Everyone Has a Story… Here’s Five.


Part I: Cousin

I remember
That daze I felt those days
Those days that were fixtures
In my life at the time
But like all good stories
They come to an end
Sometimes abruptly

I was on the island,
At the very top,
Looking down from our mountain,
It was night time,
And the lights shined clearly,
Little holes from the bottom of heaven were penetrating the world,
As they did so I peered on,
Never truly understand what heaven was,
This was my element,
The curiosity which was placed in me,
Since the birth of my being,
Has never been one for being quenched,
Even if my parents tried to beat it out of me,
After a time they kind of hit a fork in the road and decided to go right,
But at the last second I side stepped and ran my behind to the left,
Because the right side isn't always the right way to go,
I felt that their minds died some time ago,
But I was a kid, in the hoods of Puerto Rico,
Only visiting, never witnessing,
The day to day realities,
That came from living so rapidly.

I met my cousin for the second time the days before that night,
He took me under his wing almost immediately and I was happy to follow,
He was a tall man, tattooed from head to toe,
I thought the second I laid eyes on him, that this was my role model
As a lover of Hip-Hop I thought this was how everyone should look,
He would cuss, and spit, and drink, and have several women on deck,
While rolling a couple of joints,
This was the MAN!

However, this view didn't last for very long,
Because on that night,
I witnessed the devil for the first time,
I crawled from beneath my covers,
That my mother had so carefully put into place,
As a safeguard against the realities of the world,
That would come true in my childish fantasies of the boogie man,
The only bad I knew was what was told to me by the news,
People falling left and right cause of wars and other endless fights,
But in my mind they could be brought back to life by the Dragon *****,
Unfortunately Goku wasn't here this night,
I snuck through the house silently,
As the noise would be drowned out by the singing of coquis,
My bare feet hit the humid pavement following the rush down the stairs,
I only wanted to see my view,
The view of heavens holes peering through the vast and dark sky,
It was located at the edge of a cliff that looked over a ravine and then the wilderness,
At the precise moment I stopped to realize my will,
My dream was disrupted by a voice,
Followed by a sound that sliced through my mind and deflated my childish intuition,
A sound that penetrates my adult mind and echoes in the silence to this day,
Muffled screams echoed out after I heard the gunshots ring,
Beneath the sounds of the forests singing,
My heart was pounding slowly,
I was strangely calm rather than panicky and fearful,
Not that I was a brave child, but I remained curious,
Until I saw the blood…
It was then that I saw the dimly lit lamp beneath the moon light,
Resulting in the two bodies casting elongated shadows against the dank Earth,
Followed by a larger body standing over them,
One body was completely still,
While the other one was rocking back and forth,
The terror that took me was shear and raw,
The only other time that I had witnessed such a fear,
Was through the appearance in a pig’s eye,
As my grandfather drove a machete through its heart,
I heard the second shot ring out,
In the same amount of time that it took me to blink,
The other man had been murdered just the same,
And before I knew it the gun was pointed at me,
I stared back and started shaking,
This had to be pure fiction,
But no, this was reality,
I turned to run, but stopped when I realized who it was,
Looking up at me as he exited the thicket and the shadows,
Was my cousin, my role model,
He cocked his head up and looked at me with concern,
But said nothing,
As I ran home breathlessly,
Under the holes into heaven,
That had been put there by bullets,
My childhood was finished…

And I'd never see him again.


Part II: Brother

I remember
That daze I felt those days
Those days that were fixtures
In my life at the time
But like all good stories
They come to an end
Sometimes abruptly

As a child,
I thoroughly enjoyed,
Playing around outside,
I enjoyed getting into play fights,
I loved feeling like I could overwhelm any opponent, but I couldn't.
My brother was way stronger than me,
He had the height advantage,
And best believe he had the weight advantage,
But still, I thought I could manage,
It never really crossed my mind that my brother was a bit off,
To me he was a big kid,
A quiet companion,
My best friend,
My heart.

That was more than enough,
Until one day I went too far,
See my brother had one toy that he loved,
It was string; he'd tear up clothes to make string,
He'd cry up storms at department stores if he didn't get his string,
He'd hit my mother and punch my father if he didn't get string,
I just always thought the exception was me,
I was his play mate, he smiled at me,
Something quite rare for my big brother to do as a result of his condition,
And the medication he was taking,
You see when a child has autism they kind of want to do their own thing,
They want to be on their own,
Enjoying whatever it is they enjoy doing on their time,
But I had a child's mind and a child's ego,
His toys were mine too,
Share with me,
Play with me,
Look at me,
ME, ME, ME!
So he punched me right across the face,
I went flying into a sliding paneled glass door and began crying,
When my mother entered the room,
She asked what was going on and tried to calm me down,
I wouldn't listen so she told me shut up before the neighbors called police,
And we were both taken away,
Being that my mother was a single parent, I believed her,
With that being the case, I closed my eyes and didn't look at my arm,
Nor the blood slowly dripping down it onto my fingertips,
Down to the floor below,
I didn't play much anymore after that,
I was too childish to blame myself,
So the fault was his.

The fault would end up being mine,
As this action being a culmination of things done by my brother,
Led my father and my mother to do what I thought was unthinkable,
They chose to let him go,
Giving him to a group home,
My young mind couldn't even begin to comprehend the pain they felt,
But to me all I could see was two adults giving up on their son,
I saw love and hope dissipate right in front of my eyes,
He was playing with his string in the back seat of the car,
While I sat beside him just watching him,
Saving every movement of his,
And his joy into my memory banks,
To be left to gather dust; because the pain was too much to harness,
But with respect I chose to re-open the chest,
And hold my brother in my arms once again,
Before he was ripped away from me,
And given away to the monstrous people,
That wouldn't let him hug his mother nor me,
I didn't care if this is what was needed to be,
I was losing my brother!
My blood!
My playmate!
My best friend!
My only friend!
My HEART!
It didn't matter that he hit me,
It don't matter if he hit my mother or father,
Because the beating my heart was taking was too much,
For my slim frame and still developing body to handle,
As such my growth was stunted and I gained heart problems,
On top of the asthma,
Autism meant nothing to me,
He was everything!

But it ended with me sleeping alone,
At home he was gone.


Part III: Father

I remember
That daze I felt those days
Those days that were fixtures
In my life at the time
But like all good stories
They come to an end
Sometimes abruptly

I never felt much towards you,
I was taught to love my mother solely,
As she was the one always there to heal my bumps and bruises,
The only memories I have of you from my childhood,
Are of you feeding me God awful food and teaching me to ride a bike,
But I forgot how to ride a bike,
And I could cook what you cooked on my own,
Burnt hotdogs, and pasta, and cereal never really fazed me,
Every other memory is a blur,
Your love was like a line or two painted upon a Mona Lisa of love,
That I had gathered from the various sources of inspiration in my life,
I could always gain appreciation for them,
But not for you.


As I entered my adult years,
You tried to make up for it,
I knew you had pent up guilt inside from not seeing me,
Yet you bought presents and rose up the seeds of another tree,
Seeds that I don't blame,
I only wanted to smell the same flowers that you gave them,
So you were trying to give them to me while I could still smell them,
But that sense was long gone along with my sense of sight,
Literally my vision was fading, but my mind was expanding,
As I was witnessing the world around me quite clearly, and the soul within me,
Just wouldn't release me, from the overwhelming feeling of needing you,
A father figure I could depend on,
A monument for what a man should be, and truly believe in,
As it comes to issues of morality, love, and loyalty,
Up until this point you had only taught me resentment,
Resentment leading to hate,
But I wanted to honor you in place,
So I hide the parts of me that you don't care to see,
I hide my relationships,
I hide my true feelings,
I hide my poetry,
Because if you found those things,
I would no longer be free,
And I refuse to submerge my soul into slavery,
Just for you to feel like you rose up the brightest son,
When truly the darkness is where I was brought up and where I belong,
Moonlight is the only thing I can touch with my pen,
As I compose the paintings residing in my head,
Of wordsmiths and demons battling,
Because words are my angels,
And they have always been there in every instance,
Whenever I've needed a piece of wisdom,
Or a calming presence that would come from the essence,
And recollections of stories of glory,
Stories that helped me forget you,
I love you, and hope our relationship can bloom,
But I no longer wish to speak on you.


Part IV: Mother

I remember
That daze I felt those days
Those days that were fixtures
In my life at the time
But like all good stories
They come to an end
Sometimes abruptly

I was taught to feel love towards you,
And it still remains as strong as ever,
From when I was a child,
Your sacrifice made my life exactly what it is,
Exactly what I needed it to be in order to grow and explore my soul,
To reach for my dreams,
You have always given to me,
Even on your last two cents,
Both would be for me,
You were my mother goose,
Even if I seemed like a young rooster,
Because we were always so different,
You always wanted to mold me into your vision of me,
While you instilled in me many things which cling tightly to me,
You've made someone completely different from what you expected,
I hold different views and truths that are separate from you,
Which is fine, but for a time it would keep me from being who I desired to be,
Because you could never cut the umbilical cord.

In fact, it was wrapped around my neck,
The death of me was coming slowly,
Due to the inhibitions of my creativity,
You loved that I would write, but you hated what I was writing,
Hip-Hop, home to me, was looked at as purgatory,
You couldn't see why I would want to listen to these stories,
Stories of struggling and hustling and juggling jobs, drugs, women, and friendships,
These ships were all sailing gallantly through my mind; the wordplay was so sublime,
And the fact that the words blended with their worlds were so unkind,
Appealed to me, but you were blind,
This changed my perspective,
However what really taught me to be a man,
Was when you began pushing opposing women out of my life,
I would be deep in love, buy-a-ring love,
But one thing would be enough to trigger a string of insults,
And a manikin-like regard for the person of whom I adored,
This was too much for me, you were systematically ending my dreams,
I thank you for your love and for everything that you continue to do for me,
But the cataclysm that was forming in this poets mind,
Was becoming too much to bridge,
If this feeling was to be ongoing,
So as a desperate act of love and care,
I left you behind,
But the love is forever there,
I'm a man because of you,
Your heart will forever reside with me on my journey,
You’ve no need to be frightened,
I’ve got you, I’ve got us,
My senses have been heightened.


Part V: Lover

I remember
That daze I felt those days
Those days that were fixtures
In my life at the time
But like all good stories
They come to an end
Sometimes abruptly

We met after a string of accidents,
Accidents that nearly cost me my life,
These were love losses, blood losses,
Things I’d never thought I could recover from,
The experiences had me going numb,
Until you found me… or did I find you?
It's hard to tell it just seemed like we were two lost souls,
Looking to quell our young hunger for the opposite ***,
Each and every day was spent together,
First on the stoop in front of your sister’s house,
The place where I first kissed your mouth,
Second on the park benches,
This is where hours flourished from minutes,
Third was along the streets of the world,
You were my diamonds and my pearls,
Indestructible and irreplaceable,
Once you met the paper you were there forever,
With that ink blood that flows through your veins,
A fellow poet whose love would stain my mental,
Instrumental in gifting my simple world with a new understanding,
It wasn’t how I imagined, but God laughs at notions of planning,
I finally found out what it meant to be in love,
I never had two people show me what it was,
Honestly the many descriptions of hate,
Is what would be seen at the gate of my consciousness,
As such, I believed this same fate would await me,
It was once the singular feeling with which I could relate,
But the euphoric hands you laid on me,
Made me lose an awake thought process,
As I was in a lake filled with your waters,
That would flow to rivers,
Followed by seas of your loving,
Seas consummating your body,
As I laid on the beach,
Believing it to be a dream.

But it wasn't, and it shouldn’t have ended,
In reality, love has ways of being reprimanded,
I was so lucid, and the picture was candid,
It was the simplest of pleasures that I'd ever been handed,
I learned right away the right things to do,
To flow from my heart and work my way into you,
To take care of my lips,
A rough kiss can't ******,
Nor find proper pleasure,
Along a woman's surface,
You’d allow me to peruse your mind,
Sending shivers up your spine,
As I embarked on my conquest,
Explorations of lustful aspirations,
Symbolizing and synthesizing,
Each and every stroke,
Representing a new letter,
In the alphabet of love,
Allowing our tale to unwind,
To combine the breathlessness of our exploits,
With our hearts desire for choice,
Which declined to lend voice,
To the greater work to be done,
The acquisition of newer positions,
Are symptoms of the journey,
Keep going, never surrender,
Be tender and conquer,
Mental foreplay is stronger,
Than any physical touch.

Love of a poet both bold and stoic,
Is a simplistic view of unfolded vibes and rhythms from the inside,
This could never subside to anything less than genuine spirit of heart and signs,
Among the winds, trees, stars, because you are the art,
You are Moses parting the red sea of my subconscious,
You are the dark sphere which encircles me,
You are the light that penetrates me,
You are harmonic melodies and sweet remedies,
You are rude symmetries and cool symphonies,
You are a lesson learned and an angel untouched,
With exception of me,
Hushed whispers or high pitched screams,
Mean nothing, without the mind following the body to finality,
The fluidity of our ****** motion,
Is a reflection of our mental state,
I seek not to pass through you,
I seek to become one with you.

That's how I feel about poetry,
That's also how I feel about ***,
That's how I feel about you,
You showed me the way,
You are my soul mate,
One with the words I write,
And the memories that I seek the convey,
You are the sun pouring through with the rain,
You are my miracle, one year my junior,
Fifty years older under the skin,
Deep within, your soul, my solar,
Not an eclipse, but a shimmering glow,
Always for my love and never for show.

I fall in love with people's honesty.
Their smile.
Funny jokes.
Tears.
Scars.
Passions.
Eyes.
Dreams.
Their spirit.

Word to Marley Soul.

