Suppression disallowed a chance
For my heart to speak aloud
No faint voice ever lived alive
In reality, this exists true,
Without a choice.

I lapsed myself in silence
Just to give a chance to listen,
To my soul, to my heart
To listen and only be heard
By myself

What do I hear, of the pain
It echos within inside myself
A cry of tears, of anguish
Dying and drowning in perpetual,
Salty blood.

The only shriek whispered out
Shudders through a quiet sigh
I'm dying from the inside out
My heart vibrates its chord of death
Evermore.

A wave sent to my limbs
Feeling every feel, living every cry
To find the machine stuttering,
Telling someone to listen to it,
None do.
Not even myself.

That’s my last duchess painted on the wall,
Looking as if she were alive. I call
That piece a wonder, now: Frà Pandolf’s hands
Worked busily a day, and there she stands.
Will’t please you sit and look at her? I said
“Frà Pandolf” by design, for never read
Strangers like you that pictured countenance,
The depth and passion of its earnest glance,
But to myself they turned (since none puts by
The curtain I have drawn for you, but I)
And seemed as they would ask me, if they durst,
How such a glance came there; so, not the first
Are you to turn and ask thus. Sir, ’twas not
Her husband’s presence only, called that spot
Of joy into the Duchess’ cheek: perhaps
Frà Pandolf chanced to say “Her mantle laps
“Over my lady’s wrist too much,” or “Paint
“Must never hope to reproduce the faint
“Half-flush that dies along her throat”: such stuff
Was courtesy, she thought, and cause enough
For calling up that spot of joy. She had
A heart—how shall I say?—too soon made glad,
Too easily impressed; she liked whate’er
She looked on, and her looks went everywhere.
Sir, ’twas all one! My favor at her breast,
The dropping of the daylight in the West,
The bough of cherries some officious fool
Broke in the orchard for her, the white mule
She rode with round the terrace—all and each
Would draw from her alike the approving speech,
Or blush, at least. She thanked men—good! but thanked
Somehow—I know not how—as if she ranked
My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name
With anybody’s gift. Who’d stoop to blame
This sort of trifling? Even had you skill
In speech—which I have not—to make your will
Quite clear to such an one, and say, “Just this
“Or that in you disgusts me; here you miss,
“Or there exceed the mark”—and if she let
Herself be lessoned so, nor plainly set
Her wits to yours, forsooth, and make excuse,
—E’en then would be some stooping; and I choose
Never to stoop. Oh sir, she smiled, no doubt,
Whene’er I passed her; but who passed without
Much the same smile? This grew; I gave commands;
Then all smiles stopped together. There she stands
As if alive. Will’t please you rise? We’ll meet
The company below, then. I repeat,
The Count your master’s known munificence
Is ample warrant that no just pretense
Of mine for dowry will be disallowed;
Though his fair daughter’s self, as I avowed
At starting, is my object. Nay we’ll go
Together down, sir. Notice Neptune, though,
Taming a sea-horse, thought a rarity,
Which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me!

Countless strangers sit or stand in wonder
at tall statues and head-height tombs
of solid, austere men who cannot utter
a word to explain the cathedral’s gloom.
The ostentatious architecture’s croon
from a tattered breeze
dithers through deathless abbeys
where memorialized men lay strewn.

The vacillation of their hearts
remains hidden like it did in life,
their public presence disallowed it then
as carved marble and stone now imparts.
That common unresting inner strife;
what was and what could have been.

I know it well (as well as I can),
that unfinished man Frederic Leighton’s tomb,
his beautifully ebullient Flaming June
brought to mind as I gaze on the grave
breathlessly overwhelmed, trying to understand
how anyone can frown on how artists behave.

That thought-drowned sculptor Henry S. Moore
is situated among the others, beguiled
without grave, a resting statue, “Mother & Child”:
in the smoothed out bends of arching stone,
from troughs between figures down to the floor
I read his face, all it held and could hold alone.

Down the crypt on straight-cut-steps I descend,
pressing on further through candle-lit corridors,
commemorations surround in half-light that offends
receding memories on sandless shores.
Horatio Nelson, John Donne, Sir Flemming, Chris Wren,
each pass till I find a man I’d adore:
Philip Sidney, that grounded man, that defender of art,
consumed in the ensuing century’s heart.

Consumed likewise I stand
gasping, beached upon a strand
of a non-physical contagion;
we’ll suffer it all again.


Three minutes more or less I gaped
until my feet forced my face away
and weaved my soul among the wooden pews.
This hallowed place where the past is draped
is an icicle looped through the fray
of my ambition’s thinning view.

Another adoration there!
That visionary mythology sewer
William Blake, whose piteous glower
for mankind begot his lasting dream.
On his placard chiseled rhyming pairs
beg: take things, not as they seem.

My fingers run the lines of text
slowly, strongly, as if forced by the air.
I fall down a thousand winding stairs
taller than St. Paul’s in my heart.
I compose all my strength to regain context
of cathedral, pull away from Blake, part.

Up the stairs I climb
back to the street.
The rustling, busy fleet
of tourists entwines
about me in my haste
to get outside the tomb,
that time-reversed womb,
of men who didn’t waste
time, place, talent, skill,
but impressed their lives on eternity.
The clock is still,
I’m out in the street –
cathedral shadows
twirling high, then low,
over my body and feet.

What is there, inside that place, is intangible and petrified by reality;
it is trailing smoke from the pipes of sages who spoke,
in broken thoughts, sworn things that cannot be repealed.
It is time unwoven and crocheted again into patchworks of undefinable color.
I must have died a hundred times unaware of it all – out of nothing it called.
It was felt and known, ended and rebuilt accidentally out of the contagion of guilt.
It was a small drag off of nothing.

Cloudy, 70 degrees Fahrenheit,
Outside on the beach, and inside my head,
Weather, overcast, color and temp., coordinated.

Early risen like some other Jew,
The waves say:

Hey, Hey! Yo, Yo! We're available,
Walk on us and drown your sorrows,
If they're original,  we'll Jonah-spit you back.

Most likely, common enough, and we will
Keep your body, Mr. Word Sailor,
Recompense for suffering your trite insights,
Swallowing whole, you and your appetizer poems nobody reads,
Body and soul buried side by side
In the cemetery's ocean, just one more
Dead Poet to add to the Society,
Our very own collection.

