone... no one made a sound.  Not a cellular phone or side conversation... nothing. We rode on in silence…

My diary bit me last night
It bit my hand then lunged for my throat
So I tore it’s pages to shreds and lit fire
My memories, some not missed, but most will be.

It screamed and cussed as it burst into flames
Thrashed and trashed its outer cover
While still aiming for my throat
I sat back and found another book

As I wrote I promised I’d come back when the flames died
The diary still wearing itself out
Other books said I lie, but my promise I would keep
No matter how scuffed up the cover turned out

Your Wreath, Un-Thrifting Essence, bears his Name
And Fine be your Acts soothe such Heavy Hand
Which Time boost as his Protector and Sage
Skimming the Dirt infect his Rising Sand
Though one would Wonder why such Blogger speak
Of Secrets known must bequeath to the Few
Though in your Boy's Best Fate subdue the Meek
Out of Best Concern his Wild Growth does stew
So persistent be our same Wonder at
Those Keys deserved should never be Endorsed
For his own Respect; As ours Mature that
Let the Gentleman go if his Plays be Forced.
My Loyalty, still, Un-Conditioned will be
Though Swords still stab on such Smile you Reprieve.

The night provides catharsis,
To those who do not listen.
Daylight shows the truth -
That I never want to see.
You are my antithesis ,
Like a carpet of falling leaves.

You hide from me your secrets,
That would break me, had I known,
Yet the owls cry the night for me,
For secrets I do not own.

My dear protector,
       - my confident,
       - my bearer of wind

Do not banish me forever,
Across the river Styx, please,
Instead, lay down with me in silence,
On our carpet of fallen leaves.

who created the hole in my soul?
it never was me
tell my why does it hurt so much?
mama said just because

who created the hole in my soul?
life’s supposed to be full
why am i feelin’ emptiness
he came along my heartstrings pulled

he fills my heart and my soul with his
don’t know why i felt alone
he’s my lover, friend and confidante
i swear to god i’m finally home

who created the hole in my soul?
do i wanna to fill it up?
it aches until i have him back again
finally full my empty cup

i gave myself to him and was complete
he took me in and we were whole
but he left forever, he was gone
torn in half he took my soul

who created the hole in my soul?
i have to find what is lost
god i’m beggin’ put it back again
my life is gone and that’s the cost

i was fraught woulda done anything
drownin’ in pain, i hurt so
i had to find myself inside my heart
it was me i sought to know

i gotta fill me with what’s within
never was i incomplete
seeking outer things to fill me up
a sure way to defeat

then i met yet another one
now my spirit is complete
lovers united and whole again
this time we won’t be beat

who created the hole in my soul?
not god but life’s hard blows
put the pieces back to mend my life
now i’m healed and that i know

if you find there’s a hole in your soul
don’t seek that’s in the past
then you can be and take what comes
cuz you can be with you last

yeah, you can be with you at last

©2016janetaylor

you needed each other

though neither of you yet knew it
each ingesting what each season offered
growing beyond near defeats
each winter bare and shivering
each summer consuming broad and open
laughing all the while
showing bridges
between deep past and next season
neither existing without the water
the other poured willingly
one for the blinding yet nurturing
impending solar singularity
and the other for the pleasant aroma
and the welcoming blossom
and the predictability
the companionship
and when you
our beautiful ample matriarch left us
so did your sister
and her leaves fell
and then her petals
and her pistol
stamen
limbs
as if weeping for the loss of her confidante

when you
my mischievous sponsor
when you fell
so did your rival in beauty
i used a chainsaw
i tossed away her lifeline
turned off the faucet and tossed the hose
stacked her limbs on the curb
for the garbage truck

they wont let you
bury trees at the cemetery any more

—Flash Forward—

A day of reckoning.
A small boat crosses
the Hudson River,
no warning horn.
Destination New Jersey,
of all places.
A. Burr isn’t warned
that Hamilton will not
fire his pistol.
Destiny predetermined.

“Death doesn’t discriminate
Between the sinners and the saints,
It takes and it takes and it takes.
History obliterates.”

*—Flashback—

General.
     Colonel.
           Aide-de-camp.    
                 Immigrant.

“Don’t engage, strike by night.
Remain relentless ‘til their troops take flight.”
“We escort their men out of Yorktown.
They stagger home single file.
Tens of thousands of people flood the streets.”
“Took up a collection just to send him to the
mainland.
‘Get your education. Don’t forget from whence
you came.’”

—Stepfather of the Union—

Treasury secretary, author of the Federalist Papers,
lawyer, speechwriter, confidante, opponent of slavery,
member of the Constitutional Convention.

“History has its eyes on you.”
“I’ve seen injustice in the world and I’ve
        corrected it.”
“The Federalist:  Addressed to the People
         of the State of New York.”
“Goes and proposes his own form
         of government.”

—Family and Marriage—

The Schuyler Sisters – Eliza.
     Maria and James Reynolds – adultery and bribery.
          Philip Hamilton – successor son and victim.
                Philip Schuyler – father-in-law.

“And if this child
Shares a fraction of your smile
Or a fragment of your mind, look out, world!”
“I know you’re a man of honor,
I’m so sorry to bother you at home.”
“I’m only nineteen but my mind is older,
Gonna be my own man, like my father
     but bolder.”
“Grampa just lost his seat in the Senate.”


—Why, How, How long?—

Why not?, biography,
genius, rapid-fire rap,
hip-hop, historical vertigo,
Lin-Manuel Miranda at the White House,
a cast talented beyond measure,
the Great White Way,
2017-18 and forever….
“…13 percent of the population is foreign
born, which is near an all-time high;
that one day soon there will no longer
be majority and minority races, only a
vibrant mix of colors.”  
     ‒Jeremy McCarter, from Chapter I of
       Hamilton:  The Revolution

© Lewis Bosworth, 12/2016
    With credit to the book:
     Hamilton: The Revolution

6:30 am
The chippy irritation from my bedside table
forces an unconscious groan.
Starting from my curled toes
swelling
in tidal wave tremors
to my twitching torso.
Manifesting in indiscriminate slapping of
lamps
reading material
and finally
the clock…
 
If I were honest in my disdain
I wouldn't turn on the lights
nor spend a minute
looking for acceptable clothes
to appease civilization

…But I do.
 
People expect to see Me today, wrapped
in preconceived ideologies.
Some societal, some induced.
Portions I have enabled - even propagated
with detailed grooming rituals,
ongoing hair color treatments,
and anti-aging skin
regiments.

Which is a lie

Because I still see it… everyone does.
Minimizing at best.
But "anti"?
Not.
 
