We keep coming together, you killing me, it's a dead heat. *** so good, we can hardly speak. Climbing on top, she's reaching her peak. Skirt no *******, she hide, I seek. Ready or not, here she ****, and I practice what I preach. Locked myself inside her, finders keep. If the meek inherits her world, I guess that makes me weak.

SMOKE of the fields in spring is one,
Smoke of the leaves in autumn another.
Smoke of a steel-mill roof or a battleship funnel,
They all go up in a line with a smokestack,
Or they twist ... in the slow twist ... of the wind.
  
If the north wind comes they run to the south.
If the west wind comes they run to the east.
  By this sign
  all smokes
  know each other.
Smoke of the fields in spring and leaves in autumn,
Smoke of the finished steel, chilled and blue,
By the oath of work they swear: "I know you."
  
Hunted and hissed from the center
Deep down long ago when God made us over,
Deep down are the cinders we came from-
You and I and our heads of smoke.
  
Some of the smokes God dropped on the job
Cross on the sky and count our years
And sing in the secrets of our numbers;
Sing their dawns and sing their evenings,
Sing an old log-fire song:
  
You may put the damper up,
You may put the damper down,
The smoke goes up the chimney just the same.
  
Smoke of a city sunset skyline,
Smoke of a country dusk horizon-
  They cross on the sky and count our years.
  
Smoke of a brick-red dust
  Winds on a spiral
  Out of the stacks
For a hidden and glimpsing moon.
This, said the bar-iron shed to the blooming mill,
This is the slang of coal and steel.
The day-gang hands it to the night-gang,
The night-gang hands it back.
  
Stammer at the slang of this-
Let us understand half of it.
  In the rolling mills and sheet mills,
  In the harr and boom of the blast fires,
  The smoke changes its shadow
  And men change their shadow;
  A ******, a ***, a bohunk changes.
  
  A bar of steel-it is only
Smoke at the heart of it, smoke and the blood of a man.
A runner of fire ran in it, ran out, ran somewhere else,
And left-smoke and the blood of a man
And the finished steel, chilled and blue.
  
So fire runs in, runs out, runs somewhere else again,
And the bar of steel is a gun, a wheel, a nail, a shovel,
A rudder under the sea, a steering-gear in the sky;
And always dark in the heart and through it,
  Smoke and the blood of a man.
Pittsburg, Youngstown, Gary-they make their steel with men.
  
In the blood of men and the ink of chimneys
The smoke nights write their oaths:
Smoke into steel and blood into steel;
Homestead, Braddock, Birmingham, they make their steel with men.
Smoke and blood is the mix of steel.
  
  The birdmen drone
  in the blue; it is steel
  a motor sings and zooms.
  
Steel barb-wire around The Works.
Steel guns in the holsters of the guards at the gates of The Works.
Steel ore-boats bring the loads clawed from the earth by steel, lifted and lugged by arms of steel, sung on its way by the clanking clam-shells.
The runners now, the handlers now, are steel; they dig and clutch and haul; they hoist their automatic knuckles from job to job; they are steel making steel.
Fire and dust and air fight in the furnaces; the pour is timed, the billets wriggle; the clinkers are dumped:
Liners on the sea, skyscrapers on the land; diving steel in the sea, climbing steel in the sky.
  
Finders in the dark, you Steve with a dinner bucket, you Steve clumping in the dusk on the sidewalks with an evening paper for the woman and kids, you Steve with your head wondering where we all end up-
Finders in the dark, Steve: I hook my arm in cinder sleeves; we go down the street together; it is all the same to us; you Steve and the rest of us end on the same stars; we all wear a hat in hell together, in hell or heaven.
  
Smoke nights now, Steve.
Smoke, smoke, lost in the sieves of yesterday;
Dumped again to the scoops and hooks today.
Smoke like the clocks and whistles, always.
  Smoke nights now.
  To-morrow something else.
  
Luck moons come and go:
Five men swim in a *** of red steel.
Their bones are kneaded into the bread of steel:
Their bones are knocked into coils and anvils
And the ******* plungers of sea-fighting turbines.
Look for them in the woven frame of a wireless station.
So ghosts hide in steel like heavy-armed men in mirrors.
Peepers, skulkers-they shadow-dance in laughing tombs.
They are always there and they never answer.
  
One of them said: "I like my job, the company is good to me, America is a wonderful country."
One: "Jesus, my bones ache; the company is a liar; this is a free country, like hell."
One: "I got a girl, a peach; we save up and go on a farm and raise pigs and be the boss ourselves."
And the others were roughneck singers a long ways from home.
Look for them back of a steel vault door.
  
They laugh at the cost.
They lift the birdmen into the blue.
It is steel a motor sings and zooms.
  
In the subway plugs and drums,
In the slow hydraulic drills, in gumbo or gravel,
Under dynamo shafts in the webs of armature spiders,
They shadow-dance and laugh at the cost.
  
The ovens light a red dome.
Spools of fire wind and wind.
Quadrangles of crimson sputter.
The lashes of dying maroon let down.
Fire and wind wash out the ****.
Forever the **** gets washed in fire and wind.
The anthem learned by the steel is:
  Do this or go hungry.
Look for our rust on a plow.
Listen to us in a threshing-engine razz.
Look at our job in the running wagon wheat.
  
