On a thin ribbon of light
unfurled from unseen heaven
direct to her parted robe
and disquieted ear

comes an angel’s voice,
the dove’s winged companion,
with words foretold in the book
now slipping to the floor.

What hunger fires
our flickering imaginations,
that require Grace come
wrapped in velvet purses-

with proof of the child’s
purity dripping from tables
and prophet encrusted walls?
I think they had it all wrong-

Fra Angelico, Veronese, van Ecyk,
and even Martini with his
gilded apprehension.
I prefer a scene without

unblemished lilies-
no fine linens, puffing cherubs,
or embroidered pillows on display.
I picture her instead

at her daily labor- pulling
on a ***** rope at the village well.
With calloused hands, she
draws her trembling reflection

skyward, when, announced
by the slightest breeze,
a stranger appears.
Before their eyes meet,

a bird’s flight distracts her-
water splashes from the bucket
washing the dust from her feet
and soaking the tattered hem

of her robe. His silent glance
holds her only for a moment.
In the distance, a voice
calls out, “Daughter!”

She turns, sets off,
bowing to her burden.
A cloud’s shadow
melts in the heat of the road.



Tom Spencer © 2018

Now when Dawn in robe of saffron was hasting from the streams of
Oceanus, to bring light to mortals and immortals, Thetis reached the
ships with the armour that the god had given her. She found her son
fallen about the body of Patroclus and weeping bitterly. Many also
of his followers were weeping round him, but when the goddess came
among them she clasped his hand in her own, saying, “My son, grieve as
we may we must let this man lie, for it is by heaven’s will that he
has fallen; now, therefore, accept from Vulcan this rich and goodly
armour, which no man has ever yet borne upon his shoulders.”
  As she spoke she set the armour before Achilles, and it rang out
bravely as she did so. The Myrmidons were struck with awe, and none
dared look full at it, for they were afraid; but Achilles was roused
to still greater fury, and his eyes gleamed with a fierce light, for
he was glad when he handled the splendid present which the god had
made him. Then, as soon as he had satisfied himself with looking at
it, he said to his mother, “Mother, the god has given me armour,
meet handiwork for an immortal and such as no living could have
fashioned; I will now arm, but I much fear that flies will settle upon
the son of Menoetius and breed worms about his wounds, so that his
body, now he is dead, will be disfigured and the flesh will rot.”
  Silver-footed Thetis answered, “My son, be not disquieted about this
matter. I will find means to protect him from the swarms of noisome
flies that prey on the bodies of men who have been killed in battle.
He may lie for a whole year, and his flesh shall still be as sound
as ever, or even sounder. Call, therefore, the Achaean heroes in
assembly; unsay your anger against Agamemnon; arm at once, and fight
with might and main.”
  As she spoke she put strength and courage into his heart, and she
then dropped ambrosia and red nectar into the wounds of Patroclus,
that his body might suffer no change.
  Then Achilles went out upon the seashore, and with a loud cry called
on the Achaean heroes. On this even those who as yet had stayed always
at the ships, the pilots and helmsmen, and even the stewards who
were about the ships and served out rations, all came to the place
of assembly because Achilles had shown himself after having held aloof
so long from fighting. Two sons of Mars, Ulysses and the son of
Tydeus, came limping, for their wounds still pained them; nevertheless
they came, and took their seats in the front row of the assembly. Last
of all came Agamemnon, king of men, he too wounded, for **** son of
Antenor had struck him with a spear in battle.
  When the Achaeans were got together Achilles rose and said, “Son
of Atreus, surely it would have been better alike for both you and me,
when we two were in such high anger about Briseis, surely it would
have been better, had Diana’s arrow slain her at the ships on the
day when I took her after having sacked Lyrnessus. For so, many an
Achaean the less would have bitten dust before the foe in the days
of my anger. It has been well for Hector and the Trojans, but the
Achaeans will long indeed remember our quarrel. Now, however, let it
be, for it is over. If we have been angry, necessity has schooled
our anger. I put it from me: I dare not nurse it for ever;
therefore, bid the Achaeans arm forthwith that I may go out against
the Trojans, and learn whether they will be in a mind to sleep by
the ships or no. Glad, I ween, will he be to rest his knees who may
fly my spear when I wield it.”
  Thus did he speak, and the Achaeans rejoiced in that he had put away
his anger.
  Then Agamemnon spoke, rising in his place, and not going into the
middle of the assembly. “Danaan heroes,” said he, “servants of Mars,
it is well to listen when a man stands up to speak, and it is not
seemly to interrupt him, or it will go hard even with a practised
speaker. Who can either hear or speak in an uproar? Even the finest
orator will be disconcerted by it. I will expound to the son of
Peleus, and do you other Achaeans heed me and mark me well. Often have
the Achaeans spoken to me of this matter and upbraided me, but it
was not I that did it: Jove, and Fate, and Erinys that walks in
darkness struck me mad when we were assembled on the day that I took
from Achilles the meed that had been awarded to him. What could I
do? All things are in the hand of heaven, and Folly, eldest of
Jove’s daughters, shuts men’s eyes to their destruction. She walks
delicately, not on the solid earth, but hovers over the heads of men
to make them stumble or to ensnare them.