I aquiese to the
expectations.
Because this
carefully crafted,
death defying carcus
is the only thing
Most of them will ever know...

The painted
coiffed
decorated
Me
and my persona,
coated in Teflon,
sculpted to situations,
an everyday
chameleon
who will never let one title
stick to the
hot rock climate
I call life.
 
It has been said
you are who you are
when no one is
watching.
But my village watches.
 
Through most of this life,
in and out of my glass house,
I am
in my universe
a spectator sport
with expectant fans.
Where the others hope
the receiver makes the catch,
the singer hits the high note,
the magician disappears…

And I enter.
Stage right.
With my highlighted spiky hair
in perfect
chaotic
order.
 
(I let go for a very short season.
The silence about it
spoke of the
disapproval.
Yawn.

So what?
I was grieving.
I got better and gave in
to recycling...

Hi honey, I'm home...with old Me.)
 
The "real" crowd touts
transparency
as a measuring stick of
unfettered character.
While border-free openness
and lack of secrets
may only make one a bad confidante…
not a great person.
 
The diversity of Me is
untainted by opinion.
Purity needs no approval, nor apology.
I am intentionally
loud and quiet,
public and private
seen and unseen
understood… and not.
No lesser
or greater.
Equally
Me.
I am all that you see.
Which, by the way,
is the better part of
Me.
 
They drive by daily.
Casting stares
on the angular structures
in the city.
Never doubting
viability.
Even though there were plans,
predestination,
packaging,
posturing.
Yet a man... a man
with these four p's
is branded of
superficiality,
rigidity,
dishonesty.
 
People...
Ignorance is bliss
but you are WAY too happy
criticizing contingency
while mocking
less than
perfect
charisma.

Disgusting.

So lost
in your lack of personal
direction
that you prefer
everyone else
burn their maps…
I have seen my map.
I have planned the route.
I have chosen the vehicle.
The person I want you
to see is who
I am.
Because that is all you will
ever know.
And I like him
or I wouldn't be him.
 
Don't ask for my transparency.
You couldn't deal with
the guts of
it all.
That's okay too - you shouldn't have to.
We all are who we are
in the moment our lives
intersect.
Some murderers are loving fathers.
Both are true.
 
So be sure of this
one thing.
I do my hair for
me.

I'm glad that you like it.

im a shell of a lighter baby
not used for the flame but for the pretty picture on the side
im a scaled down turnaround mama
watch me do it again
im a defiant defect sister
you dont know the metaphor youre messing with

be my sidekick confidante
match my song and dance
pray for bread and butter
they never had a chance

entranced by all the little lines
anything for some piece of mind

im a knowitall grassfire honey
turned around by the wind
im an everloving choo choo train
believing the things you say
im a lost and broken soul sweetheart
give me tape or give me death

You remind me
of a wet New York,
a summer of oily
lights on the roads,
of concerts in the park
and the white, loving claustrophobia
in the sky,
you remind me
of standing at a window
fourteen floors up
watching cars on FDR
in the darkness,
hoping that one of them
is yours,
you remind me of
sirens
always, you remind me
of
a confidante
in an alleyway
stale with garbage
always,
you remind me
of subways
and dark knowledge the length and width
of a city
always, you remind me
of crossing a bridge
over grey water
and pewter boats.

It is hard for me to let go
of the city
even as it dampens
in the slate rain;
and the stretched clouds
are pulled down
over the highrises of love.

Staid solitude and silence lend me ease
from mind’s congestion, tongue’s propensive burl
toward chatter’s looping, irritating whirl—
exchanging dervish dust for bonny breeze.
My soul may sing and soar from quiet’s nest
or sit in stillest calm without weight’s care
within the waiting, because God is there
who knows me, hears me, grants me sweeping rest.
The Everlasting God, the LORD o’er all
who understands me, loves me with no end—
most faithful, fervent Confidante and Friend—
pervades the sweet quiescence with His call,
“Here in My peace, come find your heart’s desire.
Serene in Me, soul catches My love’s fire.”

Where I go to escape.

When I begin to feel my body broken to the core and my mind shattered into pieces, this paper serves as my bandage and the words serve as my scars.
Words are my escape. I could write till the world ends. I write poetry when the mood strikes and the words just flow and I, unable to control the way my fingers move loosely stuck in a beautiful trance. Whenever I feel I need to get the feelings out, my writings and rumblings are how I escape reality. The words are the little sparkling stars that people think I would not have the courage to express.

My pink journal, filled with words and phrases help me to escape the violence that is life and it becomes a sanctuary where life's troubles and woes slowly drift away. Where I go to escape begins in my bedroom.

In my "haven" there are no rules , I simply say what I want, whenever I feel. My canvas becomes my paper and each word a small fragment contributing to the final image. It has the potential to create beautiful things out of scrap pieces I call my emotions. My ideas pour out on me with the intensity of water flowing through a newly broken dam.

The place where no rhyming, metaphors, or similes are needed. Just thinking, breathing, living and most importantly, the words.

My escape becomes a lens as It is a way to see the world from a slightly different perspective. My escape is part of an expression . When my family and friends turn their backs on me, poetry says: " take a pen and paper and write how you feel." Poetry is my therapist.

Poetry, for me, is all my thoughts. My heart belongs to poetry. It is my confidante, my best friend and the one thing I can turn to when everyone is sick of me. I tell poetry everything; and poetry tells me nothing. I am dependent on poetry.

My escape on pen and paper, emotions poured onto a page because poetry says:  " what you feel is what you write, it helps to let it out." It is a perfect outlet for those who don't scream or like shout but rather engage in their silent cries.

I’m just a lanky lass from Wycheproof
Born on the right side of the tracks
Law degree and a stint at Racing Vic
I’ve risen well above the backroom hacks

I’m revered
and I’m feared
I’m Tony’s confidante
I scream, I shout, I rant
Back benchers quake
Ministers shake
I’m an armoured tank
You know I outrank
any one in Coo-ee
of super-strong me

Chief of Staff to the PM
I’m the ultimate femme
Murdoch grumbled, tried to call me to heel
I’m never humbled, I’m totally real
I am the ‘she’ who must be obeyed
I am the piper who must be paid
I’m the gate-keeper
I’m the scythe-reaper

Tony knows who makes and butters his bread
I keep him happy, I keep him well fed
I am Salome, when I call for a head
a platter it’s given, my enemy dead.

