Part One
Nascent Craving

The insular heart unsealed; pearled eyes
Breach parapets of stone— periled shield,
The sweetest ****—
A threatening wonder and irrefragable synergy,
Nervous routes of cognition  
In this nascent, amorous craving.
Locked and abased,
Dissonance lends pathos — euphoric and onerous,
Disconsolate cries curb sublimation,
The regnant bleed diffusing — fervid lust
Fondled, tactile surfaces in throbbing anticipation.

Sullen, aft a veil of laughter,
Visceral aftermath, out of
The ardent ash,
Burns a thirst;
Insuperable numbness and ache.
Efflorescent intimacy,
Table for two
Enraptured in new alliance,
Élan vital (psyche);
Urgent dialect petitions
Equivocation, jocularity blending
Provocation with indecision,
Noted lilt of descending inhibition.

Adrift, the incessant Now;
As occasion inexorably diminished;
Resonant simpatico tending,
Numinous amity;
Heard conversant, cognitive idioms—
Lassitude, time-eaten pangs of the unhinged heart,
Wounds axiomatic,
In disquieting synergy,
Nibbling, the circumference—
Misery’s permeating truth;
None immune, all trundle incongruously past,
Facing intrepid savages.

Licitly felt, reverberations of Amor
Whence the heart behaves;
Measured cadence, pulse elevating—
Treasured lover, contemplative muse;
Undulating clasp, inflated bone of absence;
Incarnation — a woman,
Beyond prosaic;
Ineffable adoration pours in certitudes of verse,
Elenita, enclothed —virtue unvarnished;
Reservoir intrinsic, poised advocate of the innocent:
The crooked lines of insolence,
Brazen culture of neglected youth.
Perceptive blue stare, sensitized tears—
Plaintively, evincing her injustice ago.

Part Two
Tendered Senses

Siren silence, eruptive blush, ampler between phrases
In dulcet tones — stirring discourse;
Foments rebellion, the strife beneath— his ****,
Out of its vast reserve,
Penetrate the narrowed ambit, vaguely announced.
Groping hands, migrating the sensual member
Stern faces grimacing— mirror in abrasion,
Under the blind surf of consent;
Burrowing ambiguity, emerging torsion,
Plunge, enlisted and content in the sea;
Subsumed in the nonverbal cue,
Persuasion’s plea,
Quelled in the post cerebral assent.

Piercing eyes parallel crystalline waters of Lake Tahoe.

An untouched portion of his awareness remains aloof,
Palpable in the subsequential quiet,
Obsequious and febrile, they sinned on sofas;
Peregrine predilections quenched and viscid—
Serenely requited, the room breathes her presence,
Limp, figures *******, mantled in adolescent torpor.

Erudition in bloom, trust undoubted,
Illuminating, satiating; tempest calm—
Under canvas
Terrain soaked and sodden,
Postliminary — rains of invalidation.
Allowance and permission
Recalibrate, salivate, shortly only—
Initiate, obliged consecration, appraising
Curvatures of the spine,
Stuns him obeisant, her femenine pulchritude,
Propinquity inciting vigor,
Emergent allure, the updriven
Tower of wood sprung from the blanket.

Suffused in ether, purring streams of remembrance
Vaginal honeyed dew, sung into
Orchids, remnants of remember;
Drenched down the cynosure of devotion;
Succulent view, diaphanous pantied bottom;
Halcyon mist, saporous wine — compliance of the will,
Freed fires wander,
Pliable rind, twin plums dripping,
Abject confession, dispatching doubt
In tendered senses,
Pivotal tree, lavender Jacaranda holds the key,
Unfurled, cindered vulnerability.

Half-denuded skin invites confessional savor
Acutely bubbled rear, fleshly furnished denim;
Sultry visit, San Ramon Valley in the fall,
Strewed limbs splendid, flowing filmy;
Imagination yields—
Bursting silk congealed
Across deft thighs, ambrosial thong draping ankles,
Grazing ascension, the curvaceous trajectory
Nose inflamed with fragrance,
Inhaling, climb of acquiescence,
The ****** weal, amid the globed fruit,
Focal intention — ploughed lance thrusting,
Absconding, the ancillary perfume of essence.

Perceiving avid validation,
Swimmingly, amid the monstrous gaze.
  
Humid skies simper dank, set swell the incense of Eros,
Surge of poetry engorged
The flame levened shaft,
Nimble ******* flounce, spill the harboring mouth;
Moist hands merging, unfettered,
Weave in supplication,
Vicinity voicing, enmeshed diversion;
Supple and spherical behind
Posterior arch, milky-skin against the lip—
Ripeness jostling their complacency;
Lapped the mooring, ridden decisively;
Recapitulating— spumed forth, bellied over hips warmth.
Abandon the dirge of self-pity
Late under ego’s trance.
  
Part Three
Present Tenses

Tempting trespass across sacred gardens,
Flowering, scandal set luminous: attachment—
Consensual, their corresponsive fear;
Protean manifestations— evocative, perpetual
Unutterable contention in a fictive resolve,
Deliberating the merits of their widely disparate tastes in coffee,
Amorously touring wine, let’s drowse through the gnarled vine.
Sundry deficiencies pale, once contrasted;
The beatific vision—
Material substance unaccompanied,
Imperceptible, tear-streamed cheeks in synch,
Ventral kiss, peak of carnal perfection,
Reminiscence— flesh violent with Love.

Fiction knew to meander the innominate rift,
A tincture of irony soften misdeeds
Immense as the sea.
Insolvent beast stippled with sapience—
Unmasked, the fabric of delusion;
Dependence smothering the disciplined heart
Resentment put up for release.

Waste of residual years
Fate’s apportion, scars bleakly observed;
Chastened by heartache, engulfing fervor
Too faint to recapture.
Vague glimpses dry—
Hypervigilant his defenses,
Veritable suspensions, embers lit linger;
Slender walls of solidity, the horizoned self,
Faith and reason in concert — stone levels of elucidation.

Fractured bones of distance, emanate a rigid salience,
Another ponderous night of absence—
Lingering, cauldron of dearth as indifference ushers,
The quotidian coil of contrition.
Tearful pallor, sequestered —ciphering time and solitude;
The unkissed mouth, his restive brow;
Suspend in the approximate span.
                      
After Lucid alliterations are spoken
Devoid of her face, his lover’s nudge—
The man nurtures his hurt.
Anxious as seldom unscarred,  
Venus’s susurrations,
In present tenses,
Kissed by her serenades of integration—
Notwithstanding metaphysic intrusion,
No chain stays unbroken,
Postponed drifts of deferment left unspoken,
Reverberations of amor.

