I woke up to a beautiful summer morning. The sun was shining and the rainclouds were far away. I decided I would spend the day on the beach. I always enjoy visiting the beach as it gives me an opportunity to laugh at people's hideous bodies. But where? And then, suddenly, a wonderful idea came to me: why not go to a nudist beach as they always attract the ugliest people with the worst bodies imaginable. And you get to see their naughty bits too, for added humour.

So I rushed to my computer to check the Internet for possibilities and, to my utter amazement, I discovered there was a naturist beach only fifty miles from my beautiful home. As I read the details of the beach and the directions, I had a sense of déja vu; I realised with a frisson of ****** anticipation that it was the very same beach described by Victor the ****** in his wonderful story "Confessions of a ******" which held pride of place on my toilet reading shelf.

I was at the wheel of my incredibly expensive and luxurious car just as soon as my servants had packed my essential requirements: icebox with chilled vintage champagne, lightweight folding gold-plated sun-lounger, vicuna picnic rug and of course my lunch hamper. My chef had rapidly prepared a delicious impromptu luncheon of smoked salmon, steak tartare and a selection of other goodies. I decided to dispense with the services of my chauffeur in the interests of preserving the confidentiality of my destination.

In less than an hour and a half I was there; and the place was exactly as Victor had described it in his immortal novella: a long stretch of mixed sand and pebbles, backed by dunes planted with wild grass, waving romantically in the sea breeze. Idyllic, and crawling with naked perverts as a bonus. I parked my car and transported my equipment to the dunes. I regretted not having brought one of the servants as the hamper and icebox were quite cumbersome and heavy. I was perspiring gently by the time I had unloaded everything and set it all up to my satisfaction.

I took some care in selecting what I felt was the optimum location as I needed to combine the potentially conflicting benefits of wanting to see as many naked people as possible (hopefully including some *** action) with the need for privacy. After all I am famous. I finally chose a spot where there were several ghastly specimens on view for a few laughs and where I could also see a potentially interesting couple who might be exhibitionistic perverts. The man was about 45, shaven-headed, skinny and prematurely wrinkled all over by the sun (yes, I do mean all over) and he had an interesting tattoo on his back: "I love hot ***** ***", which I saw as promising. The woman was plump with pendulous ******* and very prominent buttocks; additionally - how can I put this delicately? - her **** was totally bereft of hair.

Before settling down to my lunch, I felt a little perambulation would not come amiss. So, as bold as brass, off I went for a little **** stroll through the dunes. I will not describe in full detail the visual horrors I encountered: hirsute old men playing aimlessly with wizened, shrunken todgers the size of a thimble; obese old biddies, their rolls of sun-tanned lard hanging round them like rows of bloated udders on a pregnant sow; tattooed bald queens, muscles bulging under lashings of sun-oil, their pierced genitals glinting wickedly in the sunshine; the list was endless. How could such grotesques revel in revealing their corporeal repulsion to the eager world?

And then I saw him! It had to be him! In a dip in the sand dunes lay a middle-aged, paunchy little man, intently watching a couple of old ******* groping each other incompetently. It could only be Victor the One-Legged ******! After all, just how many unipod Peeping Toms are there?

I strolled over to him, coughing discreetly so as to give him a chance to stop his furtive *******. 'Do excuse me for disturbing you,' I said, 'but are you by any chance Victor the famous ****** whose confession I read only last week?'

'Why yes,' he admitted, 'but how on earth did you recognise me?'

I smiled and pointed to the cast-off artificial leg lying next to his beach towel (which, incidentally, was emblazoned by a giant "V", a bit of an identity hint, I felt). He patted his stump ruefully and laughed uproariously so that his average-sized ***** flapped like a pennant in a Force Eight gale. 'I forgot,' he bellowed deliriously.

'I'm just about to have a spot of lunch,' I said. 'My personal Michelin-starred chef, Jean-Claude Anusse, always over-caters ridiculously as he knows I often pick up people on my excursions, so there'll be more than enough. I'm afraid it's nothing special: some smoked salmon and some assorted cold meats, possibly a spot of pâté de foie gras, if I know Jean-Claude. And, naturally, enough champagne to drown a hippo in. Please do say yes, as I have so many questions to ask you about your hobby.'

'That's very kind of you.' mumbled the astonished Peeping Tom, 'I should be very happy to accept your generous offer. Incidentally, to whom have I the honour of speaking?'

I was, frankly, shocked when I realised Victor had not recognised me, and then I remembered I was naked. That explained it. 'Why, I am none other than Edna Sweetlove, poetess to the stars, creator of the Barry Hodges "Memories" poems and biographer to the intrepid and incredible superhero SNOGGO,' I murmured sotto voce, not wishing to be mobbed for my autograph.

'Edna Sweetlove!' he exclaimed, 'you mean THE Edna Sweetlove?' And so saying he glanced down to my genital zone in order to answer the question which so many of my fans have asked over the years. He grinned as he saw the solution to the great mystery.

Victor quickly strapped on his prosthesis and accompanied me (slightly lopsidedly) to my little luncheon site. He helped me unpack our repast and then made himself as comfortable as a naked one legged ****** could reasonably expect to be without a chair.

I must say Chef and his team had excelled himself in the thirty minutes I had given them: smoked salmon roulades, a magnifique plateau de fruits de mer including a three-pound giant lobster, steak tartare, a whole cold pintarde à l'ail, a few dozen sushi rolls, a monster summer pudding, and naturally a Jeraboam of Krug '92. No wonder the hamper had been so ******* heavy. I could see Victor was impressed as I offered him a chilled flute of the most expensive champagne he had ever tasted. 'Better than the pathetic, poverty-stricken muck you were going to gobble, I expect,' I commented in a friendly way.

