eking out the ultimate gasp in my last breath of impulsion
i collapse without a touch of grace at race's end
how i made it i will never know
dazed and in bewilderment
i reminisce upon my journey

an aggregation of barricades assailed me
with iniquitous decadent delight
seeming to writhe in triumph at my possible demise
capitulating as it devoured and spewed me out the other side
i humbly reassembled fragments of my near annihilation

temporarily rehabilitated
i recommenced the toilsome climb
to the treasured peak atop the mount
when in would come the tempest with its furor
and render me asunder

mere exhaustion is not the word
for death experienced recurrently
ground to mulch and back again
screaming, pleading, surrendering
proved futile as i newly met the same demise

near incapacitation i miraculously emerged
and scraping pulled myself with broken heart and bones
scratching my way through the darkness
toppling at the pinnacle
to victory's end

with exhilaration it dawns on me
the long dark night is over
i passed the test to realize
it is not the finish line
but only the beginning

©2016janetaylor

(imagine and picture your FAVOURITE THEATRE
remember that the SETTING tonight is
the stage you built)

first, i went to air my ***** laundry out
cautiously and deftly peel off the skin
from all the places touched and fold it up neatly
away, to be put into drawers
and brought out to wallow
on nights like these

the unmaking of a person is violent, yes
but it dully smells, too.
it is ***** and reeking with sharp dried sweat
wicked away in the cold
i go to fold away the memory of that cold
of my - huh, what’s the word -
b-b-b-bravery braced bent back breaking
on the side of a road that gritted its teeth

and i go to put the loneliness away too
in a suffocating airing cupboard
to not let it draw breath while it
watches the world go by
through a faltering crack in the door

INTERLUDE

(what did you do, those of you sat in the wings
and those of you pulling the strings
you washed your hands, reflexively.
you washed your hands again and again.
so nobody would think this dirt rubbed off)

now i am expected to empty the dishwasher
in front of a yawning kitchen window that
lets in not a chill but a blizzard and i am
unclothed unloading the dishes
i try to cover myself with a plate but there are
accusing eyes at the window here
to gawp at nakedness whilst i stacked bowls
into the teetering towers of a tiring told tale
i drop a misplaced cup and step on it
fall over -
doing a jig of pain, red hot embarrassing
feet dribbling lazy scarlet on the wet floor
what a spectacle, what a show, encore?

(and for those of you in the front row
i am deeply sorry.
proximity is pricier and more painful
and what i regret about this graceless fall
is that you had to witness it at all)

but all that’s left is to sweep the floor
so then i kneel down and sit there legs in dust,
inhaling until my bones are sandpaper and
chafing against the inside of my skin.
draw the curtain and

let me sit a while, please. in this dirt.
let me sit a while in this dirt.
oh, i know. i know my knees are white and
it is settling into my hair and inside my eyes
but i just want to sit here and be *****.
i have the broom - i am holding it, see?
to sweep away and brush apart and
pack it all up into a breathlessly shiny sack
but not just yet

(bored now, you make to leave)

unfinished i step underwater
but the shower is scalding and yes -
yes the ash falls off and the hollow thud
becomes a wet sludge
eking itself through the drain
leaving a grand total of nothing behind.

(SPOTLIGHT: and suddenly! the airing cupboard bursts open and reveals that the piles of laundry still reek, stinking sharply of sweat and ***! and it seems my dishes are still *****, lines of grease splattering down the clay! oh and the floor is just as gritty, smudging oil into the creases!

you in the wings, tired of this PLOT TWIST
you pulling the strings - wishing to cut them
you in front, i am sorry again but -

i can’t bear to try and clean again so -
let me sit and pretend, please
yes, yes, in this dirt with the curtain drawn
just a little bit more and i will get over it and
go through another spring of cleaning onstage so
please, let me -
let me sit here just a little while longer.)

You are not alone,
but you are
then you're not,
They turn it and tumble it.
Ecking, every last drop of you.
And you wish you were.
Resist.
Imagine the Cloud

No eres solo,
pero estas solo,
entonces eres no.
Se la vuelven, y la voltean.
Eking todas las gotas de ti.
Y deseas que eras.
Resiste.
Imaginás la Nube.

