i.

Feral escapees, from captivity,
Created with wing's, born to
Be free; not of society.

ii.

Jungle madness, surroundeth
The tree's, foliage of wed-lock,
Thou and me.

iii.

Accentor's creepeth the thicket,
Caples we rideth, babes of the
Cariole; astrology inside us.

iv.

Bimarian aqua, to overfloodeth
The dry, boscaresque detail's;
Rainbow's in open sky's.

v.

Brabreum of a sound,
Musical citharize; I'm
Far aloft the ground,
Psychic's; clairvoyant's
On incline.

©Brandon Nagley
©Lonesome poet's poetry
©Earl Jane Nagley ( Filipino rose) dedicated

Entanglement: First Poem of the Day

We awake simultaneously, syncopated.

Guests next door,
Can't risk love making noises at five am,
A noisy first coffee of the day,
An oops, unintended,
Guest wake-up call.
Nope.

So, instead,
We ear-insert our buds, white flowers,
You, to the Land of Thrones, yay,
Me, to the land, nay,
The **island of my
Secret poetry life.

I'm carried there on music-waves,
A Motet For Five Voices and
Jason Mraz, Tracy Chapman, Billy Joel,
Pandora's music box escapees.
Pandora's an oddball shuffler,
Just like me.

You read/listen/sleep head-resting upon
My good arm, my cunning one,^
And I leftist type write, hunt and peck at 6:00 Am,
And tho we will not fluids exchange,
I smile at our white wires all crossed up
As metaphor for our
Heart's happy entanglement.



^ Psalm 137
If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning.

6:15Am
June292013

Two Syrian women on Friday were locked in a cage full of skeletons in punishment for violating Daesh’s strict dress code in the militant group’s stronghold of Raqqa.

The London-based Observatory for Human Rights said one of the women fainted in the cage and had to be transported to one of the hospitals in the northern province, which became Daesh’s headquarters in Syria after the group took the city in 2013.

A spokesman for the local-based activist group “Raqqa is being Slaughtered Silently” also reported Daesh’ latest scare tactic against women found to have flouted the draconian rules.

Daesh recently locked a 19-year old woman in a cage full of skeletons, driving her to the point of madness, according to Mohammed Al-Salih. The spokesman did not specify whether the incident was the same as the one reported by the UK-based monitor.

Salih also said that there were “similar cases of women locked in cages with skeletons or forced to sleep overnight in a cemetery” for not wearing what Daesh deems as appropriate. More serious violations are punished by the amputation of limbs, or execution.

Video reports as well as accounts of escapees show that Daesh forces women living in its areas — whether in Syria or Iraq — to don head-to-toe garbs.

Meanwhile, the Observatory said Daesh has recently stormed homes in Raqqa and arrested 10 men suspected of spying against the group.Read more at:http://www.marieaustralia.com

where's the rain-man? where's the rain-man? where's the rain-man (comparison)? oh wait, in the interpretation of art by feminism: successful artist... house, wife, children... no... chauvinism's interpretation: desolation, desolation, car-boot sale for the rich at sotheby's - or nietzsche the inspiring thought in benito mussolini's mouth.

after edging to provide legal guidance
for the turkish shop by exposing the
legal balance worth a public bench
enclosed in the turk's caravan,
i became known as mathias del rado
(turkçe parçaladı), deltore, de amore (amoré)
bull's charging eye amore... olé! amoré!
que sera, sera... c'est la vie... well,
i do enjoy drinking and pretending to have
my shadow partner in ping-pong
always win... but why would i need to
feed a common consensus of drinking /
****** who masturbated prior having
the scalpel into the soft kangaroo hand-replica
when society eagerly sells and taxes the stimulant?
they criminalise the escapees of reality
ranging from classification A, B to C...
alcoholics aren't even categorised as D... we're
the troupe labelled Z... yet we're the most
economic addicts, we don't deal with shady
warlord economy, just dull political economy...
the two disparage when one shoots you
in the head and the other talks about an opinion
being free from dialectics... an opinion
free from dialectics (akin to shelling,
bullets whizzing past) is what entrenched
the germans and the english in belgium.
loved the film Ida (2013) though, an oscar contender,
not really black narcissus (but that's not the point),
english language movies can't ever capture
the purest existentialism of loneliness,
the way Ida was shot, black & white...
the poverty of the landscape, the Hopper like
moments after serious moments, honing
on the stasis of the the world and movement of
beings... the way one went back to the nunnery
with the truth of being spared by her family's
killer who purposively dug the grave and gave
back the remains of his butchery...
her aunt's suicide that was almost a secondary
comedy of the everyday shattered vase
in dialogue: i'm sorry, i broke the vase,
but did anything happen to you? no...
then there's nothing broken! the way she did her
final routine the last time,
shagged drunk, woke up and forgot it wasn't
her father, took a bath, turned on music,
got dressed in a jacket, but nothing beneath the waist,
and just jumped out of the window...
the music continued playing, the camera froze
on the scene as an infinite number of things
could have happened... then the nun Ida
embodied her nun, took to wearing heels,
a dress, showing her hair, drinking *****
spiralling in a window-curtain, smoking,
embodying her last remnant connection to a past
of jewry, imaging whether she could live out
the temptations suggested by her aunt...
she ****** the saxophone player and while
in bed she asked with dogmatic undertones
of useful regime instilled in her from early on:
and then? and then?
'a dog, children... and after that life's problems,'
he answered her.
she woke early and donned her nun outfit
and with a sense of courage retreated into
the convent. i mean, a great film...
but then mr. turner came up:
painting used to be so expensive,
all the necessary chemists to give aquamarine pigments,
poetry used to be expensive too,
write a poem, send a 100 men into a godforsaken war...
now technology has enabled painting
to be cheap, so cheap that graffiti tagging with spray
does the trick on a concrete grey slab of canvas...
and so poetry has become cheap too,
emotions have cheapened, people do not really
have ennobling emotions that might quake
100 men to go to war... perhaps 10 down the pub,
but war? not really... but it still leaves me detached,
admiring vintage cars from the 20th century on the driveways,
the way the familial cars dwarf trade cars (white mini van, e.g.),
for example the *mercury 1956 montclair 4-door hardtop,
or the ford zephyr zodiac mark ii "lowline" saloon,
back in the day when people didn't make their life
compact, when girls modelling where the day
of modern day pornstars rather than shaped like coat-hangers,
and when people didn't make their life compact
and holiday resorts from mexico to kenya to australia
also compact in terms of their generics of cloning.