'Mmmmmmmmm! Absolutely delicious, Edna. I was certainly not expecting this! exclaimed the grateful freak. But before we start on what looks like a truly exquisite nosh-up, I must give you a word of warning.'

'A word of warning? What about, Victor dear?'

'Well, you see, there's no, um....er,' he blushed charmingly.

'No what, Victor? Don't be embarrassed, sweetie. This is Edna you're talking to. Spit it out, baby.'

'Well, um, there's no ******* on the beach, Edna,' explained Victor uncomfortably. 'So, if you need to pump ship, you have to do it native-style "au naturel" in the dunes over there, which can be a bit messy what with all the filth lying about the place in that area, not to mention the lavvo-voyeurs hanging round. Or else you need to swim out a bit and unload into the sea. Judging by what's on offer at your stylish picnic, we'll both be bursting for a good old **** and crap afterwards.'

I shrieked with laughter and explained there was nothing I liked better than a widdle en plein air or a double act dans l'eau. We then tucked into lunch with a vengeance. It was ******* delicious, even though I say so myself. After about fifteen minutes' happy munching, interspersed with witty small talk, Victor suddenly went rigid. 'Look over there!' he hissed and indicated the middle-aged couple by the windbreak.

I looked and I was surprised. The plump woman with the big *** was on her knees in front of her partner, giving him a vigorous *******, and he was lolling back in ecstasy, a broad smile on his face. He seemed to be looking straight at us, almost visibly willing us to watch. He winked repeatedly in a conspiratorial fashion; maybe he had St Vitus’ Dance. Or even worse, he wanted me to get stuck into the action with them.

'They're regulars here, they normally put on quite a good show,' explained Victor excitedly, his hand reaching down automatically to his rapidly stiffening ****.

'Victor!' I admonished him, 'I would prefer it if you didn't **** yourself off during lunch. How about another oyster, you silly old ****?'

'Sorry, Edna, I forgot,' he replied shamefacedly. 'No more oysters thank you; they only make me more randy than I already am. But I'll have another lobster claw if I may. My compliments to your chef.'

So we sipped our champagne and enjoyed our luncheon as we watched the couple give us their little exhibition. After a few minutes *******, the fat lady turned around and leaned forward on her hands and knees and her gnarled bald hubby ******* her doggy fashion from behind with some gusto; this made her beefy buns bounce about like two ferrets fighting in a sack.

I glanced around us and realised that, totally unbeknown to me, the little spectacle had attracted quite an audience. Nine men, young and old, short and tall, fat and skinny, stood staring transfixed by the petite scène erotique before us, all ******* wildly. 'Oi!' I called out. 'Can't you see we're eating?' I admonished them, but to no ******* avail whatsoever.

Victor was visibly torn between his innate desire to watch the copulators and masturbators and with his understandable wish not to offend his lunch companion by manhandling himself unrestrainedly. But, thank God, his natural good manners prevailed and we continued to converse and enjoy our meal in the midst of this Bacchanalian scene of depravity.

I watched dispassionately as the couple came to what sounded like a very satisfactory mutual ******, accompanied by the observers' seminal tributes to their performance. I naturally had filmed the entire scene secretly on my state-of-the-art mobile.

'If you give me your email address, Victor my love, I'll send you a copy of that little show,' I promised. He nodded in gratitude. 'Victor  the ****** at yahoo dot co dot uk,' he mumbled rapidly, 'no dots, Victorthevoyeur is all one word.'

Once we had polished off lunch, I told Victor I would like to interview him with a view to writing a short story about his life's work. He was touchingly flattered and, with a little judicious prompting and probing, told me his saga, which I recorded on my Edna-phone. I naturally don't want to pre-empt my forthcoming mini-biography of Victor, but suffice it to say that Victor told me how and why he became a ******, he regaled me with some of the staggering things he had seen, he gave me a list of some really ace ******* locations, he shared all his best peeping places with me, he gave me the ultimate lowdown on the world of Britain's most celebrated *** snooper and I was touched by his burning honesty. I felt a tear ***** my eye at this tragic tale.

All too soon it was time for us to part. After thanking me profusely and making me promise I would visit him one day so he could repay my generosity, he re-attached his metal leg and limped away towards his beach towel. I knew he was raring to go as the best of the action normally took place in the early evening.

'Farewell, dearest Victor,' I called out as he tripped clumsily over a fellow pervert who had been eavesdropping near us.