  “Time was when she fooled Jove himself, who they say is greatest
whether of gods or men; for Juno, woman though she was, beguiled him
on the day when Alcmena was to bring forth mighty Hercules in the fair
city of Thebes. He told it out among the gods saying, ‘Hear me all
gods and goddesses, that I may speak even as I am minded; this day
shall an Ilithuia, helper of women who are in labour, bring a man
child into the world who shall be lord over all that dwell about him
who are of my blood and lineage.’ Then said Juno all crafty and full
of guile, ‘You will play false, and will not hold to your word.
Swear me, O Olympian, swear me a great oath, that he who shall this
day fall between the feet of a woman, shall be lord over all that
dwell about him who are of your blood and lineage.’
  “Thus she spoke, and Jove suspected her not, but swore the great
oath, to his much ruing thereafter. For Juno darted down from the high
summit of Olympus, and went in haste to Achaean Argos where she knew
that the noble wife of Sthenelus son of Perseus then was. She being
with child and in her seventh month, Juno brought the child to birth
though there was a month still wanting, but she stayed the offspring
of Alcmena, and kept back the Ilithuiae. Then she went to tell Jove
the son of Saturn, and said, ‘Father Jove, lord of the lightning—I
have a word for your ear. There is a fine child born this day,
Eurystheus, son to Sthenelus the son of Perseus; he is of your
lineage; it is well, therefore, that he should reign over the
Argives.’
  “On this Jove was stung to the very quick, and in his rage he caught
Folly by the hair, and swore a great oath that never should she
again invade starry heaven and Olympus, for she was the bane of all.
Then he whirled her round with a twist of his hand, and flung her down
from heaven so that she fell on to the fields of mortal men; and he
was ever angry with her when he saw his son groaning under the cruel
labours that Eurystheus laid upon him. Even so did I grieve when
mighty Hector was killing the Argives at their ships, and all the time
I kept thinking of Folly who had so baned me. I was blind, and Jove
robbed me of my reason; I will now make atonement, and will add much
treasure by way of amends. Go, therefore, into battle, you and your
people with you. I will give you all that Ulysses offered you
yesterday in your tents: or if it so please you, wait, though you
would fain fight at once, and my squires shall bring the gifts from my
ship, that you may see whether what I give you is enough.”
  And Achilles answered, “Son of Atreus, king of men Agamemnon, you
can give such gifts as you think proper, or you can withhold them:
it is in your own hands. Let us now set battle in array; it is not
well to tarry talking about trifles, for there is a deed which is as
yet to do. Achilles shall again be seen fighting among the foremost,
and laying low the ranks of the Trojans: bear this in mind each one of
you when he is fighting.”
  Then Ulysses said, “Achilles, godlike and brave, send not the
Achaeans thus against Ilius to fight the Trojans fasting, for the
battle will be no brief one, when it is once begun, and heaven has
filled both sides with fury; bid them first take food both bread and
wine by the ships, for in this there is strength and stay. No man
can do battle the livelong day to the going down of the sun if he is
without food; however much he may want to fight his strength will fail
him before he knows it; hunger and thirst will find him out, and his
limbs will grow weary under him. But a man can fight all day if he
is full fed with meat and wine; his heart beats high, and his strength
will stay till he has routed all his foes; therefore, send the
people away and bid them prepare their meal; King Agamemnon will bring
out the gifts in presence of the assembly, that all may see them and
you may be satisfied. Moreover let him swear an oath before the
Argives that he has never gone up into the couch of Briseis, nor
been with her after the manner of men and women; and do you, too, show
yourself of a gracious mind; let Agamemnon entertain you in his
tents with a feast of reconciliation, that so you may have had your
dues in full. As for you, son of Atreus, treat people more righteously
in future; it is no disgrace even to a king that he should make amends
if he was wrong in the first instance.”
  And King Agamemnon answered, “Son of Laertes, your words please me
well, for throughout you have spoken wisely. I will swear as you would
have me do; I do so of my own free will, neither shall I take the name
of heaven in vain. Let, then, Achilles wait, though he would fain
fight at once, and do you others wait also, till the gifts come from
my tent and we ratify the oath with sacrifice. Thus, then, do I charge
you: take some noble young Achaeans with you, and bring from my
tents the gifts that I promised yesterday to Achilles, and bring the
women also; furthermore let Talthybius find me a boar from those
that are with the host, and make it ready for sacrifice to Jove and to
the sun.”
  Then said Achilles, “Son of Atreus, king of men Agamemnon, see to
these matters at some other season, when there is breathing time and
when I am calmer. Would you have men eat while the bodies of those
whom Hector son of Priam slew are still lying mangled upon the
plain? Let the sons of the Achaeans, say I, fight fasting and
without food, till we have avenged them; afterwards at the going
down of the sun let them eat their fill. As for me, Patroclus is lying
dead in my tent, all hacked and hewn, with his feet to the door, and
his comrades are mourning round him. Therefore I can take thought of
nothing save only slaughter and blood and the rattle in the throat
of the dying.”
