During youth I was quite the collector
of ocean ******'s annealed sandcastles
Though the hosts inside could not be cheaper,
their fleshy coats were worth all the hassles

Content I was amassing worn seashells;
monthly did this fine collection accrue
Though furnished, barren felt those wooden shelves,
as even pearls are lesser than a jewel

Still, the sand was warm; the waves were soothful
and regardless of what hollowness struck,
the beach granted a chance to feel fruitful
so long as one had either skill or luck

Alone was I, but daresay not lonely,
but I was not merry until married.

Its different when you're with me.
Because all I paint is black and gray
Don't you agree?

Your smiles are filled with glee,
Like a finished canvas I daresay.
Its different when you're with me.

I make things a little blurry
Like an old painting that starts to decay.
Don't you agree?

When you're with them, I am filled with envy.
So colorful, so faraway.
Its different when you're with me.

I am a bit too gloomy
Maybe I should stay away
Don't you agree?

Your life is already a beautiful harmony
I'll just be in the way.
Its different when you're with me.
Don't you agree?

After taking a gulp of water, M. opens a new Word document, inhaling deeply. He begins to write a sort of Introduction or Author’s Note:

‘This is to be my first real poem. No *******, cheesy rhyming or painfully forced verbiage. I am now only a seeker of truth…’

M., having just crushed two Focalin pressed pills, rolls a five-dollar bill and proceeds to insufflate, pausing momentarily when the line is halfway finished; he exhales before immediately finishing it off. His sinus burns fiercely. There is something masochistic about his preferred method of ingestion w/r/t pills. And but with a sudden albeit expected (in fact, M. was utterly beholden to it) rush of vitality, M. spends the next ten minutes finishing his half-page poetic manifesto [sic] (which term he actually wrote as a heading. “Poetic Manifesto”, that is), before beginning what he considers to be the first stanza. He likes that the location of the beginning of his poem is ambiguous. And so he begins thusly, consciously avoiding conventional rhyme scheme, instead opting for what he considers to be abstract.

‘My first poem, ostensibly an attempt at catharsis, was in fact a failed expression of my latent desire to be accepted. For today it’s a poem and last week a novel; tomorrow I’ll ferociously ******* some fashionably obscure, formidably pretentious prose [sic]. Consuming all but absorbing nothing…’

If he is to discover vicious truths [sic] in his writing, he cannot hold anything back. He thinks of a double-entendre using the word ‘blunt’, but decides not to employ it. Perhaps yesterday. Suddenly, M. begins to ruminate on his poem from the day before, which had earned him the opposite of acclaim from his peers. He must simply do the opposite of what he had done before! When he resumes writing, M. eventually begins to subconsciously fall back into the 12-syllable AABB rhyme scheme of his yesterday’s poem.

‘…Perhaps the following phase will stick for more than a wretched week.
Why have I wasted words on wan, vapid, wheezing lines
Of sickeningly phony, sophomoric, pseudo-sentimental ****?
Surely you see the salient theme,
That from which I hide,
Refusing to acknowledge life’s flaccid, tan **** as it floats in front of me,
Beckoning me forth,
A one-eyed, furiously fetid viper...’

M. chortles at his alliterative stanza’s ending. ‘This is how I write,’ he mutters to himself, maintaining a straight face. He writes without pause for nearly an hour. He is pleased.

‘…A generalist—that’s what I tell myself I am,
Because simply knowing a few facts,
Even for forty or fifty fields,
Is surely worthy of that
Respect which is given to those men and women
Who earn it by grinding away
At that which determine the sycophant vermin
Is worthy of lifting a lash…’

Hours pass. The poem approaches two thousand words in length. After taking a truncated cigarette break (the break, not the cigarette, was truncated), M. continues where he left off.*

‘…Believe you not for a second the frost-bitten-phallus,
That Freudian façade [sic],
The false faces I display to fake friends
Whose frequent fornication
Fills my mind with fossilized fleas,
******-spiritual formication [sic]
For which there’s no vaccine…

…Once I’ve come down from the mountainous apogee atop which I sit,
Calmly surveying the ever-receding landscape through the lens of fleeting euphoria
Which, fading faster always, gives way to—no, I will not say it—I refuse to legitimate her lies.
As I descend with increasing speed,
specters of judgment torment me into insanity…
    
B  r  e
a   t  h
     e  ;

...this feeling I simply cannot bear—
their sirens threaten to burst my eardrums.
Although it’s undoubtedly pathetic,
I can no longer lie to myself;
I desire the approval
of those specters
who haunt
m-
e
...’

M. begins to hyperventilate, panicking at his embarrassment at publishing such a bad poem the day before. He grasps his heart, which is beating out of his chest. The fear of cardiac arrest simply increases his anxiety. Laying down on the ****-carpeted floor, M. attempts to meditate, imagining this to be how it might feel to do TM on *******. Minutes then an hour pass.
Suddenly, a much-welcomed epiphany presents itself to M.; as if it fluttered through his window and hovered, eerily still in the way that only hummingbirds can be, just in front of his face. So obvious does it seem (the epiphany) that he begins to laugh maniacally in the pitch of a female voice either pre-pubescent or near-dead; a kind of

YEE!    

YEE!      

YEE!    

HEEEE!

HE!

HEE!                      

HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

sound.
After minutes of uncontrollable mirth, M. holds his abdomen and makes the lugubrious [sic], delirious noises of tired suffering. After a few more YEE’s and HEEEE’s escape, he begins to regain control, trying not to focus on what he’d realized w/r/t futility as it relates to shame, but certainly ensuring that he won’t forget. M. sits in his chair with a old-man grunt, the sort of noise over which wives divorce their husbands.
He sips water.
M. opens a new document and begins to type:

For what do we write, we talentless wretches?
To publish some
gooey garbage
in hopes
that some fleet of demonic tween-age sociopaths
adopts our work as part of the canon of cuntiness?  

Not we, the veritable “un-poets”,
Our haphazardly-conceived writing stinks,
No, it reeks of fetid, smegmatic phalluses;
Of a ****** of maniacal madmen,
Blue-balled after an abysmal night/morning
Tossing crumpled ***** of money
At Patti’s plump-lipped, positively putrid-looking

&&&&               *****               &&&&

In an I-95 truck stop;
“Taste **** and *****
At Trucker Tom’s ***** Taphouse
                                        Where friends meet
                                            and literally throw money
                                              into syphilitic snatches.”