Five steps in my growth,
Five indispensable cogs of my sou

The beginning of this story is pretty hazy, I’m not really sure I remember how the whole thing started but when it was happening it all seemed to make so much sense.
The first thing I remember, everything seemed normal enough, I was probably just going about doing the same things I do most days, nothing special. Then all of a sudden this terribly great thing happened. Everyone was talking about you.  Something important going on and you where right at the center of it. As I later found out you had gone missing or run away or just vanished, nobody knew. I defended you when they said they had seen it coming, that they had seen it in your eyes. I knew better than that. This was a place of loners and lovers, no families allowed, all the families had to go somewhere else, or at least they did.
I remember someone important, the Mayor maybe. He was like a cartoon villain, suave in a gray paper-perfect gray suit and silver hair slicked back just enough. He had a big smile and teeth like snow on a sunny day. He was a game show host villain.
He was the one making the biggest fuss about the whole thing. Always talking about how we shouldn’t feel ashamed of you for running away or that we should pray that you be safe wherever it was you had gone. But he just had those big phony teeth.
There was something going on with friends, at school I guess, like they wanted to keep talking about it but I didn’t. I knew you were coming back, how couldn’t you. I tried to explain to everyone that there was no way in hell I would be that cruel to myself, but they had no idea what I was talking about, they thought I was losing my mind.
You remember that time we tried that one drug and things were not as great as you expected. That night we thought we were both going to lose our minds. This time I wasn’t losing my mind. I had all the confidence in the world.
There was a lull midway through, I had no idea when you were coming back and I was starting to get annoyed with all the people around me. I couldn’t believe they were still making such a racket about the whole thing. They weren’t even like real people, they all had these defining characteristic which became their entire personality. They were caricatures of real people but I didn’t have the heart to tell them. I didn’t care enough to bother with figments, how could I?
Then suddenly the whole thing was different, there was some new great event going on. Everyone had gathered to some great big open amphitheater. All the seating was facing a big fancy stage with lots of lights on it. Behind the stage were hills. Everyone was talking about them, those where the hills they said you ran out into. As it turned out that was the reason for our being here. It had been like a hundred years or something since you had run away and everyone had come for a ceremony in your honor.
The whole thing was absolutely awful. It felt like we were there for a whole day, and the mayor was speaking for over half of that. Everyone was so captivated by his teeth and his suit that they barely heard what he was even talking about. They all acted as though what he was saying was breaking their hearts though, some even seemed genuinely inspired.                                       
The ceremony was going on and I was pretty done with the whole thing, I could feel the end coming. There was some pause in the speeches and all the seat sitters went to go freshen up. I took my chance and just ran out into those hills.
This was the best bit. All of a sudden I was in these hills, there was nothing but mountains in the distance and the stars were like light fixtures. They shone with color almost but the moon was so big and brilliant that everything was that perfect dim blue-silver color. By that light I could see the wind dancing in the knee-high grass, not like waves but more like snakes. I felt like a dumb rock when all I wanted was to be smoke, dancing with the wind.
Then you came down from the sky, you showed me all the dazzling swirls and swoops you could do and left all these crazy colors in your wake. When you finally settled down I saw you skin was like orange flame, soft like a marker drawing, moving around you like a flaming teardrop. Your core was all blackness and depth but I knew it was you. Who else would it be?
We hold hands and you fly us back to that big stage. We wait behind the curtain and we hear the mayor come on one more time. He’s telling the audience about one final display to tip off the ceremony, a dazzling light show preformed by a secret guest. I look at you in surprise but before I know it we’re making a run for it, speeding up those long aisle steps, up towards the exit doors at the top. Everyone is speaking about it at the top of their lungs but I can barely hear them over the sight of you. Your colors are all falling off and I can see your features being revealed as flakes of light peel away. We burst out the double doors and down some hallway. Out into the bright sunlight and I still can’t get over how beautiful you are.
And that’s how it ends.

So grace me through
my colors
Let's Start

God Grace me

Someone was smart
To raise me
But the blaze
came and love
pursued me
He pushed me
Into his hot blaze

His ***** of fire
A big part of the script
Another lift in his
desire
But my lips
Got raised up
But couldn't.sustain
the fire
The glossy shimmer
Sky hug
He Aint nothing but
a hound dog goodbye
Raised me Orange
Red Robin fly

But how you
face me
Never to
disgrace me

You pick me up with
all my goods
Odds with the bad
Honorable Gods
And so many facets
of my moods
Watch out!!
Starburst
Or a war curse

We  evaporate
In fragments

Orange segments
Sliced and eaten

Love forbidden fruit
One hidden

Embrace the warm solitude

all over your face,
Someone is rude
Fresh Orange
told you
It's Fate

That brought us
together
Orange juicier sun

So many love forms
Whose terms? Just run
This world full of
germs
But to juice things up


How the colors of your
eyes came to an epical stop

But nursed me
orange juice hip hop

He dazed into me
After-life
They named her
Saucy before-life
See ablaze
orange zest
See me and fly me
At my very best

My breast was
so nicely raised


Lips so fruitful
he cannot
resist you know
the rest??

In the mix of orange
things
Pink rings
Butterfly eyes
winged

Was set so privately-----*

The red tail hawk
Was the talk of the 
 Orangey words flowy
Popsicle poppy eye town
No time to refresh
my colors

Free bird orange up
The ramp no lady
and tramps
Just (Gypsies Orange Vamp)
The rocks fall to thump
Trump orange fixtures
Towers Forestal Gump

The soothing smile of lights
He came to you pop features
All over my place
So cultural to the race
The colors of
Orange mellow
oh! no
Here comes yellow----

Creaming into his
creamsicle
Gelato
popsicle
My feeling divided
like politics

Been sliced by
the orange Super bowl
Erotics
Sunny California Kist
Rodeo drive what a
list
Satanic red
Orange Christ
But that orange
She Shh_ sheets
Had the most vibrant
juicy beats
Tomato vines Rome
Lend me your orange
No ears no other
color of tears

Villians of vineyards
Orange bowl of fruit
No Junkyards
The owl started to hoot
Towards the bad apple

My heart was galloping
Shrimp and scallop
Right in my western charm
boot he takes off

Another mix of paint
Orange isn't carrots and
pumpkins
Austin Power Mini-me
Munchkins

Or goblins spooked
Mandarin Orange lovely
Divinely licked
Gingerly lovely Cayenne
Sweet Pepper he looked at her
Lucky 7 Orange ring karat

Whats up Doc_

Any cracks of his cravat
Orange Key-West lock
Doesn't turn get off
my block
I am going to
Bangkok
With Chuck

Having Orange Tang
He was holding me
777 karat ring
The  Mediterranian
party
Why so dead sea
Pink Smarty
Orange blosson tea
Orange Marquis
Louis and Diamonds
All clockwork
Orange movies

In the lounge of
Raymonds of ring
junkies
Pour OJ for me
**** a doodle doo

Flash of orange came at me
Do you want to?

The operation of heartless
surgery
The Showstopper emergency
Revived refreshing lady
of purity but no orange
The
((Orange Marquis))
Off to see the Wizardly
Orange field gorgeous
WC fields raise

Writer with the
lucky pen praise
Her editor was
the perfect color
ten

Miss coralline with
her coral rock
The mixed infusion

Next color comes up
Raise your brow reaction

Needing a follow-up

Orange rinds
Another call-up
Giddy Apps up
Orange glittering
passion fruit
paintbrush
Soap Opera beauty
and the beast
Another gulp the
pulp pretty in pink
psst_

Orange-pink tropical
girl orange whirl
The orange-red ringlets
She curled inside him
Glass raise you cup trim
In your villa stucco orange
You were breastfeeding
his orange suited juice

No time to see another
color
Orangey wiz showbiz
Arabian sky sunset
burnt orange
The caramel bump
of the camel
Her favorite one
mural

Lips of tang so foreign
She is flaming like a
flamingo bed

Get his color out of
Cotton picking head
Your shampoo
The
"Orange Oddysey"

Hey, what do you say?

Just open your
eyeshadows
He shadows her in

Or a site for sore eyes got
puffy war of
orange bubbles begin

Feather me
orange wings
The fringe orange
suede
flops
you happy

The A+ diet of fruit
he was the
hotshot
Glass
You're at the
bake me
What do you know
he passed

The spa refreshing
orange peel
mystique

Long lace-lit
Unique
He was coming on too
bossy orangey burst
cheeks were falling
Rise up not down
Orange Julius raise
his price
Fed Ex orange truck
got closer to
Her alluring butterfly
Orange U glad
To catch her
To court her
Fast Orange perfume
She Sha shala
femme
Orange flames came
from his cleft

Still no time for your
spouse whoa he left_

Now please let me know

what I left out
Orange you glad

this is the only color love
him madly

.perhaps in my company we wouldn't be... opening a bottle of red wine... to let it breathe... or pouring it into a bowl to give it more air to breathe with: otherwise on life-support machine through the bottle-neck... right here, right now, we have... a glass bottle of beer (13, guinness hop lager) and 4 cans of stella artois (the wife beater's lager, so they say)... yes... beer in cans... for all intesive purposes - a good way to transport beer... in aluminium cans... but we're not bums... we don't drink beer straight from cans... we pour our beer into a tall glass and wait... so the beer can exfoliate like aladdin's jinn in the glass... away from the confines of the can... we don't drink beer from a can... we can drink it straight from a bottle... but if it comes in a can... we pour it into a tall glass... just so... so there's some head on top... we're not english in that respect either... of cutting the head (of foam) off the beer... which is probably why i always order a stout in a pub... you can't pull one without the creme de la creme on top... a head on a beer is what makes it look less like carbonated **** or concentrated lemonade... we're not bums... we drink beer from glasses... never directly from cans - the metal gets in the way... a beer like a wine needs to breathe too.

i found that there are only two types of music styles
that are suitable for drinking -
that's... drinking and not going out -
playing a cat with an imaginary fireplace...
the less imaginary fireplace being:
a stare confined to... watching a pillow...
and the general schematic of a bed...
and sitting hunched in imitation: all crow because
no crow doesn't get you far
on golgotha of daydreams: if only i...
humble servant of dusty feet - the tourist,
the pilgrim - would set off...
         on an amphetamine riddled skew into
a messiah complex adventure...

                     but not me...
                once upon a time the only music
worth drinking to was the blues...
            a long, long time ago...
                hell: once upon a time any music
would do if we all decided to go dancing...
or at least waited for the dance to come of its own
volition and not mine: i.e. the me in i would
just be dragged under the teasing waves
and slurped out to sea...

                   a thousand waves are all but the single
tongue of some swindling kraken...
drinking and random shamanic interludes in
the youth of the night-club...
when there wasn't a tally for score or...
the ones shot down by manfred...
good thing he was called manfred...
   and not some swabian helmut! oi oi!
                                             von Richthofen!
and that was when...
           until came the five beers and on
the 4th it became apparent...
                                  the red garland quintet...
soul junction...

   and it's not... a gerry mulligan's night lights...
piano sentimentality and the ode
to all things urban, cosmopolitan...
                        yes... it's not grenadine in that
sulk of yours... it's cranberry juice...
the city and... the sewers and...
                                 jazz for the urban scenes
of: anywhere but the park...
the graveyard... a choo-choo slowing into
a station... and billy joel come:
mid-life crisis and a new york state of mind...
while over 'ere we have...
     teasing the woods: where concrete ends
and mud begins... thus we can have our Adam...
and...

only today i was walking past his bride...
doing my odd citizen duty of recycling glass...
and buying the amber sedatives (carbonated)
for an evening with some cannonball adderley
or some donnie byrd... or a horace silver...
that's the beauty of jazz...
the music is all there is... the names come and go...
sonny rollins and the story behind
the bridge... and how he would pretend to
but not pretend to... retire and go off and practice
on the bridge so as to not disturb his neighbours...
all the details are there: on the vinyl sleeve
from 1963...

now that's jazz... i don't even want to mind
how pretentious this might sound...
but... it doesn't in that: jazz is jazz in that there
might come some great improv. -
after all: it's all somewhat improv. -
   but you can't really make such basic
generalißations...
        speedy-shoom-of-a-choo-choo whizzing past...
schematic!
   classical music is all a priori...
                              jazz... it's all a posteriori...
how? when people phone in between
1pm and 5pm to classic.fm and they make requests...
they sometimes ask for something specific...
but usually... they vaguely allude to... a feeling...
something "uplifting" - play something "uplifting"...
ergo... there's this... a priori "item"(?)
in the music that's... an expectation...

          i do know what jazz sounds like
a quintent: drums, bass, piano, trumpet, sax...
yes... the guitar... asking the algorithm:
a quintet is five - what is six?
        sixtet - d'uh... sextet... well that's the basic
"i know what jazz sounds like"...
but with jazz there's always this lag...
it's this lagging behind:
    i don't exactly know what i'll feel until
only after i've heard it and in the meantime too...
jazz is all a posteriori -

while classical music for me is all a priori...
given that... it's not exactly improvised:
there's the orchestra, the movie, the script...
   and it's such a music that doesn't worship
itchy fingers of improv. - the stale or rather:
the head-about-to-explode of scoring the music like
a dissected **** of beef...
the cuts for the violins the cuts for the woodwinds...
more so: the almost shy drumming...
the wet-drumming... like rain playing
rattle fingers on tin (roofs)... or what rain would
sound like... if it was made from sand...
either way... jazz is a baggage...

hardly any sort of envisioning a journey from
(a) priori through to (b) posteriori -
and at least with jazz... you never have to really
cite who's playing... in a passing gesture
for all necessary bookmark purposes
of: where i am in the library of jazz...
unlike in classical music... where...
it's either Mozart, Beethoven or then again...
some obscure composer... perhaps ola glejlo...
but it's less about the music per se:
it's about the music of THE composer...
bonus marks for keeping to a rigid diet of one
and completing the herculean task of digesting
his entire oeuvre...