Inspired by Francisco DH's Cray Cray & Silent Writer's work as well

(from the beautiful messages some of you send me, this my unintended answer, my thanks, my concerns, all brewed and blended, emerging in this the first second of this say, this day)

the day’s light is undecided. Alternating currents of cloudy
and peek-a-boo sunshine are reflecting outward from my insides onto the world exterior as personality is the best envisioning filter, making you and reality mirror each other, and there are no lines, no divisions.

you awake and instant watch water moving; the currency of
water are the surface wavelets, like wind blown hair.  So, what notions  I have going on is that the water wears wigs (shhhh!) just to keep its integral integrity of constant dishonesty, that being its
natural state.

and
recall nature is just your insides eking, leaking out in...wavelets
and wigs.

all this wonderful nonsense is my heart deeded  eking, leaking, in droplets, in constant motion, this water is never placid, never perfectly still, always moving, sometimes rumbling...and she and I talk about not having a child to take care of in the morning as a sad freedom to
pamper and experiment ourselves even as we co-exist in sweats and t-shirts which segues into a conversation how we moderns crave simplicity over the complexity of living in “modern” times, making us vulnerable to leaders who offer promises of draining, return to the good ole days, forgetting that in just forty years the world fought two wars that killed millions, destroyed the landscape, left billions in miserable existence, and yet shaped, still shapes, the world via today’s unraveling global structure...

so I return to the water, marveling at its life long deception...motion
constant, to the human eye, random and disorganized, yet balletically
organized with synchronicity and yet above and underneath is a whole world in random cooperation, but not necessarily peaceful coexistence...

a mobile, ever changing jigsaw puzzle where the pieces fit together
for just a second before devolving into a new puzzle and on and on...
the surface calm of our appearances, flecked with expressions, our body reshaping with every step is a testimony to the inconstancy of living and I think I could never write a good enough poem to explain how we each inside and outside coexist with engines of turmoil inside, churning, and the oceans and the rivers exist only to remind us that water comes in many colors, and when we dip even a finger in running flows, we  alter the course of history, humanity, eternity, and all words that end in Y, that are really big, the all encompassing ones;

every thought, every blink, every word, is so revealing and I rejoice, secure in that knowing, for it is the source of creating and here I am creating this one second’s summary and I must stop for here comes another second, another glance asking for love,

like a child climbing into your early morning bed, ear to ear grinning, announcing their presence as their gift to you and the world in general, and of course they are exactly right, like every fluid body of water...

A rose that only knows sunlight
Can never understand rain;
A heart that's only known gladness
Can never understand pain.
Eyes that have never seen darkness
Cannot comprehend hope;
Passions that have never felt torment
Are fires that can not be stoked.
But wisdom that hearkens to anger
Will someday turn its cheek;
A bold king of cruelty
Will someday join the meek.
Though the good and the bad
Writhe in confliction
Inside us all
Is a whole conviction.
Two parts to a whole,
Two sides in the glass,
The push and the pull,
The future and past.
We stumble about
Our hearts divided in twain
Eking out answers
In our fight to remain.
We ask ourselves
Whatis wrong?
What is right?
Too scared of the dark
To embrace the light.
We cannot be happy
Without having been sad
We cannot have good
Without the bad.