We write for the duty of identity,
We who might be found with a serious face on,
Writing rhyming, rhythmic,
quasi-**** lines of lead-heavy, snobbish lifeforce-larcen.
The sort of **** that keeps you from getting up in the morning.

But of course we are writers, as sure as the sea
Is blue, the day is long, who daresay that I am wrong?
And he who
doth [sic] dare,
I point to that long
******* I posted
ere the day began.
There lies his evidence though it belongs in the can.

Hero
H-E-R-O
One word, Four letters
Loaded with meaning
But what, daresay, is the meaning?
What makes a hero?

Well, there are stereotypes
Storybook characters, playing the role
Strong, brave, handsome
Chivalrous, even. Bold and daring
But that isn't a real hero

A real hero is weak, cowardly
They lack confidence, they aren't strong, smart, or handsome
They live their lives in the background
If they had a color, it would be something nondescript
A beige, perhaps, or a muted blue
They live and let live

Until the time comes, where they must step up
The true hero, they seize the moment
They act against their fear, they gain strength they thought they lacked
To save the day
And fade, into the background

Tiare Tahiti

MAMUA, when our laughter ends,
And hearts and bodies, brown as white,
Are dust about the doors of friends,
Or scent ablowing down the night,
Then, oh! then, the wise agree,
Comes our immortality.
Mamua, there waits a land
Hard for us to understand.
Out of time, beyond the sun,
All are one in Paradise,
You and Pupure are one,
And Tau, and the ungainly wise.
There the Eternals are, and there
The Good, the Lovely, and the True,
And Types, whose earthly copies were
The foolish broken things we knew;
There is the Face, whose ghosts we are;
The real, the never-setting Star;
And the Flower, of which we love
Faint and fading shadows here;
Never a tear, but only Grief;
Dance, but not the limbs that move;
Songs in Song shall disappear;
Instead of lovers, Love shall be;
For hearts, Immutability;
And there, on the Ideal Reef,
Thunders the Everlasting Sea!
And my laughter, and my pain,
Shall home to the Eternal Brain.
And all lovely things, they say,
Meet in Loveliness again;
Miri's laugh, Teipo's feet,
And the hands of Matua,
Stars and sunlight there shall meet,
Coral's hues and rainbows there,
And Teura's braided hair;
And with the starred 'tiare's' white,
And white birds in the dark ravine,
And 'flamboyants' ablaze at night,
And jewels, and evening's after-green,
And dawns of pearl and gold and red,
Mamua, your lovelier head!
And there'll no more be one who dreams
Under the ferns, of crumbling stuff,
Eyes of illusion, mouth that seems,
All time-entangled human love.
And you'll no longer swing and sway
Divinely down the scented shade,
Where feet to Ambulation fade,
And moons are lost in endless Day.
How shall we wind these wreaths of ours,
Where there are neither heads nor flowers?
Oh, Heaven's Heaven! -- - but we'll be missing
The palms, and sunlight, and the south;
And there's an end, I think, of kissing,
When our mouths are one with Mouth. . . .
'Tau here', Mamua,
Crown the hair, and come away!
Hear the calling of the moon,
And the whispering scents that stray
About the idle warm lagoon.
Hasten, hand in human hand,
Down the dark, the flowered way,
Along the whiteness of the sand,
And in the water's soft caress,
Wash the mind of foolishness,
Mamua, until the day.
Spend the glittering moonlight there
Pursuing down the soundless deep
Limbs that gleam and shadowy hair,
Or floating lazy, half-asleep.
Dive and double and follow after,
Snare in flowers, and kiss, and call,
With lips that fade, and human laughter
And faces individual,
Well this side of Paradise! . . .
There's little comfort in the wise.

Rupert Brooke, Papeete, February 1914


. The Great Lover

I HAVE been so great a lover: filled my days
So proudly with the splendour of Love's praise,
The pain, the calm, and the astonishment,
Desire illimitable, and still content,
And all dear names men use, to cheat despair,
For the perplexed and viewless streams that bear
Our hearts at random down the dark of life.
Now, ere the unthinking silence on that strife
Steals down, I would cheat drowsy Death so far,
My night shall be remembered for a star
That outshone all the suns of all men's days.
Shall I not crown them with immortal praise
Whom I have loved, who have given me, dared with me
High secrets, and in darkness knelt to see
The inenarrable godhead of delight?
Love is a flame; -- - we have beaconed the world's night.
A city: -- - and we have built it, these and I.
An emperor: -- - we have taught the world to die.
So, for their sakes I loved, ere I go hence,
And the high cause of Love's magnificence,
And to keep loyalties young, I'll write those names
Golden for ever, eagles, crying flames,
And set them as a banner, that men may know,
To dare the generations, burn, and blow
Out on the wind of Time, shining and streaming. . . .
These I have loved:
                            White plates and cups, clean-gleaming,
Ringed with blue lines; and feathery, færy dust;
Wet roofs, beneath the lamp-light; the strong crust
Of friendly bread; and many-tasting food;
Rainbows; and the blue bitter smoke of wood;
And radiant raindrops couching in cool flowers;
And flowers themselves, that sway through sunny hours,
Dreaming of moths that drink them under the moon;
Then, the cool kindliness of sheets, that soon
Smooth away trouble; and the rough male kiss
Of blankets; grainy wood; live hair that is
Shining and free; blue-massing clouds; the keen
Unpassioned beauty of a great machine;
The benison of hot water; furs to touch;
The good smell of old clothes; and other such -- -
The comfortable smell of friendly fingers,
Hair's fragrance, and the musty reek that lingers
About dead leaves and last year's ferns. . . .
                            Dear names,
And thousand other throng to me! Royal flames;
Sweet water's dimpling laugh from tap or spring;
Holes in the ground; and voices that do sing;
Voices in laughter, too; and body's pain,
Soon turned to peace; and the deep-panting train;
Firm sands; the little dulling edge of foam
That browns and dwindles as the wave goes home;
And washen stones, gay for an hour; the cold
Graveness of iron; moist black earthen mould;
Sleep; and high places; footprints in the dew;
And oaks; and brown horse-chestnuts, glossy-new;
And new-peeled sticks; and shining pools on grass; -- -
All these have been my loves. And these shall pass,
Whatever passes not, in the great hour,
Nor all my passion, all my prayers, have power
To hold them with me through the gate of Death.
They'll play deserter, turn with the traitor breath,
Break the high bond we made, and sell Love's trust
And sacramented covenant to the dust.
---- Oh, never a doubt but, somewhere, I shall wake,
And give what's left of love again, and make
New friends, now strangers. . . .
                            But the best I've known,
Stays here, and changes, breaks, grows old, is blown
About the winds of the world, and fades from brains
Of living men, and dies.
                            Nothing remains.
O dear my loves, O faithless, once again
This one last gift I give: that after men
Shall know, and later lovers, far-removed,
Praise you, "All these were lovely"; say, "He loved."

