Three blind babies in the caterpillar nest
The songs turn their limbs
Torrents of Mandarin wash over the silk
Watercolor cilia crawl toward the tomb corners

Awake at the Kremlin with fluoride eyes built
to take in the exotic
pour the ***** and the women and masterpieces
launch into the frozen countrysides

Lapping of the close water
moon shrouded in a prismaic screen
the shadow of salt
beside the beast of south China sea

Amnesia spreads dripping thrands
answering only to the ocean
the language of caterpillar
shout from our arranged marriage

icecaps come undone
crushing into the ocean
as she sheds her frozen tears
penguins and p0lar bears shudder
as their habitats recede
like the snows of Kilimanjaro

volcanoes explode
spewing smoke and ash like billowing pillows
into the stratosphere
diffusing sunshine's heat
like a cold compress
floes of lava melt glaciers
rivers of mud cause flooded folks to flee

fissures crack and snap from her pressure
towns and countrysides split
floors rumble and roll like the ocean
walls tumble, crumble and roar
bells toll an all too familiar melody
families cry out, wailing and ranting
chanting dirges of great loss
an inconsolable cacophony
rubbled lives lying in ruin

but she is not to blame
the earth is a no fault state
this is our doing
ecology's consequence
greenhouse gasses and other pollutants
have given her a fever
her pores are opening to vent the warming
she is not angry or vindictive
punishment is not her goal
and evil has not played its hand
the planet is just cooling herself
it's how Gaia gets her groove back

Your children twist
their legs in the fields
during
the play murdering
gather their
arms to decide
how to assemble
your hips
when onlookers
burned into paved
staircases
dream of how
tumbling phantoms
destroy countrysides
and what wreck
is the womb

starlight,
i won't forgive you,
for you haven't done a single thing wrong.

and you don't have to say
anything, i can hear
your heartbeat through the sheaves
of grass that grow back in
small increments:
i know you're there,
no matter how invisible you may
find yourself feeling, late at
nights you can't sleep to
be more like my consistencies, you never knew.

so show me a freckle on your arm,
or the breadth of the world,
or nothing at all. you've
already collected my insides.

love, life is meaningless, but perhaps
with some time and another place,
we could still find purpose. my hopes
are wearing thin, but i'm hardly dead
yet.

so, don't cry. it's okay to hurt,
like i understand you do. i'm
hurt too, but i can lick clean
all your wounds. i could be
yours
if you wanted
me to.

in dreams, i
hear the sea on your
mind, once again, and build
catamarans we'll sail out of this
disjoint union of townships and countrysides
on; and i'll gouge my heart out and pour it into the
ocean, so with each swell and retreat of the waves you can
hear how many of its contractions are dedicated to the lights in your eyes.

Outside, the world is hurdling on
through space and time and everything else
While our people tear each other to ruins.
Inside, the walls come crumbling down
taking blood and bone along with it
While embers burn to ash in what's left of our minds.
The end of the world is such a concept
Because what's ending?
I can assure you one thing:
Nature existed far before humans arrived
and nature will continue to exist after.
Forest fires rage through countrysides and mountain ranges
But no time is wasted before new trees are growing out of the cinders.
With us, a forest fire rages through our being
and we drown as the flames burn us from inside
until it's too late
And there's nothing to show except a blackened shadow on the ground we once stood
Because we paved over any chance of rebirth when we stoked the fire and gave in.

Taking long walks
I wander,
in wonder

In cities dense,
Over sparse
countrysides

Forging new paths,
Stopping often
To observe, reflect

And I think of you, my friend...


MichaelShaddox.com
Lose Yourself. Find Yourself. Be Yourself.

trees frowned on both sides of the waterway  
aimlessly i float with the river bends
drifting farther  from the name i owned yesterday
closer i am
to the red lands
leaving behind
the comfort of grass
replacing my scent with dry sand
a place for no buildings or cars
to the red lands
vaster then  forests and countrysides combine
where foot prints of exiles have been blown away
to the majestically terrible,heated winds.
i sing only
to the red lands
a place where i can put away my desires
and the constant searching for truth
for all that lies here are abstract dunes
and endless horizons
to the red lands
i come here to escape the history of man
let my loved ones find me if they can
they can not buy my respect with porcelain plates
to the red lands
i can run bare
screaming to nothing,
but leaving something in the air
i am free
i am dancing with reality
to the red lands

Walk along, behind or ahead of some
Many walks behind,many to come
Waiting for the rainbow paved road
That will lead to a *** of gold
Over the edge, across divides
To undiscovered countrysides
Trailblazing through highs and lows
Valleys of mist and shadows
Go where winds of change blow
hopefull of better tomorrow's
Friends made on this rainbow road
What I learn is my *** of gold.

