I go up
Then go down
My head is spinning around
First I'm gregarious
Then I'm diffident
Chaos starts to begin
As new pages rip in
I get irascible
When people ask me questions
I'm an emciated person
With stress going about
With this bipolar linking on
Tears begin to crowd
To a laughter if mismaze
My relationships are hard
For I cannot keep one
For this bipolar is to strong
I wish I could be normal
And not take pills
But bipolar has controlled me
To my birth to my will
I will have it till the end
Till I'm old and grey
It's going to be a part of me
Forever and today

No more of talk where God or Angel guest
With Man, as with his friend, familiar us’d,
To sit indulgent, and with him partake
Rural repast; permitting him the while
Venial discourse unblam’d. I now must change
Those notes to tragick; foul distrust, and breach
Disloyal on the part of Man, revolt,
And disobedience: on the part of Heaven
Now alienated, distance and distaste,
Anger and just rebuke, and judgement given,
That brought into this world a world of woe,
Sin and her shadow Death, and Misery
Death’s harbinger: Sad talk!yet argument
Not less but more heroick than the wrath
Of stern Achilles on his foe pursued
Thrice fugitive about Troy wall; or rage
Of Turnus for Lavinia disespous’d;
Or Neptune’s ire, or Juno’s, that so long
Perplexed the Greek, and Cytherea’s son:                        

If answerable style I can obtain
Of my celestial patroness, who deigns
Her nightly visitation unimplor’d,
And dictates to me slumbering; or inspires
Easy my unpremeditated verse:
Since first this subject for heroick song
Pleas’d me long choosing, and beginning late;
Not sedulous by nature to indite
Wars, hitherto the only argument
Heroick deem’d chief mastery to dissect
With long and tedious havock fabled knights
In battles feign’d; the better fortitude
Of patience and heroick martyrdom
Unsung; or to describe races and games,
Or tilting furniture, imblazon’d shields,
Impresses quaint, caparisons and steeds,
Bases and tinsel trappings, gorgeous knights
At joust and tournament; then marshall’d feast
Serv’d up in hall with sewers and seneshals;
The skill of artifice or office mean,
Not that which justly gives heroick name
To person, or to poem.  Me, of these
Nor skill’d nor studious, higher argument
Remains; sufficient of itself to raise
That name, unless an age too late, or cold
Climate, or years, damp my intended wing
Depress’d; and much they may, if all be mine,
Not hers, who brings it nightly to my ear.
The sun was sunk, and after him the star
Of Hesperus, whose office is to bring
Twilight upon the earth, short arbiter
“twixt day and night, and now from end to end
Night’s hemisphere had veil’d the horizon round:
When satan, who late fled before the threats
Of Gabriel out of Eden, now improv’d
In meditated fraud and malice, bent
On Man’s destruction, maugre what might hap
Of heavier on himself, fearless returned
From compassing the earth; cautious of day,
Since Uriel, regent of the sun, descried
His entrance, and foreworned the Cherubim
That kept their watch; thence full of anguish driven,
The space of seven continued nights he rode
With darkness; thrice the equinoctial line
He circled; four times crossed the car of night
From pole to pole, traversing each colure;
On the eighth returned; and, on the coast averse
From entrance or Cherubick watch, by stealth
Found unsuspected way.  There was a place,
Now not, though sin, not time, first wrought the change,
Where Tigris, at the foot of Paradise,
Into a gulf shot under ground, till part
Rose up a fountain by the tree of life:
In with the river sunk, and with it rose
Satan, involved in rising mist; then sought
Where to lie hid; sea he had searched, and land,
From Eden over Pontus and the pool
Maeotis, up beyond the river Ob;
Downward as far antarctick; and in length,
West from Orontes to the ocean barred
At Darien ; thence to the land where flows
Ganges and Indus: Thus the orb he roamed
With narrow search; and with inspection deep
Considered every creature, which of all
Most opportune might serve his wiles; and found
The Serpent subtlest beast of all the field.
Him after long debate, irresolute
Of thoughts revolved, his final sentence chose
Fit vessel, fittest imp of fraud, in whom
To enter, and his dark suggestions hide
From sharpest sight: for, in the wily snake
Whatever sleights, none would suspicious mark,
As from his wit and native subtlety
Proceeding; which, in other beasts observed,
Doubt might beget of diabolick power
Active within, beyond the sense of brute.
Thus he resolved, but first from inward grief
His bursting passion into plaints thus poured.
More justly, seat worthier of Gods, as built
With second thoughts, reforming what was old!
O Earth, how like to Heaven, if not preferred
For what God, after better, worse would build?
Terrestrial Heaven, danced round by other Heavens
That shine, yet bear their bright officious lamps,
Light above light, for thee alone, as seems,
In thee concentring all their precious beams
Of sacred influence!  As God in Heaven
Is center, yet extends to all; so thou,
Centring, receivest from all those orbs: in thee,
Not in themselves, all their known virtue appears
Productive in herb, plant, and nobler birth
Of creatures animate with gradual life
Of growth, sense, reason, all summed up in Man.
With what delight could I have walked thee round,
If I could joy in aught, sweet interchange
Of hill, and valley, rivers, woods, and plains,
Now land, now sea and shores with forest crowned,
Rocks, dens, and caves!  But I in none of these
Find place or refuge; and the more I see
Pleasures about me, so much more I feel
Torment within me, as from the hateful siege
Of contraries: all good to me becomes
Bane, and in Heaven much worse would be my state.
But neither here seek I, no nor in Heaven
To dwell, unless by mastering Heaven’s Supreme;
Nor hope to be myself less miserable
By what I seek, but others to make such
As I, though thereby worse to me redound:
For only in destroying I find ease
To my relentless thoughts; and, him destroyed,
Or won to what may work his utter loss,
For whom all this was made, all this will soon
Follow, as to him linked in weal or woe;
In woe then; that destruction wide may range:
To me shall be the glory sole among
The infernal Powers, in one day to have marred
What he, Almighty styled, six nights and days
Continued making; and who knows how long
Before had been contriving? though perhaps
Not longer than since I, in one night, freed
From servitude inglorious well nigh half
The angelick name, and thinner left the throng
Of his adorers: He, to be avenged,
And to repair his numbers thus impaired,
Whether such virtue spent of old now failed
More Angels to create, if they at least
Are his created, or, to spite us more,
Determined to advance into our room
A creature formed of earth, and him endow,
Exalted from so base original,
With heavenly spoils, our spoils: What he decreed,
He effected; Man he made, and for him built
Magnificent this world, and earth his seat,
Him lord pronounced; and, O indignity!
Subjected to his service angel-wings,
And flaming ministers to watch and tend
Their earthly charge: Of these the vigilance
I dread; and, to elude, thus wrapt in mist
Of midnight vapour glide obscure, and pry
In every bush and brake, where hap may find
The serpent sleeping; in whose mazy folds
To hide me, and the dark intent I bring.
O foul descent! that I, who erst contended
With Gods to sit the highest, am now constrained
Into a beast; and, mixed with ******* slime,
This essence to incarnate and imbrute,
That to the highth of Deity aspired!
But what will not ambition and revenge
Descend to?  Who aspires, must down as low
As high he soared; obnoxious, first or last,
To basest things.  Revenge, at first though sweet,
Bitter ere long, back on itself recoils:
Let it; I reck not, so it light well aimed,
Since higher I fall short, on him who next
Provokes my envy, this new favourite
Of Heaven, this man of clay, son of despite,
Whom, us the more to spite, his Maker raised
From dust: Spite then with spite is best repaid.
So saying, through each thicket dank or dry,
Like a black mist low-creeping, he held on
His midnight-search, where soonest he might find
The serpent; him fast-sleeping soon he found
In labyrinth of many a round self-rolled,
His head the midst, well stored with subtile wiles:
Not yet in horrid shade or dismal den,
Nor nocent yet; but, on the grassy herb,
Fearless unfeared he slept: in at his mouth
The Devil entered; and his brutal sense,
In heart or head, possessing, soon inspired
With act intelligential; but his sleep
Disturbed not, waiting close the approach of morn.
Now, when as sacred light began to dawn
In Eden on the humid flowers, that breathed
Their morning incense, when all things, that breathe,
From the Earth’s great altar send up silent praise
To the Creator, and his nostrils fill
With grateful smell, forth came the human pair,
And joined their vocal worship to the quire
Of creatures wanting voice; that done, partake
The season prime for sweetest scents and airs:
Then commune, how that day they best may ply
Their growing work: for much their work out-grew
The hands’ dispatch of two gardening so wide,
And Eve first to her husband thus began.
Adam, well may we labour still to dress
This garden, still to tend plant, herb, and flower,
Our pleasant task enjoined; but, till more hands
Aid us, the work under our labour grows,
Luxurious by restraint; what we by day
Lop overgrown, or prune, or prop, or bind,
One night or two with wanton growth derides
Tending to wild.  Thou therefore now advise,
Or bear what to my mind first thoughts present:
Let us divide our labours; thou, where choice
Leads thee, or where most needs, whether to wind
The woodbine round this arbour, or direct
The clasping ivy where to climb; while I,
In yonder spring of roses intermixed
With myrtle, find what to redress till noon:
For, while so near each other thus all day
Our task we choose, what wonder if so near
Looks intervene and smiles, or object new
Casual discourse draw on; which intermits
Our day’s work, brought to little, though begun
Early, and the hour of supper comes unearned?
To whom mild answer Adam thus returned.
Sole Eve, associate sole, to me beyond
Compare above all living creatures dear!
Well hast thou motioned, well thy thoughts employed,
How we might best fulfil the work which here
God hath assigned us; nor of me shalt pass
Unpraised: for nothing lovelier can be found
In woman, than to study houshold good,
And good works in her husband to promote.
Yet not so strictly hath our Lord imposed
Labour, as to debar us when we need
Refreshment, whether food, or talk between,
Food of the mind, or this sweet *******
Of looks and smiles; for smiles from reason flow,
To brute denied, and are of love the food;
Love, not the lowest end of human life.
For not to irksome toil, but to delight,
He made us, and delight to reason joined.
These paths and bowers doubt not but our joint hands
Will keep from wilderness with ease, as wide
As we need walk, till younger hands ere long
Assist us; But, if much converse perhaps
Thee satiate, to short absence I could yield:
For solitude sometimes is best society,
And short retirement urges sweet return.
But other doubt possesses me, lest harm
Befall thee severed from me; for thou knowest
What hath been warned us, what malicious foe
Envying our happiness, and of his own
Despairing, seeks to work us woe and shame
By sly assault; and somewhere nigh at hand
Watches, no doubt, with greedy hope to find
His wish and best advantage, us asunder;
Hopeless to circumvent us joined, where each
To other speedy aid might lend at need:
Whether his first design be to withdraw
Our fealty from God, or to disturb
Conjugal love, than which perhaps no bliss
Enjoyed by us excites his envy more;
Or this, or worse, leave not the faithful side
That gave thee being, still shades thee, and protects.
The wife, where danger or dishonour lurks,
Safest and seemliest by her husband stays,
Who guards her, or with her the worst endures.
To whom the ****** majesty of Eve,
As one who loves, and some unkindness meets,
With sweet austere composure thus replied.
Offspring of Heaven and Earth, and all Earth’s Lord!
That such an enemy we have, who seeks
Our ruin, both by thee informed I learn,
And from the parting Angel over-heard,
As in a shady nook I stood behind,
Just then returned at shut of evening flowers.
But, that thou shouldst my firmness therefore doubt
To God or thee, because we have a foe
May tempt it, I expected not to hear.
His violence thou fearest not, being such
As we, not capable of death or pain,
Can either not receive, or can repel.
His fraud is then thy fear; which plain infers
Thy equal fear, that my firm faith and love
Can by his fraud be shaken or seduced;
Thoughts, which how found they harbour in thy breast,
Adam, mis-thought of her to thee so dear?
To whom with healing words Adam replied.
Daughter of God and Man, immortal Eve!
For such thou art; from sin and blame entire:
Not diffident of thee do I dissuade
Thy absence from my sight, but to avoid
The attempt itself, intended by our foe.
For he who tempts, though in vain, at least asperses
The tempted with dishonour foul; supposed
Not incorruptible of faith, not proof
Against temptation: Thou thyself with scorn
And anger wouldst resent the offered wrong,
Though ineffectual found: misdeem not then,
If such affront I labour to avert
From thee alone, which on us both at once
The enemy, though bold, will hardly dare;
Or daring, first on me the assault shall light.
Nor thou his malice and false guile contemn;
Subtle he needs must be, who could ******
Angels; nor think superfluous other’s aid.
I, from the influence of thy looks, receive
Access in every virtue; in thy sight
More wise, more watchful, stronger, if need were
Of outward strength; while shame, thou looking on,
Shame to be overcome or over-reached,
Would utmost vigour raise, and raised unite.
Why shouldst not thou like sense within thee feel
When I am present, and thy trial choose
With me, best witness of thy virtue tried?
So spake domestick Adam in his care
And matrimonial love; but Eve, who thought
Less attributed to her faith sincere,
Thus her reply with accent sweet renewed.
If this be our condition, thus to dwell
In narrow circuit straitened by a foe,
Subtle or violent, we not endued
Single with like defence, wherever met;
How are we happy, still in fear of harm?
But harm precedes not sin: only our foe,
Tempting, affronts us with his foul esteem
Of our integrity: his foul esteem
Sticks no dishonour on our front, but turns
Foul on himself; then wherefore shunned or feared
By us? who rather double honour gain
From his surmise proved false; find peace within,
Favour from Heaven, our witness, from the event.
And what is faith, love, virtue, unassayed
Alone, without exteriour help sustained?
Let us not then suspect our happy state
Left so imperfect by the Maker wise,
As not secure to single or combined.
Frail is our happiness, if this be so,
And Eden were no Eden, thus exposed.
To whom thus Adam fervently replied.
O Woman, best are all things as the will
Of God ordained them: His creating hand
Nothing imperfect or deficient left
Of all that he created, much less Man,
Or aught that might his happy state secure,
Secure from outward force; within himself
The danger lies, yet lies within his power:
Against his will he can receive no harm.
But God left free the will; for what obeys
Reason, is free; and Reason he made right,
But bid her well be ware, and still *****;
Lest, by some fair-appearing good surprised,
She dictate false; and mis-inform the will
To do what God expressly hath forbid.
Not then mistrust, but tender love, enjoins,
That I should mind thee oft; and mind thou me.
Firm we subsist, yet possible to swerve;
Since Reason not impossibly may meet
Some specious object by the foe suborned,
And fall into deception unaware,
Not keeping strictest watch, as she was warned.
Seek not temptation then, which to avoid
Were better, and most likely if from me
Thou sever not: Trial will come unsought.
Wouldst thou approve thy constancy, approve
First thy obedience; the other who can know,
Not seeing thee attempted, who attest?
But, if thou think, trial unsought may find
Us both securer than thus warned thou seemest,
Go; for thy stay, not fre