The Bleaching Heaven
This was the dire conditions a ranch on the central coast of California was pumping gravel from the well
The first time this happened in over a hundred years of them having the ranch the heavens turned away
Its smile the soil started after a long line of days to appear as tile that was breaking and turning up on
The edges it was an emotional assault everywhere the fierce fiery hand left nothing untouched the
Saddest of all was when the visible pain and distraught effects started to show in the trees the great
Black oaks, Eucalyptus, the pine started to constrict the full busy top crown had the drawn most pitiful
Wasteful sad look they were dying by degrees and the merciful heaven looked on dispassionately it was
Hard to travel about the country without having pain dog every move you make it was pronounced the
Land cried for answers your hands were tied as a prisoner in the same predicament doing time in Yuma
They didn’t have to add disciplinary parts to the running of the prison just being there was punishment
Enough a lonely coyote calls in the silver moonlight not for a mate’s responding call but where can I find
Water a song said it best I face the barren waste and I think of cool cool water then you have a rich
Diverse part of the country that is the envy of the rest of the world now it is a tender box a lighting strike
Or any man made careless act and all will go to blazes all will be left is a black charred landscape it will
Blacken your own spirit this is a terrible outcome when clouds are with held and their life giving
Moisture is held in check at times a benevolent father uses this hard means to instruct and show
Your path that you are following is leading you to a like destruction its undetectable when the spirit
Within starts to die all that happens is the outward life kicks on like a backup generator all resumes
And seemingly shows that everything is fine some don’t even know and have never tasted the water of
The spirit everyone has those moments of laughter something stupid is said or portrayed but what
About a river of laughter that surges from unspeakable joy this is not the shallows of life but when deep
Calls unto deep those cherished longings bubble up and are giving free course to your dreams but a
Wicked one who has interest and designs on your life with lies and superior knowledge diverts the
Course Of living water it’s easy because you walk in darkness by choice our desires have blocked and
Dammed up Holy and incorruptible cleansing now the water unseen by the naked eye a poison has been
Introduced it slowly and acutely effects all freedom of thought and actions that are only normal when
You are cleansed by the blood sacrifice of the cross this is detestable to the rebellious spirit we all live
With but it is the pardon the opening of this devil bound prison that restricts and limits growth all of this
Carries with it untold dangers to self and our families the penalty for sin is death you start the death
Process long before the final exit from this life you go to places that puts you at the mercy of others
That have no thought of you what so ever you’re just a mark something to further their strong and out of
Control desires truly the sky is as brass and below if you could have your eyes opened you would only
See the bleached bones of a new generation dying of thirst while an ocean of love and care is dammed
By the prince of darkness and you are his slave doing everything to continue your own debasement and
Loss what more can the Father do he died in shame and agony the heavens even turned black but from
That forever a great upheaval began your freedom guaranteed you want heaven to open you want
Righteous rain you want to see your country rise from a cesspool of drugs and alcohol that creates the
Atmosphere that debases mans place as leader and benefactor for the family and then turns to first
Cheapen women then violate them through the power of *** that no one can control the innocent
Children face the unspeakable terrors of those crazed enough to use them in the most despicable way
Way then they raise a lethal hand to end their lives of promise and beauty turning it to a disgraceful display
Of sick madness that no one but God can defeat the answer just say his name with all of your heart
Jesus

I open the blinds and see the world - in return, what
does the world see? It sees me, and all my splendid, split
personalities, living these amazing times, of amazing
pleasures, in which we tweet tweets, and post posts re
ego-trips and copyrighted links, videos and things; and,
as stray dogs, we ramble randomly, and all the time,  
living in our infinite worlds, of infinite lanes, till infinity;
yet we suffer so much pain.

Our Shih Tzus take us on extended walks, firmly leashed
to our Koss plugs, as we drone cool tunes on multihued
iPods, iPhones buzzing ringtones of tittering babies,
stolid kings and hyperactive frogs, which would all make
my eighty-six year old dad want to gag; we fly
ultralight megaplanes at the sonic sound of speed,
through virtual and real space, connecting dots at low-
cost prices, while we belt-up, gear-up, gulp Gaga and
gorge heat-inducted meals of deer, horse and over-
promoted crap; and then, wow surprisingly, we are all
so unsatisfied.

We consciously all move-in together, and **** on end,
like statistical sheep, pre-married, unloving, and broken
up, and justify it all, to ourselves, with our fully
stretched spandex morality, over low-carb brunches
@Starbucks, two 14” screens of separation; we paint
pornographic images of virgins, all called Mary, in the
name of art, and, white-clad, **** babes and alter-boys,
and penetrate each other, first with our fingers, deeply,
then superficially, without even wondering, for a
zeptosecond, why we can’t stand one another any
longer.

We crank-up dependencies, like high street mainliners,
shamming and slaughtering for neurotoxic fixes of
smileys and Crystal on billion-dollar Kogo yachts, while
we all just pedal on, dispassionately, down and over
interior canals, to the core of our hocked, abbrev lives,
chronically connected and severely distracted, in
aromatic polymer bubbles, heedlessly cruising through
comic-strip farms of mock vegetables, surely to nowhere
and towards no one; and quite frankly, the world laughs
at all this, and sobs, and so do I.

calling out your name in the dark
It's become an excruciating custom now
An unquenchable thirst

daylight stings and moon hovers
dispassionately
over my head
heavy with laments over a fallen crest;

Still I imagine
still I dream
that you'll tune my painful screams
into a hushing lullaby,
with a promise of forever
you'd gift my gloomy tears a twinkling gleam;

But now I'm wearing this blindfold
refusing to see the light outshining this pathetic hope ;

You are not here yet,
Maybe you never will be,

But I'm not ready to move from you yet,
And I doubt that I'll ever will be free

From these painful lumps,
burning eyes
swollen throat
and prickled heart
emptying it's blood,
so slowly that years go by
And I can now feel the quitting of daylight
while my blindfold lets out a long sigh;
as if stating to end
this idiotic nonsense
of tucking heartbreak and love
under these lyrical verse;

In death's dream kingdom
           These do not appear:


                     I

They're handing out maroon balloons
And saying they are free
But grasping children grip them fast
And the monks amidst them disagree
Dispassionately, but en masse
While they liberate the children
With obliterating oms.

A nearby Byron expiates
And mildly reiterates
The soporific broken ode
He bellows over holy oms
To the smitten women who approach
That "a rose is a rose is a rose is a rose"
Dispensing with disinterest
Crimson bliss amidst the women
Who ignore the sinful image he bestows.

He hands them out like red balloons
To grasping girls all afternoon
Imploring them to trust their nose
Insisting they are free
And so continues to propose
To the smitten women in the street
That "a rose is a rose is a rose is a rose"
As if the word could smell as sweet
As the perennials he grows.