I was top of my game and top of the list
of Helen McCabe’s ‘Women of Power’
I’ve never cowered, brown-nosed or ****-kissed
I stand tall, over midgets I tower
Natural-born killer exudes from my pores
I suffer no fools, I banish the bores
I mark my territory, a ******* dog
Clear dry is my vision, no room for fog
Some say I influence all decisions
I’m an enforcer of rigid divisions
There is only ‘us’ in the battle of wills
Ride on my side, for the endless high thrills
Of course I agree I’ve had an impact
It’s true without me, poor Tony can’t act
But sad to tell you, it’s still more than that
I’m in charge of the ball and even the bat
I know there are some who cannot like me
Though I control the national psyche
So come Malcolm, Julie and sad sack Joe
I will decide when it’s my time to go
No-one can challenge Abbot, my hero
I’ll zap them to ashes, to dust, to zero
I’ll huff and I’ll puff and blow their House down
Forever secure and wearing my crown
So don’t mess with me, you miserable crew
Just you crawl away in case I say, “Boo!”
I’m beautiful fearless, utterly bold
Remember, I serve revenge icy cold.

© M.L.Emmett

It was December and warmer than usual
  when I cried my eyes out.
First I thought of my father, who died when I was seventeen
   and I cried for my lost confidante and my mentor,
Then came my children and my gentle breeze,
  and I cried for dreams unrealised and a death unexpected,
Then came the vision of my Father-in-Law
  and I cried for the theft of a beautiful, gentle soul,
Then came the loves I passed in my cold and confused youth
  and I cried for what was, could have been and simply imagined,
Then came the poor and the desperate strangers
  and I cried for the injustice and the severed cord of humanity
Finally I sobbed for myself
  for the sadnesses I endured and the failings that I am.
oh how I cried.

I cried with wine and without,
tears salty with the grapes of Spanish hillsides

I cried with tears so hot they steamed my glasses
with a fog of self loathing.

I cried until my tears were all but gone
  until all that was left was me
  and all my flaws and my humbled greatness.

To the man who raised me where my own father couldn’t,

Papa… where do I even begin?
I love you more than words could ever express. I will always cherish our time together- even though I will forever hate that we could not have more- and all the lessons you taught me. You were the most sincere, hard working, admirable and loving person I will ever have the fortune of knowing.

You were my protector, my knight in shining armour, my superhero, my rock, my anchor, my confidante, my defender, and my best friend. There will never be a man in my life who could ever measure up to your strength, love and kindness.

I’m sorry I’m not ready to let you go… nor do I think I ever will be. I guess part of me just thought you would be here with me forever. I really wish that were the case… but if it’s time for you to go, I guess I can settle for you being my guardian angel instead.

I also just want to thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you for always being there for me without ever questioning it or wavering.
Thank you for holding my hand and guiding me.
Thank you for wiping my tears, hugging me tightly and always knowing how to comfort and cheer me up.
Thank you for protecting me.
Thank you for always having my back and supporting me.
Thank you for all the times you soothed my anxiety attacks growing up.
Thank you for all the nights you spent up with me when I was afraid.
Thank you for your undying love and support.
I can’t ever thank you enough for everything.

I miss you so much. I wish I could talk to you once more. I wish I could tell you how much I love and miss you. I wish I could thank you and apologize. I wish I could joke around with you.

I wish I could have you sing to me- in that god awful tone-deaf singing voice of yours that always made me laugh. I’d even put up with you singing Chicken Talk.

I wish we could have had more time, but I know that no amount of time would ever have been enough. I got you for almost 25 years and I guess that will have to be enough.

I would give anything just to be able to tell you this and for you to be able to hear me and respond. I know you’d tell me not to cry and not to be sad. I know you would tell  me you love me and always will. I know you’d also tell me to take care of Nonna and Callisto, Nova and the kids.
I just wish more than anything I could actually hear you saying those things.

You are my sunshine, papa…

Always, your little girl.

Paul Wittgenstein returned from war,
feeling half a man.
He had fought his nations’ battles
at the cost of his right hand.
The loss of an appendage
scars anyone, its true.
Paul was a pianist-.
With just one hand what could he do?

Paul Wittgenstein was fortunate
Having Ravel for a friend.
A confidante of Gershwin,
He said Paul would play again..
He wrote a sweet piano piece
To be played with just one hand.
If you close your eyes and listen
You would never guess his plan.
A composer of precision,
With a jazzy playful side,
His left handed concerto
Was one to make the angels cry

Paul Wittgenstein took to the stage
A sea of faces looking on.
He played the piece so brilliantly
None guessed his hand was gone.
Not until he left his seat
To bow to their applause
Some gasped in their astonishment,
But most just cheered and roared.



Ravel's Concerto for the Left Hand is one of the most brilliant and important of 20th-century concertos for any instrument. Composed for Paul Wittgenstein, a pianist who lost his right arm during World War I, there is no way by simply listening that you would ever know its secret. Both of Ravel's concertos were heavily influenced by jazz--possibly also by his acquaintance with Gershwin--and successful performances must combine his customary precision with a certain ability to "swing" the tunes. --David Hurwitz

1

he looks into her eyes she into his stretching between is thread fragile as string of pearls if either moves too fast pulls too hard strand will snap pearls slip away who dares to charm rattlesnake take it by nape tie ends wear it as necklace love is reckless

2

first time he saw her he lost control heart spun like pinwheel  forgot what he know light burst into dungeon of dreary soul oasis in middle of desert bowl

3

he wishes there was way to get her to want him catch her heart pervade her fantasies he wonders if ever there was such power potion some ancient incantation arouse wild pangs of desire must be some secret place within her tendon to be touched causing her to tremble swoon lie down call out for him

4

i surrender i’m yours take me teach me shape me to be what you want need let me be your main squeeze most valuable player devoted confidante perfect compliment constant companion wildest fantasy life long lover volley your serve adjust to your moods make mistakes into masterpieces race you home to see who starts dinner do anything for you alone fulfill me trust believe in you we belong to each other give you confidence support inspire delight you lay great fortunes at your feet some men choose gold some men choose God i choose you may they find our bodies embraced together still warm after thousand years oh my love you are there like wild swan dragging wing across water take me as jumping fish take me as howling wolf take me as grizzly bear take me as wild stallion

5

it is hidden between them feeling around stirring nearer exploring along secret paths in early morning dew he scouts ahead skimming lightly over landscape finding area discerning scent following trail growing aroused stalking in grassy protrusion leaping across gushing stream treading in undergrowth probing spreading open folded wrap deeper into denseness she is slower drowsy yet playful coming up step by step lingering at each plateau meandering in hollow picking berries handfuls rolling them in her palms putting them in basket humming to herself she hears wolf howl she runs basket swinging jiggling berries dropping some her rhythms drifts across meadow root pulls slams him hard he prods in frenzy entwined as branches knot quiver knot forest spins around him over his head dizzy he collapses she shivers tingles whispers laid out in flowery moss resting beside tree basket spilled crushed berries all around her

My life has changed... I feel cold... Alone.. And upset... I cry silently.. I dont know how to move on and im trying i really am but i just dont know how. I feel something in my heart that i cant explain. Its like a physical pain but medicine doesn't work. My birthday is coming up and its hard to picture any celebration without you.
My head hurts from missing you and sometimes crying. I know time will make it easier but noone talks about the "right now"... Part of me was amputated the day you left

My heart weighs a ton yet its empty. Losing you has been tough although thats an understatement... Its been less than 48 hrs and i have at least 3 things to tell you already.. Who do i tell? I re-read our texts over and over and i smile because i have no regrets. You kno what you mean to me and i sure know wat i meant to you. I even have u tatted on me forever. We did so many firsts together and this.... This right here we were supposed to do together too... But you left me...

