At length their long kiss severed, with sweet smart:
And as the last slow sudden drops are shed
From sparkling eaves when all the storm has fled,
So singly flagged the pulses of each heart.
Their bosoms sundered, with the opening start
Of married flowers to either side outspread
From the knit stem; yet still their mouths, burnt red,
Fawned on each other where they lay apart.

Sleep sank them lower than the tide of dreams,
And their dreams watched them sink, and slid away.
Slowly their souls swam up again, through gleams
Of watered light and dull drowned waifs of day;
Till from some wonder of new woods and streams
He woke, and wondered more: for there she lay.

I'm slow to the boil and takes a lot to **** me off.

WARNING: Stop reading if you dislike vents.

A truth we all know but WONT discuss IS race relations in America *****!!
How did it come to all this open bigotry and so many stupid racist comments?
****** shame that my race still don't get that ALL people are created equal.
Maybe other regions get it but not my area with it's tons of racists.
In my area people believe all blacks lie, steal, cheat, live in ghettos,
black is the wrong race and white is always right and superior. BULL!!!
I will never be ignorant and speak ignorance like I hear in my area
"Ship them back to Africa their homeland!"  
Wake up! Africa is everybody's motherland!!!  
My dander is up because stupid racist bogus flagged a video of a friend.
Not bad enough they call venues so the lady can't get a local gig or they
posted bogus mugshots of convicts on Craigslist faking it was her.....
ATTENTION people from Northern Michigan: YOU PEOPLE NEED TO
RETHINK WHAT YOU THINK AND SAY ABOUT MINORITIES!!!
****** she's proving she doesn't need Northern Michigan to get her music heard?
Calling venue to get her fired and lose jobs didn't stop her from singing.
You can't flag this and to remove like you did on Craigslist.
I stopped posting on Craigslist after all the **** talk about my friend.
She got targeted by ignorant racist assuming ALL black women are like the
Kerry Washington's character on Scandal. Betty's not a bed hopper and
she doesn't ***** around with married men. I can't speak for Kerry Washington.
Betty doesn't speak ghetto talk as my area calls it and she's not like the stereotypes
racist paint all blacks to be. Blew their minds that Betty's a hell of a lot smarter than
them and she's not lazy, ignorant or the N word they love calling blacks.
Fed up with the racism in my area, Northern Michigan and the nation.
****** because anonymous ignorant went to Youtube and flagged my friend
Betty Ponder's new G-rated video for inappropriate content and got it removed.
Inappropriate content my ***!

The mug stains leapfrog a linoleum asphalt countertop, sunbathing in the breakfast nook.
A magazine proofreads a hole in a bagel. Scanning for clues to the whereabouts
Of a Jewish heart. Beads of Oolong tea archipelago from a resting kettle
All the way to the 'good ' China. A cup on a pearl, laying flat… ear to the ground.
Listening to the stories only Formica can tell. Deciphering the steam
Rising from a steep. Curling whiskers into omens, embroidered upon a shaft of light
Heaven sent. Postage dew. Gilding quaint luxuries, tucked in a cozy roost
Smelling of oak musk and slow roasted dreams, evaporating before memory may lay claim
To the riddles of Morpheus. There’s an aire of Return.  
It molts in the bacon fats hovering in the strata unique to kitchen islands lousy with active volcanoes that shuffle in stocking feet and terry cloth bathrobes. Restless and foggy minded.
Looking for the keys. And...
Chewing a thumbnail. Staring out the window. Where there used to be a car in the driveway. But the officer flagged a taxi. Explains the migraine, like a Vulcan; stoically flipping switches in a fuse box wired to a vague recollection of a soiree.
All the while holding a pitchfork and today's horoscope.
For irony and street cred.

{ But out of cream cheese. }

Concurrently... This part of the house still has the rustic naivete of a celibate beatnik picking teeth with a signature pen presenting an Hawaiian girl with a vanishing skirt; blinking in and out of Vaud-villainy, like Erwin Schrödinger’s Cat. A kind of hole in a barge with an ornate cubby; loitering with sugar cubes and a bendy plastic fern.
Like the foyer to a room, still under construction.
      A busy little metaphor, lounging around the east wing of a humble abode… like news clippings in a mason jar… it’s superfluous handle threading a ceramic eye.
Like a stainless steel joke under a refrigerator magnet, pinned to a plate in your forehead. As any lamp-shade with ambition.  
      Playing to a rough Cloud, hung over an ashtray; that has seen Better Days - envy the baroque occlusion of monotony and routine, merging a hangover - into morning traffic. Replete with modest gains.
And Horizons that stab bleary eyes that would know a gypsy
By the weight of her purse…
     When the day begins, it gains a foothold by the spine of an overdue book, reclining adjacent runcible spoons and antique kitche. As a bathroom light squeaks between a door and a frame.
As ancillary and precise as a beacon for a blindfold.

Like turpentine palming a brick. And Wagner.

Once upon a time
there was a young adult
who spent time on the dark web,
Searching for the most obscure and exotic substances humanity could offer.

Late nights tracking down vendors with the most up-to-date wares:
Drugs.
Research chemicals,
Novel psychoactive substances.
Illicit pharmaceuticals and exotic materials.
Pills, powder, liquid, tabs, any material one could find.
Uppers, downers, dissos, deliriants,
Psyches, anti-psyches, stimulants,
Depressants, anti-depressants,
*** drugs, study drugs,
'noids, 'roids, and
even vitamins.

There was the standard battery of illegal narcotics,
******* knockoffs of more popular drugs,
Drugs designed to evade anti-doping tests
and then the more experimental stuff.

Suffice to say this part of the internet is a strange and lawless world.
Not like the Wild West, more like the backstreets of Seoul.

The goal was nothing more than knowledge
of this rapidly evolving-world.

One night a vendor's listing flagged their attention
and on an intuition they acquired
a batch of synthetic cannabinoids for nothing.
A few days later a letter arrived
containing several unlabeled bags of power.

It took many months to even partially identify them.
The vendor went dark before the results came in.

One compound was entirely novel. It did not have a name
so it was assigned one. It did not have a history of human use
but had entered the wild human populace.

After identification they were destroyed.
The properties of that novel compound remain unknown.