  Ulysses answered, “Achilles, son of Peleus, mightiest of all the
Achaeans, in battle you are better than I, and that more than a
little, but in counsel I am much before you, for I am older and of
greater knowledge. Therefore be patient under my words. Fighting is
a thing of which men soon surfeit, and when Jove, who is wars steward,
weighs the upshot, it may well prove that the straw which our
sickles have reaped is far heavier than the grain. It may not be
that the Achaeans should mourn the dead with their bellies; day by day
men fall thick and threefold continually; when should we have
respite from our sorrow? Let us mourn our dead for a day and bury them
out of sight and mind, but let those of us who are left eat and
drink that we may arm and fight our foes more fiercely. In that hour
let no man hold back, waiting for a second summons; such summons shall
bode ill for him who is found lagging behind at our ships; let us
rather sally as one man and loose the fury of war upon the Trojans.”
  When he had thus spoken he took with him the sons of Nestor, with
Meges son of Phyleus, Thoas, Meriones, Lycomedes son of Creontes,
and Melanippus, and went to the tent of Agamemnon son of Atreus. The
word was not sooner said than the deed was done: they brought out
the seven tripods which Agamemnon had promised, with the twenty
metal cauldrons and the twelve horses; they also brought the women
skilled in useful arts, seven in number, with Briseis, which made
eight. Ulysses weighed out the ten talents of gold and then led the
way back, while the young Achaeans brought the rest of the gifts,
and laid them in the middle of the assembly.
  Agamemnon then rose, and Talthybius whose voice was like that of a
god came to him with the boar. The son of Atreus drew the knife
which he wore by the scabbard of his mighty sword, and began by
cutting off some bristles from the boar, lifting up his hands in
prayer as he did so. The other Achaeans sat where they were all silent
and orderly to hear the king, and Agamemnon looked into the vault of
heaven and prayed saying, “I call Jove the first and mightiest of
all gods to witness, I call also Earth and Sun and the Erinyes who
dwell below and take vengeance on him who shall swear falsely, that
I have laid no hand upon the girl Briseis, neither to take her to my
bed nor otherwise, but that she has remained in my tents inviolate. If
I swear falsely may heaven visit me with all the penalties which it
metes out to those who perjure themselves.”
  He cut the boar’s throat as he spoke, whereon Talthybius whirled
it round his head, and flung it into the wide sea to feed the
fishes. Then Achilles also rose and said to the Argives, “Father Jove,
of a truth you blind men’s eyes and bane them. The son of Atreus had
not else stirred me to so fierce an anger, nor so stubbornly taken
Briseis from me against my will. Surely Jove must have counselled
the destruction of many an Argive. Go, now, and take your food that we
may begin fighting.”
  On this he broke up the assembly, and every man went back to his own
ship. The Myrmidons attended to the presents and took them away to the
ship of Achilles. They placed them in his tents, while the
stable-men drove the horses in among the others.
  Briseis, fair as Venus, when she saw the mangled body of
Patroclus, flung herself upon it and cried aloud, tearing her
breast, her neck, and her lovely face with both her hands. Beautiful
as a goddess she wept and said, “Patroclus, dearest friend, when I
went hence I left you living; I return, O prince, to find you dead;
thus do fresh sorrows multiply upon me one after the other. I saw
him to whom my father and mother married me, cut down before our city,
and my three own dear brothers perished with him on the self-same day;
but you, Patroclus, even when Achilles slew my husband and sacked
the city of noble Mynes, told me that I was not to weep, for you
said you would make Achilles marry me, and take me back with him to
Phthia, we should have a wedding feast among the Myrmidons. You were
always kind to me and I shall never cease to grieve for you.”
  She wept as she spoke, and the women joined in her lament-making
as though their tears were for Patroclus, but in truth each was
weeping for her own sorrows. The elders of the Achaeans gathered round
Achilles and prayed him to take food, but he groaned and would not
do so. “I pray you,” said he, “if any comrade will hear me, bid me
neither eat nor drink, for I am in great heaviness, and will stay
fasting even to the going down of the sun.”
  On this he sent the other princes away, save only the two sons of
Atreus and Ulysses, Nestor, Idomeneus, and the knight Phoenix, who
stayed behind and tried to comfort him in the bitterness of his
sorrow: but he would not be comforted till he should have flung
himself into the jaws of battle, and he fetched sigh on sigh, thinking
ever of Patroclus. Then he said-
  “Hapless and dearest comrade, you it was who would get a good dinner
ready for me at once and without delay when the Achaeans were
hasting to fight the Trojans; now, therefore, though I have meat and
drink in my tents, yet will I fast for sorrow. Grief greater than this
I could not know, not even though I were to hear of the death of my
father, who is now in Phthia weeping for the loss of me his son, who
am here fighting the Trojans in a strange land for the accursed sake
of Helen, nor yet though I should hear that my son is no more—he
who is being brought up in Scyros—if indeed Neoptolemus is still
living. Till now I made sure that I alone was to fall here at Troy
away from Argos, while you were to return to Phthia, bring back my son
with you in your own ship, and show him all my property, my
bondsmen, and the greatness of my house—for Peleus must surely be
either dead, or