Be happy,
Don't be ******,******, ******,
****** makes you snappy,
Snappy snatches away all the trace
Of the glow on your  face.
Be joyful,
Don't be mournful, mournful, mournful,
Tears falling bucketful,
People will say,"Look at her,so woeful.
Be confident,
Don't be diffident,diffident,diffident,
Diffident makes you immature,
Gives you a mousy  nature.
Always cheer,
Never sneer,sneer,sneer,
People away from you will veer,
You will be left alone dear.
Laughter is the best medicine,
It boosts your adrenaline,
Many friends you will win.
Laughter is infectious,
It is so contagious,  
Happiness will be rampant,
That no sorrow can dampen.

I

Midwinter spring is its own season
Sempiternal though sodden towards sundown,
Suspended in time, between pole and tropic.
When the short day is brightest, with frost and fire,
The brief sun flames the ice, on pond and ditches,
In windless cold that is the heart’s heat,
Reflecting in a watery mirror
A glare that is blindness in the early afternoon.
And glow more intense than blaze of branch, or brazier,
Stirs the dumb spirit: no wind, but pentecostal fire
In the dark time of the year. Between melting and freezing
The soul’s sap quivers. There is no earth smell
Or smell of living thing. This is the spring time
But not in time’s covenant. Now the hedgerow
Is blanched for an hour with transitory blossom
Of snow, a bloom more sudden
Than that of summer, neither budding nor fading,
Not in the scheme of generation.
Where is the summer, the unimaginable
Zero summer?

              If you came this way,
Taking the route you would be likely to take
From the place you would be likely to come from,
If you came this way in may time, you would find the hedges
White again, in May, with voluptuary sweetness.
It would be the same at the end of the journey,
If you came at night like a broken king,
If you came by day not knowing what you came for,
It would be the same, when you leave the rough road
And turn behind the pig-sty to the dull facade
And the tombstone. And what you thought you came for
Is only a shell, a husk of meaning
From which the purpose breaks only when it is fulfilled
If at all. Either you had no purpose
Or the purpose is beyond the end you figured
And is altered in fulfilment. There are other places
Which also are the world’s end, some at the sea jaws,
Or over a dark lake, in a desert or a city—
But this is the nearest, in place and time,
Now and in England.