Chapter 1
A man wearing a black suit and tie stood at the pew of a church. He had an anxious look on his face. Where is she? He thought. It was his wedding day, yet the room was strangely empty. Not a single person had showed up so far. Not even the priest. There were no flowers, no music, nothing. All there was were empty chairs and an occasional cockroach scuttling across the floor. Maybe I got the date wrong...No, I doubt that. We talked about it all night. Just then the large mahogany doors creaked open and he saw her. Her dress…god it was gorgeous. Pure white, not a speck of dirt on it. It flowed around her shoeless feet. She appeared to be walking on air. He was utterly stunned, not able to say a word, not able to think. She was so beautiful…Her eyes, a deep shade of blue stared back at him and they became all he could see. But as he stared, something in them died. The light just left. The glimmer she always had disappeared. They looked more and more like glass eyes on a doll than the ones that belonged to his lover. Dark circles surrounded them as a thin film covered them and took away every bit of life that was left. And then they shut. The next thing he knew, he was standing over her dead body, crying. The soft velvet lining in the coffin turning the tears into little beads that rolled down the creases.
Chapter 2
My eyes opened and I took in my surroundings, wondering where I was until I realized it was just my own room. My pillow was wet with tears and my hands shaky. Then I remembered, she died. But that couldn’t be. It just wasn’t right. I rolled over in my bed too see if she was there. Much to my relief she was, her brown hair resting on the pillow. I reached out to touch it and took in the soft scent of lavender. It felt like silk slipping through my fingers. A soft moan escaped from her throat as she rolled over and faced me.
“Hi,” she whispered in a voice that was scratchy and barely audible but **** at the same time. I just stared back at her deep blue eyes and felt the tears build up behind my eyes. “What’s wrong?” she asked a pitiful look on her face.
“Nothing, just another bad dream.” I replied nonchalantly.
She sat up in the bed, stroking her hair. “You didn’t take your sleeping pill last night did you? You were tossing all night long.”
I just stared at her back. We both knew the answer. I hadn’t. I’d been skimping on my meds recently. I was getting married in a week and needed to give the meds time to completely wear off. I didn’t want the pills taking away my feelings. I wanted the full experience. Besides I thought I was getting better. There were no more voices whispering my name and I no longer talked to my dead sister, who apparently was just a hallucination my mind created to help deal with the pain of losing her. They said that it in no way meant I was insane. They called it a defense mechanism. They said it was my body’s way of protecting me. But I saw their thoughts in their eyes. I saw how frightened they were at my insanity, how they kept their distance from me, avoiding me like I was infected with the plague.
I remembered how healthy, how happy she had been. She’d had her whole life ahead of her but when she was nineteen I had taken her down to the Gulf of Mexico with Kasey, my fiancée. I couldn’t have one without the other. It was through Sarah that I met Kasey and through Kasey that I saved Sarah. I had figured that I would take the two most important people in my life to the beach for spring break but now I regret it.
I just remember Sarah’s smiling face, mocking me and Kasey as we held each other on the shore, our toes tickled by the gentle water.  Without warning a scream escaped her mouth as she was pulled under against her will. She didn’t leave the water until the following morning when her body washed up on shore. A shark had bitten one of her legs clean off. Her face was pale, her eyes open, not seeing through the milky film surrounding them and her lips stained a dark blue color. For so long I had been convinced that she had escaped. I saw her on the streets, in my apartment, in my car everywhere. Sometimes we just waved or said hi and we went on with our days but sometimes I had long drawn out conversations with her. I remember the day I proposed to Kasey that she had been waiting for me outside the apartment and we had talked for hours about how happy I was going to be with her and how I am so lucky to be able to have someone like her. Even seeing her body in that black coffin surrounded by white lilies didn’t bring the truth to me. It just felt like an insane dream when I stood up and recounted our good times during the eulogy and when I held Kasey tight in the cemetery where she now rests. I was absolutely convinced that she had lived. She couldn’t be dead I saw her, I talked to her, I hugged her. But all those psychologists said she was. They all said the hallucination was just how my brain was choosing to deal with it. Instead of becoming clinically depressed, I just chose to deny it.
Other than the hallucinations, I haven’t really dealt with her death. It still doesn’t feel real; even if I don’t see her anymore. Although she’s six feet under next to our parents, I can’t believe it. I’m just waiting for the day it hits me. The day I’ll want to do nothing but look at pictures of her as I’m locked in my room crying. But surely it won’t be soon. I’m marrying Kasey in a week and then everything will be perfect for a while.
Chapter 3
The weeks before our wedding was spent running about the streets of St. Augustine. Kasey boasted to me for days about how gorgeous she would be in her dress and how I wouldn’t be able to keep my hands off her. We were having a small wedding, neither of us really had a family left and we didn’t have too many friends being as I could never keep one job for too long, let alone live in one place for a while. I usually ended up working as a waiter somewhere or in a small store. I really relied on Kasey for most of my money though.
Kasey had modeled at one point in her life and still had some money left over from it. I kept telling her to get back into it but she always said no, claiming the people in the business were shallow and ignorant. A little over a year after we’d met, she was getting pretty well known. Her agent was a scumbag who would milk absolutely everything he could from her, even if it meant turning to pornographic modeling. He was going to get as much money as he possibly could from her so he paid, literally paid, a new male model to date her. His name was Jacob Fischer. Apparently the guy was stupid enough to tell Kasey that he hadn’t been paid enough to take her anywhere really expensive. I remember when Kasey showed up at my house drenched in rain, crying. I tried to make her as comfortable as possible in my dinghy apartment. Apparently all she needed was my love. That was the first time that we admitted how much we loved each other. The only other time we admitted it was when I proposed to her. Our wedding day drew nearer and nearer until the night of our rehearsal dinner.
It took place at the Sun Dial, where I worked. We were all wearing our dress suits and the ladies wore dresses that glittered and shone in the dim lighting. We sat and drank champagne as we watched the city of Atlanta revolve around us. You could see the street lights and malls and other buildings. From our view the Golden Dome looked beautiful. I sat down sipping my wine and letting the constant chatter of the place engulf me. I was completely lost in my thoughts as Kasey sat down next to me and everyone began clapping. “Go on,” She whispered, “it’s time for the toast.” I stood up and the volume of the clapping increased.
I cleared my throat. “I can’t tell you all how flattered I am to be able to have Kasey’s hand in marriage. It’s very rare that a guy like me ends up with someone as beautiful as her,” I paused, listening to the dead silence and continued, “No really though, I am honored to be able to have her become part of my family.” I looked at the very last table and saw Sarah sitting there smiling at me. “And I’m sure that Sarah is excited to have her as her sister-in-law. Isn’t that right Sarah?” There was no reply, only stunned faces staring back at me.
Sarah was gone. I could feel all those eyes boring holes in me as my face grew hot. Kasey stood up and took my arm, “Will you excuse us please?” she pulled me of the rotating floor and towards the door of the restaurant. “What is wrong with you?” she was practically yelling. I could see the tears welling up behind her eyes. “She really was there. Sarah was sitting in the back of the room smiling at me.” I tried to tell her the truth. “No. No Parker. You’re the only one who saw her. She’s been dead for over two years now.” She looked me straight in the eyes, begging me to believe her. “You can’t just quit taking your meds like that! Normal people don’t see their dead sisters at the rehearsal dinner and most of them don’t talk to her during the toast!” I couldn’t say anything; I just looked at her. “I love you Parker, I really do. You’re the only person in this world that I feel truly understands me but you’re insane! Nothing will bring her back. I know you don’t understand that she really is gone but you have to move on. It hurts me as much as it does you. I loved her too and if you would just pull your head out of your *** you would see that there are so many other people that did too but we’ve all dealt with it and moved on.” I could tell she was trying really hard to hold back the tears but they just kept rolling down her face, painting it with bleeding mascara.
I reached out and hugged her. “I’m so sorry Kasey. I just don’t know what happened back there…” she pushed me back and stared at me in disbelief.
“You know what? **** it. You’ve completely lost your mind. How do you expect me to be able to marry someone who talks to dead people?!” her chest was heaving with effort. She was yelling at me louder than she ever had before. “Just…Just come find me whenever you find your ******* mind.” She shoved me away from her slipped in the elevator just as its doors closed.
“Kasey! Wait!” I called desperately after her. I stood by the window completely dumbfounded. My breath fogged up the glass that my hand rested on.
Chapter 4
I lay in my bed that night, staring at the water stained ceiling. I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Thinking about how I had hurt her, of how she had run away and how I had been too stunned to go and face all those people that had just witnessed me talking to a hallucination. I hadn’t done that in so long…What happened? Why did she blow up like that at me? It’s not like I meant to, I mean just because it’s the first time I’ve done it in a couple months doesn’t give her a right to get so mad does it? I’m not insane…at least I don’t think I am. But maybe she’s right. Maybe I am. Insane and depressed. I thought as I rolled over in my bed and brought my legs up to my chest. My eyes landed where her head would usually be. I felt a wave of extreme hopelessness rush over me as I thought of her. I really did love her. But maybe she just can’t make herself love me. Maybe the insane aren’t meant to be loved. We’re all destined to a life of loneliness and tears. All those who try to help us don’t really care. They all just come and go like birds in the change of seasons. The world never stops changing, never stops moving. Neither do we, but we never go up, we only fall deeper and deeper until we’ve lost it completely. That’s when we start sitting in a rocking chair all day mumbling nonsense to ourselves. By then no one cares anymore; we all just become lost causes. There is no hope anymore. Not for us.
It felt like someone had ripped my heart right out of my chest. That was how bad it felt to know she didn’t want to be with me. I would rather her have died knowing that she loved me than have her living knowing she doesn’t give a ****.  This way she was dead to me, but only me; just like my sister was dead to everyone but me. She told me to come find her when I found my mind, but how do I find it if I’ve never lost it? I just can not believe I’m insane. Surely she would come back to me if I could just talk to her. She had always loved me no matter how crazy I got. What made now different? I had to make it up to her. I would find her in the morning and hold her tight for the rest of the day. We didn’t have to get married if she didn’t want to. If she was just looking for an excuse not to marry me, why didn’t she just tell me that she wasn’t ready yet? That would’ve been easier for me to take than this. Anything would be.
The beast that had my heart in their hands rolled it around, feeling the warmth and stickiness of blood on their hands. They held still for a moment and then squeezed it until it burst, gushing blood between their fingers. I screamed into my pillow and then succumbed to the unavoidable sobs.
Chapter 5
Sleep never came to me that night. I just lay there; thinking about her, imagining her, missing her. She was all I thought about. She was the only thing I thought about as I slipped some clean clothes on and headed out of the apartment that smelled like mildew.
The streets were too crowded for me to take my car and after ten minutes of waiting for a cab, I decided to walk. Besides, I didn’t even really know where I was going yet. I tried to think of where she would go if she felt like she needed to get away. Then it hit me, Oakland Cemetery. She would probably be visiting Sarah’s grave. I flagged down a taxi and went to find her.
Upon stepping inside the cemetery I became aware of the ancient graves. In a way it was a beautiful sight. The headstones jutting out of the ground; it just brought me a feeling of peace. A thousand souls rested here, many centuries old. Most people find it somewhat creepy, but it’s fascinating to me. There’s so much history buried beneath this earth, it just astounded me to think of all these people coming to rest all in one place. I could just imagine all the things these people did, all their accomplishments. I walked up hill towards Sarah’s grave. There it was. The graves were more modern here, no headstones stuck out of the ground, they all lay parallel to the bodies beneath them.  And just as I suspected a human figure was kneeling on the ground. It had to be Kasey, I mean how many people go the cemetery this early on a day when the sun shines bright and a light breeze tussles your hair? No one. No one would want to come here this morning.
I quietly crept towards the figure, whispering Kasey’s name. There was no response from the figure so I drew nearer and nearer.  With every step I took I noticed that something wasn’t right. Their backside was bare, and so far as I could tell, so was their front. They sat there, no movement at all, trapped in one moment of time. From the back, they looked like Kasey, they had the same hair and lying next to her was the dress that she’d worn last night. “Kasey?” I called out, waiting for an answer. Nothing stirred except for a couple of squirrels off in the distance. I reached out and touched her on the shoulder. I drew my hand back immediately as the awful stench of death filled my nostrils. I stood there stunned as the body fell back into the grass with a thud. It was definitely Kasey. She lay there, on top of Sarah’s grave staring up at me. There were long, deep gashes up her wrists. A knife clutched in her right hand, she had died, staining the earth with her blood. Her bloodshot eyes stared up at me with an eerie emptiness. Her face looked pained; you could almost see her last thoughts on it. Life isn’t worth living anymore, I’ve been betrayed one too many times so I’m just going to end it all right now and stop waiting for someone else to do it for me. My mind and body went completely numb. This wasn’t happening, No, I would wake up and it would all just be a dream. She couldn’t have killed herself, no, not her. She had always loved life. Always loved to go somewhere new, to get out there, try everything, and live life to the fullest. So why would she **** herself? It couldn’t possibly be my fault. I had never done anything to hurt her. I never could have. I had loved her way to much. I couldn’t be the re

