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vircapio gale Jul 2012
the story went as though
she'd always known the sea
and trusted in its depth
to mellow any ill, caress her
open lovingkind as in a dream.
and dream she would upon the waves,
having settled into floating reverie.
she'd close her eyes and inhale being
there among herself caressing only
ocean, only breath, all sunlit space
to draw her earthly trials gently out.
softened beachside noise would fade
and let alone her ears to hear
the water oneness dipping clear
and deeper in the troughs, for distance
from the stranded holidays,
the beachy noise of seaside frills
and bear her boyancy to rest
in lilting motion, peaceful cresting sleep
atop an intercontinental,
earthsize water bed.
her trust profoundly spanned
the trans-atlantic rift
and any rift to set apart her undulating
ancient ocean mastery. moon
and sun were kneading vastly where
her snores were lost in starfish whispers balancing
the tidal volume set
to always fill and keep afloat,
or otherwise to wake in
sputters and a salty throat.
her body settles into swinging comfort
napping over waves so deep the shore recedes...
... what bright, kind, clarity cascaded in your dreams?
what heart you had, embracing open quiddity,
never sinking nowness breath alert in lucid sleep
and water surface mystic skyward shallow course?
to merfolk gazing up in wonderment
you limply crossed their bouncing sky,
just another flight of fancy in a world of mystery?
did you dream you were a whalesong
sphering out to carry sadness sonorously? did you
school the many impulse-thoughts to clump and flee
the jaws of time? did you bask in light
and find a shining womb of self
to nurture once again and labor out anew?
did gravity make sense to you?
i float sometimes and live that question true.
sleeping far you drifted out and out and in and out of view
and whistles drowned in gathered drama fear
'my grandma! my grandma!'
screamed my cousin at the lifeguard
sweating ******* and leaping over stroke to spash
into your side a breathless shouting mess for you to calm
and ask 'what's wrong?' and angle slowly back to shore
in fits of giggles, bubble laughter at commotion's reach.
they blink in crowds, standing herdlike on the beach.

and now you swim your last,
another summer day.
like any other i awoke
and fed you eggs, so soft
     (at first it wrinkled my nose),
but taste is strange, and slimy works
just fine sometimes,
like in the absence of teeth.
she never liked her dentures,
     (she said she couldn't taste her food)
and gummed her frozen dinner meals with a smile,
like it was the greatest thing in the world.
     (in fact she'd often say, 'that was the best meal i had ever had',
     and with a force that made me happy to suspend my doubt)
and who am i, judging
that which you select? your pills,
your diapers and your vote,
your shows, your nursery rhymes,
your crown manipulation,
your age?
i use abjection well,
as something not unlike a whetstone for denial.
performing daily rituals i abhor
i retrain and edit, revising social eyes:
dilapidated fictions, safer norms
and mores tailored to a loan
with interest from the self.

she didn't call herself a 'nudist,'
though she lived beyond the fence
living **** for decades saying
'i'll never leave, i love my home.'
we played dominoes 'til noon
'another kind of indoor game, one on a side'
her interpretation of my being there
changed soon, like my aversion
for the liquid yoke she buttered with a spoon.
our neighbors loved her and i,
and to meander down our path,
lay their towels and sit
like all there was to do was visit.
lunched,
she hobbles from her plants back to the sink,
and filling the cat dish, stands
century-old arms akimbo
in the doorway, with a sigh to wake the sun.
being of caretaking was never so fun.
holding hands i help her over roots,
around the rocky sections, through
the easy path and level now
she hobbles sure, the cane a decoration
for her pride at being old and young
at heart and quick at stories overtold
in grooves to satisfy the sense of time.
greetings shower us with beaming smiles,
inching to the sandy edge. denuding,
joining everyone, we stand engulfed
in air. modern digambar to don
a vaster cloth of letting be.
skinny dipping grandma, and me.
the water slips around
her fraglile skin, human driftwood
knotted with a smile.
a grand mother slipping through akashic cracks
to undiscover friends their seeing core.
they wonder at the shore
of hoary plight
and wonder on, once we're gone.
invisible isotopes
gently rain down
onto the chins
of infants