we're just like rain
penetrating the dancing dusts
joining other droplets as one
forming vast oceans and fluvial rivers
some are calm while others make choppy waves

the sun sends rays in our direction
beckoning and urging us
we return to the clouds
travelling places to
rejoin the water bodies
somewhere else this time
and we make homes for creatures
and we reflect the moon and the city lights

some of us rest the tired souls
with our silent but loud pitter patters
some of us flow down the
busy roads and quiet countrysides
some of us collect in lakes
some scribble storms and some paint rainbows

then we return to the clouds once more
and we meet as we fall back to earth
two familiar translucent crystals reflecting each other
and this time we might hide from Sun and Cloud
because we wish to travel on our own
just us
two raindrops

On a simple day our shoulders
lightly brush as we pass per chance
and the world falls silent
at the meeting of a glance.

As a deep sea met
emerald and set fire to the skies
when sparks flew from between
our , somewhat-comprehending eyes.

This was a moment of crossroads
where future paths be planned to stone
over barren countrysides-
Prosperity or demise, this fate be my own.

I saw our future in
your crystalline tears
living together,
in our golden years
, but be weary i sense also
a life lost to duties-
committed to fear and
other romantic cruelties.

My darling you are
my future meant to be,
but I don't believe in fate.

Some people meet and
are meant to live lives
lovely, complex, intertwined...

Yet we're not that some
, not meant to be.
You're just a pretty passerby,
I say, as I turn away  blindly.

I've become a vegetable
not in the whoops that was an especially bad fall
down those apartment stairs
quasi paraplegic kind of sense--
I am spry and sprouting
blushing with energetic vibrance.

I am so fluorescent
that my own aptitude of radiation
could be consider toxic--
if you had to stand beside me
on an extended elevator ride
rising too high
above our natural destinations down low;
I'd be inclined to warn you
to lean a few more feet to the otherside.

It's that I am blessed with an enchanting
of endless blossoms of hopefulness
as the mills of life
work to grain down my wheatfulness.

Before my journey
I bloomed in the small countrysides of Central California
a place the Northern and Southern side don't even realize exist--
coming from simple towns with simple names
with a simple way of life.

How can a boy from Strawberry
step into the roots of a decaying tree of spruce
when the hearty oak woods of home
are calling his name.

'Round back alleys, and down black side streets
sits [laying] newspaper mattresses, and makeshift houses with no heat.

Just a step, or two, from Big City Lights, (a rolling neon technicolor wasteland),
lives the bottom tip of the bottle, and a short supply of all, but upturned hands.

Two streets over, over-the-top sparkle of high heels, and scantly draped dresses.
Down here, dweller's fever's rush down from old minded babe's spiralings of deep depression.  

The language most commonly spoken is lies, but it's not much different up hill.
What's not translatable from "bag," "spliff," or "pill," can be easily related with "shot," "bottle," or "bill."

I find myself fluent, a traveled veteran of countrysides,
adjusting to the headache of the city's heart, but unwilling to take the full ride.

I want to write such words
That can reach out and teach,
And share with the world
What I have found on beaches
And mountain passes, in cities
And the countrysides, like music;
Lilting songs without tunes
But such that please any critic
And help them learn to sing
Even when there is no melody,
Experiences that changes them
To symphonies from threnodies.

I want to help everybody hear
The jigs and tarantellas here
Made from words that keep
Their lively memory very near,
That we may subtly hear it
And love it and treasure
Every beat, rest and thought
In every verbal measure,
So they can ride along with
An orchestra often unheard:
The precious gift to us all,
The magnificent spoken word.

I have set my sights on this,
The mission I have chosen
And shall make it my quest to
Insure my stride is not broken.
Not everyone is given the gift
To say what they deeply feel,
It falls to those who can speak
To show others what is real,
Or what may just be tinsel
And what is golden, or wrong.
Thus is the fate of our poets
To parse it in poetry and song.

ALVARADO
            Well, now we’ve a translator, we can hear
            How much the Mayas hate us.

SANDOVAL                                          We should leave.
            As yet, we merely beg to buy their corn,        
            But fears impel them to combat with us.
            We’ve sixty wounded, heat stroke swoons the horse,
            And not a flake of gold for all these streams.
            Their ruins lurk like wrecks dredged from a swamp.

ALVARADO
            A stark reminder for aspiring minds
            That cultures often fall as well as rise.
            Here comes the father, with our medicine man.

                                       Enter AGUILAR and OLMEDO.