He quietly appears so many years have passed smelling the amazing greener then life grass a potent filled with magic the invisible man he passed.
Splendor in the grass

Ehh Oh yuck someone
abandoned you
On the runway
He Grilled walked in
fashionable late
The head of his
mansion

You needed to
tolerate
Oh! Chuck
Full of gas
shattered_
her mind
with scars coming
toward her
like glass

The wake-up call
The lady of
all envy
Winning
an Emmy
Adelle
We could
of had it all
Another name
Amy
For the love,
Of a ghost
Like the
Candy Man
Invisible man
from
Ireland

Something got posted
seductively
Blindfolded hosted
Designed into his
Money hand
Powdered substance
poisoned her

Invisible man
Her eyes got
Smoked like
Poison Ivy
In the Army now
Please too much
Attention of green
Arabian in the Nile
Miles and miles
Navy to be seen
He was colored blind
Different eye
Brown in one and blue
Something hatched

Matchmaker  Ghost rider
Fiddler on the roof
We need a story writer
Like a horse
without a hoof
To neigh the right
stuff

I Sir "Infinitely" so
"Existentially"
Remarkably
Divinely
Ghostwriter
Her words were
blank
She is so genuine
Every other day
He was mine
The quiet man
Super shy
Another try
Valentine's day +*

Writing but not seeing
I love you until this day
Quiescently being forced
he entered emerged
I love you let's get
engaged
Beg your pardon
was not her
To be loved so sorry to be
changed
Like a stale piece

