AWAKENING

Sleep and slumber, dreams of wonder... weaving,
morning’s vacuum broke the spell
Pitted pillow, note of parting... leaving,
“from your friend, a fond farewell”
Sunrise throbbing, twilight aching... grieving,
daydreams, flashbacks, nightmares knell
Pale phantasms, visions sneaking... thieving,
plot to fill the empty shell

12 DELIRIA

1st Delirium: COLLAPSES

Fractured sky bolts, billows bursting... rumbling,
heavens tighten, turn the vise
Horsemen saddle shafts of lightning... tumbling,
jagged highways must suffice
Ruptured skyways, hailstones crackling... crumbling,
naked pearls of paradise
Toxic tongues of laughter stinging... stumbling,
ocean buckets choked with ice
Droplets drumming, thunder muzzled... mumbling,
washed out whispers pay the price
Smothered blazes, cinders smoking... humbling,
ashes shaped in sacrifice

2nd Delirium: DESCENTS

Asphalt alleys, ashen faces... frowning,
blowing bubbles, chewing gum
Drinking ale from tavern tankards... downing,
moonlit beads of painted ***
Stony stars and sea misshapen... drowning,
humble rivers’ rhythms hum
Apparitions aspirating... clowning,
diamonds dying , minstrels strum
Incandescent candles conquered... crowning,
vacant vapours, cold and numb

3rd Delirium: FATES

Tempest turmoil, tapered turrets... holding,
dungeons, dragons, chains and racks
Wheels of fortune, Tarot temptress... molding,
Hangmen, Towers, One Eyed Jacks
Sand dune castles, cryptic candles... folding,
warping walls of liquid wax
Idols colder, combed and coddled... scolding,
hide in fissures, peek through cracks

4th Delirium: LOST SOULS

Sunken cities, pilgrims peering... gawking,
squinting eyeballs, blazing sun
Janus facing, shepherds chasing... stalking,
friends embrace before they shun
Tearooms steaming, tumult teeming... talking,
lovers listen, poets pun
Broken stones unanchored, quaking... rocking,
slipping, falling, one by one
Beaten pathways, footsteps marking... mocking,
wedged in webs which spiders spun
Circus shelters, big tops tumbling... locking,
people pacing, soon they’re none
Numbered exits, zeros numbing... knocking,
midnight daylight’s days undone
Moon blood shackles, shivers shaming... shocking,
starlight striders streaking, stun
Hushed but harried hermits waiting... walking,
restless rainbows on the run
Pixies, elves, and echoes bouncing... balking,
fading fast when dawn’s begun
Bantum butterflies are flitting... flocking
sometimes conquered, overrun
Hocus pokus, seers focus... squawking,
voodoo wavered, witchcraft won

5th Delirium: INTROSPECTION

Sundown furnace, fires fading... coughing,
dusky dew drops drain the air
Empty chalice, sipped in silence... quaffing,
thirsting shadows unaware
Looking glass and lattice scorning... scoffing,
local loser gapes and stares
Faces covered, dancing naked... doffing,
peering inside, hope despairs

6th Delirium: THE VOID

Tales of taboos, mystic mythos... missing,
windows shuttered, bolted door
Kindled candles, tongues and anvils... hissing,
heavy hammers, echoes roar
Dark deceivers, raven charmers... kissing,
draging demons from the shore
Hopeless hollows filled with doubters... dissing
standing empty - nevermore

7th Delirium: SEARCHING

Martyred monks haunt runic ruins ... waiting,
banging broken bells below
Vaulted hallways, voided voices... grating,
churning Chinese chimes aglow
Granite graveyards, spectres spooking... skating,
blackened bushes, roses grow
****** dwarfs seek mutant migrants... mating,
packing parcels, ice and snow

8th Delirium: NIGHTTIME

Throbbing drumheads, fingers blazing... steaming,
coins of copper, beggars plea
Rusty residues of resin... streaming,
opal amber filigree
Orphan shades in shallow shadows... teeming,
steeping twigs in twilight tea
Cloister doorsteps, Prophets gaming... scheming,
tracing tracks of destiny
Blacksmiths blanching, horseshoes glowing... gleaming,
partially sheathed in black debris
Phantoms feigning, nightmares scathing... screaming,
dusty dreamers drifting free