© 2013 W. S. Warner

grip, bang, flash flood rains
i'm soaking wet electric
my hardware gets fried each and every time
you grab my face
metal and flesh, tangled hair, enmeshed
you worship at my altar,
on your knees, so gentle, discreet
head bowed in prayer to the comfort u find there
this moment’s fully submerged
waiting for the water to break so u can breathe
sound returns; the air cuts clean
back to crashing waters
a separate you and me~

I want to make the world a better place
but
Poverty is a disease on its own
the prerequisite to depression
U
S
A
only trying to stay
stay rich
and sway
sway money in front of those who are just out of its reach
and then they preach
“If we give handouts they wont know how to work and they will wait for us to do everything for them. it’s not our fault they ****** up their life, theirs.”
it’s their fault
nineteen year old mother
cares for 3 week old baby
“cut loose” for missing two nights on the street corner because she couldn’t handle selling her body when
when years from now
her daughter will call her mommy
and her **** will call her sloppy
and she
will look scrawny
and now as she puts 3 week old baby to sleep in her
cardboard box crib
and think to herself
“this is my fault, I couldn’t find any other work. So I had to sell her mother to nothing more than an object.”
well now that cardboard crib kid is
eighteen
and fresh out of school
fresh on the streets
fresh flesh enmeshed
tangled in the rich mans net
starting the cycle over again because
at eighteen
on her own
she cant afford college
at eighteen
on her own
even if she has the knowledge
at eighteen
living in the streets
at eighteen
pregnant
--------
Mommy wasn’t there when she took teenage boy in the ally for the first time
taught it was okay because they needed money
and she knew no better way
baby had nothing to say
baby just needed the pay
now there is no way
she now is her mother
and baby is now inside her
and poverty has tied her
and the government denied her
mother never to guide her
and as she lied down her her bed all she could think of is
maybe if I wasn’t so poor
the government might care about me
-------
future baby
cradled in the mind of loving mother
regretful for choice of father
hoping
“maybe this will all go away
maybe if I pray
I wont live another day”
Poverty a disease on its own
the prerequisite to depression
because
U
S
A
is the only country who has the
power
freedom and ability to change the poverty rates and chooses
to only offer jobs to those who own a house
instead of those who need them
ignored by those who could help
because they are the ones who need it
poverty is a disease
and you better believe it runs in the family
poverty begets poverty
believe me
I’m not suggesting communism
but when a man can have a ninety dollar glass of wine
but that eighteen year old can’t even afford to buy something to eat
Change is needed
people getting cheated
don’t tell me there is freedom
when I see how the poor are treated
not eating
they are human
and we pass by and ignore them like animals
tangible
pass by graves
candles
people killed by a government disease
leaving parents absent
children abandoned
and don’t tell me
there is nothing we can do
because seeing men live in 100 million dollar mansions
when someone out there
eighteen years old
is left with no more chances
chances are this wont change anything
but to stand by
and allow people to die
is ******
and poverty
is genocide
we can’t hide
the inequality
or when given the affordable health care policy
call it comedy
honestly
its time for an apology
and to stop the hypocrisy
because poverty is commonly
in large quantities
and logically
poverty shouldn’t be an unborn child’s prophecy
just because their a impoverished mothers progeny
doesn’t mean their life couldn’t be quality
so pardon me
while I speak audibly
when I say the government has no monopoly
on poverty

Dark terrorism creeping
Across the world in flood
Lacerating peace of  mind
And soaking us in blood,
Indiscriminately mauling
Targets they perceive
Will further their ambition
Of global dominance and greed.

A mother tears her bodice,
Her moans, a hollow sound,
Her family caste about her
Shredded by a mortar round.
Little children in the playground
Mothers shopping in the mall,
Mullah’s kneeling, praying in the mosque
A car bomb kills them all.

How’s it hanging Tony Blair,
Have you enjoyed your breakfast yet?
Felt inclined to visit far Kashmir
In your speedy, private jet?
It’s murderous in Kashmir
And has been for a while
For, still, India and Pakistan
Throw lethal bullets, bombs and bile.

And Beruit is as dangerous
As the Lebanon can be,
Iran is building maelstrom
Feared by Jews eternally.
The I.R.A. Still loathe the Brits
Koreans hate the ****
The Russians distrust everybody
(Especially Chechun rats.)

El Queada is stateless
They attack across the board
From Washington to New York
To Indonesia’s tropic shore.
America’s a fortress
But still fighting foreign wars
Whilst China sits inscrutably
Nursing Tibet’s cuts and sores.
Islamic fundamentalists
Throw Jihad to Israel
And Israel tears at Hammas
Did they steal the Holy Grail?

The beauty of a little girl
Her skin as smooth as silk,
Expression in those calm brown eyes
Is as innocent as milk.
Because she lived in Gaza
Her tomorrows are depraved
By an A.K.47 shell
That despatched her to her grave.

Who are the good guys?
Who are the bad?
What part of this unholy mess
Is anything but mad?
All invoke the righteous stance
God is on our side!
Each engage this hideous dance
And foreign God’s deride.

Ripping, skinning, blasting, killing
Terrorists do lurk,
Spreading fear across the globe
Intentionally, is their work.
Taking citizen’s by the throat
And slashing with a blade
To leave their mark indelibly
On countless corpses laid.

Dogma, ideology
The mantra is obscene
Because the minions who perform these tasks
Are usually quite clean,
Their mentors are the instigators
Enmeshed within the code
Of obsession, faith and bigotry,
All adhere to this dark road.
Obsessed with racial hatred,
Obsessed by loathing greed,
Obsession ruled by God alone
Jihad, Fatwah decreed!

Pray tell me noble man of prayer
Where is your God in this?
Pray tell me any one out there
HOW DOES THAT GOD EXIST?

Marshalg
@theGate
Mangere Bridge
6th March 2009

The  spotlight  is  on the  broken  coastline
porous - like  archers  spilling arrows
into  the vanquished hinterland.
In the ancient West  Mercia
wooden bridges collapse
uproar, as the King's regiments
long disbanded , ghosts
into fading memory.
Our  defenders, our  loyal subjects
enmeshed into the  wider  fear
our  citadels breached,
and where  is  the  valour
the self reliance of  our  septic isle?

I only know
That if you failed to ascend
Into a position of power,
It could only be because of one reason and one reason alone—
Because you deliberately chose not to assert yourself
into the light,
and chaos.

To become a factor in the whirlwind,
A claw that stokes in the quicksand.
Struggling to live
as something that mattered.
To become more than you.

