Walking through the dark pits of my thoughts, as I left the door open wide
To get rid of my pride
And find space for my conscious that has been left alone
As the tribal songs of my ancestors never changed a tone
Songs and chants that make us reflect upon our lives and our being
Songs that will let you listen to the emotion of what you're seeing
Listening to my empty life, trying to fill it with laughs and cries
But laughs and cries will not suffice
My heart feels my surroundings as they become a part of me
A part of my life, a part of my existency
My mind darkens with sunset, and beholds it's shine by morning
Everybody thinks that I'm content, but inside me I'm mourning
Mourning over my dead past
Over stages of my life that had to last
Mourning over harsh endings yet to come
Mourning over some and some
Life pressures you into a state till you become like water
So flexible, and forced to take the shape of your container
A container called society, till it darkens and freezes
Till nothing can move you like winds or breezes
Till you become cold as ice, because life has been cold to you
Till you become harsh inside, but whatever you do
You are still see-through
A fury of a thousand ages, dormant in your soul
A fury of a thousand more
A fury of a thousand more
Breaks my heart to hear the screams of the innocent, breaks my heart indeed
But my soul has to be fed, in order for me to feed
Broken wings never fly the outcome of my work
Thus for that I will never try, but I'll always have that smirk…

~
Lipstick to void. She is a race against time. The beveled past a disruption in her lines of influence.

Travel is dangerous, and tonight it darkens the highway of blood vessels coursing through her extremities. She wants to be luminous and under the skin.

While Dorothy dreams of tornadoes in Kansas, she dreams of remote climbs in lesser Glasgow, of party drugs in Tokyo. How many lights does she see?

In her hair are sixty circuits. But she waits, religiously inclined on the hotel bed. She drove through ghosts to get here wearing nothing but Las Vegas.

So strange at this hour, in a city full of sleepwalkers for the taking, she now dreams she's a bulldozer, she now dreams she's alone in an empty field.
~

The tide rises, the tide falls,
The twilight darkens, the curlew calls;
Along the sea-sands damp and brown
The traveller hastens toward the town
And the tide rises, the tide falls.

Darkness settles on the roofs and walls
But the sea, the sea in darkness calls;
The little waves, with their soft, white hands,
Efface the footprints in the sands
And the tide rises, the tide falls.

The morning breaks; the steeds in their stalls
Stamp and neigh, as the hostler calls;
The day returns, but nevermore
Returns the traveller to the shore,
And the tide rises, the tide falls.

So...there's this girl who's rather smart
that, when her lips begin to part,
drives me up the wall in a good way.
I sort of want to see her everyday.
She's usually busy though,
so I occupy
time with one constant sigh
until she calls and then I go.

I don't really know too much about her ---
she's Aphrodite's caricature! ---
no,no, that's a bit rash and inflated,
but in my stomach butterflies've congregated
each time her face comes to mind.
Severely interesting,
her hands are often clean
and she's never proved less than kind.

I think it might be good to write her a song
(I should've been writing this all along)
so that she'll feel sublimely delighted
and is happy, though consistently derided
by the upkeep of her garden's flora.
She could use a lot
of things uncommonly wrought,
like poems stuffed with anaphora.

      In time all the snowflakes will evaporate.
      In time the sun will sleep under an iron leaf.
      In time acetylene darkens human hate.
      In time all time will seem quite brief.

So, in honor of her I have created
this mediocre song so dominated
by use of the Yeats-stanza's rhythmic-rhyme,
offering it to her as ends to the crime
of my deplorable mannerisms.
I hope it's well-received,
being arduously conceived,
but I'll openly accept criticisms.

Coral, though you must (and do) work a lot,
work harder at those things which can't be bought
(i.e. relationships, love, and empathy)
for even the natural workaholic bee
requires mutual love.
Even while working
find a small moment to sing
this song. I hope it's enough.

(an ekphrastic poem based on the painting Nighthawks by Edward Hopper)

Four
solemn faces,
doused in gold,
like moths to flame,
seek warmth from the cold.
Darkness leers, but harsh light shields
these lonely creatures from their feelings untold.

One
diner desolate,
a waiter old,
and three weary visitors
are portrayed. The scene unfolds.
Most eat under the sunlight, unlike
these nighthawks who flocked from their households.

Some
loneliness darkens
hearts like blindfolds;
nighthawks’ hearts aren’t exceptions.
The woman red and bold,
the man in shadows, and another
man with a cigarette in his hold

are
isolated together.
They are controlled
and defined by solitude.
They don’t belong. No mold
fits them. They only have a
diner, each other, and lonesome souls unconsoled.

Hurriedly--
everyone on the streets
rush indoors.
Road signs rattle,
loose leaves on trees rustle--
some blow away...
     the sky
     darkens
    and stops...