only because northern ireland was originally liverpool.*

yeah... i’m an anglo-slav,
he’s an afro-saxon and that guy is a fairy
with clover petals for wings -
watch him fluster and flatter cheeks turning green into pink!
well, nothing really educational in essex,
just a barge of the usual escapees from middle class opinions,
esp. escaping opinions as if onion tears
of the integrating migrants who flawed the first rule:
your father purposively forgot your mother’s tongue
(but your mother kept it for the earth
and her hope for you to till it),
you’re ******* with a body and no soul:
the irish fairy countered interrupting me -
i kept my gaelic in speaking english drunk, *******!
that’s a trinity that i see.
and i saw it, spoken across new england and washington state
(hey, price up the ***** liquor of thieving a sympathy,
i wasn’t going to be nice writing poetry,
still me, the remnant of the masculine root liking rugby
and the diminishing psychologies of the players
of the losing team - watch them applaud loss
rather than sing victory prior without listening to
a wwe fake warrior entry music they boggled up with dr. dre’s venture
into # therearenomotivationalspeakersinthenationalanthem).
i kept my masculinity watchings the sports
just so i could write poetry and not womanise -
now the escorts and arias i hear you claim?
no... finding nemo, frozen, brave,
no arias and escorts, just enough morals for enough of
horn inches and cartoon coloured shoes.

Attention Wal-Mart Shoppers..
You know them
You've seen them
I hope you aren't one of them...

I don't drink
Not anymore
For my entertainment
I go to the store
I go out after dinner
That's when the show will start
I go and watch the people
Who shop at Wal-Mart

Cowboy boots, a tutu, and yoga pants with "***"
with a muscle shirt and top hat
worn by a man named REX
a pair of pants just hanging
a pair of crocs and leather vest
with "she loves me for my money"
emblazoned on the chest

These are the people
Yes, you know the people
We've all seen the people
In their finest shopping clothes
These are the people
Yes, you know the people
We've all seen the people
At Wal-Mart, so it goes

I don't go clubbing
There's no fun in that
Late night trips to Wal-Mart
That, is where it's at

A woman dressed in plastic
a man all painted blue
and how many people have you seen
that look like escapees from the zoo


These are the people
Yes, you know the people
We've all seen the people
In their finest shopping clothes
These are the people
Yes, you know the people
We've all seen the people
At Wal-Mart, so it goes



Underpants, and stockings
garters and blue jeans
size 50 denim jumpers
Stretched like skinny jeans

Men wearing high heels
Women wearing...well
Use your imaginations
From a distance you can't tell

These are the people
Yes, you know the people
We've all seen the people
In their finest shopping clothes
These are the people
Yes, you know the people
We've all seen the people
At Wal-Mart, so it goes



Body parts free to see
******* and legs and butts
And people with their little dogs
The ugly, squeaky mutts

We know them
and we watch them
Take their photos
Yes....we do.
dress right when you go shopping
Or we may take one of you!!!

Dinking too much whiskey,
Behaving sort of risky,
Telling lying stories,
Tall tales of former glories,
Laughing between the tokes,
At outrageously bad jokes;
We thought we were outlaws,
But were tamer than in-laws.

Out for a wild ride,
Living on the wild side
And howling at the moon.
The sun will be rising soon.

Honking horns at passing cars
Toking doobies under the stars,
Letting no cuties pass us by
Without whistling, my oh my.
We were certain we were cool
Too ****** to know we were fools.
Escapees from the workaday,
We ten-mile perimeter ruanways.

Out for a wild ride,
Living on the wild side
And howling at the moon.
The sun will be rising soon.

Out at night, no three-piece suits,
Sandals instead of fruit boots
Pegged jeans and rolled up sleeves
No fancy stuff with fancy weaves.
Prepared for whatever comes
Serenaded by engine hum
We told each other that we were hot.
Even though we knew we were not.

Out for a wild ride,
Living on the wild side
And howling at the moon.
The sun will be rising soon.

All these whinging intellectual poetic wankers,
scribbling Conditional Love "poems"that boringly
lament why they are such obvious  failures
at the game of life and self realisation.
Spewing out weasel words of poetic hypocracy while
wrapped in navel gazing infantile emotions.
Writing degenerate untruthful words about a love
they'll never know or never have known,
as if unconditional love can be bought
at the local Walmart.
Voluntarily assisting the machinations of mind and groupmind,
since their birth into a lifetime of Conditioned Identity,
in the servitude of the Amerikan Oligarchy .
Strings of meaningless associated words,
lines of lies about life and love that are ever popular with "poets".
Starting with every one of the so-called "holy" books
from millennia past--calling for suicide bombers
and child killers to strut the world stage
spewing  religious racism and sexism like enlightened beings..
After all words have NO SHAME
nor have poets..
Sin Verguensa.
Words have NO GUILT
nor have poets.
Words have NO EMBARASSMENT
nor have poets.
You cannot hide  behind your lies from me.
I see you--I have nous.
Your beard is transparent.
Your unceasing lies deny to others information
to which they are entitled,
"poets" are the worst LIARS of all,
so easily spottable .
Read these pages--see for yourself,
through my eyes .
See the silly ****-fed children of the Amerikan Oligarchy,
wrapped in spangles and colours --posturing like super-heroes.
Vomiting verbal diahorea in lifes gutters,
appealing for just one more chance
to play at love and humiliation.
People with low IQs and lower morals
pretending ,as always, to be mature and human,
characters moulded like products of talk show hosts .
No integrity.
No truthfulness.
No honour.
No decency.
No morals except those learned from Readers Digest.
No to these escapees from the gallows of decency,
torture instruments dangling round their necks,
their prophet validated by being nailed and denied.

love is eminent.

and if you look at this miniscule existence of yours, you will see that it is stuffed in the cracks of old and memory-ridden sidewalks,
which have had to bare the deepest of weights,
of peoples feet which have been into their lovers homes smiling,
and out of them shredding their skin with their nails.
it is carved into the ancient trees, barren of leaves,
and grown from your old sweethearts seeds,
the one with torn jeans, and an addiction to tea,
and who was too much of a spirit to chain down. you had to let him free.
and of the woman, who owned a small, unheard of bookstore,
with books that smelled like cinnamon, about byzantine subjects,
and she let people take one and leave one and tip as they please.

love is there in the unsure drip of the faucet,
disturbing the silence,
in the morning eyed sun,
when the day has just begun,
and you can feel a sticky tightness on your cheek, where the tears used to run,
and the burn in your mouth, is it from your lover
or your two bottles of ***?