A futile battle enmeshed
Overpowering emotions struggle to stay afloat
Heaving a deep breath I sink in
Isolated in my despair
Sliced through bone and marrow
Pain wrenches my soul, vice in its hold

A fragrance wafts in
Electrifying my soul
Reverberating memories explode
Bursting to surface
Tender moments, the story of a heaped up soul

In every cell of my being I feel you
Emanating exuding your deep truth
Your touch like butterflies
Transcendental your love
Rewinding reel by reel
The story of an unsaid love

I see you close, though I bear you not
My heart lost inside your soul
Irreplaceable the magic
Weaved by those deep emerald embers
Wants each moment to unfold

I ease back and surrender once again
To the assurance of this bliss
Entrenched deeply in this moment
Serenity shrouds a warm blanket
Intense emotions lay calm, spent
My soul in glorious serenity elevates
You are undeniably a part of me
My paragon, my serenity
Issue forth bright light, vibrant colors
Adorn the deep dark night sky
Your love a painting a million hues
Panoramic and divine.

I LOVE YOU....

For you sweetheart I would....

...writhe in the ecstasy of the tragic
or behave violently,
enmeshed in ******,
heroic havoc

I would stalk the thing that hurt you and stab-it.
or quickly tie it up and drag it,
as I whisper as a crazed maverick ; click, click, son!
and swallow back the drip, drip, umm....
of the vial of acid...….as I sip, sip, yum-
Facing the truth of the mirror I find myself presently hung

For you sweetheart....!
I would sacrifice the self
relegate my identity to the bottom shelf

I would Focus on  opposites...
and pervert the lost truth of buddhists; preaching and installing the sinful cysts...

of consumerism & material wealth, I hope you get the gist.
I would Climb to the monastery & maliciously yell
“Come on you drunk monk Its for your helllth!”

Doing what you always wanted
by changing the state of truth
from overwhelming presence
...to an unseen, veiled stealth

for you I would jump out of the highest helicopter sans parachute
!ha! writing and dying, but for you,  its such a hoot

For you Sweet love,
I would divide by zero,
March up to physics and blackholes say “hey F-yourself” unceremoniously killing the hero
remembering so vividly
how we intoxicatedly emptied oil on the baby-seals relaxing on the soil of the now empty sea shelf

but for you oh dear, I would empty myself of fear
and empathize with a jellyfish
GAH!  
I hate Jellyfish.

Please Imagine sweet- love,
how we would get married,
and go through all the steps to have a sweet- baby
and in the birthing room while you’re extra weary,
I would ask the simple question to hold and carry
this special
special
little baby

I would look you in the eyes, smile widely and drop it
While you pleaded, choked eyes pleading for some God to stop it

But thats a little extreme so lets take time and rewind the scene
So that you wouldn’t think of little ol’ loving ego me as being so especially mean

Then, amidst candles start smoothly & sweeten the deal with cannibalistic clipart
Preparing to Dine on the sweet meal of a sweetheart’s sweet heart.

For you I would
I would **** a man and smoke salvia at his funeral
Then desperately plead my case,  
so surreal while I Appeal deliriously and unable
to the divine
or the courtroom of an esoteric, alien race

Oh love.
I would bury myself in venomous spiders
submit myself to mysterious haitian-zombie rituals
To keep you pure and far from pitiful
I would Self-immolate to distance you from pain and the sinful

Then
I would put the world to sleep
so that they won’t stir, wake,
or open their eyes to peep
the pain of the sun,
burning the Sea-t
of their corneas
with its brilliant and all-encompassing,
luminous heat



Oh for you bella, I would put down three 1/5ths of law and turn the key
Oh beautiful, now the mothers against drunk driving are sooo MADD at me
Because for YOU
I Crashed into their headquarters traveling erratically and so haphazardly

For you I would do everything
not just anything
but
everything.

I would chill with monks that do all the ****** up things
Go to a girls house, burn the family, burn the home
have ******* with the survivor hopefully alone
and afterwards take a long time to gnaw viciously through my bones.

for you I would discuss that maybe this voice Isn’t fit for the world
So i just wink out of existence
to protect everything from my impact, characterized as it is, so spun and twirled

For you sweetheart, I would even let this poem go unwritten.
Just so the world would not be smitten
With the space between the righteous and the wrong
the difference, is what we feel,
For you truth I write this song.

Ostensibly and indefinitely, I would infinitely
remember thee
and it all planning to never do it again.
...because my Circuitry is charged with the pain to amend me.

For your own amusement
I would help possibility incarnate
fulfill itself A-moral and without hate
the good the bad and the ugly because …..remember
When it comes to poetic possibility  
The U-and-I-verse doesn’t discriminate

I would free the slaves from freedom
I would emulate pagans and heathens
I’ll be all you don’t need when you seek to amend the world of men

For you sweetheart I would publish this as a children’s night time book

Once wars were fought with sticks and stones
to flog the flesh and batter bones
and conquer lands, defending thrones -
though gods provoke, not one atones.

The multitude (by hordes beset
with battle-ax or bayonet)
braved blades, dyed red and dripping wet -
the stains were wiped with no regret.

When raining blood, the teardrops spill,
enough to drown the daffodil
that withers in the mourning chill -
who was it said 'thou shalt not ****'?

The mad machine's now mechanized,
torment and torture legalized,
blind barbarism globalized
and wrath of demons sanitized.

Each rival's right (whichever side)
committing holy homicide
in names of gods diversified -
like Cain and Abel fratricide.

Above, a Drone that terrifies -
a button's pushed, a missile flies
to rip apart, to vaporize
(defending life, they fantasize).

Dismembered victims everywhere,
most, non-combatants, unaware -
a lone survivor, solitaire,
unfolding hands, too late for prayer.

Beneath the dust, a baby lies
with mouth agape, with bleeding eyes,
arrayed in death that money buys -
though warriors watch, none empathize.


The media's impervious -
in truth they're ever devious
for fear that reason's dangerous,
find every question treasonous.

Through eyes lit up like rosy sores,
embedded scribes report on wars
with tales to line the cuspidors -
the Fourth Estate? A herd of ******.

To paint the slaughter civilized,
objective news is sodomized -
when foreign streets smoke, pulverized,
the body counts are minimized.


Big Berthas boomed in days of yore
but now the tanks spit spikes of Thor
and mortar shells like raindrops pour
upon the lands of Nevermore.

The grumble of a hand grenade
is drowned in claps of cannonade -
assorted charnel chunks lie flayed
in battlefields where kids once played.

Somewhere a ******'s bullet flies,
somewhere a voiceless victim dies,
somewhere a famished orphan cries
while weapons warble lullabies.

The bunker busters burst the sides
of dwellings where mankind resides
and innocence in darkness hides -
the die is cast, but who decides?

Use cluster bombs and barrels too,
(crude critters in the wartime zoo),
to shred more souls than hitherto -
choose death en masse, avoid the queue!

The leaders lead (twelve steps behind),
enmeshed in intrigues, well enshrined -
yes, powers, business (so entwined)
pull twisted threads, ensnare mankind.


The mercenaries hack and maim
(god's creatures crippled, morally lame),
do beastly things that none will name -
well-paid for such, they feel no shame.