It’s time again for one of those free form sessions
Where the mind is too tired to speak
So the heart dreams
Sentences don’t form by their usual means
No vetting or checking or editing
Crediting wordplay to intricate trickery of weariness
Of someone other than yourself speaking
Eking out a living on the cobblestones
The cornerstones of this modern discourse
Big rocks for the first course
Rubble for seconds
Sand for dessert
Marking Time up to its old tricks again
Slipping away
Tripping for days
Flipping in ways inconceivable to creatures grounded in 4 dimensions
Spatial henchmen
Brutes in solid matter
Doesn’t matter really
Except when we neglect the rest
Who’d have guessed we were in fact immortal?
Store bought and all
Eternity in a bottle
A buck fifty per litre
You don’t need much
Just a touch should last you til the end of time
When rhymes finally start to fall apart
Under the limitations of the language
And some time back you started to substitute sandwich
Blangstitch
Gingrich and sanskrit
And mords wade up and stolen
Like a generation once removed
Then finally put right with
After the damage was well and truly cemented
Around their feet and chucked overboard
Struck a chord?
Just take a look around you
It still happens every time you say Abo
Or wonder if this place would be better if there weren’t so many Indians
Or if Asians spoke English
Or Engrish was the new international language
Minds that can’t see past the colour on the tip of their nose
Perpetually in the picture
Painting white over everything
So we can rejoice in the sameness
Like how we rejoice in eating boiled potato for every meal
No salt and pepper
No texture
Just lectures on that time we tried out what management schools called diversity
And how it failed horribly
Because we are all so different
That we have nothing in common
Like species or anything
Or the way music makes us feel
And dance
And sing
Even if it’s just in our own heads
Or the way sad things make us cry
And feeling loved is important
It’s that moment when you realise the guy pointing the gun at you is you
Only in a different coloured uniform
That has a family at home hoping he comes back
That he has a picture of in his wallet
And a dog that thinks he can do no wrong waiting to pin him down and clean the grime out of his nostrils
You can pull the trigger on him
Let slip that slug of lead into your brain
It’s only a dog eat dog world because somebody has some money on it
You’ve been thrown in the ring
And told it’s to the end
So you fight
But it’s not and you don’t have to
Isn’t that good news
That you’ll never see on the news
“Life is not a battle, it’s a collage!
More at 11”
But you’re asleep by then
Assuming you were ever awake at all

Smoke scintillated by ***** lights
Scent of cheap beer and cigarettes
Arms and legs and heads and butts
                mashed
      mangled
            mingling

In a space ejecting bravado
responding to the auricular bludgeons
plucking veins and boiling blood
arms and legs flailing like spiders
hammered by raindrops

Calloused voices scream through feedback
eking out of anguished amplifiers
while jungle drums synchronize hearts
to their frantic pulse

New friends old friends celebration
in sweaty embraces chanting screaming
stumbling outside the gates of eternity
sidewalk where we gathered round the sordid soapbox
and cast beleaguering gargantuan buildings
and endless cataclysmal streets
into abeyance

to prance along these old sidewalk cracks
stumbling along cigarette butts and beer cans
efflorescing under amative neon lights whose bombinate glow
tingles our skin and dazzles our eyeballs
rolling back into our skulls in the wake of ecstasy
billowing over our ambulant bodies

Friday nights
     Saturday nights
              Sunday nights
skipping school on a week day
braving city night life to find us in the nooks
they forgot to sweep out
where trash collects and pretends
to be unwavering and implacable
for a moment

Til it's back on the streets we spill out upon like puke
like the beer sticking to checkerboard floors
and we float home on the feedback high singing in our ears to sleep
dreaming of these ecstasies as something perennial
in punk lover's dreams

Pure when we're filthy.

Once upon a time there was a bend in a tree, which grew among other trees and lay among the rocks covered in mosses of different hues of purple.

The tree with a bend had a heart, which was aching.

Because as it had been growing, among the other trees, up from the ground with the rocks and the mosses, it had been burning…

But it swallowed the smoke and it made all efforts to conceal the fire, and the embers, smoldering…

And while growing and burning, with the grand secrecy eking out from the ground surrounding the roots, into a sort of fog or mist that hazed the acre, this tree took some maligned pride in the secrets she kept.

Because she knew, regardless of any other perception of who she was...she knew there was a fire within her. Whether that fire being a good thing, or a harmful thing, did not cross her mind as of consequence. Because while one is still growing, without knowing of consequences...relativity does not exist. Like Shroedinger’s cat, really.

She took pride that the secret was one of physical threat, one with an aura of risk. One that would not be delighted in by those around her, were they aware. One that in fact may frighten them.
She felt brave.

And she felt clever.