it’s in the old pictures from years ago,
where you cant quite recapture the moment, but the vague feeling is still there.
the film is dark and smoky. just exactly like it is supposed to be,
and all of our faces hold this resonant feeling of whole.

and there’s love in the way you jump off something high, ready to fall, and fall, and fall,
and how you focus on the moment of the fall, and not the crash landing.
the moment of all surrender, underwater, floating, meaningless bliss.

there’s love in your daily cup of coffee, or two, or three,
and there’s a special art in the way you mix your sugar, and pour your crème.
theres love in how you smoke your cigarettes,
and how the smoke creates complex, fleeting shapes,
a new one every drag you take,
twirling, and running, and breathing into space, condensing itself,
in a matter of moments it sinks back again,
and makes your couch smell of ash and sin.

theres love in lots of things.
even still
in the way the hopeless strike the clock,
back to work, over the dock,
into their houses,
cut out of dough,
to presume their tasks, and label themselves,
thoughtless in a row.  
and mindless words,
the dinner table sets,
dry dinner time small talk.
they breed for the numbers,
not the pleasure of ***.

love is there in the cold ridden hearts,
of people who don’t believe in passion or art,
its in the escapees of our generation,
in old trucks, singing oldies, crying of separation,
in the numb of the brain-washed,
without their minds, wandering endlessly to and fro,
but they just have to struggle and dig deeper,
and into their own world of drunken, honest, chain-smoking, dancing love
                                                  They will go.

Using the 1% of those who got out of
the violent act of poverty
at the expense of billionaires
and taxpayer payed subsidies

Yes, they use the most pretentious
of our few escapees
they become a mouthpiece
to deny the facts researched
by actual experts

Truth is
what is powerful

There's no escape
from the ruler's messages
There's no escape from miseducation

Nights like these
Accompanied by the howling
Not of the wind
But of my cranium
Slowly caving in
We are swayed constantly
Like willows in the breeze
From perception to perception
Until we know not
Who we are anymore
What is to be believed?
Who is the enemy?
My thoughts have long formed legs
Not two, nor four, but plenty
But more is not always merry
They struggle to keep their balance
But fail
So I am
Traipsing with tangled feet
C l e a r
M y
M i n d
For me
Please
Buy me sympathetic placidity
Buy me apathetic innocence
Buy me antipathetic ignorance
Anything but what I am now
Would be good
I dream of blue lakes and clear skies
But do they really exist?
I sleep in a labyrinth
And wake up
To the hustle and bustle of escapees
We are all but only human
We are lost souls
We are amateurs grabbing tightly
To the manual of How To Live
While concurrently
Playing God
As if we are all that holy
I know not what I am
I know not what we all are
I sleep in a labyrinth
And I awaken
To a stampede
Of people rushing back and forth
In a desperate bid to reach the top
But the way out of the labyrinth
Is not the top
Is it?
Perhaps I am too easily shaken
Too vulnerable for my own good
But I could grapple with the notion of self-control
And perhaps I really should

Mediocracy...
these words I write
governed by a
standstill, at-war democracy
that's got me medio-crazy,
executively lazy
judgmentally hazy,
and lawfully spacey,
running on as their own prisoner-of-war escapees
in search of freedom from the ordinary
and overly, extraordinarily
conservative binds
that constrict the construction
of these hardly courtly,
yet ordered lines.

It’s not just pain,
it’s hotter,
brighter,
more compelling.
It's heartbreak-love,
the kind that tears you apart inside
and yet awakens you
to the silenced realities to which
most are blind.

It is a pull, a lock that
hooks inside of another
person drawing
them to you
indefinitely.
You feel like a magnet
at all times,
crushed when he looks at you
with those sad, terrified eyes
which beg for hope.
You are crushed for him,
crushed for his pain.
Always wanting
to keep him
close to you, to give him
the warmth you
somehow know
he needs.

No one will hurt you here,
you want him to know.
You’re safe with me, I will protect you.
You want him to be happy,
more than you care
about your own happiness:
that’s heartbreak love.

And it's always the loners,
the lost souls,
the obscured escapees,
the ones with the shaded expressions and watering, orb-like eyes,
the ones with the smiles that don’t quite touch light into the face,
the kind that drains life out of you,
yet leaves you needing more.

He’s my boy,
that’s how you see it,
how you experience it.
He’s yours,
and you would do anything
to protect your child.

Grumpy, middle-aged woman at work,
I wonder if you see me staring in your direction.
I, once again, notice your big hair,
tousled and littered with springy grays.
I, once again, notice your blouse,
dribbled with escapees of your breakfast and lunch.

You’re tapping your foot
to an eighties ballad on the radio—
the same one that we hear twelve times a day,
and each time, I grit my teeth and
begrudgingly swallow the godfather of all expletives.
But you? You love it, don’t you?

No qualms with the world
as you grip that vending machine Klondike Bar
like it’s your only saving grace.
I can’t even manage to blink
as I watch you peel back its thin layer of foil,
exposing the poor chocolate shell
that will soon fall victim to such a savage mouth.  
I shudder at the thought of what you would do
for a Klondike Bar.

Your eyes are wide, black, and merciless
as you crunch into that innocent little square.
Flecks of dark brown fly in every direction,
as you writhe in some sort of hokey ecstasy
straight out of a grocery store mom-erotica.
I can just hear you grunt, “Waste not, want not!”
as you individually finger up
each tiny piece off your keyboard.
I hear your lips smack with every satisfying victory—
and I cringe.

I want to tell you your ice cream is melting,
but I’m too busy watching it drip
down the sides of your hand.
In no time, this Klondike Bar
becomes your own personal rescue mission.
You must desperately save each and every sticky streak
with your unforgiving tongue.
Now and then you’ll slip in a satiated moan
and I can’t help but feel bad for your imprisoned dessert.
Unfortunately, this vicious cycle continues with each bite,
until you become the resident hot mess of Cubicleville,
smeared with melted chocolate and covered in a sugary sheen.

Despite the spectacle, it’s nice to see you happy for once.

It ends when you finally notice my gawk.
That quickly, you’re grumpy again
and demand to know what I’m staring at.

“Nothing,” I reply,
but not without a smile so coy
it gives me away.

