I hate the dripping dark hollow behind the little wood;
Its tips a cursed maroon with a blood-red heath.
I think I praised and lamented it too soon;
Before seeing its scent; I saw already its stray mystical death.

My crown is torn, outraged by florid winds and scorn;
Like a tangled old roots of the windblown thorn;
I shall feel scanty by my own poetry,
And throw it about, duly, like a static little joke.

I shall let my heart grow dull and illiterate;
I shall not taste joy, no more, in any clear--flowery fate.
I shall seek everything bitter, and not sweet;
Even not pure as the honey of a bee; for it shall be plain.

I shall curve and bend any straightforward light;
I shall harass it, and blind it--as if my ghost’s dead soul is very not here.
Ah, where is but Maud, Maud, Maud, and Maud;
Perhaps she is astray in my memory still, and not by my side.

I feel relieved so soon as glanced at her beside me;
She owns still that full lips like a perniciously tasty moon;
She is adorable like the flower of heaven itself;
She strikes me again when away, and tosses me about when near.

Ah, Maud, Maud, Maud;
Tame me again with thy rain of laugh;
Saint me once more like a fresh young bird;
Come to me now, and return my unheeded love.

Ah, Maud, Maud, Maud;
And kissing her forehead takes me back to that day;
A day of myths, a day of agile swans and storms;
An ornate time of hatred; a whirl of bitter fate; a dust of sorrow.

Ah, Maud, Maud, Maud;
And again I was alive in this tale, with a burning heart;
On one eve of tears, a mischief, and a wan poetry;
I caught about shadows in which there was no soul of Maud.

I could only see the stones, lying ghastly about the fireplace;
Ah, Maud, are you but still haunting those whimsical moors?
Their strange murmurs but I cannot hear;
But still they consume me, ah, I am scared;
I wish they would be gone soon, I wish you were but here.

These storms were amusing but peculiar;
They are bizarre, but intelligent and stellar;
And calling thy name out but breathes into me strength;
Ah, but should I be here, and bear away thy image alone?

Ah, and thou wert in but nymphic and lilac dream;
And my heart was still not massaged by the tender storm;
For it meant thee, and hungered but for thee only;
And in the midst of love had it longed, and yearned for thee.

Ah, where is but Maud, Maud, Maud, and Maud;
Her with her childish eyes and rounded head of bronze,
With her rapturous steps and wild glittering aroma,
With her atrocious jokes, and a wintry secret touch?

But still she was not anywhere about;
She dissolved like one romantic bough of soda;
And within a rough joke, she would be but gone;
And now the storm returned, but I was wholly on my own.  

Ah, and now the striking storm is mounting the earth;
Should I write alone and chill myself by the green hearth?
For I hath nothing to console and lengthen my parched logs;
I shall wait outside and drift about yon wintry bog.

Ah, where is but Maud, Maud, Maud;
Maud with her heart-shaped face and bare voice aloud;
A voice that soaked my senses and craving throat;
Maud but teased me and left me to that joke.

Where is but Maud, Maud, Maud and Maud;
Maud, the goth princess within my ancient poetry;
Who but remained symmetrical and biblical in her vain torments;
Who but stayed sturdy and silent; amidst her anger, and vain fellows’ arguments.

Listen to me. I am but full of hatred.
I am neither a gentleman nor a well-bred;
I, who is just a son of an infamous parson;
A malleable son; with a bleak aura of a putrid spring.

I, one who crafted ingenious jokes;
But interminable as they always are;
I made Maud sit still as I held my woodwork;
While she perched herself on yon bench, gazing at dispersed starry stars.

Maud the shadow in my pale mirror;
At times she ceased at morns, but retreated at night;
On her brother’s sight she fled in horror;
But on mine her smile turned me bright.

Maud was idle, sparkling, vibrant, and tedious;
Her heart was free and not marred by stupor.
She was the sun on my very bright days;
She made me startled; she always left me curious.

Maud the green of the farm, the red of the moon;
Without her everything would spring not and remain odious;
Everything would be bleak and stayed tedious;
Ah, but still I could not own her, though I was her saviour.

I was a farmer and perhaps still am;
Perhaps that’s why her mother ditched me with shame.
Maud said she had not places like home;
Her house was the mere shallow--and gratuitous throne.

Maud came often down and agitated;
Her mood shadowy, she cried and cried too aggravated;
I caressed her back, and placed my palms on her white knees;
She told me stories whenever no-one else would see.

She wanted not to mount the throne;
She giggled often, at our country escapade;
She loved my cottage, she sweetened my thin grass;
Even those apple trees had then her eyes, which sprayed tough, lonely seas of green.

Maud took to hymn and dear children’s little songs;
She was popular always among the talkative throngs.
She would love to dance and wiggle and turn around;
While village pupils gathered to sing a noble sound.

Ah, but when the mirthless prince arrived;
With white horses and swords of a knight;
Maud was swallowed every morning, all through day and night;
Maud was no more seen by my side.

I thought I was not alive, for dreams were unreal;
If they had been, then they I’d have want’d to ****;
But seeing Maud not gave me fretful chills;
I often woke up tensely, within a midnight’s shrills.

Ah, where is but Maud, Maud, Maud, and Maud;
Maud my bumblebee and my delicate little honey.
I kept waiting for her behind the rustic brook;
I fetched my net and fished by my old nook.

Ah, and where is Maud, Maud, Maud, and Maud;
My eyes were still and my chest could no more speak.
I wearily fancied she had been kidnapped faraway;
She would be jailed in a sore realm, and would no more be back here.

Ah, for had she been lost, then I had lost my ultimate pearl;
For there would no more be magic, there would be no more of her;
No-one would so restore my original spring;
Perhaps there would be no spring at all, and I would suffer in summer.

And I would lose anyway--my lyrical, elusive demon;
For Maud had always been elusive herself.
She wore that evil smile and thin laugh;
As I told her tales of fairies that she loved.

As I am fond of magical poetry and dramas;
Maud too used to read them with genuine personas.
She was my epic fanatical little devil;
She liked tropical cold and a faithful Mephistopheles.

I should be Faust, as she once said;
For had I fair hair, yet a bald head;
She said like Faust, I was cleverly amusing;
But to me, like Mephistopheles--she was unusually entertaining.

She danced before me a beautiful ballet;
She was young and keen to levitate as a ballerina;
She crafted me limericks and such fair lines of sonnets;
She made earth my heaven, and my melodies a twin cantata.

Ah, and where is Maud, Maud, Maud, and Maud;
I need my butterfly amongst this wheezy curdling cold.
I need my lover to soothe my chained hysteria;
I need to get out of here, and feed my love with her charms.

Ah, but where is Maud, Maud, Maud, is not she here?
I was then screaming in my solitude, could she but not hear?
I could speak not, no more--sore and wounded by this snowstorm;
I crept sick and weak like a dumb old worm.

She was not even heard of upstairs;
While I was dying here as a roaring beetle.
I hath almost lost all my creative flair;
I felt tormented and neglected and nearly feeble.

Ah, but a story like this is not such a fable;
So at that time I did shun sadness and seek a warm ending;
But indeed, to escape fate the poor were perhaps not able;
And the farmer’s son shall never be a king.

And ‘twas the nobles’ right to be idyllic;
To be deemed far then fairly righteous.
My charms were trivial, and so was then my wit;
My prayers were too parted and despaired; no matter how rigorous.

I kept my work along the countryside;
I toiled all night and behind fierce daylight.
I hoped Maud would see me back one day;
But what I found was to my dismay!

Ah, Maud, for she was now engaged;
To that pathetic creature the cursed morn brought about;
And parties arranged, voices too raised;
The union was now what people had in thought.

Onto my shoulders my head kept sinking;
I killed myself nearly, for my irksome defeat in this rivalry;
A rivalry that failed to transgress vital destiny;
A rivalry I could not even bear to think.

But again, this love had always been everything;
And thus Maud’s union would equal my death;
One night I crept out of my bed;
I had in hand a keychain and a net.

The soldier was infused by sound sleep;
And into Maud’s grand chamber I crept;
Everything was pink and quite neatly kept;
But woke I her not--as I heard her breast breath slowly.

She was tremendous still--in beauty;
Maud in her splendour; so young and free.
Ah, she was free but not free, I fathomed;
I looked at her over and over again.

I looked at her violet bed and comfort net;
Ah, my Maud too ****** and temptingly red.
She was too abundant in her young and chaste soul;
Ah, I could not imagine how she would soon be one else’s.

Long did I stand; ‘till morning streamed back again;
Still I remained unmoved; I stared at my darling in vain.
I jumped startled as the door opened;
And showed me the horror of the Queen!

‘Come, ye’ fool’, she voicelessly instructed;
Her face emotionless as these words emanated;
‘And embrace thy very fate’, to the handcuffs me she directed;
‘For daring look into my dame’s immaculately flawless chamber’.

She pointed thereof--a black gun at my chest;
It would soon burst out and tear my vest;
And even fly me straight to death;
So drifted I, without further haste nor breath.

Those poor soldiers imprisoned me there;
A cellar room at the top of filthy stairs;
I stayed awake only for grief and tears;
And most of the time I laid about sleepless and stared.

I grew skinless as my bones squinted;
And laughed at me with their sordid might;
Flies were about me, bending onto my rotten pies;
And slices of meat left out by sniggering guards.

I hit my head on witnessing Maud’s cold marriage;
‘Twas on a Saturday on the castle’s rain-wetted field.
I heaved myself onto the windowsill and saw;
How the couples were blessed and sent thereby back.

I could not see Maud’s face and fleshy cheeks;
But didst I feel her discarded tears;
Marred and defiled her lovely fits;
Though just those innate, and not out there.

I struck the lifeless paint with my bare palms;
Now the walls were tainted; they smelled like my blood.
Time passed and desire for Maud was never killed;
I’th missed her every day, since then, and perhaps always will.

But my love for Maud was never probable;
I was decent, honest, but indeed not preferable;
I was not even preferable by fate, as thou might see;
Fate who is neither truthful; nor frankly urges us to lie.

I often laid hopeless by the moonbeam;
Until night came and eyesight grew more and more vulnerable.
I waited ‘till it was dark and left to day no more gleam;
Then took my journal of Maud’s jests and read her affable poems.

I turned around--and would disgrace my bed still;
I was plain starved but had no desire to be properly fed;
Of a dream of death I grew instantly pertinacious;
And of my future tomb I grew fonder--and yet rapidly curious.

Ah, but my sweet Maud, Maud, Maud, and Maud;
And deliriously she somehow became pregnant;
But remorse said she kept the souls of two;
And fatefully could not make them both perfect!

I indeed plain prayed for Maud’s survival;
I cared not whose sons they might be;
Ah, but the twins were still sinning babies--as I comprehended,
For they were formed not from cells of mine!

Ah, Maud, Maud, Maud,
And during those last days she was cautiously ill;
And a drive of cholera had again grown widespread;
But she was not maddened; by it she was not marred.

She was sickened by temper still;
And the prince found dead, she grew more terrifyingly ill;
She had a pure heart, so she flourished not over the beast’s death;
Nonetheless, he remained the father of yon sickly offspring.

Ah, Maud, Maud, Maud,
I was duly growing perfectly anxious;
She was to give birth--ah, to those little ignoramuses;
And within a little chord in one or days of two--she would do so.