-       so i was walking past the most usual scene...
a car stopped... and she got out...
she must have been no more than 16 pushing 18...
the heavy make-up hid her otherwise boyish
contorts... a short black dress...
and as she got out of the cab...
she had her high-heel shoes in her hands...
   she was walking the cement barefoot...
i peered into her eyes... the lights were out...
perhaps her soul was screaming - perhaps this was
her first disappointment - and it was only... what...
not even 10pm on a saturday night...
my nights of youthful regret usually came after 3am
having to wrestle a berserker...
or how a dog looks like when it takes
to beer with a fond heart and only three legs...
god forbid but "they" would also cut my tail off
to further throw me off balance...
the walked passed and i looked into the cab...
a very, very nervous asian was looking at me
and then her... this didn't exactly look like...
she was ***** or was fighting to escape...
           aren't those scenarios usually stage in and around
woods - without any pedestrians walking past?
call it a trainwreck a carwreck...
                      or just running mascara...
that bad, eh?
at this point... society is a cruise ship...
and i'm stuck with ottis and none of that sentimentality
of the dock: running away with a bag of
chips wrapped in newspaper away from
seagulls... who... are apparently prone
to kleptoparasitism - a real thing... i swear to god...
the animals that want to eat in the realm
of trans-species... dogs have had their
kleptoparasistism repressed: crumbs from the table...
the chicken bones with hopes for
cartilege and someone who... is bad at
cleaning the flesh off the bone: pucker up...
move aside leech... watch this slurp...
ol' hank mobley and wayne shorter...
        one cascade after another...
5th beer in and...

yeah... so that's what a carwreck looks like...
for a girl in her late teens...
the cute black dress...
   getting out of the cab holding her high heels...
walking home barefoot...
she wasn't crying just yet...
but i could see puffy tender demon baron
of the soft cheeks readying to turn into
medussa's stare-grip... but not there yet...
this must have been her first time at "life"
and the night life and saturday...
         the cab driver looked scared shitless...
as if frozen in time... about to have his photograph
taken by a more sensible shadow of his...
i did think she just escaped a bad
session of prostitution...
but not even prostitutes look so ******* gloomy
as she did...

the ******* ***** it up -
the pundit ***** it up - the show goes on...
stage or no stage... an audience or no audience...
those eyes though... not yet crying...
but they felt... like wheeping oysters nonetheless...
you know when eyes are like that...
teasing bulging out... they appear dimmed
at first... but that's a dimming before
the sparkle of tears...
it's the 29th of febuary - yes...
mr. zodiac wasn't kind to those who still believe
in the horoscope but never tried
gambling on a winning team or horse...
it's still winter and those poor feet of hers...
she must have told the cab driver to stop...
hell... half a mile before she would get home...
a 6ft2 115kg sore thumb up with a beard
up ahead: stop! let me walk past him...
that's why i gave an inquisitive stare at the cab driver...
the cab driver was looking at me...
aren't the **** victims the ones jumping
out of the cab as it speeds off or whatnot?
so this was... staged?
              i read the "situation" wrong...
well no... i didn't find a lancelot in me...
there was no door to be held open...
           not tonight...
                                           i was in a mood for
beer and jazz... and luckily for me...
marvel of all marvels...
     haig club (1627) was sold at a bargain...
                        down from 25 quid to 16 quid...
goodbye excessive drinking the cheap *****...
hello: clubman haig... is it whiskey...
is it ms. amber... or is it chanel no. 5 -
                   is it whiskey or is it a perfume?
a snapper of a dinner standing-up...
   the scent of the last bite still on my moustache
even though i had washed my teeth...
the beer bottle opened - a drizzle on the hand
and then the hand smearing the liquid all over
the stinking hairs from an unwelcome scent...
i don't mind stinking like hops...
                  but hops is better than smelly food...

- regrets? ah yes... the "what if" universe at large...
that "whaf if" this and "what if" not...
"what if" yes and... when a man takes to walk
the street at night... he's only looking for empty
streets and... the hope of not seeing his reflection:
which is never about abruptly stopping
a cab and taking your shoes off
and walking in a tight-knit black dress
having met the world and...
                     was it heartbreak or just...
disappointment that... there are no unicorns
and she isn't daddy's precious?

any of the rudy van gelder editions...
                      "what if" i had more than just these
words... a barren wasteland of a flat
with no furnishings, not a book to call it a genesis
of a private library... not a single record
to play... no bed no curtains...
and she was the: honey-catch and snare and...
what if i were still in my late teens and
didn't have these invisible tattoos of historical
dates and the tattoos that riddle bones
that are... "habits of hygiene"...
      by hygiene i imply: ontological fixtures...
immoveable objects of accumulating my mortal
years for this formal circumstance of
the worst magic trick of all...
                   transient and... packaged elsewhere...
apparently going nowhere...

if this was a truly urban scenario...
but we're talking essex...
the outskirts of greater london...
if i bothered myself tonight i might go
to a place where i'd sit on a throne of a stump
of oak and listen to owls...
spot a rabbit, spot a badger... the foxes would
come of their own accord...
and perhaps even a deer or two... or three...
there's no glit of a picaddily circus romance:
when a girl decides to get out of a cab early
and put her porcelain toes on the wintry cement...
as if: supposing she be enticing me...
as i was thinking about the scared-shitless
cab driver...        

to have once upon a time believe in love:
the sort of love you'd see in movies...
but that's of course...
before you'd get a chance to see love...
in opera...
blue pill red pill... spiderweb of fiction...
blah blah...
watch the sort of love in movies...
then go and see an opera...
most notably verdi's la traviata...
  the movies fizzle out and you don't really
need to read this to begin with...
        i was in love once...
it was a love that was in love with itself...
          a mirage a carrot on a stick...
probably something akin to this sort of impromptu...
rescuing a girl walking barefoot home...
oh sure... happens almost every other saturday...

- the beer is for these musings, for the jazz
and for... cleaning the kidneys and a work-out
for the bladder... the shot-at-a-crescendo
will come with the haig club whiskey...
is 70cl really worth 25 quid?

- there's a difference between food with a USE BY date
and food with a BEST BEFORE date...
most notably goat's cheese...
once the best before date expires...
which is way way down the line from
the use by date... the cheese starts to taste
like... ash...

i should know since i know of the alternative
to doing shots of tequilla...
the salt is replaced with licking some cigarette
ash...
the tequilla is replaced with *****...
and the slice of lemon is replaced with
black peppercorns...

so i do know what ash tastes like...
piquant tastes: this omelette of an octopus and
of tongue...

- society is a cruise ship and i'm waving it goodbye...
welcoming a sunset of a sea as calm
as a mirror... telling my feet to take root
and stand... inaccessible...
otherwise... i am barren when it comes to having
some (h. p.) lovecraftian sensibilities from
maine... aloof and anemic... anemic with bloodshot
eyes...

- of course she isn't a mystery...
the narrative would run: the little match girl...
hans... hans! hans?! hans andersen is drilling
a hole into my head about... a woman walking
home barefoot...
yes... but she is walkig home...
unlike the little match girl...
and unlike the little match girl...
this girl was carrying a pair of shoes with her...
it's not my problem whether
i'm the sore thumb that "got in the way"...
a fork in the road: like any other fork...
like any other road...

do you have to reach being 34 to see these
teenage break-ups and regrets come and bump into
you after you've done...
that most spectacular feat of towing a backpack
full of glass for recycling?
where is one to recycle bones?!

- right not all the ***** in the world is...
something of an adhesive... a hitchhiker pollen...
a hard-on of: ****** yourself for a hard-on
just because even flapping a pancake will do right now...
to ease constipation whenever necessary...

- it's a torilla... but it's wrapped like a burrito...
well... it's a torilla... kultur shock -
sarajevo - the entry level shock-awe and
blitzkrieg of drinking from the fountain
of the Haig...

- second tier... to treat pornographic movies
like... early cinema... silent...
otherwise a return to the magazine form...
and the ripe imagination readied for:
improv... or... when was the last time
my left hand didn't feel like an oyster...
and an oyster didn't feel like a leash...
and a woman's ****** stopped being
an hour worth 120 quid? -

             - third tier... the haig club whiskey
is not worth 25 quid... it's over-rated...
you're basically paying for the bottle...
i'll stick to my guns...
only the irish know how to make whiskey
on these isles... bushmills: mellow, tame...
the picts have decided to lodge
a smoking salmon into their barrels to die...
i'm supposed to have an aftertaste of vanilla...
with all that smoke... i'd be happy to taste
hungary and smoked paprika! that would
be a bonus to boot! -

- i can appreciate the picts for trying...
but let's just leave brewing whiskey to the irish...
and let's keep the english away from hops...
they'll make an undrinkable ale from it...
never the lager...

   - armed with balkan rock... standing before
the h'american monolith of tongue and culture...
or... just before what's filtered for the export...

- no... of course i don't think h'americans are dumb...
i just think there's only a naive majority...
i'm going to find the vermin and huddle among
them...

- sooner or later we'll be calling the germans
come spring... for winter provisions...
"keeshond" or: hund... i much prefer the latter...
from under the iron curtain forged from
a broken jaw when biting the curb of:
under the silicon veil... nowhere else to go...
beside Ishrael...
                        
          remains of the ottoman - which is hardly
me put into an iron maiden of akimbo...
where's the geisha and the samurai?!

- is your beard long enough?
      like mine... i tease it... catch it with braille
cardinals: the thumb the index and middle fingers...
twirl it... wait for some thread to tie it together
into a hanging ******* of a bundle...
while at the same time:
          before you... a throng of vermin...
this beard... a magic flute!
the zenith of my thinking...
and ultimately: the nadir of any narrative
that might be inclined to escape and
not become 3D...

- i listen to songs in german...
i put on airs of pride - my chin starts to contort into
the moon's scythe and sickle...
even if the night is overcast with beard,
or cloud...

- then i put on a record that's 20 years old...
deftones' white pony...
and i remember being a teen...
hungry for hormonal diet...
a diet to stop the bones from aching
as they grew extra sprouts:
adverse to the skin and photosynthesis...
bones that were expected to grow
entombed... not in flesh...

- sketches from the gasoline additive when
it comes to a beer, starter...
otherwise: elite... gonna breed on top
of the general... pucker up the tremor for a vibrato
kiss and leech her lips off...
to expose her most pristine:
todlächeln -
                           not a chelsea grin...
the joker lapse... i mean... extending the shaving
lines and just, completely, forgetting there's
any botox involved to grow a peach
from a duck of the reinvention of
the deflating balloon...

   leave no selfie without it...
                   herr grinsen: die / das / die / das...
i keep forgetting the definite plural and
the definite singular... feelz... feels...
maximum impromptu: das bösartigwimmern...
anything in german at this point...
sounds better than...
wenigbruder englisch...
                       dies, mein krawatte beste...
alle schwarz alle weiß:
      say to me... nein pinguine willkommen...

anything to keep these mosquitos these
zeppelins away... alt vater großartig Schwab
from this... herd of minor dicta
of the children of the house of ßaß...
translated nomad from the high pressure
***** basin of:
later, trajectory... later... the yawn and canyon...
and the sky above...

- beer first... whiskey after...
shrapnel... and gasoline... no car... no speeding...
fast but otherwise still walking...

            - a hurrah and the cohort of a hum...
to match the echo of the centipede...
         the silence and otherwise the simplified
complications of a conversation...
the bed torn between *** and sleep...
between saturday sunday and monday through
to friday...
   and the need to drink with someone else...
"the need"...
          
the skulls breaks at the sight of sea-riddled-and-*****
cliffs... daggers persuaded to be forever sharpened...
the fiddly parts of ***** as accountants when
it came to the pennies, copper, and granules
of sand... seized: the rivers of time...
constipated shock value elevated...
                            
                                am i to find a lover when
the orchestra tells me...
these words will never find a dear sir / madam
or circle round for a yours sincerely...
                godzilla... the theme i remember from
the days when the japanese still had control over the beast...
otherwise... an overweight t-rex with...
arm extensions... the lotus feet of the chinese...
which also includes...
the savory diet of... tendering dog meat...
i.e. beating the dog to a plum softening...
which is: then again... not curing the already dead
curated meat...
life aware needs to be involved...
brick by brick brick on brick...
the status quo: made in china...

         cheap whiskey... although in an expensive bottle...
that is the haig club whiskey...
        so much for ezra pound admiring
the ******* ideograms...
what's to admire... when...
it ends up being a crude...
current latin emoji-infiltrated grafitti
equivalent to: CUL8R...
               chow-chuckle-mein-hong-shui-chew?
all that intricacy into the ideogram...
and all that remains is...
bat soup... and an advantage at playing
poker... omnivores...
you'd think that Islam would be...
more geared to break ranks among the omnivores...
like all the fickle gods... a good joke...
they abhor / are told to herd sheep
because: what sort of pig would survive the desert
and not become crispy bacon...
camels are fine too... as are their testicles...
never mind the pork leather shoes and pork
leather belts...
but the chinese omnivores are fine by
Allah: Muhammad & Co....

                               khadijah **** khuwaylid..
wrote the first surahs of the quran...
she was the literate:
the stephen vizinczey epitome:
                          in praise of older women...
last time i heard... muhammad was illiterate...
pray! that i've exhausted sympathy on
him being an orphan...
but not a ******* oliver twist thrown into
an orphanage! b'ooh h'oo...

                     the end... the whiskey isn't going
to drink itself;
as i have exhausted the patience of my bladder...
while there's the remaining concern
for a bewildering and a simultaneously
bewildered peacock... on the hunt for coy;
which is not exactly the darwinian daydream
of the short-hand greek alphabet...
the α-β male thermodynamic...
          the Σ-Δ female harem...
salmon swimming up-stream to spawn...
                             and... Ω-man / unicorn...
                     sha! schtil!

O, the Horror! Halloween Poetry!

Halloween Poetry: Dark, Eerie, Haunting and Scary poems about Ghosts, Witches, Vampires, Werewolves, Reanimated Corpses and "Things that go Bump in the Night!"



Thin Kin
by Michael R. Burch

Skeleton!
Tell us what you lack...
the ability to love,
your flesh so slack?

Will we frighten you,
grown as pale & unsound,
when we also haunt
the unhallowed ground?



The Witch
by Michael R. Burch

her fingers draw into claws
she cackles through rotting teeth...
u ask "are there witches?"
… pshaw! …
(yet she has my belief)



Vampires
by Michael R. Burch

Vampires are such fragile creatures;
we dread the dark, but the light destroys them...
sunlight, or a stake, or a cross ― such common things.

Still, late at night, when the bat-like vampire sings,
we shrink from his voice.

Centuries have taught us:
in shadows danger lurks for those who stray,
and there the vampire bares his yellow fangs
and feels the ancient soul-tormenting pangs.
He has no choice.