              If you came this way,
Taking any route, starting from anywhere,
At any time or at any season,
It would always be the same: you would have to put off
Sense and notion. You are not here to verify,
Instruct yourself, or inform curiosity
Or carry report. You are here to kneel
Where prayer has been valid. And prayer is more
Than an order of words, the conscious occupation
Of the praying mind, or the sound of the voice praying.
And what the dead had no speech for, when living,
They can tell you, being dead: the communication
Of the dead is tongued with fire beyond the language of the living.
Here, the intersection of the timeless moment
Is England and nowhere. Never and always.

II

Ash on and old man’s sleeve
Is all the ash the burnt roses leave.
Dust in the air suspended
Marks the place where a story ended.
Dust inbreathed was a house—
The walls, the wainscot and the mouse,
The death of hope and despair,
       This is the death of air.

There are flood and drouth
Over the eyes and in the mouth,
Dead water and dead sand
Contending for the upper hand.
The parched eviscerate soil
Gapes at the vanity of toil,
Laughs without mirth.
       This is the death of earth.

Water and fire succeed
The town, the pasture and the ****.
Water and fire deride
The sacrifice that we denied.
Water and fire shall rot
The marred foundations we forgot,
Of sanctuary and choir.
       This is the death of water and fire.

In the uncertain hour before the morning
     Near the ending of interminable night
     At the recurrent end of the unending
After the dark dove with the flickering tongue
     Had passed below the horizon of his homing
     While the dead leaves still rattled on like tin
Over the asphalt where no other sound was
     Between three districts whence the smoke arose
     I met one walking, loitering and hurried
As if blown towards me like the metal leaves
     Before the urban dawn wind unresisting.
     And as I fixed upon the down-turned face
That pointed scrutiny with which we challenge
     The first-met stranger in the waning dusk
     I caught the sudden look of some dead master
Whom I had known, forgotten, half recalled
     Both one and many; in the brown baked features
     The eyes of a familiar compound ghost
Both intimate and unidentifiable.
     So I assumed a double part, and cried
     And heard another’s voice cry: ‘What! are you here?’
Although we were not. I was still the same,
     Knowing myself yet being someone other—
     And he a face still forming; yet the words sufficed
To compel the recognition they preceded.
     And so, compliant to the common wind,
     Too strange to each other for misunderstanding,
In concord at this intersection time
     Of meeting nowhere, no before and after,
     We trod the pavement in a dead patrol.
I said: ‘The wonder that I feel is easy,
     Yet ease is cause of wonder. Therefore speak:
     I may not comprehend, may not remember.’
And he: ‘I am not eager to rehearse
     My thoughts and theory which you have forgotten.
     These things have served their purpose: let them be.
So with your own, and pray they be forgiven
     By others, as I pray you to forgive
     Both bad and good. Last season’s fruit is eaten
And the fullfed beast shall kick the empty pail.
     For last year’s words belong to last year’s language
     And next year’s words await another voice.
But, as the passage now presents no hindrance
     To the spirit unappeased and peregrine
     Between two worlds become much like each other,
So I find words I never thought to speak
     In streets I never thought I should revisit
     When I left my body on a distant shore.
Since our concern was speech, and speech impelled us
     To purify the dialect of the tribe
     And urge the mind to aftersight and foresight,
Let me disclose the gifts reserved for age
     To set a crown upon your lifetime’s effort.
     First, the cold friction of expiring sense
Without enchantment, offering no promise
     But bitter tastelessness of shadow fruit
     As body and soul begin to fall asunder.
Second, the conscious impotence of rage
     At human folly, and the laceration
     Of laughter at what ceases to amuse.
And last, the rending pain of re-enactment
     Of all that you have done, and been; the shame
     Of motives late revealed, and the awareness
Of things ill done and done to others’ harm
     Which once you took for exercise of virtue.
     Then fools’ approval stings, and honour stains.
From wrong to wrong the exasperated spirit
     Proceeds, unless restored by that refining fire
     Where you must move in measure, like a dancer.’
The day was breaking. In the disfigured street
     He left me, with a kind of valediction,
     And faded on the blowing of the horn.

III

There are three conditions which often look alike
Yet differ completely, flourish in the same hedgerow:
Attachment to self and to things and to persons, detachment
From self and from things and from persons; and, growing between them, indifference
Which resembles the others as death resembles life,
Being between two lives—unflowering, between
The live and the dead nettle. This is the use of memory:
For liberation—not less of love but expanding
Of love beyond desire, and so liberation
From the future as well as the past. Thus, love of a country
Begins as attachment to our own field of action
And comes to find that action of little importance
Though never indifferent. History may be servitude,
History may be freedom. See, now they vanish,
The faces and places, with the self which, as it could, loved them,
To become renewed, transfigured, in another pattern.

Sin is Behovely, but
All shall be well, and
All manner of thing shall be well.
If I think, again, of this place,
And of people, not wholly commendable,
Of no immediate kin or kindness,
But of some peculiar genius,
All touched by a common genius,
United in the strife which divided them;
If I think of a king at nightfall,
Of three men, and more, on the scaffold
And a few who died forgotten
In other places, here and abroad,
And of one who died blind and quiet
Why should we celebrate
These dead men more than the dying?
It is not to ring the bell backward
Nor is it an incantation
To summon the spectre of a Rose.
We cannot revive old factions
We cannot restore old policies
Or follow an antique drum.
These men, and those who opposed them
And those whom they opposed
Accept the constitution of silence
And are folded in a single party.
Whatever we inherit from the fortunate
We have taken from the defeated
What they had to leave us—a symbol:
A symbol perfected in death.
And all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be well
By the purification of the motive
In the ground of our beseeching.

IV

The dove descending breaks the air
With flame of incandescent terror
Of which the tongues declare
The one discharge from sin and error.
The only hope, or else despair
     Lies in the choice of pyre of pyre—
     To be redeemed from fire by fire.

Who then devised the torment? Love.
Love is the unfamiliar Name
Behind the hands that wove
The intolerable shirt of flame
Which human power cannot remove.
     We only live, only suspire
     Consumed by either fire or fire.

V

What we call the beginning is often the end
And to make and end is to make a beginning.
The end is where we start from. And every phrase
And sentence that is right (where every word is at home,
Taking its place to support the others,
The word neither diffident nor ostentatious,
An easy commerce of the old and the new,
The common word exact without vulgarity,
The formal word precise but not pedantic,
The complete consort dancing together)
Every phrase and every sentence is an end and a beginning,
Every poem an epitaph. And any action
Is a step to the block, to the fire, down the sea’s throat
Or to an illegible stone: and that is where we start.
We die with the dying:
See, they depart, and we go with them.
We are born with the dead:
See, they return, and bring us with them.
The moment of the rose and the moment of the yew-tree
Are of equal duration. A people without history
Is not redeemed from time, for history is a pattern
Of timeless moments. So, while the light fails
On a winter’s afternoon, in a secluded chapel
History is now and England.

With the drawing of this Love and the voice of this Calling

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
Through the unknown, unremembered gate
When the last of earth left to discover
Is that which was the beginning;
At the source of the longest river
The voice of the hidden waterfall
And the children in the apple-tree
Not known, because not looked for
But heard, half-heard, in the stillness
Between two waves of the sea.
Quick now, here, now, always—
A condition of complete simplicity
(Costing not less than everything)
And all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be well
When the tongues of flame are in-folded
Into the crowned knot of fire
And the fire and the rose are one.

Today we shall have the naming of parts. How the opening of that poem by Henry Reed caught his present thoughts; that banal naming of parts of a soldier’s rifle set against the delicate colours and textures of the gardens outside the lecture room. *Japonica glistening like coral  . . . branches holding their silent eloquent gestures . . . bees fumbling the flowers. It was the wrong season for this so affecting poem – the spring was not being eased as here, in quite a different garden, summer was easing itself out towards autumn, but it caught him, as a poem sometimes would.

He had taken a detour through the gardens to the studio where in half an hour his students would gather. He intended to name the very parts of rhythm and help them become aware of their personal knowledge and relationship with this most fundamental of musical elements, the most connected with the body.

He had arranged to have a percussionist in on the class, a player he admired (he had to admit) for the way this musician had dealt with a once-witnessed on-stage accident that he’d brought it into his poem sequence Lemon on Pewter. They had been in Cambridge to celebrate her birthday and just off the train had hurried their way through the bicycled streets to the college where he had once taught, and to a lunchtime concert in a theatre where he had so often performed himself.