No Thanks, says my pride, still got one more left inside,
Bait taken, gotta catch and release,
Cause I'm an environmentalist,
Or, at least, a plain old mentalist,
Whose words escape his body,
Thru his eyes, ears and fingertips,
Sustainability for a few more days.

Beach walking, my eyes are not deceived,
The shells, the husks, the dead upended,
***** and mollusks have hora-circled me,
Holding hands, they too, dance and sing their
Lamentations, as if I didn't have enough of my own,
To keep myself self-employed.

Look at us, turn not, Sir, disguised by word-stubble,
Face not away from us and our exposed-now, truths.

Upon Silver Beach, we preach,
This our death spot, our crematorium,
Hunted and gull-pecked,
Our shells, teenage broken,
Holed, shucked, stepped upon,
What ignominy for proud sea creatures!
Is this the death we deserve?

Why to me whine, wail and cry,
I, nothing to your deaths, hasten,
Do, did or done,
Though I plied the waters of
Noyack and Little Peconic Bay but yesterday,
Not one of your kind did I disturb,
For your kind,  my God, consuming disallowed.

Take your sad eyed tales to the under-towing waves,
Perhaps, they will listen, for they enjoy containing
Morted objects on their invisible sands,
The waters will take you and your plaints,
Soundlessly, you will be accepted, upon their plains.

No, No!
Instructions sent and well received,
You, poet, are the one, needs notification
Our doom is your doom, symmetry to
Your gloom, for one and the same.

What meanest thou, meanest creatures,
Commonality nor companionship,
Kith nor kin are we!
Our connectivity is but
This beach we presently share!

Guiltless in life, we but survived,
Hurting no one, no thing,
Yet, here we lie, ignored, unattended,
Yet, you fail again to see our connection?
You do not recognize us?

We are the shells, the husks of you,
Your poems unread, you labors unpreserved,
All wasted, for unless they are read, they die,
As you will too.
Some fast, by water, some slower, time-eroded,
All, ended, by drowning in the Sea of Who Cares!

Shell-shellacked, be refted, be reaved,
The be-each minions have crucified my anything,
Truth, the sword for ribbon cutting ceremonies
Risen up from these waters, to cut me down,
To complete my shame, the duo,
Wind and sand combinate to sting my eyes,
But succeed not, for I weep so copiously,
Their endeavors re fused, but what's the point,
For I am a results-oriented man,
My results, naught.

I know now where to go
When the silence external is needing coordination,
UnSound symmetry, with a silenced mind.

5:52 AM
Silver Beach
June 30th, 2013

encased with passion & desire,
love & lust he waits for her still,
a muse

he's restless & listless, his heart beats,
& bleeds, catch up, catch up,
a muse

leaking lover lost through, a dripping soul,
red raw, vulnerable, closed,
a muse

a fragility so unknown to her, a naivety,
oblivious, at risk from all men,
a muse

he couldn't have her, so he destroyed her,
she disallowed all men in,
a muse

denial & unfazed, she's dazed, confused,
he watches from the sidelines,
a muse

this obsession won't hit him,
or maybe the day she is gone, he will,
a muse

drugs were a power, greater than her,
releasing caged birds, an angel above,
a muse.

© Sia Jane

High school's unwitting, eclectic crowd --
sweethearts, jocks, "gangsters", A.S.B. --
had universes stuffed in it.

You can clearly picture where you'd sit
during lunch, shaded under a tree
near the bike racks; disallowed

and unaware, the future unplowed.
No one expected a baby
(or thirty), marriages, deaths, the flit

to forlorn bitterness: counterfeit
lives. Your peers had much more agency
and promise than they saw, unendowed

with foresight in a teenage crowd.

The Dragon's Egg

To understand my addiction
You have to know the
Back-story.

I was born in the dead of
Winter. Wednesday's child...
Full of woe. I was a preemie.
Mom fell on her stomach while
On a chair trying to change a
Lightbulb. As unpreposessing
A child as ever was born...

I won't go into my childhood
Difficulties too much, as they
Might prompt your judgment
Upon my parents. They were
Not really at fault. They did
The best they could based
Upon *their childhoods and
Limitations....

Mom was sick.
A great deal. The victim of
Horrific migraine headaches
And an undiagnosed (therefore
Untreated) bi-polar condition.
She had aspirations of being an
Actor. She really should never
Have had three children. She
Simply couldn't handle it. I was
Born only 16 months after her
Firstborn, my sister Chris. This
Definitely didn't help matters.
Then, because my little brother
Mark was born just as her
Acting career took off, she had
Much less time for my sister
And I. She had a newborn, a
Career, a husband and
Postpartum depression. Chris
And I (and eventually Mark)
Were neglected. Not really
Mom's fault. It was what
It was...

Dad was a complex man.
A hot-tempered stoic. A hard
Worker who hated manual
Labor. A war hero who also
Became a runner (he would
Become a severe
Alcoholic - an addiction he
eventually overcame).
A generous miser.
A cultured plebian.
A spiritually minded atheist.

I don't blame him. But the
Last dichotomy was our
Downfall. We were
disallowed from church. Went
To an atheist Sunday School.
We learned about all the world
Religions save Christianity.
Or maybe I missed THAT lesson.
But as a result I had no real
Moral compass to live by. My
Parents tried to teach us
Ethical behavior, but because
Jesus and the Holy Spirit weren't
A part of the equation it was
Doomed to failure. One can't
Simply be "moral" or "ethical".
Without Jesus, we are all
Rank sinners. Sorry if this
Offends some of you. But it's
TRUE. Jesus paid the price.
Only faith in Him can make
A person right with the Father.
All else is vanity. My father
Spent his lifetime trying to be
A "good" man. He tried to
Be a "good" husband. A "good"
Father. But his efforts
Always stymied by lack
Of the essential puzzle piece....

JESUS**.

~ the director

one woman in particular became trapped in a man’s body and he married her.  a child they tried not to have soon arrived and brought with it a list of demands from the others.

his peers double crossed each other in small houses.  he himself was able to get away with punching a young girl for the right to drag a sled.  his child began to accept talking toys in exchange for keeping quiet.  

he was in love with his sister, always had been.  after she was mauled by the dogs meant for his father, he made walking his home until it called itself a hotel

of running.  last year, he caught a movie one had made of his life and though he missed the dedication

he did not miss
the death row scene, the saw his brother took from the cake, the plain basket
as it moved
with his mother

from bike
to bike…  

~ transmissible

the stomach remains dumb

the way she finds this out on a school bus

the way her mother
after losing
a child  

~ ephemeron

cornfield visionaries, they sat around the ball as if it were fire.  I myself was tired of magic

so we played four short and the ball was a fact.  a hard period planted in mud

or a long quote
buzzing the ears
together.  