We are his prey, plump and fragrant,
and if we pray to avoid him, he earnestly prays to find us...
prays to some despotic hooded God
whose benediction is the humid blood
he lusts to taste.



Styx
by Michael R. Burch

Black waters,
deep and dark and still...
all men have passed this way,
or will.

Charon, the ferrymen who carried the dead across the River Styx to their eternal destination, has been portrayed by artists and poets as a vampiric figure.



Revenge of the Halloween Monsters
by Michael R. Burch

The Halloween monsters, incensed,
keep howling, and may be UNFENCED!!!
They’re angry that children with treats
keep throwing their trash IN THE STREETS!!!

You can check it out on your computer:
Google says, “Please don’t be a POLLUTER!!!”
The Halloween monsters agree,
so if you’re a litterbug, FLEE!!!

Kids, if you’d like more treats this year
and don’t want to cower in FEAR,
please make all the mean monsters happy,
and they’ll hand out sweet treats like they’re sappy!

So if you eat treats on the drag
and don't want huge monsters to nag,
please put all loose trash in your BAG!!!

NOTE: If you recite the poem, get the kids to huddle up close, then yell the all-caps parts like you’re one of the unhappy monsters, and perhaps "goose" them as well. They'll get the message.



It's Halloween!
by Michael R. Burch

If evening falls
on graveyard walls
far softer than a sigh;

if shadows fly
moon-sickled skies,
while children toss their heads

uneasy in their beds,
beware the witch's eye!

If goblins loom
within the gloom
till playful pups grow terse;

if birds give up their verse
to comfort chicks they nurse,
while children dream weird dreams

of ugly, wiggly things,
beware the serpent's curse!

If spirits scream
in haunted dreams
while ancient sibyls rise

to plague nightmarish skies
one night without disguise,

while children toss about
uneasy, full of doubt,
beware the Devil's lies...

it's Halloween!



Ghost
by Michael R. Burch

White in the shadows
I see your face,
unbidden. Go, tell

Love it is commonplace;
tell Regret it is not so rare.

Our love is not here
though you smile,
full of sedulous grace.

Lost in darkness, I fear
the past is our resting place.



All Hallows Eve
by Michael R. Burch

What happened to the mysterious Tuatha De Danann, to the Ban Shee (from which we get the term “banshee”) and, eventually, to the Druids? One might assume that with the passing of Merlyn, Morgan le Fay and their ilk, the time of myths and magic ended. This poem is an epitaph of sorts.

In the ruins
of the dreams
and the schemes
of men;

when the moon
begets the tide
and the wide
sea sighs;

when a star
appears in heaven
and the raven
cries;

we will dance
and we will revel
in the devil’s
fen...

if nevermore again.



Pale Though Her Eyes
by Michael R. Burch

Pale though her eyes,
her lips are scarlet
from drinking of blood,
this child, this harlot

born of the night
and her heart, of darkness,
evil incarnate
to dance so reckless,

dreaming of blood,
her fangs ― white ― baring,

revealing her lust,
and her eyes, pale, staring...



Like Angels, Winged
by Michael R. Burch

Like angels ― winged,
shimmering, misunderstood ―
they flit beyond our understanding
being neither evil, nor good.

They are as they are...
and we are their lovers, their prey;
they seek us out when the moon is full
and dream of us by day.

Their eyes ― hypnotic, alluring ―
trap ours with their strange appeal
till like flame-drawn moths, we gather...
to see, to touch, to feel.

Held in their arms, enchanted,
we feel their lips, so old!,
till with their gorging kisses
we warm them, growing cold.



Solicitation
by Michael R. Burch

He comes to me out of the shadows, acknowledging
my presence with a tip of his hat, always the gentleman,
and his eyes are on mine like a snake’s on a bird’s ―
quizzical, mesmerizing.

He ***** his head as though something he heard intrigues him
(although I hear nothing) and he smiles, amusing himself at my expense;
his words are full of desire and loathing, and while I hear everything,
he says nothing I understand.

The moon shines ― maniacal, queer ― as he takes my hand whispering

Our time has come... And so we stroll together creaking docks
where the sea sends sickening things
scurrying under rocks and boards.

Moonlight washes his ashen face as he stares unseeing into my eyes.
He sighs, and the sound crawls slithering down my spine;
my blood seems to pause at his touch as he caresses my face.
He unfastens my dress till the white lace shows, and my neck is bared.

His teeth are long, yellow and hard, his face bearded and haggard.
A wolf howls in the distance. There are no wolves in New York. I gasp.
My blood is a trickle his wet tongue embraces. My heart races madly.
He likes it like that.



Sometimes the Dead
by Michael R. Burch

Sometimes we catch them out of the corners of our eyes ―
the pale dead.
After they have fled
the gourds of their bodies, like escaping fragrances they rise.

Once they have become a cloud’s mist, sometimes like the rain
they descend;
they appear, sometimes silver like laughter,
to gladden the hearts of men.

Sometimes like a pale gray fog, they drift
unencumbered, yet lumbrously,
as if over the sea
there was the lightest vapor even Atlas could not lift.

Sometimes they haunt our dreams like forgotten melodies
only half-remembered.
Though they lie dismembered
in black catacombs, sepulchers and dismal graves; although they have committed felonies,

yet they are us. Someday soon we will meet them in the graveyard dust
blood-engorged, but never sated
since Cain slew Abel.
But until we become them, let us steadfastly forget them, even as we know our children must...



Polish
by Michael R. Burch

Your fingers end in talons—
the ones you trim to hide
the predator inside.

Ten thousand creatures sacrificed;
but really, what’s the loss?
Apply a splash of gloss.

You picked the perfect color
to mirror nature’s law:
red, like tooth and claw.

Published by The HyperTexts



Siren Song
by Michael R. Burch

The Lorelei’s
soft cries
entreat mariners to save her...

How can they resist
her faint voice through the mist?

Soon she will savor
the flavor
of sweet human flesh.



How Long the Night (anonymous Old English Lyric)
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

It is pleasant, indeed, while the summer lasts
with the mild pheasants' song...
but now I feel the northern wind's blast ―
its severe weather strong.
Alas! Alas! This night seems so long!
And I, because of my momentous wrong
now grieve, mourn and fast.



The Wild Hunt
by Michael R. Burch

Near Devon, the hunters appear in the sky
with Artur and Bedwyr sounding the call;
and the others, laughing, go dashing by.
They only appear when the moon is full:

Valerin, the King of the Tangled Wood,
and Valynt, the goodly King of Wales,
Gawain and Owain and the hearty men
who live on in many minstrels’ tales.

They seek the white stag on a moonlit moor,
or Torc Triath, the fabled boar,
or Ysgithyrwyn, or Twrch Trwyth,
the other mighty boars of myth.

They appear, sometimes, on Halloween
to chase the moon across the green,
then fade into the shadowed hills
where memory alone prevails.



The Vampire's Spa Day Dream
by Michael R. Burch

O, to swim in vats of blood!
I wish I could, I wish I could!
O, 'twould be
so heavenly
to swim in lovely vats of blood!

The poem above was inspired by a Josh Parkinson depiction of Elizabeth Bathory up to her nostrils in the blood of her victims, with their skulls floating in the background.



Nevermore!
by Michael R. Burch

Nevermore! O, nevermore!
shall the haunts of the sea
― the swollen tide pools
and the dark, deserted shore ―
mark her passing again.

And the salivating sea
shall never kiss her lips
nor caress her ******* and hips,
as she dreamt it did before,
once, lost within the uproar.

The waves will never **** her,
nor take her at their leisure;
the sea gulls shall not have her,
nor could she give them pleasure...
She sleeps, forevermore!

She sleeps forevermore,
a ****** save to me
and her other lover,
who lurks now, safely smothered
by the restless, surging sea.

And, yes, they sleep together,
but never in that way...
For the sea has stripped and shorn
the one I once adored,
and washed her flesh away.

He does not stroke her honey hair,
for she is bald, bald to the bone!
And how it fills my heart with glee
to hear them sometimes cursing me
out of the depths of the demon sea...

their skeletal love ― impossibility!



Dark Gothic
by Michael R. Burch

Her fingers are filed into talons;
she smiles with carnivorous teeth...
You ask, “Are there vampires?”
― Get real! ―
(Yet she has my belief.)



Epitaph for a Palestinian Child
by Michael R. Burch

I lived as best I could, and then I died.
Be careful where you step: the grave is wide.


Athenian Epitaphs (Gravestone Inscriptions of the Ancient Greeks)

Mariner, do not ask whose tomb this may be,
but go with good fortune: I wish you a kinder sea.
― Michael R. Burch, after Plato


Does my soul abide in heaven, or hell?
Only the sea gulls in their high, lonely circuits may tell.
― Michael R. Burch, after Glaucus



Passerby,
tell the Spartans we lie
lifeless at Thermopylae:
dead at their word,
obedient to their command.
Have they heard?
Do they understand?
― Michael R. Burch, after Simonides



Completing the Pattern
by Michael R. Burch

Walk with me now, among the transfixed dead
who kept life’s compact and who thus endure
harsh sentence here―among pink-petaled beds
and manicured green lawns. The sky’s azure,
pale blue once like their eyes, will gleam blood-red
at last when sunset staggers to the door
of each white mausoleum, to inquire―
What use, O things of erstwhile loveliness?


Reclamation
by Michael R. Burch

after Robert Graves, with a nod to Mary Shelley

I have come to the dark side of things
where the bat sings
its evasive radar
and Want is a crooked forefinger
attached to a gelatinous wing.

I have grown animate here, a stitched corpse
hooked to electrodes.
And night
moves upon me―progenitor of life
with its foul breath.

Blind eyes have their second sight
and still are deceived. Now my nature
is softly to moan
as Desire carries me
swooningly across her threshold.

Stone
is less infinite than her crone’s
gargantuan hooked nose, her driveling lips.
I eye her ecstatically―her dowager figure,
and there is something about her that my words transfigure
to a consuming emptiness.

We are at peace
with each other; this is our venture―
swaying, the strings tautening, as tightropes
tauten, as love tightens, constricts
to the first note.

Lyre of our hearts’ pits,
orchestration of nothing, adits
of emptiness! We have come to the last of our hopes,
sweet as congealed blood sweetens for flies.

Need is reborn; love dies.



Deliver Us ...
by Michael R. Burch

The night is dark and scary―
under your bed, or upon it.

That blazing light might be a star ...
or maybe the Final Comet.

But two things are sure: your mother’s love
and your puppy’s kisses, doggonit!



the Horror
by Michael R. Burch

the Horror lurks inside our closets
the Horror hides beneath our beds
the Horror hisses ancient curses
the Horror whispers in our heads

the Horror tells us Death is coming
the Horror tells us there’s no hope
the Horror tells us “life” is futile
the Horror beckons, “there’s the Rope!”



Belfry
by Michael R. Burch

There are things we surrender
to the attic gloom:
they haunt us at night
with shrill, querulous voices.

There are choices we made
yet did not pursue,
behind windows we shuttered
then failed to remember.

There are canisters sealed
that we cannot reopen,
and others long broken
that nothing can heal.

There are things we conceal
that our anger dismembered,
gray leathery faces
the rafters reveal.



Duet
by Michael R. Burch

Oh, Wendy, by the firelight, how sad!
How worn and gray your auburn hair became!
You’re very silent, like an evening rain
that trembles on dark petals. Tears you’ve shed
for days we laughed together, glisten now;
your flesh became translucent; and your brow
knits, gathered loosely. By the well-made bed
three portraits hang with knowing eyes, beloved,
but mine is not among them. Time has proved
our hearts both strangely mortal. If I said
I loved you once, how is it that could change?
And yet I watch you fondly; love is strange . . .

Oh, Peter, by the firelight, how bright
my thought of you remains, and if I said
I loved you once, then took him to my bed,
I did it for the need of love, one night
when you were far away. My heart endured
transfigurement―in flaming ash inured
to heartbreak and the violence of sight:
I saw myself grow old and thin and frail
with thinning hair about me, like a veil . . .
And so I loved him for myself, despite
the love between us―our first startled kiss.
But then I loved him for his humanness.
And then we both grew old, and it was right . . .

Oh, Wendy, if I fly, I fly beyond
these human hearts, these cities walled and tiered
against the night, beyond this vale of tears,
for love, if it exists, dies with the years . . .

No, Peter, love is constant as the heart
that keeps till its last beat a measured pace
and sets the fixtures of its dreams in place
by beds at first well-used, at last well-made,
and counts each face a joy, each tear a grace . . .



Horror
by Michael R. Burch

What I ache to say is beyond saying―
no words for the horror
of not loving enough,
like a mummy half-wrapped in its moldering casements
holding a lily aloft.

No, there are no words for the horror
as a tormented wind howls through the teetering floes
and the cold freezes down to my clawed hairy toes ...

What use to me, now, if the stars appear?
As I moan
the moon finds me,
fangs goring the deer.



Strange Corps(e)
by Michael R. Burch

We are all dying, haunted by life―
dying, but the living will not let us go.
We are perishing zombies, haunted by the moonglow.

With what animation we, shuffling, return
nightly, to worry Love’s worm-eaten corpse,
till, living or dead, she is wholly ours.

We are the dying, enamored of “life”―
the palest of auras, the eeriest call.
We stagger to attention ... stumble ... fall.

We have only one thought―Love’s peculiar notion,
that our duty’s to “live,” though such “living” means
night’s horrific wild hungers, its stranger dreams.

We now “live” on the flesh of eroded dreams
and no longer recoil at the victims’ screams.



Love, ah! serene ghost
by Michael R. Burch

Love, ah! serene ghost,
haunts my retelling of her,
or stands atop despairing stairs
with such pale, severe eyes,
I become another pallid specter.

But what I feel
most profoundly is this:
the absolute lack of her kiss,
the absence of her wild,
unwarranted laughter.

So that,
like a candle deprived of oxygen,
I become mere wick and tallow again.
Here and hereafter ...
gone with her now, in the darkest of nights, the flame!