Her niece vintage
furniture more love
and peace
Quietly operation
tugged
Someone got flagged
That blind man
faced
And looked into
the  quiet man
On someone's 
body
The smells
like Moms
perfume her
exact tune
New Jersey Patch reader
"The Catcher in the Rye"
To weird the movie
Carrie
School can be strange
A bucket list of water
down your head
She walked

The Quiet man lips
No small talk
Ghost post bed
Not even one star
could be heard
The gas lamp
she tripped
Out of sight

She saw a face not to
be described

So inhibited like
endangered
species

The invisible man
loved her
But got his
vengeance on
anyone
that was too near her
People wanted so
much to
be her
Her force
indescribable

When someone was
clear to see
Extremely well visible
she didn't care to
know them

Her nose on the tip
baking with flour
Ghostly the hostess
of the most
But feeling his
energy the invisible
the man was
courting her so challenging

New flame "Procreating"

Hemming her long skirt
Her diary innocence
Being on her side
but scheming
Disguise home staging
From the ridiculous to the
subline

Her address
Send forget me knots
street
Only blind
people are the kind
you want to find

SOS  surrender or out
The other S Soulmate
Ghost
Hailed the Mary
The Quiet Man
John Wayne

The laundromat
Mack the knife
Invisible man
Inked his whole life
Waynes world
Born to be wild

The other man
Hit the metal
heavy music
fan
Drenched so humid
He was the Murad

Triangle mess
Shopping at London
Harrods
Let's hear it for
the girls or ((Gods))
The magical channeling
TV on the blink
Went right on his computer
All the quiet man linked

He finger waved by the world
Guinness drinking Heineken
beer
The ghost rider
Got grilled called upon
By Ron
College kid playing
Rugby
The good bad and
the Ugly
Clint Eastwood
stretched them out
like Gumby
Western gunshot slinger
He couldn't see the
Ghost rider
the
blank stares
Perky Rabbit Hares
All the negatives got
burned
Exorcist's heads twist
and shout eyes healed
about

Climbing the Jacks
of the shinning
Nowhere in the beauty of
Her heart gleaming

Took a blindfold call felt
somewhere but where?
But I couldn't see blinded
by stars
Over the rainbow, the skies
weren't blue
Being stalked by
someone you know

By the greater impossible
love
To be silent like she was
invisible
So naive at time feeble

Without an honorable
love of fee
Gone with the winding
shopping spree
Disworthy and sneaky
but for being
who or answers
Doctor Who?
Invisible man what
could he do

He was so flavorful
well balanced
strong nursed her well
and sturdy
Quiet man thinking in his
beloved study

She was no goodie
magical shoes
The Ghostwriter
left invisible
clues
More Quiet time
Lemonade time affair of a
Ghost man
Like Hannah and her sisters
Woody if he could
But he is a **** good writer
The Movies of NewYork
I am proud to say
I come from
Brooklyn NY

If lips could talk
pouty
Sensing something but why?
Hans Christian Anderson
Quiet man playing softly but
Killing me easily through the
Blind sighted window

The widows
War Veterans
True Hero My dad
World War 2
Wifes lies and fibs
Quiet leads to invisible
Heller Keller was so
fortunate
Like Fate, she was
the real
Mccoy, she could light
anyone's smile
with joy
The barbecue next season
So many years to reason
More gun control
Be more visible to others
Mothers and brothers
Have a heart of soul


Only the strong keep the
  fight
Just keep on trucking
Grill them show them
What you could write
Perhaps it's cool to be the
Ghostwriter
Not everyone likes
To see the clear picture
What is really taken

So what if people cannot read us
Somehow we are all blind that's
OK its a miracle how other people
Can make it the beautiful day


Of the next groundhog day
He was loving to be invisible
He wanted to keep it that way
So deep set her eyes
to die
Somehow talk could be cheap
And the shepherd of love loads

of sheep, silence is the best sleep

All in someones head so lovingly deep

Invisible but remarkable to be the person
you want to be or let's really look closer
it's not always rosier.

Tell the ******* truth, Gwen Stefani, bleach blonde vamp.
Questions stack up in the recesses of my mind,
A renovation’s trash pile of drywall dust.
You changed me, but there are things to clean up.

Did you just take a break to remake your image
For swarms of chubby white suburban pre-teens
Swarming in packs at the middle school dance?
Are those the only bees you could catch in your hive?

How did you meld and mold the Harajuku girls
To fit in the camera’s crosshairs or to walk
the thin line of a New York fashion week runway?
I must admit I still have my bottle of L.A.M.B.

Was the woman who screeched she was Just a Girl
Just floundering for fame? Does this happen to
Every mid-level artist? Will my inkwell turn
To the blood of an easy fan base too?

I wanted you to be my mother, but you picked
my platinum model sister as your favorite.
But will I still become you, even though I know
You’re false? Your press coverage can’t reveal the future.

Black tar lies spew from US magazine covers
Eyes dark, I gobble them up in violent shudders.

lol a poem about a cat

They sat like two birds roosting in a tall tree. Only the tall tree was a room where a fire had been made up, but was not yet alight. It was early autumn and a mild evening. She had not drawn the curtains because there was a still a little light left in the sky. She enjoyed watching the darkness gather before she would light the lamp to sew, to stitch. He had lit a candle on the small table by his chair in preparation for an evening’s reading. He was looking at her slight shape in the candlelight, looking at her small hands folded in her lap, then stroking the cat beside her, then touching her hair lightly; finally she opened her sewing basket.

He rose deliberately, shaking off the stiffness felt in his limbs from a day on their small-holding, and went to the bookshelf behind his chair. As the lamp was as yet unlit the rows of books slept in darkness. He felt their spines, many he knew, and many knew his touch, and as he moved his forefinger nail from book to book there was momentarily an irregularity, a surface he did not recognize. He pulled out the book and took it into the light: Inferno Dante Alighieri.

He thought he knew all his books, most he had read many times over. They were his dear friends, their dear friends because her books were there too. Their library made up a world of thought and imagination. He did not know Dante’s Inferno. He knew of it. He had read many an inscription from it. He had even learned a terzetto from the Paradiso, once, many years ago, in a different life than he led now:

Tu non se' in terra, sì come tu credi;
ma folgore, fuggendo il proprio sito,
non corse come tu ch'ad esso riedi".

You are not on the earth as you believe;
but lightning, flying from its own abode,
is less swift than you are, returning home."

Holding Inferno in his hands he realised the woman had now drained from her gaze the last dregs of the evening light, and seemed suddenly changed. She was wearing something other than he had thought she had worn previously. Her dress was silk, and long and cream and gold, and securing her hair, a thin golden band. Her shoes were slippers  . . . but she rose from her chair and their colour and texture were lost in the dark shadows that covered the floor. And he, he was changed too: a long green cloak, a toga-like cloak, some kind of cap on his head, his hair, his hair long and grey, and sandals on bare feet.

She lit the lamp and immediately they both saw the painting above the empty fireplace had changed, had been transformed, replaced by Henry Holiday’s masterpiece Dante and Beatrice. The painting shows the couple at the bridge of Santa Trinità in Florence. Beatrice deep in conversation with her friend Monna Vanna ignores Dante’s impassioned stare and stance.