You never think that the last time is the LAST time. These emotions come in waves. One minute im okay the other minute all these emotions come rushing and its overwhelming. The minute i think im alright it just starts all over again. I dont know how to handle it but i do know that time will make it easier to cope with.

Some people know what you really meant to me. Others may say she was just your 2nd cousin. But... I've lost my best friend. Yes she was my cousin but thats at the bottom of the list bc blood couldnt make us any closer. She was my ride or die. Usually i was the one always arguing on her behalf tho bc she didnt have a quick enough comeback ever. My partner in crime, My confidante who knew everything and i mean everything even the TMI stuff. My comadre, i still dont kno what to tell the kids... And they just mentioned you today. My heart shattered in that moment. She was just my person...

I can only wish everyone in this world can experience the bond like the one i had with her. The ties that bond us are impossible to explain. Our bond defied distance, time, or location because we were just meant to be.

Because you are my person and will always be my person... I love you

Me duele el alma..

.and i wrote this... back in January of... perhaps this year... a disclaimer: bones and prose... to have reached a traction of nearing 1.4K readers elsewhere: i don't expect the same numbers here... of that i am imploring... but i want to remember something: i probably misjudged celebrating the worth of Dickens' Pickwick Papers... the moment i heard it was... an imitation of Don Quixote - it was fun to read... before i was reading the papers via the gresham publishing company edition from... oh the 19th century... that's before the book started falling apart from actually being re(a)d: no matter the decency of binding... flimsy papyrus in the end... good enough to look at when stacked on a shelf and an artifact for the eyes... so i decided to finish reading the papers... 2nd hand penguin modern... as ever... why do they write these synopsis spoilers... even a mere allusion to: 'the pickwick papers are the english don quixote'... you know... when reading this book without a synopsis-of-allusion... i very much enjoyed it... but since i have re(a)d Don Quixote... and... frankly... the ballet by the royal opera house was par excellence... now i don't feel so inclined as to be motivated enough to celebrate Dickens anymore... notably to boot there was that essay by Milan Kundera.... as any continental european: not much of english literary adventures is given much thought: it appeal to the everyman but... that's my problem too... Shakespeare is great... when recited... not when read... you require good acting to appreciate shakespeare... a stand-alone dynamic of me: reader of Shakespeare? it's not a selling point... it doesn't feel right! shakespeare? isn't that a household noun akin to chair... hammer... why would it need a capital S(igma): to focus on... what... exactly? shakespeare, hammer, nail, towel... fridge-freezer... fork... muhammad ibn abdullah ibn abd al-muttalib... hey-zeus ben josephus... flour... cheese... i was going to enjoy the pickwick papers to the end but then the disclaimer that it's an imitation don quixote tale... and suddenly the fire - of eagerness... became a stalemate of cinders and stealthy coals... no, clearly the milan kundera essay didn't help either: who would want to reread don quixote: i know some people do reread books... i don't understand my grandmother in that respect... or... i remember when it school we were governed by repetitions of rubric... i hope: prose is where allowances for voyeurism / exhibitionism come to the fore... third party details summoned... that sort of "thing"... but of course i wanted something original to come to the fore... a proverb... it might be persian but it might be absolutely original from circa the baltic region: in between all that's west and russia... a corridor of peoples and nations that... given the greenwich mean time would have to incorporate Greece... and most probably Egypt... and Israel... it reads: all in capital to escape this myopia claustrophobia fudge of paragraph: BETTER A SPARROW IN YOUR HAND, THAN A DOVE UPON YOUR ROOF... years later a proverb would have to be disguised in cosmopolitan spreschen by some "****" of a bachelor... with his 'categorical imperative'... ah... a proverb isn't... that? i like the nuances of proverbs... blindly walking to metaphors... or not expecting a rigidity of life dictated by the already creasing formality language tools: dear sir, yours faithfully vs. yours sincerely... ms. vrs. mrs. informally email: hello! ****-wit! rather than... penned to paper and carrier pigeon bound... stamp! stamp! lick! dear... besides... as you get older and drinking is still a quenching of "thirst" you allude to nicknames for certain spirits: ***** becomes a headache of pravda (truth) while whiskey becomes ms. amber... beer is notoriously gods' ****... along with cider and mead... etc. what is a black cracovite... oh... you know... just an alternative to a tequila shot i invented hearing the story about... once upon a time in cracow... it was snowing... it was snowing a soot-esque sort of snow... the lonely chimney of aushwitz... wa puffing up in all its glory... in english it can translate to: well... what haven't i to thank for... or the jews... to thank for... that these lands are the remains of... at least children might be inclined to play games at the foundation of pyramids... we sure as hell did... near Ypres... in world war I trenches... i can't imagine what games children might invent in these... teutonic strongholds of totenkopfschwatzen... i would gladly send each brick by brick to the rightful owners of these camps: 1000 years from now it might be disguided that... under the auspicious rule of king Casimir's ghost these were "our" original intent... it ruins the land but preserves the memory of a people more invested in a newly established state of the Levant... yes... i need to figure out the paragraph: i need to revisit it more often: this slender-manning of a verse esque casccade doesn't aid me: i need to replica congestion and myopia and all that's cosmopolitan "nice"... what is a black cracovite... for years i wanted to land in the old capital when visit my grandparents... warsaw was always too far removed... like london already is... back toward glorifying Cracow and some elder supreme of the Piast dynasty... that this is written in english and not in native... well... it shouldn't have been written by an englishman with all his darwinistic / anglican / atheistic / rational / ayn rand borrowed sensibilities... a black cracovite as far as i can tell is... a spin on a tequila short... one requires smoking a cigarette... the ash is deposited on a licked space between the thumb and index finger... the ash is licked... a shot of ***** is made ready... what replaces the bite of a lemon is a grit of black pepper... yes... i have to invest in a paragraph more: for all its congestive phalanx remedies: i posit this the most redeeming: remedying... closure... it's far removed from airing out grievances when words cascade... now i should have concerns for contending... imitations... cheap-sell-offs of these words... outlandishly left to the open cringe of... simply-leash: i'll probably trail off on a ***-note, a falsetto... absolutely necessary... one cannot feed too many expectations without feeding those necessarily in pursuit of sustenance... be gone! countess bathory-veneer!