The ****** bombs and phosphorus
and ghastly weapons gaseous
are scattered widely, bounteous -
behold the desert wilderness!

Yes, Agent Orange burns slow and calm,
may leave behind a blazing palm
(or better yet, a molten mom
inside a hut)  in Vietnam.

And phosphorous… its flame so white,
exploding, falling through the night,
commemorates the Sacred Rite -
and babes in arms, thus blessed, ignite.

Cast chlorine, sarin or VX…
a lethal dose (or side effects
like blistered lungs) will serve to vex -
but death in war? No one objects…


Constructing A-bombs's arduous -
uranium, depleted thus,
can trash a tank with little fuss,
cause natal cankers, cancerous.

But doomsday warheads (dropped or thrown),
ignited, leave the sun outshone -
beneath a mass of melted stone
lies powdered ash, once flesh and bone.

When atoms split in bombs debased,
vast cities smolder, laid to waste,
a million sinless souls erased -
perhaps, one day, all life effaced.


You close your eyes but can't ignore
that body parts and bags of gore
are bursting through golgotha's door,
and strewn beyond the ocean's roar
like rotting fish that wash ashore.

Why can't we stop and end all war…


POSTSCRIPT
Regard the dreary death Arcade
of Armaments (a fruitful trade)
and tally up the millions made
by ghouls that raise a colonnade
of miles of missiles, weapons-grade,
in Armageddon's crazed parade,
and hide behind a masquerade
of lollypops and lemonade
while planning new an escapade
for sending armies to invade
and loot far oil lands, unafraid
of misery and grief parlayed
until our final days cascade
into a hell no more delayed
by happenstance or luck outplayed
that leaves society decayed,
bombarded with a fusillade
of lies upheld and truth betrayed
by pundits in the shifting shade,
and crises of the world clichéd
as sung in solemn serenade
by journalistic hacks that preyed
on wide-eyed folk in sham charade
that lulls to sleep with eyelids weighed
by tiny tears that disobeyed
to stay behind the barricade
and bathe the modern-day crusade
of war in cheers and accolade.

The bottom line? Just profits paid
for deadly sins that god forbade…

All conflicts are resolved via coercion, implied or applied,
of the dominant party over the denied (Niebuhr).
Not news at the 2nd St. jail. But the Constitution
provides for moderation, persuasion and elections
as way stations, stopgaps, safe havens before the decision's taken
to go to war. Civil war, daily low intensity warfare is unavoidable
      when
chambers of commerce and large corporations wrestle naked
and who are the 1% controlling 25% of the wealth, name names,
hold a french revolution over it. This space I write from's
safe, comfortable but what about a Taco Bell cashier with 4 kids x 3
      men
who came and went when they found how human her bleeding and
      complaining was, how voluble, not faked.

This obtains when you consider Niebuhr: "That the limitations of the human imagination, the easy subservience of reason to prejudice and passion, and the consequent persistence of irrational egoism, particularly in group behavior, make social conflict an inevitability in human history, probably to its very end." (emphasis mine)

                         respiratory tract infection, hunger pains

Popper drops by: "Their story that democracy is not to last forever is as true, and as little to the point, as the assertion that human reason is not to last forever, since only democracy provides an institutional framework that permits reform without violence, and so the use of reason in political matters. It is clear that this attitude must lead to a rejection of the applicability of science or of reason to the problems of social life - and ultimately to a doctrine of power, of ******* and submission."

                                           split lip, fever blister

Cynical nihilist Niebuhr: "Educators who emphasize the pliability of human nature, social and psychological scientists who dream of 'socializing' man and religious idealists who strive to increase the sense of moral responsibility, can serve a very useful function in society in humanizing individuals within an established social system and in purging the relations of individuals of as much egoism as possible. In dealing with the problems and necessities of radical social change they are almost invariably confusing in their counsels because they are not conscious of the limitations in human nature which finally frustrate their efforts. So persistent are the moralistic illusions about politics in the middle-class world, that any emphasis upon the second point will probably impress the average reader as unduly cynical. In America our contemporary culture is still pretty firmly enmeshed in the illusions and sentimentalities of the Age of Reason."

                                            terror, runny nose

An apoplectic Popper: "And being a typical historicist, he accepts the judgment of history as a moral one; for [Heraclitus] holds that the outcome of war is always just: 'War is the father and king of all things. It proves some to be gods and others to be mere men, turning these into slaves and the former into masters . . . One must know that war is universal, and that justice -- the lawsuit -- is strife, and that all things develop through strife and by necessity.'"

                                 lonely physics, national purpose

Poppa Popper proceeds: "Sweeping historical prophecies are entirely beyond the scope of scientific method. The future depends on ourselves, and we do not depend on any historical necessity. This prophetic wisdom is harmful, the metaphysics of history impede the application of the piecemeal methods of science to the problems of social reform. We may become the makers of our fate when we have ceased to pose as its prophets."

                                    fatal heart attack, fatty acids

Reinhold, while drinking orange juice: "Conflict is inevitable, and in this conflict power must be challenged by power. Since political conflict, at least in times when controversies have not reached the point of crisis, is carried on by the threat, rather than the actual use, of force, it is always easy for the casual or superficial observer to overestimate the moral and rational factors, and to remain oblivious to the covert types of coercion and force which are used in the conflict."

                                          alphabugs, antibiotics

Doc Wheeler runs the 2nd St. jail keeping the High School Dropout
      Prevention Program
breathing. The Sheriff's Dept. provides guards, a metal detector, one
      man with a gun (encased),
door buzzer (in out), sign in sheet, breakfast and lunch. None too
      clean, not too tidy.

Niebuhr goes nuts: "All social cooperation on a larger scale than the most intimate social group requires a measure of coercion. While no state can maintain its unity purely by coercion neither can it preserve itself without coercion. The inability of human beings to transcend their own interests sufficiently to envisage the interests of their fellow men as clearly as they do their own makes force an inevitable part of the process of social cohesion."

                                 3 hots and a cot, circle with a dot

Popper replies: "Instead of aiming and finding what a thing 'really' is, and defining its 'true nature,' science aims at describing how a thing behaves in various circumstances and especially whether there are any regularities in its behavior. It sees in our language, and especially in those of its rules which distinguish properly constructed sentences and inferences from a mere heap of words, the great instrument of scientific description, not as names of essences. To those philosophers who tell him that before having answered the 'what is' question he cannot hope to give an exact answer to any of the 'how' questions, the scientist will reply, if at all, by pointing out that he prefers that modest degree of exactness which he can achieve by his methods to the pretentious muddle which they have achieved by theirs."