we whisk
them
away with
soft kisses

tiny
irradiated
dust flakes
float onto
boutonniereless
lapels

we brush them
off with fresh
carnations

Oak leaves
blown from
denuding limbs
by soft puffs of
radioactive
plumes

are shaken
from our
door mats

green grass
sprinkled with
Strontium 90

is mowed
and mixed
into our
compost piles

the pristine
waters
of March
are laced with
uranium
tainted
iodine

it coolly
slakes
our
piqued
thirst

the rouge rose
gilded with
a golden plush
of soft plutonium

is plucked
to adorn late
evening
dinner tables
and exchanged
by sweethearts
as amorous
gestures
of resignation
between
condemned
lovers


Oakland
3/28/11
jbm
Its 8:30 in the AM
The Corn Moon
is being routed by a
Manassas cloud bank

NPR be barking
Irma this, Irma that
my tremblin Rav4
stuck in the rush
is idling behind
a pair of gray hairs
spewing
leaded premium
out the back
of a big old black Buick
sportin Florida tags

inching north up I95
I’m relieved to be
a thousand miles
ahead of the
monstrous *****
denuding Barbuda
deflowering the
****** Islands
and threatening to topple
the last vestiges of
Castro’s Dynasty
by disrupting upscale
bourgeois markets
for cafe Cubanos,
cool Cohibas and
bold Bolivars

she’s a CAT 5
counterclockwise
spinning catastrophe
churning through
the Florida straits
bending steel framed
Golden Arches
shaking the tiki shacks
gobbling lives
defiling tropical dreams

the best
meteorological minds
on the Weather Channel
plug the Euro model
to plot a choreography
of Irma’s cyclonic sashay

they predict she’ll
strut her stuff
up a runway  
that perfectly
dissects the  
Sunshine State
ransacking
the topography
venting carnage
like battalions of
badly behaved frat boys,
schools of guys gone wild
sophomores, wreaking havoc
during a Daytona Beach
spring break
droolin over *******
popping woodies at
wet tee shirt contests
urinating on doorstoops
puking into Igloo Coolers
and breaking their necks
from ill advised
second floor leaps
into the shallow end
of Motel 6 pools

but I’m rolling north
into the secure
arms of a benign
Mid Atlantic Summer
like other refugees,
my trunk is
filled with baggage
of fear and worry
wondering
if there’re be anything
left to return to
once Irma
has spent herself
with one last
furious ****
against the
Chattanooga Bluffs of
Lookout Mountain

Morning Edition
Is yodeling a common
seasonal refrain
the gubmint is
just about outta cash
congress needs to
increase the debt limit

My oh my,
has the worm turned
during the Obama years
the GOP put us through a
Teabag inspired nightmare
gubmint shutdowns
and sequestration
shaved 15 points
off every war profiteers vig
it gave a well earned
long overdue
take the rest of the week off
unpaid vacation
to non essential
gubmint workers
while a cadre of
wheelchair bound
Greatest Generation
military vets get
locked out of the
WWII Memorial on the
National Mall

this time around
its different
we have an Orange Hair
in the office and there's
some hyper sensitivity
to raise the debt ceiling
given that Harvey
has yet to fully
drain from the
Houston bayous

the colossal cleanup
from that thrice in a
Millennial lifetime storm
has garnered bipartisan support
to  clean up the wreckage
left behind by a
badly behaved
one star BnB lodger
who took a week
long leak into the
delicate bayous of
Southeast Texas

yet we are infused
with optimism that our
Caucasian president
and his GOP grovelers
now mustered
to the Oval Office
will slow tango
with the flummoxed
no answer Dems
to get the job done

pigs do fly in DC
Ryan and McConnell
double date with
Pelosi and Schumer
get to heavy pettin
from front row seats
beholding droll  
Celebrity Apprentice
reruns