this is truly a welcome break from:

freeing all the drafts -
which i imagined to be equivalent, or rather:
the 2nd parallel of the original adjecent -

i imagined it would feel like:
releasing doves with laurel branches firmly
lodged in their beaks -
just as the waters of the flood would recede...

but it truly felt like:
the inversion of the diarrhoea-constipation
"paradox"... because it felt like both,
but never giving me a clue as to
what was more prominent -

the sharp edge of a knife -
or the horizon when the sky becomes
the sea far away....

i'm not ashamed to throw this onto the fore...
it happened to me once...
but on purpose...
i wanted to compensate marquis de sade's
antic in a brothel when he implored
the ******* to turn the crucifix into
a ***** into his decapitated precursor
of a mary antoinette... puppet...

profanity in images and all the other seances
of the senses...
i wouldn't go as far as to make the crucifix
profane... or do anything profane
with it...

only the words...
hic (est) mea corpus - hic (est) mea cruor...
this is my body - this is my blood...
and i am aware the mead is the gods' ****
when they're in a good mood - all... jolly...
and that beer is the gods' **** when
laughter hits a dry run...
and that ms. amber or whiskey is but:
the blood of the gods...

i had to corrupt it...
to prove to myself: that i am not a god...
it was quiet simple...
once upon a time i was drinking
a glass of wine...
and as you do... on a whim...
i decided to **** into it...
perhaps all that drinking prior would
give me something to elevate the palette
of exploration that was to come...

hmm... at least that sorts out
hic: mea cruor... *** urinae...
but back then i did that on purpose...
and if only this was a desert scenario...
and i would have to drink my own *****
to survive...
well... i just thought: here's to starving
from a lack of better imagery...

i will come unto some Horace in a minute...
i don't know how i managed to find
this citation - it's only very losely related...
and yes i will showcase another draft from
May of last year...

but today i was unsure...
did i leave yesterday's pepsi max bottle
with only the stale pepsi left...
or did i forget to do the lazy sly wee whizz
jumping out of bed in the middle of
the night...
but i already poured this "cocktail"
over two shots of whiskey...
and i'm hardly desperate but...
my original intention of alligning myself
to the profanity of the crucifix...
i had to somehow make profanity
of the wine...

since i am... thinking how to compensate
being satisfied with wine...
how the ancient world was always
satisfied with wine...
the story of the 3 ambers of the north...
the beer, the mead and the whiskey...
all in a varying degree...
but i will not bow before the blood of a god
that's so... diluted...
whiskey yes... that can be blood indeed...
otherwise it's down in the trench
with gods' **** - mead if they are in a good
mood... beer if they are in a talkative mood...

thank god i wasn't thinking:
better salvage those two shots of whiskey
and drink this cocktail of the "ultimate" surprise...
and apparently eating a woman's
placenta is good for you...
as was... apparently once... breastmilk...
funny... give me the milk of a cow or a goat
and i'll show you: one dislocated thumb...
one dislocated distal + intermediate phalange
from the index finger of the right hand's
proximal phalange... no broken bones...

knock-knock... who's there? touchwood superstition.

it's not as bad as it sounds...
stale, yes...
but i am also known for sometimes
performing the antithesis of drinking tequilla...
*****... i'll sprinkle some cigarette ash
onto my hand... lick it... take a shot of *****
then throw one or two black peppercorns into
my mouth for the crunch...
each drinker and his own myths... right?
i call that the black cracovite...
cracow being so close to aushwitz...
and once it snowed and they thought it was
snowing... sure... ash from the furnaces
of aushwitz... here's my ode to... the dead...
in a drink...

hell better a cracovite than a cracowite, white?
i mean: right? seriously: low hanging fruit,
the elephant's testicles...

i will never understand this whole veneration
of wine: in vino veritas...
these days wine is better drank by women
and castrated monarchs of the clergy...
i had to check... so i ****** in my holy grail...
and guess what didn't come out
the other end? gods' **** (beer and wine)
or gods' blood (whiskey and wine)...
just this stale, almost bland...
water with a pinch of grape that has been
left to sit in a puddle on some
industrial estate in dagenham enjoying
the ripe downpouring of chemicals
that leave it with a rainbow of diluted
petroleum...

akin to: try shoving that sort of doughnut
into this kind of pile of ****...
not that i would...
but i have also been prone to test
99.9% spirits... or 96% absinthe...
with a locust mummified in the bottle's neck...
from Amsterdam...

i had to rethink: why become engaged...
when chances are...
to the displeasure of someone who read:
but never bought my work...
the self-editorial process...
the self-publishing process could be...
guillotined on a whimsical constipation
of a "dear reader"...
as it might happen...

again... Horace and the perfect example
of poetry with conversational overtones...
poetry as prosaic...
my god... paper was expensive back in old
Horace's days... surely you would need
something spectacular to write:
like a psilocybin trip account word for word:
wrong!
a certain don juan said to a certain
carlos castaneda: don't bring back words from
such experiences...
but of course: they did...
upon once upon a time loving the beatniks...
i started to abhor them...
getting drunk and smoking "something"
is one thing... exposing the altars of solipsism
of such experiences: words intact...
is a profanity...
each dream is individually curated
to the dreamer... the introduction of words
to relate back... for some next be disciple...
the "drugs" / portals of escapism are already
contaminated...

why wouldn't i: even if these are only
objective recounts of an experience?
perhaps because... they are subjectivelly null...
there are only the comparable heights of Gideon...
such experiences are best: kept to each individual's
right to enjoy... a freedom of thought...
and of silence...
each keeps a secret...
but what secret is left?
when the objective parameters have already
been stated?
i see no point... better down and finding
it at the end of a bottle...
or... ******* into a glass of wine
and drinking it...

they have been contaminated by words that
have been retrieved from such experiences
that (a) no one should talk about...
(b) surprise! the objective reality already
being stated as altered...
am i going to a ******* cinema with my body...
or am i going to a surprise
gallery with my thought?
doesn't matter... word contamination...
bigmouth struck his final last time!
at least the remains is what gives me
the labyrinth... the blood the **** you name
it the three sisters amber... for all i care...
it's readily available: make do...
with what's already been given.