            "when making an axe handle, the pattern is not far off"

Niebuhr nods: "The problem which society faces is clearly one of reducing force by increasing the factors which make for a moral and rational adjustment of life to life; of bringing such force as is still necessary under responsibility of the whole of society; of destroying the kind of power which cannot be made socially responsible; and of bringing forces of moral self-restraint to bear upon types of power which can never be brought completely under social control."

       Popper and Niebuhr were married yesterday at the 2nd St. jail
                      under the federal Freedom of Marriage Act

Ushered into the breathable
Strung on undefinable threads,
Life's atmospheric interlacing;
A weaving, hidden to opaque sight

Subtle ties, loosen and relax,
Chest enmeshed entirely,
Titillating summations of Earth's enthusiasm
Entwine in activities of the lungs and heart

Pumping action, energy, growth,
Air feeds fire, and power, and blood,
Burning from the inside, animated,
Billions of cellular suns, throbbing

Light in the garden of the body,
Alive with murmurs, and hums
Of love, all of time, and space,
Moved to produce this oscillation

Ecstatic the body expands in swells,
Ecstatic the body contracts in swells,
Ecstatic are the waves exchanging,
Ecstatic is the surge of breath

S* is for Seduction, a vast verb saved for flesh,
But in her outer-worldly tune, my thoughts become enmeshed;
Like at the great Salamis, where strength sought strike the feeble,
Seduction marked our birth, their fall—an end without a sequel.

L heralds in some fifty lads, of whom mere five would pass,
Bugsy, Daphne, Sylvester, and Tazzy, above their peers compassed.
The tests were long, the trials were tough, from nothing we had fostered
A team of lucky, noble lads to fight these migrant monstærs.

A is the assault, outnumbered and outclassed,
Our heroes boldly braved their foes until their stalwart last.
Despite their lead by tyrants, such Nawt of Hispaniola,
Our foes were forced unto retreat, costing us Lady Lola.

M is for the ones who’ve fallen, for them mourn reminiscence,
For those who proudly placed their names for our petty subsistence.
The fight is done, the beasts beat back, denied all loot and hoarding,
And so a statue is *****: Honorum Mikael Iordan!

Echo, cricket,
Thump, stump.
The very loud things
Galloping through the silence.
The creaking of stairs like the breaking of bones
That snapped tin cap,
Clinging onto the prophesied labor of your last breath,
Oscillating through your liquefied ontology.
Ethanol overflown and embodied.

Cricket cricket,
The underlying intrinsic.
The empty tone of a distant voice.
The spaces of letters and words so magnified
So wide,
Expanding like an unstoppable void.
Oh my,
Here it comes,
Shadowed by your hissing tongue.
You are glittered,
Pinnacle bitter.
Cloaked in pure white.
Not a thread of disguise.
Twinkle, twinkle,
Buggy, rugged eye.
Those razor touched lines,
Translucent and caressed,
Reminiscent and enmeshed,
Like faded pale stripes,
Hugging the armor of canvas flesh.
Walking among these thin lines,
Head down, musky powdered stench,
Awaiting the inevitable rise and fall.
Of the intangible crux of a hollow memory,
Woven inside the synthetic fabric of the undelivered.
Oceanic cold shiver,
Piercing through our empty, untethered souls.

over the sunrise views
porpoise-play
and Pagasaean Gulf
with all its blue-white
sun-tanned pleasures

above the summer homes
out of those mesh-canopied beds
past our outdoor showers
dripping with grape-vines and late-morning ***
decadent breakfasts of fresh
half-euro loaves
Käse and Jam
or Gurke-Tomaten Salate
with "Hermes" flying
in our ears
hair and food

over the wake-boarding lessons
the minefields of neon violet-yellow Quallen
beach games
done with a hundred some-odd oracles
the Tractatus
but not the dead seahorse i found  floating before our argument
free from those schedules
the system of sunscreen application
bathroom and kitchen protocol

far from quintilingual fisherboys
the stucco church cartooned with gospel
its old priest grinning with his martial pride and simulated machine-gun fire
away from translating in my sleep
national pride
shame
and culture shock
forgetting that quiet dialogue of judgment
smiling between tourist and local
far from the baklava docks
Gigantes and stuffed peppers
Zorba refrains
swigs of Mythos and Feta

perhaps somewhere like the source of the Plateia spring
   where once the Argonauts had quenched their thirst
past burnt olive trees
past the first line of blazing hills

there
there i sense the fertile green i've always known

O
my gaze drinks the sweaty yield of exploration's calm

breathless
wearing rivulets of long-yearned release

so redolent the shade
in a ravine holding ****** silence

i eagerly descend
and find my eagerness returned
in measured wounds
low lying branches

sparse brambles
crowding soon
see me crouched
and crawling down

as if to judge me worthy of its solace
the leaves of late summer
once blades of moisture
twice as sharp in death
pierce my pressing hands and knees
allow the taste of sweat to sting my path

as if embitterment itself becomes a sweetness
colluding for my darker whims
breaks of thorns enmeshed with trees
gnarled sentinels for raking
joyous stripes of blood
brittle roots eroding into air
to scour off my sunburnt skin
invigorate the tension for my goal

remembrancing the threading cores of shrubline life
i lull into the swoon again
stringing slow sun
in husks of brown
wire gates to consummate a nether craving's peak
choke and lash of myth and love
a penance ecstasied in shade
a fleecing dark i will deny

~
Step into the moment
with bated breath,
There will come
the beguilement
and whispered shadows at play,
they seem to congeal around
conflagration of wills
and spirits considered outré.

And if it should rain
within these walls,
we'll advance south and sneak
under cover.
Fingers will find,
lips will linger and remind.
It will be a slow
recovery this time.

The places we travel go beyond
the arms reach,
they war for supremacy,
they alter and spasm,
they're random, but hover
between us in unity.

This dance we make
is an intimate ballet,
this push and pull
a blissful menagerie,
a wrinkle in time
we call ecstasy.
In kisses christened as luminaries,
appointing our own ceiling
— a mural painted in the keen
colors of craving.