Fire and wind wash at the ****.
Box-cars, clocks, steam-shovels, churns, pistons, boilers, scissors-
Oh, the sleeping **** from the mountains, the ****-heavy pig-iron will go down many roads.
Men will stab and shoot with it, and make butter and tunnel rivers, and mow hay in swaths, and slit hogs and skin beeves, and steer airplanes across North America, Europe, Asia, round the world.
  
Hacked from a hard rock country, broken and baked in mills and smelters, the rusty dust waits
Till the clean hard weave of its atoms cripples and blunts the drills chewing a hole in it.
The steel of its plinths and flanges is reckoned, O God, in one-millionth of an inch.
  
Once when I saw the curves of fire, the rough scarf women dancing,
Dancing out of the flues and smoke-stacks-flying hair of fire, flying feet upside down;
Buckets and baskets of fire exploding and chortling, fire running wild out of the steady and fastened ovens;
Sparks cracking a harr-harr-huff from a solar-plexus of rock-ribs of the earth taking a laugh for themselves;
Ears and noses of fire, gibbering gorilla arms of fire, gold mud-pies, gold bird-wings, red jackets riding purple mules, scarlet autocrats tumbling from the humps of camels, assassinated czars straddling vermillion balloons;
I saw then the fires flash one by one: good-by: then smoke, smoke;
And in the screens the great sisters of night and cool stars, sitting women arranging their hair,
Waiting in the sky, waiting with slow easy eyes, waiting and half-murmuring:
  "Since you know all
  and I know nothing,
  tell me what I dreamed last night."
  
Pearl cobwebs in the windy rain,
in only a flicker of wind,
are caught and lost and never known again.
  
A pool of moonshine comes and waits,
but never waits long: the wind picks up
loose gold like this and is gone.
  
A bar of steel sleeps and looks slant-eyed
on the pearl cobwebs, the pools of moonshine;
sleeps slant-eyed a million years,
sleeps with a coat of rust, a vest of moths,
a shirt of gathering sod and loam.
  
The wind never bothers ... a bar of steel.
The wind picks only .. pearl cobwebs .. pools of moonshine.

iI don’t wanna fix you , I wanna heal you as you heal me Inadvertanly , we do it anyway because we are happy I wanna feel you , as you feel me I wanna know you as I know me I wanna touch you , on metaphysical planes And see the star’s shine out of your *** , as you see mine Fly with me, my love , fly with me to the unkown lands where time hold no power Where the flower is preserved in the desert mist And the animals are small and the trees are big Where penguins live on land and zorros hunt I’ll keep you warm in the winter nights so we can fall asleep at sunrise Or maybe tonight we’ll get to bed before twelve and see sunrise instead And salute the sun with our yogic bodies Lets see the town built on the hillside , precious gems of house, stand blue and pink , perhaps we can walk the cobbled streets and stop for a drink; in the stand up bar sipping coffee or whisky who knows how far We can travel the lands by plane or by car Lets hold hands as we stare at the galaxies underbelly in a desert where there has never been rain We’ll welcome in the water to the dry drought that’s awashed our planet, They say We are emerging from a mini ice age , that is a drought of warmth, of love, of feeling Some call it the Kali Yunga either way they prohacised this Lace like web is splendid for all to see , all to share Lets build a world for us where we can care Lets make a business of our happiness and smile: Smile at your smile so you can smile at mine , endless smiles Until I kiss your soft lips as the rains fall and we don’t mind getting wet at all I remember you said you hadn’t met anyone who didn’t mind getting wet like that , or something along those lines and how time flies Our futures collided the day we met , infact we’ve been waiting for this we’ve been building for this , if we had met any sooner any later there wouldn’t have been a chance in hell , we needed each other then more than ever And so we answered the call and prehaphs that can be our greatest contribution our humble contribution to this revolution , the full cycle Our love child I feel like with you , my future could never be dim , traveling whilst sitting still Evoking the unkown in our hip hugs and our last hugs I wonder if anyone else has felt this before? The great wonders we’ve found at the shores of lust and the shores of greed and the shores of plentiful need Will you heal the world with me? We will heal what we can and no more For me , that is plenty

The wind diverges the horizon boughs
into view finders of royal blue.
The flicker of the blue beyond washes to
brown sticks fettered with dry leaves.
Oh what cadence ensues,
From a bent bough and a
Sifting wind?  
If that limb but a will,
And that breeze but a pulse,
Harmony would hide in the
Heartbeat of an eternal summer.
Yet eternity suffers sterile sadness,
And cadence breeds a timid tempo
Of hollow trees against a grey sky.
So speak the world in discord,
Unveil blue skies from cacophonous trees of green,
And push the wind in hurricanes.
As wind and bough dance in perfect imbalance,
I admire the flicker of their countenance.

Even lions have the strongest hearts
But they still fall weak to lionesses,
A man’s heart can tighten in all parts
It only takes a ´touch´ to bring him to pieces

When a man falls weak to his world
A part of him has leaped over a wall
The tricky phase is to retrieve his part
Searching the world with an incomplete heart,
The finder of his heart is always his near-God
But finders only leave men in a melting ***

Men are known to be tearless
They don’t cry and in pain they remain fearless,
Men are fragile and sensitive
Listen to him and see the world in his perspective,
Men will live on ‘til the last survivor
Because men are forever…

(Frederick entered the room. He told them that he found a treasure into the castle’s cave.)