Smash! the percussionist wipes his hands and grabs another bottle before the music escapes checking his fingers for cuts and kicking the broken glass from his feet It was a brilliant though unplanned moment we all agreed and will remember this concert always for that particular accidental smile-inducing sharp intake of breath moment when with a Fanta bottle in each hand there was a joyful hit and scrape guiro-like on the serrated edges a no-holes barred full-on sounding out of glass on glass and you just loved it when he drank the juice and fluting blew across the bottle’s mouth

And having thought himself back to those twenty-four hours in Cambridge the delights of the morning garden aflame with colour and texture were as nothing beside his vivid memory of that so precious time with her. The images and the very physical moments of that interval away and together flooded over him, and he had to stop to close his eyes because the images and moments were so very real and he was trembling . . . what was it about their love that kept doing this to him? Just this morning he had sat on the edge of his bed, and in the still darkness his imagination seemed to bring her to him, the warmth and scent of her as she slept face down into a pillow, the touch of her hair in his face as he would bend over her to kiss her ear and move his hand across the contours of her body, but without touching, a kind of air-lovers movement, a kiss of no-touch. But today, he reminded himself, we have the naming of parts . . .

He was going to tackle not just rhythm but the role of percussion. There was a week’s work here. He had just one day. And the students had one day to create a short ‘poem for percussion’ to be performed and recorded at the end of the afternoon class. In his own music he considered the element of percussion as an ever-present challenge. He had only met it by adopting a very particular strategy. He regarded its presence in a score as a kind of continuo element and thus giving the player some freedom in the choice of instruments and execution. He wanted percussion to be ‘a part’ of equal stature with the rest of the musical texture and not a series of disparate accents, emphases and colours. In other words rhythm itself was his first consideration, and all the rest followed. He thought with amusement of his son playing Vaughan-Williams The Lark Ascending and the single stroke of a triangle that constituted his percussion part. For him, so few composers could ‘do it’ with percussion. He had assembled for today a booklet of extracts of those who could: Stravinsky’s Soldier’s Tale (inevitably), Berio’s Cummings songs, George Perle’s Sextet, Living Toys by Tom Ades, his own Flights for violin and percussionist. He felt diffident about the latter, but he had the video of those gliders and he’d play the second movement What is the Colour of the Wind?

In the studio the percussionist and a group of student helpers were assembling the ‘kits’ they’d agreed on. The loose-limbed movements of such players always fascinated him. It was as though whatever they might be doing they were still playing – driving a car? He suddenly thought he might not take a lift from a percussionist.

On the grand piano there was, thankfully, a large pile of the special manuscript paper he favoured when writing for percussion, an A3 sheet with wider stave lines. Standing at the piano he pulled a sheet from the pile and he got out his pen. He wrote on the shiny black lid with a fluency that surprised him: a toccata-like passage based on the binary rhythms he intended to introduce to his class. He’d thought about making this piece whilst lying in bed the previous night, before sleep had taken him into a series of comforting dreams. He knew he must be careful to avoid any awkward crossings of sticks.

The music was devoid of any accents or dynamics, indeed any performance instructions. It was solely rhythm. He then composed a passage that had no rhythm, only performance instructions, dynamics, articulations such as tremolo and trills and a play of accents, but no rhythmic symbols. He then went to the photocopier in the corridor and made a batch of copies of both scores. As the machine whirred away he thought he might call her before his class began, just to hear her soft voice say ‘hello’ in that dear way she so often said it, the way that seem to melt him, and had been his undoing . . .

When his class had assembled (and the percussionist and his students had disappeared pro tem) he began immediately, and without any formal introduction, to write the first four 4-bit binary rhythms on the chalkboard, and asked them to complete it. This mystified a few but most got the idea (and by now there was a generous sharing between members of the class), so soon each student had the sixteen rhythms in front of them.

‘Label these rhythms with symbols a to p’, he said, ‘and then write out the letters of your full name. If there’s a letter there that goes beyond p create another list from q to z. You can now generate a rhythmic sequence using what mathematicians call a function-machine. Nigel would be:

x x = x     x = = =      = x x =      = x x x      x = x x

Write your rhythm out and then score it for 4 drums – two congas, two bongos.’

His notion was always to keep his class relentlessly occupied. If a student finished a task ahead of others he or she would find further instructions had appeared on the flip chart board.  Audition –in your head - these rhythms at high speed, at a really quick tempo. Now slow them right down. Experiment with shifting tempos, download a metronome app on your smart phone, score the rhythms for three clapping performers, and so on.

And soon it was performance time and the difficulties and awkwardness of the following day were forgotten as nearly everyone made it out front to perform their binary rhythmic pieces, and perform them with much laughter, but with flair and élan also. The room rang with the clapping of hands.

The percussionist appeared and after a brief introduction – in which the Fanta bottle incident was mentioned - composer and performer played together *****’s Clapping Music before a welcome break was taken.

It was a summer afternoon in Wester Ross. Two moments: one near, on tide-swept sands, with glorious and gloriously blue amalgams of sky and water; the other far, on a distant shore, a vista of sweeping rain and a gang of clouds marauding the hills. Near abouts: a meeting of warm land and cool sea over a deserted beach. There were midges of course, but on that day a lithe breeze kept them at bay. As she was discovering the chaotic delights of the disused Fishing Station, I was Charles Darwin standing on a deserted shore looking across to Tierra del Fuego. Not a sign of a dwelling, a boat, or even a person on the coastal footpath. A vast panorama spread beyond the edges of my unturning vision. Out on the grey blue water, I became Captain Vancouver sailing up the Inner Channel exploring and mapping every indent, nook and cranny of the double coast. Suddenly, five indians in their log canoe appeared paddling around the point, navigating by the feel of depth and the thrum of the current inches under their bare feet and bottoms.
 
This place, the larger vicinity, the region driven through, on and onwards, into and out towards landscapes vaster than anything I’d previously known in this small island; it had already staked its claim on my consciousness. I was transfixed. On my own, decent progress during a walk was almost impossible. I would stop every few moments aware that something new and different was going on. To miss anything seemed an affront to the sublime. I would walk early in the morning whilst she lay peacefully in bed, her arms stretched out on the blue-striped cover, her hands and fingers gently curved, at rest. This morning time was alive with a colourscape of silences, different shades of low-level noise. There is no camera able to catch the play of real all-surrounding images with those extensions of fantasy the imagination blends and stirs. No microphone can be sensitive enough to the surround sound in air and landscape, the faint breath of the sea, and the incessant conversation and playback of her tender evening voice in my thoughts. Here the past was invading the present, speculating on the future, our future.
 
I ventured inside the hut at the Fishing Station. Curious to see what she was up to. She was arranging, like children do, her found objects. Along the few shelves fixed to the corrugated iron walls her quiet hands placed and replaced, shifted and turned; then, the click of the camera, again click, adjust the focus, click. Ropes lay at her feet snake-like, hemp and nylon, that urgent orange, that too smooth blue, mounds of old fishing gear mostly unidentifiable, not an idea where the floor might be found, so completely covered. If there had been a door it was no more; just a gap in the wall, seaward.
 
These objects she arranged: screws, bolts, nails, strange keys, boltless nuts and nutless bolts, small bottles, a can or two. Everything hand-size, tarnished, rusted, some oiled, stained oil-black. I felt an intruder witnessing her preparations for a secret game, a ceremony of recording and removal. A kindly ‘do not disturb’ sign hung about her face; a blankness, a dream-like visage of the initiated, as though she held some premonition of this material’s importance, a treasure found in a shack of a shed, a ‘find’ she would collectively decode. Already this visit took on the character of a preliminary investigation. She began wrapping and tying some of the more unusual items in cloth, making mummies that in a few days she would return to and unwrap to find their imprint and press marked on the cloth.
 
We lost time in this place. Only the incoming tide was a clue to how the afternoon had advanced. The beach, at whose far end the station had been built, held a gentle new moon’s curve. The water’s encroachment of the beach became mesmeric; it was difficult to leave the looking until its tide journey had been completed. But we did, and wandering through the dune meadows, between the diffident cattle, past the remote farm at the end of the track, gate after gate, then the proper road, the twice a day post box, two houses set well back from the road, a woman leading a boy on a horse, up a rise, a lay-by with a camper van, walking backwards to keep the view to the red sand beach in our sights as the afternoon light began to turn from gold into auburn, then with fingers threaded into fingers down to the wooden cottage. And there, later, after love’s welcome and its celebration, stillness.