Plant a Woman

"When a woman plants a tree, she plants herself."
John Muir

See the photo, on a stone walkway in a park on an island, somewhere in New York State

Years after first encountered,
Returned this day, purposely,
To trod this bricked-path
Where a solitary brick, these special words carved.

This brick, a patient lady-poem in waiting,
Required a search-and-locate mission,
To verify my memorized eyesight,
Freed to release these words,
Years in the forming, from whence first espied.

When a woman plants a tree, she plants herself.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Much less than obvious,
Import of said statement,
Complex, notes, scents, questions...

Perhaps this is the thus, the why,
Why this po-effort, somnolent, yet disquieted,
In recesses, drew lines on the wall, with one line
Slashed across, for every month,
It gestated, unborn, but not offering to die,
It did not come effortlessly.

I am seed of man,
Planted within woman.
I am a tree of  iLife ,
My seed planted within
You, iReader.

I am as much woman as man,
Perhaps more so...
Wrote you, told you,
I Speak Woman^
Perhaps more so...
Even better than man.

No shame, I rise with the dawn,
To bake the bread,
Alongside her, her secrets, she has, need learning,
Her bread, raisins, cinnamon and secreted inside,
Wisdom of loving kindness.

She scatters seeds with recklessness,
Who can know where wheat will be needed,
Someday, her children exiled?

Forest investor, tree planter,
Futures she sees, where others see but wood,
I follow her lead, for I cannot but fail to
Prosper, when on paths tread,
Formed, excavated by her footfalls.

I give her rubies,
I give her gold,
When I ask where it be,
She laughs and says adorning the tongues
Of the hungry and in need.

So I give her more.

Indeed, I plant my seed inside her daily,
Let her plant trees as she desires,
Her forest, the refuge of my old age,
So she plants trees, as I
Plant a Woman.
Thanks be, that her trees,
Come from her *****.

Now I understand Mr.Muir.

Good for visiting hospitals or charitable work. Take some time to attend to your health.

Surely I will be disquieted
by the hospital, that body zone--
bodies wrapped in elastic bands,
bodies cased in wood or used like telephones,
bodies crucified up onto their crutches,
bodies wearing rubber bags between their legs,
bodies vomiting up their juice like detergent, Here in this house
there are other bodies.
Whenever I see a six-year-old
swimming in our aqua pool
a voice inside me says what can't be told...
Ha, someday you'll be old and withered
and tubes will be in your nose
drinking up your dinner.
Someday you'll go backward. You'll close
up like a shoebox and you'll be cursed
as you push into death feet first.

Here in the hospital, I say,
that is not my body, not my body.
I am not here for the doctors
to read like a recipe.
No. I am a daisy girl
blowing in the wind like a piece of sun.
On ward 7 there are daisies, all butter and pearl
but beside a blind man who can only
eat up the petals and count to ten.
The nurses skip rope around him and shiver
as his eyes wiggle like mercury and then
they dance from patient to patient to patient
throwing up little paper medicine cups and playing
catch with vials of dope as they wait for new accidents.
Bodies made of synthetics. Bodies swaddled like dolls
whom I visit and cajole and all they do is hum
like computers doing up our taxes, dollar by dollar.
Each body is in its bunker. The surgeon applies his gum.
Each body is fitted quickly into its ice-cream pack
and then stitched up again for the long voyage
back.

For breakfast, I brought my self-loathing undisguised by bruised, hollow eyes and disquieted moaning,
all crunched up into the contours of your hard edges,
like thin-veined broken and browned, misused leaves orphaned from its parent.

My desperate limbs always reaching, wretched, to shoddy fill into the gaps that your self-confidence casual posture had formed on the floor;
empty-air spaces and pervasive shadow caverns I have claimed without verbal invite, promise or asylum.
No self-confidence to speak from, anguish and primal, seeking shelter;
pain entwined with pain making easy comfort in forgetting.

A soul disquieted;
there are pieces stripped straight down, pinned together in different places, unspun and uneven smears of paste that don't ease closed the obvious imperfections.
A harmful machination unexplained, fitted negligently back together,
the design with no catalyst to begin, untended and purposefully without purpose.
No comprehensible enrichment, selfish perversity plodding culmination,
almost complete.
Build, re-build; conspiracy laced with nonchalance; twisted person alchemy.