'I found the rarest treasure of all today. What can I do with that gold?
'Surah hid it.'Mary said,' hence, some mining activities are uncontrolled.'
'The finders and the landowners are entitled to these valuables,'
The cleric said,’ hence, it may help John to adjust the budget balances.'
(Mary wanted to tell Frederick the truth about Surah.)

'Surah is an alchemist, and she loves to do this with fierce intensity.
Her studies about substances, their composition, their density,
About purification by dissolution and by crystallization are rife.
She hopes to discover, someday, the formula for the elixir of life.'

'Summa Perfectionis and the emerald tables of Hermes', said
The cleric, 'this alchemy explains why her statues have lizards on head.'
'Maybe she gave Jezebel a strange substance to drink,' Frederick
Said. 'Go to her castle to search this substance, dear. I am so sick.'

(It was Mary, who told Frederick to go to Surah’s castle to find the antidote. Frederick and Matthew went to the castle. )

The turrets of the castle crumbled under the slow pressure of time,
Their glory has disappeared because of poverty and cold clime.
The falling wall stones, the ill-paved courtyards, the dusty moat,
The sagging floors, the worm-eaten wainscot had a blue note.

The faded tapestries within, all tell a gloomy tale of fallen grandeur.
The alchemy chamber in the remaining tower showed Surah was poor.
She spent the hours of her life in poring over the ancient tomes.
The occult studies made Surah first focus her attention on fomes.



Her belief in all the dark power was firm and deep-seated.
With burning small peasant children, the demon she greeted.
Many times, she was busy over a violently boiling cauldron,
Where many substances spewed out their thick concoction.

She searched a spell to release her life from its terrible burden.
She used to work only when the alchemy room began to darken.
She should never wed, she might, thus, end the curse with herself.
She kept cobwebs and bats. Strange things were on her shelf.

Frederick entered that room and saw her manuscripts and studies
In the field of alchemy. She had bottles, their colors being so muddy.
He opened those books, where it was written how to prepare
Elixirs from herbs, gems, and metals while using a devilish prayer.

The books instructed in the casting of spells, invocations, rites,
Talismans, amulets, and sigils. He found how she spent her nights.
On the altar, a doll-representing Jezebel had needles in her head.
There was a paper, where it was written, 'nor alive, nor dead.'

Near it, he found Kratom leaves and bottles-containing naloxone.
He took the bottles because he understood what Surah had done.
While feeding the horses, Matthew was waiting near the castle.
Clayton was in a stable, but working there became such a hassle.

He thought that something happened, when tools dropped on the floor.
A bottle dropped over another one, when Frederick closed the door.
An explosion was heard in the castle, which sounded like a sonic boom.
Surah was in a hurry to see what happened into the alchemy room.

Another explosion was heard being more loudly than the first one.
Surah gazed at her reflected face within the mirror instead of run.
Huge deformations of her new face formed a monstrous being.
An illusion shifted her identity. Believing is not always seeing.

She had sensations of otherness, when her new face appeared
To be a stranger looking at her, beyond the mirror, then disappeared.
A monster was watching her, and smiling with an enigmatic expression.
Clayton embraced her while crying, 'My dear, you have an obsession!'

Frederick told Matthew, ‘I took the potion, let's straddle the horses.'
'The castle is burning. To get out of this wood, we need strong forces.'
'My horse sped up. ‘What does he feel in front of fire and crack?
'He's fearful, because he feels trapped. Don't pull him back!'

'Being scared, his reaction is flight and run away from the fire wallop.
'You're scared, and instinctively you urge him to go into a gallop.'
'The horses are not thinking. It’s all out of the instinct to survive.
You can help your horse, when you know how to ride and to drive.'

(They rode their horses to the castle of Jezebel.)

They entered the castle, and climbed up the stairway to Jezebel.
'I came here in a hurry to save you, and my way to you was a hell.
Drink the potion, and wake up. I wonder how you feel in my arms.
I'm in love with you and still so deeply captivated by your charms.
(Jezebel had opened her eyes for the first time since being asleep. ‘I know that you love me!’ She told Frederick.)
(Clayton had managed to extinguish the fire. After that, he held his precious Surah in his arms while crying. Her face was burned by acid during explosion.)

'Nothing happened to your face. You're the same beautiful woman.'
'Why my face is in pain? ‘It’s because of the heat. Lie on the divan.
Let me take off your clothes, and flush your skin with cold water.'
'You're so gentle, Clayton. In your arms, I feel safe like a little daughter'.

'I lost the potion I prepared for Richard. He's my last chance.
It was destroyed by the explosion. I feel like I am in a trance.'
'I gave you morphine for treating your pain. He wouldn't help you.
Richard is like John, and you cannot change their point of view.'

(Clayton loved her, because he thought she was vulnerable and incapable to adopt the situations. Her soul was very fragile, even she masked this so well. She wanted to be more than she could be in life, and this was the reason her ways weren’t always the best chosen ways. He hoped someday his love would change her. He wanted to save her life. Surah closed her eyes, and fell asleep.)

To be continued...