But without a father to care for her notorious sons;
And even I was locked away, and could not do so;
I was terrified, I was horribly undignified;
To learn this stern reality we were so sullenly faced with!

Ah, not now! I could not too believe my ears!
Maud and her children were dead--they’d been stillborn;
Before they left Maud alone to receive her fate;
Her locksmith would not come; he had another due in a nameless town.

By the time he arrived my darling had gone;
Perhaps she was now shimmering in heaven;
Enchanting her children with her enormous spells;
Narrating stories no plain human could ever tell.

Even in heaven my love would perhaps be famous;
Her tenderness would make other angels jealous;
And angered by envy, they would gather and complain to God;
How an earthly soul could be more vivacious than their heavenly were.

Ah, but where is Maud, Maud, Maud;
Maud and her chain of songs that were never to be broken;
Maud and her familiarity with gardens and blue lilies;
Maud and her immaculate pets of birds that still sweetly sing.

Ah, but where is my darling, my darling, my darling;
My eternal ocean, my hustling flowerbed, my immortal;
My poem, my enchanting lyric, my wedding ring;
My novelty, my merited charm, my eternal.

And now she was longing for her grave, as I’d been told;
For I’d been told by the dimmed torches and fuss and mirthless air outside;
By the endless wandering and the prince’s wails and wordless screams.
Ah, my Maud had now migrated from her life--but attained her freedom!

And he was thus unworthy of being in her heaven;
Her heaven where there would be me, her true love;
And thus he would be glad to greet his fires of hell;
He would marry an evil angel there--and make himself again full.

But I’d be with Maud, Maud, Maud and Maud;
I’d be again with my gem, indefatigable little darling;
Whose voice was unsure, whose poems were never known;
But ‘twas enough that they’d been known to me, her secret--ye’ dearest lover.

So took I, that spinning penchant and a circle of strings;
The edges I matched to the chains on my ceilings.
I braced myself for my very own fiery death;
But again, I’d be with Maud and death would no more, aye, be sad.

Thus the above poem was done by my spirit;
But with the same token and awe of genuineness and wit;
I feel tired--I shall close my eyes, and thus enjoy my heaven now;
For my wife and starlings are all waiting for me to-morrow.

It is now nighttime in heaven;
And there is indeed, no place on earth lovelier;
I gaze into my wife with a loving madness;
Her cheeks sweeter still, than any proudest swiftness.

I shall take my vow of marriage tomorrow;
My proud wife sitting in yon angelic chair by my side.
I shall cradle, then, those white little nuptial fairies;
They are Maud’s children’s, but lithe and gracious and bow to me in chaste mercies.

Ah, Maud, Maud, Maud, she is but all mine now;
I am still surprised now, as sitting by this heaven riverside.
One even grander than the one I’d had beside the lake;
Which I often farmed when I had needs to bake.

Ah, Maud, Maud, Maud, she is a ghost but as ever lively;
We are both dead but she boldly remaineth lovely;
I know she is worthier than serene jewels or mundane affairs;
And still she is worthier all the same, than any other terrific palace--or heir.

Ah, Maud, Maud, Maud, and this war is but all over now;
Thus let us dream dead of the exciting tomorrow.
We shall see life and our children grow;
We shall witness delight--and miracles none ever knows.

Holi, a hearty enthusiastic festival in horizon
Colours curdling, water washing every *****;
Out of us evil ever going and playing on
Land of character cherished by coloured lawn.
What a scene to see! Gracious glory gone
If you miss this mesmerizing festival upon
A folly. Foolish will be called such a conn.
Holi, a hearty enthusiastic festival in horizon

Holy played in school is highly pleasing crayon,
For Kinar, Aayushi, Kunal. Aryan or John.
Monorhyme has one colour, holi many micron.
Mital, Mitesh, Vaikhu, SIddhu, Saurabh are don.
This day even principal thinks to prevent throne
And join joy with teachers - see anxiety thrown.
Holi, a hearty enthusiastic festival in horizon

Songs, screams; dance, D.J.; homage and hymn on;
This day with Holika heavy burdens and sins thrown.
Cruel Hiranyakashyapa was killed; glory was won.
Kunal, Arpita, Sandeep, Amit and Shreyas on lawn
Play water and colours with cool Pari’s scone
In Jalgaon, Agra, Kanpur, Karanja, Surat or Bonn.
Holi, a hearty enthusiastic festival in horizon

Do you really think
everything you
see and touch or
love with such care
Has your name on it
   *      *      *      *      
*Divinity meet the Great
     *      *      *      *      
Lifetimes healing two freaking amazing feet

The house Mr. and Mrs.
   I suppose?
I double dare them
Great Play "Domino"
Where art thou freaking
match
Lover of all time Romeo

Prince and the Pauper her lovely
peasant dress the big catch of the day
This is the fisherman
All hooks and bait of
workmanship
The naked play Julliete
begin
So totally wherein

The spiritual home
never doubt I love
Shakespearian historian
Two Love DovesVictorain
Spiritual growth

Unconditionally
Freaking Great Earth

Defines your passion
The best creation your birth
Our defeat nothing turns
automatically sweet

This is our
"Great Expectations"

What to value anymore
Constitution versus the
Freaking Show Institution

Full bloom maturity growing
adventure unknown
On the same wavelength
He still dresses the same
In the Same town
New York Serendipity
Ice cream cookie dough mix the
freak shakes

That's great no time for breaks
The Baskin sin Robbins
Robin Bob Bobbin

People are not surviving
Their world is too weak
They cannot stretch to hold

The French connection kiss
fourteen carats of gold
Making a rise in good stock
Cattle sold
The Trump Tower fall out stars
The great year for puzzles

The worlds are full of moments
when we shouldn't be laughing
Not a great time he meets your
sadness
Round star of tears kindness

In her movement happiness walk
The worst times bring out her
   freaky nature  

Never aches either to change
Furniture looks modern cold
freaking great hot she was told

To be bonded in a marriage
Feeling older like her antique
wicker baby carriage
Eiffel tower the powerful
romance hour meeting her
happy hour

He is shopping for suits
Going back to his Brooklyn roots
smells of food feeling good

Getting into someone's mind
Meet Robin Hood
If I can turn back time the vessel
The Joker wild fossil

Like a freaking booker
there is no guarantee
The Suspense is killing me
don't freak out

Not paying your rent on-time
Those specks marked up your glasses
Time passes but your making a
spectacle of yourself

Imagine the world all alone
Brillantina smiling at
the Mona Lisa petite ballerina
Great Professor brother
Freaking out sister
Two-headed circus the Freakshow  
The haves or
the have-nots week went slow

The trees someone's apple poison
Gives someone such pleasure
companion what a complicated
mission

  Too deeply dwell in the possibilities

Each morning we are born again
Broke some blood capillaries
Or time will tell the Vampire Diaries

Tomorrow is another day
How you wish every day was payday
Almond eyes creaminess
The pick-up color of your dress
What is curdling freaky spooking
No time to Hail the Mary
Milk Soy what a cute
little miracle boy

Even talking on your
Light up tree ringtones
Out of your comfort
high cheekbones
Egyptian Camels sandstorm
Kiss your Mother just feel

His smile fireplace candescent
With your lover, he could
paint your body how
time just went in a heartbeat

The world is moving but
you're losing some gravity
But he lifts some parts
Sinking your teeth into the
best corn on the cob

Medieval times his
sword is taking
Anew freaking shape
Emerging and peeking out
Hair is French braided fine
knotted

He zooms out freaking great
one of a kind Corvette
Calling to you your name
He told the world
standing like a God
We are all freaking great
  Poets* Just start to know it

in state of REM a succubus looks
upon me as if, I'm tainted; the
intensity of his stare mars my
soul.

besmirching...

every thought of self-elucidation
and I cringe under his watchful
eye; raking my skin with daggerlike
curiousity, sniffing, while I crumble
in openmouth terror.

he descends upon me swiftly; eyes
darting from head to toe piercing me,
into a trance I fall, as if, Dracula has
entered upon spread wings

transforming...

to full humanlike form and stained
teeth sink deep in vein *******
life's blood like a cool soda pop
fizzling with every sip.

savoring...

its pungency in dark delight,
smelling me like I'm a blood
tinged rose.

dripping...

and I awaken upon soaking wet
sheets in trepidities blood
curdling screams.

The stars still shone last night, and tasted pretty like my last sonnet;
And I still loved thee; and imagined thee 'fore I retreated to bed.
Ah, but thou know not-thou wert envied by t'at squeaking trivial moon;
It seduced and befriended thee; but took away thy sickly love too soon.
Ah, t'at moon which was burnt by jealousy, and still perhaps is,
Took away thy love-which, if only willing to grow; couldst be dearer than his.
But too thy love, which hath-since the very outset, been mostly repulsive and arduous;
And loving thee was but altogether too customary, and at gullible times, odious.
Ah, but how I was too innocent-far too innocent, was I!
Why didst I stupidly keepeth loving thee-whose soul was but too sore, and intense-with lies?
And at t'is very moment, every purse of stale dejection leapt away from me;
Within t'eir private grounds of madness; but evaporating accusations.
Ah, so t'at thou desired me not-and thus art deserving not of me;
But why didst I resist not still-thy awkwardness, and glittering sensations?
Oh, I feeleth uncivil now-for I should hath been too mad not at the moon;
For taking away thy petty threads, and curdling winds, out of me-too soon.
And for robbing my gusts, and winds, and pale storms of bewitching-yet baffling, affection;
But in fact thrusting me no more, into the realms of death; and t'eir vain alteration.
Ah, thee, so how I couldst once have awaited thee, I never knoweth;
For perhaps I shall be consumed, and consequently greeteth immediate death; within the fatal blushes of tomorrow.
But still-nothing of me shall ever objecteth to t'is tale of blue horror, and chooseth to remain;
And I shall distracteth thee not; and bindeth my path into t'at one of thy feet-all over again.
Once more, I shall be dimmed by my mirthlessness and catastrophes and sorrow;
Yet thankfully I canst becometh glad, for all my due virtues, and philanthropic woes.

I shall be wholly pale, and unspeaking all over me-just like someone dead;
And out of my mouth wouldst emergeth just tears-and perhaps little useless, dusty starlings;
I shall hath no more pools or fits or even filths of healthy blood, nor breath;
I shall remembereth not, the enormous fondness, and overpowering passions; for our future little darlings.
For my love used to be chilly, but warm-like t'ose intuitive layers behind the sky;
But thou insisted on keeping silent and uncharmed-a frightfulness of sight; I never knew why.
Now t'at I hath returned everything-and every single terseness to my heart;
I shall no more wanteth thee to pierce me, and breaketh my gathered pride, and toil, apart.
For I am no more of a loving soul, and my whole fate is bottomless and tragic;
I canst only be a lover for thee, whenst I am endorsed; whenst I feeleth poetic.
I shall drowneth myself deep into the very whinings of my misery;
I shall curseth but then lift myself again-into the airs of my own poetry.
For the airs of whom might only be the sources of love I hath,
For t'is real world of thine, containeth nothing for me but wrath;
Ah, and those skies still screameth towards me, for angering whose ****** foliage;
Whenst t'ose lilies and grapes of my soul are but mercifully asleep on my part.
I wanteth to be mad; but not any careless want now I feeleth-of cherishing such rage;
For I believeth not in ferocity; but forgiveness alone-which rudely shineth on me, but easeth my painful heart.
I hath ceased to believe in my own hand; now furnished with discomfort;
But still I hath to fade away, and thus cut t'is supposedly long story short.
I hath been burned by thee, and flown wistfully into thy Hell;
But so wisheth me all goodness; and that I shall surviveth well.
And just now-at t'is very moment of gloom; I entreateth t'at thou returneth to her, and fasteneth yon adored golden ring;
For it bringst thee gladness, which is to me still sadly too dear, everything.