9th Delerium: EMPTYNESS

Water wheels in wastelands... turning,
drowning relics in the slum
Rumpled rags of fashioned burlap... burning,
lit by bandits blind and dumb
Pastured prisons, ponies bridled ... yearning,
forest fairies under thumb
Sounds inside of cauldrons coughing... churning,
blaring bugles, tattooed drum

10th Delirium: ALIENATION

Rain unravelling, wistfully weeping... falling,
treacle trickling, fickle sky
Mushrooms sprinkled, visions sprouting... sprawling,
seagulls drowning, dolphins die
Rabble gasping, spirits broken... crawling,
lonely lonesome swallows cry
Babbling brooks and breakers ebbing... bawling
puppies paddle, puppets sigh
People passing ripple past me... calling,
rainbow colours, collars high
Chaos seething, lepers looting... stalling,
stealing stallions on the sly
Pencils pausing, scholars scrambling... scrawling,
scratching scribbles, asking why

11th Delirium: JETSAM

Silver sails sway pallid pirates... prowling,
Jolly Rogers, wind and sound
Parrots perching, tattered feathers... fouling,
tethered talons, tied and bound
Shipwrecked foghorns, trumpets stranded... howling,
spiral springs of time unwound
Magic moonlight, shimmers shaking... scowling,
burnt out matchsticks washed aground
Prairie wolfs, coyotes calling... yowling,
witching hours, midnight hounds
Tightrope walkers, grizzlies grunting... growling,
seeking islands, lost and found

12th Delirium: RELIEF

Slumber shattered, vapours captive... haunting,
chained in mirrors, breaking free
Scarlet skylines, daylight dawning... daunting,
rivers rushing to the sea
Silence softens, sandmen whisper... wanting,
piercing rafters, turning keys
Shadows shudder, notions fluster... flaunting,
moonbeam bullets meant for me
Mind in migraine, meadows trembling... taunting,
sparrows speak in harmony

REAWAKENING

Pitter patter, teardrops paling... pearling,
salting scarves in secret drawers
Mist amongst us, smoke rings rising... curling,
climbing from the ocean floors
See-saw circles, senses swerving... swirling,
swept away with silver oars
Courtyard jesters, sceptres twisting... twirling,
push the past to foreign shores
Passing pangs of passions heaving... hurling,
burning bridges, closing doors
Roses wither, icons waning... whirling,
time decays and time restores

From pent-up aching rivers,
From that of myself without which I were nothing,
From what I am determin’d to make illustrious, even if I stand sole
   among men,
From my own voice resonant, singing the phallus,
Singing the song of procreation,
Singing the need of superb children and therein superb grown people,
Singing the muscular urge and the blending,
Singing the bedfellow’s song, (O resistless yearning!
O for any and each the body correlative attracting!
O for you whoever you are your correlative body! O it, more than all
   else, you delighting!)
From the hungry gnaw that eats me night and day,
From native moments, from bashful pains, singing them,
Seeking something yet unfound though I have diligently sought it
   many a long year,
Singing the true song of the soul fitful at random,
Renascent with grossest Nature or among animals,
Of that, of them and what goes with them my poems informing,
Of the smell of apples and lemons, of the pairing of birds,
Of the wet of woods, of the lapping of waves,
Of the mad pushes of waves upon the land, I them chanting,
The overture lightly sounding, the strain anticipating,
The welcome nearness, the sight of the perfect body,
The swimmer swimming naked in the bath, or motionless on his back
   lying and floating,
The female form approaching, I pensive, love-flesh tremulous aching,
The divine list for myself or you or for any one making,
The face, the limbs, the index from head to foot, and what it
   arouses,
The mystic deliria, the madness amorous, the utter abandonment,
(Hark close and still what I now whisper to you,
I love you, O you entirely possess me,
O that you and I escape from the rest and go utterly off, free and
   lawless,
Two hawks in the air, two fishes swimming in the sea not more
   lawless than we;)
The furious storm through me careering, I passionately trembling.
The oath of the inseparableness of two together, of the woman that
   loves me and whom I love more than my life, that oath swearing,
(O I willingly stake all for you,
O let me be lost if it must be so!
O you and I! what is it to us what the rest do or think?
What is all else to us? only that we enjoy each other and exhaust
   each other if it must be so;)
From the master, the pilot I yield the vessel to,
The general commanding me, commanding all, from him permission
   taking,
From time the programme hastening, (I have loiter’d too long as it
   is,)
From ***, from the warp and from the woof,
From privacy, from frequent repinings alone,
From plenty of persons near and yet the right person not near,
From the soft sliding of hands over me and thrusting of fingers
   through my hair and beard,
From the long sustain’d kiss upon the mouth or *****,
From the close pressure that makes me or any man drunk, fainting
   with excess,
From what the divine husband knows, from the work of fatherhood,
From exultation, victory and relief, from the bedfellow’s embrace in
   the night,
From the act-poems of eyes, hands, hips and bosoms,
From the cling of the trembling arm,
From the bending curve and the clinch,
From side by side the pliant coverlet off-throwing,
From the one so unwilling to have me leave, and me just as unwilling
   to leave,
(Yet a moment O tender waiter, and I return,)
From the hour of shining stars and dropping dews,
From the night a moment I emerging flitting out,
Celebrate you act divine and you children prepared for,
And you stalwart *****.