Cars rush home,
dogs start whimpering,
the air is thick.
    the sky
   darkens
  and stops...

Here I am,
a barefoot stroll
on the warm sidewalk--
my hair twisting and tangled in the breeze
my whole body charging electrically
as the wind walks beside me.

I can't wait 'till I get to the park
near my apartment,
to feel the wet rain-riddled grass
beneath my feet,
tickling
healing...
feeling like myself again.

I dwell apart by the River Qi,
Where the Eastern wilds stretch far without hills.
The sun darkens beyond the mulberry trees;
The river glistens through the villages.
Shepherd boys depart, gazing back to their hamlets;
Hunting dogs return following their men.
When a man's at peace, what business does he have?
I shut fast my rustic door throughout the day.

The play is written to be staged in a pub or a large cave like yurt in Cardiff.  Its action and dialogue provides characterisation, with sound and lighting being used to establish context.  The setting a darkened pub corner that is  modelled on The Bunch of Grapes in Pontypridd.   There are only 6 characters, five speak in haiku-ed verse with the exception of the Drunk who acts as my 'Greek Chorus'.

- Hand-in-hand she enters to **** her thumb in a corner

- Chocolate ice cream soda demanded from Daddy

- Joking banter ceased slowly as the regulars all begin to quaff their brown pints

“Balll uut eass swept -
Chimrrrrr, Chiirriica,
war is never won”

- Church quiet, the village pub listened lips clamped tears swelling

“ ***** cut swapped with eyes -
Chimerica, Chimerica,
war is never won”

- The cornered hero of two Afghanistan tours is seen regressing into childhood*

The set darkens slowly then after 30 seconds a spotlit conversation in lines and stanzas begins.

Haiku and tanka that inspired the coming play include:

******* -
thoughts sought, taught and wrought,
testosterones
Fighting aggressive games,
Afghanistan camouflage


Globalism and War -
cloned greedy conspiracy,
that third tower
Titled selfish-self-grandiose,
deliver warring terror


Springs cut Irises -
dripping vital red not purple,
far from my window*

.

I felt a wave of love from the trees,
Green in their growth and sweet in their fruit.
I simply asked, "Would you help me wipe away this soot?
The soot that clings to my heart and darkens all that should feel lovely."

They said, "Come near and take a seat.
Can you feel our roots growing beneath?
Will you intertwine your breath with mine?
And when you weep, will you touch the soil and feel our heartbeat?"

To the giants of the land, I replied,
"I can feel your love, know your knowledge, and see your vision.
You are the serenity that bridges earth and sky,
While I am but a morsel of your magic that will surely pass before you die.

The power you possess in your filtering form
Creates life for those who here are born.
But I ask, who will you be when you return
to the sacred place we all deeply yearn?"

at first when you take off
the world just looks small

a dollhouse, a miniature world
an amusing punchline to an old joke
a fantasy tinged with g-force and sprite in clear cups

but as the sky darkens and the plane lifts higher

the world seems to drown in blackness
an inky clarity of night not confused by clouds
and suddenly it is as if you are at the top on an ocean
looking at a far away ocean floor
crawling with foreign creatures with all of their bones lit up
over coral reefs of light and movement
parking lots like stationary jelly fish and highways like currents
of neon veins pumping lights and cars

all of the world's exoskeleton is illuminated
and it is beautiful and movable  
it is nature's patterns played out in electricity

but the farther out you go
the more the sharpness and geometry of the roads and cities
attack the eye

and the coral reefs turn to computer motherboards
all of man's ingenuity and beauty no longer draping the world
but ordering it

into squares and jagged lines
into distant pixel pinpricks
into maps

until you're not traveling through the world
but over it

Summer's heat has come again,
And with it a growing womb.
The union formed of May's young flowers,
Begins to start to show.
The risen lord's seed runs strong,
The laughing queen was ripe.
In summer's heat, her sweat is sweat,
The warmth that forms within.
She smiles sweetly in Solstice sun,
Spring's rain fades away.
The white veil gone, her golden hair,
Darkens to chestnut brown.
New moon's time, a darkened moon,
A bonfire burning high.
The dancers dance, round and round,
A fever burning high.
The Horned King sits close by her side,
His smile as big as hers.
The summer sun it rises bright,
Round like her growing womb.
The moon moves on and starts to grow,
Just like her unborn Child.
Summer's heat has come again,
And with it a growing womb.
The womb will grow to harvest time,
The Child that will be born.
From blessed womb and serpent's seed,
The Mother of all life.