The Donald, Nancy and Chuck
slip the room for a little
menage au trois side action
transforming Mitch and Paul
into vacillating voyeurs
who start jerking their dongs
while POTUS, and his
new found friends
get busy workin
the art of a deal

rush hour peaks
static traffic grows
in concert with
a swelling  
frenetic angst
driving drivers
to madness
terrified
they won't
get paid if
the debt ceiling
don't rise
they honk horns
rev engines
thumb iPhones
and sing out
primal screams

unmindful drivers
piloting Little Hondas
bump cheap Beamers
start a game of
bumper cars
dartin in and out
of temporary gaps
uncovered by the
spastic fits and starts
of temporary
decongested
ebbs and flows

A $12 EZ Pass
gambit is offered
the fast lane
on ramp
has few takers
just another
pick your pocket
gubmint scheme
two express lanes
lie vacant
while three lanes of
non premium roadway
boast bumper to bumper
inertness
wasted fuel
declining productivity
skyrockets
the  wisdom of
the invisible hand doesn't
seem to be working

DOJ bureaucrats
In Camrys and Focuses
dial the office
to let somebody
know they’ll
be tardy

gubmint contractors in
silver Mercedes begin
jubilantly honking horns
NPR has just announced that
Pelosi and Schumer
joined the Orange team
the rise in the debt ceiling
will nullify their 15%
sequestration pay cut

NPR reports the
National Cathedral will
deconsecrate two hallowed
stained glass windows of
rebel generals R E Lee
and Stonewall Jackson
it's a terrible shame that
the Episcopal Church
will turn its back on the
rich Dixie WASPS
who commissioned these
installations to commemorate
the church's complicity
in sanctifying the
institution of slavery,
WWJD?

as I ponder
this Anglican
conundrum another
object arrests my
streaming consciousness
upsetting an attention span
shorter and less deep
than the patch of oil  
disappearing under the front
of the RAV as I thunder by
at 5 MPH

to the left I eye a
funny looking building
standing at attention
next to a Bob Evans

I’m convinced
Its gotta be CIA
a 15 story
gubmint minaret
a listening post
wired to intercept
mobile digital
confabulations
from crawling traffic
inching along
beneath its feet

this thinking node
pulsing with
intelligence
reeking with
counterintelligence
the tautological
contradiction
guarantees the
stasis of our
confused
national consciousness

strategically positioned to
tune into the
intractable Zeitgeist
culling meta code
planting data points
In Big Data
data farms
running algos
to discern bits
of intelligence
endeavoring to reveal
future shock trends
knows nothing
reveals less

the buildings cover
is its acute
conspicuousness
gray steel frame
silver tinted glass
multiple wireless antennas
black rimmed windows
boldly proclaim
any data entering
this cheerless edifice
must abandon all hope
of ever being framed
in a non duplicitous
non self serving sentence

the gray obelisk a
national security citidel
refracts the
fear and loathing
the sprawling
global anxiety
our civilization's
discontent
playing out
in the captive
soft parade
ambling along
the freeway jam
imobilized
at its stoop

Moning Edition jingle
follows urgent report of
FEMA scamblin assets
arbitraging Harvey and Irma
triaging two
tropical storm tragedies
and a third girl
just named Maria
pushed off the Canaries
and is on its way to a
Puerto Rico
homecoming

while
gubmint  bureaucrats
anxiously push on
to their soulless offices
the rush hour jam
has peaked
my WAZE
is having a
nervous breakdown

next lane over
a guy in a gold PT Cruiser
is banging on his steering wheel
don’t think this unessential worker
will win September's
civil servant of the month award

Ex Military
K Street defectors
slamming big civie
Hummers
getting six mpg
lobby for a larger
apportionment
of mercenary dollars
for Blackwater's
global war on terror

Prius Hybrids
silently roll on
politely driven by
EPA Hangers On
hoping to save
a bit of the planet
from an Agency Director
intent on the agency's
deconstruction
the third 500 year hurricane
of the season
is of no consequence

obsolete
GMC Jimmy’s
are manned by
Steve Mnunchin
wannabes
the frugal
treasury dept
ledger keepers
pour good money after bad
to keep the national debt
and there clanking
jalopies working

driving Malibus
DOL stalwarts
stickin with the Union
give biz to GMC

nice lookin chicks
young coed interns
with big daddy doners
fix their faces and
come to work
whenever they want

my *** is killing me
I squirm in my seat
to relieve my aching sacroiliac
and begin to wonder if my name
will appear on some
computer printout today?
can’t afford an IRS audit
maybe my house will
be claimed by some
eminent domaine landgrab?
Perhaps NSA
may come calling,
why did I sign that
Save The Whales
Facebook Petition?