Rupert Brooke, Mataiea, 1914


. Heaven

FISH (fly-replete, in depth of June,
Dawdling away their wat'ry noon)
Ponder deep wisdom, dark or clear,
Each secret fishy hope or fear.
Fish say, they have their Stream and Pond;
But is there anything Beyond?
This life cannot be All, they swear,
For how unpleasant, if it were!
One may not doubt that, somehow, Good
Shall come of Water and of Mud;
And, sure, the reverent eye must see
A Purpose in Liquidity.
We darkly know, by Faith we cry,
The future is not Wholly Dry.
Mud unto mud! -- - Death eddies near -- -
Not here the appointed End, not here!
But somewhere, beyond Space and Time.
Is wetter water, slimier slime!
And there (they trust) there swimmeth One
Who swam ere rivers were begun,
Immense, of fishy form and mind,
Squamous, omnipotent, and kind;
And under that Almighty Fin,
The littlest fish may enter in.
Oh! never fly conceals a hook,
Fish say, in the Eternal Brook,
But more than mundane weeds are there,
And mud, celestially fair;
Fat caterpillars drift around,
And Paradisal grubs are found;
Unfading moths, immortal flies,
And the worm that never dies.
And in that Heaven of all their wish,
There shall be no more land, say fish.


. There's Wisdom in Women

"OH LOVE is fair, and love is rare;" my dear one she said,
"But love goes lightly over." I bowed her foolish head,
And kissed her hair and laughed at her. Such a child was she;
So new to love, so true to love, and she spoke so bitterly.
But there's wisdom in women, of more than they have known,
And thoughts go blowing through them, are wiser than their own,
Or how should my dear one, being ignorant and young,
Have cried on love so bitterly, with so true a tongue?


. A Memory (From a sonnet-sequence)

SOMEWHILE before the dawn I rose, and stept
Softly along the dim way to your room,
And found you sleeping in the quiet gloom,
And holiness about you as you slept.
I knelt there; till your waking fingers crept
About my head, and held it. I had rest
Unhoped this side of Heaven, beneath your breast.
I knelt a long time, still; nor even wept.
It was great wrong you did me; and for gain
Of that poor moment's kindliness, and ease,
And sleepy mother-comfort!
                            Child, you know
How easily love leaps out to dreams like these,
Who has seen them true. And love that's wakened so
Takes all too long to lay asleep again.

Rupert Brooke, Waikiki, October 1913


. One Day

TODAY I have been happy. All the day
I held the memory of you, and wove
Its laughter with the dancing light o' the spray,
And sowed the sky with tiny clouds of love,
And sent you following the white waves of sea,
And crowned your head with fancies, nothing worth,
Stray buds from that old dust of misery,
Being glad with a new foolish quiet mirth.
So lightly I played with those dark memories,
Just as a child, beneath the summer skies,
Plays hour by hour with a strange shining stone,
For which (he knows not) towns were fire of old,
And love has been betrayed, and ****** done,
And great kings turned to a little bitter mould.

Rupert Brooke, The Pacific, October 1913


. Waikiki

WARM perfumes like a breath from vine and tree
      Drift down the darkness. Plangent, hidden from eyes
      Somewhere an 'eukaleli' thrills and cries
And stabs with pain the night's brown savagery.
And dark scents whisper; and dim waves creep to me,
      Gleam like a woman's hair, stretch out, and rise;
      And new stars burn into the ancient skies,
Over the murmurous soft Hawaian sea.
And I recall, lose, grasp, forget again,
      And still remember, a tale I have heard, or known,
An empty tale, of idleness and pain,
      Of two that loved -- - or did not love -- - and one
Whose perplexed heart did evil, foolishly,
A long while since, and by some other sea.

Rupert Brooke, Waikiki, 1913



OTHER POEMS

The Busy Heart

NOW that we've done our best and worst, and parted,
      I would fill my mind with thoughts that will not rend.
(O heart, I do not dare go empty-hearted)
      I'll think of Love in books, Love without end;
Women with child, content; and old men sleeping;
      And wet strong ploughlands, scarred for certain grain;
And babes that weep, and so forget their weeping;
      And the young heavens, forgetful after rain;
And evening hush, broken by homing wings;
      And Song's nobility, and Wisdom holy,
That live, we dead. I would think of a thousand things,
      Lovely and durable, and taste them slowly,
One after one, like tasting a sweet food.
I have need to busy my heart with quietude.


. Love

LOVE is a breach in the walls, a broken gate,
      Where that comes in that shall not go again;
Love sells the proud heart's citadel to Fate.
      They have known shame, who love unloved. Even then,
When two mouths, thirsty each for each, find slaking,
      And agony's forgot, and hushed the crying
Of credulous hearts, in heaven -- - such are but taking
      Their own poor dreams within their arms, and lying
Each in his lonely night, each with a ghost.
      Some share that night. But they know love grows colder,
Grows false and dull, that was sweet lies at most.
      Astonishment is no more in hand or shoulder,
But darkens, and dies out from kiss to kiss.
All this is love; and all love is but this.