The light dims, the night darkens
Hardly anyone's on the streets now
We are sitting back, our bellies full
Barely a thing left to talk about
A comfortable silence forbids our
Tongues from wagging with their
Usual tenacity. Your eyelids droop
With sleep. The stars and moon can
Be seen 'cause only the street lights
Are on. The music is the only
Decipherable sound in our vicinity.
We'd get up to say our goodbyes
But we're too comfortable to even
Think about moving. The glowing embers
remain. The fire died a long time ago.

The rain falls softly on the sleeping city…. Cloaked in the blanket of a monsoon lull…. A few stray dogs scamper for shelter as the first storm of the season colours the dawn a deeper crimson…..
The thunder rumbles from the north east…a deep slow sonorous sound coming from the underbellies of the moisture laden atmosphere…..
The soft drizzle forms a hazy blanket of morning mist around the city…..already stirring with the first signs of life…. The resurrection of the everyday work-a-day world…….
The musical tinkling of a bell echoes around as a pushcart brimming with flowers rushes down the street, hurrying to the market…fresh, preened and ready…to be sold to the highest bidder…
The soft music of the approaching storm inspires a boatman, out on the holy river, to sing…… his voice echoes over the bass of the thunder……a plaintive pleasant humming……the nuances of the bhatiali fill up the empty cracks in the morning……
The rain deepens…………the drizzle expands into the monsoons first downpour… pitter-patter sings the rain, reverberating off a thousand tin roofs……the sky darkens……enveloping the dawn in its grey being…..
Somewhere, someone tunes a harmonium…..clears a throat…a hand draws a curtain aside…..
The peaceful reassurance of the daily azaan spreads out from the mosque…..calling the faithful to prayer…..
The flower vendor…now setting up shop, attaching an extra strip of plastic sheet to fend off the rain…. Stops a moment and bows his head as the nearby tolling of a bell and the sound of a conch shell being blown announces the beginning of a new day in god’s abode….
A woman kneels down in a pew…..praying…..the calm of the church mirrored in her peaceful face…..
The rain looks down at the city……..now, half awake…slowly stretching its limbs……..stirring from the depths of a restless rest…………awakening to the jangling of a bread earner’s faith……
The shower relents……..probably giving in to all the Monday morning groans and grumbles emanating from a city forced back into consciousness…..
Finally, all that remains is the moisture on the flower vendor’s tarpaulin and the shadow of the boatman’s song on the rippled river…….

five pm, mid-winter

i thank Sky for taking sweet time.
Sky sets her thumb on the light-switch of the land.
she stands still, she waits.
for the hour, she meditates
on her day.
Sky hopes her skin
becomes verdigris the next day, not grey, but
verdigris to clothe **** trees. Or perhaps she will
hurt soon— Sky scars in
rainbows. Her change of thought: the small folks who have traveled
through her this day. She wonders where
they all
        go.

Open your eyes,
do you hear Sky’s mute call?
in her meditation, hour of magic, all
wakes.

on the earth, photographers peer from their windows,
then rush through their doors to catch Sky’s dancing gleams,
beams flash through the tip-top’s of the Sugar Maple family,
their shadows splatter onto ***-hole streets.
Sky brushes her grass and her roads with paint of a gold hue,
fresh Rorschach tests while her thoughts try to rest.

i spot a leaf sleeping in the street, deep wine and apricot,
twisted from months away from its Mother
the wind levitates the leaf—lightly—and the sun
creates a squirrel of it, he climbs the tree, and scrambles over
to me. in short squeaks, he explains his political theory,
“why do you let your peep el let a few rich folks control
all others? why don’t you follow me
into the woods?”

he grabs my skirt with his sweet little paws
but i look up and notice the darkness,
i look down and see only a leaf again.
Sky’s savasana has ended,
candles ignite in the houses, Sky and Sun crawl into bed.

i’ll wait now for the selenian Sun, but i can’t rest my eyes. soon
i will escape with my new friend.
bittersweet magic: “the moment” lost in the sock drawer.

five pm, midwinter


the afternoon is reaching an end,
Lady Sky decides when she wants to change for us.
as the sun sets, she meditates.

some call it the “magic hour”
but how can you truly tell magic from reality?
go outside and see.

radiant beams do the tango on the trees
(a leaf in the street becomes a squirrel as my eye blinks)
a squirrel who runs straight up to me.

“get outta the system while you can!”
he squeaks, then nods at me to follow his path, another blink



the sky darkens, the squirrel disappears.

The air is slow and still
faint puttering of the last barge
shunting coal downstream

city on the edge of sleep, settles
city on the edge of night, darkens

stretched steel and stone relax
cooling to a grey relief

reeds and sedges ripple
under bridges
and on the edges of the river

city in the gaze of moonlight, sighs
city in the haze of moonlight, slips

in the steady wash of tidal waters
and the brackish water of the estuary
come the bodies from the shore.


© M.L. Emmett

Over and back,
the long waves crawl
and track the sand with foam;
night darkens, and the sea
takes on that desperate tone
of dark that wives put on
when all their love is done.