The years of such sweet communion
have built this shelter, this nest,
and here together we rest.
And we are no less surrendering
to them than straddling the heavens
— the gauze of time,
timber and tranquility enmeshed,
and wishing it never ends.
~

alone
cold November
looking ******* anonymously

serotonin depleted
hours go as myself -- why not?

pleasing things
used relationship -- wanted ***
desire
supreme union

*** is all
of life
enmeshed forms
penetrate ******

there is nothing
eyes entering one another
nothing more

everything
unable to cut off
so follows the *******
so-called unnatural containers

natural pervert
let it be simple
It's the world
no better
confusion

convoluted nonsense
shoulders of an older age
inhibit our natural blossom
there is work I have prepared

creature flesh and circuitry
pleasuring it's lights
like fireworks of ****** intent
vines creep thighs

apes grunt -- ****** into the jungle
tigers mount
stars operate strange new images
life beckons fungus
devouring bombs
skeletons locked in copulation
boys sit
park & touch
condense into infinite arousal
shadow history
confrontation nature

you may not my body
they not your history
I am not yourself

no words express truth

simple realization most difficult

dead myths

wipe *** on brick

bottle of wine
glass of beer
golden halo, dream, hat, shoe
a puddle of ***** on my belly
endless marijuana and diction
handfuls of disappearing money

born into the screaming hospital
in the grass of a carpet
nothing to do with it
a concept, an idea
a drunken slur
misplaced affection
a hand, a breast, a mouth
in a car, a bed, a bathroom

elaborate play
that's all

A life lived in black and white.  No time for middle of the road.  Lines drawn straight and narrow.  Passion, only with rules.  Love, only as stated.  A heart filled with admiration, adoration, and caring.  Nothing missing from the list of "supposed to".  All boxes checked off. I's dotted and T's crossed.  Perfect on paper, perfect to onlookers, perfect in bed.  Never a thought of something missing.  All boxes checked.  Not able to settle into a life.  Unable to blur the lines.  Must be good, always good.  Mistakes happen, but not on purpose.  Not by choice.  

Always the good one
Right is the only option
Mistakes...still happen

Before we fully become, life is full of confusion.  Who we are and what we do are enmeshed within our surroundings, our perspective, our emotion, and our lives.  Pulled together, yet fighting every step of the way.  Beyond our understanding of purpose or passion.  Afraid of everything we are as yet unable to understand.  Trying to get through to the next phase without falling too hard.

Peers skew vision
Rules confine the innocent
Love hides unnoticed

Grown into a life of checks and balances.  A nice life, a good life.  Loved by many, yet alone.  Always alone.  Able to love, willing to love, believing love is what is being lived.  Unseen circumstances. Friendships remembered.  Longing, pulling toward one another.  More than passion could ever be.  More than who we thought we were.  The need to be right, to do the right thing, is stomped unrecognizable by emotion.  The past melts into the future.  Is a life unfulfilled, yet loving, enough to maintain, or is love supposed to be so full of passion that it takes you outside the box?  

The thought of a life
A love left unrealized
A world in a cage

A chance to live in happiness. Fires burn in body and mind.  No sorrow, no regret.  Pushed by one into another.  Two hearts alone run to each other.  Holding fast to all that is real.  Yet casualties will line the road forever tainting all that could be good.  Checks and balances. Pros and cons.  Does one give up happiness to maintain the perfect facade, the perfect family, the "perfect" life?  There is no perfect.  There is only what is.  The possibility of happiness could be short lived.  Hearts broken and bridges burned.  Broken families, broken lives.  Happiness could be tangible.  Happiness could be real.  Pros and cons.  What price shall be paid.  When should love lose and happiness not be a goal?  Choices, pain, there is no fairness.  There is no black and white, there are no boxes in which to fit.  

Straight and narrow life
Checklists, I's dotted, T's crossed
Thwarted by passion

it saws old rain in my skull
and your thoughts take a tour; wet and heavy
and quietly, the dirt shifts in the metal tracts

you break me every single time
my internal spilling is entangled
hopelessly

my summer-psyche enmeshed in your season
and forever swallows a few more ribs
don't wake the children of the light
for their feathers will burn beneath my nails

a storm hangs patiently on the wall
like a delighted painting made from frantic crystals
and I skitter from your towering moods
yet the moon dances in and out of every calm abyss

the lid is no more vacant than my veins cursed with
your silence
like algae, I slip on

my terror squeaks like a vehicle possessed
cheeks go ashen in my gay smiles
you will blush, in secret at what I will do
to you

sails lift on garlicky air in a port where ships don't wait
and my tongue loosens another melody only doubt hears
I'm completely in your hands
and willing for that crush

my acts for coins fall meaningless in embedded frustration
       don't come to the table, then
       keep the shades drawn
only the sense of phantoms
will be hanging in my smoke
intoxicating me to radiance
racing through to the ripples in your day

I'll keep lancing pebbles across the ocean's surface
they will never really reach the riverbed
frosty comes in agonising diamonds
a feast of distress sitting urgently
a shudder flutters through me, imperceptible

reduction of sweetness
a date with the cherubs from a netherworld
my nose feels the snows you carry
and I know you constrict still
my language falters and thinking shatters
and although slumped and vulnerable, it flourishes.

The sunrise burns the sky
A carefully coloured explosion
Blooded light flooding the low Kent fields that lie
Before Maidstone, excreting soundless motion:
Yellow carnation shards sway
With this violent advent of day.

In Hucking Estate diaphanous bluebells nestle
Beneath the groping canopy
Of Ash. Oak; the encroaching stinging nettle
Shields the frequent woodland scree
Covering with a verdant flush
Brooks that through the stones invisibly rush.

Within the hour, the Gorgon-headed sun
Sweeps aside the cloud-
The red into blue and orange has run
And in Lower Fullingpits Wood the increasingly  loud
Shuffling of badger attacking vole, fox strangling rabbit,
All compounded into daily habit.

The Kent Downs rise and fall
Like resurrected earth-bound music from a time
When hill, wood and pool
Emerged from unfettered chalk and lime.
Before the Cantii hunted in ancient Wents Wood,
For deer and boar, spurred not by hunger but for the love of blood.

Above the sparrow-hawk attacks the sparrows
Claw enmeshed in feather,
Beak unravelling neck. The unalterable sorrows
Of nature and weather.
Cruelty never ceases, but just gets more efficient-
Kindness remains deficient.

mark of cain in my hemoglobin, i'm more open to repast on brains.
to dine on flesh enmeshed in baseball parks and homes restrained
by greed of the same. and the cry of the people takes great pains
to refine the message of a blank stare. a blemish, stark with catacombs
disarranged in harm honey. the ogre of pine. the amber pane
where we bleed. we name nameless, by the by,
to the finish.
but not
alone.

up your petticoat with my blind cleaver. my Occam razor to your stain.
a fine mess express in hateful art and boneless jade
we feed on the frame of our reference. skylarking harmonious curves dismayed
by their own mind. they confess it. at the statefair. replenished, they knish in falderal
disengaged from honesty. the poker blind. where the eye staid.
where we need. we need most ... tell ya why.....
to diminish
but not
atone.

and so it goes. i erode the continent. sneaky pete in the crease of all strange.
itchy feet. maimed in false lies of the ripple. made fake
to real love. unclaimed. a gangly part of broken promises made
we retreat at last. with our last mimes. we undress. with savoir faire. distinguished in our dashery
ill fated. calamity's bark. hard to define. where the mind misbehaved.
we're complete most where the hole resides...
to imprison
but not
hold.