And in the corner – Romeo
Who greenly mourning understands
The worth of poison in his hands
Imagining a life of night
Where roses wither without light
And only stars through windows break
Through all the countless nights of fate
and every breath's an endless wake...

Meanwhile Byron's distant yells
Prevail over the choral swell
And plant a seed in grasping ears:
Salvation can be engineered!
Which Romeo soon understands
As kissing death, he takes her hand
Thoughts germinating into schemes
If a rose is a rose is a rose is a rose
...then a dream is a dream is a dream.


                     II

A griffin, a hippogriff, and a wyvern
Admitting me and
Gripping crimson
Dripping strings
So none of them will fly away.

Inside, Cain is killing Abel  
(How few! yet how they creep)
killing Abel
(Through my fingers to the deep)
killing Abel
(While I weep — while I weep!)
killing Abel.
(O God! Can I not grasp)
It is the first story:
(Them with a tighter clasp?)
A samsara of carnage and drama.

Somewhere above
On a city street
Desire's handing out balloons
He clips their thorns
And trims them neat
He says they're free
And just as sweet
As the women he impugnes
He belies his guidance on repeat:
That love is the light is the sun is the moon.

A widower laments and moves the world
That has such people in it:
A snake, a guard, a god, a dog
A wife by no other name
A faltering of faith, a peek
A pillar of salt, a severed head
Adrift on a river
Singing:

I'd transcend five hundred miles
And I'd transcend five hundred more
Just to be the man who transcends trials
Sprawled out on your floor
(Thy drugs are quick.)
Searching for a souvenir
To prove to you our world was here

Isaac, bound, blank and free
Bleating, looking for meaning
(All that we see or seem)
In his father's violent eye,
And finding it.
(Thus with a kiss I die.)
Abraham swings his knife.
A son is a sin is a ram is a rose.

A man pushes the sun up a large hill
(LET THERE BE LIGHT)
Every day, and then it rolls down again
And then an eagle eats his liver.
(I am the resurrection and the life.)
One must imagine Prometheus happy
The alternative is dark

The moon, by any other name, would—
But do not swear by the moon!
For she changes constantly
(Then said Jesus unto them plainly:
Lazarus is dead.)
Everything changes
But nothing is truly lost.

(at times
the fact of her absence
will hit you like a blow to the chest
and you will weep.
but this will happen less and less
as time goes on.
she is dead.
you are alive.
so live.)

A man pushes the sun up a large hill
A day is a year is a life is a death.

One must imagine Orpheus happy.


                     III

In dreams, the sun resumes her loving glow
I'm reunited with my silhouette
I glue myself with soap to my shadow
And find myself beside my Juliet

No longer a balloon without a hand
I'm rooted to the earth where she grips me
With purpose guiding us through life's demands
I push my boulders uphill happily

I build a world with Juliet my wife
Where roses are all roses and smell sweet
We live a loving happy magic life
Together til our journey is complete.

[Enter, at the other end of the churchyard,
FRIAR LAURENCE, with a lantern, crow, and *****.]

In union Eve and Adam are redeemed,
Not in a rose but in a living dream.

Fumbling fingers yearning for connection,
Reach out through negative space,
Crash headlong into rejection.
Curl back in defeat,
Clenched fist to deflect,
Fiery agony of regret.

An empty, disparaging inflection
Cut from a hot pink tongue, flapping
Dispassionately disproves theory of interconnection,
Maybe myth, fable, love story --
Or maybe lack of detection,
From calloused palms,
Roughened with each ingestion
Of honey suckle poison.

Was this the original intention?
Or did the son choose to elect
Another hidden path, indirect.
This haze manifests crystalized predictions,
Of hands meeting thighs, meeting hips,
Pushing forward climactic introspection,
Or just another muddled reflection,
Of my endless projections,
Always  failing tests of retention,
Mind permanently trapped in suspension,
Of spiraling tension.

Everything these days is about ***.
Our culture is a graveyard of copulating corpses,
and nothing means anything.

Sure, everyone says they're looking
for meaning in a godless and corrupted world,
but hardly anyone tries to find something real
in someone else. 

They let fear of rejection,
abandonment, or heartbreak hold them back. 

Love is unending, unparalleled, underrated.
We're all dying anyway, what's the harm in
being vulnerable once in a while?

Death and *** somehow always go hand in hand.
Maybe it’s because they're in love.
Death is patient; he has all the time in the world. 
He appreciates life more than anyone possibly could.

What if Death isn't an abrupt, agonizing conclusion?
Perhaps he simply leads us through a passage to some afterlife.

Death has seen everything;
he's seen beauty and suffering,
love and loss.

But he's intrigued by the concept of love.
While it often transcends our comprehension, he understands it.
He's a hopeless romantic
in a sea of violent, sexist, gun-obsessed sharks.

*** is amorous, enigmatic, gentle, and compassionate.
She's not the vile disease everyone sneers at in guilt-ridden judgement.

They teach their children to grow up feeling *****,
to despise themselves
for wanting to understand her, as if she’s a sin.

But she knows she's not a perverse thing,
she's a symbol of love everyone's destroyed and disfigured.
So she's damaged.
But she feels things more strongly than anyone else.

She is a connection between people
desperate to survive in a wasteland of intolerance and indifference. 

Death is perpetually wandering the world alone.
He’s afraid of anyone getting too close, to let someone understand
and embrace the depths of his chaos.

He’s unrestrained, a free spirit who has never needed anyone,
and doesn’t expect to. Who could ever love death unconditionally?
He disregards his own emotions, reacts dispassionately to avoid trusting anyone.
He’s numb but ultimately knows he doesn’t have to be.