Over and back,
the tangled thread falls slack,
over and up and on;
over and all is sewn;
now while I bind the end,
I wish some fiery friend
would sweep impetuously
these fingers from the loom.

My weary thoughts
play traitor to my soul,
just as the toil is over;
swift while the woof is whole,
turn now, my spirit, swift,
and tear the pattern there,
the flowers so deftly wrought,
the borders of sea blue,
the sea-blue coast of home.

The web was over-fair,
that web of pictures there,
enchantments that I thought
he had, that I had lost;
weaving his happiness
within the stitching frame,
weaving his fire and frame,
I thought my work was done,
I prayed that only one
of those that I had spurned
might stoop and conquer this
long waiting with a kiss.

But each time that I see
my work so beautifully
inwoven and would keep
the picture and the whole,
Athene steels my soul.
Slanting across my brain,
I see as shafts of rain
his chariot and his shafts,
I see the arrows fall,
I see the lord who moves
like Hector lord of love,
I see him matched with fair
bright rivals, and I see
those lesser rivals flee.

A pretty new dress
My pretty blue dress
I laugh, she smiles
I tease, she plays

“Let’s wrestle” she says
And jumps onto me
I scream, I struggle
Relentless, she seems

Wrists pinned above my head
My waste suppressed to the ground
I wriggle out, I push her off
She throws me down

No, no please no
As I climb away
I strive for distance
I battle for safety

My best friend reaches for a pencil
As she collapses over me, and jabs it inside
Her hand grabs for my dress, my pretty blue dress
And yanks it, burning my skin with its new thread

Crying out, I hit her
She laughs, she smiles
I scream for help, calling to her father
With no response

Breaking free, I lunge for the door
Only to trip, falling to the floor
Straddled, she laughs
She’s winning this match

My buttons tear, uncovering my *******
My camera in her hand
“Let’s show your boyfriend”
She toys

Suffocating under her obesity
I haven’t the air to scream
Tears leak from my eyes
Lips quiver in shame

Bored, she bounces, she thrusts
Nearly cracking my hips
My ribs crunch, my guts ache
And I gasp for air

My best friend grabs a marker
She writes on my face
As she bounces
She writes on my face

Asthma consumes me
As I struggle for consciousness
My mind fuzzes, and vision darkens
I think to myself, “This is how I end”

I never wore my blue dress again
I never told of what she did
I never spoke to her again
I never
I never
I never
My best friend.

The Watch
The watch kept right on ticking, as if nothing had changed. It was like a sixth person at the little round marble table. The stone was cold on my arms. The funeral director pushed it across the table. "This was the only thing on him." My aunt took it graciously, set it by the folder full of everything ever recorded about Donald P. Baca, and from that moment on, it drew the eyes of everyone there, irresistible as a corpse, and as gruesome. tick tick tick as if nothing had happened. I found myself thinking that if he were my brother, I would keep that watch ticking forever, change its batteries, a type of insignificant immortality.

Funeral Homes
The air of calm in funeral homes has always disturbed me. It's cloying, somehow. Too strong. Like the overwhelming scent of peony flowers if you put them in a vase- it darkens your whole house with sweetness. I think I resent knowing that my feelings are being influenced by soothing beiges and classical music. A tissue box and a little bottle of Purell sit on every surface big enough to hold them properly. I find that the anticipation of my "needs" as a griever... offends me.

Survivors
Funerals are not for the dead. They are for the survivors.

Tears
Death is not about trying not to cry. You have to hurt yourself with it to heal from it. There is no shame in funeral tears. They, like death, are inevitable and natural. (My own dry eyes, they shame me.)

Looking In
That is the problem with us writers- every private, gauche little moment of impropriety is fuel for our art, and we must record it. (Intrude upon it.)

Paperwork
1953
***: Male
Color: White
How different it was then.

Grown Up
This is the first time my aunt, whose respect I have always striven for, has even asked my opinion on something "grown up". I thought I'd want her to, but I no longer care. Maybe that means I am finally "grown up".

Absurdly
My aunt gives her email to the man across the table: her name, first and last, no spaces, and the number 1. I find myself wondering irresistibly, inappropriately, absurdly, if anybody ever sits here with a "FaIrYpRiNcEsS4963luv4eva" and has to dictate it to him like that...

Mourners
There are 5 of us here. We are all different, in grief. I am on the outside looking in, an observer, offering the perfect hug or well timed touch of the hand because I feel emotions like room temperature, but not like fever. I look in on tears, silence, on the grip like a vice: on the propriety of being personable to a man who knows your brother has just died, as if that- even death! - gives no permission to be less than polished. And one of us is absent entirely, his truancy a palpable response, just as present as my mother's strangled tears. Her shame frustrates and saddens me- I admire the sincerity of grief, especially when I cannot reach it.