I fell in love with every single morning
How you rolled out of bed after you shut your alarm off for the sixth time
How your eyes and voice revealed exhaustion but also so much love
The way your hands would grasp each side of my face
While your lips would steal the endings of my sentences
And a smile would form on my face effortlessly
Every single day with you felt like a week of saturday mornings
With clean bed sheets and lazy smiles

Every single morning
I would fall in love with the way you would drink your coffee
And smoke your cigarette
And even how you would stand in the doorway of your closest

Somewhere between falling in love with our midnight conversations
That were exhaled through cigarette puffs
And interrupted by loving embraces
As I would secretly read the love notes
You would write on my flesh every chance you got
I realized I was in love with the presence of your words
And the feeling of your existence
Especially when your arms were wrapped tightly around my diffident body

But I do not think I was ever in love with you

He had sat at his desk with intent to write to her. And he had not. He had sat and let his mind wander. He wanted to write if only to capture something of her he had yet to capture. It was as though by trying to find words to describe her everyday self he discovered it was often extraordinary, and it filled him with more tenderness that he could reasonably deal with. The other day he had written her a letter. It was rather ordinary, full of unplanned thoughts and descriptions, a day-to-day letter, but he had written it by hand, taking care with the curl and mark of his pen on the little sheets of laser-copier paper he felt suited him best. Once he wrote expansively (though never to her) on large sheets of thick, fine paper with a calligraphic pen and Indian ink. Now he felt more comfortable with a fine roller-ball nib and a light touch, on paper of a dimension and quality that seemed appropriate to the size of his script.

Today, as he thought about the letter he might write, he had imagined her finding his most recent letter as she came home, a letter with his careful handwriting on the envelope. It would be lying on the doormat with the brown envelopes, the circulars, the bank statement and one of the many journals she subscribed to. There was a letter too from her ‘pen friend’, someone who had invited her to correspond having been so touched to find a late relative’s letters full of the minutiae of life, but properly described and not the ad hoc jottings of what now passes for communication on social media. So this friend, who was not then a friend but an acquaintance, had set out to recruit a group of like-minded people she might write to properly, in proper sentences – and had, it seemed, fixed on her. He had been a little jealous at first that she should write, and write properly to this ‘friend’ she hardly knew, and since then she had so very rarely written to him. He had so wanted her words, on paper and not just her end-of-the-day thoughts on the telephone. But he had soon got over this jealousy realising how valuable this letter, written once a fortnight, would be for her. An opportunity no less, of the kind and value he could no longer provide.

It had changed the way he had continued to write to her. He stopped the hand-written caress of a letter on paper and took up what he called the Ten-Minute Letter composed at the computer. Not an e-mail, but a proper letter as an attachment she could print out. Written each day just before he stopped for lunch, he set an alarm on his phone and wrote for ten minutes only until the sampled chimes of Big Ben struck. It was a challenge, and to meet it he would prepare his ‘daily subject’ in those transient moments between the demands of work and other people’s needs, as he walked to work or cooked supper. He felt that by doing this he would eradicate that falling into passionate contemplation, the downloading of his memory’s thoughts, his often-intense feelings and emotions. He thought she would prefer such brevity, as she now had so little time for reflection, except when travelling.

In imagining that picking up of his letter he sought to imagine further. Would she open it straight away? Would she put it at the bottom of the stairs on a pile of things to take up to her bedroom, and read before bed?  Occasionally there was  a little time stolen during the day when, before the necessity to go at her desk and ‘get on’, she would sit on her bed with her cats and be conscious of her physical self. She would think of him beside her, kneeling on the floor in one of those occasional preludes to their passionate moments she knew he so loved, when he was full of tenderness, and he would kiss and stroke her, their quiet voices caressing each other in the lamplight. He thought of her carefully pulling the envelope flap open without a tear (whereas he could hardly contain himself, when a letter did arrive, from pulling the envelope apart). And she would read his careful writing, his late afternoon thoughts written after a long day’s work, before returning to more time at his desk.

She would read quickly, rather impatiently sometimes. She had to ‘get on’, attack the list, get things done. But just occasionally he surprised her. He would catch her attention. There was some phrase, some reflection that made her feel warm and loved. He would make an observation about her, and she would feel treasured and honoured by his words and be grateful for the time he had put aside to write them. And then the letter would be returned to its envelope, placed on the bookshelf beside her bed, and she would feel secure that she was loved, and could then put all that away for now and ‘get on’. But just once in a while she would recall the pit-in-the-stomach thrill of his first letters, as letter by letter he declared himself, saying what he thought of her, what he felt for her. She was often overcome with his play of words and would touch herself to sustain those rich feelings that would gradually envelop her; that someone could care about her that much. And for a while she was transformed . . .

Today, as he continued to hold his pen away from composing that first sentence, he had wanted to return to writing of her and for her. It was his small gift, his almost once a day gift. With words he knew he was on safer ground. He struggled somewhat in his *******; he worried that he disappointed her with his awkwardness and never being sure if he was doing the right thing at the right time in the right way. Perhaps in reading his thoughts rather than responding to the messages of his physical self, she felt safer too. He wanted her to know something of the intensity that she brought to his ‘being aliveness’. He remembered a recent phone call when for once he seemed able to say pretty much what he meant. ‘I hope I don’t presume in saying,’ he had said, overtly formal as so often, ‘ that one of the reasons I think we are the companions we are is that we have so much in common; we love the same things, we share the same joys and pleasures.’ And she had agreed. He felt this was true, and he wanted to celebrate this somehow; but they were apart, being on the phone, and he could not. There was less and less time for the joy of coming together, of that celebration of being-together that had once seemed beyond magic and the stuff of dreams and fantasy. There was now the ever-present awareness of the clock, of having to do this, needing to do that, and at a certain time. Their life together was changing and he needed to rise to the challenge that this change would bring, no matter how busy and preoccupied she became. He would write, he thought, and tell her that he knew this would be so, that she should never be concerned for him if there wasn’t time. Hadn’t she said she loved him, this young woman who had once been so diffident about speaking such endearments? She had already given him so much that he never imagined he would ever receive. Perhaps not for always, he was so much older than her, but for a long time to come. He must acknowledge the receipt of such gifts, and let her know he loved her all the more for her industry, her ambition, her preoccupation, and the beautiful, gracious person she was.

Nothing lost
nothing gained
everything remains the same

plain and simple
simply plain
still I play the same old game

Overtly numb
surpassing pain
wishing just to feel again

I try in vain
to make it wane
inflaming all which I maintain

Seeking release
searching for peace
from this savage masochistic beast

Postpone not a good deed due to laziness
That temperament will spoil your mission
Always punctually execute your decision
This will help you a lot in life and business

Any good intention must be soon acted upon
Before your mind makes a negative move
Your worth, only your deed will finely prove
Wisely use the opportunity before it is gone

While taking steps, difficulties will crop up
But, we should not lose heart feeling diffident
We must face all the blocks feeling confident
Without playing, how to aim for the golden cup?

Life means only problems and lots of troubles
Happiness may show its face occasionally
Our happiness alone must triumph finally
Due to will-power, troubles become bubbles

Concentrate to achieve the desired result
Let determination be exercised in full swing
Glory and success, only hard-work will bring
Efforts alone tie achievements to one's belt.

mvvenkataraman

Touch me not say the morning due to the sunrise disappearing as the sun grew
Touch me not say the coconut tree with its fruits hanging aloof,
Touch me not say the frog with bright red spots corking under the Buttress roots,
Touch me not says the indulging and then eluding dreams.

Touch me not says the maiden, playfully resisting her lover’s every move
Touch me not say the open shore to the teasing ocean waves,
Touch me not say the blood colored fruit to the naive traveler,
Touch me not say the blazing sun to Icarus, son you can’t fly to the sun,  
Touch me not says the peeved kid pouting and showing it’s irk.  

Touch me not says the volcano, feigning to be at rest
Touch me not says the deranged dog, to anyone who dare to come nearer
Touch me not says the humble cosmos, hiding all its beauty on a dark and cloudy night  
Touch me not says the hissing cobra, I can **** an elephant.  

Touch me not says the steaming ice
Touch me not says the thorny bushes,
Touch me not says the porcupine,
Touch me not says the diffident butterfly
Touch me not says the poet, can’t you see i am working i can’t be in distress  
Touch me not, touch me not I am fine ……

a love like the way the ocean feels
a heart like that day you treasure with every bit of your beating heart
a face that makes you want to kiss every single freckle
a body warm like the sand under the rays of the beating sun
arms like the ocean’s waves, strong and inviting
a home like the way your bed feels in the morning

the pain that is left inside each cigarette she smokes
eyes that stare off and reveal her deep-seated loneliness
the cold and stale secrets she releases as she blows smoke out of her mouth and then inhales it back into her nose

never fully loved, she aches when she is touched
you think of all of the secrets that rest inside of her
she needs time with her hands so she can do all of the things that keep her youth

dealing with another’s touch is more of a blessing to her than it is a curse
her long and waving brown and reddish hair emits a warmth and shines bright in the light
every day she prays someone might remember her existence
forced with a beauty and flesh that is seen easier by others is difficult for her to accept and become accustomed to
the deep luster that sparkles in her perfect eyes that turn green in the sun

her head laying lightly on her pillow, she is broken and things are hard for her
she tastes times of despair in her mouth as she searches for her quiet voice
you notice how beautiful she really is not only on the outside, but more so on the inside which makes you consider falling for the gold rings wrapped tightly around her piercing pupils
but you know she won’t let you in
her eyes when she smiles remind you of a warm cup of coffee first thing in the morning
her lips are a curse in the darkest comfort of life and look as if they taste like bliss