AGUILAR
            And so back home the Inquisition, brother,
            Still rules the roost?
    
OLMEDO                              It does so.
            
AGUILAR                                                 Grim regime!
            It clouds the air upon a thousand wings,
            Whose shadows spread to pall the gloomy sun.
            The cool, luxuriant trees on which it lights,
            It dries. How it decays! It browns green grass,
            And desolates the leafy countrysides
            Until they wither as the Syrian wastes.

OLMEDO        So it does.

SANDOVAL          [aside] Hark! The moral landslide rumbles.

OLMEDO
            Those fires of the Inquisition, lighted
            Exclusively to doom the Jews, one day
            Are destined to consume their smug oppressors.

SANDOVAL [aside to Alvarado]
            He strains a bit to shield the circumcised.
            Though I’ve a ***** mouth, my blood is pure.

ALVARADO [aside to Sandoval]
            Hush, Sandoval. You go too far.

OLMEDO                                                 And you?
            Know, Alvarado, there are many men
            Who, through misguided zeal- yes, Sandoval-
            Convince themselves that they commit no sin
            So long as those they **** and violate
            Are of a different faith.

ALVARADO                               It’s not our fault.
            I hate the Grand Inquisitor myself.

SANDOVAL
            Like any little-loved policing force,
            However, it preserves our way of life.

OLMEDO
            For its unwanted eye that never slumbers,
            Its arm, unseen and ever raised to strike,
            Does not o’ercast its gloom on you, but rather
            On deviants, foreigners, and heretics.

AGUILAR
            It bars all doors of human entry to them-
            Marginalized, shorn lambs it ferrets out,
            And scapegoats as the enemies of Rome.
            Thus, it condemns not only deeds, but thoughts.

I am shades of midnight, shards of the same galaxy collapsed and contrasted to tiny little ***** that grow like eggs not subsumed by Mars quakes.
I am faulty genes, x-rays, heart scans, and red cells insufficient.
I am sexuality in a world yet to be explored by I and me.
I am a jar of dry camomile leaves turning to shades of sunlight spreading over the river leaving spaces for evening lights.
I am petals of the stars waned to the fragrance of flowers travelling with wanderlust from world to world.
I am insights from colours of black, white, golden, everything. I am a sanctuary of solitude, edging on certainty.

I am the oscillation between feeling brilliant at birthing my art and really quite derided at churning consistent literature.
I am the east London girl left with derelicts of poetry originating from Alfred Hitchcock films.

I am the walk by the sea that gives the feeling of the wind coming off the waves. I am the travel between seasons on railways to off-the-beaten-paths destinations through countrysides and beyond to flea markets collecting memories, soul and travel tchotchkes.


I am Sunday breakfast and tea in bed, buried inside heaps of sheets, using body warmth for shield.
I am pure joy, one whose heart howls with laughter and a face whose grin is as silly as the scowl of a Cheshire Cat with a hissy fit. I am a numismatist and I am the girl who collects stamps and inherits vinyls owned by my father from the 1960s.
I am coffee without cream. I let the days and the weekends amaze me like my time in Hamburg.
I am the random stroll to the local Signorelli bakery to have an almond croissant and fresh Italian latte and a nice chat with the ******* lady.
I am a creation inspired by the likes of Thomas Hardy, Francoise Sagan, Zadie Smith, the humour of Lucy Mangan, and the wit of David Sedaris.

I am her, ambivalent between jaunting between rural and suburban villages, bustling cities and seaside towns. I am soul inspired songs by the Upsetters and likes of Otis Redding’s ‘cigarettes and coffees’. I am stuck between layers of diversity notwithstanding an identity of complexities.
I am the cheateu in the north of Bordeaux where we did that thing and the grandfather clock chimed and we laughed so hard, we choked.
I am excitement yet forgettable like the confetti that drops to the floor after weddings.
I am midnight in Paris and late night strolls on 57th and 6th in New York.

I am a result of the birth of a post term delivery caught unduly unprotected by the amniotic fluids of mother.
I am layers of skin shedding in green and yellow slime because mum had me at the 11th month with a fontanelle that retained ground rice which she ate when she went into labour. A fontanelle that never left and each time I braid my hair by someone new, they tell me of the dent as if it was something new I only just discovered.
I am June created on the first day of summer like Marilyn but could have been April beautifully bore in Spring like April in the TV show, ‘Mistresses’.

I am the heart heaved at a belief swooned towards a soul immortal. I am one who never wants to stop making memories with you, my ‘buh’.
I am ménage a’ moi and I am the Pas de deux as long as I am joie de vivre, then la vie est belle.
I am altered by indie and foreign films that tell elegantly of French girls admirably in love like that of ‘Jeune and Jolie’ and ‘Blue is the warmest colour’.