Any or Each of Many becoming
the godhead of a shallow, malcontented deception,
rudiment contortions to mangle, punish, ruin
an altruistic heart; a beaten wooden phoenix shaped from past wrongdoings and misery.
More burning away, combustion of reclaiming, bones and sinew steeped in the truth of the universe.

Unjustified and never the differentiation my heart once blamed, not good nor bad.
We, two souls alike in circumstance, circumference, cylindrical,
watching the world make more of us, clutching bird-like shoulders merged through a pale waning.
Existent time-limited victims of disappointed alliances,
made in the land entrenched in the business of making monsters who make monsters.

An oracle possessed by a spirit disquieted,
                                   he contains a world unknown even to himself,
a poem gets written by itself, within himself,
                                     organizing material eclectically on its own
from roots to crust, essence of experiences,
                                    mingle with hopes, fears and yearnings,
creating alloys of emotions, welding words to mean different,
                                     fixing formations and evocative images,
when he stops contended, unfinished yet, many parts in dark still,
                               then the readers get themselves invited in to the thickets,
disentangle the vines, make way through the foliage thick,
                 hanging  branches and twigs,  light falls in the darkened corners,
the poet and creator, the oracle himself, sits looking at the flowers and fruits
                                 bathed in a new light, on what the subconscious spoke,
when he listens,  the singing of the birds acquires new meaning,
                                  sound of the running brook has a rhythm not familiar,
that take him to the sea, where all end in a swim, like in a dream

when the word "****"
resonates from the lips of
any teacher, i cannot
help but perceive
how many students' heads
fall downward, staring at
their disquieted hands. i am
wondering how many people are closing
in on themselves, lips pressed together
in thin lines, burying themselves

six feet under into graves
constructed however long ago.
somewhere within the catastrophic enclosings
of their minds, they are the people
reminiscing violent robberies, not
of television sets or radios, but of
innocent souls. they are suffering
from the post-traumatic stress

of feeling  naked skin and cracked
ribcages and heaving lungs
never burn in the turbulent
wildfires left
behind in their burnt
lives; a simple word
is enough to have them
reliving the mournful
affair forming their
empty chest. i glance around the
room for students whose
memory gnaws at their
scarred skin, and

the  problem is
is that there are too many.

Potted plant sways
Unrelenting dew
In a disquieted dawn
A sigil
A herald -- embodied
Gazing over the balcony.
Forlorn
Comprehensive  
Echoes

I wish to embrace,
my children's faces,
with these eyes,
burning into memory,
their joyous smiles,
before the fading light,
is finally extinguished,
the dancing stars,
which are their own eyes,
remembered,
held closely,
envisioned,
but for the betrayal,
of time,
giving way to darkness,
and shrouds,
shadows they become,
but for the light of imagination,
and memories,
unforgettable images,
be still,
this disquieted soul,
allow the beautiful to extend,
words are as worlds,
a new place from which soulful expression,
is easily rendered,
imparting magnificence,
to beckoning followers,
and newly found friends.

PROSE FOR ALL PEOPLE
CONSIDERING SUICIDE.

The last month has been torture.
I've tossed and turned at night.
I've been begging God just to take
me Home... then MAD at Him for not
answering my plea.
My body is wracked in pain.
My life is a dead-end.
My dreams are shattered.
But now I know why He did not...

This morning my 90 year old
father was choking. He hardly made a
sound as the breath left his body. I don't
know how (God?) but I KNEW something
was terribly wrong. I went over to see
what had me so disquieted in his regard.
He was gesturing to me frantically...

This had happened before. We both knew
the drill. As I put my arms around him
from behind and began the upward jerks
of the Heimlich maneuver, his arm got
caught in the mechanism of his power-
chair. We began to do a sort of a gruesome
dance... his body struggling not to die...
mine to bring it life...

I screamed at my mom, who was in
her room, "Call 911!!! Dad's choking again!"

I applied pressure to his solar plexus,
just under his ribcage by lifting him firmly.
With each motion saying a calm prayer... "Not today, God. Not today. He's going to LIVE. Today... in Jesus' Name. AMEN."

Then my father spit up the eggs which
had been lodged in his windpipe. His
breathing was ragged. But became regular.
No ambulance would be needed today.

As I looked at the wizened little old man
in the power-chair I realized something.
I had not saved HIS life as much as
HE had saved

MINE.

I may not be much or have much.
But I have him
and my family to help out.

I may never realize my dreams. But God
will always give me another day to try
to live them... a precious Gift...

LIFE.

SO WHO AM I TO THROW THAT GIFT
BACK IN HIS FACE?

So think about it. Perhaps later today
you may see a child run out in front
of a car... and pull him back. Maybe
you'll find a frozen starving kitten...
you'll smile and put a dollar in the hand
of a homeless person who was ready
to give up til your act of kindness made
him reconsider...

Who knows?

The life you save....