~ alleviant

of all places a park bench will do for the man not yet reading but planning to the children’s book with its cover of mother and child and kitchen and some kind of batter on the child’s face.  presently the man is alone much as his mother is alone in one of his fingers.  two men nearby are drinking from a water fountain and in turn are each palming the low **** for the other.  they are friends but only by length of service and the man can tell one is aggressive and the other allows it.  the book itself is disappointing.  the child is just ***** and the mother is just angry and they learn only to be themselves.  the men at the fountain become two men on a bench and the reader scoots over to hear about the voice of god as ****** children take the park.

~ amends

your house in foreclosure and you leave it and you are holding two bags of cat food.
  
sometimes a tricycle is a particular tricycle
trying to clear
with its back wheel
the low cinema
of your bare
foot.  

I am mugged in your dream and mugged in mine and mugged by a woman in both.

I hope we can meet without talking money.  this story my mother gave me
about the world’s first invisible man
is a keeper.  he was born

that way.

your mother I saw her setting the patio table for two and I looked away but could hear
no one
beating her.

we can talk about your cat.    

~ homology

the empty raccoons by their emptiness have kept the priest awake.  the church dumpsters wheel themselves into the world and he watches.  he tells his mother it is the silence of god.  she shrinks from him more and more and eventually fits through a door he cannot see.  his house fills with garbage and he becomes convinced he is wearing gloves.  we do not argue.  he raises them with his hands to take them off with his teeth.      

~ fiction

my age, father paints an abstract jesus.  mother has the kitchen to herself and sits.  mother watches my brother lift a chair and leave.  my sister lets a train pass and bites at the shoulder strap of her bra.  not my age, I draw a violinist.  draw a dog at the neck of its owner.  at my age of apple and rope, I prefer god’s early work.

~ monodist

online, I pretended to be writing a very long obituary.  in house, I dreamt not of my wife but of a grape being rolled by a palm gently toward a grape the dream could not see.  as it is in heaven, I was not all there.

~ signage

I was limping the edge of the pond so as to confirm in the world my clearance given to me as before by frogs.  my punched nose was warm and my grief melted from it and I cupped my hands together for the blood and what mixed with it and when the cup was full I halved it and my already thick shoelaces thickened.  soon into this drama one frog jumped from the pond and I startled that indeed it was no frog but a toad or some form of toad.  I followed it woozily from my father’s land onto the land of the man who’d fathered the boy whose fist had found so recently fistfight heaven.  the toad was dull save for its hop from water and save for its courage and save for a sickly orange spot on its back that was a star when the toad paused and a mangled star otherwise.  everything had been planned and my body wanted to be generous to the toad and it was hard not to run or use my hands or ruin this paradise that I knew then as vengeance but now see as existential plagiarism which is nonetheless vengeance.  I told myself I would not rub the toad over me and I had to convince myself repeatedly.  the boy was no doubt inside the house as his dog was not to be seen but his sister was sprawled on two towels as she was very tall and her sunglasses were cocked enough so that her right eye could see mine.  the toad was in her mouth immediately and then her throat bulged but went quickly back to its original.  I lost the toad forever then but its orange star surfaced on the right and then the left of her belly button.  I told her I would see her at school and I would but this was the last time I would see her in anything but an overcoat and that boy would try and come close but never again pin me down.      

~ discipline

somehow sweet in his want of no trouble, the unwashed man goes hand in hand with your father to the backyard where they wrestle as if hurt were people keeping them apart.  your father’s jaw comes loose, the man’s ear seems held by too small a magnet.  at window you a sickly child with overbite and a scarecrow’s pipe stroke the puppet-corn hair of a sister’s doll and walk it cloud to defrosted cloud.  amidst this bartering of vanished weight your mother is being made to balance on her bare stomach a glass of lemonade.  in three days the man will come back, your father a bit healed, your mother less angry about straws.

~ the rabbits

the head of a shovel enters the earth of this southern field.  there is no more give here than in the northern.  the burying boy has been long facing the wind and will be longer.  in walking toward the boy, the old man’s knees have locked.  the old man is seen by the boy and the old man waves upright in the wind’s gnaw.  the tops of the boy’s legs reach his stomach.  

~ archaism

a man carrying his dog stops to kneel.  for my distance from him, I am disallowed any inquiry that would flower.  he sets the black dog in front of him in the manner I have imagined god at the simple chore of placing those first shadows.  I am holding my son nostalgically, almost forgetting how my tooth would ache and his tooth would ache and both would be things I knew and he didn’t.

~ sincerely

the males had in them a sloth and a jolly fog of sportsmanship

and in the females a mistake was made.

against frogs, and against the dim leaping
of frogsong

I had this friend

broke his arm
while *******  
at the wheel.  

I put my arm in the grief of my arm.

ich wollen ein iranischherz herauf Nörden.