Because the low-laying fog or origin unknown to the rest of those around her, she knew the origin. And for this, she felt clever.

The fire was a hunger insatiable; but deliberate, and bade time. A sick balance was struck between that which could be afforded to burn in secrecy, and that which was necessary to stoke the fire.

And for some time, she believed this agreement was manageable, sustainable, and perfect.

Then, a day came.
Where another tree, once seeded nearby, emerged from the soil.

She found herself proximally closer to another tree, than she had ever really anticipated.
And it was small.

And she realized, how grown already she had become.
The fires inside of her, had burned down slowly over time to the base of her trunk… burned her from the center, outwards, but more so down, to the base, where it festered and expanded and thrived on the emerging’s of her roots.
And it thrived, and it devoured her where she was anchored to the earth.

She beheld her nearby sprouted neighbor...she looked downwards upon him, and she saw how tenderly he was held to the soil, which had ashed somehow from below?

And she realized how fragile this child was, she realized how innocent, she realized how impressionable, and how dependent upon her roots, and her barrier to the wind, he was.

It was here that the realization dawned upon her for the very first time, that the life she had created for herself- and the intricate and meticulously hidden secrets she harbored ****** the fresh child who was planted in her soil, to depend upon the strengths of her roots, the strength that all around her naturally assumed existed.

She became frantic.

Bound by brittle, burning roots to the place she had sabotaged in her own short-sighted impulses to define herself as a mysterious and special tree.

And the fire, which she felt had coexisted as an equal within her, she realized was not with any of her interests at heart.

And that which she had begun so long ago, she could not extinguish, or tame.
And her own damage, pain, inflicted in her decisions still were of little concern to her, but to face that now someone else completely undeserving of any of these consequences would suffer greater than even she: it broke her.

She lacked any plan to remedy, or seek help, it was far past a point where those around her could offer anything to save her, or help her, or quiet the fire, or save the child.

And so she lived on as a slave to the wicked fires gnawing away at her everything, at the air surrounding, of the soil, of the example…

And she died far too slowly, as she watched each passing day those around her living timid tender serene lives of trees

Oblivious in the 'fog'
….and while the young tree beside her came up, but far slower than other trees ought to…

Came up, without solid foundation, roots that were unable to take hold in the ashy soil
came up, feeling the heat from below and beside, but never knowing well enough to realize it was unusual.

The burning tree died too slowly, and she watched the tree born and die from neglect and inadequate surroundings.

And the small tree wasn't even noticed by any of the other trees, because the burning tree was so enveloped in shame and sorrow to even properly acknowledge the presence of the acres newest sapling.

And so, on she burned, every dawn rising upon the fallen, wilted twig beside her, that only she had known.

And her ashes kept any others from ever seeding and sprouting near her.
And as the years went on, the area surrounding her of death and sorrow spread,
And she was alone.

The end.

Can we jam, brothers and sisters?

Dare we meet at the impalpable chat room
that exists beyond our third heaven?
Dare we to speak in tongues and timbres,
our skin taut across hollow shells,
our veins strung across cadaverous bodies?

I'll grab my drumsticks if you grab the guitars,
and there's somebody on the bongos
slappin' the skins with zealous fervor--
where my tambourine girls at?

Don't worry, I haven't forgotten our forlorn hero
sitting behind the keyboards--
Tickle me those ivories with pious hands and aching fingers,
shake em down sweet Jerry Lee!

And so we begin--
I lay down the drum beat that bops heads and scatters feet,
and the bassman always on top of things
slaps and slides and skips and sizzles
hot diggity dog!

I hear that sweet guitar scream and moan,
praying for death under hazy lights
and we all coast with eyes rolled back into our skulls
and torpid lips drooped open over slack jaws.

Not a word is said from a human voice,
we speak through hands and feet,
basking in colors eking from every kick drum stomp
and the desperate wail bleeding from amplifiers.

Feedback sings and screams, fighting the silence we taunt
and hold at bay.

Around every corner the colors trail
coursing through our vesselious bodies
propelled along the dizzying venture.
We somehow spot every pothole and take detours,
embarking down backroads and backalleys--

We can turn the wheel,
but don't think for a moment we know where it's going.