The woman held the lamp to the painting. She knows this painting and remembers in an instant standing before it in the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool. That day, that lunchtime, she was in love, and her lover stood next to her. She was so in love, and her lover, she knew, adored her. She recognized Dante’s stance and stare because she had seen her lover stand and stare so. Many times. It had been a lunchtime assignation and she had worn all black with almost-pink shoes. And here, and now, they stood again, still lovers, but also the dearest friends, and for the rest of their lives they had so sworn.

He still held the Inferno in his hands, and it was as if commanded by a voice that wasn’t any recognizable voice but a silent message from beyond and afar. ‘Whatever you read will come to pass.’

And so opening the book at random he read, ‘We drew now closer . . .’

He turned to her and said these words aloud. He placed the book on his small table and brought his body in its unusual costume to stand facing this finely dressed woman who wore her fine clothes with the scent of roses mixed with some eastern aloed fragrance. He brought his hand to her pale cheek and noticed the gold ring on his finger and the finely manicured nails, hands that had not laboured today in the 12-acre pasture.

She opened her lips to speak and, rather breathlessly said:

"Le cose tutte quante
hanno ordine tra loro, e questo è forma
che l'universo a Dio fa simigliante.

"All things, among themselves,
possess an order; and this order is
the form that makes the universe like God.

She knew no Italian, a little German from singing Schubert lieder to his tentative fumblings on the parlor piano, but certainly no Italian.

She picked up the Inferno from his small table, and just as he had, opened a page at random and read:

‘We drew aside and found a space . . .’

And so they did, draw aside, and she, with the Inferno in her hand, led him out of their sitting room along the stone-flagged passage to their front door, and lifting the latch opened the door . . . onto daylight, a Florentine street. They were close to the Ponte Santa Trinità, but also to the church that bares its name, with its celebrated Sassetti Chapel brim-full with sumptuous frescos telling stories from the life of St Francis and considered Domenico Ghirlandaio's masterwork.


*To be continued . . .

It's now or never what awaits
Gin is forever like her collagen of skin
the wanting how her prayers got answered
The (Him) the (I-phone) not my (Apple)
My blessings I got my miracle how fate
sipped me in with my best friend
                        (Gin)
The sip loving him  gin is her oxygen
All cravings from the countries
Native American, Latin American
Afro American, and The North American
The Hotel going to all the meetings
At the Sheraton
my lip to his sunset
Makes a world of her savings

Meets to my original
Tastebuds petals
and sprinkles like bling
Watering my rosebuds
So many brands but
Modern twist
Portugal Spanish
olives trees could sing

Cat nine lives versus her
Gin of love doves pleas

Scratch me lucky seven
But  conventional
Love-seat sectional
Him- I- Gin lets be

((Gin Rational))

Like the pixel living
more with a sweet taste
Stirring and purring Cat
I-Gin him the mighty morsel
Playing black-Jack
She had the best cards
Gin* I * pack
The game is pouring
the poker lip scouring

The origin of Dracula Bram Stoker
Her wavy hair red-hot tasseled
Like waves of (Gin) rippled
She mingled like" I- Gin"
But she was more mortal
Are we on air 2 win
The News over dripping
Hot Gin story him side-slip
National sip velvet whole lip
The warmth going down
The gin was magical potent
All exotic types she dressed
in stripes
Not the American Flag

The European sip of the Gin
Meeting her man
Weaving through the warmth
Juniper Glamped Gin camper
He's so defined in his character
Gin all him her floret trim glass

The process takes time
Gin- Boss Italian glass
Florence blown
Newfangled  or seductively
Flagged in bangled worn

Entirely subjective
The Europeans Industry
Origin of the whole dynasty
Juniper berries
Like a Junior virginity-Gin
Or him___?
Far from New York City
His flight first class (Gin)
and only him
Butterflies look divine on
her breast
Like the Gin and Science test
Her cherries in her Gin Drink
His theories in his Manly winks

The gin so medicinal
How it ward off malaria
She drinks to her delicately
tone body All God-lit
Her swiftly steps fit
Shes all heart like the ballerina
She is the Grace of the gin drink
The new look on her face
The purest wings fly the best
Our time of the Origin

Women and Men start now to begin
Dressed up new technology generation
The Gin of romance mission
The next pour dripping
intense torrential rain
For the single- set such potential
The married couple drenching
drink wet was more primal

The Gin couple was immaculate
never late
They won the bet that's
Gin-like no other fate

Palaces of ****** souls
have green neon text frames
standing sideways like arches;

divine arrows, they guide
the paternal flunks, the tar-soaked offspring,
the lonely and the business bunch.

Here in these palaces, all sin is a freeze, all
lust is a spin.
Fairy lights are often flagged in a net,

to catch mischievous mares flinging
themselves against the glass displays
of overpriced clothing shops.

One finds when wondering the perpetual
lines of restaurants and cafes, the vastness of them
having a motherly touch, for

these palaces, they stretch like the sky and
they spread like the shepherded
fire ants of Gaia herself



And when ones welcome is overbid
they need only to follow  the
evenly laid out,  sorrow yellow street lamps

and bite their cheeks and bare the frost
for soon the polluted lux will lead them to
an overnight joint, a limbo of sorts,

where they can breathe anew.
On those red leather sofas- fast food
or the district kind- when the night seems

to crawl on its final limbs,
they'll lay and slip into sleep.
Some say they never do wake, that they

wither with the moon and then
haunt the attics of the dance halls
where they swirled and laughed and lived

in a previous life.

i know i saw you weeping in the rain,
you flagged a ***** yellow taxi,
climbed in the back and sped away.

i know i saw you weeping in the rain,
in one sad eye and out the other,
and i never even knew your name.

___

visual imagery:
http://beautyineverything.com/4954403808

Mean Windows

Mean windows
Small light
Mean architect
Limited budget
& imagination
Half-light estate
Small curtains
Mean windows
Early dusk
No street-light
Glass broken
Doors boarded
Mean windows
Clint Eastwood eyes
Tagged & Flagged
Grassless
Concrete gardens
Brown and grey acres
Mean windows
Closed shops
Citizens Advice
Misery
With chips
And mean windows
With small curtains
Saving on glass
Costs light

A faith we fancy is that freedom is fabricated and forged for us by our forefathers who fought and forced their foes to forfeit their feud. They fended fiercely and defended fearlessly a fictionalized fact, freedom, filtered with fire and flame. A few fell to be famed fellows of the future while a fraction of the fraternity are farewelled faceless.

All those frigid flashback brought-forth what we framed and fantasized as freewill and forbade freaks to falsify our fascination.

It all falters as we fathom that freedom didn't fade ,but w/o a fons-et-ergo, a foolish fairytale foretold for us to falsely follow a formula for the foremen to fortify the fake façade of freedom while we flounder and they float.

And if we flush and fracture their folderol, we are flagged as flagitious, frauds and fellons.
For the feasibility of freedom is a mere ****** Fuckery to **** us.