The EZ Pass lane
is movin real easy
mocking the gridlock
that goes all the way
to Baltimore
a bifurcated Amerika
is an exhaust spewing
standing condemnation
to small “R”
republicanism  

glint from windshields
is blinding
my **** is hurtin and
gettin back to Jersey
gunna take a while
GPS recalcs arrival time

an intrepid Lyft driver
feints and dodges
into the traffic gaps
drivin the shoulder
urging his way to the
Ronnie Reagan International
I'm sure
gettin heat from
a backseat fare
that shoulda pinged
an hour earlier

Irma creeps
toward the Florida Keys
faster then the
glacial jam
befuddling congress

I think I just spotted
Teabag Patriot
Grover Norquist
manning a rampart
bestriding a highway overpass
he’s got a clipboard in hand
checking the boxes
counting cars
taking names
who’s late?
who’s unessential?

man
whatta jam we're in

Music Selection:
Jeff Beck: Freeway Jam

Orlando
9/21/17
jbm
written as im stuck in jam headin back to jersey
Nat Lipstadt Sep 2015
~for Ernesto, with love~

these last days, so recently arrived
to nag/remind, pre-commence,
the celebration
of mine fast approaching,
significant other mileage marker,
the day that is the in-between mid and seniority,
finds me asleep by nine,
only to be turned hard a starboard,
startled and startling,
sharp awoken at midnight,
a headful of dreadful and most colorful dreams,
my ever faithful midnight alarm clock

so I find myself alert and inclined to be
urgently communicative,
answering queries from friends,
catching up on comments and likes
to my poems that once penned,
are then penned by me themselves,
surrounded by fences,
put away to be ignored and enclosed,
my flock of sheep unshorn

that upon occasional re-reading
then become hairless, all pink and white skin,
newly denuding of me
by the reminder of public exposure

this travelogue
through heart and mind
is journey for journey's sake,
I have discarded older outdated notions
(the "outdated" conceptual
begs for a poem all its own)

of commencement, beginnings,
ends, finales, terminals. even periods.