. Unfortunate

HEART, you are restless as a paper scrap
      That's tossed down dusty pavements by the wind;
      Saying, "She is most wise, patient and kind.
Between the small hands folded in her lap
Surely a shamed head may bow down at length,
      And find forgiveness where the shadows stir
About her lips, and wisdom in her strength,
      Peace in her peace. Come to her, come to her!" . . .
She will not care. She'll smile to see me come,
      So that I think all Heaven in flower to fold me.
      She'll give me all I ask, kiss me and hold me,
           And open wide upon that holy air
The gates of peace, and take my tiredness home,
           Kinder than God. But, heart, she will not care.


. The Chilterns

YOUR hands, my dear, adorable,
      Your lips of tenderness
-- Oh, I've loved you faithfully and well,
      Three years, or a bit less.
      It wasn't a success.
Thank God, that's done! and I'll take the road,
      Quit of my youth and you,
The Roman road to Wendover
      By Tring and Lilley Hoo,
      As a free man may do.
For youth goes over, the joys that fly,
      The tears that follow fast;
And the dirtiest things we do must lie
      Forgotten at the last;
      Even Love goes past.
What's left behind I shall not find,
      The splendour and the pain;
The splash of sun, the shouting wind,
      And the brave sting of rain,
      I may not meet again.
But the years, that take the best away,
      Give something in the end;
And a better friend than love have they,
      For none to mar or mend,
      That have themselves to friend.
I shall desire and I shall find
      The best of my desires;
The autumn road, the mellow wind
      That soothes the darkening shires.
      And laughter, and inn-fires.
White mist about the black hedgerows,
      The slumbering Midland plain,
The silence where the clover grows,
      And the dead leaves in the lane,
      Certainly, these remain.
And I shall find some girl perhaps,
      And a better one than you,
With eyes as wise, but kindlier,
      And lips as soft, but true.
      And I daresay she will do.


. Home

I CAME back late and tired last night
      Into my little room,
To the long chair and the firelight
      And comfortable gloom.
But as I entered softly in
      I saw a woman there,
The line of neck and cheek and chin,
      The darkness of her hair,
The form of one I did not know
      Sitting in my chair.
I stood a moment fierce and still,
      Watching her neck and hair.
I made a step to her; and saw
      That there was no one there.
It was some trick of the firelight
      That made me see her there.
It was a chance of shade and light
      And the cushion in the chair.
Oh, all you happy over the earth,
      That night, how could I sleep?
I lay and watched the lonely gloom;
      And watched the moonlight creep
From wall to basin, round the room,
      All night I could not sleep.



. Beauty and Beauty

WHEN Beauty and Beauty meet
      All naked, fair to fair,
The earth is crying-sweet,
      And scattering-bright the air,
Eddying, dizzying, closing round,
      With soft and drunken laughter;
Veiling all that may befall
      After -- - after -- -
Where Beauty and Beauty met,
      Earth's still a-tremble there,
And winds are scented yet,
      And memory-soft the air,
Bosoming, folding glints of light,
      And shreds of shadowy laughter;
Not the tears that fill the years
      After -- - after -- -


. The Way That Lovers Use

THE way that lovers use is this;
      They bow, catch hands, with never a word,
And their lips meet, and they do kiss,
      -- - So I have heard.
They queerly find some healing so,
      And strange attainment in the touch;
There is a secret lovers know,
      -- - I have read as much.
And theirs no longer joy nor smart,
      Changing or ending, night or day;
But mouth to mouth, and heart on heart,
      -- - So lovers say.


1908 - 1911

Sonnet: "Oh! Death will find me, long before I tire"

OH! DEATH will find me, long before I tire
Of watching you; and swing me suddenly
Into the shade and loneliness and mire
Of the last land! There, waiting patiently,
One day, I think, I'll feel a cool wind blowing,
See a slow light across the Stygian tide,
And hear the Dead about me stir, unknowing,
And tremble. And I shall know that you have died,
And watch you, a broad-browed and smiling dream,
Pass, light as ever, through the lightless host,
Quietly ponder, start, and sway, and gleam -- -
Most individual and bewildering ghost! -- -
And turn, and toss your brown delightful head
Amusedly, among the ancient Dead.


. Sonnet: "I said I splendidly loved you; it's not true"

I SAID I splendidly loved you; it's not true.
Such long swift tides stir not a land-locked sea.
On gods or fools the high risk falls -- - on you -- -
The clean clear bitter-sweet that's not for me.
Love soars from earth to ecstasies unwist.
Love is flung Lucifer-like from Heaven to Hell.
But -- - there are wanderers in the middle mist,
Who cry for sh

it's real easy to feel like
we've done it all
wrong

phenomenal fuckyes then
phantasmagoric fear ragers
perpetual pity *******
blood middle knuckle crush
regretful bets hedged
hunched frozen tongues
and pointy unsaids

but sometimes
with mind wide-eyed
and heart roots writhing

I've seen it
way differently

a vantage point
where pushpull face-plants
are winning lotto tickets

because maybe
we were kindling of yes
unable to keep it burning yet
and we would have fumbled it
far beyond repair

I'm fairly certain
our heartfelt invites
to instant cohabitation
would have ended
painfully
badly

traumas tripping
over hair triggers
in a 3-legged race
two smoking pistols
and four red feet

even Hello
seems too intense
to mouth

and from this
particular perspective
I can see how
every decision made in fear
led to whinging karmarang
tied with two strings

I daresay
one day we might
look back with a smile
that it went down this way

because the initial who
were not strong enough
to shoulder the immensity
nor surrendered enough
to float the fragility
of newborn carbon
gossamer whorl

in fact
I push all my chips
toward that

maybe there is
fortune in false starts
we make plans
but I bet The One
has better ones

so I'm pretty sure
we should sit down
and listen

for that breeze
to whisper

It must have taken you a terribly long time
To plot your mischievous plan that day.
You waited for the perfect moment to commit the crime.
And I daresay,
Your well-executed scheme, taking place in trigonometry
Brought me pain
And sorrow.
Your need for my pencil resembles idolatry.
I may never love the same
Or let another person "borrow"

I am but a rose of beginning green,*
imprisoned to darkness all day,
within a monumental fiend,
who covers up the radiance that I want to give away

Occasionally a small opening would be sewn
into the darkness' fiery grasp
and your pure radiance could be shown
concealed in a kindhearted mask

Share your light with me
and for you I will light the way
wrapped in an unfamiliar livery
prepared for our intimacy till the end of our days

We will cross waters on a homebound stretch
and become fuel for our endurance,
so beautifully etched

I'll take my chances, following the sun
the garden we grow
means that together, we are one

Share your light with me,
and forever I will stay.
my petals can become your livery
we need each other, I daresay.