Dear Carlos: Poet & One Man Band,

have heard these words so many times,
always bemused, trace~smile appearing,
but this time, it hit me like a Blue Mountain
extra hot, micro~window-waving cup of java Jamaican,
that is me, this was me, always, even before
I knew how to poem to music that I had always
head-heard, before I understood that these,
my songs were soul~pieces escapees, my…legatees

I leave them them in puzzle form, surely a piece,
or three missing, but no matter, each piece an
individual composition, standing alone, but the
big picture no one will ever see, understand but
that is the poet’s audience, his own one man band,
no bandwagon attached, a solitary figure quiet
contented with his disconnected discontentment,
a lifetime spent in refining, defining…refinishing

2 poem themes crisscrossed cross in my head,
interweaving themselves instead of becoming
two cells, one split apart, I call this process ruefully
reverse me~mitosis, blending that coffee with
a quarter cup of white milky, leaving me a caramel
colored confection, perfect in unity of trinity, that
combined cuppa plus my insides warmed, cozied,
the heat combined with the fire inside to write…one more

on the “two-to-write list,” in the “draft”y attic chamber,
were two titles, twins, now conjoined; the first, an
expose of why I choose to write these poems, and
the other, why I have a life of few friends, the few
chosen ones; the inherent conceptualizations differ but
cross the same forests and deserts, hid in my own Northwest Territory, rugged and inhospitable, where to survive, it required 
accepting lonely solitude, with a ragged welcome, & an honest mirror

an unequivocal, no equivocation permit, that telling yourself grand lies was pointless because you were a criminal on trial, prosecutor, defense lawyer, judge  and jury of your, ha ha, peers all rolled into one, there will never be a higher court wanting to grant an appeal, what is…well, is; a sad bliss but after decades of trial and many errors, wonderful and awful partnerships; it was modestly
perfected, dis-satisfyingly…satisfying

this goes on too long, like an intolerable avoidance of
answering, there, a phony confessional declarative; the whys un~provided, so fall back on that all encompassing
defense of temporary insanity that was locked in those
self-same sealed cells, carriers of my tainted DNA,
looking like bagels~donuts with holes, no, voids,
a central, air pocket of emptiness, with no surface to fill full,
or to adhere to, a drifter, an observer, never, a full participant

these empty holes, were just fried dough, sugar coated,
a fleeting life~lies of no substance, that I’ve spent
a lifetime trying to fill with worth, and I’ve written a few
moments of kindness, unqualified unreserved loving, but
too few to justify my existence to myself! That’s what
happens when you judge yourself, no defense strategy
can succeed, the fight is fixed, but I write on vaingloriously
hoping that there is yet, a flawless poem waiting within,
that a one man band, can both play and enjoy…

fav poets: Whitman, Hafez, Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan, Pradip and so many countless others on this site…

no other - a windowsill and an open window -
sitting on a folded leg and slouched
like a crow - i would be begging for it to rain -
no other music can capture rain -
safety net of all that sporadic improv. -
                      other other music - except jazz...
whether it be rain nibbling on the countryside
or the full-on cosmopolitan havoc of grey,
dust, grease, cement and rats and glass...
                 never mind: because i never thought
i'd say this...
                of the moderns... closely ruling out
wojciech kilar - for no particular reason other than
he's probably more known -
christopher young - since his hellraiser stint...
what's new - the revamped pet cemetary?
well... if christopher young was primo...
      soon to follow him... graham... plowman...
work on h. p. lovecraft adaptations...
                     horror as a genre...
                                the music wins me over...
however spectacular the visuals are...
                               if the music isn't bone grinding -
unsettling the nerves -
well... that's like pop music when it's raining...
i guess: oh i guess jazz can capture more feelz
when it comes: when it's raining...
when it's lazily sun-dazzling with the impression
of an "underneath" sizzling sensation -
or melting butter - or for that matter melting chocolate...
or adding splashes of cornflour made in water
to a sauce and watching it thicken...
this recipe i will remember by heart...
i will have to at someone point...
but this dhal was quite sublime...

   scrap book recipe...
          a man in a kitchen...
               and in hell... the devil's mastery...
almost like a chemistry experiment...

       half and half: masoor and mung dal... lentils...
kabuli chana (chickpeas)...
    a bay leaf...
              3 cloves...
  a tsp of cumin coriander turmeric
                     chilly powder and another of kashmiri
   chilly powder
                chopped tomatoes
  coconut milk...
            onion ginger garlic
                spinach
      gochugaru flakes coriander for garnish...
veg and chicken stock...
                          ghee...
butternut squash...
                    cayenne pepper (1 tsp)...
    i was looking for a pinch of asafoetida...
i knew it was in the kitchen...
    alas... also know as a substitute for those
vegan cults that don't include eating onions
and garlic... or perhaps just onions...
    cinnamon stick? no...
but three decent pinches of a homemade
garam masala...
  and yes...

   https://ministryofcurry.com/moms-garam-masala/
is the only spice blend...
   the russians can have their nukes...
the americans can have their nukes...
i have an arsenal of the following spices and...
i'm feeling... like i just had a manicure done...
the only garam masala:
asafetida, bay leaves, black peppercorns,
black cardamom, cardamom, cumin seeds,
(sorry, no black cumin seeds),
      cinnamon, cloves, cordiander seeds,
dried chillies, fennel seeds, fenugreek seeds,
(mace? no mace)...
         nutmeg, poppy seeds, star anise...
turmeric...
          again: no stone flower...
well... that's almost covered it...
                it's not the recipe asks for black
mustard seeds... those i do have...

                   cult recipe and it says: who needs...
meat?! even i'm convinced...
god i do love a good steak tartar...
    anything ****** and oozing wriggly bits
of life - as tender and gelatin grizzly as a...
even the names: bleu... ooh... saignant...
  haha... medium: demi-anglais... what else?

the butchers rolling in their graves
when someone orders a steak: fini-bien...
                          or some other frankenstein of the kitchen...

coleman hawkins - the high and mighty hawk...
some guys were putting up a fence
for me and my neighbour - it only took 15 years
but who's counting - they were told to
cut out all the bushes and foliage in my garden...
so that they could get a straight line
and so the fence would be put up...
unlucky for my rosemary bush...

r.i.p. my rosemary bush...
        today i started to salvage the poor thing...
the newer shoots i placed in water for
a drink and hopefully 2 weeks from today
i might think about planting them back in
the ground... for the rest of the bush?
i had to freeze the rosemary...
all afternoon my fingers were scented with rosemary...
which is fine... when you're working
with a raw piece of lamb...
but i'm no walking and breathing and aching
lamb of god about to be hanging
on the cross...
                even through the soap...
an afternoon of my hands being heavily scented
with rosemary...

vivaldi can have spring and the other three
faces of "god"...
holst can have his mars and the other circle of hell...
but thank the high-flying-****
that jazz can capture a rainy day better
than that song: i'm only happy when it rains
by garbage...
            
