Are you struck with her figure and face?
    How lucky you happened to meet
With none of the gossiping race,
    Who dwell in this horrible street!
They of slanderous hints never tire;
    I love to approve and commend,
And the lady you so much admire,
    Is my very particular friend!

How charming she looks — her dark curls
    Really float with a natural air;
And the beads might be taken for pearls,
    That arc twined in that beautiful hair:
Then what tints her fair features o'erspread -
    That she uses white paint some pretend;
But, believe me, she only wears red
    She's my very particular friend!

Then her voice, how divine it appears
    While carolling: "Rise gentle moon;"
Lord Crotchet lastnight stopped his ears,
    And declared that she sung out of tune;
For my part, I think that her lay
    Might to Malibran's sweetness pretend;
But people won't mind what I say —
    I'm her very particular friend!

Then her writings — her exquisite rhyme
    To posterity surely must reach;
(I wonder she finds so much time
    With four little sisters to teach!)
A critic in Blackwood, indeed.
    Abused the last poem she penned;
The article made my heart bleed —
    She's my very particular friend!

Her brother dispatched with a sword,
    His friend in a duel, last June;
And her cousin eloped from her lord,
    With a handsome and whiskered dragoon:
Her father with duns is beset,
    Yet continues to dash and to spend —
She's too good for so worthless a set —
    She's my very particular friend!

All her chance of a portion is lost,
    And I fear she'll be single for life;
Wise people will count up the cost
    Of a gay and extravagant wife:
But tis odious to marry for pelf,
    (Though the times are not likely to mend,)
She's a fortune besides in herself —
    She's my very particular friend!

That she's somewhat sarcastic and pert,
    It were useless and vain to deny;
She's a little too much of a flirt,
    And a slattern when no one is by:
From her servants she constantly parts,
    Before they have reached the year's end;
But her heart is the kindest of hearts —
    She's my very particular friend!

Oh! never have pencil or pen,
    A creature more exquisite traced;
That her style does not take with the men,
    Proves a sad want of judgment and taste;
And if to the sketch I give now,
    Some flattering touches I lend;
Do for partial affection allow —
    She's my very particular friend!

there will come a day
when father time will grow
jealous of us and
the fireflies will
turn off their glow

when the diamonds
wont seem so precious
and all the joys
of this world will
seem foolish and low
and i will have to
let you go
dear mama

sometimes i make you laugh
just to hear the joys
youve stopped showing
on your face

to breath your
attempts to cough up
your worries and drown
in my love

to watch you unfold
at the ends and
sease to be held in
at your seams

there will come a day
when everything
i have ever said to you
will flutter off like a thousand
butterflies in a storm
and my actions
will weigh heavier
than the 98 pounds
they've made of me
dear mama

i know i wont be able
to hold your stare
for as long youve held
my hand but im hoping
the seconds i've been given
havent already carved
a gourge in your daylight
since you recieved
me in place of a son

instead of building
a doll house of regrets
i vow to keep the
reality of your name true

wont glorify the time
you tried to spill
yourself in the wind
with the barrel of a
police issued gloc
because the shock
of your babies moving away
too much of a trigger

bet i let the ringing
of unfired suicide rounds
bounce off every new york city
sidewalk slab i've chased
in an attempt to
run from myself

when i left you
know that i held
the crotchet needles
you made my baby blanket
with in my chest
had the day
of your second stroke
in my heart

and the only way
i could release them was to
shed my skin under the chin
of a brooklyn boarding house
so dont frown at the anatomy
of a new york city skyline
just know it offered
the shoulders i needed
at that moment

when father time
grew jealous of us
and the fireflies turned
off their glow
i grew a light of my own
dear mama

something happened
between me watching you
relearn how to walk
around the same time
i learned to
double knot my tennis shoes

when everyone assumed
my ignorance was bliss
and let the brilliance
in your bones become
as black as night
without ever noticing
i was afraid of the dark

what have these years
done to us?
to make me bloom
in the bright of day
while baking the stalk
that is you
i cant stand to watch
you wither
wont you shine too
dear mama

A blanket for you, please cover yourself.
It took so many knots to bring it together.
Now I'm stuck sleeping underneath it, feeling like I cant remember anything but dreams.
It's been in my closet anyways, next to my dying kombucha mother.
They're out of sight, so they are out of mind.
Thank you, I love you but that's only because I know half of you.
I feel better at your house because I have no attachments to your person.
I had one but he has fled now.
Thank you for the blanket Becky, maybe I forgot to tell you.

For I understand, now,
That it was not love:
It was merely my mistempered;
Beshrewed list,
For what is só scarce
In this marred world:

She,
Is oft misused and no one descrys thee engrossing forfullment she gives:
Like a mantle of a paramour,
On a flesh penetrating night...

Marry!
My heart feels tossed on the abstract,
For I was overturned with the conceit
Of being Your Thisbe...
Your Trojan princess...
Your right-hand-lady...

But Sir,
My heart, now
Desires but one thing:
To be announced as one's kindred
And be loved as a kingsman

I am content, in faith!
Let us lief love
With a love, greater than love,
And may we build with flint
On the foundation of vestal love.
Let us be one another's bier
When our bodies brine;
Ghostly anchor...
Pilot in the bailful pestilence;
Crotchet in woe;
Behoveful paramour to tell aught to
Without the conceit of neither being cast by
Nor discreet;
Aqua vitae dram in languish...