me? i drink for that very special date...
monday 9 march 2020...
when all the orthodox jews get drunk...
that's one of those celebrations i wouldn't mind
being a part of... purim, festival of Lots,
funny... that period of history...
the Persian aspect of the hebrews...
never made it to the big screen...
seeing modern day Iran as day-old Persia
in muslim garbs...
we're still only seeing the: African adventure...
perhaps once the dust has settled...
we will get the Persian installement...
and then... oh... **** it...
we're all in it for the long run...
then when christianity is no longer useful...
the Roman bit of history...
and how the hebrews conspired with the greeks...
2000 years later we'll probably see
some prince of egypt cartoon movie
of the pristine romance and a mention of germany...
not yet... ****'s still to ripe to entertain
the universal child and children...
no screen adaptation from "their" time in Persia...
songs... we have songs!
Verdi's Nabucco - the chorus...
perhaps only in song from Persia and always
with movies and hieroglyphs when from Egypt...

but the festivity... of course! i'll celebrate...
cf. though... Puccini's coro a bocca chiusa -
the humming chorus...
before the band enigma... i am pretty sure my mother
would crank up the volume to at least
one of these songs... should they come on the radio...
i'm still to hear christopher young's:
something to think about - to be on air...
and to also be treated as a piece of classical music...
if wojciech kilar's dracula soundtrack can be treated
as classical music... what's wrong with a little
bit of hellraiser?!

perhaps, "again" is this desecration of the sacred not,
simply hanging in the background,
all, the, ******, time?
who is to celebrate wine giving it a god's blood
status in sips? one is expected to somehow become
drunk on the passion!
no one is here for crumbs of sips!
first they came for the loaf of bread...
and said you should fast and eat only a crumb...
then they came for the bottle of wine...
and said you should abstain and drink only a sip...
then they came for *** and by then
vatican was a monaco with better tax protections...

it's an investement: having to **** into a glass
of wine you're about to drink...
worse... you accidently "forgot" about
******* into some left-over pepsi max
and you're making yourself a cocktail
with one of the graeae ambers - 2x -
and you wonder: is this the proper state
of carbonated water, stale?
but i'm hardly going to bash the crucifix...
i'm here for the words...

the... transfiguration of the wine into blood...
and i say of my gods:
and here is their **** - beer and mead...
and here's their blood: the three graeae ms. ambers...
see no: clearer? no... happier?

i will get onto ancient roman poetics
with its conversational overtones in a minute!
first we have to settle the sacraments!
the metaphors and the sacraments!
i have no ivar the boneless claim of god...
season 6? to be honest...
i'd rather watch an english soap opera...
at least the intricacy of the plot remains...
even though it has been recycled
so many times...

i can't **** out the gods' ***** even if it was
stale beer... or ideal mead...
as i can't leisure a Seneca's bath filled
with the blood of the immortals...
problem solved... "problem":
as if it ever was...

why, Horace? a very short rhetorical retort:
if Dante had his Virgil...
why can i have my Horace, as guide?
again... what Roman poet could venture for
ambitions among the myths -
or extend his "consciousness"
to devastate the land and become
the mad Xerxes wanting the waves
of a sea whipped into submission?
why, Horace? if Dante could have his Virgil...

poetry... at least among the roman poets
there's no boxed in a box "without" a "box"...
the conversational overtones are ripe...
the almost complete lack of
character dimensions... beside their dimensions
from anecdotes...

to difuse wine, to desecrate the hic mea cruor...
**** in it!
then drink it...
or have one of my antithesis of a tequilla surprise
with me...
smoke a cigarette... drop some ash on the lick-part
of the space between the thumb
and the index metacarpal... lick it...
follow it with a shot of *****...
then throw some black peppercorns
into the hades of your gob
and we've arrived at the black cracovite...

and also the day when the orthodox jews
recant their story of their time
in Persia... the festivity of Lots...
when they become blind drunk and pretend to
have the sort of alcohol intolerence as
the Japanese... 1 shot! just 1 shot:
and hey! they throw their kippahs in
the air and we can all dance the ukranian 'opak!

looks good to me!
but only looks good...
when there's this plump drunk playing the accordion:
i.e. me,
and there's the sort of adrew rieu directing
an upcoming crescendo of a poliushko polie...
and we can all leave the auditorium
feeling, less than russophobic...
and then i can be told...
you young to be old yet still
profane pan-siberian peasant root!
indo-european leftover!
well... at least then i have been allowed
the scrap i'm supposed to see
before i showcase my *****, frost riddled fangs!
of the lesser wolf that i am:
as a rabid dog!

since the crescendo will come...
what better fathom of it...
esp. just beside a cemetery... twirling to the music...
ear-plugs out seancing my time in a grand
orchestral hall... plucked from the ears...
the crescendo is coming...
but... plucked... the orchestra of buffalo-sized
snowflakes... and... the worst kind of ballet...
a male soloist... doing his crazy
ukranian folk... maestro! the music never ever
dies! even in the silence of the universe!
however micro- or macro- this theatre will take
form... the music remains playing: uninterrupted!

but the snow was there,
the "ballerina" was also there...
the night was there,
the music was there -
albeit no grand orchestral hall -
couldn't ask for a better canvas
than a cemetery -
and all the heart's content!
comparative "literature"
to love like a muslim...
or to love like a sparrow...
or to love with a grudge like a crow...
mind you; site note...
i have been many a pigeons attempt
fornication unabashed...
i've never seen two crows attempt it...
perhaps they do "it" in the night
and never in the open?

crows... pedantic priests of the kingdom...
and where the widower king
and the widow queen among the swans?
where i and you will have probably left them...
admiring a family of ducks...

as asked by the serpent of the swan...
you and me of the same birth in a Fabergé egg...
me with serpentine spine...
while you: with a crooked neck?
silly... it really is...
of a being.... that was once
a t-rex roar... now a pickled brain
in pickle jar... boasting about being...
pure spine and tingles and...
the better part of what... becomes the mammalian
hibernation...
hibernating "hibernating" upon the
impetus of digestion...
a serpent would ask a swan about
a crooked neck?

because what would a **** sapeins look toward,
as he is always prone to to look elsewhere?
if not to borrow the fixed, rigid ontology
of other animals?
i better from the birds, solely...
the swans and the crows...
perhaps the fox...
rarely something that has lent itself
to being curated by man's leash and grip...
collective the known herd...
otherwise the refined bonsai tigers...
perhaps the fish without a knowledge
of a tide or a wave...