You're Here With Me
The funeral director answers his cell phone. He has the same phone as you, ****, and having seen you answer it yesterday, my mind overlays the images strangely, like a double exposure photograph. It should disturb me, but it only makes me miss you- my mind seeks to erase his image and leave only yours.

Age
Everyone looks older, right now- sunken collarbones and wrinkles weighing down faces. As if they age in sympathy that my uncle is finished with that.

Fishhook
My mother struggles against tears like a worm on a fishhook, and it is agony that ****** my arms, in the air and sliding along the walls. It clashes oddly with my aunt- like a still pond- her polished charm and practiced smile don't feel forced, which only makes it all feel more wrong. I know she is struggling inside, too.

Even as the moon grows queenlier in mid-space
When the sky darkens, and her cloud-rapt car
Thrills with intenser radiance from afar,—
So lambent, lady, beams thy sovereign grace
When the drear soul desires thee. Of that face
What shall be said,—which, like a governing star,
Gathers and garners from all things that are
Their silent penetrative loveliness?

O’er water-daisies and wild waifs of Spring,
There where the iris rears its gold-crowned sheaf
With flowering rush and sceptred arrow-leaf,
So have I marked Queen Dian, in bright ring
Of cloud above and wave below, take wing
And chase night’s gloom, as thou the spirit’s grief.

A
S
w e
.tread
....along
...the paths
of life,  comes
a time when roads
t u r n   to  z i g z a g s
sometimes beaten, painful
to walk on...and the blue sky
darkens to gray...and the clouds
hide from us, and the sun sets, and
we need arrows and rays to guide  us
t h r o u g h:::::
]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]
From nowhere
.........any hour
y o u    appear
b r i g h t     as
morning  s u n
your   BEAMS
ILLUMINATE
you are a light
that guides us
.....through the
[[[ D A R K ]]].

...For Timothy...

Sally
Copyright 2014
Rosalia Rosario A. Bayan

I can't believe, I'm finally here..
The place I always dreamed of,
And one day knew I would be.
The beauty of Seattle is all I see.

This place is now my home,
The city if Seattle,
Welcomes me into its arms.
Where I am free to roam.

When the city darkens,
And the sky begins to cry.
I admire the beauty of it all,
Watching as the rain falls.

It was my dream,
To move to Seattle.
And now my dream has come true.
There's no other person,
I'd rather share it with,
Than you..

As the stores close, a winter light
opens air to iris blue,
glint of frost through the smoke
grains of mica, salt of the sidewalk.
As the buildings close, released autonomous
feet pattern the streets
in hurry and stroll; balloon heads
drift and dive above them; the bodies
aren't really there.
As the lights brighten, as the sky darkens,
a woman with crooked heels says to another woman
while they step along at a fair pace,
'You know, I'm telling you, what I love best
is life. I love life! Even if I ever get
to be old and wheezy—or limp! You know?
Limping along?—I'd still ... ' Out of hearing.
To the multiple disordered tones
of gears changing, a dance
to the compass points, out, four-way river.
Prospect of sky
wedged into avenues, left at the ends of streets,
west sky, east sky: more life tonight! A range
of open time at winter's outskirts.

You trail after me
like the tide
is pulled
and pushed by the moon.
Never mind the
broken and hollowed
bones that litter the
paths I walk.
You just
step around them.
And sometimes you will pick some up
and remind my shattered body
that it deserves to be whole.
I am no moon.
I am no light.
But this is me
hoping you won’t drown
and praying you won’t fall
when night darkens the path.
I’ll do my best
to be your moonlight.

Tired eyes close, as youthful eyes open wider than ever,
Taking in the bright world, with its beauty and wonder,
Every step a new experience, every breath a new purpose,
With blinding light and naivety.

Living, loving,
Thinking, learning.

Beginning to speak with precision and tact,
Letting a voice carry through the fog,
Color splits the misty world,
As love envelops every sense.

As it comes, however,
The light darkens.

Disenchanted with glory,
Spitting out the lost dreams of comic book heroes and video games,
Quenching the cold, dying embers of childhood,
That cry to the world to ***** them out.

Losing hope, going numb,
Feeling nothing.

Waking up... shedding fear, being reborn,
Spreading the wings of a new life,
Seeing a different light, a new fire,
Brighter than the old.

The colors of the world change,
The glistening light fades into a tired contentment.

Watching the world through calm, weary eyes,
Wiser now, witnessing the passing time with the gaze of long life,
A creaking smile, as the light shines more profoundly than ever,
Tired eyes close, as youthful eyes open wider than ever.

Pain fades to dust, and dust to dust,
As all else shines with indescribable beauty.