When thát day abroach
I shall anon be aught...
Do aught for thy...

When thát day abroach
I shall doff
All inadequasies...
And love you
Invariably!

Black is
a never-ending book
a shivering in the dark
a cunning cloak
a depleted creek

Black is
an unexpected wonder
meaningless whisper
a dusted mirror
silenced anger

Black is
splash of drops of tear
chilling in the fear
worn gears
which witnessed too much drear

Black is
momentary quiet
long-lost connect
hastily hided secret
disillusioned crotchet

Black is a handful of mud
buries the past
upon unknown future
where the hope it entrust

Black is the one unfailing excuse for everything

Your flaws run deep,
Like the valleys through your face.
But do not look at that with your
Aging eyes
For all you will see is your
Slowly creeping demise.

Look with me,
At your wondrous face,
Can’t you see?
There’s not a thing out of place.


Your emerald green orbs light up with a spark
Your greying hair, is luxurious and still maintains the dark
That you wore as an oh so youthful teen
Before you married, when you were living the dream.

Though losing its marbles, your mind remains sharp,
You sit here with me, creating art
And everyone else, you seem to have lost,
Their cheerful interactions now met with frost.

You tell me you’re worried, that I’m to be next
That you won’t remember me after the fix
Your shaky hands move towards mine
In an attempt for comfort in desperate times

Because time is now slowly running out
And I believe in you, but I have my doubts
So we knit and we knit and then we crotchet
And when day time tv is on we pretend we’re okay

And then the one day I made plans to hang out with my friends instead of visiting you,
It was the very day I lost you.


September 18 2015 5:47 pm


The time I got the call.
I wasn’t there for you at all.
I knew you weren’t well that day.
And I still decided to stay away.

The last day of the school term, I thought you were fine
I truly believed we had more time.
Turns out even if I wished, I still was wrong.
I should’ve stuck with you all the way along.

I never got to tell you, that very day,
That despite the disease, you were beautiful in every way.
Though your flaws run deep, just like a valley,
To me, in my formative years, you were my greatest ally.

A Feller's Opera

She sits upon
a bracken grave
with arms like
twisted thorns,
weeping in the
undergrowth
the soprano
widow mourns,
singing
haunting melodies
portentous
and forlorn,
the dying forest
will gaze no more
on sunsets
nor misty dawns.

Her haunting voice
will echo
'tween hollow trees
she calls,
a crescendo of
crotchet splinters
over timber
acres sprawl,
to summon
silent her aria
as mighty oaks
then fall,
to rise no more
in glory,
to stand no more
so tall.

Whirring,
snapping,
crashing down
as the whip
of progress cracks,
rolling,
beating
like a drum,
carving its
gruesome track,
a tympany
of lumberjacks
wave their batons
like an axe,
to the rythmn
of a wooden heart
as the wistful
chorus hacks.

Sweet the sound
of wailing song
across the land
does sweep,
devastating
landscaped eyes
in eerie silence
shall weep,
'tis her prelude
to the end of time,
that was never hers
to keep,
she sits upon
a bracken grave
to cry herself
to sleep.

©RJVHorton2014

From my ******* button eyes,
I have experienced the world.
The colours, threads that make up this fabric
One which can only be seen--and observed
From the corner of a room,
My corner,
The one under a piano, home to
Abandoned playthings and
Languishing crotchet notes, and staccatos.

From the corner of her bedroom
I watch her laugh, mouth agape,
Hacking out unintelligible sounds, and feel
Feel how the air rejoices at her mirth,
How it allows waves to travel--
Announcing her joy for all the world to share.
And I watch, watch her leak,
Leak her troubles, heartbreaks, hurricane of
Emotions
All into a puddle, tiny as it is.
Watch her face remain steadfast, strong even as
Inside, she dissolves, like white paper in acid.
Burning, burning...

And I experience all of her,
Her emotions, fiery temper, icy demeanor,
Warm hugs, cool attitude, everything,
Like the seasons of the earth.
With my ******* button eyes, I stare,
and I understand,
This entire world that has slowly been revealed to me,
The ball of yarn inside a person, waiting to be
Unravelled.

Real steel
Stepping into the train
Smell of old leather wafts the air
Deja Vu slip through the mind
Sits next to the windowpane reminiscing
Couchette and crotchet-blankets
The night fall asleep

Dark subway tunnels
Black fumes and rigorous hooting
Departure and arrival
Screetching brakes
Roaring engines

Weekend gateways
Sundress and hats
Codroy and bell bottoms jeans
Suitcase and newspapers
Home and away
New skies and Fading memories

i-come-from-a-cage-
small-and-it-thinks-
it’s-really-bright-there­,
makes-it-quite-hard-to-shrink.

With the instincts of  mime,
left breathless every time
i cried for escape.

-Quaver-

Iwasshamedanddetested,
IconfessIconsent­ed
byforceof a friendship
mostthoughtasoffensive.

But fiction begets
‘Til diction forgets,
Best left alone.

-Crotchet-

Grown up and free
But still trying to be
The rage I engaged with
That made ‘you’ a ‘me’.

Born on the page
Sworn to a sage
Age old as beauty.

~Minim~

Feudal -- in -- flight
create -- your -- own -- kite --
to -- strive -- for -- a -- night --
of -- sleep -- without -- fright!

Tighten your chest
There’s a fight in your breast
Maybe might, just find,

~Semibreve~

On the staffs
               between electric
power poles
                        dawn birds
crotchet to quaver.