A little bit of ***
In a canvas bag
And a wallet full of notes
And a piece of rag
A tooth brush and comb
And a letter pack
And a bit of paper
With a number on the back
And a crisp old sheet
From a writing pad
Is a folded memory
And a poem so sad
Yet with joy in the lines
That live on still
While the love they were for
Will no longer thrill
For the cause is lost
Like the canvas bag
Left by the seat
With no name tag
How can I find
That fleeting two?
They won't be in Oxford
They were passing through
I met them in London
By the cold roadside
They wanted a lift
So I gave them a ride
They'll pass on
Down Exeter way
The cost of that lift
Was dear to pay
For now I am left
With a canvas bag
With a leather flap
For a naming tag
All covered with names
That student wrote
So when standing so cold
At a glance he'd note
The words of his subject
Written thereon
And his mind would warm
As he pondered on
The lecture from where
The thought first came
And the hour of the day
When he wrote the name
Nameless he was
And his lady too
Till the *******
Was sifted through
Then a card
Came to light
With a name upon it
Plain to sight
And I remember
The college hall
Goldsmith's was
The name let fall
So to the English
Scholar then
I may return
The bag again
With a little bit of ***
And a sad love poem
I'll return them all
To their former home.

As the minutes drift into hours
I stare at the flowers
That died the day you left.

And they say keepers win in the war of finders,
But I'm not so sure.
Cos, the reminders
Of what used to be.
Have soured.
And I try and devour
Memories,
Spaces, faces, places
That we shared.
And I choke on some, and others slide down.
--

And I wander if I even cross your mind, my love
And do you remember the time
You said that you'd always be mine
And that forever was too short a time
For you and I.

Those lies you spun, like a spiders web,
Took place, built homes
Inside my head
And I didn't try to relocate
Because all I could do was appreciate
That someone finally cared.

And those memories that we shared,
Those faces, spaces and places
They're all so vivid.
I can smell the scent of your sweet perfume, and feel the water
Splash
When we went down that log floom
And we both held on so tight,
We were determined not to let eachother go. With all our might.
So what happened, my love?

What changed inside that beautiful frame of yours
What's the reason you began to close  all of those doors
And lock me out.
Cos it's strange to be a stranger
And I don't like the danger
That comes with
Not knowing who I am, or you were.
And the uncertainty of who we were together.
Cos the forever we promised
Has been and gone, and call me crazy
But I expected to hold on to it
A little longer.
I thought we were stronger.

Your honey gold hair hung
Down over your face
As you told me about these places and spaces that we shared
Could be no more

My world crashed and burned
And fizzled out
And I found new ammunition
To tear myself apart
To pull to pieces
My damaged heart.
And once I was done
I hung the picture frame
You threw onto the floor
On a sign on the doors,
Saying keep out.

And my barriers went up
But my walls crumbled down
Tell me,
Are you around, my love?

Are you laughing and smiling
And have you moved on...

2013 ©

i find me in you,
in the sense that i can't breathe,
i wish i were lost.

The flowers fall like sweeties
in the packet of my mind.
The answer flows completely
from the hand that stops the time.

The questions that were seeking
could potentially leave us blind
to the poetry that's creeping
to the rhythm of the times.
  
The finders fees of finding gold
are deeply grained in laws.
The crawling finger grasping
for the love of ***** ******.

The sailor tongues are swaggering
with anticipating  throws,
of innocent and eloquent
shows of pretty hoes.

I find myself begging for fights so I can add it to the excuse pile


I find myself laughing inside when you’re  ****** or picking a fight


I find myself grinning when you grumble



I find myself daydreaming of days where I get to do what makes me happy





I find myself.

By the law of Finders Keepers, you're rich.
But she didn't see it that way
Did she?

Theft she called it.
But who cares for a few plants?
What are they worth?

Barely anything - A mumbled apology -
Your first born?
Or your life.

So bye bye baby.

Did you hear her cry
From the tower?
She screamed as her hair was ripped

From the weight of that
Enchantress.
But you never knew.

You met a man once,
Who spoke of a girl.
He stood blinded by thorns,

Blinded by her foolishness.
But loved her still.
Sought her still.

You thought such a girl
Must be priceless.
Jewelled seraph you thought.

Little did you realise
Her worth was little more
Than a few rapunzel plants.

I look over my poems
and it's clear to see
that some of these writes
are apparently just for me--
sometimes I think
words fly from my heart
explode from my brain
and then panic might start
as I re-read a post or two
that happened to be one of those
that so hurriedly flew
from my head to my fingers
on the keyboard to here
and I shudder and wonder
(did I make myself clear?)
but then some lovely soul
will come right along
and write a nice comment or two
and as I read that they "got" my write
relief comes flooding through
then again I allow my fingers to take flight...
hoping it will touch someone
like you...
am i the only one who has doubts sometimes? lol
much love to my amazing fellow poets
on this site!
i hope you guys like it butnot what it is but how it was ariten


#heart   #poems   #fingers   #fly   #panic   #flight   #writes   #explode

Finders are keepers,
I found your heart first.
27/2/2019

Dear God,

Do you want me to be grateful
for the way the clouds curl around each other
like ringlets falling from a hairband?
Because I will be, if you want.
And if I tell you the truth
I think I’m going to have to be
because I can’t find any other thing so beautiful.
I’m looking at the world through a view-finder
and I can’t find much that’s pretty these days.

My calf is pressed against the calf of a girl
who I considered for years to be a best friend of mine.
She felt empty
and so she inflated herself with
hot air and “banter” with no meaning.
“***** Please” and “Ohmygod” and “*******”
spew from her awkward, Christian mouth
and I wonder whether she scooped her insides out
like pumpkin flesh
and inserted somebody new there in her place
like a candle in a jack'o'lantern.
Somebody who doesn’t have the time for me.
So I give up on our small talk
and decide not to interrupt her mobile phone;
I feel the back of her head like a headache.