SoulSurvivor
(C) 12/17/2015

cool, just call me , we are juggling our sanity and the days like paper lanterns on rivers being used as paper weights for a days wages never paid,

and the walking dogs have all their leashes in a knot, but do not fret, I got this thing on a bet and a prayer,

with some help from good friends and one heck of a pinch hitter,
who brings the cows home on the bases loaded and the football bat is all out of whack and did it with a whiffle balled mad  hatter.  

as we are all a tasted disquieted and alarmed silently outloud of the load of horse **** and bravado  of the slightly deranged considerations to any being ******* the dead for their secrets ,

so yeah. But with our werewoof feet , Mohawk eyebrows in the alias mode of method of obfuscation uni-brows and mustaches, cause lets face it, with such stage as to fain the rain of a stain,

we need to rewind the kine and uncage the page of line after line of sweet *** whine, wine and more time blaze all the rage when beards don't do the trick in landing the babe with the need for a tree of good root and a wild spine eyed fool all hillbilly and too schooled in the dark arts of **** knuckling bad ways and stays into a gifted consorted construct while she sigh the not so **** shy, yes dizzy and high, and say, oh ****, who whoulda thought,

,, still I thought you would have been bigger,, like road house in the dancing days of rolling thunder and pouring blames mane all to educate mine eyes and teeth as to what is real to eat and all that is plastic fruit looking all to bitter sweet,  

including all the critters of varied skill, poise and swinging lawn mower blades like, biscuits and mustard, pathfinder style, calculator not needed but ****** is optional, and never forget the nuts that bolt all us fools into a clustered fuckery all betty crocker and country **** legs spread , I can't believe it's not butter said in the voice of Otis Redding ,

Signs of that sweet smile and of **** some body going to get a ******* tonight look in them eyes as they tool away and hint to my silly day and keep me on point like the six tossing a bloodhound a big round steak of shhhh, we are hunting rabbits here,

never mine us six foot white rabbit all werewoofed and donnie darkoed in our get the show on gear, lol, but ****, all that in such awesome packages as the friends and things in my head, all keeping me fueled in the art of war on the undead.

now this my friend is a day in the life of the It Squad, and we hit the **** like you cant quit the **** sqaud, so have a coke and a smile, laugh a while, we got this ****. ;-)  

What, I'm just shakin a spear at a bad bacon boy all francis nancy like... so funk yo skunk up son.

oh, da boy got the lo hold on the roll Soul, ****, son, swing lo sweet chariot, commin for to carry me no mo alone and in a **** good tone with a nice private home to give the good dog a bone.

So, yeah, weak like a good weeks hard glazy nights, all sir and silly, but you cant call me a lil *** ***** with my good hillbilly goofy eyed and swilly, Mooooon Shine on me .

Say love son, Yah to the Jah , Alma. cause you got tha soul sols, and if ya don't get this, then you don't have it. but we workin on that, right?

I did errands today
and I was confused

Something was wrong, astray
I mused

I settled into the evening quiet
And my disquieted soul shouted

"The flags were not at half staff"
As the West Wing staff and Cabinet was trimmed by half

Yesterday, Congress was sieged by riff-raff
45 egged them on

Congress counted the Electoral votes
but our troubles are not all gone

Today, I needed to see that flag half-mast
My grief begged for a symbol against the bombast

And yet the flag waved, full staff, as if nothing and no one mattered
And no one has said a word

Which is it: you can't get started unless
you're riding some current bigger than your reporting voice
or the best time to write is when you don't have much to say
and without plenty to say about everything you'll get better right
      away.

Form is very often a betrayal of reality.
Although we are initially drawn to poems by their passion and
      urgency,
we are convinced by the formal means invented
for their impelling motives. Every accidental crack or dent.


Not just mildly disquieted but actively repelled,
running for the River Styx, the doors of Hell pell mell,
there must be a crack, deep and unmendable, in the poet
that the poet must forever try to mend. Or not.

While mortal poets imitate, immortal poets steal.
That's plagiarism. Fortunately the public feels
less strongly about poetry than television,
communism and aging gracefully through meditation.

Now I'm being silly. My silly indefatigable lusting,
silly sadness, silly arguing and silly trusting.
All I do not know about our nation's history, wars
and what showering the people you love with love does.

Ransacking apothegms, algorithms
and selling the loot as memes,
dissemblings. Bearing fardels
with the warrior's skull.

I made the same mistake I always make,
Promises to myself that I never want to break…

But I do.

As if my swan song is on replay.

Imbibe, Undress, Feel Alone, Regret.
Regret.
Regret.

Women are supposed to wait, not give so much away. There is this whole game that I never had even begun to play while others were already in the advanced stage. I know there is something different about me. I can feel it in the way people talk as if there is something they are seeing that I am not feeling. The disconnect feels like a gap that is widening and crumbling away underneath my feet.

I made the same mistake I always make which ends in me being comfortless
Strangers ask me how I could be single in comparison with the characteristics that make up me, as if beauty was mutually exclusive with companionship.
I want to tell them it’s because I’m crazy.
Because I choose to pursue men who I cannot obtain and usually only after I’ve given anything they could possibly want away.