  guess i'm not letting go...
         an active rebellion against classical music...
one jazz record after another and i can gravitate
to...ward... the entire e.p. being played...
none of that new wave harakiri diat l.p. scene -
much appreciated... but i always need to move
beyond the half-an-hour mark...

         then again: i can't see how jazz could
compensate for snow - snow on the exit format -
jazz doesn't - then again...
no, categorically...
                           if there's only a sly insert of drum...
no horns - the piano and some guitar -
  
   otherwise you can't go wrong with
joshua redman - back east...
         a modern classic - notably with zarafah...

speed-conversations - none clinging
to a cameo of a date...
                 fickle minded - always changing
the course of events that... nonetheless remain
intact on binding themselves to a blind will -
        
music and all these interpretations are my own -
too bad to see and have to work with
a cipher - what's behind this image -
what's behind that image -
at least music stands stark and shivering naked...
less chances to abide by some propaganda...

unless of course mathematics is to be given
the crown - i hardly think: one shouldn't really
think about music -
                one can never really fathom
the constraints and the escapees from these
constraints... these constant revisionary scribbling
over and skimming the orthodox:
brick-on-brick intricacies of: immoveable objects
being: nonetheless moved...

- i too am waiting for my libido to die off -
anytime soon... like right now...
no harem therefore "jazz hands" and the algebra
of "magic fingers"...
idle man and all that *** that could have been...
until that magnetism is steered off a cliff
of: not another tomorrow -
                    at least no ***** or *** doll upon
the horizon -
            no point getting intimate or personal...
only a few days back i found a weakness in
this exoskeleton -
standing in a shower... pouring running water
onto the back of my head...
i almost knelt and said my prayers from
the exhaustion of succumbing to this multiple-******
of nuance...
       right on the spot where
a higher evolution of a more, protruding occipital
bone: as i've heard it once before: being noted...
i'm waiting for my libido to **** itself off...
in the meantime no harem...
imagine my luck when it comes to
the wisdom served up by men like king solomon...
even by then:
this most exhausted man had
to settle for a swan's dignity in monogamy
with the queen of Sheba...

                 but it's hard to translate wisdom
when you have all the basic forebodings
already at your disposal... the harem will discover
***-toys and you will be...
the limp **** in the whole affair...

                 such hard-on feats of fear when it comes
to... two cakes too many
when all you've been asking for is, merely a slice...
jazz... i can't find
a clint eastwood in alcatraz...
or steve mcqueen in sagan...
               or witold pilecki in auschwitz...      
but i can find myself in jazz...
hummingbird or some, other, champagne flute
and that bothersome fly...
nothing against flies: everything against
mosquitos... i would **** those buggers with
the same joy of donning wool having
just sheered a sheep or two...

jazz and: the wriggling fish...
jazz and all the fish out of water...
i'd call them constipated ***** and lobsters
but... jazz and the wriggling fish...
jazz and smoking a cigarette to appreciate
the deaf centre point of night's culminations...
living close by to central london...
"walking in" and not feeling like
anybody important: or a tourist...

       if i wasn't a billy joel: i would most certainly
not want to be a bob dylan -
hard to be living the obscure with a cross
made up of iconography...

the applauded and the: billy joels' piano man meets
neil young's old man...
they shake hands and subsequently depart
where the crossroads begin, and end...

believe me when: i'm the last to be believed...
usher in a dozen penguins attired
to be... fizzy kosher dosh...
in all their napkins and bowtie-neck strangle 'em
into a hush of a bamboozle...

such the life the music the mathematics
of living in shackles - wriggly ol' ****** with
those improv. would-be-turns and...

how many words will it take for it to be clear...
i have nothing but rejoice at clinging
to my obscurity... primo amigo:
alea iacta est: too bad for me...
or too bad for my shadow...
                       faking being a gemini
in the horoscopes of fate and superstition...
shadow: mime out of the confines...

      these is my second chance at retaining
the crown of obscurity? is it?! is it?!

   to have to burden oneself with love...
akin to... well... if i were about to spoon her...
but no... i wanted to catch the 8 hour kipper....
but every time i would fall
to sleep... i'd fall asleep with a tarantula bite...
numb all over to one side...
because i was oh too willing to fall asleep
when clinging to her...
like a bracket fungus to trunk and core...
one side of me complete in numb...
which had a rubric of recitations
should all else not be true...

but *****! that slap in the face...
                             come to think of it...
i'd like something to eat...
less **** with... that could pinch me...
i'm starting to think that
being ganged up by a group of hyennas
is not such a bad way to go...
perhaps being mistaken for a tuna
when a shark attack is being
noted...
            hard to imagine
sharks or bears or lions as having
sadistic undercurrents to their day-in-day-out
beats...
  even sharks nibble but never gorge
and feast on... this cranium solid first and only
hope when it comes to god
not making mistakes when gambling...
the ******* roulette or a black jacks' "choice"
of cards...

i can't exactly "think" this out to appease
a gravitating en masse...
                       pour me another shot and
debackle! all in the faith and hope
of un-thinking thinking...
trying out this suction tenticle of the void...
replacing descartes' res cogitans with
res vanus... what is due: is due...

no more wisdom from me aged 34
as me aged 73... there's only rain and jazz...
i'm buying time...
concerning whether it would be even
remotely likely to appreciate jazz
when it's snowing... unlikely...
very much hell-bent unlikely...

      - who would have thought that peering
into an aquarium would have to,
become more entertaining that zombie-clad
watching a t.v....
what ever happened to the watching
a klepsydra... or the tick-toe-tightening
of seconds into minutes into hours...
dying from the skeleton diet of time
whenever catching-up: unaware with
the clock in the confines of:
old people not really...
no, not really, listening to coleman hawkins'
much of anything...

                     because this doesn't tease
the affections of the young...
like a trainspotting revamp might....
because there's, clearly no new dracula...
and there's no new: new....
                     i wait patiently like a salamander....
no easy picking no low hanging fruit...
no fatty boy'oh to matter...
         no leeching off the three-quarters
of                               the better part of the engineering
cohort that were behind
the manhattan bridge... or Malbork Castle...
and hands on hands: do touch...
the event horizon of a dead star...
                    in that: pulling fabric...
basic genesis... talking fire "misanthrope": "god"...
bushes outgrowing fungus when
it came to 1970s ***** flicks:
notably in fwench and italian...
                   prune the perm hair...
                             keep that afro on a leash!