“Mum’s sweated off four-hundred-and-seventy-six calories today”
she tells me and I ask her how she knows.
“She’s a got a tag thingy, you know. I have too.”

I can’t bear the sound of calories.
They are nails on all my chalkboards
and they are the wrong-footed *****
that tolls in church.

I lower my gaze to the absent-minded mother
whose fingers climb into her pram
to draw circles on the baby’s scalp.
She stirs my thoughts with them.
I think I’ve come a long way since
I started this prayer,
since my eyes hit the clouds.

Someone once told me that the thing he hated above all else
was greed
because greed is a bonfire that hungers without ever feeling full.
And who reminded me that
power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

We got the greed we hungered for.

And it corrupted us absolutely.

For it is by greed that the ice caps
are sweating off more calories
than the girls in their gym shorts.

It is by greed that they cannot rest
until they have peeled their thighs far enough apart
and by greed that they’ve been lured into the propaganda store
to buy themselves diets.

It is by greed that we cannot look our world in the eye
and greed that necessitates the use of a microscope lens
to distance us from the damage we cause.

It is by greed that we underline the little problems
to cover up the big ones
and it is greed that enables us to find offense in the weather forecast.

It is greed that has shrunk my values into a cage of bitter ribs
and greed that provoked my self-righteous verbal slaughter
of that friend I no longer know.

It is by greed that we started deciding that land belonged to people –
that finders were keepers, as long as they were white –
instead of the earth it consists of.

It is by greed that we doggedly avoid breaking our routines apart
to fit other factors into them.

It is by greed that righteousness
and ******
fall into step
on the path towards a religion that God can’t condone.

It is by greed that fascism and communism
eclipse one another and meld into one.

It is by greed that the old woman opposite
refuses to share her seat or even her smile
with a human under the age of thirty.

It is by greed that kids have bullets in them
and mothers are shot full of infection
and the water runs dry
through the dripping tap we didn’t fix in our bathroom.

It is by greed that I sit on a bus
and shift my problem onto our backs
with my view-finder.

And yeah,
I still see some beauty when I look for it
but I see beauty like a picture postcard
that an angry kid took a hole punch to.
It got so torn up but we refuse to put it under a light
in order to avoid seeing just how many gaps we’ve made.
Recently I’ve noticed this postcard’s
got too many holes in it to be able to see
what the picture once was.
There’s more absent than present
and, sure, we’ve still got our itty-bitty blue-sky-days
between the punctures,
but the grime and the guilt seeps out
like the air we drove our dreams on.

What a mess we inflicted, I think.

There’s a ceiling light in our toilet that attracts flies to it.
They fly in and burn up
and the lamp bowl fills with insect corpses
until you can’t see through them anymore.
We’re like that.
Flies go suicide bombing
and ***** things up
with the clutter they leave behind them.
Meanwhile,
as long as the dead stay in their graves,
they don’t bother the rest.
We look up at the ceiling
and don’t change the lightbulb.

How many people does it take to change a lightbulb?

We like looking at our world from the atmosphere;
we observe it from the internet,
believing that we stand on the moon,
too far away to touch the gashes we’ve torn.
We don’t like looking at the way the blood runs;
we tuck it under our fingernails instead
and hope no one holds us accountable.

When I come home I snap at my mum
because I am so struck by the brokenness of what I’m dealing with
that I cannot have her ask me how my day was.
Because I cannot complain about the weather
but I need to
because our family conversation is not big enough
to grapple with the magnitude of the genuine complaints I have.
Because I cannot simply tell her that I hate America
or feel comfortable praying her this prayer.
So I tell her “OK” and she rolls her eyes at the kettle.

So I’ve got my dish-cloth heart
and the rain starts to spit at us
with tears that are heavy enough to weep the things I can’t shed.

Wash me clean, rain… heaven… God,
because most people put ***** dishcloths in the bin
not the washing machine.

Finders are keepers and I found you,
Broken and disheartened  
The brightest star in the sky,
I plucked you gently and kept you between the pages of my heart,
You are mine.

Here is the rub. Riddles we never got. Oh, my.

Serving to illustrate my point of departure from the mean norm.
the rub is the cause of the pain, not its purpose.

Pain is not for punishing, whatever that means to you.
Pain is for correction, for your own good, ditto the meaning part.

The rub is where touch goes too deep, applies too much braking,
the humdrumconundrum setting on life's pace (get the app) in the age of Google.

For more time than Google or its finders could agree, with me, to believe,
I have been waiting for this moment to arrive. There are places where that rubs.

Fiction, that does lubricate real ification, doesn't it.
I never noticed, until now. That's why liars prosper, maybe.

Jah, I saw it comin' on my back, in a safe place, two days before leaving Bien Hoa, Spring
1969. The White Album, Koss EPS6's, tight, no sound, dark, I wandered homeward.

Not all war stories are lies, some are parables, some are prophecies.

I waited until now was firm in every mind involved,
then launched the grand old party line to God almighty, in my mind

Radioman manifested from the dreams and events that seemed as dreams seem,
upon that time, when I lay waiting, near Bien Hoa.