I lie, pallid vision of man―the same
wan ghost of her palpitations’ claim
on my heart
that I was before.

I love her beyond and despite even shame.



Eden
by Michael R. Burch

Then earth was heaven too, a perfect garden.
Apples burgeoned and shone―unplucked on sagging boughs.
What, then, would the children eat?
Fruit indecently sweet,
redolent as incense, with a tempting aroma ...



Outcasts
by Michael R. Burch

There was a rose, a prescient shade of crimson,
the very color of blood,
that bloomed in that garden.

The most dazzling of all the Earth’s flowers,
men have forgotten it now,
with their fanciful tales of apples and serpents.

Beasts with lips called the goreflower “Love.”

The scribes have the story all wrong: four were there,
four horrid dark creatures―chattering, bickering.
Aduhm placed one red petal in Ehve’s matted hair;

he was lost in her arms
till dawn sullen and golden
imperceptibly streaked the musk-fragrant air.

Two flared nostrils quivered, two eyes remained open.

Kahyn sought me that evening, his bloodless lips curled
in a grimacelike smile. Sunken-cheeked, he approached me
in the Caverns of Similitudes, eerie Barzakh.

“We are outcasts, my brother!, God quickly deserts us.”
As though his anguish conceived in insight’s first blush
might not pale next to mine in Sheol’s gray realm.

“Shining Creature!” he named me and called me divine
as he lavished damp kisses upon my bright scales.
“Help me find me one rare gift to put Love’s gift to shame.”

“There is a dark rose with a bittersweet fragrance
as pungent as cloves: only man knows its name.
Clinging and cloying, it destroys all it touches . . .”

“But red is Ehve’s preference; while Envy is green.”
He was downcast a moment, a moment, a moment . . .
“Ah, but red is the color of blood!”

Disagreeable child, far too clever for his own good.

Published in The Bible of Hell (anthology)



No One
by Michael R. Burch

No One hears the bells tonight;
they tell him something isn’t right.
But No One is not one to rush;
he lies in grasses greenly lush
as far away a startled thrush
flees from horned owls in sinking flight.

No One hears the cannon’s roar
and muses that its voice means war
comes knocking on men’s doors tonight.
He sleeps outside in awed delight
beneath the enigmatic stars
and shivers in their cooling light.

No One knows the world will end,
that he’ll be lonely, without friend
or foe to conquer. All will be
once more, celestial harmony.
He’ll miss men’s voices, now and then,
but worlds can be remade again.



Bikini
by Michael R. Burch

Undersea, by the shale and the coral forming,
by the shell’s pale rose and the pearl’s white eye,
through the sea’s green bed of lank seaweed worming
like tangled hair where cold currents rise . . .
something lurks where the riptides sigh,
something old and pale and wise.

Something old when the world was forming
now lifts its beak, its snail-blind eye,
and with tentacles about it squirming,
it feels the cloud above it rise
and shudders, settles with a sigh,
knowing man’s demise draws nigh.



Ceremony
by Michael R. Burch

Lost in the cavernous blue silence of spring,
heavy-lidded and drowsy with slumber, I see
the dark gnats leap; the black flies fling
their slow, engorged bulks into the air above me.

Shimmering hordes of blue-green bottleflies sing
their monotonous laments; as I listen, they near
with the strange droning hum of their murmurous wings.

Though you said you would leave me, I prop you up here
and brush back red ants from your fine, tangled hair,
whispering, “I do!” . . . as the gaunt vultures stare.



Contraire
by Michael R. Burch

Where there was nothing
but emptiness
and hollow chaos and despair,

I sought Her ...

finding only the darkness
and mournful silence
of the wind entangling her hair.

Yet her name was like prayer.

Now she is the vast
starry tinctures of emptiness
flickering everywhere

within me and about me.

Yes, she is the darkness,
and she is the silence
of twilight and the night air.

Yes, she is the chaos
and she is the madness
and they call her Contraire.



Dark Twin
by Michael R. Burch

You come to me
out of the sun―
my dark twin, unreal . . .

And you are always near
although I cannot touch you;
although I trample you, you cannot feel . . .

And we cannot be parted,
nor can we ever meet
except at the feet.



East End, 1888
by Michael R. Burch

Past darkened storefronts,
hunched and contorted, bent with need
through chilling rain, he walks alone
till down the glistening cobblestones
deliberate footsteps pause, resume.

He follows, by a pub confronts
a pasty face, an overbright smile,
lips intimating easy bliss,
a boisterous, over-eager tongue.

She barters what she has to sell;
her honeyed words seem cloying, stale―
pale, tainted things of sticky guile.



A rustle of her petticoats,
a flash of bulging milk-white breast
. . . the price is set: a crown. “A tip,
a shilling more is yours,” he quotes,
“to wash your privates.” She accepts.
Saliva glistens on his lips.



An alley. There, he lifts her gown,
in answer to her question, frowns,
says―“You can call me Jack, or Rip.”



East End, 1888 (II)
by Michael R. Burch

He slouched East
through a steady downpour,
a slovenly beast
befouling each puddle
with bright footprints of blood.

Outlined in a pub door,
lewdly, wantonly, she stood . . .
mocked and brazenly offered.

He took what he could
till she afforded no more.

Now a single bright copper
glints becrimsoned by the door
of the pub where he met her.

He holds to his breast the one part
of her body she was unable to *****,
grips her heart to his wildly stammering heart . . .
unable to forgive or forget her.

Originally published by Penny Dreadful



Evil, the Rat
by Michael R. Burch

Evil lives in a hole like a rat
and sleeps in its feces,
fearing the cat.

At night it furtively creeps
through the house
while the cat sleeps.

It eats old excrement and gnaws
on steaming dung
and it will pause

between odd bites to sniff through the ****,
twitching and trembling,
for a scent of the cat ...

Evil, the rat.



Temptation
by Michael R. Burch

Jesus was always misunderstood . . .
we have that, at least, in common.
And it’s true that I found him,
shriveled with hunger,
shivering in the desert,
skeletal, emaciate,
not an ounce of fat
to warm his bones
once the bright sun set.

And it’s true, I believe,
that I offered him something to eat―
a fig, perhaps, a pomegranate, or a peach.

Hardly the great “temptation”
of which I’m accused.

He was a likeable chap, really,
and we spent a pleasant hour
discussing God―
how hard He is to know,
and impossible to please.

I left him there, the pale supplicant,
all skin and bone, at the mouth of his cave,
imploring his “Master” on callused knees.

Published in The Bible of Hell (anthology)



Role Reversal
by Michael R. Burch

The fluted lips of statues
mock the bronze gaze
of the dying sun . . .

We are nonplused, they say,
smacking their wet lips,
jubilant . . .

We are always refreshed, always undying,
always young, forever unapologetic,
forever gay, smiling,

and though it seems man has made us,
on his last day, we will see him unmade―
we will watch him decay
as if he were clay,
and we had assumed his flesh,
hissing our disappointment.



Excelsior
by Michael R. Burch

I lift my eyes and laugh, Excelsior . . .
Why do you come, wan spirit, heaven-gowned,
complaining that I am no longer “pure?”

I threw myself before you, and you frowned,
so full of noble chastity, renowned
for leaving maidens maidens. In the dark

I sought love’s bright enchantment, but your lips
were stone; my fiery metal drew no spark
to light the cold dominions of your heart.

What realms were ours? What leasehold? And what claim
upon these territories, cold and dark,
do you seek now, pale phantom? Would you light

my heart in death and leave me ashen-white,
as you are white, extinguished by the Night?



Liar
by Michael R. Burch

Chiller than a winter day,
quieter than the murmur of the sea in her dreams,
eyes wilder than the crystal spray
of silver streams,
you fill my dying thoughts.

In moments drugged with sleep
I have heard your earnest voice
leaving me no choice
save heed your hushed demands
and meet you in the sands
of an ageless arctic world.

There I kiss your lifeless lips
as we quiver in the shoals
of a sea that endlessly rolls
to meet the shattered shore.

Wild waves weep, "Nevermore,"
as you bend to stroke my hair.

That land is harsh and drear,
and that sea is bleak and wild;
only your lips are mild
as you kiss my weary eyes,
whispering lovely lies
of what awaits us there
in a land so stark and bare,
beyond all hope . . . and care.

This is one of my early poems, written as a high school sophomore or junior.



The Watch
by Michael R. Burch

Moonlight spills down vacant sills,
illuminates an empty bed.
Dreams lie in crates. One hand creates
wan silver circles, left unread
by its companion—unmoved now
by anything that lies ahead.

I watch the minutes test the limits
of ornamental movement here,
where once another hand would hover.
Each circuit—incomplete. So dear,
so precious, so precise, the touch
of hands that wait, yet ask so much.

Originally published by The Lyric



Keywords/Tags: Halloween, dark, supernatural, skeleton, witch, ghost, vampire, monsters, ghoul, werewolf, goblins, occult, mrbhalloween, mrbhallow, mrbdark

Published as the collection "Halloween Poems"

My water tower in the sun, my pillar in the dark.
Rust on a warehouse door, **** anatomy of a shark.
A hidden, naked cartoon, vulnerable and hurt.
The afternoon rays of light, exposing my empire of dirt.

Squid in a dark room, forgotten seat for you to ****.
Discovering rotten apples, the fruitless empty pits.
Far on the *****, the eye is negligent to mankind.
No on has *****, yet "American ****" isn't hard to find.

From this floor to the next, watch out for the holes.
Stalactites are forming, between the rods and the poles.
The gang is all here, each with a gat.
Questioning Detroit, wondering "where da party at."

A symphonic silence, from abandoned piano keys.
For the love of the city, the birds and the bees.
A ladder to assist you, in anything but a climb.
Wasting away the day, when all you have is time.

Where they once opted elevators, they now offer only stairs.
Peacefully residing, in the asbestos, grime, and the glares.
The walls they're all puking, a paint chip epidemic.
No chalk at the chalkboard, a failed academic.

Some sign walls in scribble, some bless us with art.
Beautiful light fixtures hang, while sanctuaries fall apart.
The debris and the rubble, wooden frames and the splinters.
A back road in the city, in the dead cold of winter.

An altar to stand at, with no sermon or expectation.
A pew a sinner can rest, with only God's examination.
A wall devoted to an *****, hymnal at hand.
Stained glass more exaggerated, with shards in the plan.

Dancing on floorboards in rafters, climbing up to rooftops.
Wandering and trespassing, trying to avoid cops.
Panda bears, pillar ****, and playing in the snow.
In the shadows and the blackest rooms, I really like to go.

Pussycats in hallways and the golden lightning kitty.
Posing seductively in vacancy is where I feel pretty.
I've seen the light at the end of the tunnel, I've found King David.
Interrogated with the whys and don'ts, though I wish they'd save it.

Picasso in the projects, Sloth and Marilyn Manson.
Fairmont Creamery Company, a view held for ransom.
Some window panes are for looking out, some for looking in.
Struggle Buggy Snow White still sleeps, forever strugglin'.

I've seen them ask for me, "Warriors come out to play."
Detroit is to me, what night is to day.
I caught Pikachu and have seen a **** elephant.
In the frost of the Fisher, I found a heart that was spent.

But the cardio made of brick, spoke with such sass.
Resting bones at the Packard, in an armchair that's trash.
Patriots are nosey and robots attack.
Never putting an hour on when I'll get back.

On top of the world, or looking up from the bottom.
Abandoned buildings, schools, churches, there's something about them.
Where a tree has a better chance of rooting and planting.
When a society suddenly seems a bit slanting.

Color a flower on a wall that's been broken and charred.
Breathe life into a battlefield, encourage the scarred.
Take away ego and vanity, glance into a filthy mirror.
Don't just listen to a person, actually hear.

Sure maybe at times I may seem a bit morbid.
And my words can be harsh and approach kind of forward.
But when you're standing alone, in a hallways that's dead.
Whose last bell has been rung and last book has been read.

Then you hear footsteps from the floor up above.
It's in that uncanny awareness.
And fear...
I find love.

A missed alarm
- A hurried departure
From home to bus to bus
- To craft fair!
All handmade, all ingenious.
And reused items appeal to this sustainability-freak.
"There's not much for your kind here"
But just as I say it we spy a stall
And the goth finds Cthulu,
A skull,
An eye,
A snake with which to adorn himself
Amidst the usual background of 'Oh, he looks like Russell brand'

His cousin was riding.
Riding the plastic spastic twirl-around bull.
"Another turn? Go on, your dad didn't see you!"
She shakes her head, almost shy
But is lifted and hoisted on once more,
Smiling and giggling and kicking away.
The operator has success,
Short-lived;
She jumps right off and back to her father,
Uncles and cousins all grin.

- To cafe!
Entrance a ramp,
The outside already proclaims the spaces brilliance
Narrow hall with piano stating 'closed'
Walls adorned with old newspapers
Light fixtures are bottles
Door handle a coffee grinder
Tables old school desks,
Mismatched chairs and couches and plates;
This sustainability freak is in heaven.
The Goth smiles
"I knew you'd like it"
And even the menu provides
My dietary restrictions no obstacle.
I have a smoothie.
It's amazing.

"Judging from your case I would say you play heavy metal"
I giggle; Incorrect.
"Are you going to play for us?"
The waitress asks
We look at each other; are we?
And after our meal we do;
The radio is turned off in response.
Young children play on my violin
Their parents more concerned than I
"Be careful! It's delicate!"
We serenade the coffee and the tables and the birdie on the wall
We serenade customers and workers and the owner as well
We serenade to perfect
We serenade to give back to this space so beautiful
We serenade half in hope of being asked to perform
Of being paid to perform.
The owner enjoys; the possibility is open.
The workers enjoy; "you made today worth it"
The customers enjoy,
One chucks coins to our guitar case
A suggestion of busking
We drain our complimentary drinks and tip the coins
Wander onwards, sated, and glowing.