these days ***** is half of the cure's nostalgia
and more...
onomatopoeia and...
    refining the contorts with painting...
and keeping the act on a hush...
               the lazy hands speaking
dozen **** cracks being discovered but
none being experienced...
bone the hand...
it's called a ****** just because
of oysters... it's called a ******
because of the clams and of the irises...
and because the tongue:
god... ever time i wanted it to exfoliate...
it's forever that timid tulip!

         what came of a ****** became a hand
and the cusp... and what would never
become a San Francisco needle hinge epidemic...

was anyone praying that
one direction would become the next rolling stones...
cougar: meow...
that **** jagger was going to be
the "reincarnated" harry styles?

           knock-knock... who's there?
a premonition... i.e. touch-wood...
base: i will require the wood to be touched
by bone - notably a crunch of the knuckle in how
the fist is formed / fathomed...

        otherwise known as the lap-lapping-dance-off
with a tongue wriggling in imitation
closure of a worm...
or a fighter for a boxing champ. contender...
belt-up... knot and noose down....
the new news is no: good skit...
i **** myself to fickle my shadow
whenever i see a hoopla or a trance inducing
recoil of the swinging dancing spare
of a: rope that's not leftover for
the dangling first come first served...

daydreaming zeppelins...
the day the elevated english man will fall...
and bring down the bowler hat with him...
touch the philosopher's stone and turn
that attache of good taste into an umbrella...
the same day i stop daydreaming
about zepplins...
will see me think of the anglo-saxon
as whittle brother... the younger Swabian...
and all part of the infuriated minor
Germany that found inkling to behave
like the nomad Yids...
and move... and move... and...
never the sort of people to conceive of a ship...
without also being receptive of carrying
an anchor!

then again...
                   monkey man albino and...
forever the one to follow the white rabbit back home.

Tears Shed Alone,
Tears leaving my eyes
Without yours to blend
To become whole.

Tears shed alone
Are half filled
Vials of essence-
Incomplete tonic of my soul

Tears shed alone
Are escapees of my soul
Looking for the other half
Lost vials of my soul

Tears shed alone
Are tiny vials of my soul
Looking for their compliment
Looking for your eyes

I shed these tears alone
For you left me dry
So I soak myself in tears
Hoping at least they can find yours

In my minds eye
These tears I cry
Fly to your tears
In some time, some place, somehow;

Our tears still mingle
In the rain, in the air.
My tears evaporate and fly
Into the sky and fall into your eye.

I've traveled for an eternity searching for the light that I have lost many years ago, stumbling and crawling within the escapees of darkness I've learned that the my essence of purity has always been close by but as my blindness of acceptance caresses me I find it difficult to maintain what was once my light.

I stand beside you and continually ask of you to answer me as I wonder how you are able to love through all your past turmoil.

Can you be so kind to offer up to me an explanation of my departing beauty, why do I feel so alone when I am surrounded by hearts that can still display their elegance of life, why do you turn away from me what have I done.

This is how I'll now become my secluded misfortune.

The emancipation of my bottled up wretchedness will soon prove to mankind that all I have ever been is the guide for all to enter the light but as of now I will patiently pace the floor of the world.

I am now a guest in your arms.

Written By: Christopher M. Schultz

Each letter typed with emphasis, aggression, and flowing lyricism!
Dab the towel in soaking wraith and smelly faithful hatred!
Use THE syllable CON-tract for without it we've been doomed
Bring forth the lights and sounds into living-room-reality, FULL OF STARS AND ESCAPEES!
Faster, faster, faster, faster! This is ugly poetry. Bubbling from the nostrils of the seas COMBINE!
Spurting spirit and saline souls and gaping holes all without the inclination or implication of the hereby too cute to put on television!
Rhyme now or allow the furrowing brow to narrow the growl into pinpoint anoint!
Make it stupid and lucid so to push it through the suffering new and deadly few!
Terrible practice of sense un-make ill-conceived fake words aren't my specialty.
OR!
ARE!
THEEEEYYYY!

Quiet now, no sound, just gentle music, jazzy yet ex-peri-mental.
Words in formal lines marching to their next food product.

A-GAAAIIIINNNNNN! I hear the crash of cymbals in my ears and erratic guitar noises and collectively profound inspiration.

Oh, right, where have I gone?