I am the smell of my ‘babuska’s’ saliva plastered all over my palms as she wipes them clean with her wrapper cloth sealing them in prayers for good destiny and good health.
I am the crux of the patron of St Andrews representing Bajan maidens, Danish singers, Scottish spinsters, Argentine migrants, shell shocked survivors, women wanting to be mothers, gouts, jaws and sore throats.

I am a spanner in the works aggrieved by familiarity and **** taking. I am all there is, transported in my ******, prayer and thoroughness, clear and bright like a snowy Christmas sunny morning.


I am June

The heat is a memory trigger
looking back I figure
all those high temperatures
make a line in my mind
of sensory familiarity.

Sweat on my brow
soaking through
my receding hairline,
wet spots become
darker shades of
whatever color
shirt I am wearing.

No ac because I am
to cheap,
so I sleep
still sweating
with a box fan
pointed towards me.

A gallon of water to drink
and I ride dangerously
on my mountain bike
through countrysides
and city streets
listening to music
that pushes me
with its hastening beat.

Today the heat index
is a hundred and ten plus
very dangerous
to anybody else,
but I have no fear
I have been here
in the clear
summer swelter
for thirty-seven years
and it is kind of fun.

Both sides opened up the doors to their once-closed countrysides.
the intense light that shined into their once dark eyes
lit up their once grey skies
in result...
such color changes had changed their once heavy and drowning pride
once sinking into the despair of mistrustful quicksands
of each other
through long-range binoculars
The now once close-up and handshaking meeting
through the opening of these once closed doors
was nothing under "Spectacular."
******* from chains of Mind-Limited training from ancestors on how to lead their people
breaking into the freed world
for their wills to explore a freer
and ingenious means in which to advance a more obsolete and dying nation...
the voices of hunger and change had broken open the barrier of light
to those ideas vacating,
A fireworks level celebration.
As to arms leads to death
Hand in hand
Side by side alliance leads to strength and advancement of future
leads
our two  nations
to salvation
Ways to fuse the divided cuts of division like a medical suture.
Now, as we grow to know and to trust one another, both sides can learn
one another's bright cultures
while abandoning other notions
that was ill-founded by ideology and myth
and empower us with much more.
growth and change
prosperity
and even
Unity
New people ruled by a leader that saw the real world through his bare eyes
rather than through the machine
now can equal with us the means
in which to live a united life
Happy and to others in conflict
A better  a way to live
as brothers in the world
Large, happy, and clean.

I experienced the vicissitudes of Asia
Blue blood of Europe
The aboriginality of Africa
And the mysteries of America


I soaked my feet in the water of  the nameless rivers
I moistened by the waves of bays, the seas and the oceans
The sapphire of the blue Nile won my heart
I splashed the cold waters of the Mare Darling on my face
I was astounded to see the orange river,the lake Titicaca, Victoria and Niagara falls


I saw the radiance of the icy Himalaya in the bright sunlight
I was completely spellbound by the splendour of the Olympus and the Kilimanjaro


During the day in a desert my feet got burnt by the heat of the sand
I stared at a handsome horseman
dressed in black in a wonderful starry night


I glanced at the seven wonders and the world heritage
I was hypnotized by the skyscrapers in the mega city
The tidy countrysides which were green with crops and vegetation brought peace to my mind


I enjoyed the companionship of Eskimos,penguins ,seals and polar bears in the polar region


Aurora borealis and aurora australis fascinated me


In orbit the annual motion
around the sun
and the diurnal rotation of the earth on its axis
I'm travelling around the world


I do not have my own home
The whole globe is my motherland

The pied piper played his tune as he pranced and he danced by the light of the moon.. and as his rasps reverberated throughout vast valleys.. all the rats from the villages gathered in alleys..

Brown fat rats with long lean tails heard his whistling and his wails.. musical melodies loud and clear gathered up yon rodents from far and near..so as the pied piper led the way.. he rid the towns and countrysides dismay.. folks stood on sides of lanes and peeped out of their window panes..as hundreds and thousands and millions more rats followed their leader in a frenzied uproar

They do say from legend and myth that pied piper’s intention was very forthwith..those wretched rats of aggravation ended their days in his damnation.. some tell of the tales of so long ago but the old people of the parishes remember and know.. “He tookem’ to the caves” I heard one shout..”Oh no he putem’ in a pit when I was about” yelled another one.. but when all was said and done..that rat infestation was dead and gone...