When she looks into his eyes she can see decades of devotion, despair,
sanguinity, and hopelessness, and it breaks and mends her simultaneously.

So, Death and *** are undeniably drawn to one another.
Eternal fugitives hiding together from a decaying world full
of ignorant people who are disgusted by them, to avoid persecution.

They are complete opposites, but they balance each other out.
Death is a realist. He’s optimistic, but not because he has nothing to fear.
He’s aware that there is so much to be afraid of,
but he knows love is a risk worth taking. 

*** is an idealist, a cautious optimist cursed with depression.
She's obsessed with the expression of art and beauty, ardor and humanity.

However, she knows all too well the pain
of heartbreak and loneliness, and it often consumes her.
She is constantly used and abused, and her trust is worn thin.

But she gives everything of herself,
loves blindly and recklessly,
because she knows a life without love is a life
hardly worth living.

*** and Death can never die, they are
immortal lovers enduring the deterioration of the planet together.

Coming home drunk
(As I only rarely do)
One night, I heard a man
Talking to no one like a reliable friend,
Muttering about having his feelings hurt
And I knew who he was (or at least a kind of who:
Born with no opinions but strong opposition,
Always told, “Hey, you want a revolution?
Roll your own,” and laughed off,
Passed between people and ideas and loyalties
Like a stolen beer.)

I felt the need to be elsewhere, but the street
Dispassionately pressed him and me
Between two buildings.
I didn’t want to catch his eye,
But he caught mine,
I couldn’t look away from his face,
Twisting like he wanted to say
Something else, and then
There came a stillness.

I stared at him.
I’ll admit it, but
He was just so ragged and tough, like
A cardboard box
With bullets inside,
And okay, maybe I was a little scared.
(I was paralyzed, stuck in his eyes
Like the rooms of castles
Where no foot has tread,
Where ghosts sigh and whisper;
And outside there are signs
Saying “danger: do not climb
You will fall”)

Then something broke.
He looked away,
And whispered in a crumbling voice
“You are no one, I am alone,”
And then I knew he was.

Like a cancer I cling to you when I should turn away,
Darkness, please don't fill this space,
Sorrow, please delay.

An incessent yearning leaking onto my ideas, the colour of dismay,
Suicide, be gone from mind,
Please creation, not decay.


The memory of you, a wound untreated, a jewel I locked away,
Me, a safe for your callous act,
Please, don't you dare stay.


Your company, Vincent's night robbed of stars in the cruelest way,
Myself, a ***** amongst kings,
At least, that's what you would say.


Knowing better and feeling worse, duality in the doorway,
A love you have dispassionately marred,
No more prophetic ray.


The clouds are clearing, no thanks to you and your own ego's way,
Light, within me to be found,
And this is my new day!

ever looked dispassionately
in to the mirror of your life,
to see how limited
the freedom as a human is?

The electric kettle grooves like a gavel bounce bouncing off the bench when the judge won the raffle
The sound waves baffle the mind as the refrigerator hums along to the microwaves song
A beep beepin’ melody as smoke’s creep creepin’ from the oven
And the blender is lovin’ the distraction
Keepin’ their eyes from the action
As he hatchets and dispassionately dispatches chickpeas left and right
No end to the violence in sight
Who cares about wrong from right
There will be hummus tonight

**** blender got his business done but now the fun begins as the stove channels the power of the sun to heat the pan and the plan is to fry the dough, those homemade doughnuts make the crowd go nuts but the sizzle of the grease unleashes the beast of the band, the main man, the rockstar, tattoo on his arm, rugged charm, protects you from harm, my man the fire alarm.

The fire truck sirens join the orchestration and soon the scene of devastation muffles into a hum, but umm, the night’s still young and we could still go, you know, I’m pretty loco for them Doritos and I may be burnt and poor but Taco Bell is open ’til 4.

I rest my consciousness
On the proliferating meadows
That stretch toward the sun,
That sway in placid solitude
In the tacit winds
That flow across my body.

I rest my consciousness
In the stars of the night
That caress my jaded visage
And assure me that my wishes
Will manifest themselves
Within my beating heart.

I rest my consciousness
Atop mountains and peaks
That envision a world of harmony
By harboring the aspirations
Of those who stand atop them,
Awe-struck by the omnipresent calm.

I rest my consciousness
In the landscape of my thoughts
That, like the meadows,
Will stretch onward
Until I draw my last breath
And exhale dispassionately.

I rest my consciousness
In the world of make-believe,
In the world that accepts me
Not because I am normal,
But because I can only be content
When I channel my inner wordsmith.

I rest my consciousness
In a night filled with silence
And, as I close my eyes
And let the dark fall over me,
I grin, cognizant
That my dreams are boundless.

Er träumt davon, eines Tages frei zu sein.*

Must I sleep much longer?
Must I sin so dispassionately?
Shall I find an open portal
and leap and splatter?
All of the roads seem sinister
and dogs wag their tails but snarl.
Beneath a dead Elm I witnessed
an Angel weeping and murmuring.
His tears were pearls; his sighs prayers.
A hag with ******* like needles
beckoned to me from near a ruined wall.
I no longer possess an ****** appetite.
Instead, I am gnawing at the sinews of time
which taste bitter as death and bland as chicken.
My brain is a luminous, transparent sponge.
Dare to take a look inside.
I wish to wake in a solid world,
but who heeds my wishes?
Perhaps I must sleep forever.