Your eyes tell me to kiss you,
So I come to you and say kiss me
You don't say yes,
But you don't say no
And I get lost in the body language.
I thought I knew how to read it,
But the wine says otherwise,
So I say kiss me again,
Yet you tell me you're not ready,
For I haven't said you're beautiful enough,
I don't say another phrase,
Nor do I try a different approach,
I remain true to what I read from you
Towards me,
I might be wrong,
It wouldn't be the first time,
I daresay neither the last.

The whole thing smells like chlorine, which is extremely unsettling because chlorine always tastes green and a lot like hereditary paranoia. These pants were only two washes  removed from brand new, and now there's a slit in the knee, a slit as precise as the shape my eyes make when I'm suspicious of wanderlusting newcomers who moonlight in my former prison cell.  And I'm unsure if I should call it like I'd like it to be and say the **** things were defective or if I should investigate further as to where I placed my legs while hacking bits of plastic.

I'm TIRED of hacking at bits of plastic. I daresay if things start looking up, I could get there. I'm desperate, while this pumpkin-leaf hole grows in my chest, I'm realizing I'll never get to Lancaster at this rate. Sure, sure, I'm obsessed. I also have a blonde tail hanging from a tack on my shelf and a lot of cards tacked to my wall. They either resemble a quilt, a window or a complete mess.

I'm relying on plastic cups and the Internet to continuously foster this false sense of belonging. And I don't want to shatter it, but I'm terrified by the threat of a midterm and I feel trapped by my own sky. I mean, have you SEEN the prices for quaint bed and breakfasts? But the sad truth is, I would be haunted by insurmountable guilt at leaving her behind. The cash flow isn't flowing, either. I'm thinking I'll have to forget about it and sit at my shiny laptop on an empty desk, staring at the cottage cheese ceiling and wondering if God is looking back.

If I think back to the time
that I am fond of most
I think it would have to be
drifting in the boat
peacefulness was abundant
on that summer day
floating about aimlessly
playing funny games

Looking to the sky I seen
a hole right through th clouds
so I fantasized that it was
a time warp here and now
I wondered if I'd get ****** in
if I went below
but all that came through it was
a lovely rainbow

It came down to the surface
and from there it did grow
So I thought that maybe this mirage
wouldn't go
but it faded quickly
into the growing mist
there I saw a dragon
its tail slowly flicked
as it let a deep roar
from its parted lips

I daresay I was mezmerized
by this very sight
this is why to this day
I shudder with the fright
of seeing something so unique
it cannot be explained
I can only chalk it up
to the games the mind can play

Within his paw
smeared bloodied red
by a deliberately mocking thorn
sat a
blanched ripple-y
guarachera strip of cloth
confined narrowly
between the love and the life lines.

TWO ROADS!

what remained of her
remained of the underthings
beneath

fluffing rows of silk
the heavy skirt had been raised
above the ankles
the creases no longer hidden in shadow,
one leg hoisted over the back,
the reigns held expertly.

Hey Beauty!
As it happens, the card numbered Eight is
Strength (also Lust)

She had surely fled
She has surely flown
through the trees and away
Not on foot at-all
while the three saw her pass.
great speed.
The two sisters
with that prince vulgaris looking on
curiously
Three daemon goblins watching from a distance
a disturbance
a smallish crashing
and afterwards
a scrap, sleepy and unfurled, relaxed
within the leaves that shudder
and give up the delicacy, slyly
into stubby fingers

Lovely
Dark
Deep
The Woods are Laughing!
Did you notice any scent?
Did it linger between
the thumb and the ring?
the remnant of her flowers,
Petals flouncing, swirling
in odorous potentiality.
a scrap, yes
a deep seated souvenir
Can we re-fabricate the whole from this little thing, you think?

we want her.
there are things that we want to do with her.

dangerous, they lean in close, nostrils flaring slightly
searching for the ambergris or the sticky  jasmine
sweet,
settling instead to gaze upon
the still clutched
still a little springy
sprightly, o! the remnants of her liveliness
and ***** and yet
No memories

3: at least let us show you the stage that we’ve built
with a clean sheet for the curtain,
paper cut-outs
and some sticks.
it’s called acting.
the wine and the wafer.
hidden in the trees’ darkening
‘the mattress’ lays where
the leaves will crumple

meanwhile, he’s petulant:
- why, if you’d just get off of that high horse!
- how long are you going to resist?
- are you STILL angry?
- why won’t you just let me stick it in you?

she telegraphs her response, cough:
‘you do know that in this
particular scenario
(fingers pointing downward and across
as if to suggest
that the scenario
had a specific location)
You are the wolf, right?
The wolf...

I, the girl,
am in the forest with my basket and
I have got a
cute little
blood red
crushed velvet
swing coat
With matching hood and a single task
And YOU
(with those other two *******) have decided
to bore ME with this ****?
Daresay slow ME down?
Of course I will get rid of YOU.
Wait, who am I talking to?

Let me also add that
there never has been any
high-stepping on my part,
nor ankle twirling,
no mandate to impress a stale balcony,
no sign of gaslit
illuminated
pink bows
that lay down flat
perfectly upon the straps
that snap
perfectly at the thigh,
NOT to be slid off a buttock (mine)
NOR crumpled into a dubious ball, ripped and torn
and yet I know that
that determined creature,
a hairy monster
more faithful than Argos,
is prepared
to wait a lazy eight
at grannie’s cozy house
in a sickly corner
over-eager and overwrought with
pandered fantasies
and explosions of once sort or another, irrelevant to me.