- To old acquaintances
Who tell scandalous tales
Of the Goth's little brother
"Tell your folks I look after him...
He's hilarious when he's wasted"
The goth queries
"And when I'm wasted?"
"Oh it makes no difference; you're hilarious sober too!"
It's truth.
No one could argue except the Goth himself;
"I'm glad you have a terrible sense of humour"

- To Opshop, closed.
And then the car,
Family bubbling around us
Excited voices clamour with stories
With news
We arrive in a field of green,
Children swinging on a tyre
An old meeting house is dwarfed
Beside the new, uncompleted
A chair in the sky
Seats white fingers
Coated from work;
Yet his is the best view.
"Uncle... Aunty... Cousin.."
Names drift into the air
I won't catch them.
"This is only a small portion of my family;
You should see the group photo!"

An older man teases
"Get your hair cut!
Oi, why haven't you told your son to cut his hair?!"
And his father expertly replies
"He can do what he likes with his hair"
His mother
"Why haven't you died yours then? It's all grey!"
Smiles spread wide at their cheek.

A bell tolls
Signals the slow meandering;
No urgency
We sit, grass beneath us
Sky above
Trees and field all around.
These three buildings so connected.
The prayer starts,
In foreign tongue
Yet not foreign
- It is the language this land first heard
Aside from sea and bird and sun
An occasional group "ah" in response
Teenagers mock; "aye"
Babies fuss,
Children wriggle
Even adults chatter to one another
Come and go as they please
Informal.
I am wrapped in his love.
And all of their love.
Lying in his arms
With sun warming me,
Love warming me,
I send it back.

And then chairs are moved
The tables to be laid
Inside this time
"Come here, you don't want to do the chores, do you?"
A crafty cousin teaches evasion maneuvers
We kick a ball,
The goth looks almost joyful
The usual "Me, sports? Eww"
Forgotten, or put aside.
Shoes back on now
"Your feet could do with some sunlight"
The cousin protests.

We eat with our hands;
For me there are oranges
And chicken salad
I put ethics aside
To sate hunger.

We swing.
The children are playing elsewhere
We claim the rope as ours.
An upside down ladder?
A missing rung?
There's more air than step.
Together we swing.

"Who do you belong to then?"
Caught off guard
"I belong to myself"
The goth smiles at my assertion
"How'd you get here, who brought you?"
I gesture with my foot
"You're so rude! You didn't even introduce me to your girlfriend! I'm his Aunty, that makes me his, and your Aunty too now."
He clasps my hand
"That's how easy it is in my family"

We serenade once more.
Nervousness closes throat
How to express oneself?
I feel small and shrunken
Push myself to claim space
- I do belong here
The love swells around me
Tall poppy syndrome must be beaten into me;
I'm trying to convince myself
I'm not being overbearing
- They want to hear us.
And they're impressed
"Oh what a beautiful voice"
"They do sound wonderful together"
All laugh as Grandma joins in
"That's Nan trying to out do them"

With Promises to jam next time,
We take the scenic exit,
Past those who have past
Past the past itself
Graves decorated with All Blacks flags,
With decks of cards,
With guitars.
Love. Even here,
Love and celebration.

- To friends
Reiki, a goodbye card, packing and kittens, markets and dinner
- The candles glow was soft,
Too soft for menus.
"I wonder why those baskets are all locked up...
Ha! Basket cases!"
We draw a piece to make Dali proud
And jest of eating candle wax
Bellies hunger.
But foods arrival prevents such oddity.
Eating pizza with knives and forks?
I decline, fingers once more.
Restaurant etiquette is not my style
Mine is puffy to their flat
- The perks of being gluten free?
And we leave them to their dessert.
With much sorrow.
"Thank you for enriching my experience here"
No, thank you. Thank you thank you thank you thank you.

"Goodbye!"
I greet
"Have a wonderful life!"
A different good bye.
And we cry as we hug,
No tears, just noise.
To cheer ourselves.
"Waahhhhh"
We giggle and depart.

Surrounded by darkness
Traffic roars overhead
Rocking support beams
They creak
Pigeons shuffle now and then
A dim light is irresistible death
Beyond the trees ripples fold and swell
And I am here with him.
Our own little patch of night time
Folding and swelling around us.
"Now you're the one keeping us awake"
I cannot argue.
This moments magic is worth tomorrow's tiredness.

One more friend to visit.
She saved us a piece!
Oh dietary constraints!
Cheesecake, for me?
And delish!
Hazelnutty and chocolate!
Nutella like.
We ***** about sudden illness
About food restrictions
About fad diets
Apparently the 20's is when the **** goes down.
Our bodies are complaining now.
Maybe we'll figure out what they're trying to say,
- Eventually.
Speak English, **** you!

- To the tent!
And blessed sleep.
It's technically tomorrow now.
Well, it's today.
"Thank you for touching my feet that time"
I curl up in his arms,
And all the world is golden
This illness raises its angry lil head
And his caring melts me
Thank you thank you thank you thank you.

Thank you for this beautiful most perfect day.
Thank you.

In my Times column Thursday, I reviewed a new generation of LED light bulbs. They last 25 times as long as regular bulbs, use maybe one-eighth the electricity, work with dimmers, turn on instantly to full brightness and remain cool to the touch. A big drawback has always been cost, but now, I noted, the prices have fallen.

This column generated a lot of reader e-mail, probably because LED represents change. And change is always scary. Here are some excerpts, with my responses.
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* For LED bulbs, the biggest issue that most consumers will notice is the color. You correctly point out that you can get different colors, and also different shades of white, from warm white, to cool white, to daylight. However, not all white is the same. Two bulbs, both of which measure 2700K (warm white) color may create a completely different impression in the room.

The difference is C.R.I. (Color Rendering Index). Incandescent bulbs have a C.R.I. of 100. Really bad LEDs have a C.R.I. of 50; average ones (most of them) have a C.R.I. of 80 to 85. The really good ones have C.R.I.’s above 90.

C.R.I. is a way of expressing how many colors in the rainbow are actually contained in the white light. Incandescent bulbs contain every color in the rainbow, all in equal measure.

With LED bulbs that have low C.R.I.’s, the color of objects looks wrong, and everything “feels” ghostly. It is not a subtle effect.

Wow. Well, I’d never heard of C.R.I., and it certainly isn’t listed on the package.

I can say only that I’m completely happy with the light color of the Cree bulbs. They look nothing like the weak, diluted light of the compact fluorescents they’re going to replace. I don’t perceive anything ghostly or wrong about them.

But if you’re worried about C.R.I, maybe try out one bulb at home before you replace the whole house’s bulbs.

* Why I don’t have LED bulbs: I have yet to see one that puts out close to the same lumens of an incandescent bulb rated at 75 or 100 watts offered for sale in my area.

Many of you made this point: that the 40- and 60-watt bulbs I reviewed are not bright enough for aging eyes, reading, detail work and so on.

That really is a good point. You can buy 75- and 100-watt-equivalent LED bulbs — online, they’re plentiful — but they’re still expensive ($30 to $45 each).

* At my home, CFLs don’t last half as long as stated on the box, and when CFL electronics flame out, they leave that nasty burnt electronics smell, strongly disliked by my wife. A few friends have reported CFL flame outs that have set things on fire.

Sorry to hear that! However, my column was about LED lights, not compact fluorescent light bulbs. Compact flourescents are basically curlicue tubes filled with gas that lights up. LED bulbs use tiny light-emitting diodes, of the type you have seen in some flashlights and the “flashes” of smartphones.

* Why didn’t you write up the LIFX bulbs on Kickstarter? Are you some kind of paid shill for the light-bulb industry?

Mainly, because I hadn’t heard about LIFX bulbs. Now I have!

Looks like it’s a lot like the Philips Hue kit I reviewed, in that these are LED bulbs you can control from a phone app: brightness, timing and color. The beauty of LIFX, though, is that there’s no router box required. The networking electronics are right in the bulb.

And the LIFX does more, too: changes color in time to the music, for example, or notifies you when you have new e-mail.

These bulbs did super-well on Kickstarter, so they’ve obviously captured the public’s imagination. I’m in touch with the creators, and they’ve promised to send me one to try out when it becomes available!

* You have done what many before have done: Praise LED light bulbs — without touching on the quality of light.

It doesn’t matter whether the light bulb is $200 or 50 cents. If the light is ugly, and it hurts your eyes to read, then why should I buy it?

Compact fluorescent lights have an austere blue tinge. Some give a “warmer” shade of yellow. But the quality of light they produce is atrocious.

I did, in fact, mention the quality of light; in my opinion, it’s wonderful. You can choose “daylight” (whiter) or “warmer” (yellower). With some, like the Philips, you can dial up any color you like: white with a touch of blue or yellow, say.

But I’m not sure why we keep talking about compact fluorescent lights. LED technology is completely different. There is zero relationship between a compact fluorescent light bulb’s light quality and LED’s light quality.

* You neglected an important point: because of heat issues, you’re not supposed to put LED bulbs into enclosed fixtures, like ceiling “cans.”

Actually, I asked Cree specifically about this. The representative says the bulbs are fine in ceiling cans. “The Cree LED bulb can be used in any application that would use an incandescent bulb. As long as there is an opportunity for air to circulate, the bulb is designed to work properly.”

I’m aware that not all bulbs meet this criterion; I’ve seen warnings on 3M and Philips bulbs, for example, not to use them in ceiling cans.

* Is there a potential issue with RF (radio frequency) interference from the circuitry? I know someone who put the LED bulbs in his garage door opener and then had trouble with the remote control.For more information, please visit cree led flashlight

Not against the peaks of protest, these aurulent banners and jasperated jaspe so so jargoon! It's like I was suddenly alive, beat-stretched out of winter neige and into the pancosmic blisses of bright and ebullient spring, plugged with an agromania to abide this new formidable friend in the aeviternal beauty of she and I togetherness. Never to spill a morsel of a minute away from us again, upon the newly conjured spirits unto us both. To be amidst a cynosure of such affiation, to be in the temperate or tropical gardens whispering about our mutual love for flowers nad lists. This that precedes us, bright colliding auras in this newfound numinous kindling of us two. Watching it, making it happen- it unfolding before me made me naseaus with excitement, dithering what our next move out to be. I just wanted to kiss her face, her cheeks, put our hands together so quickly, just to let our amorous fug fill the room with silver albuminious smoke from our breaths. Miles below this, round the Earth to other places, there are the fixtures of bright and corybantic life commoved by other nations and other poised people of the light, that I should not be idle in my desires to usher myself into this grand and briguing introduction. So she said, we will play the question game, the inquiry game, we will state the mark, draw upon deep and fantastical recall, bring from our minds the most immense truths and share them, no matter now feral, or caustic, or melancholy- they will be shared until we explode with each other, our intrigues wrapped in our perfervid and amatory excitedness for one another. Too vast with wonder to be afraid of- am I such a fiend for such resplendence. That we could be vitrified in eternity in a veil of fulgurite. So at this nightfall, this acronychal of bloviating bliss, to write and wonder, incessantly in the finest of provincial matters to settle this garden where Thetis lives to be of her, two philocalists in verdant pasture, heaped with matters of the pen and the palm, in the droves of this beautiful advesperating eve- where first I wrote to you, and then I wrote you back.

i am of the light
despite
my shroud
that crowds the villains in the toppled telemetry of my steeds
galloping gallantly from the burning cities of my dreams

i shall gleam from her or he
that which delivers
their truths faithfully to their dreams
open wounds turn invitation
in the pity of hungry thieves
who dared to dream
of peasants king-ed.
as we sing
sing
of desperation
in passionate confessions
of jaded wisdom
passed on through every failure
never to falter
in the betrayals of Walters
lost
in loss-less flac files
i have miles to go
smiles to grow
daggers projectiles
from mild mannered children
freshly ridden
of maniacal miracles
spiritual
but not stupid
we are troopin
this lucid movement
grooving
to the repetition of the drum
the gas blow back of a gun
the bursting bubbles of bubble gum
having fun
i learnt goodly on the run

learned nothing in victory

learned nothing in simplicity

complacently

snickering it all away
bullet by bullet
case by case
and eventually the blade
in my compassionate displays
we shall congregate
and hate ourselves
**** the donks to hell
dwelling on the cellar doors
that darkos teacher adored
in verbal massacre
of the written literature
of cracked brain fixtures
seeping the lines
in cold tingles
down the spines of maniacs

just relax

mix it down on a track
spit the thesis into pieces
through the creases of cracked sneakers, and out the speakers
of trouble seekers.

mistakes make us

deliberate chaos
tossed  
upon the fakers
who cry to think
the dream
became a reality
mistake us
for serrated blades that rip the hearts from beasts
sometimes i stop to think
while having a drink
conclusive brinks
of sanity creaks
of my humility
secreting
frivolously
the disposing of my jealousy
of your feelings

hellaciously
i rip a felony
from a face
in appealing agony
antagonizing me
in the frenzied forensics
of my oblique
outlooks
none of us
were ever crooks
speaking to self
while being booked
in hell

It's all gone out of me, the hammer falls and I'm not ready to answer
Trembling, weakness supporting a tub of jelly
The pollen-filled air flies past like the
Pelicans at the edge of the harbor
Taking us gliding for an unpleasant ride
Down the corridors of plastic colors
Through the one word answers that bubble forth from
10,000 years away in hyperspace
Where the mechanisms of language become so convoluted
That they disappear completely out at the vanishing point
Coming up behind you again to drag you into that smoky allure
You remember hating and pinching your nose from
And hiding in the car, but the new fear is of becoming addicted to it
Just like your addiction to ego games and
Intellect, just like your addiction to pleasure and constant validation

The validation's there in the eternal self, they say
But I'm an intellectual
Too impatient for meditation
And lost along the way to enlightenment
That I truly want,
But then I'll never have it if I continue to live this way