  ~mce

1.
It’s true, you know
I observed it quite dispassionately
You loved me less
When I wasn’t working.
I know love is a psychological aberration
Built on moments of joy
Shared accidentally
But I didn’t realise that it was based
On conceptions of value.
I did want to make you proud
I wanted to be worthy of your love,
I hadn’t realised
I was supposed to earn it.
You thought I should make something of myself
And I wanted to make myself better
Someone you could love, or at least respect.
It seems we both forgot what Christ said:
“I am what I am”,
There’s no use pretending
To be anything else.
2.
On the day I told you
I had got a job
You sang a song
As though I’d recovered
From an unpleasant disease.
Were you happier then
Than when we tried to make love
Or went on that picnic?
I was glad as well,
It meant we had something to talk about.
But my interest in the subject
Of my unexciting job
Is strictly limited;
Surely you also find it dull?
I wish you hadn’t been so glad,
And said something like,
“It’s a shame
You’ll have to spend the day at work
Away from me and nature and your beautiful thoughts”
Instead of
“At least it’s a start
And better than moping around all day.”
3.
You took it too personally
When I said “I love you”
And naturally thought I was mistaken.
What I meant was
“Today I love the world and all things in it
And I’m glad to share this moment with you.”
If I’d been with someone else
I would perhaps have felt no less radiant,
But I did want and value your company
And then, of course, I made you a giant
To feed my pride.
But the beauty inside all of us,
When it manages to surface,
Is too generous to limit its love to one.
My one ambition
Is to liberate that gold within;
It melts all barriers,
It could free us all.
This morning
I was an hour late for work.

Dispassionately cast with no compass to live,
I dwindle like the stars that die, transmissive.
This depth is cold without you or the love I invented.
I embraced it, despite on me you've been imperfectly imprinted and indented.

Take me or leave me, anything to fill that void.
Every intimacy and secret which you've ever enjoyed.
You've spent time designing black holes of savage ruination,
Dying light that spirals into native perturbation,
Inside the one who'd always, and still, followed.
Idly droning black ink... How will we fair tomorrow?

Chasing you, a fading eclipse,
Orbiting that star no one can see.
In a vast, open nothingness, with an only invisible me.

The hot tails of asteroids burn it away.
You had warned me of them, but I never turned to stray.
From a promise, for myself, to inspire the brightest brilliance.
To think I'd been so audacious to assume my own resilience.
The transformation and expansion of what's more massive than us,
I can't possibly predict what may become of scattered dust.

Terrors of the waking, existential variety are what keep me up nights.
I know no pursuit, no entrapment. No attachment, in fact, at all.
I drift through life as I do my dreams: aimlessly, dispassionately, at turns bemused and bewildered, beset by a sense of inevitable end.
Ends*,
so soon and so frequent.
Forays into fuller living are inherently half-hearted -
self-fulfilling prophecies of loneliness.
I am never quite at ease in relationships, always looking out for new anxieties to be had, faking a brave face for any you have.
You. Whenever I write what comes out is a love letter (of some kind)
addressed to you, but without the proper postage
words that never hit home, that never ring true
words, half meant or never spoken.
I play-act at devotion, and, that mask falling away, affect grievous emotion.
It's not who pushes whom, but mutual magnetic repulsion.
We turn around and around, looking each other over until we each settle on a face that drives us apart in perfect unison.

Woe to the world, the sun is in a cloud,
And darksome mists do overrun the day;
In high conceit, is not content allowed;
Favour must die and fancies wear away.
O heavens, what hell! The bands of love are broken,
Nor must a thought of such a thing be spoken.
-Robert Devereaux

Goodbye, mockingbird -
I must leave you now.
I have often watched you
hash across the yard
from your holly station,
chop chop chop with such vim,
from the leaf to the post
to the high-lidded lamp
that surveys the night dispassionately.

In return, how ungrateful I have been -
what terrible things
I have offered your shining bead
of an eye. In your tenure
on the gray-green sill
you have listened to the sharp salt
of my many difficulties
with perfect equanimity.

But now I must go.
Perhaps you will find me,
across the living ruins
of this capital city,
in the raining triangle
that corners down to Dupont.
Or perhaps you will stay sentinel
over this nest, deep in the green.
I will miss you, little bird.
My two brightest years
passed under your wing.

Perhaps when it all comes out in the open,
All the white lies, the little lies, the epic lies,
Of how we responded to the crying planet,
All will be said in a courtroom of compassion.
The lawyers remove their heavy wigs
And plead my case of guiltiness-

“Your honor, the defendant was no more
Able to change the tide than a red ant
Among billions on a jungle floor.
He took his few tons from the planet-
He took what he needed but no more;
He attended all conservation events.
He voted to save bees and elephants,
He abstained from swordfish to save the oceans,
Avoided pesticides and toxic lotions;  
He fervently supported free abortions.
And bicycled to save the ozone
(When it was sunny and not too cold).
He purchased ripe fruits from Whole Foods.
He recycled books, old boots and shoes.
He forbade polyester to touch his skin.
He kept his flushes to a minimum.
His got 28 miles per gallon in town.
He never was seen throwing garbage around. "

"Your honor, the murderers of the buffaloes
Have been pardoned by the courts long ago-
It is true, he killed a rooster and a kangaroo,
But evidence shows they were clearly confused
With no reason to be loitering on the roads.  
This man is unjustly accused, and if I must say,
Writes poems about the birdsong in May.
From where I sit, the court must acquit!”  

                                                          
The trial continues daily, like reality TV,
But nothing seems to alter prophecies.
What good if I set myself ablaze
Like the Buddhist in the center of Broadway-
I am haunted by a future I cannot explain
Trying to live out my life without blame.