Fearing not of death, but of yearning for that which has passed,
And for that which was missed.

Most days self-doubt laps at my ankles
in pools that I hardly feel, with ripple effects
so small I don't even sift the footprints
in the sand. Other times it comes in waves,
striking me behind the knees. I wobble,
skim the water's surface with a grasping hand
that's never held on to anything except for broken
secrets, but I don't fall. The salt stings my eyes
but instead of closing them I resolutely
gaze at the sunset in the hopes that I could find
some written metaphor in the pink and orange clouds
about something like "starting over" or
"self-forgiveness". And then there are rare days
when there's an eclipse and I can't blind myself
with sunbeams or use an ultraviolet floodlight in my brain
to scare off all the lurking thoughts I can't pin-point
but know are there... that's when the self-doubt
comes in tsunami waves, and I don't fall but
sink like a wayward torpedo, farther than
any reaching hand could pull me
to shore, to normal rock bottom,
and I realize, as the oxygen slowly leaves my lungs,
as my vision darkens into obscurity,
that I've visited this abyss before.

divorce isn't a breakup
it's a death in the family
two hearts too hurt to make up
and it never ends amicably

it makes every word said, every phrase, every promise ever spoken
sting like lies and sting your pride that you believed and they were broken

it takes from you the ability to believe in the beauty of someone special
when you feel like you gave all you had to give and it ended so regretful

it robs you of all your feelings of safety and comfort and home
it takes from you your confidence, your positivity and leaves you positively alone

it creates a deep hate that takes over and makes you fume anger
it causes the caustic sorrow that darkens every tomorrow and makes everyone a stranger

it makes you question your own value, your actual self worth
it makes you feel that you're not good enough to be loved anywhere on this earth

knowing that the person who knows the true you the very best
took a look inside you and chose to pursue one of the rest
the thought holds you down and carves your heart right out of your chest
and it takes back, steals back, rapes away all that made you feel blessed
like you invested all of your time, the very best of yourself and no less
and still failed the test

so you try to stand on two broken legs to walk again on your own
and you stumble into the arms of new friends and try to make a new home
and you search frantically for affection to replace what you've known
but at the end of each night regardless of who's next to you, you are alone

bar after bar, club after party, drink drink drink and take them to bed
trying to drown the remorse and the anger and the longing that fire shots in your head
you will literally try physically to **** your way into someone new's heart
you will become an artist making selfishness and need and self promotion an art

but they don't really know you so how could they really care
true love doesn't become tangible from moans floating through thin air
a love you reap comes from time spent in wonder and in promises you keep
true love comes from the person you're meant to be with seeing that you're deep
and wanting to dive in
to only you
to never surface again
from within you
to breath for the last time on their own
without your heart making theirs beat
to go to war for you alone
with no possibility of retreat

and that hope, that chance of what could come for my life's course
is the only thing I got to keep in my divorce

I
Complacencies of the peignoir, and late
Coffee and oranges in a sunny chair,
And the green freedom of a cockatoo
Upon a rug mingle to dissipate
The holy hush of ancient sacrifice.
She dreams a little, and she feels the dark
Encroachment of that old catastrophe,
As a calm darkens among water-lights.
The pungent oranges and bright, green wings
Seem things in some procession of the dead,
The day is like wide water, without sound,
Stilled for the passing of her dreaming feet
Over the seas, to silent Palestine,
Dominion of the blood and sepulchre.

       II
Why should she give her bounty to the dead?
What is divinity if it can come
Only in silent shadows and in dreams?
Shall she not find in comforts of the sun,
In pungent fruit and bright, green wings, or else
In any balm or beauty of the earth,
Things to be cherished like the thought of heaven?
Passions of rain, or moods in falling snow;
Grievings in loneliness, or unsubdued
Elations when the forest blooms; gusty
Emotions on wet roads on autumn nights;
All pleasures and all pains, remembering
The bough of summer and the winter branch.
These are the measures destined for her soul.

       III
Jove in the clouds had his inhuman birth.
No mother suckled him, no sweet land gave
Large-mannered motions to his mythy mind.
He moved among us, as a muttering king,
Magnificent, would move among his hinds,
Until our blood, commingling, virginal,
With heaven, brought such requital to desire
The very hinds discerned it, in a star.
Shall our blood fail? Or shall it come to be
The blood of paradise? And shall the earth
Seem all of paradise that we shall know?
The sky will be much friendlier then than now,
A part of labor and a part of pain,
And next in glory to enduring love,
Not this dividing and indifferent blue.