It's wilderness calling from a tame fool
Sticking up for you the overgrown horoscope signifies
The shapes of skydives,
He comes in and out of our dull lives
And there's an electric current that solidifies between
Him, Us, and his music
Iron rods jutting up from scorched earth
A broken paradise
Crumbling in a whisky tumbler
Blackened by fiber filters, creations
Unlocked by flowing ontological
Caricatures, open wounds gnashing
At attention-seeking osteopaths
Fortune seekers clamber down
Soccer field bleachers,
Somebody lost his sneakers in the woods
Once there was a set of barbells along the trail
We fell in line and started
Counting each other
One by one it seemed like the green apples would never fall
It was up to us to wait for the shower
It would feed our kin
We'd begin to rise up together
But it could never keep up with our pen
We wanted the ghosts to follow us and overtake our mortal foes
But we couldn't command the armies of the dead
We derive all our pleasures from films and campfire stories
We contrive our adventures but we wait for them to happen to us
We take a passive role in finding love
And it blinks lights at us across suburban streets through windows in the dark
The mind begins to writhe with new memories it composed of old
An idealized time of a child with the perverse mind
Of a hogtied adolescent
Guessing that the course of existence
Isn't determined by the speed of your calculations
Testing the warm water on a naked toe
We could dive in and forget to breathe
And the water could carry us forever
Alleviating gravity
All the obstacles we perceived in past lives
Remain with us like
Chimney swifts on the bottomless April days of a
Klu Klux **** telephone operator
Who believed in the spirit and the holy ghost
And burned a quiet altar to Satan's minions every Sunday night
Drinking nail polish and
Obscure references to the films of the
Ancient Greek philosophers, who
Saw the medium as a means to a message
And patronized the elitest filmmakers to study the ancient Runes
And reveal their findings to a power-hungry public
That would not outright reject it
But that would have to follow it down the rabbit hole
Through the wide mouth of the trumpet around brass fixtures
And into the tight hot moist mouth of the trumpeter
And the elemental warriors would strike oil beneath the whole affair
Ending the time we spent hoping for any entertainment to create itself before our barren psyches
Busying ourselves with incomprehensible tasks and letting our indolence take the reins until we found our heads again out there amid the vapors of
New car chem trails and old railroad bunkers where spruce and cedar grow through cement earth, they force apart the ground with just their roots

We weren't ready to keep watch the following weekend but we
Had no choice when the government bond expired
And we had only technological solutions left to hope for
And wrongly we abandoned our research posts to fight the enemies
With giant weapons and uncreative slogans
Our drummers played so fast we marched along and killed all that remained in record doubletime
Rendering the events of that victorious day immortal in the ingenious accounts of
Philosopher/poet/historian Michael Jackson
Who gave one final performance
To save himself from what must not be

Waking up the morning after,
I can only recall the excessive laughter.
The great vibes shared in one moment in time,
It was all so beautiful, the highest of highs.
(****)
My glance embarrassingly detects
the frightful fact the mirror reflects.
A bathroom tagged with the night's mistakes,
Rorschach like markings of drinks and rare steaks.
Always said "Yes", lacking all inhibition.
I wish last night I lived its definition.
So I readjust my head and all of the fixtures,
and pray to god no one took any pictures.

I fill my lungs with lust
And fixate my dilated eyes on these light fixtures
The room has been spinning for hours
And I keep exhaling all of this seductive literature

Sometimes my tongue gets a little wicked
My fingers keep twitching
But that's only because the good lord knows how badly this love has me smitten

She was the strangest football fan I'd ever met,
Between match programmes and leaflets she hid Nietzsche and Thoreau;
Philosophy being a bright passion of hers,
It all seemed so natural in her visage.
On days, she'd hum You'll Never Walk Alone
While turning delicately the pages of a new text,
Smiling at the words that appeared before her on the page.
Dorian Gray, she took time to point out,
Kept her fascinated—
But it was always going to be Nietzsche,
And the first time she strummed the pages of Thus Spoke Zarathustra it was as if the humming had turned to fire,
And she was melded with the page.
I would believe only in a god who could dance.
If you asked her who she favoured,
she would reply back with a chirp, 
the Russians!
And hold to you a copy of Dostoyevsky,
Crime and Punishment, she said, was her fascination
And she'd as fluidly as ever switch back to the fixtures.
Never passion, always fancy.
It was as if viewing herself through a third party lens.
Her passion for the game,
As mysterious as her gentle touch on softer pages.
How could she love so drastically?
Football, her passion,
But her books were her mystery to all, to even herself,
And the quiet murmur of Nietzsche, her nectar.

Rebirth!

Have to clean my house today.
Forlorn for near eternity.
Bathroom once depressed in dank dampness.
Embryonic before new birth.
Now reborn.
Put on dress of new.
Fixtures and fittings sparkling renewed.
Safely delivered took a week.
So glad it was not a labour of mine.
Walls painted as light corn-flower.
Forgotten archaic tragedy as shades of change.
They have evolved!
By ladylivvi1

© 2013 ladylivvi1 (All rights reserved)

My father says he’s not sexist
He taught me how to work a circuit breaker
But only my brother learned how to install light fixtures

My father says he’s not sexist
He taught me how to mow a lawn
But only my brother learned how to work a chainsaw

My father says he’s not sexist
He bought me slacks for a program
But only after saying I look better in skirts

My father says he’s not sexist
He encouraged me to play soccer
But only got excited when my brother played

My father says he’s not sexist
He told me to be confident with my body
But he told me that I need to work out more

My father says he’s not sexist
He said that he’d love my hair no matter how I style it
But he’s forbidden me to let it be less than 5 inches

My father says he’s not sexist
He wanted me to speak my mind
But he rolled his eyes when I stated my opinions

My father says he’s not sexist
He insisted that both of his children were equal
But only his son gets rewarded for doing what’s expected of him

What a perfect setting to tell this love story just like the land her heart was barren and Georgia O Keefe
Speaks of it perfectly “Such a beautiful untouched lonely feeling place such a far part of what I call the
Faraway” how many times had she dreamed of being able to lay her head beside another on the pillow
But still the years increased and no prince rode into view against the backdrop of what others saw
Just as weary empty barbarous land the artist O Keefe with fine acute sense ability blended contrasted
Harshness to bring forth exquisite beauty from bovine grazing herds to one individual that left only its
Whitened scull stared with empty eye sockets on the cruel reality of an unforgiving land but even this
Spoke an unequivocal announcement of beauty rugged startling severe the sun sky and earth told the
Story of quiet irreversible glory magnificence magnified multiplied would capture and enthrall even
Greater than when this creature lived and breathed as well her life would whisper the sweetest accord it
Was like a life time had forgot then with richest hues the flames leapt to daring and fulfilling life truly
She was driest tender what moisture there was derived from tears of regret and longing just a tender
Touch With feeling and passion it came to full expression when she stood at the end of this great field
The sun Dried weeds started to stir from the rising breeze she stood there beside a lone tree and as this
Picture Took full hold of her soul in the distant horizon her answer of a lifetime of longing arrived on the
Wind he dropped his biplane gently upon the face of the field a golden rush overtook her feelings like
A Flower without water she was in a state of drawn feebleness and want now her skies were filled with
The wonder clouds of rain they came in a fury after the long draught she didn’t know this clearly but she
Sensed it with womanly intuition two kindred spirits now would come to know fulfillment because at
The Center of everything love is predominate and it’s not just a feeling it’s a person he goes to the very
Core and center of existence he sees and truly knows when the sparrow falls he all so knows when we
Fall in love first because he arraigned it took it from the fragile frail wisp of thought gave it a birth place
In the heart and as it grows it ends up ruling a life of love and devotion but for misses Beal it was just a
Another day for Jon tungsten it was just a time to do a little barnstorming in Santa Fe the fall had been
Full and promising now it became even more gratifying and promising this land at first considered a
Tortuous place gleamed and was unalterably a dreamscape how tenderly wonder touched and wound it
Self around your emotional well being but for the moment our heroine returned to her job a quick
Telling of the hotel La Fonda where she worked “La Fonda is a Santa Fe landmark, just steps
Away from history and art museums, a variety of galleries and shops, historic churches and, of
Course, the Plaza. The historic inn’s Pueblo-style architecture features thick wood beams, latilla
Ceilings and carved corbels. Special touches such as hand-crafted chandeliers, tin and copper
Lighting fixtures and colorful tiles add character and charm. Beautiful hand-carved and hand-
Painted furniture and displays by local artists create a rich ambience. La Fonda has always been
A Local gathering spot and a hub of activity. World War II journalist Ernie Pyle wrote, “You
Could Go there any time of day and see a few artists in the bar…a goateed gentleman from
Austria or a Maharajah from India or a New York broker… You never met anyone anywhere
Except at La Fonda.” So as chance would have it the pilot adventurer and hotel manageress
Would also cross paths under favorable circumstances due to him having a slight mishap with his
Plane and without it this story wouldn’t have unfolded he was only slightly bruised the only
Evidence was a sling that held his right arm but it meant a delay and a stay so busy was her life
In doing for others little did she know the tables were about to be turned who could count the
times that she had watched the couples holding hands holding deep long glances going out on the
Floor to dance and longed for the same to be her life there is some who believe there is a
universal
Attunement and alignment at work in our lives it seems so here she the great tree that bare no
Fruit his life lived fully but at the center there was emptiness all it took was a cordial meeting out
On the patio dining section among trellises hanging flowers a full golden harvest moon and a
Sweet autumn breeze only a greeting was made but in the depths that only the soul knows a
Connection had occurred somewhere there was the smallest muffled sound a foundation had
Moved unseen but powerfully moving a new building stared to be built the next time a little
Longer conversation then a dinner was arraigned one was wowed with tales of the barnstormer
Life while at the same time a root had fastened itself to a wild ones heart the steady stability that
Showed out of her life was for some reason the most attractive thing he could imagine her life
Made his life take form and made a base where truth was undeniably lived grandly a love so
Great could only be told in the ski with barrel roles loops and dives clouds white and puffy and
Blue that is almost incomprehensible the days washed in to their lives like the land that told its
Secrets through beauty conjured against stark backdrops elegance pristine acute almost painful
Was the soft divergent quality revealed but before they could fly off into the western sunset fate
Would raise its heavy hand and an accident would claim her love as it did so many others of that
period so she donned the black widows apparel but rich beyond words was the man who had the
brightest blue eyes he was her guardian her keeper no longer did she long for love it had stepped
beyond the azure blue and every time a plane passed over head she was thrilled and amazed with
The life she had known when a heroic flyer took her far from her down to earth life spelled out
Heaven in such glorious terms like the gentle sound of a Spanish guitar drifting out on the plaza
Her life is filled with a haunting music that is the knowledge of all who love and have been loved

This dream worked paradise built on southern myth
Collapsed the other night, I’m sure.

Floorboards drenched in gasoline,
Burnt to embers in a seconds fifth.

A devote wife seen to be impure
Stricken dead by the last shell in a magazine.

The silhouette of a hollow soul
Took to dragging out her man.

He’s brought about betrothed in atonement
The latter half feeling hardly whole

He speaks soft words to his beloved Anne
Departure leaves no postponement.

Barrel presses in on the underside of his ear.
Carrying the sulfur scent that killed his love

He hears the trigger click, silence from the gun
No deafening boom for all to hear.

Takes the demon down with no more than a shove.
On the ground bellow stands his lover’s son.

There are butterflies
painted on the ceiling,
and moths clinging to
the light fixtures.

I pluck out my eyelashes
and make the same wish
on each one.

She holds my hand
and kisses my lips
and leaves me
gasping for air,
and I wonder if she's
just as confused as I am.

My mind is full of broken glass
That before were pretty fixtures
Fastened together with a carefully woven golden sash.

A mixture of an alabaster and blue hue
Was delicately painted along the curves.
Inside, they were filled with ideas and thoughts anew.

Serving my wants, I let loose the sash
The fixtures slipped from my grasp.
Now when walking through my scattered thoughts, I gnash.

It's a bad day when you can't get Celene Dion out of your head
Titanic was good
It was not that good

I found a dried flower
Buried in Leviticus of my sort of grandma's bible
She must have liked that part
The only quote about Leviticus I've read on the internet is about stoning gay people
I hope she didn't like it that much

I saw a bagel get made
No one has the job of eating the middles out
I'm 23, this was a let down
I still like bagels a lot

I tacked the dry flower on my wall
Above the reminder that it's $3 a day to swim at the public pool in the mornings
I hope it's not a homophobic flower
I hid the bible behind Lauren Conrad's book
Lauren Conrad's book embarrasses me less

My sort of grandma
Is only sort of alive
I often feel that way

I feel most alive while dreaming of the impossible
Realistic dreams lead to disappointment
Outlandish dreams leave little 'remember when’s’'
No one hates themselves for not becoming an astronaut
A lot of people hate themselves for not losing 20lbs

Friendships are often measured in favors
That is all
That was not all
Favors are measured in sacrifices
Favors are not measured in reward

Today is a reflection of not dying yesterday
There is a one in seven chance that today is Friday
And it is imperative that we get down on Friday
Because the anticipation for this weekend is very high
If today is Monday all of that is no longer relevant to our conversation

I am losing weight
As I lose weight more and more fat girls hit on me
I do not like this as much as what I was imagining would happen

I have learned that being funny **** cool
Like I am becoming
Does not mean hot girls will hit on me
It means they will actually think about it before saying no

To supplement my soon to be chiseled physic
I am learning a Jack Johnson song on guitar
This worked for an acquaintance in 2006
Maybe I should learn Colbie Callait instead

The world would be better if schools had better teachers
The world would also be better if high school seniors paid attention to the teachers they already have
I don't know which one is easier to fix

My past seems rosier than my future
Except in the case of February 16th 2007
And now February 16th 2012

Corner buildings and modern light fixtures are my favorite aesthetics
My favorite building has neither of those features
Those features are not that awesome

Dead flowers smell like dead things
To combat this I spray cologne on my grandma's flower
I have never been to a funeral
I wonder if they febreeze the dead people
Or maybe they use Chanel No. 5
This is something I would like to learn more about

I Am Very Refugee
We protest and communicate
We back off and disingenuously disjoint
“You have potential.”
He says as he smokes a joint.
“Where has that revolutionary spirit gone today?” It is victim to my apprehensions
I must suppress them.
I must suppress my apprehensions
And the electrifying feeling of anger surging up from my stomach; but never out
My anger is a fiery, vivified ball of red and black electricity surging,
Heaving,
Every bone and nerve ending coming close, to stumbling,
Burning out in the intoxicated hope of it all, but never touching
And the trippy glow, the burning fireworks climaxing perpetually never ends,
it is subdued without the chemical element to release my apprehensions, the doubting gone.
The wheels must turn; the machine keeps turning
Does it matter? NO!