or simply Njørden - often the j is a softening pronunciation -
i want an Iranian heart up north -
that's what is says - imagine why he lashed out
with the words *sheisse ausländer -
miniature form of Dostoyevsky -
at 18 he was confused - his father probably
heard the words... hearing that he lashed out...
this is the proof of the power of commandments -
take one to extreme, and all the others seems
permitted - honour your parents -
he didn't shout out allah'u akbar - he did
a little maxim veto - as said unto me one,
may these bullets turn into revisited tongues -
the west has no concern for poetry -
i wouldn't make Iran an enemy,
after all... they're the ones that appreciate poetry...
mm ha ha! so given Iran's flavour for poetics
i can only applaud at their sensibility -
i too was once duped into thinking that watching
a movie i might lie to a girl and ****** her -
poetry is dead in the west... i don't write
for the west, i write from the west, which doesn't
mean i respect the west -
thanks to feminism we're cruising into
an affair of what feminists don't anticipate:
the impracticality of old age creeping, creeping,
creeping... with large families there are at least
chances of a benevolent child who might care for
his parents - in the west with surrogate foetal-things
it's hardly a bouquet of flowers sitting pretty on
a table - the problem are already waiting...
thank **** if you're rich... if you're poor?
well... hmm what a Disneyland awaits you -
**** stained and **** smeared dying for your idea
like any Communist might; well, i'm not going to
help you... ask Oxfam while the money you donated
ensured that only a penny reached the poor poor
Africans and why 99 pence reached the bureaucracy
of keeping a charity afloat - i know where
i can find fresh water... you have to cross a barbwire
fence, feed 10 horses 20 sugar cubes and you're
at a little stream of clarity... then you do the vegan
diet and sorta'h waiting for a heart-attack...
or you take a Russian Empire banknote with Tsar
Nicholas II to Switzerland and buy yourself out
with euthanasia... either way, win win.
every ****** time i go back home there's the Krähewolke -
i'm starting to imagine myself as the boy instructed by
Barbarossa to watch for the crows and a second life -
it's a small town, used to be industrious,
life here, there, everywhere, now a town of pensioners -
a European squabbling with a European but ignoring
the massive signs MADE IN CHINA, MADE IN CHINA...
MADE IN CHINA... why you blaming me for what's
going to happen to you too? you think this is the steam-engine
days of industrial revolution? do you have an Instagram
account? no. well... if you aren't going to be a third party
advert unit you're worth jackshit -
but still that Krähewolke of summer, thousands of them
swarm the sky - i'm not saying because i'm there,
i'm saying i'm there dwarfed by such a sight...
krähe die messerschmitt - so poetry is written by
*****-whipped English teachers, or it's the medium of
the weak, it has many voices but it doesn't have a voice,
it needs to be pretty, it needs to be neat, it needs to
have a prosthetic metaphor stashed in a pile of **** flare -
some say it even has to be as coherent as an Ikea
manual for putting a table together, people all of a sudden
trash the calculator and attempt mental arithmetic in
terms of reading... what... a... load... of... crock-****...
hyphen... mm... the Germans knew the immigrant Saxons
would speak less and less German and even of lesser
quality than the Turks... the Germans invented chemistry -
the Anglo-Saxons invented hyphenation... but it's so
******* weird that the Englandish outlandish will
hyphenate a word like overt-usage but never include the
hyphen in chemical nouns, like: Hydrochloric acid...
dihydrogen monoxide (yes, the d'uh hoax),
phosphorus pentachloride - what remains of Vater Schwaben
in English is bound to chemistry's language,
where the standard use of hyphen is disallowed -
the German original took on a different optometrist -
the English revision took on yet another (different) optometrist -
the eyes of the English starring at a German word
began to dizzy-up-whirl looking through a kaleidoscope -
the Germans just saw: schieße schrapnell!
achtung! achtung! die wort ist die fondant...
mm... gobble gobble gobble - pristine smile of sharpened
teeth in a smile! klebrigzähne sprechen sehr kleine-eine-miner.
well... if you're going to write a Monty Pi Ten you might
as well desecrate a foreign language with the grammar of
the one acquired - very much interested in how grammar
is reflected by Arabic left-to-right, English right-to-left
German right-to-left,but Latin left-to-right - all the genus
names - **** sapiens: rational man - or the up-kept
(******* ***** -φρεν - alt.  hi-yo in Beijing) desire for:
the instilled continuance of the rationalising man...
rationalise this! knuckle dusters down the East End -
gotta be a **** before you can be a Cockney Wiseguy -
say ooh la la say soo - bud weiss err - say ooh la la say soo -
amphetamine George says: ethanol Scottish Gaelic means:
twins sedative and un-inhibitor - talk of Enzymes -
south and shoo, north and nothing, east and extra territory,
west and **** / Vancouver - van coup verily ******
voulez-vous volleyball aha! write poetry like a dictionary
entry - spandex, annex, fly-flex - it can really become
a tennis match after a while:
   roses are   red
                   violets are blue
             i'm so in love with everything that's dead
    that i decided to call the past the necessary glue.
an article by Bryan Applied concerning poetry -
and why all poetic hearts are bound for Iran -
karaoke the current trend in the west for one -
living at a time when cooking books sell,
and plagiarism is celebrated more than any awkward
originality, but everyone still owns microwaves
and opts for ready-meals -
the rewards of old age aren't there because families
have become atomic based on individuals -
oh right? the article, it's long, ****** me off -
"we turn to poetry in times of need, but can it really
help? and why doesn't it sell more copies?"
ah the selling questions, i forgot a capitalist thinks
of poems like hamburgers...
i'll put in a bracketed word pending in the title and give
you a brief overview of the article...