but she doesn’t how how to picture forever and all you want to do is hold her hand as the two of you get lost in some form of nature
you feel weak as you think of her mind and all of the ideas that stay hidden in its deepest parts
you think of all of the people she has exhaled and all of the promises that endlessly resemble relentless stolen time and all of her inviting smiles that are ultimately never-ending
you can tell how beat-up but peaceful her heart is as she reaches out to no avail
you want to give her gifts and take photos of her face in frustration as her mind jumps in every single direction
you want to swear to her that you will provide endless embraces and chase her alluring irises with kisses
you want to promise her mornings of early alarms and warm company

you start to think of the sunshine that is instantly ruined with the apparent glints and bent pleasure of her daringly beautiful crescent-shaped smile
you see her as a drain, rare and spiraling, with acidic-like thoughts and emotions that disappear with the presence of a healing and loving touch
the extreme to which her deadly looks are stronger and more alluring than any flower and any paradise

you imagine her self-portrait and what she looked like with the pressure on her shoulders as she dug deep down and forced herself to acknowledge her looks and her charm
you wonder how she deals with being so tense as she tirelessly searches for reason and understanding

the stronger she puffs her cigarette the more desired are the intervals between each breath as she tries to find the right sentences and forget about how unbearable everything is
she is quiet and her face emits freckles that pop out at you as you gaze in awe at her beauty
she sits and thinks of the six prior people that have threatened her strength and ultimately left her heart broken and aching
there are newborn, salty tears that radiate on her cheeks as she mutters something under her breath in the doorway, she dreams of another dimension

her insides are constantly churning and you ache to know her habits and you ache to know how her molars taste with your tongue inside of her mouth
she is quite the commodity and you desperately want to blurt out everything to her
but her trust has been demolished and her heart has been metamorphosed and she wouldn’t know what to do as she would emptily reply “i am so sorry.”

you think of her as an enchantment and how she is really an inconvenience to your peace of mind
you rant on and on about all of the feelings that reside, and are upheld, secretly in the plethora of your thoughts that are diffident of being spoken aloud
her lifestyle baffles you as you try to contain your amazement and admiration of how disciplined she really is
and your heart aches and you feel worthless as you look in the mirror and stare at your eyes that faintly reveal exhaustion, appearing to be both passionately and tirelessly struggling to find some form of sanity residing deep within you

it is getting harder as she is loyal to what she needs out of life and what she needs out of other people
and it hurts as you think of all of the remaining endings for this eighteen year old ocean of beauty and difficulty and all of the interrupted conversations and the tingling sensation that a saturday morning brings
she is alluring as her body defines the sun’s rotting reflections that pry at her insides and the canals of her heart, possessing a revealed and evicted magnitude that could keep you in raw amazement for days
the thought of her lips, always faintly quivering, is like a weapon, as you watch her wandering about, never changing the perplexed look that rests perfectly on her face
you want to run up to her and beg her to stay
but the thought of the stress it would cause keeps you away
you try to delete her from your thoughts but that is starting to seem more and more pointless

you notice she has fallen and all of the feelings and words swell up inside of you and the thought of holding her hand causes you to run to her
but the world is mean and your teeth shatter under the pressure as you try to imagine the years you have spent without her
your heart emits a familiar warning and the sun seems dead and older and the tears start to form

you finally muster up enough courage to wrap your arms around her as you resist the urge to kiss her nose
you can feel how lonely she is and you hope to god you will be able to accept that later
you grasp her tighter as you listen to the despair that flows from the tips of her fingers that burn when she writes
her skin is smooth and her entire body is light with love but heavy with the vast amounts of pain and years of hurt that are imbedded into her skin and into her bones

you imagine her as the sea, apart from everything, but one with it at the same time
she is friendly, even as she remembers the forgotten hours of anger that used to torment her
you caress her soft cheeks and softly tell her to shut off the bad thoughts and forget those who have left her
you turn to reach into your pocket and you catch a glimpse of the moon
you feel your stomach fall as it reminds you of her; sometimes lost, part of her always hidden away, but full of strength and light and beauty
you had forgotten how much it resembles her until you look at both of them in the presence of the other

you look back down at her and notice how her lips long to be kissed and then comes the poem you will write in order to remind you of this night
you feel as though you are in the middle of a war and that you really need to sleep and everything around you is abnormally quiet, like there are blockades of passion built up and around you
you stand there, trying to look alive and say, with every piece of strength you contain, “i love you,” softly but assuredly

she looks at you like you are human and then she looks at the surrounding landscape and takes what seems to be a week, to say, “but why?”
you wrap your hand tightly around her palm and try to explain but your voice shakes and cracks and you can’t seem to find the words when suddenly a tree of courage and unadultered passion grows inside of you and you say,
“because you are beautiful and you are broken but you are trying. because you are human and you are one person and two hands and one heart. because i want nothing more than to clean your burns and bruises and make the wanderer in you build a home and stay. because looking at you feels like nothing i have ever felt and because you deserve to be loved, you deserve to be shown that another person’s love won’t turn into knives and anxiety and pain in your heart. you deserve to be healed and to be whole. i love you because you are you and there is no better way to describe you other than that. i love you because you are beautiful on the inside, no matter how many times you have been hurt. i love you because you light my insides on fire and because you never leave my mind. i love you because i can feel you, in my heart and in my bones and in every fiber of my being. i love you. i love you. i LOVE you. and i could go on and on telling you WHY but the desire to kiss your lips is so strong i feel as though my legs could give out at any second!”
you are breathing heavily as you realize her eyes have risen up to catch yours and she leans toward you
she looks golden under the moon light and the surface of her eyes are rapt with a soothing flare that burns into you as you gaze at the reflection of the moon in the circles of her eyeballs
you gaze at the beautiful curve of her body in your arms as her eyelids blink open and shut slowly as she quietly moves her lips as close to yours as they can get without touching, slightly moves away, almost like she is trying to prove something, then breaks your gaze as she closes her eyes and kisses you like you are something she has wanted and longed for her entire life

it is at this moment, as you feel her poking ribcage under the warmth of your hand and feel your body collapse, that you realize how certain and profound your love for her is
kissing her, you feel the ghosts that live inside of her, moving around as she clenches you tighter
you can smell the hurt that swells like water inside of her
there is a strong and longing presence about it and you can hear her heartbeat coming from inside of her chest, hidden underneath all of the sadness she has felt the entire duration of her life

kissing her makes you feel like you are kissing the universe, like it is a once in a lifetime chance
she pulls away and looks into your eyes and touches your face with her thumb so softly and so effortlessly that it feels as if you two have been doing this for your whole lives, loving each other
you can feel her wandering away from you so you grab her tighter and she snaps out of it and looks at you and says, “when i wasn’t there, you actually searched until you found me. no one has ever done that before. thank you.”

you can tell she is trying to forget old poisons as you read the expression on her face
she never said it back but that is okay because you know how terrifying those three words are to her and you know she will say it once she is ready

you let out a long sigh with the admittance of such a huge confession and everything is okay

you close your eyes and whisper, “finally.”

Who knows what losses
this infinitely rich
and resilient heart has suffered?

The sorrowful splendor of the Earth --
its endless cycle of gestation
and bringing forth,
its eternal season of becoming
and decay --
inspires and beckons her silent musings.

And her muted passion,
burning with the
mesmerizing ardor of the innocent,
awakens a diffident adoration
in the bickering brood that surrounds her.

How beleaguering they are!
these driven ones, so eager
to possess the elusive beauty
that stirs the dark, enigmatic
depths of their harried souls.

*** unwitting they are!
those dreary ones...
Destiny has drawn them
to the shimmering, diaphanous aura
of her breathless presence.

And destiny will drain them
like a brimming chalice,
so full of their impetuous blindness.

For they will never see
how she is set apart
by the wandering, restive vision
of the chosen.

But I see her,
standing alone on the fringe
of the tumultuous herd.

She gazes at me with
that subtle, sacred smile,
and I feel the threatening,
familiar forces of the universe descend --
Jacob
wrestling with the angel of authenticity.

She gazes at me,
and in the still light
of that impenetrable look...
the silence speaks!

I tremble in anticipation.

I listen and am fed.

For Laura.

When she opened her mouth and spoke
Everything in my minds went silent

Every single thought and worry dissipated

When you're like me
Concerned
Self-conscious
Always second guessing  

You're never quite relaxed
Even at my most quiet and seemingly at ease
I'm over thinking
"Is my hair okay?"
"Does my breath smell?"
"Are my shoes clean?"
"Is this out fit stupid?"
""Should I've shaved?"