Each of you.
My individual singularities, Dad’s One Thing.
Conceived 1955.
Driven home, progeny, made man, unequivocal, indisputable.
Post-war night spirits undaunted ~ stop ******* me.
*** for you, stopped me.
Can’t make it the way you want. Please stop.
Backing off, I respect real you.
Don’t push me Me.
Don’t dream.
Will dream us.
Short sentence for guilt whisked way beyond what crime could be.
We combine beans and seeds and gourds.
That’s science! Culinary!
Botany, true, but I’m enaturated.
Human pod progressed.
If that’s a word, don’t dream it’s not.
Forget every word.
But make each and every word count.
Then add stash, socked away.
I concede.
Mi casa su casa.
Paint it.
Together.
Made mistake then fixed it.
Copasetic dovetails, my lady and me (not I).
We walk talk island jib.
I like the cut of your yar across the moonlit pool.
Go around with me to all haunts, snow globetrotting shaken not stirred
My déjà vu in futurum videre, I can’t believe.
Asunder goddesses should be together,
While Isis and Osiris boogie like Beatrice and Dante encircled,
Their own private imbroglio invaded
By Goth end time alchemists conjuring copyrights for gelt.
You tell me this short story.
I cringe.
My mind clouds men’s, and then conjures Morpheus.
My shadow child joins me in Paradise,
Deliria dancing in concert with Shakespearean intent.
My daughter’s got more guts in one pinky
Than all that fallen pilot on our island bargained for
In the games that decided who’s hungrier.
You could have been that gal.

Suicide; society tells me it’s a ***** word

Blackens your tongue and brands you an

Outsider to your beloved community;

Tarnishes your dazzling reputation and

Takes a beautiful, cherished, short-lived, soul.

But why did society not raise me like the

Painstakingly adored roses amongst

Its garden of thorns; why can’t I be

That happy girl. Why have I been

Doused in fertiliser, a wretched ****

Amongst a garden of beauty, growing

Faster than lightning, roots of gnarly

Agony and shoots of grey, blurred hatred for

Every atom of my being- screams for the ****

Killer to embrace me by the neck, apply a-

Seductive dose of love-dripping pressure

And set this crow free; unchain my bruised wings

And I promise I will leave you be, I will never

Bring misery or misfortune again.

But suicide; is a ***** word, a cheek

Burning, soul smouldering, darkening

Shadow on the pretty plastic cases over our,

Mechanical hearts. Not for the great pain of

Losing a barely, blossomed flower- took one

Heavy dose of white-pain sunlight and

Wilted away into the black, bottomless soil.

Not for the gaping loss of a singular

Fertile crop in an endless year of draught and

Famine. Suicide, is not a tear-wrenching,

Palm-sweating word for the, heavy and huge hole

It leaves in society’s newly plastered walls-

But it is an unspeakable word for the pure

Shame. The surly shadow of unspeakable

Shame that it leaves like a, stain of red wine

On the pretty, sensible woman’s white blouse

Like a ****** tattoo on the arm of an infant.

We do not grieve their death. We grieve our pride,

Our bruised and bleeding pride at not preventing

The stench of failure as a race of people, in the death

Of one melancholy drowned person, we practically

Placed the boulders in their pockets and said drown.