*** and whiskey interlude

i don't write poetry... what i do do is **** poetry;
why do fellow artists hate poetry?
poetry in the hands of the old and young
thinks itself ******-like, the one art form that
says no to violence, no to intolerance,
no to drastic actions of revision -
keeping the Shakespearean sonnet won't do the art
any favours, it's the art too easily accessible,
because anyone can apparently write it
as long as they get a clue than a rhyme is necessary -
alternating rhymes are not that important,
i asked for a steak tartar, instead i got
plated a shepherds' pie - i asked for raw,
all i got for nanny picked and donning diapers -
poetry is best suited for that dynamo of reaction
known to internet trolls - trolls should overpower
writing poetry, they're intelligent enough, and
democratic too - cold-stone-heartless *******
should pick up these floral arrangements and
do an iron maiden make-over with them...
poems should be torture instruments,
they should never be treated as floral arrangements...
i don't like weakness, neither does nature -
when i walk into the museum of poetry
i don't want to see avant-garde art, i want to see torture,
they really did underestimate the vis poetica -
when i read poetry i want torture, i don't need
safety pins, straitjackets and other torturous
instruments of conformity - but from what i'm seeing
that's all i'm getting - ask any man why the construction
industry is ******* - women on site, women in the
army - feminism has infiltrated sacred sites of
manly brotherhood... you don't see a man stroll into
the fashion industry... well... unless he's a ****** -
a Grimm Brother's tale: once upon a time...
you could listen to a radio on a building site...
then women came in... we only heard symphonies of
hammer and drill... that alone made us deaf...
sure... we worked dangerously, we died more often...
BUT THE THRILL! **** *** bye bye... go on, wave at it...
it's like Titanic's maiden voyage... it's not coming back!
feminism's ugly head should have shoved itself once
more under a horse's galloping hoofs - a few times -
it played with the brotherhood of man - we're no longer
men, we're insurance policies, safety nets,
no wonder the Jihadis are fighting for our libidos -
cos i honestly think they are... they want us to feel the Mojo
once more from the frivolous spirit of the 1960s liberation
that only became slavery of the fake sinner -
**** it... applause gentlemen! applause! thank **** for
me donning *******, i'd be a real loser if i had to hand it
to myself without it... these days it's called the ******* -
the monk's sheaf of chastity - reduce a man to a *****
and you reduce a father to alimony cheques.
what?! ain't that true? i told you, **** poetry, don't
bother writing it, **** that pacified ***** into obedience -
you own it... without you you'd still be crying about
what shame it is that a nation that produced Shakespeare
undermines poets while keeping this old **** ticking
all the boxes of worthwhile inspection... i wish i was
the 20th century example of when poetry had some respect...
at any other time more so in the 20th century -
but we missed that train... shame for us to have inherited
such a past and the internet - so if not so keen on poetry
why Shakespeare the celebratory idol? twilight Sir
****-a-lot is coming - or so i hope.
so this article, citations:
a. Wordsworth 'thoughts that do often lie too deep for
     tears',
b. poetry is the language of crisis,
c. poetry as peak experience constructed from
    the shabby, battered bricks of verbiage
    (otherwise known as talk with a mouthful
      of spaghetti),
d. TS Eliot: 'purifying the dialect of the tribe'
     (too many dialects to make up a tribe, to be honest),
e. funerals in particular are what's called
    poetic crashing the scene, every subject,
    every opportunity, you'd never call a poet a
    polymath,
f. the healing power of poetry... the healing power?
    i never signed up to take a Hippocratic oath!
g. a permanent record of failure... or the allure of a permanent
     record of ridicule by others, so the minor success was
     there too - as in a boy buys a kettle
     is a success story, but a boy writes a poem is a failure -
     is that vocabulary as commodity without
     a handkerchief?
h.
              a sense of abandonment looms...
              the obnoxiousness of this article is all too apparent,
      i rather be headbanging to some ***** M: Ra Ra Rhas Putin -
(even surds deserve a bit of love) -
i might finish the citation of the article... but then again
i might as well cut it short - inc. in the Culture Section
of the Sunday Times, Bryan Appleyard -
people resent poetry for stealing what comes naturally -
really? so i'm a thief? a lot of people don't invest in
vocabulary - they convene to invest in flimsy investments
of slang - after graduation from being teenagers the investment
in **** suddenly disappears - grown-up vocabulary takes
over, comprehensive English, not slang English...
people don't acquire naturally (i.e. easily without discomfort),
if i were to complain to the people for treating me
as a thief rather than a poet i'd ask them to teach me to
do crosswords... a pain-in-the-***... i can't do them!
so i guess that if you're able to do crosswords you can't
write poetry, or give poetry a freedom away from all those
dusty technicalities / identifiers as such -
for poetry doesn't make anything happen
(WH Auden), it probably doesn't, but if you choose a boring
life, a lot happens... 11/15 is the feminist ratio of poetry's
Forward prizes in the genre - k k, a fraction - 11:15 -
new testament? or the old's citation? yeah... why do they
cite the bible like making bets at the bookies?
Gospel of St. Luke 15 to 1? they're betting on the 4 Henchmen
of the Apocalypse - gambling even in the testaments.
performance poetry seldom stands up on the page -
yeah, wheelchair bound, or in pop culture lyricism -
that competition between R.E.M.'s man on the moon
(yeah yeah yeah yeah), and Nirvana's smells like teen spirit,
hello hello hello 'ola! (later the yeah yeah hitchhiker's story);
did i tell you i got barred from a pub in Collier Row for
speaking poetically? a ****-hole of a pub anyway,
walked in with a pair of dolphin flippers and a shark
fin, spoke some words, made a few friends over grapefruit
ale - then a few days later got barred, because i apparently
"threw a pint glass across the room"; that's me booked
for the Cheltenham Book festival for sure... right next to
the cookbook aisle where people will be expecting to make
humble pie and cider squint tarts.

I know of a place where a ruby was born to quietly bless
The beloved, who cry for sweeter songs to hear
However, would we be amazed nonetheless
If what made them smile today
Tomorrow;
Brought no cheer

How hidden can the heart remain, who wanders
Within this place I write of to you now
Can its desires ever be squandered
Because the always want of more
Keeps appreciation
Disallowed

Would a trusting eye be found in silent chill
Its very heart and soul be shaken
If it were to find that, the ruby cannot fill
That which is never satisfied
And always seeking
New sensations

Death stole a soul from its earthly place no other can fill the empty place for thirty years each one gave
A little and then a little more in time mathematics over ruled and was disallowed two became one. The heart
Of love ever watchful try as you may the bond unseen unshakeable unbreakable this spouse this was the
Only house my soul has found unending rest within these walls our ease measureless as infinity. We can
Search earth and universe but not one glimpse, it was one of a kind just one face.

Commitments watchful eye never allowed disorder steal away even while surrounded by friends these
Eyes fixed to yours through them pour each moment love’s torrent we go to distant habitations passing
On always to carefree laughter oh this stronghold our union has made only lions know these privileged
Paths we walk together hand in hand a man and a woman who tasted fruit as it had to be back in Eden
Purest delight no dark turning only the light drenching quenching every longing.

Time was the banner unfurled our covering protecting shield over head rain and sun deflected as we
Strolled past ruins of former days then it spoke softly of permanent connections that always flowed into
Promise filled tomorrows to soon it would speak of unbearable sorrow. The one would be left only as a
Half plunged from brightest light into darkest gloom, people still stir and go about their business I walk
By them they are whole while I walk in half light and I am blinded and confused once everything made
Sense. Now only senseless starved for a single meaning anything to stop the pain.