What I WILL admit to is
that the touch of those grubby fingers
transubstantiated at my waist
invisible
approach
as usual from behind
impatient and
impractical,
always too quick to make himself a beast
to rid himself of being a man

knowing how way
leads onto way
but I doubt if I should ever come back’

Breathe unto lifeless form
Heartbeats sailing on jagged rocks
Inside is a turbulent storm
Of a cynic who mocks

Oh Joy, that infernal thing
Have no use for it, that devil
Anguish it will always bring
Nay, to it I'll not be civil

Curse it, curse myself
Fleeting smiles untethered
Flight at once with deft
Never lastingly fettered

Price too high, I daresay
Sweetness leaves a sour taste
For the brave willing to pay
Would I do so in haste?

we sit. weary pupils dilate as we watch
the dying day mourn lilac tears onto
rosy cloud-cheeks,
eyes widen like it's an action movie
and the night has begun to wake
its warriors - or worse,
it's a documentary, and
someone's burning van gogh's stars
back into oblivion. lord, we're watching
universes fall and bleed
-but the film stops there.
our sentiments are unscripted,
it's just that chill that creeps up our
collars and strokes our
amygdalae enviously-
               and i daresay, to our sightcaptor
        who begins to reach her way in
                    and withdraw, simultaneously,
      i dare speak:

          do
          not
        touch
          me

but it's hard to stay cool
when you love the face of the sun
and must sing her to sleep.

"...our poor romance was for a moment reflected, pondered upon, and dismissed like a dull party, like a rainy picnic to which only the dullest bores had come, like a humdrum exercise, like a bit of dry mud caking her childhood." V Nabokov

How easy it is to confuse love with hatred
Like what they poured on your soul was acid
Slowly but surely the two opposites bounded
Every moment you spent is now clouded
Welcome to the moment you dreaded

Because slowly that hate disappears
Was it numbed by all those beers?
No, I'm just tired of the pasts' sneers
"Remember? He made you happy!
No, I'm just tired of all those tears
Now it's your heart that hurts with my spears

All those pains faded away
Elsewhere, I led them astray
You're dead to me, go decay
I don't love you, I daresay
Surprise! Viciousness is my forte.

2/24/2015

  The magpies sang up in the rushes– it was the second hottest day of that winter, the gilded winter specific silver sun (for the light seems brass or golden other times) parading through the glass of cars and storefronts and painting people's faces as they looked through.

  This light seems to be extremely influential in visual memory– in fact, I daresay if it were not for the light I would not be writing this.
  Wallace Stevens stated plainly and succinctly once, sweetly ochre, that the origin of love is one often hotly pursued, but its fluttering fashion has so distinct a shade, at its birth, that one can immediately tell.

  And so speaking on the similar topic of distinct fluttering things, Adrienne Rich said herself that love is given much poetic attention- that lust, too, is a jewel. And is it not? It seems more at times that *** removed from love or emotional background is more interesting.

     After all, weren't princedoms in the past running to the brim with more ******* children than actual heirs? Weren't steppe chateaus and inconspicuous inns in the ravine crawling cities put in place for politicians' mistresses?

     Digressing, these were all thoughts sitting on my shelf sitting in the Mitsubishi backseat. "This space is... surprisingly big eh?" I remarked, puffing on a perique, and he'd laughed a little, and I didn't realize what I said, and so then I laughed more.

   Is it possible to separate the after *** phenomenon found in one stemming from casual circumstances from the one in an emotional commitment? The sweet subtleties came to the surface for the very first time since I'd last loved.

    What subtleties? It may sound puerile, but a particular kiss– we were discussing the epitome of innocence in nature and I said that the range is the only place I feel a riveting sense of Puritan complacency. With this he was so struck he kissed me- no more nor less than 3 seconds. It is a very particular kiss that cannot be described- not a ****** one, but one that proves humans are physically social animals.

   It took us both by surprise. This casual sense of security and flushed faces and closure that i hadn't felt with any other casual passive passing people, I felt, was closely tied to a platonic love and admiration.

  Dopamine and oxytocin are released upon ******. It goes back to my Freudian beliefs of human reproduction being exclusive Machiavellian. The reason that oxytocin is released specifically is because it bonds- in fact, it makes the partners want to physically stay together, so in the eyes of biology they can make more children.

  Funny how science works, and funny how that's the way things were programmed to be, however humans as insolent as always found aways around. But the body prevails and so the sense of casual confidence and closeness endured.

   There has never been an instance where I have been more sure that I am not romantically interested in a person, and yet I feel this platonic adoration as strong as my romantic feelings- of course there is something tweaked, if it wasn't, It wouldn't be platonic.
  I have to ask myself if platonic love challenges romantic love, or it is a completely different name all on itself. Or perhaps I  should consider that the reason I am looking at this so hazily was because of the silver winter light.

I'm not in love
with your words

I'm in love with
the way you think

not just
delighted,
entertained,
endlessly curious,
sufficiently bewildered
and longing to climb inside
the gears tick-tocking your mind

but that your brain takes me
into a state of utter awe
blissing me still

it's looking into
this distorted hologram
mirror where I'm seeing
more of me, but from
different perspectives
than the usual 2D
similar to me, yet,
inversely intriguing

it's live and undulate
reflective truth serum
rooting me in now

that's why I slid
right down your throat -
I speak your language
and apparently intuitively
know how to crack you
allkindsa open

(even if it takes a
white-hot light year
and unprecedented doses)

it's like with you
I'm the me-est me
I can be
it's so

magically delicious
I don't try to escape
inside me anywhere

you make me want to
be more here
with you

on the outside

share all the parts
I learned it best to hide
on the in

though I know
it's a wee bit ******,
if these treatises become
merely the sheer prologue
to The Most Unbelievable Tale
of Mystical Love Perhaps Ever Spun

the fact that
seeing you is
seeing me
means

loving you is
loving me too

this could be
- so -
healthy

like shots of
marine phytoplankton
chased with green smoothie

and my ponderings
keep meandering
around this one thing:

what happens when
it gets to the point where
your pictures painted of me
completely override
my false stories

- forevermore -

when I eat
so much of the mirror
I become - fully -
the me I see
through your
Windexed eyes