instead I conquistador land upon a new
plateau, familiar but confusing,
where my muddled thoughts
have lain for several days,
cloudy in a accumulating cumulus of realizations,
the "compare and contrast" of
life and death,
their gravitas diminished,
understanding them to be but modest signposts
upon the path of this
stewing, brewing, yearning to be free
poem
~~~
The In-Between

all day, I too,
am penned in a museum auditorium,
listening, hearing, applauding a gorgeous gaggle
of writers, musicians, doctors and dancers,
security guards and comic book authors,
falsely accused death row prisoners,
sons and daughters
and yes,
even a poet laureate

all assembled to contemplate this connective notion
of curator-as-written
with capitals and hyphen (most appropriately) as
The In-Between

of course dear Ernesto,
everyone defines their personal in-between
personally
but all these artists corral my thoughts
onto and against a canvas blank,
awaiting the portrait painting
slow cooking in my oven

of you,
who lays dying in Texas
surrounded by family and
the notions of reconciliation
and thus birthing
in me
these words,
something new ironical,
if only to prove a point

You,
my self-appointed
mentee
ex-drug addict, father,
self-savior of yourself
make

I,
your mentor, cheerleader, steadfast critic armed
with
just encouragement enough to give your self-propelled
poetry an occasional push
of your hand-carpentered, tree swing

but this is a poem about
in-betweens

two words,
separate and equal
but when combinated by a
hyphen,
a dash that leaves no spaces
in-between
making two into one

for you and I
are both

in
and
between

each other

two-in-one

only a few weeks ago we talked about
you coming to my new york city,
and now life deserts you,
and you,
me?

here I pause and smile
for I hear you thinking,
natty, too long, too much,
wrap it up and connect that special and peculiar,
in-between,

-

*but I can't stop
for each hour of the last 72
has witnessed a new poem
in-between
minute one and minute sixty five
written for you,
writing for life,
writing of this moment
this space so gulf and so narrow
in and between
the unity of
us

the poet laureate talks of spaces,
the poem she reads out loud,
is emitted light from her body's mind
exhaled into the room,
and now designed to be placed
in-between
her and us,
purposed to successfully connect
our in-betweenness

I do not like this notion of
rest in peace,
as if peace was a desirable end in and of itself

prefer rest in pieces,
for what follows and precedes peace,
is pieces of ourselves
torn from the notebook
where we write down our poems unique and
secrete our secrets

rest in pieces!
connected by the in-between
which like
the
s p a c e s between  e a c h letter  here,
are the connective tissues of two parts
one, new
and the other,
created-crested by the transference
of every old reworked

I think of spaces differently

the gap between two fron teeth,
the space between two violin strings,
the V separating divider of the space
between our legs that is the baseline
of our torso entire,
the re-appearing and then disappearing space
between two bodies making love

all now remind that the
in-between
is a place of its own purport,
a parapet to stroll across from
one castle keep to another

so more and more,
mere mortal
are these discards,
I forsake these antiquities:

commencement, finale, terminal, ending,
even new beginnings

and all attention paid now to the recasting of our
happenstances and events
as a series of
in-between's,
the most valuable of our possessions,
connecting the only-seemingly
disparate days

but I must now return once more to the
in-between
of us

we uncovered something of ourselves
in
each other,
creating a causeway
between

for you and I are one big
differential,
so unlike in
life's
temperamental,
that
given the down easy to the shock and awe,
most happily easily,
our so very differing poems bridged the
in-between
us

the in-between us,
seen incorrectly as the timeouts
separating the fifteen rounds we fight

that is the thing,
the rub,
the main event on the fight card,
is not the fight itself,
but the crossing over

come quickly to our in-between,
my brother-in-words,
do not leave me
bereft and bereaved,
disconnected and despairing

let's follow,
both of us,
the trail
of dividing and connecting hyphens
---------------

I, given every advantage,
you, given every ghetto gang disadvantage
yet your voice soars
while mine aches and creaks
and breaks

I am better now
understanding existence as
a series of connected in-betweens,
but the not knowing when we will meet again
for the first time,
stretches me thin,
for without you
in
me,
between
us
the space flickers wider,
and the next in-between far far distanced,
further for farther,
and I worry,
who will love my poetry as you did,
who will be my encouragement now?

your passing shall not come
in-between us,
this I swear
~~~
in your honor of
your cellphone misty typo pings and compulsed hurried style,,
I do not edit this edifice that. I have lain down just now,
it was writ in slow haste and
fast forming eddies of ideas,
full of typographical errors of
omission and commission,
just
put out down as it was born,
just as you and I
we were put out as born,
only to cross and combine
to be a single
in-between
3:24am
Sept 26, 2015
------
The DedPoet
5 hours ago      3 hours ago

A Final Poem
Though I stand at the precipice
Of eternity's brimming cup,
Filled with hymn and speech
Alive like a livid wound
Gasping for more heavy minutes,
I wonder at the things left unsaid.

The sun mounts the coast
Consuming the resurrection
Of my forsaken throat,
The penetrating odor of certain
Death,
Still in this fragility
A certain voice I still call
To in dreams that come ever stronger
In the gentle atmosphere
Where night is born
And the dawn of her smile,
Here destiny can be seen
With continuity of life.

In this memory
I feel the calm of a faraway star,
My journey to he taken among
The densities
Which petrifies the brilliance
Of my shining fear,
My great love like my life
Should become an omen
That flies out of my hand
And becomes an actual presence
While the world is suspended
As I leave for the transparent skies.

And my life with her was a harvest,
My memory drinks of her
Forehead lit by the moon,
My lost time in a repugnant solitude
In my unmajestic life,
I arrive at forever
Because I loved her,
And yes because she loved me back.

The world is a mystery to me,
And I will leave as a question
Filtered by words
In a journey of galleries
Visible by the days I was alive,
Among the corridors I will see her
Face,
Among the words I will
Have given to poetry
What life had given like pillars
Of magic,
Taken by the arches of light filled
With enduring gratitude
For my greatest sorrows,
Simultaneously my greatest joy.