Ah! Look! Look still-at t'ose streaks of blueness-which are still within my poetry on thee;
But I shall removeth them, and blesseth them with deadness; so that thou shalt once more be young, and free.
For what doth thee want from me-aside from unguarded liberty, and unintimate-yet wondrous, freedom?
For thou might as well never thinketh of me during thy escape;
And forever considereth me but an insipid flying parachute-to thy wide stardom;
Which deserveth not one single stare; as thou journeyeth upon whose dutiful circular shape.
And a maidservant; a wretched ale *****-within thy inglorious kingdom;
Which serveth but soft butter and cakes, to her-thy beloved, as she peacefully completeth her poem.
The poem she shall forceth to buy from me-with a few stones of emerald;
To which I shall sternly refuseth-and on which my hands receiveth t'ose climactic bruises.
For she, in her reproof-shall hit me thereof, a t'ousand times; and a harlot me, she shall calleth;
And storm away within t'at frock of endless purpleness; and a staggering laugh on her cheeks.
And I-I shall be thy anonymous poet, whose phrases thou at times acquireth, at nighttime-but never read;
A bedroom bard, in whose poetry thou shalt not findeth pleasures, and to which thou shalt never sit.
A jolly wish thou shalt never, in thy lifetime, cometh anyhow-to comprehend-nor appreciate;
But should I still continueth my futility; for poetry is my only diligent haven, and mate.
In which I shall never be bound to doubteth, much less hesitateth;
For in poetry t'ere only is brilliance; and embrace in its workings of fate.
And sadly, a servant as I am-on her vanity should I needst to forever wait, and flourish;
To whom my importance, either dire profoundness-is no more t'an a tasty evening dish.
And my presence by thee is perhaps something she cannot relish;
I know not how thou couldst fall for a dame-so disregarded and coquettish!
To whom all the world is but hers; and everything else is thus virtual;
So t'at hypocrisy is accepted, as how glory is thus defined as refusal.
But sometimes I cometh to regret thy befallen line of glory, and untoward destiny;
I shall, like ever, upon which remembrance, desireth to save thee, and bringst thee safely, to eternity.
But even t'is thought of thee shall maketh me twitch with burning disgust;
For I hath gradually lost my affection for thee; either any passion t'at canst tumultously last.
And shall I never giveth myself up to any further fatigue-nor let thy future charms drag me away;
For I hath spent my abundant time on thy poetry-and all t'ose useless nights and days;
As thou shalt regard me not-for my whole cautiousness, nor dear perseverance-and patience;
Thou shalt, like ever, stay exuberant, but thinketh me a profound distress-a wild and furious, impediment.
Thou hath denied me but my most exciting-and courteous nights;
And upon which-I shall announce not; any sighs of willingness-to maketh thee again right;
nor to helpeth thee see, and obediently capture, thy very own eager light.

And when thy idiocy shall bringst thee the most secure-yet most amatory of disgrace, turn to me not;
I hath refused any of thine, and wisheth to, perfunctorily-kisseth thee away from my lot,
I shall writeth no more on thy eloquence-for thou hath not any,
As nothing hath thou shown; nothing but falsehood-hath thou performed, to me.
Thou hath given none of those which is to me but virulent-and vital;
Thou art not eternal like I hath expected-nor thy bitter soul is immortal.
Thou art mortal-and when in thy deft last seconds returneth death;
Thou, in remorse, shalt forever be spurned by thy own deceit, and dizzily-spinning breath,
And after which, there shall indeed be no more seconds of thine-ah, truly no more;
Thou shalt be all gone and ended, just like hath thou once ended mine-one moment before.
All t'at was once unfair shall turneth just, and accordingly, fair;
For God Himself is fair-and only to the honest offereth His chairs;
But the limbs of Heaven shall not be pictured, nor endowed in thee;
To thee shall be opened the gate of fires, as how thou hath impetuously incarnated in me.
No matter how beautiful they might be-still thy bliss shall flawlessly be gone,
Thou shalt be tortured and left to thy own disclosure, and mock discourses-all alone.
For no mortality shall be ensured foreverness-much less undead togetherness;
As how such a tale of thy dull, and perhaps-incomprehensible worldliness.
By t'at time thou shalt hath grown mature, but sadly 'tis all too late;
For thou hath mocked, and chastised away brutally-all the truthful, dearest workings of fate.
And neither shalt thou be able to enjoy-the merriments of even yon most distant poetry;
For unable shalt thou be-to devour any more astonishment; at least those of glory.
And thus the clear songs of my soul shall not be any of thy desired company;
Thy shall liveth and surviveth thy very own abuse; for I shall wisheth not to be with thee;
For as thou said, to life thou, by her being, art the frequented life itself;
Thus thou needst no more soul; nor being bound to another physical self;
And t'is shall be the enjoyment thou hath so indolently, yet factually pursued-in Hell;
I hope thou shalt be safe and free from hunger-and t'at she, after all, shall attendeth to thee well.

And who said t'at joys are forbidden, and adamantly perilous?
For t'ose which are perilous are still the one lamented over earth;
For in t'ose divine delights nothing shall be too stressful, nor by any means-studious;
For virtues are pure, and the walls of our future delights are brighter t'an yon grey hearth;
And be my soul happy, for I hath not been blind; nor hath I misunderstood;
I hath always been useful-by my writing, and my sickened womanhood;
Though I hath never possessed-and perhaps shall never own, any truthful promise, nor marriage bliss;
Still I longeth selfishly to hear stories-of eternal dainty happiness, for the dainty secret peace.
Ah, thee, for after thee-there shall perhaps no being to be written on-in yon garden;
A thought t'at filleth me not with peace, but shaketh my whole entity with a new burden.
Oh, my thee, who hath left me so heartlessly, but the one whom I hath never regarded as my enemy-
The one I hath loved so politely, tenderly, and all the way charmingly.
Ah! Ah! Ah! But why, my love, why didst thou turn t'is pretty love so ugly?
I demandeth not any kind purity, nor any insincere pious beauty,
But couldst thou heareth not t'is heart-which had longed for the one of thine-so subserviently and purely?
For I am certainly the one most passionately-and indeed devotedly-loving thee,
For I am adorable only so long as thou sleepeth, and breatheth, beside me,
For I am admired only by the west winds of thy laugh, and the east winds of thy poetry!
Ah, but why-why hath thou stormed away so mercilessly like t'is;
And leaving me alone to the misery of this world, and my indefinite past tears?
Ah, thee, as how prohibited by the laws of my secret heaven,
Thus I shall painteth thee no more in my poesies, nor any related pattern;
There, in t'is holy dusk's name, shall be spoiled only by the waves of God's upcoming winters,
In the shapes of rain, and its grotesque, ye' tenacious-and horrifying eternal thunders.
And thus t'ese lovesick pains shall be blurred into nothingness-and existeth no more,
But so shall thy image-shall withereth away, and reeketh of death, like never before.
For I shall never be good enough to afford thee any vintage love-not even tragedy,
For in thy minds I am but a piece of disfigured silver; with a heart of unmerited, and immature glory;
Ah, pitiful, pitiful me! For my whole life hath been black and dark with loneliness' solitary ritual,
And so shall it always be-until I catch death about; so grey and white behind t'ose unknown halls.
And shall perhaps no-one, but the earth itself-mourneth over my fading of breath,
They shall cheereth more-upon knowing t'at I am resting eternally now, in the hands of death.
And no more comical beat shall be detected, likewise, within my poet's wise chest;
For everything hath gone to t'eir own abode, to t'eir unbending rest.
But I indeed shall be great-and like an angel, be given a provisionary wing;
By t'is poetry on thee-the last words of mouth I speaketh; the final sonata I singeth.

Thus thou art wicked, wicked, wicked-and shall forever be wicked;
Thou art human, but at heart inhuman-and blessed indeed, with no charming mortal aura;
Thou wert once enriched indeed-by my blood, but thy soul itself is demented;
And halved by its own wronged purity, thou thus art like a villainous persona;
Thou art still charmed but made unseeing, and chiefly-invisible;
Unfortunately thou loathe scrutiny, and any sort of mad poetry;
Knowing not that poetry is forever harmless, and on the whole-irresistible;
And its tiny soul is on its own forgiving, estimable, and irredeemable.
Ah, thee, whose soul hath but such a great appeal;
But inanely strained by thy greed-which is like a harm, but to thee an infallible, faithful devil.
Thou art forever a son of night, yet a corpse of morn;
For darkness thriveth and conquereth thy soul-and not reality;
Just like her heart which is tainted with tantrum, and scorn;
Unsweet in her glory, and thy being-but strangely too strong to resist-to thee.
Ah, and so t'at from my human realms thou dwelleth immorally too far;
As art thou unjust-for t'is imagination of thine hath left nothing, but a wealth of scars;
I used to recklessly idoliseth thee, and findeth in thy impure soul-the purest idyll;
But still thou listened not; and rejected to understandeth not, what I wouldst inside, feel.
After all, though t'ese disclaimers, and against prayers-hath I designated for thee;
On my virtues-shall I still loyally supplicate; t'at thou be forgiven, and be permitted-to yon veritable, eternity.

Even if I loved thee a thousand times, still thou'd never be real.
But still, in t'ese dark miseries and dreams of th' night-
ah, just like t'is silent night of ours
And t'ose fierce fairy tales of young hours
Thou'd still be shaken off my realms
As soon as morn comes-and unveils anew, my charms.
O, death, how lush and inviting thou art,
even though at t'is early age thou might
still be asleep and thus soundeth really far.
Thou art but as naughty as t'ose abundant peeping stars,
brimming with locks of divine warmth and wealth
T'ey shalt again, tease up my mind
Whilst capture my rude, hating heart;
and once more shall t'is gruesome life turn into a solitude
Beside promises t'at canst harm souls' benign attitude.
But as soon as thou art gone; thou might just be no longer safe
And to my conscience thy threat is no more than a slave
Thy delicacy is but servile and uninviting
In t'ose choruses of blood and suffering
For which our senses should nay be proud;
but only of our genuine voices and gravity
T'at though sometimes seem virtual,
but still, are crafted within reality.

And yes, my painting, behind thy soul was ever born thy art,
Locked safely within thy summer foliage and forests
But shall I, for your goodwill ever be sketched?
Ah, one swiftly done, and miraculously correct-
yes, one only, my love, for th' very sake of single jests!
For in thy eyes hovers my triumph,
and in t'ose bogs beneath-
yes, th' ones idling about thy feet,
are cuddled-just here like my little heart, my love.
A sacred love t'at is thrown about
But to which my thirst canst never shout.
Ah, as if my voice is hoarse, and not loud-
and soon I step into whose soils, shall be sanely caught.
Caught and swung around thy idyll-though against my will;
amongst heaven's sandy shoals, and t'eir creepy windowsill.
Oh, and be defected with t'ose blades of thy swords, how evil!
Bereft of my sanity, prudence and sometimes too-bitter delicacy
As I dance around to those lands of hurtful mockery.
Be my soul's delighted worry, and mouth-oh, but mouth of blasphemy!
Ah, how of which I'm now devilishly tired!
Though you might be my eternal sire,
and beside whom my virginal soul shall forever feel so sure
As if my pride shall never ever retire,
everything shall altogether be wounded and obscure
But comely and true, just like t'at shimmering white-lipped dew
With breaths so smooth, like one from my feelings for you.