A sated sigh and warm breath in my ear
Enveloped in the heat of you
Your heart beats within me
As we lie enmeshed and still
Basking in love's quintessence

It's long since, so I thought I will fly my home to you:
winged friend, you don't stop by anymore here on lissome nights?

Oh what air-traffic,
these jumbo cars with crane legs
that even hopping seem to crawl;

Two towers have crashed ahead and a vortex is rising in the desert:
Did you not receive my messages? I typed them in into the aether.

And space, oh this messy jumble
that is enmeshed with time,
will not warp now,

No easy looping through. No beaming past. And no word from you,
but Heavenly Times hasn't reported you missing, yet.

I have time on my hands. Let me check
for all those timelines where
I won't see you again.

I need a quill and papyrus.  Soot I have, plenty to ink. Quill and
papyrus: Winged friend, a feather and some spring will do.

I awaken this morning with you lingering
on the verge of my tongue, not your salty -
sweet sweat, but the unswallowable mention
of your name. I want desperately to consume
the mmmm's that flowed from my lips just
moments before the alarm jolts me to reality.
Try as I might, the aaaaahhhhh's won't digest either,
Nor the taaa taaa taaa's. I gasp.

It always starts this way when you are gone:
I curl into your invisible muscular arms, wrap legs
around firm nothingness and pretend that you are here.
I bury my face into your scent-laden pillow and inhale deeply.
The memory of our ******* is as implanted on ebony sheets
as it is in the cavernous walls of my mind. Your hands don't cease
to caress thighs and calves, nor your lips to flick ***** *******
just because you are away. This is how enmeshed we are.

I just wanted to be
your tugboat captain,
your name engraved
on the hull, my name
enmeshed with your
skull.

Dance around in your tutu,
yes, suspended on one toe,
yes, now slip it off &
crawl into the bath.

I just wanted to be
your tugboat captain,
your skin wrapped
around the mast, your
skeleton draped upon
the shaft.

Look up at me with blue eyes, yes,
open up your pink mouth, yes,
now steer with your feet &
take us to the mainland.

As my illogic breaks, I'll robot make
to be this soul's chamber,
robbing a piecemeal joy from misfit toys
tossed out for fine tuning

by toddlers cheery mad to gorge on fads.
I'll take their T-Rex head,
with droopy lids that wink as if to drink
the world's wide-shallow stares,

plug its plastic prongs in torso of tin
while twin squeeze-box arms splay
to tie magnetic bows round pads below
gold, plush lion cub's legs.

This moppet of mixed breeds I'll learned feed
with animate cunning
to be ruled by charmed laws that give it pause
when whole-sum circumstance

tangles fuzzy circuits. Then a circus-
wire's unbalancing act
I'll paste from templed flesh to doll enmeshed
by transfuse rigging,

and as coil comes to slough, just as I'm off,
I'll flip that gilded switch,
implanting my spirit into a bit
of copper-hued country.

“She who has infused every minute of my day,
Hastens through titillating my endorphins.
Absconded hiding within myself,  
As blue crystals glaring teeter in the sea,

As we sanction the reticence of ardor,
While the sea eradicates its perennial effigy,
As infinite cascades eradicate beneath us,
As the water stride procures to the sandy shore,

Where the waves shatter on unsettled rocks,
As once again the clear light bursts as sun sets,
Enmeshed in a fabric of palpable vibrant colors,
Portrayed as that of a burlesque plumeria of infinites,                  

The plumeria burst of aureoles immortal love,
Unyielding its pedals as the devouring sea rotates,
Will ephemeral demise procure in the deep blue sea?
Over its blue pedaled face an astringent frown,

We have embarked on a promenade of love my dear,
I now stand before you no longer with emptiness,
Only perennial affection that you are mine and I yours,
       In our Aureoles of Plumeria”  
By AG 03/10/2018 ©

Mark of Cain in my hemoglobin, i'm more open to repast on brains.
to dine on flesh enmeshed in baseball parks and homes restrained
by greed of the same. and the cry of the people takes great pains
to refine the message of a blank stare. a blemish, stark with catacombs
disarranged in harm honey. the ogre of pine. the amber pane
where we bleed. we name nameless, by the by,
to the finish.
but not
alone.

up your petticoat with my blind cleaver. my Occam razor to your stain.
a fine mess express in hateful art and boneless jade
we feed on the frame of our reference. skylarking harmonious curves dismayed
by their own mind. they confess it. at the statefair. replenished, they knish in falderal
disengaged from honesty. the poker blind. where the eye staid.
where we need. we need most ... tell ya why.....
to diminish
but not
atone.

and so it goes. i erode the continent. sneaky pete in the crease of all strange.
itchy feet. maimed in false lies of the ripple. made fake
to real love. unclaimed. a gangly part of broken promises made
we retreat at last. with our last mimes. we undress. with savoir faire. distinguished in our dashery
ill fated. calamity's bark. hard to define. where the mind misbehaved.
we're complete most where the hole resides...
to imprison
but not
hold.

tattoos on my neck but should be your lips instead
tattoos on my neck but should be your hands instead
I want every part of me, enmeshed in you
the sun kisses my back as she creeps up behind the hill
shedding light on the aftermath of drunken thrills
I miss the blaze of the blunt and the bass in the club
relinquish my demons as we are talking it up
do you like my eyes that's where they hide?
do you like my thighs wanna try them tonight?
because tattoos on my neck but should be your lips instead

Atoms once enmeshed,
Dispersed
The essence of void
It lingers on
Adoration of these
sublime bones you possess
With which I built a cathedral
Whichever soil
Those steady feet may tread now
My blood recognises you still

No confusion wrinkles her forehead, eyes affixed first on his lips
until magnetically drawn to eyes blue as a mountain lake.
Comfort rests across her chest. Hips burn together and
her cheek brushes the ironclad hardness of his bicep.
They walk enmeshed. Traces of trepidation, 
scars embedded in her mind from tragic romance, fade. 
Residual fears fall to the trail among twigs and stones.
Rebirth of trust creeps into her heart. 
Together their feet trample her qualms.

come escape these pictures with me, these photographs
sinuous and sinful, tenuous and tendrils creeping
i feel you slipping slow away

i wish i remembered the taste of your lips,
the crackle of sparks between us that first time
like the crunch of dried leaves underfoot that september

losing time
losing my summer spent
under telephone poles
and high voltage wires
loving you

losing light
daybreak won’t come tonight
and if i shout out loud
nobody will be listening
missing you

and if in our short embrace
we find hearts of gold enmeshed as one
we take the time and celebrate
sweaty, entangled in your bed

your mother in the room upstairs
try to be quiet, we cannot shout
this magic we’re creating
could not hold itself together

losing time,
losing my summer spent under
telephone poles, high voltage wires
loving you

losing light,
daybreak won’t come tonight
and if i shout out loud
no one will and no one can
be listening,
please be listening…

we’re comparing what we could have
to a dream that we have lost
frosted over outside like
dead
dead water in your swimming pool
in the dead of winter
dead and buried, dead and gone,
dead so long the worms have taken you
home

like the leaves that embraced you
the night it was all stolen away.