Another haunt is arriving, feverishly fast tonight.
Somehow I managed to delay the feeling, briefly,
as it usually takes the manageable Subway and begins to fester around high noon, but today I skipped lunch,
and the feeling didn't go underground for her mode of transport.

"Maybe I hit the lotto?", I secretly questioned,
and the haunt would forget her requiem, passing over me
like those lucky "Kennedy Husbands" during the sixties' draft.
But I was getting divorced while all the other couples
were on a faster track heading in the opposite direction.

Tonight the haunt is traveling 248 mph,
on the Fùxīng Hào bullet train from Beijing to Shanghai, en route to Vietnam.

The conductor yelled, "All Aboard."
and as if that period denoted a punctual mark,
everyone manically crammed into the narrow vehicle.

The first influx of lovely passengers to board were,
Missus Anxiety, Sir Prior Transgressions and Dr. Heartache.
Unlike Dr. Feelgood,
They had been waiting in line from the previous night,
like those idiots for last week’s black Friday sale.

Mr. and Mrs. Payments Past Due cut in front of
Bills Esquire and Judge Job Insecurity,
for the Belmont Superfecta win, I guessed the right horses, just didn’t box my bet.

Congressman Careless and Deputy ******* nearly trampled Senator Surrender on the way through the turnstiles,
while Mayor Moan was flagged by security for groaning
and pulled aside for a pat down and wheelchair inspection.

The  Mayor was found to have ******* residue on his sleeve, but legitimate prescriptions for his aches and pains,
so TSA
wheeled him through the crack rocks

Analog veins pump analog blood to my analog heart;
traveling for the journey and not its hasty destination.  
My analog heart will eventually be shelved,
as it still salutes the Subway on its journey to my soul,
but like dusting off an old Coen Brothers flick,
my analog heart is still entertaining its vintage tick.

long hair long johns of sad happy
clear fog is the dog god doggone dog

kind of you to kind of listen
kindling burns like Hong Kong midnight brightlights
whose birthright, or birthwrong

down-under daggers for flags
flagged
flagulation
creative sensory compensated penitentiary
forward lad landing laughter for the last log on the fire
the last day for earth to say
please plead for plaid shirts to pay for themselves
otherwise there will be ****** for you to see

summer in the winter if I sprinkle a little bit more wood on my splinter
sink or swim, sink and swim, sink to swim
swim to sink
ah
um
oh
ehhem
undo your dress and undo your last mistake

please retake the photo so I can stay awake.

don't, I mean, yes
yes

hands could be cold
but
then
a
g
a
i
n

I just call it what I must
plustwo double yous in a zoo for the future flu's to cruise like truce
11/11/11 armistice
missed the list when you kissed my wrist
I extracted bliss from the Buddha's jist
just
cause?

just call for the muse music

don't mind me
I mean
yes,
yes

motorcade king of spades I got laid to the silence
of a forest in the poorest richness I've never ditched this
**** zip
zap
my zipper is a little critter crawling through the litter on the city's twitter account
doesn't amount to much but I sound like I'm salted in breath
dead like MacBeth, the challenge was the shaken speare
sprained everclear of the diamond tear or the shattered cheer of ancient seers

truth
is greater than fiction.

I flagged down the first taxi
I got in and told him where
I told him "take me home "
"I'll let you know when we are there"
He asked me which direction
I said for him to head out west
Then I asked him for a favour
I pulled a cd from my vest
I said "can you please play this"
"I'll give directions on the way"
"If you do, I'll pay you double"
There was nothing he could say
He slipped the disc in, headed out
In the direction I had said
Then I listened to the music
And let it filter through my head
Elton John, broke through the silence
singing "Take Me to The Pilot"
Two verses in, I said "turn left"
He made the turn, but remained silent
Another verse, another turn
I was sitting back, just waiting
Then he asked "Where we going, sir"
I said "home", although, 'till then I'd been debating"
Curtis Mayfield filled the background
Three verses in, we made a turn
I sat there, heading homeward
Exactly where, was no concern
We turned twice more, continued straight
Dr. John sang Iko Iko
The driver followed my commands
Turns out, his name was Nico
the songs came on, played out and he
Drove exactly where I said
You see, I've been this route before
I know the music in my head
A different disc, with different songs
Would get me home as well
The streets we chose to drive on
Well, I simply cannot tell
My route is formed through music
It fills me up and leads the way
To exactly where I need to be
Like home, the place today
The Four Seasons sang of "What A Night"
Back in nineteen sixty three
I told the driver "take a right"
It's the third place that you see
He asked if I was certain
It was just an empty lot
There was nothing there too special
I said "yeah, this here's the spot"
I paid him and I left his cab
I said "I may just see you soon"
He gave me my cd back then
He must have thought I was a loon
I sat down in the empty lot
I grew up here as a lad
My Mum and Pa, my brother too
Best times I ever had
The house came down 10 years ago
Nothing bad, just aged and rot
I still paid the city taxes
You see, I own the lot
I visit here each summer
Grab a cab and play the tunes
they take me home inside my mind
As I go visit the ruins
My Mum and Dad are gone now
Moved to Arizona three years back
My brother, in the Army
Last I heard, he's in Iraq
I sat here for an hour
Then I walked on down the block
Listening to my minds eye music
Walking slow and kicking rocks
I got down to the corner
I got in and told him where
I told him "take me home "
"I'll let you know when we are there"
He asked me which direction
I said for him to head out west
Then I asked him for a favour
I pulled a cd from my vest
I said "can you please play this"
"I'll give directions on the way"
"If you do, I'll pay you double"
There was nothing he could say...

~

there is a lighthouse churning
in the fury of the storm,
thirty-three for land are yearning,
loved ones waiting news at home;
a captain and his crew a'fight
brave souls that never cease to hope,
to bring their ship to port a'right
all pray for dawn that never comes.

fifty feet from trough to crest
she drops with groan to valley low,
to rise again with frothing peak,
her wild plunge from stern to bow
she is no place for wearied souls,
provides no quarter for the weak;
no port in sight, for thee no rest,
yet braver souls we need not seek.

her vessel old is wearing thin,
her searchers all but losing hope;
as only remnants one by one,
in bits and pieces still afloat
leaves watching world a sense of dread;
alone remains a sheen of grief,
these waters won’t release their dead;
El Faro won't you speak?

did you break apart in final hours?
or did you roll into the deep?
listing near the Crooked isle,
your precious cargo now we seek;
even one to tell your tale,
are all now lost; is all forlorn?
of those that stepped aboard to sail
will no one living come ashore?

though wreckage lost into the deep,
though family arms now torn apart,
in waves awash the mem’ries heap,
your tale lives on in untold hearts!
your souls cannot the ocean keep,
for fathers, sons, daughters, lovers,
unknown eyes for you now weep,
your names in prayer a world now utters!

all that to these waves go down.
you that ply this furied sea;
you, the brave, though lost have found
a harbor’s safety from the storm,
a port that offers welcome,
hope from strife forevermore,
safe in everlasting arms,
now rest eternal; peaceful be!