The next generations are unknowable beings-
They will find their beaches in the rising tides
Made of plastic corals and robotic fish;
They will play in virtual forests with android slaves;
With perfect teeth and perfect pitch
The genetically enhanced go off to the galaxies,
In search of planets to greedily consume,
To spread the seeds of the earth and start anew.
What can a simple man as I know of such things?

The jury gives verdicts dispassionately-
For now I’m out on bail, I’m free to go,
No more guilty than my brethren of old
Who slayed the mammoth and fantastical dodo.

they weren't supposed to tell you about her because then all your decisions would've been based on her thoughts of you, her feelings, her opinions, her agenda, and can you say with any honesty that you would've been living in the moment and for you and yourself alone?--you know exactly what would've happened, it's all written right there for you, you've already done this a hundred times, and the beginning, middle, and end are all the same: you come to the core of what you are only to be disappointed that there's nothing there for you to change: the dreams are always of her, and what is it that she shows you in these dreams?--only that you are a hopeless and regrettable case when it comes to women...oh, if you could have been born as one completely oblivious to them, you might've become someone even you would have respected...but as things are, as you dive deeper and deeper into this hole you call a dream, you'll see that yes, the high-rise rises ever higher, there's yet another floor for you to climb the stairs to, and when your body aches and you say it was a good climb, that it was good for your growth, when you look out that window, all you see is the distance between you and the hard earth you've fooled yourself into thinking you've gotten away from...but what have you done, really?--it is night and the moonlight sometimes streams in through the clouds scudding by...the wind rises and falls and rises and again, and it howls when you least expect it, when you don't want it to, which is when you'd like to think of her across the street in that other office high-rise where she too is staying late burning the midnight oil...or maybe she's just ******* her boss, who can say?--do you see where the problem will always be?--you are too fixated on all these women who don't care about you, who have never and will never care about you, and do you see now that they never could because even you don't put yourself first: you are trapped in this mode of thinking that has you chasing after them, wondering how you can get them hooked on you, desirous only of having them fall in love with you so that you can say to yourself that you "have it all" when in fact what you have is a disaster just waiting to happen: you are not whole unless you have one of them who loves you?--and have you asked yourself what in the hell you're going to do when you can't get any of them to fall for you?--will you be worthless just because you are alone in the world again?--you came into this world alone, you're leaving it alone...all you're doing as you allow yourself to become more and more clutched in this trap is validating the lie that there can ever be someone who will be with you in all respects in this life...and even if you could find someone who is genuine, one who isn't a liar, she still couldn't help you with hose terrible episodes you have when questioning the point of everything, the point of existence: she'll just say that at least you have each other, that there are cold nights when you can hold each other and continue giving the lie to each other back and forth till break of day that you gave each other when there you are in your mind all alone as ever, all alone as you'll always be...she knows this, for she is all alone in her mind as well...we can never really be accompanied by another to where we exist within ourselves...no, all we can do is share with each other what it's like to live within ourselves and hope that there's someone out there who understands us...it is this understanding that relieves the pressure because then we can usually follow through with fooling ourselves that here is someone who understands us, and because of this understanding, we are alone no more...it sounds too good to be true because in the dead of nights like these, it is exactly what it seems: another lie our rational minds take to our hearts as the stuff that will allow us to sleep, to go through each day with "proof" that we aren't alone anymore...and yet there is the eternal silence of the mind where the only voice that stirs is this one, the one talking to you now as you look down all those hundreds of feet to the concrete below, and when that gets too boring, you look across the street trying to see if indeed she is ******* her boss when you know she'd never be so gauche as to display herself anywhere near such wall-sized windows...you have the unshakeable nerve of the dead to think that you were ever going to find someone in this life who was capable of getting you out of your head and into reality...the thing of it is, though, that you have been fooling yourself for too long: just because they spread their legs for you doesn't mean the melancholy is going away forever...no, it will return just as soon as you've finished with them, as soon as you begin thinking dispassionately of your seed running out of them, of them getting pregnant or of them unable to get pregnant because you just might be sterile after all, that's when the sadness will settle into your bones again, that's where you'll feel like you're a million years old, like you've always existed in this world, like even when you can't remember what it was like to be alive, there will be the unshakeable feeling like whatever you are, you are meant to be this weighty, because there is too much to think about, to be cautious about, to be indifferent to, to be against...because aren't you the warrior of another era, aren't you the one who wants to resurrect them just to slaughter them over and over until the end of time?--oh, you could tell her, couldn't you?--and the crazy ******* within you would be willing to do it too, if you knew where to begin or how to explain who it is you're killing to resurrect to **** all over again: is it your mothers who knows no one and cares for no one but herself?, is it your father who passed onto you his blinding need for women to fill him with purpose by controlling him?, is it every single woman you'd ever been with whom you'd tricked yourself into believing you loved just because you were ******* her, just because you were making plans with them to exist in some near-future world when you were happy and content and wouldn't look at any other woman?--but had you ever asked yourself how that would have been you being completely independent of them, of her?--yes, you had wanted your own life and you'd wanted her to have hers as well, you'd wanted to be the type to not care about what she was doing nor with whom she was doing it, but is that who you were really, or is that who you kept telling yourself you wanted to be?--and even if that was who you were, had you been telling yourself to become this merely as a form of protection?--because if you could become such a man, then they'd never be able to hurt you again, could they?--you'd never find yourself crying that you'd allowed yourself to be fooled into thinking you'd never have to be alone again, you'd never find yourself hating the person you'd become, that ******* who thought everything was going to be fine when he should've just been working on getting his life together, of creating a good life for him to live so that when she left him, he would've been just fine, just as fine as if she'd never happened into his life... but the chandelier did not sway, it just hung from the ceiling as you approached the spiral staircase in the lush apartment where you two had lived...she had gone, and you liked ******* with yourself from time to time like this asking if she'd ever really been here to begin with, asking if she ever existed when she walked out that door...but you knew you never would've rented a place out that was as nice as this without having a woman in your life, for you could live almost anywhere and it would've bothered you only a little that it was in a ****** neighborhood, or that it wasn't the perfect apartment in the nicest part of town...this too was done under the influence of whatever you wanted to call this thing you were...and what could it be called, anyway?: were you co-dependent, or were you just desperate in a very common way?--were you deranged for both wanting to be alone and hating that you'd be alone regardless if you had someone?--were you ****** up for having conversations like this within your mind, or were you merely being honest about what a byzantine piece of post-modern life post-modernity had told you it'd made in your brain?--you weren't just living in the here and now, you had always been this, you had always done this, for "out there" in the æther that transcended time and space, there was the presence of darkness and how it called to you to come back home, that this was where you'd been speaking, that this was what you'd always meant when you'd said "god"--it was neither good nor bad, it was neither nothing nor everything...it was only what always had been and what would always be, and right now it was calling to you, smiling at you that there would be plenty of time to be alone for good and for all, but just what did you consider being alone when you had all of this to consider: the window and what she was doing, the walls here and what they contained when you were looking at the moon, the chandelier and how she'd be back and how even if she never came back, there'd still be all these thoughts staring back at you asking how you knew there was a smile there in the blackness of eternity...and how you knew it was for you--