…

losing time,
losing my summer spent under
telephone poles
high voltage wires
loving you

losing light,
daybreak won’t come tonight,
no it won’t

and if i shout out loud
it won’t bring it back

…whatever we may
come to find
let it be right

When you live on the wrong side of sixty
You flirt with cold death every day,
You **** sweet air in like nectar
And you hold your breath and you pray,
For tomorrow may bring a black tumour
Or a spasm, or seizure or more...
Then whatever you do, whatever you say,
You’ll end up prone on the floor.

For our time on this planet is temporary,
Our time of enjoyment is brief,
Just pull out the stops and let loose man
Live it up, kiss your girl, take relief.
Tomorrow is lost in the dreamtime,
Today is the essence of being,
So kick up your heels and spin all your wheels
and send all those worries a-fleeing.

When you live on the wrong side of sixty
Your skin has a penchant to sag
And no matter how hard you diet
Your gut gets as wide as a bag.
Your whit was once so exciting
Your repartee so sharp
Now you mumble and wheeze
And occasionally sneeze
And frequently squeeze out a ****.

Oh life was once so enticing
The sparkle and crackle was there
When you danced on the floor
The crowd yelled for more
And you dazzled with lights in your hair.
Now the dance floor is silent and empty
The music has faded away
Just to have it once more
My poor heart does implore ?
... But the crimson has faded to grey.

Now you’ll think I’m buried in sorrow,
Enmeshed in self pity galore
But the fact of the matter
Is served on a platter
… I really don’t care anymore.
For you see I’ve learnt a great secret,
Discovered a pearly white truth....
That life is as free
As a bird in a tree...
And remorse is really uncouth!

So no more do I wallow in sadness,
No more do I tear out my heart,
Instead I rejoice in my gladness
And retrace all the steps from the start.
For living’s a sequence of pictures
To give or take as you choose,
If your selections awry
Then you’re lost in the sky
...you pick the wrong one... You lose!

The sun comes up in the morning,
The light erupts in the sky
And the beautiful song of the blackbird
Brings a tear of joy to my eye.
The golden greens of the shadows
The crystal glint of dew
Encapsulates the rapture
I feel on seeing you.
For a friend makes life worth living,
A smile a golden door
To the promise of tomorrow,
Oh! The future’s good ..once more.

When you live on the wrong side of sixty
Life’s lessons treat you right,
You separate the wheat from chaff
And celebrate the fight.
You make the most of good stuff
And embrace all the fun,
You interact with positives ..
DO THIS,
AND FRIEND ….YOU’VE WON!

Marshalg
Mangere Bridge
21st January 2007

52 Weeks: Whitman

The spotted hawk swoops by and accuses me, he complains of my gab and my loitering.

I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable,
I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world.

The last scud of day holds back for me,
It flings my likeness after the rest and true as any on the shadow’d wilds,
It coaxes me to the vapor and the dusk.

I depart as air, I shake my white locks at the runaway sun,
I effuse my flesh in eddies, and drift it in lacy jags.

I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love,
If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles.

You will hardly know who I am or what I mean,
But I shall be good health to you nevertheless,
And filter and fibre your blood.

Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged,
Missing me one place search another,
I stop somewhere waiting for you.

52 Weeks: Mullein**

The Red-Tailed hawk swoops by and catches just a glimpse, he tilts his head Dionysian style mouth slightly agape.

I too am a wild thing, I too am untethered,
And I sound animalistic in the dining halls of the tamed.

The final missile thud holds me in a sweet caress,
My likeness rockets earthward … tried and true and tired and truer,
I am coaxed into existence once again.

I maintain my aetheric ties as I know this is the roadmap back to you,
It’s nice to be enmeshed in the living once again even though they drain,
To drain is to live, one gives eternity to be mortal - it’s the only thing that ever made sense.

I won’t depart, I dig in my heels,
And I turn my back on the organized.

I am of the earth because I understand my antecedents … my mother’s mother’s mother …
And because of this knowledge of ante’s I can set prece’s, hopefully precisely.

I hardly know who I am or what I mean (on a good day),
But I am good for you none the less,
As our tastes and sounds and smells and touches intermingle.

And always I wait patiently,
for me for you,
for us.

The first leg of our troika was removed easily enough;

Courage is a mercurial thing, waxing and waning

As frequently as the tides--or, perhaps more accurately,

It is like the doomed cell hosting a virus,

Left a barren husk of its former self once the germ

Has gone about its business and moved on.

In any case, he has happily cast off the burden of leadership

So often and unwisely fixed upon our martial heroes,

Content to appear at parades and other events of state,

Answering the roar of the mob in an almost authentic manner

(Though just barely perceptibly less so each year),

Living testament to the notion

That it is easier to be lionized than to live as the lion.




I had convinced myself that a two-headed regime

Would be perfectly workable,

That I could be the yin to the yang

Of my erstwhile alloy colleague

(The intoxicant of power

So dulling my senses that I could believe such nonsense),

The contemplative man of thought acting as a counterweight

To the fiery man of action, the man of the blade.

I had somehow presupposed

(Such was the vastness of my delusion)

That my old brother-in-arms would defer

To the appeal of painstaking analysis and meticulous planning;

It was if I had forgotten that, provided with the genie-like largesse

Of the acquisition of anything he desired, he’d asked for a heart,

As if there wasn’t enough sturm und drang taking place

In that miniature steam boiler of a chest!

While I had buried myself in charts and task-force reports,

He had enmeshed himself in consolidating power.

When his yeomen, huge-hatted and well-armed

Came to my suite of offices to place me under arrest,

I was, at my core, not particularly surprised.




To parrot the line of so many of those who have shared a fate

Much worse than my own,

I am well treated by my caretakers-***-captors;

My living quarters are comfortable enough,

And I can read, write, and research at my leisure,

Provided I don’t attempt to transmit any of it

To the outside world. 

Beyond the boundaries of this small compound,

I am a non-person; neither my name nor image

Has appeared in the pages of the Daily Ozmapolitan

For several years now, and it is whispered

(With the full knowledge and abetment of the current elite)

That I am, in fact, gravely ill if not dead.

I could, I suppose, rage against my confinement,

Shout my grievances and pronouncements against autocracy

To the heavens, but my cottage and the outbuildings

Lie in a thickly forested place, and it has not escaped my notice

That all of these structures are built entirely from wood.

No matter, then; I am the victim, first and last,

Of my own foolishness, my own inability

To resist the nectar of power, the ambrosia of command.

I, of all people, believing the road could run both ways!