~

*post script.

this news story has increasingly gripped my attention since first breaking early last week. i began putting thoughts together earlier this week, but had hopes of publishing instead a writ ending on a joyous note.  with the Coast Guard calling off their six-day search this evening, all are now being declared lost at sea on Oct. 1st, 2015.  no joyous ending, no happy reunions... only sadness, like a sheen of grief over the Atlantic.

she was  just shy of 800 feet in length, El Faro (the Lighthouse), a US flagged cargo vessel, en route from Jacksonville to San Juan; she carried 28 Americans and five Poles, to the depths near Crooked Island, Bahamas; her last transmission- “propulsion lost, listing 15 degrees”.  

her tragic end, succumbing to the fifty foot seas of Hurricane Joaquin, leaving no survivors, none to tell her final hours; only one life ring and a body of broken evidence amongst the flotsam midst the waves.

rest in peace you brave souls thirty and three!
with your families we grieve!

You didn't hit me, but you might as well have
because silently crying
on the other side of your turned back,
holding my breath so the sobs
would kamikaze themselves into my ribs
hurts almost as much.
And maybe I should have red-flagged
the skipped goodnight kisses,
or even made you apologize
for leaving me alone in the library,
waiting at an empty table with two red apples
because I figured you skipped dinner
but by the time you got there,
I was just a core.

But I stayed in it, and I let you **** me
in the way I thought meant I love you
even though you never said it,
and in the way that meant
I'd be alone, again, waiting for you
to deliver yet another polished excuse
and a look that swears volumes, punches me,
guilts me into solidly believing
that it's my fault after all, because
space is just as important as answering your calls,
because independence outweighs how attached
I'd became to your lust and ten cent compliments.

Now, I've become rust in my hometown,
afraid to ask because I know the answer
and bitter, frozen and bitter,
because honestly I should have known.
I just should have known.

He knew what he wanted to say to her,
He knew what he wanted to do,
He’d step right up to her open door
And he’d quickly say, ‘We’re through!’
Her eyes would show she was startled then,
He thought that her jaw would drop,
But he would turn, walk swiftly away,
And leave with his head held up.

He’d seen her walking out in the park
And he thought he’d seen them kiss,
While he’d been walking there in the dark
With his Mathematics Miss.
She’d flagged him down, and said that his work
Was poor, that he had to choose,
Whether to chase that silly girl or
Square the hypotenuse.

All that she wanted to talk was sine
And something she said was tan,
She’d filled his head up with algebra
But seemed to depress the man.
She’d put her arm round his shoulders then
And said she would help him through,
‘All that you need is a little work
And you’ll be so pleased when you do!’

While Sally had seen her cousin there
Skipped up to him in the dark,
‘Fancy me seeing you way out here
At night, in the Bowling Park!
I thought you were still in Africa
But happen on you, like this!’
Then threw her arms up around his neck
And gave him a cousinly kiss.

They parted then and she turned away
And she saw a sight in the dark,
It looked like Jim, it was surely him
With a woman, there in the park.
She had her arm round his shoulders, they
Looked cosy, walking away,
She bit her lip and her mind went flip
As her world turned bleak and grey.

She knew what she wanted to say to him,
She knew what she wanted to do,
She’d step right up to his open door
And she’d quickly say, ‘We’re through!’
His eyes would show he was startled then,
She thought that his jaw would drop,
But she would turn, walk swiftly away,
And leave with her head held up.

David Lewis Paget

145

This heart that broke so long—
These feet that never flagged—
This faith that watched for star in vain,
Give gently to the dead—

Hound cannot overtake the Hare
That fluttered panting, here—
Nor any schoolboy rob the nest
Tenderness builded there.

I.

He’s
put on
the ****’s watch,
a peaked tower
who stands at far reach
to throw shadows with square
limbs. Loose-draped in rough
skins, he’s wary
of Dawn’s creep,
its lies.
He
sips fire
to fillip
flagged spirits, fix
the one-hundred eyes
rung monstrously about
his uncrowned head. Sleep
comes as well-timed
jaunts, its blinks
rolling
round
in thin-
lid cascades;
these hoodless winks
non-stop projecting
scenes from green grazing fields
where he keeps a girl-
beast, the jealous
prop of fast-
fading
robes.

II.

She’s
ill-changed
by blind rage,
a punishment
brought down for baring
another’s intentions—
his wont of too much,
never sought for
or seeking.
Her sleek
nymph’s
lines were
well-drawn till
smudged and pulled wide
they broke open, spilled
a dark spotted bulk, she
awkwardly carries
on spindly legs.
A mind’s led
circling
back
to gnarled
trunks that clutched
at blackened soil.
The tether’s chain, forged
silver with heavy links,
stretches taut to cut
circumscribed arcs
through bitter,
dying
blades.

III.

He’s
foggy
as he spies
morning ride in
rosy on the curled
back of low-rising mist.
Its errand breezes
were sent to spell
a lyric’s
deceit—
blow-
whispers
to drowse him
with wedded tunes.
Needle-sharp leaves spin,
making olives hum, while
their twigs clatter-knock
dull drums and lull
fifty pairs
to close.
What
was kept
is loosed with
thunder-less flash—
the quickening catch
that foils Argus by writ
mischief and wraps him
in its coiled tale
of never
slipping
free.

IV.**

She’s
twisted
and drags clanked
metal tangles
behind, while ahead
lie the first halting steps
of her re-formed path-
ways. They spoke out
a blurred wheel
beyond
the
sentry’s
fallen bulk,
but malodor
beckons to its sky-
enthroned mistress who tasks
cloud-effacing pests
to descend and
buzz-beat words,
erstwhile
known,
to non-
sense. The winged
confusion goads
Io, who released
from cowed thoughts will make mad-
apparent wanders.
She’ll chase earthbound
love and birth
mortal
time.

We camped at the Wanee Festival                                        
                                 We came to hear Gregg Allman play
                                 We did some primitive camping
                                  But the stage was 3 miles away
                                                            ­
                                  Through the woods we walked in the darkness
                                  After Widespread Panic had played til midnight
                                   No shiny pebbles and no flashlight
                                   To help us back to our Primitive Campsite

                                    We were Hansel and Gretel just groping
                                    Night fell a long time ago
                                    We had no reference point, no direction
                                    Only darkness and fear could grow

                                    We walked all 1800 acres
                                    Of Live Oak's Suwannee Music Park
                                    Til we flagged down some park rangers
                                    Who gave us a ride home in their cart

                                    I'm just lost in the woods without you
                                    Though we started it all as a lark
                                    You left me stranded by the port-o-potties
                                     Paralyzed all alone in the dark
                                                          
                                     Forget about those cold showers
                                And no power to call or text
                                      Or the cold, and blow-up mattress blues
                                       Are we ready for 'Burning Man' next?

I think the whole point of life on earth is that the smaller creature
adapts and learns how to eat or destroy the bigger creature;
So mankind is destroying the ******* planet,
and I wonder what was taking us so long?

I've been waiting to turn to a stranger and say,
"Do you feel like everyone is living in some
synchronized insanity, and we all want to scream
and cry and break **** and generally riot,
but we don't just because we're told this is how
things should be?