And when my eyes met hers the only thing I cared about was that gleam in her iris
The porcelain smile behind her lushes soft looking lips

"Oh **** do I look okay?"
"Oh man what do I say to her?"
"What do I do?"
"Okay, just be cool"

"Um, hi" I play with my hair
"Uh, I'm Tommy" I crack my knuckles
Avoiding eye contact at all costs

She thought I was cute

When we're together my focus was on her
The words coming out of my mouth
Well formulated

"Be witty"
"Be smart"
"Be funny"
Be nice, genuine, caring, honest and sweet"
But not too sweet, she'll think you're a *****"
But don't be an ******* either"

She laughed at my stupid jokes I would stutter on
And poke fun at my social awkwardness
She held my hand and said she never felt more comfortable with someone
She said she never had anyone care about her as much as I did

She told me she loved me and every time she said it I knew she meant it

Soon all my apprehension vanished
All I card about was her
The times I spent with her
The things I could to for her
The things I wanted to say to her
The love I wanted to make with her

And she would do the same for me
Her distress about the future
Of money and the pain of her past disappeared
When she was with me I finally had someone who from me as much as I did for them
For who they we're
And that's all I could ever ask for

What I have is a pitch
angled at nothing
and I envy the limber crowd of bees,
and I envy the spider’s easy meal.

The low hum of a wash cycle
competes with, then dislodges my dirge,
gradually builds a golden,
natural looking wan expression.

Diffident? Go out and meander
content to accept the indifference of meaning.
This walk is not a protest.
This work was only ever play.

Suitable for all skin types
our explanations can’t help themselves,
run like British accents on trade
and explain away any need for help.
Non-streaking conceits
you know best how much you are worth.

The time of year has grown indifferent.
Mildew of summer and the deepening snow
Are both alike in the routine I know:
I am too dumbly in my being pent.

The wind attendant on the solstices
Blows on the shutters of the metropoles,
Stirring no poet in his sleep, and tolls
The grand ideas of the villages.

The malady of the quotidian . . .
Perhaps if summer ever came to rest
And lengthened, deepened, comforted, caressed
Through days like oceans in obsidian

Horizons, full of night's midsummer blaze;
Perhaps, if winter once could penetrate
Through all its purples to the final slate,
Persisting bleakly in an icy haze;

One might in turn become less diffident,
Out of such mildew plucking neater mould
And spouting new orations of the cold.
One might. One might. But time will not relent.

Ambiguous propaganda seeps paranoia
into crevasses of budding knowledge,
spawning hordes of diffident souls
that cower behind the Aegis
of altruistic motives.

Self preservation clings
to pragmatic love
and delayed satisfaction,
while enthusiasts of law
leech gold from delicate
words left unsaid.

The expense of insuring hope
dooms creative anomalies
to tedious and ceaseless
indentured servitude.

And the day split-lip parasites
swarm like Death to claim souls,
the only cure
will waste away final days in
an attempt to prolong them.

He can say it,
he can flaunt it,
he can live it,
he can walk it,
while talking it.

If his heart is changed, it will not beat different,
If he has become less arrogant and more diffident,
Time will tell.

I will not judge the change,
I will not think it strange,
if he found Jesus.

The other option is Hell.
Let that rest heavy on his brow,
how is his head hanging, can he
feel the heat of remorse?

Her friends are heroes in my books,
you had the courage it took.
To face him on her behalf,
She was there with you in court,
I think she helped you to do,
no I am wrong,
you were all strong,
and you saw an innocent perish,
that screamed of unfairness and death,
you all stood up for her,
it may not have seemed enough,
as she did die, did part of you go with her?
we cannot measure how much you
all cried, when doing and trying was not enough.

The best place for her would be with you, sigh,
some say she will always be watching over too.

I believe in eternal life for innocents like her.

With weary frankness I lean into
Evenings diffident shadows,
Wavering hues, grays and blues
Peering between the cloistered stars:
Endless dream I forgot how to navigate
Encompassing moments built by tidal movements
And sudden divisions between orbital shells
Inertial havoc starts the blood rushing
The world's a quagmire of uninhabited space
With lonely islands of pulsating matter
Suns unnumbered, rippling the waves collapse
Take all my heartbeats too, that as I languish,
The resonance might start another avalanche
The fiery, seeding vacuum of dawns early light,
That old magician's hat trick.
But be merciful to me, centrifugal womb of time;
Both the product and the witness
The sum of the totality only here, only this, only now-
This forever world, always just on the brink
Of breaking into a hundred thousand new worlds,
From insignificance multiplied
Far beyond any meaningful purpose:
For nobody controls even one solitary particle down here.

Share with me
your words

Make me know the face
The gaping hands
the sunkissed skin
The unwashed hair
the broken feet

Though not enough
(my will still evident)
There is another way-
Make me Thomas
and ask but thrice
That I may explain a doubt yet compromised:

That a fancy took a man
To pardon villains and condemn the saved

Adopting eleven (add a twelfth for foster care)
then spurning more
First the rich, then his junkies
And any prone to bore

He demanded death to dare refrain
Not from himself, but from the dead
To leave the weary to his hands
and the broken to his feet.

And the rest is simply religion.

So I must question (my doubt detailed)
That such a man as this
could praise your name
and call you Father.

That he would tread Calvary alone
To claim you goodness, kindness, self-control
To be the scapegoat for your sins
To be the price upon your head
and die
and live again.

And still, you let the world devour itself to darkness.
And still, you suffocate this faith.

This mustard seed.

So I bargain this:
Let also the diffident move mountains
Let also the lost find shelter
Let also the dead have hope
As once was promised.

And then

only then
will I call upon Your name

and wait.

So uncomfortable in my own skin
Walking through this empty place
Flat, no hills, no valleys
Just grass

I come to a well and in it is me
I see myself and ask myself questions
Why am I here?
As I stare at myself I can feel a new set of eyes on me
I turn and there is me again.
Why am I here?
A third set of eyes snaps to me and yet again it is me.
That same old reflection of insecurity.
Why so insecure?
Why am I here?
So quickly a new set of eyes gazes upon me and then off of me
Holding nothing but my insanity as a constant reminder of the grotesqueness of my character.

The well’s bucket holding my heart;
I looked at it.
And what a surprise a picture of me.
The well asks me why I am here.
I reply with a shrug.
Indifferent of the situation I walk.
Seeing myself everywhere now.
Why am I here?
I come to a different person, but all of my qualities reflected off of her.
Haunting me to my extent, I *****.
For I do not deserve this.
I’ll just give in.
The bitter sweetness of her presence is enough to be fatal.
Looking in her eyes I see my sorrowful and diffident self.
I give in and turn slowly towards the well…

I walk to that well…
I take the bucket off the string and pour out my own heart and listen to it splash at the bottom….
Tie my knot…
And hang myself…
Why was I there…?

Mary Jane

Seducer of young men and women.

Shaking hands at ten bucks a pop,
Then pulling them in to an embrace they cannot escape from.

Even if they'd wanted to.

You are the green outsides when
Their insides are blue.

You promise them solution,
relief.
But rarely follow through.

YOU are something I despise.

And I,
am not just some prep.

Some ***-head-hating *****
who knocks it before she's tried.

I tried,

to hang on, that is.

While you pulled them away from me.

I'll never forget the look in her too-red eyes
when she told me I couldn't stay.
That she'd made other plans that day.

That day and every other from then on.

I could smell your perfume tangled in her hair.
When she hugged me good bye.

That's twice now.

Twice now you stole my best friend
With promises of popularity and good humor.

That's twice you ripped out my heart.

Twice too many times.
I've written sobering rhymes against you.

And they were not the first.

I know I can't blame you, completely.

You didn't take their names.
You didn't make them make the choice,
You didn't force their voice to strip me down to tears.

And you didn't tell me to say no, when I had the chance
To dance with you.

But you gave them the option to,
All the while,
Whispering sweet nothings into their ears.

Pulling at their fingertips.

Promising gifts you could not guarantee.

And last night,
I could taste you on his lips.

I could see your shadow forming in his lungs
As he spoke.

So, Mary Jane.
I am begging you.

Please.

Don't.

Don't show him that their is no other lover better than the company of you.

Don't show him the side of you that only
One who'd tried it could know
And let him love it.

I don't think I could take another blow
of your breath in my face,

If,
...when...
With diffident intentions,
He turns away.

With parted lips,
I draw in your sweet psyche--
all opaque and smoky--
as these placid, sober feelings swim,
verdant and gentle,
through twisting tendrils.
Still thawing and diffident from the flux
of our individual nuclear winters:
flakes of former selves
fall around us, formless,
flailing cold
to sting our entangled skin,
valleys where I end and you begin.
I exhale you again,
you are lasting in my veins.
Enticing fervor once hidden in marrow,
I am enlivened by the dreamy exaltation
of my breaths back into you.
Suddenly, all is warm.