I’m exhausted and distressed
Afraid that my mistake will consume the only male friendship I had yet to taint
Disquieted knowing I could easily desire more when you do not feel the same.
Assuming every ignored text is more then a simple coincidence
Lost and afraid my comfortable place, my friend I turned to when I wished everything else to fade away, is no longer available free of any constraints.

The naive traveler,
Staying fast upon the well-known trail,
Assumingly forged by others,
Heard, as he tried not to listen,
Rustling among the brush,
Disquieted, he scurried,
Never peering into the deep shadows,
Afraid of what he might find or might find him,
With eyes opened wide and centered upon the track,
He moved with all caution and haste,
Avoiding all the trips and snares that could allow him to stumble,
Dark was this jungle,
And moving about him,
the shadows and calls of the coming night,
He quickened his pace,
Fearing behind him,
Something gaining upon and moving ahead,
An ambush,
He knew if he would run,
The formidable gauntlet,
Would have little time to prepare for him,
Howling and leaping,
He'd overcome,
But the gauntlet was never set,
The sounds off the trail was his own creation,
His own fear,
He continued to run,
And he still does.

We all do our best to get something,
Called money
To survive in this cruel place,
Called world

We have been controlled by those thing,
Compete to be its slave
And too busy to even realize,
That no number will fill the satisfaction in our heart

We were born with nothing
Just breath of life
Yet we live with greed as we grow up
That greed eternally craving for more and more

Not realizing that,
Our heart won’t pumping someday
Our breath will just stop
Our blood won’t flow anymore

Little do you know
That day could come
Anytime they want
So why still disquieted about those inhuman greed?

If you could see past my eyes
Into my disquieted brain
You'd think I was obsessed
Or at least a little insane
You would shake your finger at my thoughts
As I chase ribcages while caging myself
Into a world of bones and rot
I can calculate calories into a formula for happiness
Like I measure my merit with a measuring tape
And I know that "looks aren't everything"
But it looks to me like they are
Because society suggests that you "be yourself"
While screaming the importance of beauty and wealth
And we all know that ugly doesn't make it
Into the movies
Just like fat doesn't make it into the magazines
If I could look into the mirror without seeing
Distortions
Then maybe I could convince myself to eat bigger
Portions
But as the story goes, as the song is sung
Another girl loses to the battle of one
I'm at war with myself, and it's making me sick
Sick in the head; sick in the heart
I sicken myself as I'm falling apart
I hate this hollow pursuit for a hollow life
And yet I secretly starve myself
In an attempt to get it right
You might be somewhat confused
As to why I undergo this kind of beating
Yes, hunger is painful
But so is eating

I am a French horn, a bottle neckless hourglass and butterscotch tape

You're a red harp with veins painted on the side

When I come home, you see me as an acrylic heap with chips of lead and belly aching homing words

Scotch sticks and smoke smells and the stitches are uncomfortable on my neck where you often warm your hands

I am a masquerade of shellfish clamoring on about the epitome of burlesque humor

You’re alien to anything other than sourdough and design

I have structured my thesis around burlesque and you fail to see the humor

When I fear the apologists

You fear the escapists

I am the tigers of the world, borrowing viciousness

You’re a long pause, loved and disquieted, painting my stripes as veins

I’m freaked out now because the apologists are escaping and the escapists are apologizing

At this clear impasse, you pity and press on until my fingers at the French horn drain to my sides

I am an island in a puddle of sand

I am shocked that I am here.
Look at this flesh, so thin
So pale
So brittle
Like an eggshell- cracked.
It seems so easy to crush
And yet
You'd never guess the blows it has taken
Without crumbling.
I wonder if I'd be respected if my injuries showed on the outside.
I wonder if I'd be feared.
There is a point when pity turns to fear, you know- when the thought is spawned that something SHOULD be dead, and isn't.
A mistrust forms,
An uneasiness.
I feel it sometimes when I look too long into my own eyes in the mirror
And see flashes in their depths: all the silvery memories of pain
Like little fish, like little blades.
I feel disquieted at the notion
That I can hold a sea of suffering
And sigh out only sweetness.
It's not that suffering has sewn no cruelty inside me-
Quite the opposite, it has been a spark caught on the breeze, and something hot and dark
Rages in here nearly all the time.
But only in here.
I have seen too many hurt souls
Hurt others
And I refuse to do the same.
And although it is extraordinary that I am not ground to dust by the blows landed from outside
What I am truly surprised about is that I have not been shattered
From in here.
I am crueler than most people you've met
But only to myself.
Only inside.
I am like a paper lantern-
All flames inside and soft glow out.
And I refuse to hurt you. I refuse to. That is my revenge upon everyone
Who has ever been cruel to me:
It ends here.
Now.
With me.
I will not let it out, not even if it damns me.
I am shocked that I am here.