i call a dog the noble friend,
the swan the sombre monogamist...
the crow the priest...
the furry spider one's own reflection
dealing with aracnophobia...
the snake the old "say-what?"
or that pickled spine with a brain
the worth of brine juices...
the extinguished remnant
of a dinosaur's toothache... or some
transcendental exploration
of the carpals of the wrist
extending into the length of a spine...

i'm not going to cry over this one...
skål!
i feel disinhibited from writing a memorandum!
slàinte!
gasoline to the peddle and... off... we, go!

i am bound to get this translaton right...
at some point of hinging-on... i.e. beginning with...
and most probably at the opposite end
of having to finish...
hence "open bracket"... prefix-
and -suffix allowance given the archeological
excavation began with:

-seu pila velox molliter austerum studio
fallente laborem, seu te discus agit, pete cedentem
aera disco: *** labor extuderit fastidia, siccus,
inanis sperne cibum vilem; nisi Hymettia mella
Falerno ne biberis diluta. foris est promus,
et atrum defendens piscis hiemat mare: *** sale
panis latrantem stomachum bene leniet. unde putas
aut qui partum? non in caro nidore voluptas summa,
sed in te ipso est. tu pulmentaria quaere
sudando: pinguem vitiis albumque neque ostrea
nec scarus aut poterit peregrina iuvare lagois.
vix tamen eripiam, posito pavone velis quin
hoc potius quam gallina tergere palatum,
corruptus vanis rerum, quia veneat auro
rara avis et picta pandat spectcula cauda:
tamquam ad rem attineat quidquam.
num vesceris ista, quam laudas, pluma?
cocto num adest honor idem?
carne tamen quamvis distat nil, hac magis illam
inparibus formis deceptum te petere esto:
unde datum sentis, lupus hic Tiberinus
an alto captus hiet? pontisne inter iactatus
an amnis ostia sub Tusci?
laudas, insane, trilibrem mullum,
in singula quem minuas pulmenta necesse est.
ducit te species, video: quo pertinet ergo proceros
odisse lupos? quia scilicet illis maiorem natura modum
dedit, his breve pondus: ieiunus raro stomachus volgaria
-temnit.

it's translated, isn't it? no
stefan gołębiewski or no 1980 warsaw...
is to know...

- nec meus hic sermo est, sed quae praecepit Ofellus:
these are not my words, this said the simpleton
Ofellus - neither of which of us is a laurel-leaf
adorned Orpheus...

that via a living "game": stoking up an appetite
with this entertainment the appetite increaes...
as does one health...

sorry... pagans... bloodthirty people...
trouble with the translation...
apparently the mud slinging
***** and bricks are nothing new...

or when you "minus" the disk,
litter the distance, head with the wind into
competition!
after hardships of the body is good and
the meal is simple -
(apparently all of this is still "connected",
scratch of the ol' 'ed and we're fine...
we're ******* sailing!)
Falern will not hurt "us"...
seasoned by honey from Hymettis,
before the entré. Safaz left,
the sea rumbles, the zephyr of fish it protects,
storm, fishing made unsafe;
stomach grumbles, bread with salt:
excuisite; you do not have any better! why?
taste does not reside in the scent of dishes,
but in your self alone.
toil merely increases appetite's presence.
he who over-eats, will not know the taste
of an oyster, nor a turbot, nor chickpeas,
the northern bird.
perceptions take the scalp of the mountain
above the actual taste of the dishes
(one might scalp... but never eat the scalp)...
you will not take a chicken onto a tooth,
when you are given a peacock,
you will trust your delusion:
a rare bird, worth its own weight of gold,
a most rarified tail, how it sparkles
with subtle hues!
as if the tail were to lead -
and there was no head to be found!
do you allow yourself to judge the hue
of the feathers as precursor for the adjecctive:
that's it's "also" tasty? the meat, of course?
the old - judge a book by its cover...
is the oven baked... also as delicious / beautiful?
chicken meat... or peacock meat?
almost without difference.
therefore: light... albeit...
although only vanity lures the peacock
(to be compared to a poultry)...
let's go further... i want to know: after what
do you recognise this, that a pike
with its gaping mouth was left:
from the sea... or from the Tiber fished?
somewhere among bridges... or from some
conrete estuary? idiot-kin of the surname whim...
you admire a three-pound mullet!
do you take size... for the gauge of all measure?
when you... cut the bell?
then why... why... with disgrace
do you demand in appreciation:
elongating pikes!
evidently nature: this greater gave the proper
measure... and with it: the lesser weight -
an empty stomach will rarely -
being fed a simple thing - despise -
what is...

an empty stomach - rarely despises -
simple matters.

how true... i was allowing myself the time
it would take to drink,
and translate into the vulgate...
but... from no better source...
and i am still to add to this one of my...
"freeing of the drafts"...

as promised...
"draft"...

- a most confiscated man -
no italics included...

.the original draft:

binges, worth the count
of a liter of whiskey
per night,
for a year, if not more...
become so...
so unspectular...

          the world either
screams, or yawns,
generally:
it exhaust a desire
to toss a coin,
agitate the vocab.,

a grand canyon
huddling
in the "depths" of
a glass of water...

baron science
comes with his rubric
of bore,
      and:
i find myself,
most idle:
while the world
orientates
itself in keeping
itself busy,
bothersome,
always the prime concern,

the ant-colony coup,
the:
i always find friends
in the orientations
of an empty glass,
but prior to:

i drink
before no altar,
no mirror,
no confidante...

    pure flesh revels itself
in a blank's worth
of prior to dictum's
  allowance of, a page...

bothersome
the knot of the pretentious
anti- in scold of
the passing fancy:
expression...

            poker charm
of a love's affair...

_

i sometimes entertain myself
with ancients proverbs,
one slavic proverb reads:
better a sparrow in your hand
than a dove on your roof...

what, could, possibly be,
the interpretation?
care for the small joys in
your possession,
than, for the peace of your household,
which is, on the roof,
but not in your hands...

if i were paid? would i be more
honest?
probably not...
        what i see, is what needs
to be seen...
  em... simple pleasures talk...
once upon a time,
donning long hair, implied
you were a mosher...
a metal-head...
    now? three days +,
long hair, and you're not a
grunge fanatic?
  trans-, etc.?

  a man of simple pleasures,
i know what long hair,
jealousy, associated with
putting it in a french braid,
does to a camel jockey ego...
ruins and ruins as far as the eyes
can see...
    he replicates...
he grows his hair long...
at the same time boasting about
haivng a premature beard...
then you grow a beard yourself...
you start fiddling with it...
****, ***** on my face...
and then...
the "question" of a girlfriend
flies out of the window...
i'm happy with a beard,
thank you, very much,
i don't, exactly want to wish upon
myself, a female, company...