Moving forward is the only constant it leads to only more desperate pleadings that go unheard through
Black and twisted dead wasteland I feebly stumble I see you momentarily only to have you vanish if only
I could pass into the forgotten world where memories were unlawful and strictly enforced but then I
would lose you again no soul could survive that torment. Though tears flow unbidden in them you are
Alive they hold within their fiery drops the unquestionable hope of that eternal tomorrow.

face in the crowd
...picture in a cloud
....thought disallowed
.....disgraced head, bowed

free ride
...heart open wide
....holding the lie inside
.....place, nowhere to hide

casual flirtation
...fine temptation
....lost translation
.....unique damnation

pair of eyes open wide
...unfaltering stride
....disgrace that is implied
.....slippy ***** just to slide

October’s storm was brutal,
drenching rain and heavy wind.
Our little tavern by the beach
started taking water in.
Then, when the storm surge
breeched the wall,
the place lacked all defense.
Waves swept away our little bar
leaving us just the front steps.

The “Pour House” now a memory
for its scattered congregation.
Mostly Irish Catholics who enjoyed
its liberal dispensations.

Some people prefer brews to pews
for fighting off dammnation.
So many demons haunt our souls
and these demand libations.

The juke box played sad Irish songs,
the only sort it knew,
while disorderly Hibernians
enjoyed their favorite brew.

Here the patrons much preferred
Draft Guinness in a glass
while stealing furtive glances
at my waitress’ shapely ***.
Here the women started homely
but were beautiful by close-
at least to those poor drunken sots
Who’d relieve them of their clothes,


By Christmas it was apparent
that the “Pour House” had to go.
There just wasn’t FEMA money
For an old man’s bar you know.
So word swept through the beach blocks
And it reached the subway station.
Gather at the Pour House Steps
for the New Year’s celebration.

Party favors must be had
So I bought some horns and hats.
Dry eyes and throats were disallowed
So I had free beer on tap.
That New Year’s Eve was cold and drear
When we held our celebration
Our dear old timers all appeared
for our “free beer” dispensation..
At midnight we stood on the steps
And had our photo taken.
We all hugged and went our separate ways
While inside our hearts were breaking.

The Pour house is a memory now.
I’ll miss those guys and girls.
It was a sort of Paradise,
a refuge from the world.

Oh! a cry so plain it
Scarcely leaves our lips.
We begin plotting lines
To sad refrain. Excise
All rights to light and life,
Still,
Quietly laying bare our
Failed plans, our lost paths;
Our mortal enemy, our
Only friend. She who
Dances outside the realm
Of our gaze, who plays
Silent melodies on broken
Keys, songs we know but are
Disallowed to sing.
She cares not
For lament or plea, she
Who fuels our fire;
She, misery.

It was as though I had been on trial
for nineteen years,
due process
disallowed.

The prosecution-
my chemical imbalance-
so harsh,
eased up.

The defense-
Prozac-
allowed to make
my case.

I remember it well;
the day
I decided
to let myself live.

My night, under opaque wraps, collects my candid questions —
unkept before the walls crept back up on me and
crammed my thorough thoughts
into sufficient suffocation and disallowed my dislocation
from total cerebral closure —
and covers cognative wonders with a dense fence-like stone cure.

The clean-cut cold sheets, tucked beneath the bed springs
spring my curiosity through layer after layer
of teeming tides of blockades and prohibition
but someone sits at the edge of the road, just before crack
drops to cliff and he catches my despair, tangled in the rye, and
before my in-experience allows me to cry,
he hurls my candid questions back my way and continues
my disallowance of detaching myself from purity.

But despite his baseball mitts, he can’t catch my verbal fits
so I scream, “My wants can’t be blocked forever and Holden,
I’m holding onto my life for the sake of avoiding strife with you but
celibacy of the mind can only lead to our true demise.”

He looks me in the eyes, scared he’d been outdone,
so he tries to run but the cliff leaves him hanging and
I reach for his undemanding hand that swats my offer
with a backwards hat.
But his fear subsides in his recollection of his misinterpretation of
a silly old poem that led him to believe he could catch our innocence.
So wear your hat straight, Holden, ‘cause in the rye,
you’re not the groundskeeper, but keep your ground and
catch yourself before you fall off the cliff and lose yourself
in your selfless tantrums and your disregard for your need for wondering.

Let me break through my caul, ‘cause it’s burning of decay and
I’ve overstayed my welcome in this amniotic gate, devoid of vitality,
and I like my life in my own hands, so I’ll tell you now:
I’m holdin’ on, Holden. Get a grip and hold on, yourself.

Separation
Death stole a soul from its earthly place no other can fill the empty place for thirty years each one gave
A little and then a little more in time mathematics over ruled and was disallowed two became one. The heart
Of love ever watchful try as you may the bond unseen unshakeable unbreakable this spouse this was the
Only house my soul has found unending rest within these walls our ease measureless as infinity. We can
Search earth and universe but not one glimpse, it was one of a kind just one face.

Commitments watchful eye never allowed disorder steal away even while surrounded by friends these
Eyes fixed to yours through them pour each moment love’s torrent we go to distant habitations passing
On always to carefree laughter oh this stronghold our union has made only lions know these privileged
Paths we walk together hand in hand a man and a woman who tasted fruit as it had to be back in Eden
Purest delight no dark turning only the light drenching quenching every longing.

Time was the banner unfurled our covering protecting shield over head rain and sun deflected as we
Strolled past ruins of former days then it spoke softly of permanent connections that always flowed into
Promise filled tomorrows to soon it would speak of unbearable sorrow. The one would be left only as a
Half plunged from brightest light into darkest gloom, people still stir and go about their business I walk
By them they are whole while I walk in half light and I am blinded and confused once everything made
Sense. Now only senseless starved for a single meaning anything to stop the pain.

Moving forward is the only constant it leads to only more desperate pleadings that go unheard through
Black and twisted dead wasteland I feebly stumble I see you momentarily only to have you vanish if only
I could pass into the forgotten world where memories were unlawful and strictly enforced but then I
would lose you again no soul could survive that torment. Though tears flow unbidden in them you are
Alive they hold within their fiery drops the unquestionable hope of that eternal tomorrow.