What poetry do we say sounds like the truth or life?
How many paint a proper picture of things before us on an internal canvas?
But how many things bring out the poetry all on their own?
In this way, a proper tomato sandwich contains much more than juice, seeds, skin, and pulp-
It contains the thanks of a season's worth of work, wrapped up in a translucent layer, tough enough to veer a dull knife into finger, but thin enough to steer a sharp blade into herbaceous flesh,
Deep enough to pile high on a plateau of simple starch, waiting for the juice of a life grown outside rather than mixed in a sterile kitchen.
This fruit emerges from a jealous ground who would stockpile these gems away from the mineral salt and the crushed spice that brings meaning from the ground
Is this why the tomato harvested from another's nearby garden tastes all the sweeter than that plucked by an anonymous picker miles away from the pleasure it provides?
The summer provides the climate to agitate one so deeply that they burrow into the soil to find the refreshment that would quiet the tongue of hunger and bring resolution to a disquieted mind, so far removed from comfort.

There's a thing inside of me,
Something I can't describe,
It's like a monster.

It makes me feel as though I'm going to throw up,
My stomach knots and my heart begins to travel up,
Until it meets my mouth,
I feel Ill with jealousy and disquieted feelings.

I hate this girl so much,
But my question is why?
She causes me no harm,no hurt feelings...

Why does she make me so angry?

Her face, it brings a hidden treasure trove of sadness,
The key to the lock remains impossible to open,
The only way to enter would to destroy this wall of hatred.

But how?

She sits stressing,
depression pressing
sharp silver metal
into her skin,

leaves adults stuttering
and wondering
what is so wrong with her,
while looking down with
disappointment.

How strangely that lately
they forget
how intense
it felt
when they were kids.

Its like intentional amnesia
as they try to numb
any primal passions,
dulling their once
delinquent delights,
quelling the yelling curiosity
in favor of
a less passionate
drunken love.

But she has not yet succumbed
to that humdrum
self-inflicted
emotional wound
that is draining
yellow liquid,
oozing
that which is
conflicted
that which
we should be using
to understand
everyone else.

Teenage heartaches
and high school drama,
friendships lost
or changed
drastically,
with all the pain
it leaves,
she is set in
an ocean of confusion.

So, at night she lays her face
in a salt wet pillow case
as she cries
herself to sleep,
instead of ending her week
at the bar down the street
like her parents do
just to get through
their working blues.

Watching videos
from youtube
and reading poetry books,
she still dreams of more,
uses her art to explore
hopes and dreams,
while her parents seem
to exist hopelessly.

When the silence comes
she sits disquieted
as dark thoughts
settle like sandy sediment,
then float up
like all that flotsam
from the wreckage
of her young
sea sailing heart.

Her parent don’t
have a clue
how much she is going through
and sometimes
she doesn’t believe
that they even try to.

today
i let the dawn
arrive
for once
without trepidation
i allow the cool
mercurial rays
to banish all
the woes of night
and fill the sails
of trailing dreams
i have left fluttering
in my wake

in this
new light
i am disquieted
by a morning chill
but resist the comfort
of my own arms
i refuse to confide
in the hunched shoulders
and retracted limbs
of uncountable years
of instinctual defenses

today
i finally see
the beauty
in a rising star
and allow myself
to be seen
by the dawn

"The world is WIDE and I travel it!
The world has a secret and I SEEK it!”,
Said I, as I sailed off one day
To follow tales of distant shores,
With untrammeled frontiers,
****** and pure!

Yielding to the demand of my disquieted soul,
“Voyage!” she cried, and I set upon my goal:
To stretch forth the extremities of my
Ambition -- to penetrate
The veil of all unknowing;
To heed to the heady lure
Of discovery,
Carried by the west wind, blowing!
The path I run will cost me years, and
I must try to go the distance.
But this is a longing for life undiluted,
Quaffed deep and savored
As a Barolo vintage,
Noble and intense.

Maps of her forbidding hinterlands were
Vouchsafed by Mariner Kings of ancient days.
I consulted the coded charts for clues, and
Configured the gilded astrolabe.
Obsession ruled my motives as I
Poured over sea-faring strategies.
The sagacious scrolls became a cypher,
Whispering exotic rumors
Of pleasures and possessions,
Steeped in rich antiquities.

My fertile mind was seized
By these boundless visions,
As the time came for our enterprise.
I shouted to my stalwart company,
“The road forward will not be forgiving,
But the rewards gained will outrageous fortune comprise!”

Our quest divided the latitudes as a
Scimitar separates flesh from bone.
My ship slashed the longitudes as we
Sought passage far from home.
My desire encircled her sensuous shape,
For she is a mistress, supple and warm.
This journey provided the means of escape, for
From the Tome of Glory these pages were torn!

Hence, joyously exulting, I made clear my claim,
“Wisdom is a treasure divine!
Adventure is the blood inflamed!”

My mad dream was unleashed and
I will always remember the day.
I was free to sail my heart’s tidal-course,
Venturing forth, far and away!