And the mirror's have all vanished,
we know not from where we came.

Someone shouts from the discovery
as we exit a phrase to enter serendipity,
toying with destiny, clay in our hands,
stretching out the ****** perennially--
We laugh as the gods try to remind us we are Man.

And the screams and the moans
sensing the ****** is getting close
so there's a crescendo I ramp up the tempo
ahhhhhhhHHHhhhHhHhHhHHHHHhhhETERNITY IS NOW AND WE HOLD THE KEY TO HEAVENS GATES AND TIME STANDS STILL AT HIGH NOON IN THE TOWN'S SQUARE WHERE TRIGGER FINGERS TREMOR AND WE SPEAK TO GOD ON HIS PRIVATE CHANNEL COMING THROUGH WORN SPEAKERS CELESTIAL CREATURES IT WOULD BE SACRILEGE IF WE WEREN'T SUDDENLY SO HOLY HOLY HOLY HOLY HOLY HOLY HOLY HOLY HOLY

So I say again, brothers and sisters,
can we jam?

SO I SAY AGAIN, BROTHERS AND SISTERS,
CAN WE JAM?

SO I SAY AGAIN, BROTHERS AND SISTERS,
CAN WE JAM?

So I say again,
brothers and sisters,

can we jam?

Looking meticulously on a river scene of beautiful Wednesday afternoons with all of life’s luxury
Out the window is a tree bent and gnarled with visible age twice my own
The perfect metaphor of life merely eking by, postured against infinity
As another, warped by the waves and turned to termed drift wood, also catches my eye for its existential merit
As it’s all been said before perspective is our only peculiarity
At the point, or lack there of, between all and nothing
Our minds spontaneous self-revelation is miracle enough for any, god fearing be ******  
As over grown and lush as the under-leaves have become it seems like a waste to cut them out now so we might as well pump them full of fertilizers and hope for the second coming
Of knowledge and growth that began in the stone age bottle necking and splurged on drugs and money during the industrial revolution.
While trying to remember the ugliest parts that were and always will be me
Lets get free, really really free

Poetry may not do it justice.

Their brown feathered heads bob,
their feet dig, clumps, grab and rob,
clods and sods, while tearing Earth.

Their heads twist downward and eyes
peer at what was unearthed and prized.

They were scratching out a living, peck
eking out an existence, even though peck,
they were paid in chicken feed, peck, peck.

They were the chickens of the loafing shed!

He worked with glass then later in front of the glory hole,
several hours a day and many, many years of hours total
over two and a half decades, annealing like his glass.

He pulled the sweetness from each piece with furnace fire, air and motion
staying level-headed while the raw molten ocean gathered on the honey dipper
of super-heated soft and borosilica masses were built from inside out, from
the crucible of the masters imagination.

Each year, all glass masterpieces all,
but three it averaged
would not make it to the market, fall or
fractured, shattered,
not a thing to be discouraged.

Cooling, heating a tricky thing,
Light blue pieces in the pan disassembled by natural forces,

so unlike their dreams, which have become tangible,
at 1100 degrees C, just don't touch the beauty, quite yet

this is the glass blowing reality at loafing shed

drenched
and slapped on the solid
hunch of a man
colors eking out
of each pore
spilling in crooked
zig zag lines
along his  
contours

the sun will
evaporate my stain

the wind will push me off this edge

right back down
on the solid
hunch of a man
colors eking out

Did I happen yesterday?
Did I see the sun?

Did I happen yesterday?
Where can I find a nook
To tell you what I stole?
Did I happen yesterday?

Intoxicating run
Purpled ink flowing free
Instead of eking blood

When shall we say the things we know?
When do you let me in?
Did I happen yesterday?
Is telling life a sin?

I came to You carrying a bowl:
white clay set with tourmaline
and green beryl like the sea
precious  
                   simple
                                 sacred.

A silvery glaze you poured
over cracks in the clay--
mistakes I have made
perfecting
                    illuminating
                ­                             scars.