If the Lord loves me why did he leave me this way?
Was the question she used to ask
As the drugs took over more each day
She felt her life was leaving her fast
On a normal day as she sat and got high
Death was close, but she could not stop
As tears ran down her face from over drugged eye
She wished this life for a new one she could swap
Then God reached out for this child of his
With love and compassion he spoke to her
And told her this is not the way you have to live
God searched her heart and knew what she’d prefer
Knowing this had to be about the Lord
The voice in her head she answered
And told it not to speak another word
Not knowing death was the hazard
She thought to herself out loud
He knows nothing about me and God
So what you are saying is disallowed
Don’t question me or go to far and ****
Not forgetting her drugs she picked up her head
For just one moment to wipe away the tears
From the drugs that to herself she overfed
The thought of death upon her was clear
At that moment standing before her was a man
She did not see his face as she looked
She only saw the holes in his feet and his hands
“I understand”, he said, “ I know what it took.
I died for you. So you don’t have to die too.”
She fell on her face and prayed for forgiveness
And told the Lord if my life you will rule
From this day forward I will be a living witness
To this day she does not do drugs
And helps as many get clean as she can
With a lot of love and even more hugs
Believing that all the while this was God’s plan

"The ocean is a desert
with its life underground
and a perfect disguise
above..." Dewey Bunnell

On a horse with
no name I rode
bare-backed in
the purple sage...
***** Pipe cacti
played the melodies
of Mexico.

Swaying sea grasses
were skirts for the
range fences...
broken and rusty.
To be avoided,
my parents warned...
Tetanus... lock-jaw.
Other things to be
aware of...
don't swim too far
from the beach...
don't stay too long
in the sun...

I was happy at the
tide pools... aqua and
pristine. Sea slugs...
far from slug-like.
Flat and purplish
with frilly edges,
undulating dancers.
Picked up and dropped
over and over.
Baby octopi... an
entire tidepool
drenched in purple
ink in its desperate
bid for freedom...
Sea Urchins...
"Their spines can
****..." my parents
warned. It was
fascinating how
they attached
themselves to
the rocks...
Almost as firmly
as the limpets...

We had
Hermit Crab races
Ate food disallowed
at home... swam
out to where water
was ultramarine...
jumped over the
barbed-wire...

with our arms

hugging

the

sun...*


SøułSurvivør
(C) 5/21/2017

Exiled, a stranger in a strange land with hope for life
But we have locked our doors to keep him out
For the life of the World unless an inconvenience
One in the image of God disallowed human decency at our action
Hands and feet of the Lord Jesus, lest it be easier to pretend the problem away

Now has come the time for our repentance;
Forgive us Father, for we have sinned
We have not loved our neighbor as ourself
Rather, we have loved ourselves and only ourselves
We are the sinners we pretend not to be

They come seeking refuge from terror and evil
We slam doors in their faces
They come hungry for food to eat
And we stuff our mouths full, claiming to have none
Can we really call ourselves People of the Lord?

They sit on the side of the road begging for  our spare change
And we pretend as if we are poorer than they
They freeze to death on the sidewalk
And we cross to the other side like the priest and Levite of old
Have we reason to call ourselves the hands and feet of Christ?

Mightn’t there come a day when we are hungry with no food to eat
Did the Lord not command us to feed the hungry, and give to the poor?
Have we shown the love of the Lord to even our closest neighbors?
Mightn’t we show love rather than fear, generosity rather than persecution
Else we might no longer rightfully call ourselves the People of the Lord

You have made it.
You’ve just made your self invincible.
The fact that you own this heart of mine
Rendered me vulnerable:
     The freeze of your smile,
          The death in your goodbye,
               The craze I felt I almost wanted,

So here I am,
A soul stuck in a sleepless state,
Writing poems just to forget
     What they really were about,
For longing, yet again, is disallowed
Because you got your eyes fixed
     In the opposite direction
That I can hardly see your face, your stars,
     The blaze of stars.
  
Now let me wait, at least, stay,
So that I may be able
     To understand why...
Why of all
The constellations to choose from
I chose the farthest, the one
     Most difficult to reach,

Then slowly, just maybe,
I’ll forget the glow...
     ...that you possess.*

© 2010 J.S.P.

frogs croaking through the night even in cold
february so rustically loud
you feel immersed within a chanting crowd
and yet the sound itself does not grow old
the singers do not seem to be consoled
but croak majestically clear and proud
this is their world they won't be disallowed
by sleepy humans none of whom are bold
to say all this is merely to record
last night's concerto in the nearby pond
as one more sign of nature undismayed
by all we do for my part i just snored
dreamt of strange worlds and places far beyond
my normal life then woke to mundane trade

a man carrying his dog stops to kneel.
for my distance from him, I am disallowed
any inquiry that would flower.
he sets the black dog in front of him in the manner I have imagined god
at the simple chore of placing those first shadows.
I am holding my son nostalgically. was my tooth would ache
and his tooth would ache
and both would be things I knew and he didn’t.

When the sun died, we shared the last moment's delight.
And God surely lied, if he said that moment was right.

We both knew, though I felt it the more;
The chill in the air, the dying of the light.
She whispered sad words;
Shed sad tears that fell like stars through the night.
And red lines marked their descent from her eyes.

We held each other, though I held tighter yet;
And as the air chilled our crystalline breath,
She whispered laments;
Cried bitter for what joy was not to be.
Our wings were spread, but the wind was cold death,
and in cruel felicity,
it disallowed us our flight. We would never be free.
I closed my eyes.

I thought of the sun.
Icarus had in mind the kindest of ends;
to burn; to blaze; in a pyre so bright.
But to freeze in a daze, so mired in night;
With no luminescence nor warmth to ease our chill plight.
With no heat to dry the moisture that leaked from our eyes.

Together, we thought we would be able to fight.
But it was not to be so.
Forever, we vowed; unto the dying of the light.
We died in each other's arms; but cold and alone.

And our martyr'd tears froze into stars, and they relit the skies.

i guess when you're pretty, you can be androgynous,
and that's hardly the worry for the next skin head kid of
great Ormond St. -kneecap feeling of guilt - but hell,
i'd rather **** "Nicole" Maines than his twin
(wortschatz von herrzensor) -
pretty face akin to the river of binging
on looking at philippe i, fluke of orléans
******* it off while ensuring his wife
entertained a brother's calm to juxtapose
figurines worth a thousand souls
akin to blowing out of candles -
so why bother dreaming a coercion for
fakes and faeces into supposed applause,
that those nearest to you cannot afford your company,
yet afford it by being affording debt?
no smaller duty over a dress at court,
than it should be relative to the least exercise of power
undressed, and un-courted, to be anticipated courting,
given one's personal allowance as having wavered the king
toward crown and gravity, rather than anointment
and god... how thus disguise a caricature of
one's former serious argumentation for competing
sentences that disallowed sentencing via treason
thus, years later, allowed? is the crown
the joke? the king? or god? or maybe it is
man's laws that are the donkey's tail being pinned,
as forever in lover's jest best exemplified:
a man of actions will never be a man of words -
hence muscular actions gratifying easiest
leverage of the abomination of lexicon lost,
impede quickest and most versatile as those replacing
a forgotten heart, best kept secret between
however disgraceful the ******* of brotherhood
is given toward worship for a Narcissus not smashing
a kindred resemblance, instilled the widower swan
the blackened pupil with vigorous rubric:
repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat... only a conquered
woman is comforted - a freely reigning woman
ought be sacrificed with her belief of interpretation:
thus crucified; well, she damns the brothel,
but she isn't crucified enough to encourage
love freely born; but born under torture.