Ah, my prince! T'is craze for thee is an arrogant little devil;
and its longing for thee which gradually eats away my soul
and at times ****** and tells me harshly what to feel.
Just like t'ose ill-hearted fruits of people's minds
For which t'eir villains wouldst even in death bleakly whine
I am but forever bound to thee;
just like thou art already inside of me;
For in majestic times of our days
Thou shall hungrily partake
my fruity; but eager soul, soul away
and marvel about th' visages of my purity
I shall always but love thee once more;
no matter how boastful thou art,
and detestable virginal pain might be!
For thou art always to me as pure,
though unconvincingly art forever in vain-
For t'ose loveless satisfactions thou hath procured-
and premature pain thou hath delightfully endured.
But healthily t'ese senses shall always love thee
And with such tragedies and tears
canst t'ey but forgive thee only
Because, regardless of how untrue thou art;
You lifted my soul when I was down
And cheered me up 'twixt yon last wound
Dark was th' night t'at day, ye' tender was the moon
As both would pass and dusk would fade away soon
And into my blood thou injected th' real meaning of virtue
Whenst I was all wasted and coldly blue
Whilst my thoughts had not even a clue.

Ah, painting, but still, our love is incorrect as a tragedy-
for t'is world is too exhaustive and greedy
And at times elusive whenst but not necessary-
to grant our love th' chance we needst best!
Oh, but hark; hark once more, my love!
Over t'ere are bursts and chants of a heartbroken violin,
Though spurned by heretic hanging clouds,
slandered by boastful chirping winds.
But, no matter; no matter how hard it might seem
Thou art still to me an indescribable story;
and in thy red cheeks lies my stranded vitality
Signs of virtuous tenderness and curtained loyalty
As though thou art but still with no sin;
No sin; and ah! No stain, no stain at all-of
neither viable crossness nor madness
Though thy cleverness is at times no more to be seen
As once thou said, t'at for thee t'ere might just be
no any further happiness.

Ah! And trapped shall I be, within poisonous vileness
Should I not be granted thee
For thou art th' only soul I love, and idolise
Through whom my life was once formed, and characterised.
For love, to me is like a whole pattern;
and thus needst to be complete;
Thereby in t'is sense-loving him is but like denying
my own merit-merit t'at I am part of, and sure of-
for it is not love, though he might; as fate might say;
just as reliable and handsome and sweet.
But still, he is not thee!
And by no chance, is being not thee is but the same,
as being thee!
How fraudulent, and gross-t'is comparison all be!
Ah! And so thou knoweth, t'at he is, too me-
more even not than a stunning evening doll
Like those ones I hath seen so often
strutting about posh malls
Whilst with heartlessness welcoming
and sneering at innocent cold falls
With faces too stern, yellow, and sometimes bold;
Too bold to be true, much less sincere
And wholly unlike thine-amongst those sins;
t'at for thou honestly admit; look still sparkling and keen;
thus so astoundingly charming my veins and curdling my blood
Until thy unread shadows but reach my heart;
With such braveness and th' frankness of a gentleman
Like at that moment-whenst we told each other's life stories, back then.

Ah, and lure, lure my heart, my love!
And play with it soon as we sit 'mongst th' groves;
I would like to lay again about thy breast,
as I whisper once more to thy chest;
t'at it is truly thee that my soul loves;
and invites to love from t'is moment to end.
Ah, but t'is love started I knew not when,
though never have I thought thou art just my friend.
And lie, just lie to me no more,
t'at thou, just like me-but needst me to thy very core,
with a love t'at seems impatient,
but is born still, from pure virtue and resilience.
Oh! How valuable thou art to me, darling!
Thou who art to me such a mindful; soulful treasure,
and betwixt thy impurity thou remaineth but pure;
Thou are a smiling cloud to my blinding sun;
but sunlight to my rain as soon as it is done.

And thick and tough just as yon bough may seem,
thou shall forever be to me more t'an him!
I shall do and always want thee,
it is thy picture t'at I keepest within and about me.
Ah! And to t'is world, I promise, I shall not bluntly surrender
as how my wailing heart it shall never disrupt!
For thee I shall swear with a thousand loves greater,
t'at from actualising thee, I shall never be stopped!

Then please, please me, o my love-once more,
and talk to me and look at me sweetly as just never before.
For I love thee brightly and gently, as how air loves breath;
and so shall I love thee purely and greatly, as how life loves death.

I am a poet.
I am an artist.
A lover of words, a shaper of thoughts, a master of feelings;
A player of emotions, a speaker of charms, a thinker of minds.
A giver of taste-and at times, a succulent creator of madness.
Madness outside such lines of timid regularity;
The rules of the common, and the inane believers of sanity.
For to me, sanity is as easy as insanity itself-
On which my life feedeth, and boldly moveth on;
And without insanity, t'ere shan't be either joy-or ecstasy;
As how ecstasy itself, in my mind, is defined by averted uneasiness,
And t'at easiness, reader, is not by any means part of;
And forever detached from, the haunting deities of contemporaneity.
Thus easily, artistry consumeth and spilleth my blood-and my whole entity;
Words floweth in my lungs, mastereth my mind, shapeth my own breath.
And sometimes, I breathest within those words themselves;
And declareth my purity within which, feeleth rejection at whose loss;
Like a princess storming about hysterically at the failure of her roses.
Ah! Poetry! The second lover of my life; the delicacy of my veins.
And I loveth, I doth love-sacredly, intensely, and expressively, all of which;
I loveth poetry as I desire my own breath, and how I loveth the muchness of my fellow nature;
Whose crazes sometimes surroundeth us like our dear lake nearby;
With its souls roaming about with water, t'at chokes and gurgles-
As stray winds collapseth around and strikest a war with which.
And most of the year-I am a star, to my own skies;
But by whose side a moon, to my rainless nights;
On the whole, I am an umbrella to my soul;
So t'at it groweth bitter not, even when t'ere is no imminent rain;
And be its savior, when all is unsaved, and everything else writhest in pain.

Thus I loveth poetry as well as I loveth my dreams;
I am a painter of such scenic phrases, whose miracles bloometh
Next to thunderstorms, and yon subsequent spirited moonbeam.
And t'eir fate is awesome and elegant within my hands;
They oft' sleep placidly against my thumbs;
Asking me, with soft-and decorous breath;
To be stroked by my enigmatic fingers;
And to calm t'eir underestimated literariness, by such ungodly beings, out t'ere.
Ah, poor-poor creatures-what a fiend wouldst but do t'is to aggravate 'em!
As above all, I feeleth but extremely eager about miracles themselves;
and duly witness, my reader-t'at t'is very eagerness shall never be corrupted;
Just as how I am a pure enthusiast of love;
And in my enthusiasm, I shareth love of both men and nature;
And dark sorrows and tears t'at oft' shadowest t'eir decent composures.
When I thirstest for touches, I simply writest 'em down;
When I am hungry for caresses, I tendeth to think them out;
I detailest everything auspiciously, until my surprised conscience cannot help but feeling tired;
But still, the love of thee, poetry, shall outwit me, and despise me deeply-
Should I find not the root, within myself, to challenge and accomplish it, accordingly.
I shall be my own jealousy, and my own failure;
Who to whose private breath feeleth even unsure.
I shall feel scarce, and altogether empty;
I shall have no more essence to be admired;
For everything shall wither within me, and leave me to no energy;
And with my conscience betrayed, I shall face my demise with a heart so despaired.
Ah, my poetry is but my everything!
'Tis my undying wave; and the casual, though perhaps unnatural;
the brother of my own soul, on whose shoulders I placeth my longings;
And on whose mouths I lieth my long-lost kisses!
Ah, how I loveth poetry hideously, but awesomely, thereof!
I loveth poetry greatly-within and outside of my own roof;
And I carest not for others' mock idyll, and adamant reproof;
For I loveth poetry as how as I respectest, and idoliseth love itself;
And when I idoliseth affection, perhaps I shall grow, briefly, into a normal human being-
A real, real human being with curdling weights of unpoetic feelings;
I shall whisper into my ears every intractable falsehood, but the customary normalcy-of creation;
And brash, brash emptiness whom my creative brains canst no longer bear!
Ah, dearest, loveliest poetry, but shall I love him?
Ah-the one whose sighs and shortcomings oft' startlest my dreams;
The one whom I oft' pictureth, and craftest like an insolent statue-
Within my morning colours, and about my petulant midnight hue?
Or, poetry, and tellest me, tellest me-whether needst I to love him more-
The one whose vice was my past-but now wishes to be my virtue,
And t'is time an amiably sober virtue-with eyes so blue and sparkling smiles so true?
Ah, poetry, tellest me, tellest me here-without delay!
In my oneness, thou shalt be my triumph, and everlasting astonishment;
Worthy of my praise and established tightness of endorsement;
But in any doubleness of my life-thou shalt be my saviour, and prompt avidity-
When all but strugglest against their trances, or even falleth silent.
Ah, poetry, thou art the symbol of my virtue thyself;
And thy little soul is my tongue;
A midnight read I hath been composing dearly all along;
My morn play, anecdote, and yet my most captivating song.

I thirstest for thee regularly, and longeth for thee every single day;
I am dead when I hath not words, nor any glittering odes in my mouth to say.
Thou art my immensity, in which everything is gullible, but truth;
And all remarks are bright-though with multiple souls, and roots;
Ah, poetry, in every summer, thou art the adored timeless foliage;
With humorous beauty, and a most intensive sacrifice no other trees canst take!
O poetry, and thy absence-I shall be dead like those others;
I shall be robbed, I shall be like a walking ghost;
I hath no more cores, nor cheers-within me, and shall wander about aimlessly, and feel lost;
Everything shall be blackened, and seen with malicious degrees of absurdity;
I shall be like those who, as days pass, bloometh with no advanced profusion,
And entertaineth their sad souls with no abundant intention!
How precarious, and notorious-shall I look, indeed!
For I shall hath no gravity-nor any sense of, or taste-for glory;
My mind shall be its own corpse, and look but grey;
Grey as if paled seriously by the passage of time;
Grey as if turned mercilessly so-by nothing sublime;
Ah, but in truth-grey over its stolen life, over its stolen breath!
I shall become such greyness, o poetry, over the loss of thee;
And treadeth around like them, whose minds are blocked-by monetary thickness;
A desire for meaningless muchness, and pretentious satire exchanged '**** 'emselves;
I shall be like 'em-who are blind to even t'eir own brutal longings!
Ah, t'ose, whose paths are threatened by avid seriousness;
And adverse tides of ambition, and incomprehensible austerity;
Ah, for to me glory is not eternal, glory is not superb;
For eternity is what matterest most, and t'at relieth not within any absence of serenity.
Ah, but sadly they realiseth, realiseth it not!
For they are never alive themselves, nor prone-to any living realisation;
And termed only by the solemnity of desire, wealthiness, and hovering accusations;
For they breathe within their private-ye' voluptuous, malice, and unabashed prejudice,
For they hath no comprehension; as they hath not even the most barren bliss!
And I wantest not to be any of them, for being such is entirely gruesome;
And I shall die of loneliness, I shall die of feasting on no mindly outcome;
For nothing more shall be fragrant within my torpid soul;
And hath courage not shall I, to fight against any fishy and foul.
My fate is tranquil, and 'tis, indeed-to be a poet;
A poet whenst society is mute, I shall speak out loud;
And whenst humanity is asleep, I wake 't with my shouts;
Ah, poetry! Thy ****** little soul is but everything to me;
And even in my future wifery, I shall still care for, and recur to thee;
And I shall devote myself to thee, and cherish thee more;
Thou hath captured me with love; and such a love is, indeed, like never before.