Swirling in this vessel,
as I stumble toward your hall,
is a liquid dark, seething:
fire and ink
filth and steaming sludge
and something
                                                       ­           slithers
                                           ­                                     just below the surface

living pollution eking out its existence in a putrid potion.


I can hardly lift it anymore.
with weakening arms I collapse,
but strive to hold the basin yet
my hands crushed beneath its weight.

With a shattered voice I call to You
You
who crafted the bowl:
                                                                     Mercy! mercy...

Desperate for rescue
before the evil lurking within
drags itself out to consume.


                                                      ­                                            *What You made
                                                            ­                                                 I poisoned,
                                                       ­                            And what in life You gave
                                                            ­                                    I filled with death.
                                                          ­                                       Empty the vessel
                                                                ­                        and unmake the beast.
                                                          ­                                     Renew and restore,
                                                        ­                                              Maker of All.

I remember days of struggle
eking by by working my ***
off in some fact'ry and going
ten more bucks in debt every
month before the oilmen
declared war on humanity
and the white MAN could not
take this **** Any more so he
quit and 50 million illegals
that were here against the law
were given citizen-ships and
allowed to stay because they
wanted to work (for less than
anyone else would)

as we were all tricked into
supporting our enemies in war

by the american media because
they were told to do so

such nice t.v. scumb-bags
always doing what they are told

the world fits most easily in rain between
the close thighs of light
eking just slenderly

one ephemeral rill of ****
penetrating
to eagerly spill
dawn.

                 (the though world
                   in rain fits just
                   in just the loose tenseness
                   of muscle unbounding
                   from bone, wide
                   )with
                    a sliver
                                of
                            neat

                     ssenlriG

you might think it discriminatory,
but i just don't understand trans-gender,
or meta-gender, or para-gender or
ortho-gender... there, the four winds...
but as a man i couldn't imagine
putting all that effort into adorning
myself like a woman, to look prettier...
an article about the 1971 music scene:
'acts were building careers, not eking
them out; they all looked fabulous without
help from make-up artists and stylists:
the elegantly wasted look, now expensively
emulated in fashion spread, could be
achieved by simple neglect.'
it's a discrimination from the stand-point
of: well... i'm not joining this St. Thomas Parade;
and i guess that's the reason for much
of Islam's hostility, it brewed up and boiled
in european women somehow...
Samantha said: 'what's happening?!
why aren't we dating, going to restaurants,
why is he using my make-up?!'
Abdul said: 'honey, bomb bomb bomb boom!'
Ahmed said: 'here's our opportunity to groom
                  the youngest disgruntled & confused!'
well it worked... but i still kinda
wished she / "she" / hmm made it into the final
of that karaoke show.

"What happened to her?"
It's better if you Don't. Ask.
See she wears Depression on her face,
In bloodshot eyes and dark circles,
In early age lines and pale cheeks,
In bitten, chapped lips.
You want to ask, "what happened to her?"
But it's better if you don't look too closely,
Or the spider-web cracks across her porcelain mask
Will break
You can already see the black smoke eking through
Joined to the shadowy frame of the one who walks beside her
Caressing her filigree skin and flicking a lighter.
She says, "I want someone to take the pain,
**** it, smoke it, love it, beat it, praise it, blaze it, lemon-glaze it,
Kiss it, kick it, shoot it, carve it, wear it, taste it, light it on fire."
But all we ever say is "you're looking so much better now"
So much better now.
Like a marionette in a little side show, colorful, with ribbons.
A broken smile, and sad, sad eyes.
So beautifully tragic, it must all be for show.
Though the silver she draws with, its ink a bright red,
Is more telling than any lie she has fed
Fed on, cried on, choked on, drowned with, like a gluttonous pig.
So what happened to her? And the life she once led?
Those honeyed dreams turned to mutinous greys in her head?
It's better if you turn away and smile,
And pretend your heart inside isn't as dead,
She only wears the pain most hold inside, swallowing a painful life from a flask sewn into the flesh of her hip,
It's better if you didn't ask.