I daresay
that’s levitating off
the porch of full potential
outside our diamond-cut pyramid
with the gold-engraved signage
hanging in front of our
intergalactic portal

where one
might have
once

looked for a door

that now seems
completely archaic
and unnecessary

it’s not that i was
made this way
it’s that i was forged
in the fires this way

born
blank
formless
ready to become
something
someone

raised behind
fragile glass walls
they tapped on
and i could not
defend myself without
cracking the seal
and being blamed
for destruction

until one day
the fire came
burning around my feet
and i had
to get
out

i smashed the glass
shards in my fists
blood on my knuckles
and i’ve been fighting
ever since
that day

i was not
supposed to be this way
i was supposed to be
a fragile china doll
but this is who
i ended up

a fighter
a warrior
an impudent
little girl who
doesn’t know
when to quit

supposed to faint
at the sight of blood
not be someone who
seeks it out

supposed to be
meek
and mild
mousy

not loud
and bouncy
chatty
impulsive
or daresay
even funny

but i am
a fighter
and i will not
be stopped
i refuse to be
walked over
for any longer
than i already have

and taking my
power back means
sometimes i must
punch
sometimes i must
snarl
bare my teeth and
sharpen my nails

but it also means
sometimes i must
stand
with all the power
i know i possess
underneath the
surface
hold it back

allow my spine
to straighten
and my shoulders
to stretch

remember words like
imposing
badass
competent
and for all i have felt
that i take up too
much space in this
body of mine
i am this size because
nothing smaller
could contain
what i have inside

let my full
height rise
and my full
weight surmise
to anyone and
everyone that i

might not always spit
fire and flames
but there is a furnace
roaring at my feet

There is a place that cannot be found
by those who search for it.
Something was left for us there
but how can we go to it?
To find a place that cannot be found
one must first be lost.

The arcane location
hidden deep by abstraction,
Lies out yonder in the streets.
On the horizon skyline, and beyond,
Illuminated in the half-light
of the setting sun.

With our quest set,
We venture forth.
The map is incomplete
so we'll wander north.
Intoxication is our compass,
Company is our key.

Adventure is a thing
that cannot be taught.
All else I daresay is
X marks the spot.

beneath   her   feet
   her   most  daring
   feet
   that  traversed
   the murky waters
   of    dawn, past  mountainsides
  of  prayers,   stallions  the blackest mare
   love combined,  daresay   silence   annuls
   the    noise   of heart   and the  shadow
   casts its  darkest immaterial   stone

beneath    her   feet
    her  most  daring
    feet
    the    dead    continue
 ­   to   bury the   living
   and the    living    excites
    the    demanded hue   of another   blue
     to hold close   into the   sky
     whose    also    darling   feet   dangle
     much    like     water’s    fervent  collapse
    mantling   the   rivers,    miles you have
   walked   without     images    of I

beneath her    feet
   her most   beautiful    feet
    we   go   wind  by   wind in   excess
    of    days
    in   the night’s   blackest   dress    soiled
  by     light    is inmost    dance   instep,
     curated   from   machineries
   beneath her feet
    your     feet    I    adore
  which   bony prominences    hurdle
   me     weak,    ruined,
where    I    lay  
is   always  the   cradle    of   Earth
   your    feet and   I beneath
  them,   emerging   from   the  possible   life
    of    leaves   in   birdflight,

beneath    your    feet
    your     cold    feet,   unrelenting
on    the    unkind    tomb   of   my body
      your   swift   drop    of    feet,  their
superfluous   coming-and-going
   love    landing    on my  body – trampled,   weighed down
  beneath   your    feet,
    your    most darling    feet.

doubled & folded a two way mirror
see the blush on a pale bottom,
it is as white as me

read a book on “how to be a ghost”
working as crows fornicate,
black, love made with dead bodies

i floated over the lot of them
and i was so afraid, i did not know
what was seen on the other side

car lights, a saint to pick up roadkill
do not forget that ghosts watch
the birds echo, they might

verses were rehearsed & daresay
written on a couple dimes
we both have wings

while we both have wings,
i cannot fly –
oh, crows not the white of doves

i am dead & they eat my color, alive
fern to shield beads and eyes
*****, pricking red bowels inside

should not know for literature
god’s couple of miles higher than
what the good book claimed

and he watches us from a mirror
the other side of a stage
we look so ugly, the crows eat my face.

these winding, blind itineraries
  and their purposeful turns;
  bends on the wry pavements,

  their naming of things
awaiting the return of memory
  with an auspice, or a head with bounty,

  i am but a bamboo in
    the wind — slender gymnast
supple ground's tenement,
   or daresay honestly, a creeping into
the world with roots close to
   heartland, this poem
now, without feet and my eyes
    with surgery-precision ruptures
the softness of all things held close
   and divine like a secret,

swimmingly
   light coming in
unabashed rooms
   here now is a poem,
a homecoming.

Tried to listen to your silent words,
To decipher those blank eyes mysterious,
But Love! Your soul is that still water,
which runs very deep, deeper and deeper...

Tried to read those troubling thoughts,
Those that are venomously eating you up,
Tried to think of a reason for your closed fists,
But, a smile that covered up your trembling lips,
made all my efforts go in vain...

But, I can daresay, that the smile that,
dances on your lips is not a genuine one.
And, that the cold silence that exists between us,
is far away from the comforting one that we once shared, long ago...

I wish, I could stay by your side,
through all your trials and tribulations.
I wish, I could, help you, and we would,
together win this dark, monstrous fight...

I wish, I could, make you smile wholeheartedly,
and never let those tears fall from your eyes.
I remember that lost smile of yours, darling!
which made my tired heart, beat up endlessly, all over again...

I wish, I was near you, my angel,
to rid you of all your terrible miseries,
I wish, you were not just a mere picture on my bedside table,
I was staring at... hopelessly, helplessly....

To thy “stranger”, I would say:
Wouldst thee with flaming embers play?
What wouldst thou give me, for my lore?
A service, or gift from a distant shore?
Ah, I have it—give me a Kiss
I’ll be satisfied with this
“A trifle!" Yea, I do not jest
Since curiosity will not rest
I deem this the fairest price
For my confession of many a vice
In good faith I deign to wait—
‘til my tale is done—thy lips to sate
Sit, for though this tale is short
Thou art my guest in this misted Court

I am a child with a demon’s heart
A confection with a center ****
Through my veins runs not vampyr’s liquor
Rather, ground glass and honey are my ichor
Silk and lace may conceal the malice
But even such are stained, like a tarnished chalice
Raiment white I wear no longer
Storm and night by far are stronger

Tainted as the tainted come
Lust I’ve tasted, and then some
The sweet bite of teeth I’ve often felt
But mine own claws have more damage dealt
For how can shadows of bruises compare
To the unhealed slashes beneath my hair?