But too I loveth him still, as every day rises-
When the sun reappeareth, and hazy clouds are again woken so they canst praise the skies.
I loveth him, as sunrays alight our country suburbs;
With a love so wondrous; a love but at times-too ardent and superb.
Ah, and thus tellest me-tellest me once more!
To whose heart shall I benignly succumb, and trust my maidenhood?
To whose soul shall I courteously bow, and be tied-at th' end of my womanhood?
Ah, poetry, I am but now clueless, and thoroughly speechless-about my own love!
Ah, dearest-t'is time but be friendly to me, and award to me a clue!
Lendeth to me thy very genial comprehension, and merit;
Openeth my heart with thy grace, and unmistakable wit!
Drowneth me once more into thy reveries of dreams;
And finally, just finally-burstest my eyes now open, maketh me with clarity see him!

Ah, poetry, t'ose rainbows of thine-are definitely too remarkable;
As how t'ose red lips of thine adore me, and termeth me kindly, as reliable;
And thus I shall rely all my reality on thy very shoulder;
Bless me with the holiness confidentiality, and untamed ****** intelligence;
Maketh me enliven my words with love, and the healthiest, and loveliest, of allegiance.
Bless me with the flavoured showers of thy heart;
So everything foreign canst but be comely-and familiar;
And from whose verdure, and growth-I shall ne'er be apart!
And as t'is happens, holdest my hand tightly-and clutchest at my heart dearly;
Keepest me but safe here, and reachest my breath, securely!
Ah, poetry-be with me, be with me always!
Maketh me even lovelier, and loyal-to my religion;
In my daily taste-and hastes, and all these supreme oddities and evenness of life;
Maketh me but thoughtful, cheerful, and naive;
And in silence maketh me stay civil-but for my years to come;
and similarly helpeth my devotion, taste, and creativity, remain alive.

Ah, poetry, thus I shall be awake in both thy daylight, and slumbers;
And as thou shineth, I knoweth that my dreams shall never fade away;
Once more, I might have gone mad, but still-all the way better;
And whenst I am once more conscious; thou shalt be my darling;
who firmly and genuinely beggeth me t' keep writing, and in the end, beggeth me t' stay.
Leave me not, even whenst days grew dark-and lighted were only my abyss;
Invite my joy, and devour every bit of it-as one thou should neither ignore, or miss.

Gus is the Cat at the Theatre Door.
His name, as I ought to have told you before,
Is really Asparagus. That’s such a fuss
To pronounce, that we usually call him just Gus.
His coat’s very shabby, he’s thin as a rake,
And he suffers from palsy that makes his paw shake.
Yet he was, in his youth, quite the smartest of Cats—
But no longer a terror to mice and to rats.
For he isn’t the Cat that he was in his prime;
Though his name was quite famous, he says, in its time.
And whenever he joins his friends at their club
(Which takes place at the back of the neighbouring pub)
He loves to regale them, if someone else pays,
With anecdotes drawn from his palmiest days.
For he once was a Star of the highest degree—
He has acted with Irving, he’s acted with Tree.
And he likes to relate his success on the Halls,
Where the Gallery once gave him seven cat-calls.
But his grandest creation, as he loves to tell,
Was Firefrorefiddle, the Fiend of the Fell.

“I have played,” so he says, “every possible part,
And I used to know seventy speeches by heart.
I’d extemporize back-chat, I knew how to gag,
And I knew how to let the cat out of the bag.
I knew how to act with my back and my tail;
With an hour of rehearsal, I never could fail.
I’d a voice that would soften the hardest of hearts,
Whether I took the lead, or in character parts.
I have sat by the bedside of poor Little Nell;
When the Curfew was rung, then I swung on the bell.
In the Pantomime season I never fell flat,
And I once understudied **** Whittington’s Cat.
But my grandest creation, as history will tell,
Was Firefrorefiddle, the Fiend of the Fell.”

Then, if someone will give him a toothful of gin,
He will tell how he once played a part in East Lynne.
At a Shakespeare performance he once walked on pat,
When some actor suggested the need for a cat.
He once played a Tiger—could do it again—
Which an Indian Colonel purused down a drain.
And he thinks that he still can, much better than most,
Produce blood-curdling noises to bring on the Ghost.
And he once crossed the stage on a telegraph wire,
To rescue a child when a house was on fire.
And he says: “Now then kittens, they do not get trained
As we did in the days when Victoria reigned.
They never get drilled in a regular troupe,
And they think they are smart, just to jump through a hoop.”
And he’ll say, as he scratches himself with his claws,
“Well, the Theatre’s certainly not what it was.
These modern productions are all very well,
But there’s nothing to equal, from what I hear tell,
That moment of mystery
When I made history
As Firefrorefiddle, the Fiend of the Fell.”

VIII. TO ARES (17 lines)

(ll. 1-17) Ares, exceeding in strength, chariot-rider, golden-
helmed, doughty in heart, shield-bearer, Saviour of cities,
harnessed in bronze, strong of arm, unwearying, mighty with the
spear, O defence of Olympus, father of warlike Victory, ally of
Themis, stern governor of the rebellious, leader of righteous
men, sceptred King of manliness, who whirl your fiery sphere
among the planets in their sevenfold courses through the aether
wherein your blazing steeds ever bear you above the third
firmament of heaven; hear me, helper of men, giver of dauntless
youth!  Shed down a kindly ray from above upon my life, and
strength of war, that I may be able to drive away bitter
cowardice from my head and crush down the deceitful impulses of
my soul.  Restrain also the keen fury of my heart which provokes
me to tread the ways of blood-curdling strife.  Rather, O blessed
one, give you me boldness to abide within the harmless laws of
peace, avoiding strife and hatred and the violent fiends of
death.

There is some genie
in our house, curdling poisonously.

I stay in the house
with a freckled old lady;
we're roommates,
unlucky enough to meet each other as life abated.

He does not live in the attic,
like a ***** ghoul; or in some
rubbing bottle like an amnesiac.

But we call the spirit lady, because the genie is vicious.

She comes to the house and says we need to move
things
around.

Her eyes are circled by some creamy mascara
into these black, skin-tight, **** rings,
like absurdist ****** targets.

Things are moved,
the genie stays, gets more vicious.

The mongerer is blamed
for bad things:
broken pots, fights over rent,
**** on the toilet seat,
lost keys.

We call the spirit lady,
this time her fingers jingle with golden rings,
her wrists sing with wrought-iron rainbows,
and says rain will send that sucker running.

So, we build little smoke pits in our house,
and take the most important things:
bills, and alumni letters from my school,
and birthday cards for her,
and burn them until it rains.

The genie calls us falsifiers.

The spirit lady comes back,
a necklace of grimacing clams around her neck,
and knocks around dancing, dancing,
a frenzy, a wildness, a knee-knocking,
throat-throtlling, dismantingly,
limb-ecstasy,
until she poops out and,
breathing heavy,
saying finally:
"there is nothing I can do for you,
I don't think I ever could,
some things are just bad luck."

She turns,
walks away,
and one of her clams drops from her necklace,
it says made in America on the inner lip.

The genie left a few weeks later.

She stands gazing out at the lake
         the waves chase each other across its surface.
Beside her, a fire
         connected to her, it burns softly and warmly in the dark of the night.
She can feel her city miles behind her
         its walls shifting, changing, throbbing with her every emotion.

The waves crash against the shore
         pounding the sand as hard as it can.
Then...
         a silver chain, half buried reveals itself as a wave retreats
She reaches down and grabs it before the waves reclaim it into the black abyss
         infinity...
                  the loop dangles from the silver chain blazing in the light of the fire.

A scream claws its way up her throat
         blood-curdling, loathing, filled with hatred.
Beside her, her fire leaps
         its flames raging, burning brighter, hotter, higher, faster
The chain falls from her shaking hands
         the light illuminating the chain as the waters reclaim it, bringing it back into the black abyss.

How?
         Why?
It was a cruel joke
         after everything?
Now they were just mocking her
         breaking their promise and throwing it back in her face.

Hatred fills her veins
         for what the silver chain means
She can feel Him waking
         He can feel her rage, her anger, her hatred.
Slowly everything around her begins to fade
         the lake, her fire, her city.

He begins to wake
         filled with longing to be unleashed upon them
                  to make them pay for what they did.
He begins to consume her
         taking over her till nothing is left
She is on her knees, panting, fighting to control Him, to keep Him subdued
         but its too late
                  He is too strong and she is to weak.


He enters the world
         and she is no more
                  gone...
He wants blood, pain, chaos
         He wants to make them suffer
He has no reasoning, no cares, nothing
         only the urge to ****
                  destroy, pain.

He is the Beast
         and nothing can stop him.
Her city can do nothing
         only watch and wait
Watch has the Beast destroys the world
         consuming it till it is no more...

I live in the wilderness
The Sun shines on the trees and through the leaves
Warmth envelopes my sanctuary
Until darkness approaches like a fog
The darkness is pregnant with sounds
I hear animals snarling while bones are breaking
Whimpers turn into blood curdling gargles
As the darkness renders invisibility among predators
And the darkness engenders vulnerability among prey
I desperately want to help but there is a darkness barricade
The darkness follows everything
The darkness swallows everything

I can hear planes crash
And the passengers scream
From within the darkness
I can only see muzzle flash
And the barrel's steam
Creating hardship
The darkness converts men to shouts of agony and rage
The darkness blinds us from the writing on the page
The darkness makes us believe
That it's our reprieve

Darkness has us in it's sight
When we choose to live in light
Even when we do what is right
Darkness takes flight
Becoming our plight
We try to fight back with futility
The darkness' bite has more utility
We are engulfed by negativity
As we lose all connectivity
And our mouths begin to foam
When the darkness is our home

the preacher never wrote a poem
about dahmer's baptism:

1.

he leaned across
the jail cell table
and his eyes were honest
when he said he believed in god
deeply
his eyes were honest
when he said goodnight honey
and gently draped his body
in a tub of sulfuric acid
his open jaw glistening in the moon
dissolving in the dusty noontime soliloquy
of crickets outside his apartment window

2.

can an honest man
bathe in those kind of wounds
and be allowed to ask
for a penance?

3.

for two weeks they left
his baptismal robes in storage
they asked if he really believed it
if he could believe in all this

4.