Forcing passers by

Curious for peep stand,

Swelling a throng

By every square

Or a roadside

Using his right leg

A nimble right hand

With the other holding

The artefact items hard

A hand-less man

Makes attractive tables

and stools

Hammering nails

and cutting woods

The way the task demand,

A task many normal people

imagine  to handle hard.


Those who appreciate

his talent

Throws coins—

A tip for his pocket,

While some buy

The artefact items

He puts up for market.


Aside from eking out

a leaving

He hits home

The psychological dome

“Disability is not inability!”


In a similar case

An art mentor

And an apprentice

Draw many a

wonderful picture

With his mouth

the latter

In a manner

Attention that capture

Hitting home “Some qualities

If deprived by mother nature

Other qualities man could nurture!”

As she lies, comfortable, ******* up, queerly quaking, impaled on his much larger joy
Moist sugar, eking steadily outwards
Moist salt pumping eagerly in
Part of him missing
Part of her gained
As her hands rip into the spaces on the back skin of this treacherous boy
She is happy

Tense and loosened by their shared ******
Ripping Ripping

Ripping fingers enter into the wetness of each eye, I
Rip myself left from right
Rip myself logic from left
Pounding flesh into stone, slow
Steady pounding, rhythmic
So rigid the hot blood in this chest
Then falling, failing, flopped-flaccid
Into a pile of folding skin, nothing within
Cut clean off this wretched mere mortal ****
She is happy

The lier will lie with him no more no more with me
Death is not destructive enough for thee
For I am the selfless
I am in love.

Oh no. It used to be here somewhere. I swear it, I’ve no reason to lie.
"Here" in some abstract sense, though. Not "here" like "I can pick it up with my hand."
Here in a way I could just feel it eking out a path around my neck
working its way, all at the same time, down the spine
and up across the skull
to my ear

I think, maybe, you took it with you when you left my house some weeks ago
Not to be cruel, or coy, or potent. Just because that’s the way these things work
Just, I got a little too used to it. Thought maybe it could be my own
But its yours, and it comes and goes along with you
You need it. I miss it.
Your sweet breath.

There IS nobody to ask, you say,
when we turn our stomachached motor
up another wavy lane, temporarily
rest it as we squint at the AA Big Easy
Read Britain 2022, locate the B3220
and realise we’re in another
splodge of a town, homes in a hodgepodge,
the obligatory church. A mistake, we know now,
to leave late in the day, another hour ‘till
The Hole in the Wall where they’ll wait,
no doubt sigh, waste time spinning
the beermats as a gaggle of rowdy
just past-the-post teens blot the night
with the guzzling of spirits, their hangovers
like belches of fog come lun - Satnav wasn’t
on the blink, but it is. Now look, I say,
calmly because tempers can boil over
matters so trivial, if we take the A3124,
wriggle right at Whiddon Down
to the A30, breeze by Exeter, a doddle
down to the coast, we’ll make it by nine.
You know how impatient they are. Ten
minutes won’t hurt, the vehicle grumbling
into action, tired and miffed with our
wonky deviation. It’s then, eking back
the way we came, an image forms - a bronzed,
slippery chalice named Stella, flat cap
of foam on the rim of extinction.

I stand ***** , having corrected my errors
Turned my misfortunes to fortunes of wisdom
Nobody is perfect, but it feels perfect when things come together as people
With my backbone straight, I have a better view of the future ( not to say the present is better than the past)
Positive anticipation has made an optimistic out of me ( in all spheres of life. Mentally, Metaphysically, Spiritually)
The content of the matter should be the angle of perspective (or is it the other way round?)
Fed by faith, drunk by belief
I ******* progressive actions, eking out
As things happen by being done
I still have my fair share of mistakes up my sleeve, as that's how we learn (but not the same sleeve I wear my heart )
Having the confidence to face the Creator, the world and it's people , makes all the difference
I may not be different but I'm indifference

crawling into the darkness of unknown
screaming at the top of my voice
hearing only the sigh of pain and despair
holding on to the past that no longer exist
my body eking with the odor of fear
hoping for just a shed of light to appear