But lesser are all blades, fangs, and claws
Than the candied toxins from these tiny jaws
Words—not spells—in many tongues
Physic’ly powered by caged lungs
Caressing, weaving, setting hearts a-daze
Twisting, stabbing, fiery raze
Finally, sever, the building craze
Suffering will not this parasite faze

Their fresh hot tears—my wine
But at Death I draw the line
Darkness in an Angel’s guise
Deception, too, I despise
I can die
But cannot lie

Why so pale and trembling, my dear?
I daresay I know what will give thee cheer
Have my lips—a gift, not a payment
Into the void thy fears will be sent
Thou wilst forget all thy joys and regret
And stay for eternity, as my human pet…

How may I say this, with a face so merry?
Why, ‘tis simple—I am a faerie

IV

Dear Frank,

My father, who was the wisest man I ever knew,
thought it the duty of every man, young & old,
to keep an account of his money;
& I very unwillingly obeyed him;
for I was not always so bothersome
an old fellow as I daresay I appear to you. . . .

My dear Father,

I have sent cheque to a repeated bill from Griffin.
A thermometer has come from Kew,
For which I have also paid.

I go on maundering about the pulvinus,
& from what I have seen roughly
in the petioles of the Cotyledons of oxalis,
I conclude that a pulvinus
must be developed from ordinary cells.

I have tried watering Porliera out of doors,
I gave four small cans full in the day
& next morning it was wide open
though for several days before it had been shut.
The ***-plant is very unhealthy I am afraid
As its leaves are dropping off at the stalk.

I was very glad to find that Sachs is dead
against all the people that find
the Descendenz theory in
Ray, Lamarck, Goethe &c.;
Sachs says that he believes some ferns
of the family Marratiaceae sleep . . .

Dear F,

I have finished the long chapter on Sleeping Plants
& sent it to Mr Norman to copy & diagrams to Mr
Cooper.

I am now looking over piles of notes on Heliotropism.
I am more perplexed than ever about life of Dr. D:
Hen thinks it very dull, & wants it much shortened &
otherwise arranged. Erasmus likes it.
Your mother wants parts shortened.
I shall take it on Aug. 1st to the Lakes
& finish it there.

I am tired— Ever yours
C. Darwin

It's the message left,
The light blinking on the answering machine
The buzzing of the lonely phone on your dresser
The offline message ne'er received
She's whirling about the world
Living to make a living
Often becoming invisible to all others

Here I open my heart to let you read it
For I do not pester without a point
Many moons shave been used to consider
Now I wish to climb down from my pillar

I dare to sacrifice proximity for distance
I consider the reward worth the costs
For over three scores of moon I knew your heart
Yet, now, I daresay seek to meet it again.

A single thread
of hope versus disaster.
breaks and withers
and shadows all that gloom.
a doubled emotion
like an ecstatic current;
so no, please don't...

fading along with thoughts
and the waves of time;
add it up with this and that,
hands intertwined.

wishes and dreams
of pink and purple,
of yellows & greens;
a wide-opened eye
and a closed fist.
how can you ever embrace
that fate you've missed?

to stand underneath all that seeds
and speak of what may be;
who can tell my path
or the road's wrath?

prickly and improper;
it is what they say.
barefoot naked hereafter,
until then daresay,
no more.

I was going to write about the moon tonight,
but between Vanilla scented candles
and multicolored Christmas lights
I daresay I lost track
of time.
Stuck somewhere between
heavenly and surreal
I was reminded why so many people simply
don't open their eyes.
Existence such as this
doesn't happen everyday
and it seems we get caught
chasing the moon.
Desperate for a sip
of her honeycomb,
thinking we're too far to reach,
not knowing all the world's
a stage
and the moon's
the
only
one
watching.

I took to rage in a fading moment,
Tho such a bore is not my burden-
No, I will not daresay that the omen
Of the Earth may purge me of any sin
That devilish pride had indulged in.
I have no opportunity to daydream.
Some call it passion-that sea of flames!
It is but the throes of such mad desire.
If I can dream-Oh Lord! I need strength!
Its origin is more sacred-more sacrosanct.

I shall not deem thee fair game, & so retire
From this attack, little birdie on the wire.

i am trying not to think about
your gentle voice, your soft touch,
the first day you met me:
i felt your eyes, fixed on me as i
tried to sing in harmony.
did you know, then, that i would come to mean this much to you
and you, me?
in the split second our eyes met
i daresay i felt - something.
i'm still trying not to think about ***.

you know that i'm the type to believe
in how everything happens for a reason and
there is a reason why you are there and i am here.
five months went by in a whirlwind,
and where we were picked up we've ended up
apart, again.
four years and a heartbeat later,
who knows where we'll be?

a reason, a reason, a reason.
you be the logic, i'll be the heart.
but somewhere further down, i know you have it too.
maybe even a bit too much, shrouded in the mystery that is
hidden behind the fortress you have built up around yourself.
i tried to break it down but you always said, "in time".
time, indeed, is what we have.
but time itself does not breed answers
for the answers themselves have already been bred.

and in that everything does happen for a reason -
maybe this is what we're meant to be.
i do wish that life wouldn't be so cruel but
i suppose life has its redeeming qualities too.
(anyway, i guess i kind of like where we are.
i'd rather have this than nothing at all,
and i've never really been one for risk-taking.)
we are the paths we choose to take
and i'll walk with you, down every road
because she may have been with you through your worst,
but everything is relative.
capacity doesn't mean anything;
for as someone once said,
it's the heart that really matters in the end.

sometimes
while I sleep
I flee the world
from which i've grown
I know i'll crave
similarities in the
new place
[i'm a moth drawn to light I daresay]
I have the same keys
and the clocks all tick the same
my reflection stares back,
those slightly dazed pair
of clear grey,
blinking in return
before going up in smoke.
“world of mirror”
like becoming lost in tree branches
a forest of humans,
darting, scratching, fleeing,
tumbling between shoots & limbs
a fox, a lion, a wolf, a rabbit
[and they thought themselves the absolutely
terrifying ones]