“when i was a kid
i was just like anybody else”
he had said
he seemed to think
being like anybody else
could dull the bloodstains
reduce the skeletons
still tucked into his closet
to powder
make his wishes into holy water

5.

yes jeffrey, anyone can drink it
but getting drunk on holiness
isn’t enough to repent
all of their fingers are wrapped around
your heart
doesn’t forgetting seem foolish
to the brains in your refrigerator
isn’t it just useless
to the spare ribs, in your bureau
drink all the holy water you want
you will always carry their bodies
on your chest
have you ever had a heart
other than the ones you collected
and did you ever know
what a soul feels like?

6.

and that day
they took him to a prison tub
and his body
glistened under the water
like a drowning animal or a martyr
jeffrey doesn’t float

7.

as he opens his eyes
his mouth wide
he looks just like him
suspended in white
ripples curdling in currents across his pale skin
a solar eclipse
covers the sun
as he comes up
for air

Upon his glottal’s larynx spreads a lingual deformity. Isolation as a result from tuggo disaffiliates. Misshapen promontory in the direction of upper-body inflammation. Not only above torso alone, location;head/injury;mouth/main informative;tongue.
The boy’s tongue was permanently horned. A horn of 18 inches shy, where taste buds formulate, he owned a lone spike. He wasn’t abraded by the unfoldment of onlookers around. His irregular attachment was a main confidant. Criticized, he was not welcomed by towns near. Citizen’s were baffled and disgusted, ridiculing him daily, he did not impale with grieve over appearance. Enmity he wanted and craved. Among the works of flesh, square inch niches, repugnance revealed. Revenge, revenge. Vindictive spirit shelled so timely and calm. Remaining this state of sumptuous integrity made him stronger each go about. These goes were so stimulus, adding to the *** of hatred. Deep into the tundra’s most vile he intruded. Went so every month or few, for weeks at a time. For this sheet of rigid earth so contiguous to the town made the worried weary, the skeptical seared, and the nautical not so knitted with directional sense. This was his consummation of gathering. The place of being a being. The dry winter amid eight months was restricted, so the moment a due mustn’t be bothered. He had his reason of validness for course. A rich succulent from the bearings of plant life on cliffs. Repelling an obstacle such as was ludicrous for even one born the ever so adequate and society defined norm. Now having a tongue with a horn, some sought might as well die to be reborn. He had to, to stay alive. The liquid, which sit so treacherous, was the mold to mouth medicine. To speak at all it must be attained. Not only a curdling death trap waiting to swallow, the boy had to get a plentiful amount for the hard hitting winters collied. His tongue could swell like the storms, loud crimson on the esophagus. To die of asphyxiation was his dodge of ultimatum.
While passing by a local television in a thrift shop-
“Today’s Newscast: Blizzards, moving in at speeds of 94 mph. Predicted to cover like a blanket for 12 months. Ice Age relative people, this one is gonna be big! Stay indoors at night, the barometric’s indicate that from 9PM to 4AM temperatures as low as 28- will stouten for the next year. Once again people, stay indoors at these hours, get your needs when available. Back to you Ronda with the quintuplets birth today!”
Plucked and grit witted he stood. He felt the trepidation of abhorrence swaying in orbit around him. How to emanate from this delay? At least five clones of self did not exist for him. Merriment struct pro, while the cons derived from which they know. Exultation when despondent, how greatly that gift could gab. Despoilment of that, he weighed options out. To altercate thick snow or simply, let it go. Afraid to die unrivaled, the off cutting is wisest. Since his first second to now he’s flourished with his horn. Obliteration to the occulted manifestation mannered as an antique replica of anyone catching him by twice by day. Remove it, remove it, remove if you want life in your years that follow. Remove it, ever so. Remove it, cut and sew. Cut and sew. Remove.
This plateau poisoned place stay calm, anticipating climate of tempest bold reaches, anyone who was anyone was not so. Negative degrees. How could he retaliate the opposite, while acquiring a surgeon field hay day buck builder? Eruption turns the wave of cons. An only equal precision, deciding, tonight is the night. To assemble the tools, publicly was questionable, no more, through. He will emerge to the lands and people a new man, sustained, and hornless. No more. From scratch he will vender what’s needed. Wood was chiseled under the last moon viewed for three sixty three days ahead. Uprooted vines of old pine will hold the bark tight. Breath revealing around the outsides of his appendage. Like a fork in the road, which way can you go, for him air strides both. Scuffling fearful towards the pike of the tundra, he is where wanted by none. A be all end all as you could alleviate ones slightest sympathy, the courage it takes, ****** immense. His sweat was not seen, but there it consists. One hand grappled around his earthly dagger, tongue positioned in an outward arrangement. Travail glowing all over him as an aura unlanguid with no disruption veering. Abound now, without great weight on his shoulders, he’s lived. Ascending keen eyes towards the blood bath around his feet, going both ways around the fork and road. After relinquishing his steady gavel, the checking of his pulse is counted. 5, 6, 7, 8, seconds, still life to live. For the very first ritual to come, placed in his mouth, the tongue. The rigid roof so unfamiliar and new he bestowed in his joy of such a common flank. The tundra felt warm as he inside let over pour. Once more a milder gasp as he vociferates to the last moon for the year. On his peak, and favored place of being, he let out his tongue. Sharp inclement so hawkish and frosted he felt. The lilliputian of no pain, heeded by first snow to wane.

the water filled our lungs
and bled through the cracks in our skin.

bubbling, brimming

the sea touched my eyes and you were white
with seafoam, curdling between lashes,
silvers pooling over stark blues
on fingertips.

sinuous, submissive.

the piercing cold mixed with the rough salt
over tide-smoothed shells.

we breathed out our mist to cry over crashes of thunder.

enigmatic, flowing.

you are an acrobat, my prideful tide.  

your steel waters wash the sand from my legs
and glassy waves cleanse, twisting and curling,
releasing through our ocean breeze.

you opened your eyes and all i saw was sea glass.

in ashes hidden, smoulders god of love
from matted dancer's focus conflagration purely come
continues still perhaps in empty homage
of a sa ta na ma
personage of ((Shiva))

white bones pierce the sky
in upward curtain-seethes of heat
beyond imagined burning hells...
the triad ventures into zero-zones of anti-life,
sands of absolute defeat.

shadow trust imparts
a silent teacher's mantras;
soothing psychic words,
"Bala" and "Adi-Bala"
carry over dunes of morbid thirst--
the gape of ancient serpent-maws
choking dust of frightened, elephantine skeletons
fissured by immobile sun--
their inner sound become cool water of a summer stream

in timeless desert, traverses strain of royal line:
god-fated tutelage of seedling savior,
lightning skill with bow and virtue sinew
shining arms horizon's arid form:
despite begrudging honor kings expect
when offspring given after years
in hard-earned sacrificial grace:
yet still obeisance ends in facing demonaic rage
to which is pitted youth to slay--
despite allay by symbol feminine,
as if to question her abode would conjure her
in dire storm and quake announce gigantic step and hairy gulf--
with arrow sprays destroy Thataka's trident, curdling throat
the slitting of, rejoicing pantheon proclaims heroic,
forever railing under epic breath of tacit page theodical:
"we gave you progeny, now grant us our theocracy;
before your son our asthras lay their weaponry"













.

People held hostage, always living in fear,
The barrel of a weapon, is always near.

Riding the train, a blood curdling scream,
A deafening noise, and a bright light beam.

A violent shock wave tears open your flesh,
The lucky ones, receive skin grafts with mesh.

Your arm torn off, artery bleeding is profuse,
A dying thought is, what was the use?

What was the purpose, to **** all these people?
In the name of Allah, perched on a mosque steeple.

Radical extremists don't care about life,
By murdering people they increase human strife.

Wasting resources, bringing the Earth gloom,
Look at faces on a plane, many filled with doom.

The last thirty five years I don't understand,
Middle Eastern countries, together they band.

Bringing terror and hatred towards cultures of the west,
We accept the need to feel your ways are the best.

Pray all you like, cover up a women's face,
Stop trying to change America's philosophy and place.

Once the oil is gone, and the land again bare,
Back to living in tents, flowing robes you will wear.

Your tactics are old, soon you may feel,
The burning of skin, this inferno is real.

A nuclear explosion will end years of frustration,
No longer putting up with terrorists indignation.

Revolutions reveal, the world ending in flame,
Enough with this nonsense, put an end to this game!

Visit poemsbypaul.com

If I stayed any longer,
Who knows?
I might have gone insane too.

He told me his name.
I never asked him why he was there,
Why everyone else avoided him.  

I regret it now
But now is not the time,
There is no time left.  

He said he could get out
Whenever he wanted.
He just had no reason to go.  
He told me if I would come with him,
Stay with him forever, we’d leave.  

Can you imagine that?
He even said he loved me.  
The weirdest part is, I think I loved him to.
I would keep trying to remember
Where this love was taking place,
In this asylum but, I always forgot.

All we had to do was walk out.  
Nobody touched us.  
When we were out, we ran, and ran, and ran.  
In the middle of the forest,
There was no way they could find us,
We still wanted to be safe.

We found a cave in which we could stay,
Until we had enough strength to explore.
There was plenty of apples and firewood around.  
That first night, I just ate, and ate, and ate.  

I noted the big willow tree
and boulder next to the exit.
Natural, and calm.
This was a place of my refuge,
Where I would be happy.

We set out to explore,
The cave must have been close to the surface,
There were cracks in the ceiling that lit our way.
The cave was filled with tunnel after tunnel.  
Sometimes the tunnel would split into five or six
And we would have to choose one.
Giving the false sense of direction
As we wandered, aimless.
  
When I got scared,
He would assure me it would all be fine.
That must have been the worst lie,
Anyone has ever told me.

I finally worked up the courage
To ask him why he was in the asylum.  
He told me he could fool the mind.
Fool it into believing its body was in pain,
He said his looks could ****.

I scoffed.  

He stared at me,
Completely bewildered.  
I clearly thought him insane.  
He let that slide.  

He never kissed me fully, passionately.  
They were always short and sweet.  
He only brushed my face
When he wanted me to calm down,
Making jokes whenever
I was having second thoughts.
  
He was using me.  
I was a shield, nothing more.  
I would have to be disposed of.

Back to staring,
I realized that his back
Is not made of duck feathers.
My scoff doesn't slide.

I ran faster I’d ever run before.
All this flew through my mind
As I scrambled up from the cave floor for the third time.
The exit was just around the corner.
It just had to be.  

As I stumbled back
Onto the cold hard rock
The exit came into view.
I saw the light shimmering on the broken rock.
The shadow of a willow tree.
Ironically I was so happy I could cry.  
I’d hide in the trees
I’d never have to see this murderer again.  
Tripped for the fourth time.

I looked up,
Still sprawled out on the cave floor.  
There was a hole in the ceiling,
Sending shattered shafts of light to where I was lying.  
I watched the dust fall in lazy spirals.

I jumped off the floor.
Back to my peril,  
I heard his sluggish footsteps.
Turned around for one last look.
He stood in those shattered beams of light
Glaring at me.

Now on my feet, I stood
In the dark half of the spacious hall of rock
As if that would help my situation.  
If only I could fade into the shadows.  
I was trapped.
With no escape but the cave's tunnels behind me,
Or the death awaiting me.  

Just a few more steps back.  

He’s eyes snapped to my feet,
"You don’t want to do that.”
Back to my face.
His smile was only evident in his voice.
He was right.  
I didn’t want to die in that moment.  

The room’s light darkened
As if someone had put out the sun.
I knew it was coming.