i still think
                                           that literature's       "      "
is better assumed as
     mathematics'                             ~
or what's simply abbreviated
                                    ambiguity, sort of,
as apologetics for Heidegger is concerned -
     that there is moral ambiguity in the interpretation
  of Dasein as ecstasis about, e.g. the war in Syria:
    but is that a self-serving ecstasis for the fact per se
    or that other interpretation for concern, which
with the above mentioned notation is a lack of,
       as in for peace to resume as common sense
      and less of what's suitable away from the apathetic
route, and indeed the ecstasis to shout for forced peace
            rather than see it all as without your moral
judgement with you being no moral agent in the matters
     that themselves have to resolve, without your input.
- and it always comes like this, cute little things,
or how you can condense all the theories surrounding
the psychological trinity into superego,
or that verse by Philip Larkin
        that begins wonderfully:
they ******* up, your mum and dad
  (this be the verse) -
  and the two other bits and bobs,
the Gemini scalpels -
       depending on how you wish
to make incisions into thought (or
any other moral quality, for that matter) -
do you wish to be a surgeon,
your own man as it were, and with the ego
cut your own story?
        or perhaps you'd prefer a butcher
psychiatrist lob pork chops of you
    with his depersonalising id?
         after all, he will say:
the laws of the state demands you have
so sort of i.d. (identification credential);
only the rich, a Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany
could ever fit the programme of Herr Doktor,
         Ode Odi Oedipus            Olé!
Herr... auto-****** means i have enough
******* on my ******* that
a gentle rub of the ******* gets me all
hot & bothered and juiced up?
   after all, the maidens of Egypt have
to have theirs cut and endure docile mantras
of why, why, why.
    and please, Herr Doktor, when
will Latin actually die? they keep saying
Latin is dead, familiarly like Nietzsche's god
is dead... but Latin isn't remotely dead,
  the blimmin' alphabet is still here,
how do i know? well, d'uh, i'm using it...
you say id             i say es
   you say ego               i say self
(then you make a Frasier joke about elves)
       and we go on and on in
this cat               mouse              game,
it's all a matter of fashion,
      they all said the above Mr. N was a
great stylist, after all an aesthetician is,
   and now they blabber on as if talking
Gucci pooch'e - this is dead, that is dead,
it's a fashion industry: but less obvious,
more inclined in       what you talk about
than what        you wear.
             said,
   '            ', he said
     "        ", he thought he said,
                                 or the narrator said it for him,
                         or the narrator thought he said it
for him, when in fact he didn't say anything
    nor the fact that there was anyone to actually
  say anything at all -
                 kinda a Beckett Watt moment.
           the Watt waltz, and that truly is a mind
   ******; as i sometimes wish narration was
kept in the Irish / Polish standard of notation
- and off we went to the poll booths.
- aye, and we vetoed rather than voted.
who would have thought that two ****-heads would
make the unlikely politicised duo of escapees.
             akin to Ulysses - but i get the
picture, the hyphenated compound words not
yet approved to be actual compounds,
        cite the Oxford committee for doing
****** paperwork, or none at all to modernise
  the Anglo-Smackson.
      ****... in the real world this could be
called pimping - but here... mm hmm:
peacock exfoliation - and i know it, so it's less
smarty and cared about: just... done.
yes, it usually starts rigid, that bit about
    Latin not being dead is extremely rigid
in composition - it's a sore the size of a ****-steak
   on my forehead -
            as is my lack of desperate attempts
to applaud Delmore Schwartz attempt to bring
    Finnegans Wake (the pearl in the crown
of all things difficult) to the people and the swine...
            so he didn't think Ulysses was
difficult enough? jeeze! and this alone reads like
a modern aversion to how young people are
drawn into mutilating themselves -
                  rampant ids             less acknowledged
Larkin moments in discussion:
        or perhaps the opera of suburban happy-go-happy-do?
       kids without even the foggiest of
the lysergic acid of Hanna-Barbera
                        and the Loons -
                                the fun-go-to lunacies of
cartoon network 20th century 90s...
                                       and hell: when we actually
        lived in times of toy story toys;
                 these days i'm getting the impression
a girl is probably going to play with a ***** than
   a barbie - must be the pink and the blonde
                         matched by the how many? jokes
    in mouth as in look doppio standards of not getting it;
but of course, the many other stereotypes.
            well, us kids, back then,
                          ah...         nothing like that coming again.
       summary... in ref. to the title,
   it's next days shrapnel from the debauchery of
the previous night, or why i write drunk and sometimes
get lucky sobering up and do not indulge in the bottle
      and not write something, and end up not writing
something like William Styron's Darkness Visible,
    who also drank, but didn't write and drink,
                  drank on the sobering up note, like
this poem. well, i figured, if i don't exploit the drinking
       as a sedative unwinding and be bashful
then, resolutely, the sobering up me is still making
  that blood wine:
                          and never did liquidating
   two kilograms of caster sugar in half a litre of water
             feel like handling mercury.

So unexpected, guide me through your thought,
As a scheme, so clean, has me under your charm
Faceless beauty, her spirit leaves me caught,
I'll dance along, darling, arm within arm

Antique photos create vivid discourse,
Formatted light brings man closer to muse,
Letting robots paint, through unexplained force,
Gifts of design, our sight shall not abuse

To select one tint, I'd say Aurora,
Like those hair colours painted emerald,
mixed shades of turquoise, the cosmos' flora.
Stumbled upon, speaks an angels herald

Now, I pose, toward your curious mind
What songs, or prose, keep stresses left behind?

Appeared a riddle,
Buried treasure teasing clues,
Reveal your secrets

--

Count the stars while counting your steps, my girl,
Skipping careless upon the edge of the world,
If you were to slip, in my arms you would curl,
or lift me up to sit and watch the waves whirl

Diving with diction, planned like mystery fiction,
Gossip through senses, our voices breed intrigue,
To some, this constriction, would be cause for friction
But we're something special, within our own league

Vast skies painted in pastels mesmerize,
Warm sphere's embrace souls, leaving nothing to guess,
Astonished, you leave me, how we synchronize,
an unwonted psyche I dream to undress

Mix Vagabond, Stadium Love, Get Jiggy,
stirred with Colt 45, Spektor, and Kanye,
One part, don't worry, Two parts, be happy,
Pour upon the strawberry swings of coldplay.

Such careful words, the tension's in this game,
Would we break it, if I were to ask your name?

Queen, rule just and pure,
spark mischief behind barred doors,
Toy soldiers, march forth
--

Village folk decried such madness, those two,
Vaulting barb wire fences, and shabby rusted Fords
Vexing stray hippos, mired in the peacock's blue
Vanishing across great plains, slick tundra, broad fjords

Crooked cobblestones carve patience and plight
Crazed concrete jungles echo no amnesty
Captive Pigeons left captivated by flight
Cheer on escapees who soar past reality

Illusions of reflections spur pleasure,
Incite subtle coaxing, come over for a bite,
Impressed as may be, we care not spoil treasure
Instead conspiring deeper, until it's...just right

Blood ne'er shed freely,
Exhaust all human power,
Claim your Victory.
--

Without a doubt, you've penned one of your greats,
The way your words flow, how it illustrates,
Fingers left speechless, your story asphyxiates,
and to think, this is only one of your unimaginable traits,

So I'll be the first to spoil the rhyme,
I'm sure you'll learn to forgive me in time,
But with an inbox cluttered with junk and grime,
it's fast-coming apparent I'm chatting with a dime,

Curious souls are we, so let's fill up the canvas
Fingerpaint and oils; no drafting, sort-of planless,
Maybe we could do with the other one's madness,
so let me propose an idea; it shouldn't leave you anxious,

Lets find an evening where your heart may be free,
So that we may join together for a lovely cuppa' tea.

Breaking news just in!
Winter echos behind us,
Spring forward once more.

My ego wasn't built
for his kind of abuse
banal, pedestrian- more
Ralph Kramden then
anything, couldn't even
finish a sentence except
with a shaking fist ("Well
I oughta...") and how many
evenings we sat together
on the couch as he listed
the ways I failed him and
why he doesn't punch me
in the mouth, how one punch
would **** me for sure ("is why
he don't hit me, at least not
anymore...")

I am but one more in a long line
of reluctant escapees, more ashamed
of my leaving then I am of staying
because the former is so visible
while the latter happens behind
of everyone's eyes (the whole
block has heard all variety of
shrieks and cries, one after
another, hustling from the
door to the car and then in
reverse, sunglasses and a hat
each day a little less of a person
first breakable then broken while
he grew larger in the same
increments, grew fat)

There is no understanding
around there, only a tsk tsk tsk
and the occasional "stupid *****"
"must love gettin' hit, why else
would she be back?"
but if I knocked on one of their
doors all ****** and bruised
would someone answer?

Even before shame takes over
they make up some excuse still
peering at me through a crack
in the drapes I AM NOT THEIR
****** MISTAKE is why I
don't leave because their kind
of abuse is even harder to take

Invisible women take up
a lot of space

Colour my beat with some sense of the heat and walk in my streets for a day.
I'll show you some way to escape, though some say, we are trapped.