And I am holding my breath; tight roping this

Misery that smothers me at sunrise, see I am

Permitted a feigned slumber of peace in the dead

Hours of night yet I awake to the,

Asphyxiation of pain, eyes bulging in terror of

What awaits me when I run out of time, oxygen fast-

Fading and the orange, pink of dawn lights a

Fire in the honey pools of my eyes- small, mocking fires

That sneer at my desperation to cease, at my plea for peace-

Tight, burning stabs that tingle in my throat and

I’m running low on air, on time, almost there-

Deliria, ecstasy, glee dripping from my limbs

And- the noose I fabricated in my non-

Functioning, disabled mind slips away, faster

Than I can catch it and refasten, and I am, cold

In my bedsheets once more. Welcomed again,

To the now bellowing daylight of, depression

Another flightless, fruitless day of carefully,

Hand-stitched smiles and sinfully pre-tuned

Laughter. The world tells me to stand on the

Pinnacle of misery with one broken leg and

If I dare fall, I am a branded shame on the surface

Of the earth, I am the centre of all failure in the

Universe so I, valiantly ride into no-mans-land,

A knight in shining armour except, I have no steel

And no bronze to, protect my heart from the cannon fire

Of pain, I have no shield to shelter me from the

Poison gas of self-hatred. But I am perfectly okay being

Defenceless in the brazen gunfire; I am still breathing,

The titanium arrows of misery protruding neatly from

My mangled limbs and my broken heart.

And that word, sombre and dark as ever

Flashes once in my head and I swat it away with

Deep-rooted disgust, and a dire hunger for such a desire.

Suicide;

Society tells me it’s a ***** word.

Our reception for suggestion has killed reason leaving us most vulnerable to deception
As the media promotes mass hysteria creating a platform for deliria
I sit in silent disbelief wondering about Nigeria
A bomb is more valuable than a life and no one cares unless it's their
own strife
I fear this war machine may never run out of fight

comfort comes in many forms
scented soft garments against my skin
recollections of your kissses
your eyes, and kind words
audacious pronouncements of Lord Henry
mystic deliria of containing multitudes
melatonin and gilmore girls dvds
at last, sleep crawls into my bed
"i was waiting for you to finish your poem"
she says

By: Cedric McClester

I don’t know who’s scarier
A person who’s inferior
But pretends he’s superior
Because of his deliria
Or someone who’s intense
Because they are convinced
That it makes perfect sense
To ****** folks and hence

Create a race war
Haven’t we seen this before
Raw hatred at its core
And it's still hard to ignore
How can one be taken in
Treated like an old friend
Hear the Good Book then
Bring nine lives to an end

You see it makes us numb
Wondering where does it come from
Is it just ingrained in some
Or learned by everyone
Why does ignorance persist
I could go right down the list
And I will if you insist
See I’m tired and I’m ******

At people with small minds
You can see the telltale signs
They exist in the confines
Of their puppeteer’s designs
Did they lack their mother’s love
Don’t believe in God above
Never took a bath with Dove
What are they frightened of


Copyright © 2015, Cedric McClester.  All rights reserved.

Let me walk away;
back then,
the very first time
we've met.
when sleepless nights of
thinking of you
is not a deliria.
when shutting myself off
from other people
is not my favorite work.

Let me walk away;
these butterflies in my stomach
are not even dying, yet
my heart is slowly crumbling,
for finding my world
in that most little space
in your heart,
for allowing myself that *home
is not just a place
but being with you is.

Let me walk away;
entertaining my favorite visitor, sadness
every night,
staying in our memories,
enduring the agony,
and going back in the middle of time,
we believed our always.
You're no longer
my definition of art,
sobbing in those in-betweens,
unimmortalizing you in those poems
that meant to be eternal.

I will turn back from you —
my dearest home –
to a strange place
that I’d never known;
forgetting our prints
that I’d kept tracing,
tearing those pages that were
not included in
my very own structure,
and building my walls
far from any memory of you.
and for the very last time,
forgive me of my obstinacy,
help me to ease the pain,
just
let. me. walk. away.

actions in bewildered masks
dance to the rhythm of uncertain masquerade.
attempted desires in shadow
lurk in the once-lit facade.
unraveling images in haunting memorabilia
commenced in the deafening sound of silence.
unnerving thoughts in bittersweet content
walk through the cobblestones of deliria.

She rips through the walls trying to break free
A slither of relief, that’s all she wants
Wall after wall to find something familiar
But after digging so much all she gets is constant deliria

Where do we go from here, do you know
Asking for a friend, because I know she’s hurting
Perhaps a companion with all his charm and the flirting

But at the end of the day she still lives inside of me
She can’t get out, she’s not free, no she’ll never be