Struck was I
By the sudden thought
Of my fathers love!
Denied so long ago
But there
Re-found.
Like my nose;
Clearly presented
Yet somehow overlooked!
Right there
For the world to see
But
Unseen.

Like a letter not received
Or a cheque not cashed
Sat on the dresser
Unused
Disallowed
Latent
But still potent

Waiting
To be heard




Today
I heard
Listened
And the backlog of father love flowed, deluged
Re-hydrated
Affirmed

And I feel
Alive

i.
on such frigid atmosphere lay,
a serene fugitive.

do not look at me with such lithe eyes:
the sepulcher is only starting
       to begin.

your sleep's regimen twice-folds
origamied on the quiet cloister,
hang there, puts to test the unblinking
certainty of we who bear no retrieval.

ii.
remember when
    all the fish you gut and all the *****
      you cleave were all but meaningless
       fill?

a mutiny of stench is released,
as men continually purged you of
your poisons — us mortised to this
vague mandate.

i have wished for them to miss the mark.
i have longed for them to mime only
  but your placid face.
they have ransacked the quarry of flesh
  flashed bare against mirrors riveted
   to split-seconds of hours.

iii.
when i was young,
much sleep was needed — a noonday travail to all fretting but a dream of dogs.

now this thump of quietness
may mean no recovery.
the speculations to gnaw for sleep are
lost in a blink of an eye:

the blanket that once smelt of camphor
now engulfs in a single blast of cerement.
        — this scrap of a thing that we
             almost have no use for.

iv.
a furious consideration of roomfuls
   disallowed by a heady ruling of
   emotion's precision.

that, of the most difficult choices—
knowing where to fecundate rest.
your body heeds
            no metaphysical reckoning.
  the preordained space for you to occupy, this unwanted silence that keeps
   on renaming things we cease to forget.
a sentence seized by a clause of wood.

  all too soon to wave as a single beat
  is thrown a hundred ripples into my
  eyes, dragged along and trundling there,
     left lengthening to leave, never to wait.

not with time, nor with a touch we choose
to contest — but an eyeing space,
   a moment to attract transience.

v.
i will only look at you once — lacquered
   with solace.

no ellipsis of breath could continue you.
no paragraphs would forgo of your
   punctuations. i deny my defeat
against one who brooks with victory.

    no hint of other chroma.
    a chiaroscuro of beating petals,
   left only to thrive and not swing
    with verdurous display.

how to tell if this is true?
i touch myself as words gyrate
  in the room that received your body
  like the lighthouse that feeds the sea.

—  or maybe sheathed with the untruth.
  this enigma yields no revelations.
  too late to ring yet still continuing on,
    an early drop of dew.

How do I put aside the fiend
the monster within this skin
when society waits to judge
with their pitchforks stained with blood?

their voices scream so loud
from a thousand paper cuts
compliance asked by the norm
with erasure as their preference

who I am is disallowed
by the ones most alarmed
by existence on this earth
of a child with different thoughts

“it’s a phase, confusion’s reign”
I wonder at this refrain
when I’ve known for decade’s time
with passing privilege near at hand

those I respect fill me with fear
wondering how they’ll react
drop kind regard when they confront
to know the truth about the queer

the most strident will have their fear
could wreck my life, my happiness
as respect that used to be
is replaced by cruel intolerance

the only answer I have at hand
two in fact, the first is worse
is to hide, build up good will
and hope this forgives the fiend within.

© 2017. Sean Green. All Rights Reserved. 20170423.

only, is to be
banished
upon the next utterance
of  mine if I speak it.

if can be used only in comparisons
no ifs around here
unless if is for sure.

Maybe won't be said from this day on.
Someday I declare
is Now and where

only if maybe I
have a spare verb ready,
I should be used sparingly ,
we and us  are the

the proper pronouns

conjunctions are disallowed
their functions
suspicious as hell,

adverbs are devil tongued,
therefore or therefor I forget
their usage is banned

and  and is so lazy
and lame and criminal
from now on

i guess these rules
get you alarmed ****
but should have only one t

Often yet not frequent,
I'd see this young delinquent,
An exact image of whom I were most recent,
So to say that I stare at my past thus avoiding myself at that instant.
That very moment,
Ne'er ought I insinuate that my thoughts were so constant,
And the actions thereof were so persistent,
to stem that I were too naïve and reluctant,
••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• •••••
I smell fear and mediocrity,
A custom made identity,
Whose motive is hypocrisy,
But shattered visions surely die;
And dreams are battered through a cry,
Its meaning stands a mystery,
As if it were but one big lie,
I stare at this delinquent through that foggy window's eye.

••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• •••••

Amidst the abyss I hear his accent.
The voice of a believer whose innocence could fly,
But they clipped his wings because their arrogance had left them stagnant,
Closed minded individuals who lacked to imply;
This was the coming to his emancipation out of imprisonment,
Of being disallowed the privilege to try,
Sadly these spectators were Incompetent and Complacent,
Who forced the world to remain gullible to fortify.

••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• •••••

So I stare as he drown himself in the disbelief that he will never cease the moment.
Due to the horrible fact that his chances were denied by a corrupt system,
Despite him filled with talent and wisdom,
Ignored potential as an aborted infant;
I heard the echo of that infant's gentle cry,
And imagined it sleep so peacefully,
Its origin were to me a mystery,
A beauty this world could never deny.

••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• •••••



But eventually they'd want it to die;
As if they were driven by jealousy,
Deriving through each century,
Owning each man with a close minded mentality.