*** protest all you want...
the *** differences between men
and women, to my sort of understanding,
are, unrepairable...
    they were, never,
bound, to being, repaired...
savvy?
            i take my route,
a woman took her route...
  we're even...
              
      since what can only frighten a freed
woman, beside a monarch,
a free man?
                  a man with...
a gamble...
        i am a man with a gamble...
i don't like being told what
to be, or what to think...
like any man,
and like any man:
i don't like being forced
ownership over a being:
that can share my sense of freedom...
so...
    i find myself,
thrilled with relief,
at now having to answer to
a woman's subjugation...
like a woman, and, i have learned
from women: i like being
my objective's self...
rather than a "self" made subject...

i like that: thank you...
i can start feedings the pigs and the peasant
the diatribe life, and lie,
of: there being an existential cricis,
a need to reproduce...
and i, and i am, being demeaning
in this, way, for a justified reason...

once the peasants attack you:
you attack, the peasants...
you demean them in the same way
they demeaned you...

once upon a time i thought:
greater good came from the number
of innocents being salvaged
than for the few great of grand bearing
being salvaged...
even if bound to an ill will:
an ill command,
of a will, predisposed to pretend
actions of the blind...
but now i see...

  the many: if beside fulfilling
their petty deeds,
having to stand outside of those,
petty deeds,
  have ambitions equivalent
to their emotions...
            akin to something worth,
pity, akin to something
worth: as little as a rat's heartbeat...
petty, primitive bull-*******...
and all the amount of sorrow,
or pity,
or mercy...
              that, these, ******* allow...
are worth the same response
Pontius Pilate gave...
      there isn't enough of water,
in this world,
to wash my hands, clean,
of these people...
  even if innocent blood plagues
them,
    not enough waters have run their
due course,
to... release me from the indentation
of memory upon my mind...
and i am plagued by an elephant's
memory...
        we've reached the conclusion
of: some people...
  just do not see an insult,
            past the insult's eloquence!

i am a most conflicted man,
i binge watched vikings
for a while now,
and right now, i'm ready for
an extraction of what i have learned...

believe me: i am not someone
who has the sort of ego-presence
to fate myself in the role
of the protagonist...
    i'm too pedantic to have to
market my body and deeds,
for the fates tio see,
and history to ascribe fame unto me...

even homer was off too war
with troy,
  and blessed he became...

because? time morphs,
the longer something is kept,
the more, "unreal" is becomes,
a fairy-tale...
esp. now, with the onslaught
of journalism...
two things in this world
are insomniac,
money never sleeps,
and, now, apparently,
journalism doesn't sleep either:
well, given its ******
bed-fellow of political liars...
why should it?

            Rolo... a semi-minor character...
but i feel his angst at the already
fervent dichotomy,
(dichotomy, modern variety variant
of schizoid-affective...
or bilingual in turn)...

            music...
                    all these modły...
gesticulations of prayer,
phantom conjuring,
              lunatics with candles
at high-noon...
                  i am fated by music,
i am perverted by music,
i am swayed by music...
who is the god, patron,
of music?
who is the angel (demi-god),
patron of music?
        i do not seek the highest
influencer...
the minor one...

  when Archangel Sandalphon
met St. Cecilia...
but as such, i am, conflicted...
even though, this is the first time
i have heard of Sandalphon...

Rome, never reached my peoples,
the Vikings did...
  weren't the ugly vikings the founders
of Kiev?
  so they must have passed via
the Polen (field) land, no?

feelings are not important,
facts don't care about your feelings...
granted...
but i'm not hear for facts,
contra, feelings,
i'm here for the rivers...
what i feel, what my heart yearns for,
needs to attain an equilibrium
with my mind...
for that: i need to clarify my feelings,
to hush my heart, silence it,
in order to listen to my mind,
and the mind, needs to feed into
heaving the heart: to do,
what, the heart, desires,
autonomous to what the heart
"thinks", is right...
                    that's how it was forver
going to work...
consolidated...
and yes, i much envy the punctuation
of king Ecgberht,
a man of cunning: much admired...
abstract thinker...
        and a reality...
        pun-ctu-a-tion...
the delivery of one's speech...
  much admired, as much as...
                the crude brawl possession...
the chief protagonist of the story?
as important as is: the required from
Atlas... burden upon burden...
a man burdened with the illusion
of freedom...

so why am i conflicted,
but becoming less and less so?
    it was always the music...

songs...

          chavelier, mult estes guariz...
wardruna - helvegen...
          da pacem domine...
            agni parthene...

you know... there's much more beside
being a jazz enthusiast or
a classical music snob...
        there's folk... there's religious and pagan
chants...
if there's one thing to benefit from,
in terms of the Byzantine context...
the chants...
        let the barbarians do the thinking
from now on: you do the sing-along...
no people ever reinvented themselves
from an ancient glory...
  new blood had to come to the fore...

like today...
      i spoke with my father and my mother...
about the names of apples...
we must have talked for an hour,
we named so many lost "breeds" of apple...
nouns i will not write,
nouns i wish death to write down,
i want Samael to have,
beside the book of my deeds in hand,
i want him to have
my dictionary in hand,
my knowledge of the sacred script,
i want to listen as he recites me the words
i've used,
notably today's conversation
            about the many types of apples...
e.g.: shogun apples...
            kox...
                    szare renety...
          papierówki...
                    marabella prunes...
that's all i ask of Samil.

p.s. after completing a walk in the woods:
a walk most adventurous in it being solitary...
i thank the forest for my solitude...
i started knocking on a dry piece of wood
still attached to the earth and roots...
in a forest: knocking on a tree...
i perceived the door
upon re-entering
traffic and hardened grit of road stuff...
let's replicate this...
me... you... alone...
let's both abide by needing
superstitious elevations of:
not truth alone... hardened and dim-witted
by objectivity...
truth tailored with metaphors...
all the nuance we can hope to find...
i need to... aloofness... solitude...
i need you, forest...
more than i care for noon
and proof of body that's this extension:
leash! shadow! noon!

                    smyč! cień! południe!

She wrote down her thoughts
More than she said them
The paper was her confidante
And her mouth the pen.

She wrote in prose and rhymes
In words of grief and pain
Sadness was her mother tongue
And joy her only bane.

She wrote down the cruelty
Of love and of art
She fed on broken promises
That gave her a shattered heart.