       IV
She says, "I am content when wakened birds,
Before they fly, test the reality
Of misty fields, by their sweet questionings;
But when the birds are gone, and their warm fields
Return no more, where, then, is paradise?-"
There is not any haunt of prophesy,
Nor any old chimera of the grave,
Neither the golden underground, nor isle
Melodious, where spirits gat them home,
Nor visionary south, nor cloudy palm
Remote on heaven's hill, that has endured
As April's green endures; or will endure
Like her remembrance of awakened birds,
Or her desire for June and evening, tipped
By the consummation of the swallow's wings.

       V
She says, "But in contentment I still feel
The need of some imperishable bliss.-"
Death is the mother of beauty; hence from her,
Alone, shall come fulfilment to our dreams
And our desires. Although she strews the leaves
Of sure obliteration on our paths,
The path sick sorrow took, the many paths
Where triumph rang its brassy phrase, or love
Whispered a little out of tenderness,
She makes the willow shiver in the sun
For maidens who were wont to sit and gaze
Upon the grass, relinquished to their feet.
She causes boys to pile new plums and pears
On disregarded plate. The maidens taste
And stray impassioned in the littering leaves.

       VI
Is there no change of death in paradise?
Does ripe fruit never fall? Or do the boughs
Hang always heavy in that perfect sky,
Unchanging, yet so like our perishing earth,
With rivers like our own that seek for seas
They never find, the same receding shores
That never touch with inarticulate pang?
Why set the pear upon those river banks
Alas, that they should wear our colors there,
The silken weavings of our afternoons,
And pick the strings of our insipid lutes!
Death is the mother of beauty, mystical,
Within whose burning ***** we devise
Our earthly mothers waiting, sleeplessly.

       VII
Supple and turbulent, a ring of men
Shall chant in **** on a summer morn
Their boisterous devotion to the sun,
Not as a god, but as a god might be,
Naked among them, like a savage source.
Their chant shall be a chant of paradise,
Out of their blood, returning to the sky;
And in their chant shall enter, voice by voice,
The windy lake wherein their lord delights,
The trees, like serafin, and echoing hills,
That choir among themselves long afterward.
They shall know well the heavenly fellowship
Of men that perish and of summer morn.
And whence they came and whither they shall go
The dew upon their feet shall manifest.

       VIII
She hears, upon that water without sound,
A voice that cries, "The tomb in Palestine
Is not the porch of spirits lingering.
It is the grave of Jesus, where he lay.-"
We live in an old chaos of the sun,
Or old dependency of day and night,
Or island solitude, unsponsored, free,
Of that wide water, inescapable.
Deer walk upon our mountains, and the quail
Whistle about us their spontaneous cries;
Sweet berries ripen in the wilderness;
And, in the isolation of the sky,
At evening, casual flocks of pigeons make
Ambiguous undulations as they sink,
Downward to darkness, on extended wings.

I see the commercials
for osteoarthritis.
And mentally curse this age of awareness
Where we, the audience
are forced to see our frail mortality . . .

One in three! ONE IN THREE!
Mocks the voice on T.V.
And suddenly my chest fills
with invisible cancers
cholesterol, and tumors
While diabetes races through my veines.

I stagger from the room.
Joints now rusted with a touch of arthritis.
My breath wheezes from the asthma
I never had until this moment.
My arteries harden like boa constrictors.
And I fall to the floor - breaking a hip as I go down.
My memory fades under Alzheimer's wrath.
While glaucoma darkens my vision.
And ravaging Obesity, consumes my soul.

-something real. Something strong and sturdy, believable.  I want to write words that are heavy with lightness and dark with their brightness, to draw on a page a life so unbelievably real, so inconceivably mine
in creation

I want to write
-not just love. Not a ***** with a couple of drink-mangled bugs. I want to write about that feeling of blood churning and the warmth of emotion not physical feeling, to put into words the unwordable joy of being in the presence of
not just anyone

Anyone. Like the not-platonic-non-romantic affection that Rudy would not fail to hint at, that so-wanted kiss that Liesel gave, it wasn't so much the action as the meaning behind it. Like that itch on Death's ear when Liesel he came near, not to take her yet, but to steal her story, to live through it. To feel the words dance in his void, non-niceness, the infinite meanings and the power of phonic combinations.
They allow even Death to live.
I want to write like Zusak, like Rowling, like me.

I want to write
-the philosophies. The thoughts and wishes and wonders of a minority. I want to write about those opinions of those whose voices are too small and their souls beautifully lit up but unseen, their ideologies so unmistakably right but also naive and innocent, to stage their feelings from transition to transition
their words to the wise

I want to write
-characters so flawed. Each with an inner splendor most radiant, but with their fields of starless black and heads that wander from this to that. I want to write lives and people so different, with not-so-good lives and not-so-normal features. People who, though lacking thereof, cliche the right things and believe
in the wrong

The wrong. Their thoughts and meanings about life and beyond, undesirable and judged but that is the human mentality, such as Hazel Grace felt about her casualties and Alaska Young wondered about the labyrinth's unending game. So standard at first, but then Gandalf came and Bilbo learned the differences  between Hobbit and the untame. The reasons and purposes of life's grand living, through the eyes of those whose faces are shunned.
Hermione wasn't just a bibliosiac.
I want to write like Green, like Tolkien, like me.