© asgarth 2017
Creative Commons License
This work by asgarth is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at midgarth.blogspot.com.

They could barely relate to each other. Unpolished as is the human
way when observed dispassionately, but like humans they tried to
seem certain. Thinking they could carry out their plans, manipulate
and get their own way. Their eye contact had become forced and
staged; their smiles of acknowledgement were masking
estrangement. When the woman choked on the hard part of a
tomato; they were forced into immediate action; one of them applied
the Heimlich manoeuvre while the other called the emergency
services. We do not have to get on to compliment each other
perfectly

A LUCKY SO & SO

As he lay
in the pool of his death

the motorcycle continuing on
a little further without him

before it too
lay down

as if to sleep

he thought the blood
was like a child

wetting the bed

and the fear of
someone discovering it

in the cold light
of morning

he began
to cry

just like the boy
of then

though this was now
and very far

from the place
of his childhood

even as the stink
of petrol

enveloped him

a bird sang

& he thought: “This is the most
beautiful thing...! ” he had ever heard

& his heart grew sad
& silent to hear it

concentrating on it

& on his shirt

emerged a badly-
-drawn map of the world
(but recognisable as such)

(America being a little
lopsided)

drawn in blood
seeping through his fingers

(continental drift slowly joining them together)

“I am half in love
with easeful Death...”

he quoted to himself

and wondered who had wrote it
and where he had ever heard it

“Yeats? Keats? ”

Death as if
anyone might have imagined him

turning up
at a fancy dress party

and only coming second
to a fat guy from Hastings

who obviously had a better costumiers
than Death

(Death thinking this fat bloke’s next)

looked on
dispassionately

as if he had seen it
all before.

There was nothing
new under the sun.

This job could be
so boring.

Humans make such a drama
out of the simple act of dying.

Always the same song & dance act!

Death held his hand
& then...let go.

When he awoke
Death
was nowhere to be seen

and the hospital
bloomed around him

gazing into the fluorescent
tube of light

life seemed almost
too bright

hurting his eyes

a nice pair
of legs

approaching him
& telling him

(he watched the words rise & fall
in the perfect mechanism

of her chest
of which he couldn’t take his eyes off of)

telling him
in no uncertain manner

as if scolding him
(had he wet the bed?)

“Well, you’re
a lucky
so & so!"

It was a damp kiss
of an image.
Dispassionately you drop
an old coin into my hands.

Faithless in your poem.
I adored the Venus in twilight.
Carnation. A rose pink color,
appears in your eyes.

Rising from the marshy
slush, greater flamingos
keep watch underneath, at the
army of urns.

The sameness now dithers.
You want to weave the moon
in your breast, unpreparing
to open the heart.

I am wary of these arachnoid beasts.
How foreign they seem!
They are resting now,
Curled delicately upon my lap at each folding joint,
Looming faithfully.
They cling to me, and naturally so.
Yet, we are not one entity.
They are far too elegant
To notice me, their blundering mother.
They suckle my blood dispassionately,
Yet it is painless,
A numb event.

To be more like the machines
and gadgets that surround us,
the newest incarnation of gods
spun from nightmare threads
of loss and starvation
then slavishly served.

To have a memory
like a video camera,
to never be lost
like a GPS map,
to be an efficient little worker
steady as a robot arm,
to crush enemy bones
as relentlessly as a bulldozer,
to weather insults
as dispassionately
as your virtual assistant,
and be as immortal
as photos in cyberspace,
forever smooth cheeked,
outlasting any marble statue.

Not forgetting
birthdays and car keys,
stumbling down dead end
hotel hallways,
limping on a sprained ankle,
calling in sick or hungover
bedridden with shaking,
nose broken by a drunken
bar brawl head ****,
or crushed by that woman
just rolling her eyes,
and walking away.

And not this
trembling skeleton draped
in withering flesh clicking,
ticking like a broken clock,
springs uncoiling,
winding down.

We scramble and race,
controlling and perfecting
and finally break ourselves
against the steel idols
of our own creation,
like John Henry
hammering his drill.