Look homeward? Where? I have no memory, I've been Bourne Borked, why me?
Was I the hero of the story I was in? I must have been, I am alive and I am old.

And there, the acid message burned through my sckull and I played something
like Russian Roulette, with a character named Ken Kingman, who grinned like a devil.

All this in my mind. Where were we then, we Googled men? We friends on the grid?
Flesh and bone, muscle and blood, for God and country, do or die, don't ask why?

Airborne, All the way, ah, we sang that cadence in our dreams, even after we got the joke.
But we was always only me, we are imaginary, in my mind, extensive, albeit, still mine.

I didn't know.

No, you could not have known, that was just me, the meek little me speaks,
peeking beneath the banner over me. You never crossed my mind.

The show runner speaks up and has nothing more to say, we run on, fo' a long time,
lemme tell ye gotamighty gonna cut chadown. Run on, fo' a long

The point. Fret not. Been there done that entered the vernacular on my watch, I saw this.
I'm ready. You ever been slammed, honest t'God slammed to the ground, breathless?

breathing brings us to the center. Home is where your heart is. That's a riddle, BTW.
Where a thought is first thought seems to establish its eventual trajectory, don't you think?

We be comin' to some real that normal can fix on, soon, waitin's what we do til then.
No pain.  No rub, no, friction fiction uses warm a weary mind as to what might be.

When ye think a bout it. Something in the way we thought must 'ave mollified it, the rub,
above, with **** we let slip by. The aitch's do that. Aitch sounds. 'ushin' ohmmmm.

An illness, it plagues me
It causes great misery
My screams go unheard
I hope Death comes to claim me

You're such a good friend
I know you will help me
Come to my house,
And help set me free

The Demon came one night
And to me, it spoke;
"Come make a pact with me,
And your pain I'll turn to smoke"

You're such a good friend
I know you will help me
Come to my house,
And help set me free

You walked into my house
So generous and kind
Of how innocent you were,
So innocently blind

You're such a good friend
I know you will help me
Come to my house,
And help set me free

The transformation completes
Oh how good it feels
To be free of pain and suffering
The bell of liberty peals

You're such a good friend
I know you will help me
Come to my house,
And help set me free

A day is not long,
I must start acting
If I want to stay,
You must be dying.

You're such a good friend
I know you will help me
Come to my house,
And help set me free

Alas, you have struggled,
Valiantly played.
But you cannot win me,
The pact gives me aid.

You're such a good friend
I know you will help me
Come to my house,
And help set me free

Give it back?
This body, I will keep
They say "finders keepers"
Leaving the losers to weep.

You're such a good friend
I know you will help me
Come to my house,
And help set me free

For a day, I said.
For a day, you'll stay.
But not if you die,
Not if you, I slay.

You're such a good friend
I know you will help me
Come to my house,
And help set me free

This is the final leg,
Your power abates.
For all the love I've missed,
Ahead, it awaits.

You're such a good friend
I know you will help me
Come to my house,
And help set me free

Goodbye, my dear friend
You've helped me a bunch
Your body stays with me
And with mine you leave

You're such a good friend
I know you will help me
Come to my house,
And help set me free

The Demon behind
He waved his hand
Laughed, and left
When the camera panned.

not a place we can go to have my grandmother tell you again how my uncle was born with a tooth.

where slavery just a star watched and watching and **** just a rainbow bent to its work.

where babies are shaken like hollow gifts and we want people and the emptiness of people put to death.

where grey flutes billow.

where milk is in our blood and ghost letting.

where hope is ugly but don’t tell it.

where fathers disappear into the dashboards of looted trucks taking with them their once employed hands and taking with them the heat of those hands.

where disappear is not a word we lightly loft.

where envy is the work of nearby grass.

where a man moves over a woman so that she is equal and equally ransacked
of travel.

where in a field this far away one can do finders keepers to a body scraped at by others and poked.

where a pill is like a mouth but smaller. but wants a bottle. and roots at the tip of your tongue.

I find that I find I can't find what I'm looking for,
it happened before when I've looked high and low,
and now
I find that I find even less than I found when nothing was lost.

I am lost
I admit it,
up **** creek
without a map,
krap,
(pun intended)

I'll find a way to find the way to find my way out.