I loved him.
He may not love me now.
He may never have.
But I don’t care.  
If I never loved him,
I may not be in this situation,
I might not be about to die.  
But I think just maybe,
It was worth it.  

Those smiles,
Stolen kisses and touches,
Just the sound of his voice.
Running in the middle of the forest
Away from the asylum.
It was all worth the pain I was about to feel.  

We stood staring at each other,
Waiting for the other to make the first move.  
The tension mounted.
Hatred started coming off him in waves,  
Hitting me over and over
Threatening to pull me under.  
I could feel his anger.

The air seemed to thicken,
Weighing down on me,
Forcing from me my last breath.
Draining me of what little strength
I had left to remain standing.

I began to gasp for air,
Unable to feel my lungs expand.
Feel the relief of oxygen in my blood.  
My eyes were locked in his
Begging to turn away,
To save my life.  

I was mesmerized.
Like prey waiting for the snake to strike  
I watched helplessly as his face,
Distorted with anger, began to twitch.  

I could see the words that would end this,
Begin to form on his lips.
Waiting to be released.
***** off his spit stained *****.  
After the agony of anticipation seemed to reach its peak.  
They dropped like acid into the open air.

I lost the fight against the pressure.
Finally crumbling under the strain,
I rested on my knees.
Holding my head in my hands
Preparing to resist the attack.

It hit me full force
Like a subway train at full speed.
I did all I could not to cry out,
To give in to this miserable existence,
To give him the satisfaction of my death.  

I broke out in a cold sweat
As my muscles continued to fight,
Melting with the strain.  
Adrenaline pumped through my veins
As the true attack began.  

The pain started at the tips of my fingers and toes.  
Slowly crawling, burning,
It continued to eat away at my flesh.  

Much to my dismay
I remained intact
But paralyzed by the pain
Unable to run away,
To escape it.

I was unaware of the storm of tears
Falling from my cheeks.  
Oblivious that he continued to circle closer,
Waiting for his moment to strike.  

The pain began to worsen,
Shifting from fire to lava,
Lava to lightning.  
It was unimaginable, indescribable.

Then I lost control.
This body– it was no longer mine.
It began to betray me.  
It shuddered, then shook spasmodically.  

Its back arched knowing what was to come next,
Preparing as the bubble of air was pushed slowly
Up its tongue, against its lips.
Its blood curdling,
Gut wrenching shriek
Lasted mere hundredths of a second.

He comes into view for a brief moment.
My eyes roll back into my head,
And I lose myself in the blackness.  

Hope rekindles;
Flares under your skin
Heats in your ribcage
Flickers in your heart

Then it is blown out, leaving nothing behind but
Pain and darkness
Curdling in the pit of your stomach
Sinking at the back of your mind
Settling into your emotions,
Like it never left.

sought
desperate
and double-sought. at last
inside embracing entombment
the skull-dome of earth my
mother
discovers the maiden intellect kidnapped by further
tomorrows and slakes my thirst on the
blood-brain beneath the hills of nemea.
am i the sa
vior the damsel or the beast?
curdling a slimy finger down the vaginaless brain
long veins delay my knuckles into nightingales between
serrated orifice-incisors made of thought and
all my hunting knives and bludgeons bring no unconsciousness to it. memories
they say
are as much like the present as a lion likes
cat food. The sleeping woman is about to become
cat food. cave shadows cloak what little of her is left
to imagination: nearly dead, nearly
beautiful.
does that brain-like lion stalk impenetrable as hungry
as intelligence as forceful as the crucibles of lust as
remote
as wastelands in the unforgiven breast?
i could asphyxiate that hurdle given resolve
i could lambast a mortal lion with my palms but not this
facsimile of fortitude forcefields intact. through
the nose of the wind and the mouth of the water i found my way
to the eyesockets of the very dirt; a veil
about my brain but
saw it still.
stillness
surrounded.
sought
some sign upon the smooth sphere an opening into
light or lifewaters or cold grey electricity but
no thing could penetrate that sheath of thought -- though it may yearn for fornication
some brains never breed but
condense in darkness
hermaphroditic, hunting through the silent greek city-states for
beautiful bloodrivers. there is no lion no trodden
angel weeping in a cave only
impervious struggling eternal meandering and the jar
of misdirection. thanks, hera
but it looks like you've been foiled once again and this time by your husband's headcold who said
only your brain can outthink your brain. she's a smart owl and
she's right:
every time i think i've reached my goal and
allow a little fortune or fulfillment to escape my maze eleven novel tasks
coagulate beyond my calendars of navigation. blood fills the veins of my
brain engorging it and pressuring it into questionable *******. for
if the sun breeds maggots in a dead lion
then i've emerged from the earth's crevice
victorious and spent. but there's more
to the story as i crawl off down the metaphor
wrapped beneath the brain's skinned hide its
vestigial thoughts arrest me thinking i
know, i know
eleven more sunrises until death.
thanks, brain.

There once was a girl named mary

Who had a pet canary

Locked in a cage

The bird filled with rage

And planned to ****** dear mary.

He picked the lock with his beak

One autumn eve so bleak

And made his escape

Mary’s door left agape

To her bedside he would sneak.

His eyes held a sinister gleam

And mary let out a blood-curdling scream

As he pecked at her eyes

And scratched at her thighs

Mary prayed it was all a bad dream.

After the vicious attack

Mary fell flat on her back

On the hardwood floor

Her pulse was no more

The canary flew away and never looked back.

They say it's the distance that kills the flame
Puff sizzle and pop
The dying ember of love screaming its last breath
To the stars
The moon

Heavens ears are muted
These wailing screeching tryst
Happen daily
Yearly
The product of love that laid to close
Curdling like sour milk in the jealous heart
Burning like rancid acid
Chinese water torture to the brain
Maddening mundanity to fill the void of meaning
Like monkeys their minds seek to dull it's own screams
Love left rotting

Stinking in the distance that dragged it further spreading the filth
But the distance isn't the deceiver at least one can see the evidence of betrayal
Before it sneaks behind
And stabs them with their own thoughts
Confuse them with their own feelings
And drag them under to feast on their own flesh

No distance doesn't ******
It is the heart that deceives
It is the heart that renders false reality
Blinds the eyes to its own pain
And tricks the tongue to speak
Where it has no place

It is the heart that is its own martyr
The godly victim
Whom's motive is selfish
To **** what wounds it
But it's justice is the death of itself

And these sheets held love
Whispered  melting
Scalding devotions
Held the iron hot to brand itself the dutiful
But in obligation left once more
Leaving blood fresh
The heart murdered once more

i asked people for writing prompts and one that was given to me was to write about the kennedy assassination from the point of view of a school teacher.

"It is time for a new generation of leadership, to cope with new problems and new opportunities. For there is a new world to be won."* -John F. Kennedy

i'm a mathematical woman and i know
a bullet from a bolt action rifle
travels at a velocity of two thousand feet per second

i'm a mathematical woman and i know
if you fire three bullets straight at the target
there is more than a fifty percent chance
they will bite hungrily into bone

i am a mathematical woman but
i can know all of these things and still
i cannot derail a national tragedy
and i cannot lift a bleeding skull
from jackie's hands

i always thought the black and white truth
could show you facts through polaroid
laying bare the negatives and the positives
but now i stare at grainy pictures of the crime scene
and the parade that felt so hopeful
is exposed to be garish
the stains on mr kennedy's suit
are too dark for brave convictions
i can see the evil spattered across him
i wonder what kind of person would ever
spit wounds on such a face
like that

i was bringing these pictures
back to my children
lined up in elementary school rows
my instinct now is to not show them
the chronic pain that pulses
through frescos of execution
the pollution of optimism
curdling in the wake
bottoming out and trickling down
pooling into pipe dreams
maybe when they're older they can understand
the way he was pitched headlong
into the arms of crying doves

i wonder if my influence will determine
the presence of another lee harvey oswald
in the births of my classroom
does he sits in the back
in one of those plastic seats
is he hungering for the encumbrance of
a fresh pistol with a safety that never shuts up
a barrel that hums against his shoulder blade
a friendly trigger to hold hands with
is there any possibility i could hold the responsibility
of taking the attendance
maybe calling the name of an impending killer
can i possibly bear the weight of human suffering
in equations of newspaper pages devoted to assassination
and half developed pictures of growing people

i love children
i pray for their ability to flourish
i teach them to measure their worth
beyond the lengths of wooden rulers
their transformation to flowering petals
from pygmy buds
is full of pollen ambitions
the promise and possibility
of barren soil blooming into gardens
i'm a mathematical woman
but my love has no limits
no square roots or dividends
and i never
claimed to have the answers
and though i am here to edify
i still have a lot of questions

so let me ask you this
if i do not pluck dandelions
from my garden by their stems
if i allow them to grow and do not
sever them from their soil
is a murderer growing in my garden
or am i growing a murderer

There was quite a crowd gathered when I reached my apartment building that morning.
Lots of cops and Emergency Medical personnel gathered everyone was just standing around.
I asked Wild Bill what happened?
Not sure, think it came out apartment five.
What?
A blood-curdling scream, and long wailing, unnatural sounds.
Right then I knew it was bad.
The apartment was occupied by cutthroat junkies and their infant daughter.
Tony “The Hulk” came out first, bloodied, bleary eyed, staring at the ground
Rosalie “The Muse” came next, screaming hysterically in Spanglish... muttering broken Catholic novenas
last soaked in solemn silence, Inca “The Baby”,
covered in a sheet, silent, never to speak again, forgotten.

Clear crystal blue
Marbled colours show
beneath the cascading
ripples of heaving sanity

A feather touch
quickly thrown into a
debilitating stab
that stops your breath

A blood curdling scream
Hummingbird heartbeat
Colour fading from fingertips
Finally some peace and quiet

A fall over rock,
Metal answering to water,
Is the seal of this spot;
A land trodden by music
And the tune forgot.


Of a region savage,
The territory that was broken,
Silver gushed free;
And earth holy, earth meek shall receive it
In humility.


This, not dwelt in, this haunted,
The country of the proud,
Is curdling to stone,
And careless of the feet of the waters
As they glance from it down.

"Don't leave out the graphic details."
Oh, trust me. I won't.
The gruesome, disturbing, intimacies.
The bone-chilling, hair-raising fragments.
It's almost too much to bear.
But not quite.
This vulgarity is just enough to keep them on the edge of their seats.
Every tiny, twisted moral of the story.
In between the cracks, find shining slivers of redemption.
Only to immediately cover them up with rotten deception.
Good, ***** flair. Scummy additions. Sick annotations.
Keep the masses rollin' in.
Complexity, concentration, then chaos when they want more fear.
The blood-curdling, stomach-churning truths.
The disgraceful, distasteful deductions.
We've come to the conclusion they crave this coagulation of ****.
Dark disdain eating away at the corpse of wellness.
Vermin, pests, gnawing, slobbering.
Choking on the bones of prosperity.
The decomposition of this life is what they love.
Flies, gnats, swarm. Maggots clump.
Crack, rip, slurp, gag, choke, ******* die.