PAGE ONE SIDE ONE

      The diffident boy’s chameleonic anguish sought to be cordial movements, only projected shaking and quivering hands while strolling along with a girl into a saunter down, down the street on a bridge hanging over a lake in a park.
      "Hold my hand" the boy said in a swoon to the girl, continuing - - "I love the shake, I love that frigid quiver, lets walk, jostle too beat, beat down the wind and jostle the street!"
       “Let us move further toward the illuminated illusions of the sun adjacent with the moon’s reflection blurred, misguiding us from shade for our eyelids, hiding,” the girl deviled, “but I know where, here,” she put out her palm, “that ****** glow is the heart of mine; take it, it is only our own warmth you will find. Let us be it. Only Be. Shade the other rays, for the other way to leave."
       She goes to hand the boy her heart, the boy abducting his hand to his side, distracted with the sun falling from the sky.
       “Oh, I must be here, here at this solemn lake, when it stills,” lightening and thunder from yonder occur, “Locomotion accompanying rain like pillars plummeting into walls capturing you and I becoming the storm’s echo. You may know where it is hiding, however, you will never go to where it is hidden.” each word pulsating from the boy’s mouth, his vision lost in the horizon of the sun burning out like a cigarette’s amber, “If I could only flick dawn into an astray and always be this high, then I would devour that glow in the palm of yours.”
       Tips of leaves sink to point to the ground, the sky begins to cry, and the boy and girl mourn.

PAGE ONE SIDE TWO

            “What the **** are we doing here, we, well I, must leave!” deep breathes in between each word as he spoke, “the air is dry, I can tear off the skin of an idol, spit up a song verbatim, ***** visceral vanity all over your tired hand.” The boy softly said, “To say that I care my dear.” Before the boy could finish all noise in the park inverted, causing sparkling wormholes splashed across the fields and meadows, slices of the moon shimmer on the rounded puddles. “I feel rested, well,” the boy paused, “the surroundings are spoken easy, calmed,” resonating, “calm, only small, smaller than the other."
          "Once… no only once I was told I was cold!  Consummate partner in your parallax! Whirlpool mirage, muddy pupils in the pits of hell, where at least? Is it scene that they are truthful devils?" The girl asked, “You must know, **** it!”

PAGE TWO SIDE ONE

The boy cried, he bellowed out killing, the sound killed,
whistles of felicity disguised in
a distant tree planted far, far over
on sides of mountains, where birds play a poet, creating, projecting the outcome of  this universe evolving, stepping-up the eardrums to shake… vibrate… create...
       "Noo…" the girl held herself under a tree with leaves stealing her. Roots absorbing her warmth, using it to darken the amassing shade, she’s dead, she’s a ghost now.
Killed while the sound killed, she's alone, holding herself, chancing upon her own to keep her memory alive.
       “Heed her advice, heed her owns. Draw pictures of her, with her face clear, photograph her face filled with tears.” The boy facetiously said.

PAGE TWO SIDE TWO

       "Oh, oh, I was a ****** fool, ******. It's graying out, the skies are dispersing, splitting into bluffs, let's go inside, forget about all of this.” The boy diverted.
    “Boy drops dead! Boy is dead!" the girl sedately said, "BOY IS DEAD BOY DROPS DEAD." She said, "lie down, grab hold of your chain, I will hold you no more, I hold only till I warm."
      "Chained? The links I combined on my own, with only you dragging me along. I'll speak easy, hang from this chain where I belong, and carve my epitaph into withering bark. I’ll starve until you deciduously leave this bright park." The boy’s eyes shutting as he fawns his final plight.
Boy dies changing his shoes.
Girl dies draped across roots.

Last few days at school,
where saplings grew as flowering plants,
aroused sentiments and camaraderie,
friends became relatives, teasers- mates.
.
First and last day in college,
turned to be morning to noon.
Diffident souls of first day left as inflated balloons,
being wiser and bolder to fathom the sky.

Memory laden last days are deciduous trees,
We rejoice when it's green again.

3rd March 2017

Novus Ordo Seclorum [43]

All Seeing Eye,
in all ways always has It’s all seeing eye on me,
& you might think that in a way that makes me paranoid,
but in all actually it makes me much more comfortable if anything,
because I’ve got nothing to hide in all honesty,
even though there’s two sides to me like I’m Siamese,
& I’m buzzing like a drunken honed in honeybee,
& I see everything even when drinking absinthe as an absent absentee,

'cause I was told that I may hold all that I see & all that I see is everything,
because all of me at any time is capable of seeing anything,

just like the All Seeing Eye that keeps it's eye on me,

honestly honesty is still the best policy,
see even though they still attempt to dilute these truths by telling lies,
I'm still able to describe these truths successfully,
through the modus operandi that I choose to use at any given time,

see these gifts are given & received,
with a well thought of methodology that’s made of modesty,
same mold that was honed by the greatest minds this world's every known,
not mold as in fungus but mold as in the template of successful artistry,

though I must admit when I first started writing scripts I was a bit diffident,
which is different than indifference but anyways either way,
I one day realized the significance within it's magnificence,
& chose to show it since I wrote it so it could be given away,

but I made one promise,
as a poet on that day,
& that was to be modest,
but also have the confidence to not let doubt get in my way,
but it's hard to stay modest when you've written more modified sonnets,
than any other literary artist that's living today,

plus your words are some of the hottest & the girl you've got is a Goddess,
& you’ve made possible what was once thought to be impossible,
as an apostle who's gospel is God-sent in the words of rivals & bibles,
not as a disciple of Jesus Christmas but a disciple of this Divine Existence,

& that's why I see them trying to boost my pride,
& why at the same time I try to resist it,
because I promised to stay modest plus if I'm to be honest,
it wasn't me that made this all happen it was the poetry that did it,

& all of a sudden in a flash & in this instance,
my instinct tells me that it's possible they’ve spotted me,
& it's time for me to flee so I get lost so I can write more life lines,
instead of staying here risking getting caught & writing my own eulogy,

as I observe them like stars in Astronomy,
& observe their behavior like signs in astrology,
as an Anthropologist not an Apologist I observe them,
them this system they live in & all of this honestly,
including this Bureaucracy which is actually a hyper inflated Hypocrisy,
but honestly their mockery of our honesty doesn’t really bother me,
because unconditional Love is my only philosophy,
like Spinoza laying the basics of ethics in the literary form of poetry,
as I serve sermons religiously & responsibly to break the monotony,
& build bridges to doorways to construct my own autonomy,
changing the whole social topography & emotional geography of this society,
by writing the autobiography of our collective ecology & all of it’s prophecies,

I pay dues do the work & the math so in due time I can study Deuteronomy,

I am a prodigy,
& also an oddity,
that will not be brought down or bought off,
by Their Demonistic Mock Democracy,
armed with a picture perfect memory & an unlimited supply of energy,
I expose these moments from dark to light like photography,
from the Dark Room to the Light of Day,
it’s all part of our odyssey whether or not it's all done consciously,

see my conscience sees,

that The All Seeing Eye,
in all ways always has It’s all seeing eye on me,
& you might think that in a way that makes me paranoid,
but in all actually it makes me much more comfortable if anything,
because I’ve got nothing to hide in all honesty,
even though there’s two sides to me like I’m Siamese,
& I’m buzzing like a drunken honed in honeybee,
& I see everything even when drinking absinthe as an absent absentee,

'cause I was told that I may hold all that I see & all that I see is everything,
because all of me at any time is capable of doing & seeing anything,

just like the All Seeing Eye that keeps it's eye on me,

feeling,
alright with the All Seeing Eye on me,
seeking,
all night for some sobriety from this anxiety,
reaching,
a point of enlightenment that shines vibrantly,
teaching,
illuminations of thought that soak into the subconscious silently,

finally, I’m free,

& as I rise above the clouds I see,
the All Seeing Light above watching me,
& that’s alright with me I give myself up willingly,
traded my gifts for a gift card now I’m on a 24/7 worldwide shopping spree,

finally, I’m free, & finally, I see,

that the All Seeing Eye,
has it’s all seeing eye on me,
illuminating all of the darkness,
so that we can all shine on vibrantly,

finally, finally,
I am, you are, we are free!

∆ Aaron LaLux ∆

from The Holy Trilogy Vol. 2: Mandalas
available worldwide here: www.amazon.com/dp/1721134158

Encased smoothed wrought to new
Axiomatic taken to within

        Effort yearned cognizant
        waiting for the monest of solitude
    
               broken away from demure
               Found anew expressed outsplendor

                   Turned to diffident through omnipotence
                    obsolete in disguise from degregation