Entry ~
*How can one person change so much in a single month. I've been walking under the same sun, but passing beneath different streetlights. I haven't been traveling long. I've been gone from my hometown for about three months. I miss the snow covered trees. The cool familiar sensation of the Lake Erie breeze. I miss the tulips in spring that seem to pop up wherever they please. I miss the big blue house with white window frames sitting on the corner of Temple Street. The big garden out front surrounded by an electric fence to ward off deer. That place was my refuge. My sacred ground. I was born into a family twisted from life. I was lost during my childhood, and for most of my teen years. I was a hopeless kid. I kept it together on the surface, but never could hide the sadness in my eyes. I moved into that house a month after I turned eighteen. I was at that crucial age. Teetering on adulthood, fresh out of the high school scene. I moved in with my boyfriend. The man who would become a rock for most of my life. He was the first person to teach me unconditional love. Two words I have been vaguely familiar with from childhood. It was a long process to learn how to give, and receive unconditional love. It's been three years since I've met him. I'm only grasping the concept now. I lived in that house for three years. That house is my home. My real home. When I moved in, I hardly knew my housemates. We were acquaintances. Not exactly friends, but I was accepted because of my boyfriend. I was such a shy girl back then. I hardly said much. Kept myself busy by cleaning, and reading. Smoking lots of ****. Little did I know, three years later they would become some of the most crucial people in my life. My boyfriend taught me unconditional love, but the people in that house taught it to me too. For myself, and for others. I learned more from them then they will ever know. I was brought into their world, one so different from where I came. For a bit, I felt like I was in wonderland. Like I fell down a rabbit hole chasing the cheshire cat. Wandering through scenes of nonsense, caught in the folds of time. Looking back, I can't tell if that's how I actually saw it, or if that was just the acid. Either way, I learned to love it. I was Alice, exploring my new wonderland. I expanded my consciousness in that house. I soaked up what was going on around me like a sponge. I'm an observer. I always have been. I can sit back in a room full of people, not saying a single word, just watching. I notice the things most people do without thinking. The little things. Biting nails, shaking legs, even twisting their earrings exactly three times. Detail is my specialty. I notice everything, from the words people choose right down to what they do when they say them. I'm an observer, not a judger. I keep most of my observations to myself. Unless, I feel someone could benefit from something being noticed. I grew up more in those three years than I had during my entire adolescence. I grew so much that I felt like I was exploding out the windows cracking the white frames, blowing off the roof. I had three of the best years of my life in that house. I had no idea what I was prepping myself for when I moved in. I never would've had the guts to travel cross country if it wasn't for that house. For those people. I owe everything to those three years of my life there. It's been three months since I moved out. Just three short months. I've seen everything from the Appalachian Trial to the Rocky Mountains to the Mojave Desert. In each place I've been, I've found a piece of my lost soul. If life was fair, I would get to keep those pieces. Finders keepers. Unfortunately, that just isn't the way it works. For every piece that's found, one's left behind. This is simply the way. It was decided long ago. By those who understood the circle of life. There must be balance. For what we take, we must give, in order to receive. This is what I learned in that big blue house on temple street. This is the lesson I hold dear to me now as I prepar to come back to my hometown. I haven't been gone long, but I'm not the same as when I left. I'm stronger. Wiser. I'm ready to face the tragedy that awaits me when I pull off exit fifty three. I'll be walking into a storm, but I'm not afraid of the rain. I can take it. I'll feel so much relief when I pull into that rocky driveway, park my car, and walk up the path half swallowed by grass. Up those steps, then right through the door held together with duct tape. I'll walk into the kitchen right into my family's arms, and finally find some peace. I'll be right where I need to be. Right at home with the people that love me. Supporting me, as I face an unbearable tragedy.

I want your hello, goodbye, and everything in between
I'll be your king if you be my queen
I'll show you things unseen
And sing you things unheard
We'll never get bored
Because we'll travel
Until the clothes on our backs unravel
I asked you to join me on an adventure at the beach
But I promise I won't be clingy like a leach
Meet me at six
So you can give me my fix
Because I'm fixated
So don't be frustrated
We'll bring the horizon
Either you can orican
And we will
Because I think you're straight ill
And I'll do whatever just to give you your fill
Stay like a tattoo
Because I need you like, stat too
Because with out you things seem askew
You didn't expect the question but my bandana knew
You're a cutie pie so around you flies flew
If it's finders keepers
Then I'm glad I have such sharp peepers
So sharp they'll pop your heart
But can you feel mine?
If you can that's fine
With it beating so hard it's hard not to
Cause when I saw you I thought ooh
And I'm so glad I caught you
Looking at me

There's a house on the hill.
It's full of ill will.

There's a witch living there.
But the towns folk don't care.

She's lived there privately.
Nobody sees the wart on her nose as it grows.
Everyone's heard of her, but nobody knows.

They don't ever see the black hair on her chin.
All petrified, none going in.

The cows in the field withhold their yield.
Stays inside their udders.
Blaming the witch but it's never revealed.

The witch finder general thinks he's a soldier.
As suspends her over the ducking pool.
All is revealed as he is a fool.

For the times have changed.
Witch finders extinct.

Believe what you like.
Witches don't turn milk sour.

Witch finders went out of fashion.
The house on the hill is still's just a myth.

Witches' name is old sister Smith.
No dangers of black magic.

No sign of a spell book.
Go visit her.

She'll set you free.
If you're very lucky she'll make you some tea.
(c)LIVVI

Janice helped you
to gather up
the loose pieces of coal
on the cobbled road

leading to the coal wharf
off Meadow Row
you watched as she put
the pieces in the sack

you’d brought with you
as the evening mist
settled upon the scene
her red beret placed

at an angle
her hair
smooth as water
is this allowed?

she asked
looking around
at the back of houses
still standing after

the wartime bombing
finders keepers
you said
or so Granddad told me

the other week
when I saw him
she gazed at you
unconvinced

but put in more
of the black pieces
you handed to her
what will my gran say

when she sees
my blackened hands?
Janice said
I can’t tell her

or she’ll tan my hide
as she calls it
you looked
at her coal stained fingers

the way they held
and placed the coal
you can wash your hands
at my place

you said
Mum won’t mind
she likes you anyway
Janice looked at you

her lips spreading
into a smile
nice to know
she said

maybe when we’re grown
and married
she’ll like me better
the sky had darkened

the mist heavy
the moon glowing
I guess so
you said

wondering if her gran
would see it that way
if she lived
to see the day

that should be enough
coal now
you said
taking the sack

from her blackened hands
noticing the thin fingers
she rubbing her hands
together against the cold

the dark
and winter weather.