There were many times
When I came close to leaving my wife.
I would take some clothes
and my favorite movies with me
to my parent’s house,
dead set on not going back.
But then she would come over
And talk me out of it.
When it finally happened though
this is how it went down:
It was the Fourth of July
and I was driving home
from my job at a group home for the developmentally disabled,
Fireworks bursting all around me
up in the Arizona sky.
I was caught up in a full-blown panic attack
from the thought of my twelve-hour shift
the next day with no pain pills or any relief
whatsoever.
I have a severe back injury from a car wreck
and that day I had hurt it worse
moving someone from their wheelchair into the shower.
It felt like a railroad spike
had been rammed into the center of my spine.
Driving home
then walking up the stairs to our apartment
I couldn’t stop crying.
I had lost all control.
Walking in the front door,
my wife was cooking and my son crawled on the floor.
I went straight to the bathroom,
Needed to calm down and compose myself,
but I just couldn’t stop crying.
Hell I couldn’t even catch my breath.
My wife walked in.
“What’s wrong? Why are you crying?”
“I hurt my back really bad today at work … and I have a twelve-hour shift tomorrow
and no pain pills, no nothing. It just hurts so bad …”
She rolled her big blue eyes and scoffed at me.
“Ugh. That’s no reason to be ******* crying. Quit being a baby.”
Out the door she went with a slam.
THAT was my wife? My true love?
The thought drove me insane.
Growing old with her hateful eyes
always glaring at me.
I ate dinner in silence,
put the baby to bed
and smoked so much ****
I felt nothing
neither physical nor mental.
I couldn’t smoke **** before or at work, however,
I did have morals.
Those people in the group home were my responsibility.
The baby woke up crying around five a.m.
I had to start my shift at eight a.m.
It was the wife’s day off.
“Hey … hey … wake up. Can you get him? Please?”
“Arrgg. No. Just get up with him.” She groaned and rolled back over.
“Please? I gotta be up in two hours.”
“Ugh. NO. It’s my day off.”
“Exactly. You can take a nap with him later. I gotta work twelve hours today.”
“I said NO. I didn’t want a baby in the first place. Remember?”
She said that all the time. It made my blood ******’ boil.
“Then maybe you should’ve kept your ******* legs closed.”
I said
turning away from her, on my side
The baby kept crying,
screaming, now a blood-curdling sound.
The next thing I saw were
flashes
of red, black, and white
as her small, but bony,
rock hard fist
hit the side of my temple.
“YOU ******’ ****,” I screamed
jumping up and out of bed.
Picking the baby up,
he rested his little head on my shoulder,
and finally stopped crying.
I walked the floor,
pacing back and forth,
my back aching,
my head throbbing & pulsating
as the goose-egg lump
swelled.
She sat upright in bed.
Her arms crossed, her icy glare
burning a hole through my head.
She didn’t look the same anymore.
When we met
her eyes were full of good
burning churches
love.
Replaced now with
little saggy *******,
wiry, stringy, mess of hair—
like a Barbie doll left outside too long.
And that face
held so much hate.
My God, that face of hers.
She despised me.
Everything I did and said
just ****** her off.
From the bedroom window
I stood watching the cars
move along down the street,
thinking of it all.
The fights,
all the shiners, lumps, goose-eggs, cuts, and bruises
she had left on me over the past nine months.
When she used to look at me with those
big blue eyes,
there was love, lust, and a future.
Now it was hate, hate, hate
I thought of all this
watching those cars drive down the street
when it suddenly became clear to me,
I could be in one of those cars too.
Driving somewhere, anywhere, far from her.
My son, was my son
I'd always be there for him
and have my time with him.
But her time?
Our time?
It was up.
The switch in my mind was flipped. And broken off.
I kissed my son, put him on the bed and
went into the closet.
Getting my ****.
“No, no, no, no. You can’t leave. You CAN’T.”
She started to panic.
“Watch me. This is it, you hateful *****. Get out of my way.”
She ran behind me,
followed me down the stairs, all the way to the car,
shrieking, screaming continuously,
and slobbering and gasping for air,
throwing herself in my path.
Tears flowed
From her over sized eyes,
now filled with tiny red veins.
“We can go to counseling, we can work it out.”
“I don’t WANT to work it out. I don’t love you anymore.
Now would you get back upstairs? You left the baby all by himself up there.”
She didn’t hear me.
Just kept on trying to convince me.
I managed to get my clothes in the car,
but then she wouldn’t let me
close my door.
“I can’t believe this. I can’t believe you. You’re just leaving your child?”
“No. I’m leaving YOU. Now get back upstairs and be a mother.
You’re done being a wife.”
I had to pry her claws off the driver’s side door to leave.
Looking in the rear view
I saw her skinny body running up the stairs
back to our apartment
and the baby.

My first meal as a free man
was an egg & cheese biscuit.
I sat in my parked car
in the parking lot of a park
listening to my iPod
on shuffle.
“Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right” by Bob Dylan
suddenly came on.
I took it as a sign

A sense of utter loss within,
ignoring the world outside that of the mind,
Wandering in the paths of insanity
Blasting thoughts, and a rising, formless desire
to be lost in the darkness all around,
yet still sensing the borders
that are immersed in a sludge of sin
All goes on within the invisible world
hidden from any earthly eyes.
Unimaginable to all but one,
yet receiving glimpses of similarity
that strike the uniqueness back from reality.
Giving form to words,
images that could never be painted
but are forgotten instantaneously.
The vastness that might only be
the result of a chemical imbalance.
Such that these words become aimless,
mindless wanderings
devoid of any meaning to the universe.
It is but one fools perspective that
the discourse is one of wisdom,
that it is unique
And yet still, the self-importance clings
and the lines of discernment
become inevitably blurred.
The fabric is torn and marred,
trampled under the hooves of cattle
down below, where the dust is pounded
into miniature swirling clouds,
and the grass roots are torn up
to be left flapping helplessly
in the screaming winds of commotion.
There is a lack of conviction
in every word that is spoken
as if the bubble of thoughts
has become disconnected from the machinery
and floated into boundless space.
Once the fuel has flown,
the unworthy tongue sets in,
drawing from the toxic piles of sundry
that lie skewed asunder
destined to be burned,
though they still exist
to create thick curdling smoke
that chokes out any form of life
and causes the filth of hypocrisy
to flow forth in abundance.
Sinking into the mire,
the narrow way shrinks to the eye of a needle
And all hope seems lost.
This is deprecation.

i know, it's not exactly mesmerising
such bounties with such curdling
crudeness, but that's how it is,
with eyes vectoring into the above,
cobalt, the highest pinnacle of the depths,
a shade like any other,
and then seeking the horizon, the dilution
of the formidable shade into Arctic...
a near white, but not exactly white,
not exactly worth metaphor that's a kindred
of white & black as lack & lack...
just the see-through colour for the allowance
of possessing eyes, not near melted mirrors
of mercury, but by day,
the highest peak blue in hue of cobalt,
and when walking from the mountain's peak,
the eyes spot the Arctic and Adriatic mist hues
outlining a bordering of all things elemantal...
the transparency of the whole dynamo
on being grounded from all elevations,
before dipping into the seas' shrubbery...
for indeed the sky makes use of the close-up, apparent
green shades of the sea, or the Thames grey
without an earl on a royal gondola worthy a parade,
nearer then the grander colour scheme,
but up from space, indeed, all is blue and all is green,
and all is sandy suntanned bronze
and seemingly serene; lest we forgot the dollops
of skeletal, floating in cloud - those scouts of Antarctica;
but from the elemental blue of the sky
receding into the seas of mirrors via arctic into white
if not seemingly see-through, there too i spot
the antidote of white nearing the pristine state of
claiming being see-through, a crow's
bleak colour of being shrouded
in celebratory mourning: the pupil of my eye, black,
and all the world around me, the flattened earth
of my iris, for no astronaut i am to imagine it otherwise,
from a perspective of such heights reached by
fellow man, if i am to be so humbly grounded,
i'll imagine it counter-productively as thus.

She could never do anything.
Her parents thought nearly everything
was immoral & blasphemous.
A boy from school had gotten her
a poster for her birthday
of her favorite band Good Charlotte.
It was just harmless pop music
but her parents didnt approve of
all their black clothes, tattoos, spiky hair, and eyeliner
so they were making her tear it down.
It was the only thing
hanging on her walls
that was hers.
Everything else had to do with
Joseph Smith & the Morman Temple.
That's all the two of them ever talked about
but when she actually asked questions
and was critical of the beliefs of the church
they just shut her down
with empty answers & irrelevant metaphors.
"But Mom there isn't anything bad about this band! It's made for kids!"
"That's what worries me Amanda...the media & music companies want to poison your mind. The morals of this country are falling apart, heck they're not even there anymore. Amanda...you and I both know that this band does not follow the teachings of the prophet. You know how we feel, you need to choose the right. Remember?"
With her head down and tears falling, she knew she couldnt win.
"Yes."
"Okay then."
Her Mom said, tearing the poster off the wall.
She held it out to her.
"Come on. Rip it up."
"What?"
"Rip the poster in half."
"No. No way. If you wanna tear it, then you do it. I'm not gonna destroy a gift from my friend. What is the point of this? Am I not allowed to have anything?!"
Her father stormed into the room.
"Young lady....I am NOT going to stand for such disobedience!"
Her mother stood in the doorway, while her father violently ripped the chords for her phone and t.v. out of the wall.
"Three months grounding. To your room, no phone, no tv, and absolutely no theater activities after school. I don't care what it's for. Now sit on that bed, and get out your book of morman. Dinner will be ready soon, you can come down then."
He slammed the door shut and locked it from the outside. They had a special lock installed.
She paced the room, her thoughts going a mile a minute.
If she didnt do something, she would lose her mind, she decided.
Inside a pile of stuffed animals was a phone.
Her secret phone.
One of those prepays, she kept it on with babysitting money.
She didnt know if it would do any good, but she called the cops. She had to try something.
An hour later
they were eating dinner in silence, when the doorbell rang.
Her father shot her a suspicious look, before getting up to answer.
The girl could hear the officers talking to her father at the door.
They came inside and sat in the den
talking
for a good five minutes, maybe more.
Finally he called her into the room.
"Amanda."
"Yes, Dad."
"Did you call the police on me?"
"...yes." She said, looking down.
"Why? I havent hit you. Have I?"
"No. But...you keep me locked up all the time. You wont just let me be a normal kid. You're so into the church, you can't see what it's doing to you. Officers I've spent the past two months locked up in my room. Now they want to ground me three more months. All because I wouldn't tear up a Good Charlotte poster. Just because they're not mormon, doesn't mean that they're bad. Does everything have to be about church? All the time"
The two cops looked at each other, concerned, with wrinkled brows.
They were both young, crew cutted, blond hair, blue eyed, boys in blue.
One spoke up, clearing his throat.
"Amanda...a band like that...doesn't follow or honor the teachings of the one, true, prophet....Joseph Smith."
"Yes, you really must obey your parents. The lord commands it."
"Nooooooooooooo!!!"
The girl shrieked, blood-curdling, up the stairs
to her room.
They were everywhere, there was no escape. Her parents, teachers, neighbors, friends, and even the police.
It was the Mormon Church's town.
She finally embraced the solitude
decided to just ride it out
wait them out
and then get out.
When I finally got a car
I would drive by her house
and she would always be there in the window
waving back at me.
She had two long years of that
before she was finally
granted freedom at eighteen.
My friend in the Tower of Zion
the Morman Rapunzel
Pretty in Pink with her short blond hair.
She had to be free.
Today she lives on a piece of land
with her husband and some dogs.
She made it.