Like a song in the wind
I voyage the flames
Fanning the fire of words,
Because she loved me these words
Were born,
Because I loved her,
I birthed a poem.
And upon my death
Collect my fragments and place
Them under the tired sun,
Swept away by the ocean tides
Full of anguish under the flowering
Of my death,
I will be a poem remembered,
Nostalgic and scattered.
Here in the flesh,
My eyes see,
My hands touch,
I seek the say to live as a bird,
I search without finding,
I pace the shadows off the lonely
Walls ,
The day ends, the minutes end,
These heavy seconds
Of walking onward to the next life.

Where is my life without her?
And the poem absurd and short,
Death makes one know the worth,
The drowsiness of these poets,
Awakening when something ends.
Unleashed is my word,
Flawed and with no center,
I am a dying man.
Angry and bitter,
Tempered by the words
Never spoken,
The words I will never say,
Though I die and go to a body
More golden and transparent,
To a land with tiger lilies
In undying meadows where the sun
Dances on the outskirts
Of the night,
I know I have lived,
I lived because she lives now,
And she loved me.

My persecuted ways are done,
I relieve to you all
This final poem,
Filled with her grace,
The love of my life,
A final verse to say nothing more
Than goodbye,
Where the writing is done
By living,
Death shall remain but a word.
Justin G Dec 2015
He spoke it all into existence and now he dreadfully merits his quiet.

Words do nothing for me
He quietly echoes
They leave him lost
Like dismayed homes       
You cannot heed him 
For he is the silence
Which reeks of ire
Do not try and plead him
For your abjection
Is his sole desire
In opposition to the will
He held her hands
Like a broken clock
No time for compromise
No time to stop
Words are nothing to you
He loudly utters
Words are everything to me
She struggles to mutter
Intrusion proceeds
Denuding her garden
Walls shadow
A penalizing truth
He cannot be pardon.
As the day dies sun to west slants
my hands water the few potted plants
an evening dawns in melancholic hush
pesters my mood the cawing corvus!

The nose in the air polished jackdaw
can’t fathom why men break nature’s law
wipe out forests root out the green
then on the roof try to grow seedling!

Why at all shrink the men so smart
stretches of wood to build habitat
all the clever brains profound and wise
destroy wastelands to madly urbanize!

The corvus his eyes speak of dark scare
frightened beak caws how is unfair
denuding of trees in insane haste
leaving scarce space to build him a nest!
The kid in the trolley
is getting up.
Slightly is knocking on the window.
Then he’s waving to somebody.
Speaking:
“No way.
I can’t
call
(forbidden).
No way.
I can’t
look at
(the long coins
on the teeth).
The hands have no way.
I can’t touch
(the hands are holding tightly
The Other Ones).
Now and
yesterday
your face is lost,
my face is lost…”

And the eyes of Sunday are denuding.

The original:

*(Детето във тролея)

Детето във тролея
се изправя.
Лекичко почуква по стъклото.
После махва някому.
Говори:
„Няма как.
Не мога
да се обадя
( забранено).
Няма как.
Не мога
да погледам
( дългите монети
по зъбите).
Ръцете няма как.
Не мога да докосна
( ръцете здраво стискат
Другите).
Сега и
вчера
е изгубено лицето ти,
изгубено лицето ми…”

И се оголват очите на неделята.


Translator Bulgarian-English: Vessislava Savova
rarebird
© bogpan - all rights reserved.
Debra A Baugh Feb 2013
I breathe in song leaving silk dictation
upon his skin, converging each note in
dreams of his reality

denuding him...

absorbing him in whispered aubade's,
savoring him in fingertip forages; aching
for his touch to mould me, caress and
hold me like a paintbrush to canvas;
its bristles a tongue tasting every
curve of me

undulating...