The lioness frantically searches the high grass
The boy scans for running late dad in the stands
The alone wife stairs at the moon folded hands
Praying for their safe return again

I see us strolling along fate's street,
Walking in harmony's glass slippers.
We're never about how good we fit;
We're our finders. We're our keepers.

Neither faith nor chance, all we have;
Is our rare complex; Our crazy love.

Our love at first sight was too blind-
To see how you and I could really be.
Sight or not, you're ever on my mind.
My shut eyes can still see you vividly.

It was your body before your heart;
I loved 'what' you were; what I saw.
But thinking back to our crazy start-
I don't see how I could not see it all.

You've got that rare, funny laughter;
The one that somehow kinda echoes.
I cannot see our happily ever after,-
Cuz our love's book can't ever close.

You did not steal my heart complete.
You made your hands its safest place.
Loosing my guard was never defeat,
It was the start of a worthwhile race.


With us, rather than bliss, I boast of-
Our unique complex; Our crazy love. You're

literally a world away from me-
In a much more metaphorical sense.
But that only hurts when I miss you;
Namely, upon each proof of existence.

Our love is against odds? That's odd!
We are not victims of circumstance.
Not close to a goddess and a god,-
We just fight hard for every chance.

Its funny the things we do together.
But its funnier cuz we know not why.
This is quite far, but we'll go further,
Cuz 'enough' is extinct to you and I.

A steady pace, not in the human race;
This is more like our love marathon.
Had we been features on earth's face-
We'd be the reason it'd not be common.

We may last forever, maybe beyond it,
And make it wish it would last as long.
But, if we should end 'fore we re-meet,
Know that our love was never wrong.


We've found a fit tighter than a glove-
In Our unique complex; Our crazy love.

Keep Smiling

Welcome to the world of finders keepers..a place plagued with liars, cheaters, creepers, deceivers..Angel faced devils beautiful as the Mona Lisa..
Trick or treaters you get tricked they'll treat ya..a prisoner of my own mind ill be at the gate to meet ya.
We're not that much different actually were quite the same, over extreme happiness I'd take the slightest pain..
Enough with the sunshine please cue the rain..It's a crying shame, straight faces behind ******* lets play the lying game..
Like yea I'm fine, trust me it's ok, there's peace in chaos and there's relief in pain.. numbed my senses and suppressed my emotions..
My tears seemed more significant as puddles on the pad rather than drops in the ocean..
I'm coastin thru memories that I thought were gone, they added the fuel to this fire guess there were here all along..
Burdened by doubt I never feel good enough, paranoid don't have to many friends wondering who I could trust..
Then I found you in this whirlwind of feeling, amazed by who you are being with you is oh so appealing..
You're stealing my dreams and mind, if you ask me you should be mine..
Take a chance or a risk or better yet just the time..
See there's fragments of me left for you in every page and every line..
These poems are my diary letters from to you, I'm done looking the search is over because there's no better than you..

I want to leave something
When I die
To show that I was here
Of course I’ve got young people
And my sweet lover
And various keepsakes
That I hold dear
But
This bequest must be
Of poetic design
As melodious as my spirit
As lyrical as my mind
Buried like hidden treasure
For future word finders to find
Small portions of me
To know me by
Left behind
To discover
After I die

I think this was the first (and only) nervous breakdown I’ve ever had. I was nineteen.



The noises from the plane were terrifying enough to wake me up. My relaxed heart started racing, and I thought of a late-night bomb attack, via some middle-eastern country, which would bring war. I clutched the blankets to my chest, and expected the dooming flash of light which would instantly take my life through vaporization. After several minutes of laying tense yet catatonic in my bed, my late-night delirium began to slowly fade. Whether it was one plane or several, I know not. I just remember hearing the horrible ripping noise echo through the sky by my window and I instantly awoke. Were the planes this loud every night? Why did I never notice? Perhaps I restarted my sleep cycle and being back in level one, the loud noise frightened me. But did that mean that if these planes did indeed roar, every night, that I always slept through them? It seemed very unlikely. I cautiously checked my phone to inform myself of what time the war had started. Three-eleven a.m. How depressing. Why would an enemy attack in the middle of the night when everyone is asleep? What cowardice. Why would an enemy attack at all? Why would we have an enemy? As my paranoia faded and my fatigue crawled back, I went to the bathroom. I figured if I were to die, I wouldn’t want the finders of my body to think me gross for soiling myself with the tea I drank right before bedtime. As I sat on the toilet and released the pressure, the pressures of life invaded. I looked up to the sky-light in my bathroom and decided tonight would not be the night where I was killed while sleeping by a late-night plane of an enemy, but if it were to happen, I’d have no control whatsoever. Sadness struck me as I envisioned myself being robbed of motherhood, still and unaware at nineteen-years old. I thought again of the planes, and while they no longer seemed threatening, I wondered what caused them to rip across the sky in such force. It seemed destiny had spared me that night, but would it always? June was a non-war month anyways; I should relax, enjoy the summer and keep caution for autumn and winter. Those are war seasons, when wars began. The night was still once more, but I felt completely drained—the way one feels when descending from a *******-high. I straightened my blankets, rolled onto my side into a comfortable position and squeezed my eyes shut trying to hold back tears.