The policeman looks at me and says: ‘’a ******* refugee. You don’t get to be angry at your host.”
It hit me.
I see activists
Typing , gathering, yelling,
Barely smiling,
Privileged

While excluding me, of course.

I wanted to scream:
Please consider me another fixture of your time here
I am the battle every day. I die every day.
I am searching for words to describe how you, citizens of the land, reject me
Much like the letters I will receive from the journals I send this to,
I want the marching, the marching,
walking in everyday and touching my feet in my black secondhand fake leather shoes
I want to march in and step in and feel the constraint of my blue ID
Telling me that this land isn’t mine
“How will you change your life, Islam?”
I ask  myself how am I spending my time?
rushing
fleeting
drinking
contemplating suicide
paranoid,

I am tired, scared, weak, flawed, human, a desperate refugee intertwined with the poor hopes and regulations of humanity, and I am dying,
You are dying!
I will die soon,
Go ahead! Smoke your oxycodone pills,
you are dead, you are dead, you are dead! You are all dead!
My father killed himself because of me and so I will blame the system.
You are dead, from the moment you confine yourself to the poor reality that there are just too many of us and that nothing will change!
So yes I will leave the protest.
I will sit within your dreary cubicles walls stained with the fabrics that I horrifically glance at, sneaking, beating the freedom,
Embracing constraints of social and financial necessity.

I
run, run, run, run,
screaming madly about our dissatisfaction and our satisfaction?

my anger is dulled;
nullified intricacy, blazing, twisting and winding its' way down my heart,
to the frayed edges of my perceptions, drowsing off into the last fixtures of the solidified realm
in which  I find myself; and eventually.

Can I  say something?

I am a refugee. I am so refugee, refugee, refugee, refugee.
The vast expanse of illusory getaways are the only thing for me.
There's nothing else but to escape this vast and dreary landscape of perpetual minutia, to escape my insanity.
Time stretches on and on, I am very tired.
Palestine still occupied.
Yes I’m screaming, screaming, till there is no me, and my voice will not reach you

I will never reach to you. I will never touch you, hold you, love you, I will never have the opportunity to feel the electric race of mindless sensation make right the ticking

A white friend asked me on twitter
“What’s  it like to be a Palestinian refugee in Lebanon?”
It means that you cannot do anything but carry on pathetically, with a drastic furthering of lust and selfishness, into your devotion. Psychopathy is more common than you'd think.

I want more to talk to you but there is reality, and the sea is not green
It is red.

The beach is cold and the sand sifts beneath your wait, it is tan.

Dear,
We are all comrades when it is our rights for which we ask. We are all comrades when it is basic rights for which we ask.

I don’t know if my words make sense because honestly they shouldn’t.

I am manic. I am loose. I am dangerous. I am high.
And I am terrified.

I am a raccoon masked self sabotage tycoon specialist with a self inflicted past-biased hit list peeked at through urban eye sags pulled down by years of troubled pleasantries now darkened with giant grey glass fingers touching the skies and casting shadows on their own concrete feet providing my disguise wrapped in a capitalist bow tied blessing,
Oh forward progression,
Pathetic Fraud 101 is in session,
Catch me if you can,
I am my own cynical supremacist nemesis thief in the black and white mellow drama trauma,
I play all the rolls,
And these places take their toll on my soul because fossil fuel herds have replaced the sea you see,
Peel your eyelids back and allow me to derail your ignorant yarn sewn seam day dream from it's crocheted track,
Societies a chemical fire train wreck attack,
The difference between metal and wool is fire and flesh,
They're bound to mesh within a Chinese children tears committee calamity tragedy,
You think your H&M; hemmed subliminal photo-shoot suit is moral free?
Or is it that you refuse to look past your own pictures hung around your face by D.O.S. operated framed fixtures screaming "ME-ME-ME-ME-ME-ME-ME!"
Or whatever O.S. you bless your shrine with,
Our world is a glass screen neon pawn lit mess with a p.o. box address,
Completely impersonal!
The true core of this horror lies within your head on your bed that morning you woke up and realized
"I can't fix it!"
I applaud you for having such a great start!
You're heart will settle and the city sunsets will become beautiful once you're full of this revelation:
**"I am not my own salvation."

Write me a meal plan in bright red pain
And tell me this is the answer to all my problems again
Force down a tube through my nose and into my stomach
And watch as I flummox out of control
Fill this gaping hole inside of me
With drugs and sedation
Numb out pain and realisation
Force feed me promises and a smile
Only to regress back in a while.
Fill these cracks
With temporary fixtures
Concoctions of pills and other mixtures.
Treat me with CBT and psychotherapy
Tell me one day ill be free
And maybe if you say it enough times
Ill start to believe it
As much as you say you do.

BCBG Max Azria, with its 570 brick-and-mortar boutiques, is the latest American retail firm to fall prey to digital competition.

On Thursday, Bloomberg reported that the fashion label, one of three under the BCBG Max Azria Group umbrella, which also includes Herve Leger and BCBGeneration, is closing several stores and shifting its focus to e-commerce, wholesaling through other retailers and licensing.

Said Seth Lubove, a spokesman for BCBG at Sitrick & Co., "Like so many other great brands, BCBG has been negatively impacted by the growth in online sales and shifts in customer shopping patterns and, as a result, has too large a physical retail footprint."

The company founded by Max Azria in 1989 (which stands for the French phrase "bon chic, bon genre") peaked in the mid-2000s, finding favor on the red carpets with tween darlings Lauren Conrad, Camilla Belle and Miley Cyrus, the latter of whom collaborated with Azria on a short-lived Walmart collection in 2009.

One of the most powerful figures to emerge from the L.A. fashion scene in the last 25 years, Azria, an immigrant from Tunisia, was early to the idea of democratizing fashion, selling gowns in the $500 range and showing them on the runway in New York to lend a high-fashion patina. He built an international empire that once boasted $1 billion in retail sales.

He is married to Lubov Azria, chief creative officer of the BCBG Max Azria Group. The West Coast couple made headlines in 2015 for selling their Beverly Hills estate for $85 million.

BCBG Max Azria has struggled over the past few years, hampered by overly aggressive brand extensions and retail expansion plans, and increased competition from fast fashion giants Zara and H&M.; Last year, 123 employees were laid off from its Vernon, Calif.-based offices. The company has hired Alix Partners LP to restructure its debt load, although, according toBloomberg's sources, the company isn't in risk of bankruptcy.

Just last week, fellow L.A.-based retailer American Apparel announced the closure of all 110 of its retail stores. Other mall fixtures, including Macy's and Sears, also announced store closures scheduled for early 2017, and all of The Limited stores closed this month.Read more at:http://www.marieaustralia.com/bridesmaid-dresses | www.marieaustralia.com/red-carpet-celebrity-dresses

Klauss Ritkke collector leaves and representative of Beggars, with their 76 autumn and semi-dead body of downstroke of insect. I used to walk through its narrow streets serenades as liquid pearls, as clusters of dreams omnipotent ogres and fetishes; owners of old Avignon, iridescent moist soil marshes bringing minerals liquids Gotthard massif, ancient drains into the Rhone. Owner dreams and curses weak burst administrators of the house of God.

         August 4 in the year of our Lord 1617, when it was asset Klauss cleaning the largest stained glass, heard heated dialogues between Fraile and Gentleman, who was in another time assistant clergy? You could approach Klauss and listen more clearly their conversation, until the Friar Andrew, stammering, Raymond Bragasse demanded indulgence, or one or the other.

Fray Andrés : How many times hopefully I struggled to reform you ... Raymond!
  
'O virga ac diadema diabolus thirst ...!!
  'Oh ****** the Devil smiled ...!!

Raymond  : It is to live more question if I failed something, take me to the sulfurous emanations from Averno. But my faith lies mildewed on the seabed, sacred myth ... my truth, and my beloved Marielle ... Meanwhile,

Klauss envisaged to play the window and looked her tongue to pray for them. Fray Andrés, paced back and forth wondering what to do...?
Raymond  : There are fifteen thousand demons possessing my body ... fifteen thousand demons to attack the sacred mystery of the Holy Rosary ...!                

Fray andrés : Oh great cause ... How I have to ****** your soul whose darkness of flashed light ...!?

Raymond  : Marielle was my light, my Eve Edenic, admirable land. Now, it's my I spell, my blindness or my constant bleed sharp, not knowing where to elapse...?

         ...To a memory that night, that dismal night, giving up my final vows of faith and consecration of my soul. I broke my bonds and ecclesiastical chores all by Marielle noble descendant of the Quentinnais.

            Never believe such grief in my fate I do love her, but his misfortune was to meet me. That night when I went to the edge of her house, I walked through the kitchen window. Everyone was asleep, except the albi-blue reflection of the last gasps of the deadly round of Quentinnais Mansion. I thought rescue and salvage something from those cheeks kissed by me, but their heart wiping her heart and lungs.
     It is possible to recall the last roses I took her hands.   Danced with her, next to the old hymn and lamentation of prestidigitations made by the monk, played alongside cartomancy having abolished the minute of darkness take her with her beautiful bare feet. What a pain, I could not rescue her, and snatched me death! His parents hated the mere fact of having their priest ruled by a wicked heart, so I turned to the pagans and dark gods to heal Marielle, and his heart transplant it for mine.
              
Since that day, I'm still burning in hell polisatanic to take little breath of kindness and seize transparent liquid plaguing their existence and serene Diadem metal to learn that his friend possessed by the devil fall into any infection endemic evil ...; endemic of his love, crossed himself when he saw that turned into a horrible one.

Humble as leaves in the garden became the Bible leaves torn from the bound fillings. Saints lepers shriveled down her columns. Heaven proclaimed hemorrhages and wind festering stinking gases, which in the sky sprouted in clusters clots on the Papal Household.

          Fray Andrew threw the rosary on the neck of the possessed, and asked the Demons who feared more ...?. A question answered this question Demons, which fell shrieking vertical down the aisle ... and.... fell, rose!

              
       Klauss fell to the ground in horror, and the demons not to respond, fell into tears and regret shaped so plaintive and poignant, many dark beings holed up in fixtures and embankments, they began to mourn moved by natural compassion ... and saying pained voice by the mouth of the possessed...:

...Andrés, Andrew ... ... have mercy on us!
              
Meanwhile, Klauss ran away screaming the place ... could be heard in the distance ... Marielle ... have mercy on us!

         Sparkling lights fell on the dome, covered with orange and creamy luzbels horror. Apertures fulminations betrayed contained emancipate the shackled muses leaping vacuum; discouraging reddening chinks bad ..., saturating every form, every place, and every interlocutory benign breeze.
Most animals vomited on the walls; carbonated some ****** walls and curdling the soul of the people. Other remains of vomiting sulphurous radiated papal house, initialing the firing squad diabolical image of Raymond and Fray Andrés; they are swallowed by the Cancerbero. So flayed bats were issued by the campanile, mistaking the red sunset in penitence with blood dripping thick alleged by the Buttress and reach a churchyard to embryo.
            
Got home, tightly closed the latch, feeling strangely his wife Danianne; which saw his face isolation. Then he went to his bedroom and closed the curtains, warning yellow lights in progressive outlook towards a corner of the mirror. Then he lay down on the bed and prayed for himself and others ... "Today, when I walked by my office and my prayer my clothes pilgrim incense drove away my voice ... as if Fray Andrés, still whispering my ears..."

I close my eyes listening to litanies and prayers ...
         O ****** by virtue of your rosary, directs these enemies of mankind to respond to my question...!
                
Klauss saw the exorcism using the mirror. He made a prayer, came a radiant ears, nose and mouth of the possessed flame. Fire flowed like laba of the Holy Cross, which destroyed the wicked and the most worthy wisdom worked against the satanic specter fire and hot rosary fell on the hot heads Fraile and Raymond. It was what translated his shadow in her room.

         Klauss Rittke, returning the next day moistened his clothes by the dense fog that covered the sacred place, then when picking up     leaves plucked Bible found a Diadem with an initial contained a    backwards W, whose image pointed to Marielle triumphing evil. He   tried to leave but nothing left pulled, so refugee took the   diamond and warily Diadem led her pocket.                                                          ­                          

Little bit could do that dark and rainy day, as an insurrectionary devotion that day begged her angelic singing to heaven; that enveloped the sky in order to transport to the cemetery to sleep next to their parents.  Diadem virtue to useful lives and reigns in the footsteps passerby Baal runaway spirits. All with their malodorous footsteps, they vomited and flying in higher meridians, like the giddy exorcism in the house of the universal Shepherd.
           The same day, August 5, 1617, Klauss arrived tired with the diadem cast in her hand. Thus, ceased to exist and its long sleep would walk with his white robe and crown throw with his eyes came from the Sea blankets the oceanographic serpentuous within Marielle, whose hairnets they are containing its essence. His agony lasted three days, and around Avignon no who could wear mourning. His children and wife lost their voice to utter.

Go in peace Benedict Klauss...!

Meteorologist had been predicting that Hurricane Harvey would hit the landfall of Texas shore
It’s a reality storm no one should ignore
Mighty winds and heavy rain hitting the Texas land
Warnings upon warnings being active in demand
Some people decided to remain in their homes
But during the storm no one will be able to roam
Now Hurricane Harvey could last for days
The two words of the day, “HOME STAY”
Hurricane Harvey has winds of 130 miles per hour
Now that is along of power
Hurricane Harvey is a strong alert
It offers no perk
Homes are being destroyed
The hurricane is treating homes and fixtures as if they were toys
This storm is no joy
How Great Thou Are comes to mind
Rain, Wind and Tornados all combined
A message to Texas and the world to kneel and pray
This is Heaven ‘s communication being their relay
My heart goes out to the citizens of Texas
I pray and hope the people survive
Trust in God and that is what will keep them alive
God’s amaze in what he gives
As Hurricane Harvey conquers on
My advice to the Texas citizens is to remain strong
Stick together in fellowship is what I am talking about
Sooner or later Hurricane Harvey will move out.