There's a hole in the side of present time, so let's
hide before somebody comes,
and the night
wishes a tune as we fly to the moon and the sun strikes a pose in the sky.

If I do I will be and all that I see becomes me in the measure of men, and to compete in the beat of the street in the heat is a rite.
I sit tight to the rails that take me on trains through the veils of the mystery mile, if I try, I could smile, I could weep, I could sleep, I will keep this countenance low, who's to know who's a spy and if when we do fly, who reports the escapees to whom.

On a partridge farm, down South, with a cartridge in his mouth is a farmer, his name is unknown, he's been given the task and his not to ask, to shoot all the prisoners at dawn,
born to die, escape to fly, the artist picks paint off the floor and the door's firmly shut but a crack in the planking lets a little tight light in and the sun strikes a pose in the sky.

disentangled, debriefed,
the daily onslaught
educated on freedom
how to give it and receive

heroes in our hearts don't look down from heaven,
I heard this old man correct an old cousin
prone to family history with hell escapees only,
looking down on us.

Catholic school through to BS, with a
mission in the spiritually minded flesh of a
20 year old in 1970, that was
sure time off purgatory,
if nothing more,

been there done that contests heat up…

don't you tell me where the kingdom of heaven is,
lest you contradict the king of kings theme,
pounding timpani's beat in me remembering 1972-
bah boom

from the future of then, this is no lie, it is an
after projection, after before thrown
in the mix, echo of a wow, actually redeemed,
for flavor, see real deal spice, functions best
in the presence of microbial ****
under your tongue, that convey the signal
through the channels,
to the gut that fires up the **** that clears the room.

He could feel the way water moved
when it stuck to the windows, how it slipped
and dripped off the poppies
onto his cigar box filled with ******
escapees. Even its softness can drown,
He was drowning.

Inside the greenhouse the found
him already emptied, lying
on the ground with the white hospital
wristband tied, shotgun resting
beside. His face missing.

I understand
why he did it, “It is better to burn
Out than to fade away.”
He wanted to stop the sinking.
He wanted to burn.

No one saw the water tangled in his teeth,
pressed up against his lips, consuming.
Or heard the drenching within his voice
as he sang. If I had known he had a gun,
even when he swore he didn’t.

Now all I can hear are pulsating echoes
Of strings that no longer sound like waves crashing,
and his raw, gunge screams now mute  
And rippling away.

Don't think of good advice for me, I've tasted the worst that can happen." -Rumi



Lying here
           hands on chest

a warm dark before sleep
       chipping through me
like slaves with shovels
    tearing through granite  crunching bites out of earth

A warm dark
has me cocooned
    
I can hear
  muffled leaves in wind
      lost without their tree
    scraping at Windows
like escapees wandering
     night
daring to float free.

  A violet lake of moonlight
  erupts as passing cloud
   moves away,
  to illuminate fallen drifters
   yellow and red companions glow like  incandescent stars
    before they turn Brown and crumble away to mulch the           ground.

  A warm dark silence sparks
   inside a tightly woven
silky  bed
my hands transmitting      
    my own personal  
              underground Sun
  
a fast river does not apologize for almost drowning anyone.

Echoes of crows helps me to forgive their black oil stains
  left flapping long ago
        they're
    trying to get off ground
unable to fly with broken wings caged in prison mind
chewing on pomegranate  scars

   her fallen screams responsible for strength
still to come
  echoes slash the void
  his giant figure in the street
  savagely thrashing her in the distance
  roasting my young innocence in raging fires soon to come

       but after this
I will erupt from a dark warm silence inside this silk formed weave
my slow crawl to this branch
turns Monarch.

yellow-red-black wings
climbing past
  chains that should have killed me-

now I see
my mom rising from a psychopathic beating
running back into house
he grabs her by the head,
puts it through the wall
she rises again
  but how?

Now I see
  New leaves
    from a distance
shining on top of a river
   finally free to slash their way  inside a moonlit sea
glimmering behind
      fallen trees
crunched by old footsteps
    thanks for leaving Thunder                                                          
now I see
old slaves set free
their broken shovels
  lying by heaps of granite

his criminal echoes
    slash the void
  teaching fire
giving strength

now I see
   wings alight
                 effecting sky

         your sunset philosophy
burns eclectic
          behind closed eyes
  thanks for leaving Thunder.

SOUNDS SPRINGY

Popping of tulips ,daffodils dancing, so many things waiting to be green

Rustle of branches or bushes caught in the hustle,warming winds grow louder

Ice cracking, snow mashing, unfolding the last of winters rigid freeze

Silence broken with voices of mens machinery needed to keep it all  pristine

Mower growling,tiller rattling, street sweepers swooshing, necessary noises for the devotees

Howling of hail is mother nature's scowl, Lightning in flashes & crashes,thunder belches to undo the serene

Finally familiar slamming of screen doors brings noisy neighbors  out like escapees

Poets & singers seem to unite on the bounty of springs delight,Popular muse for them to ignite ,coming  together in a green scene  

Migrations have begun, early bird has more fun,doing their best to build a  nest soon their new families tweets will fill the trees

When the air warms brings the restless out in swarms, whooping it up as they play or buzzing for their new queen

The proud sounds of birds making their rounds,flying surrounded by chirps or cackles once again as she offers her new delight we are appointed as trustees .R.C.

I've been playing dodgeball with COVID,
And up to this point, I have succeeded
In dodging the many ***** tossed my way.
I haven't let warnings go unheeded.

True, it's been a wild game,
And all the ***** sing a medley
Of different tunes; some are muted,
Some are stronger, and some are deadly.

As they all go whizzing by,
I twist, I turn, I shelter in place.
Protecting myself as much as I can,
I'm finding it hard to keep up the pace.

It's an equal opportunity
Virus, for COVID doesn't care
Whom it hits. Whoever gets
In the virus's way had better beware.

Extra precautions help us immensely.
Our chances are better that we won't fall
If perchance we're caught off guard
And suddenly get hit by the ball.

Some folks are pelted ever so slightly,
And as each one of them disappears
From the circle of COVID escapees,
Other folks are knocked on their rears.

The ***** keep flying. The game gets even
More befuddling, more demanding.
It makes one wonder if any of us
Can win the round and be left standing.

When this game's over--if ever it is--
Will a new one have its say--
A brand new virus, much more virulent--
A new game we'll be forced to play?

-by Bob B (12-29-22)