Alas, the clock, a stained moon, it darkens, and the prejudice of people as well as the pride, unfortunately Austen couldn't lessen so much. Stereotypes triumphantly sit on the throne with their Mary-Sue maids catering from head to toe. I can't barge in, object to the crowning, because today I admit it: my writing is dying.

'This envelope you say has something in it
Which once belonged to your dead son--or something
He knew, was fond of?  Something he remembers?--
The soul flies far, and we can only call it
By things like these . . . a photograph, a letter,
Ribbon, or charm, or watch . . . '

. . .  Wind flows softly, the long slow even wind,
Over the low roofs white with snow;
Wind blows, bearing cold clouds over the ocean,
One by one they melt and flow,--

Streaming one by one over trees and towers,
Coiling and gleaming in shafts of sun;
Wind flows, bearing clouds; the hurrying shadows
Flow under them one by one . . .

' . . . A spirit darkens before me . . . it is the spirit
Which in the flesh you called your son . . . A spirit
Young and strong and beautiful . . .

He says that he is happy, is much honored;
Forgives and is forgiven . . . rain and wind
Do not perplex him . . . storm and dust forgotten . .
The glittering wheels in wheels of time are broken
And laid aside . . . '

'Ask him why he did the thing he did!'

'He is unhappy.  This thing, he says, transcends you:
Dust cannot hold what shines beyond the dust . . .
What seems calamity is less than a sigh;
What seems disgrace is nothing.'

'Ask him if the one he hurt is there,
And if she loves him still!'

'He tells you she is there, and loves him still,--
Not as she did, but as all spirits love . . .
A cloud of spirits has gathered about him.
They praise him and call him, they do him honor;
He is more beautiful, he shines upon them.'

. . .  Wind flows softly, the long deep tremulous wind,
Over the low roofs white with snow . . .
Wind flows, bearing dreams; they gather and vanish,
One by one they sing and flow;

Over the outstretched lands of days remembered,
Over remembered tower and wall,
One by one they gather and talk in the darkness,
Rise and glimmer and fall . . .

'Ask him why he did the thing he did!
He knows I will understand!'

                             'It is too late:
He will not hear me: I have lost my power.'

'Three times I've asked him!  He will never tell me.
God have mercy upon him.  I will ask no more.'

Living is often like drowning, and sleeping like flying,
So bridges and tall buildings always tempt me.
When I talk about death I feel brave.
I've always hated how recognition can so easily turn into pride.
They say pride comes before the fall,
But I believe that various kinds of self-centeredness are the origin of all unholy descents.
I remind myself that I shouldn't take my life because I didn't give it,
And my heart continues to beat on its own.
Blood doesn't stain crimson red,
It darkens and crusts on the skin.
Everything that is dead becomes only a memory,
Then it disintegrates and washes away, eventually becoming nothing.
I can’t remember anything from before I had the ability to reason,
So when did I come alive?
I wonder if all people valued beauty,
Would there be peace?
Because I sometimes wonder whether Neil Armstrong meant to say what he did as took his first step on the moon.
I think trying is as valuable as doing,
But justification is a dangerous tool.
I am cautious of failure and success;
But count this as my eulogy
A list of things that I am going to say before my untimely death.
*I recognized the world for the canvas it was and I didn't waste my life.
My dreams were my motivation,
And they were fueled by those that underestimated me
I walked streets day and night and prayed that I would somehow run into the girl of my dreams,
and when I finally found my missing rib I looked at her like she was a piece of art that I just couldn't keep my eyes off of.
I suffered and I found its nectar bitter-sweet.
I didn't get the best of life, but then I made the best of life.
I never stopped caring,
my love for the unlovable made me daring.
I trusted too easily so I was always broken.
I always found things to love, but they never loved me,
But despite it, I still loved, hard, even though it hurt me.
I couldn't comfort because I had never been comforted.
After a lifetime of battling myself, I finally took off my crown of thorns.
I didn't let the past get the best of me,
I gave the future all of me.
I hated animosity,
War was despicable to me,
And I always preached peace.
I prayed constantly that my efforts would not be in vain.
I never actually could stop sinning,  but despite my ugly sins, I never stopped straining.
I was not perfect, but I did the best I could.
I never ceased to hear the music.
I still played, even when I felt like I was playing solo, I still played my part in this symphony of life.
My eyes were aimed at the director, and we played through the storm,
We played even when all hell was against us,
We played, and played, and played
Until eternity came through.....