I dance with him slowly; by our song
bodies swaying with a beggars need,
as hips and thighs whisper in wanton
heat leading us to temptation's portal
of lust

hungry...

in savored decadence a delicacy of
truffled sweet creaminess upon
tongue splayed between open thigh,
and still in song skin upon skin;
passion rides leaving us wet
and wanting

devouring...

with hungry mouths sinking beneath
our coveted desires; probing delicious
fantasies, pulsing for him to plunge
shamelessly in out wetness as we
sing our own songs of uttered sighs
and moans

our lover's ballad...sung
AT Talbott Jan 2015
A well-groomed stranger walks an unfamiliar path
He breathes deeply of the cool, damp air mixed with the musk of mud
Filaments of sunlight filter through rapidly denuding branches
As his troubled mind turns to the day’s solemn occasion
SR Nirmal Kumar Aug 2019
Meandering, eroding, denuding, vitalizing...
From small beginnings to a glorious end
River merging into the ocean
Dave Robertson Nov 2020
Autumn questions
with no immediate answers

gradually denuding
to reveal skeletal branches
penning their script against pale skies,
writing of the sharp tongued winter
lying ahead
Ryan O'Leary Nov 2022
When sap recedes,

        depriving leaves

       nutrients of envy,


         foliage famines,

   green turns jaundiced

     denuding branches,


                while

          Autumnising

             Anaemia.
within complex edifice...
derelict hulking corpse delineated courtesy
seared, singed, smoldered smithereens
formerly robust warrior
slain during prime of his life
heavenly corporeal outstanding entity
subjected to fateful foragers
courtesy camping buzzfeeding carrion -
fancy feast for famished
uber twittering, jump/kick starting
crowing angry birds

made short shrift
decayed discarded detritus
filched flesh from felled soldier
denuding human legendary poet
picked bone clean
his once powerful promising physique
skeletal remnants displayed burnt offerings
abandoned sun bleached,
petrified lovely bones
strewn across a field of shattered dreams
desiccated skull detached situated askew

athwart castoff liberated phalanges
impossible mission to envision
former formidable specimen
fallen hero pronounced earthen imprint
traced impression outlining
his outsize stature
bonafide definition where his corpse laid
only memory remains of doodling yankee,
(a Norwegian bachelor farmer wannabe)
harkening back and plucked from
the "little town that time forgot
and the decades could not improve."

Composite character sketch
of arbitrary conjured fighting
jaunty opportunistic understudy
strong likely to be template
of actual anonymous template
forgotten in the aftermath melee of battle
subsumed by and belonged to history,
a bit part he played after
North and South pitted against each other,
though the former named Union soldiers
during the War Between the States
acquired many names and nicknames,

especially by the Confederates:
They were called Billy Yank,
blue bellies or blue coats,
which spontaneously generated idea
came to my mind linkedin
to a personal affinity
for aforementioned rebellion to some people
after Confederate troops fired
at 4:30 a.m. April 12, 1861
on Fort Sumter April 1861
initially President Lincoln
described the situation as an “insurrection.”

But within months,
he instead adopted “rebellion.”

That word evoked
a more distinctly negative connotation
then than it does today,
or rather prior to the heavily armed,
Trump-incited mob attack
of Jan. 6, 2021, an attack
(premeditated in my humble opinion)
not just on the U.S. Capitol building,
but also on democracy and the rule of law.

Though at no time did I enlist
in the armed services,
(although after high school
my parents coaxed, goaded,
and loathed their second born
and only son intimating
becoming a nonconformist,
and nonestablishmentarian, ne'er do well,
(which outcome adequately sums
up how mein kampf evolved),
nevertheless yours truly exhibits

psychologically traumatic wounds
synonymous with the horrors of mortal kombat,
and clear out of the blue
behavior associated with deadly carnage
oozed out from every one of my pores,
misleading an observer to deduce
writer of these words experienced
and underwent text book example
being shell shocked
under heavy bombardment.

At present attention of mine plugged into a biography titled Custer's Trials | A LIFE ON THE FRONTIER OF A NEW AMERICA | storied author T.J. STILES, current reading material populates thought processes of mine with trappings of internecine bloodshed forever wrenching fledgling United States of America away from slave holding Southern lifestyle.

Enslaved people in the antebellum South constituted about one-third of the southern population. Most lived on large plantations or small farms; many enslavers owned fewer than 50 enslaved people. Landowners sought to make their enslaved completely dependent on them through a system of restrictive codes.

— The End —