So we just keep  moseying on in our illusion of security,
and perpetuate the illusion with the people who
reject it...[?]"

A stranger flagged me down on the street today,
and I crossed the street and just hopped over the snow bank
to help an old woman to the supermarket,
and **** me, I can't remember her name,
it was like Nancy or Margaret something old-timey.
I bought an orchid and waited for her to finish shopping,
but she told me she would be okay;

Like sometimes you want to let someone know
you're still trying, you're going to be "good",
but **** reading Bukowski still feels so "good",
and all your honesty isn't truthful,
but it's so sincere.
I imagine everyone else is waiting and praying
for everyone else to just snap and go insane.

Those people will look into you and say
"I get it. You're sad", and miss that so many bricks
and stones go into building castles,
and every iPhone shop in the world looks so
empty, disgusting, and caucasian,
and yet every store wants to be the iPhone shop
and so very few places can attempt to be the castle.

The castle takes time, effort... Tolerance.
Stamina. Weathering, aging...
Yeah it looks cold in winter,
but it'll stand in spring, and it'll
outlive the ******* iPhone shops
for centuries.

Anything that stands for centuries
is literally amazing,

And if there is a God, she is a black woman
and the entire world calls her n#####,
and she cries herself to sleep every night.

We are all the company we will ever have in
all those lonely strangers.
If you've ever seen a cat try to **** another cat,
you might be me,
and you may realize mankind is brave and noble
and stupid and messy and disgusting
and terrible terrible terrible and so much better than
their feeble bodies, but so much
worse than gods and heavens and undeserving
of anything supernatural and kind.

We are a cesspool made of solid gold.

Yet, I've taken down my nooses.
I've made my sharp edges dull.
I look both ways when I cross the street.
I take care of a plant now.
I try to take care of myself.
I get by, and that's my plan.

To get by and be happy.

I don't wanna "live life to the fullest"
with some obnoxious artistic gesture
and "wacky" mannerisms,
I force feed to people who don't care.
Trying to make people think I'm
successfully immature, because I'm not.

I don't want to be some retail manager
and employee somewhere else,
getting it at both ends, unpleasantly,
trying to make people think I'm mature
or responsible, because I'm not.

I can't be Bukowski, and I can't be Ginsberg,
and I can't be Emily Dickinson, or Jack Kerouac.
I might have lofty fantasies, and sometimes I'll
attempt them, but I don't want those "plans"
that blow up in your face when the string gets pulled.

I have priorities.

I want to grace through life on thinning plastic wings,
playing last years video games,
listening to timeless music,
and most importantly,
being loved by the people
I love so very much.

Braided dreams
Wrapped desires
Layered hopes
Dependent together
Holding hands

We, are
I am
Completed worth
Hallowed vows
Eternal souls
Timeless tears
Unconditional love

Ultimate fears
Searing anxiety
Feelings soaring
Emotional yoyo
Cheating heart

Flagged notes
Conversations made
Outside influences
Preying inside
Tainted advice
Showing colors
Breaking mates

Friends betray
Not real
Agendas abound
Seductive lies
Hidden words

I’m still not comfortable
in the man o’ war.
I haven’t quite found that infamous label that is
apparently
attached to me, somewhere.
I’m enjoying dancing between the tentacles
trying not to get stung. So far
so good. But
as the man o’ war keeps growing
I go along with the tide;
ebbing further away
from the shore that’s flagged with my title.
Too far for telescope,
no hope of reading it, reaching further.
Mirage? Who’s to know.
The bruises show the wrong type of blueprint.
Soon I will be carried into the man o’ war
forevermore.

the soldier in charge with raising the flag
felt ashamed because he couldn’t get it up.

he stayed up the whole night crying,
packing all his Ezras and his Allens,
ironing his shirts and
wrapping in old newspapers the photos
of him and his grandfather.

the stench of fire crackers and
hot dogs was still strong on his clothes
and he couldn’t touch the top of his mouth
with his tongue.

the pain was edgy and the
bull’s eye couldn’t take it anymore;

he knew he flagged  life once again.

When I said i was alright,
I really was!

But now it's all **** up in my head since i know about her.
How could i miss that?
How could i pass by?
How can she pass through ?
(while i am supposed to be your everything)

I keep playing the scenes in my head the one when i am talking with her I know it's not right but it can't help it. It turns  like a loop all over again.
How could i miss that?
How could i pass by?
How can she pass through ?
(while i am supposed to be your everything)

I did not mind to be cheated on, humiliated and rejected.
But it's the feeling of not having be flagged out i can't stop thinking about.

There you are
And there you went

Gone, distant from your initial posture

Words becoming yours alone
Like red flagged societies

They all fell soft
Like trickles of rain down a window pane
Leaving all to be forgotten

My clouded eyes failed to see the fog
That surrounded your talk
Hidden like persuasion in debates

Perhaps it’s luck, or rather mishap
That has blinded me such
Unable to see what’s true
With thoughts rendered purposeless

Trapped in traffic in the city of density,
Warmed up and wormed forth my way,
Thru’ wild and wayward wheelers.
Whose motion commissioned in commotion.

Each movement a moment of maze,
With lurking fear looming large,
As tri-colour signals flagged ever green,
To a crisscross invader at a jittery junction.

Rules rolled are trampled on unruly roads,
Capped up cops snapped and coped up in vain,
Tutored wheelers swerved and swarmed,
Rules defined, flouters fined but never refined.

Will and wit overtook wisdom to breach and reach,
As taunting time forced a daunting spree,
My feet on ABC pads in a cosy car chair,
Danced up and down hand in hand,
With a wavering steering wheel at hand,
And tow my way in brushing bruising wand.

All and sundry on a shaky rock and roll,
Risk from dawn to dusk on explosive toll,
Rains draining up on potholes end up in pitfalls,
No solution or salvation in sight for safety,
Oh city users, muscle up your mind,
For a tough tussle of travel ahead around.

Sun-hit summer noon
On a sunlit Sunday
End of the day cooled
Thanks to full moon day
  
Moonlit night of sunlit moon
Coolant night at its height
Valentines volunteered to date
And seek dim light delight
  
Long drive drove,    
For a week-end whisper,
At a tranquil cove.
All green scenes
Canopy, canvas n carpet
The duo is due for love
  
Chirping parrot pairs,
Nibbled and anchored.
Nature flagged off green  
Moon-shine filtered thru leaves
  
The pair signed up, signed in
Browsed in melodious breeze
Aroused passions pure n sure
Lips sipped, slipped n clipped
  
The wetting vetted the deal
Her cheeks blushed in joy
Kiss keyed in love
Love locked life for life.
To the blush of wife- to- be
To be the bliss of life

By: Cedric McClester

Before they can
Pass the baton
Where they’re holed up
In Oregon
Don’t give ‘em time
To sigh or morn
The law must win
This marathon

If their militia
Refuses to be flagged
Once identified
And toe tagged
Take ‘em out
In a black body bag
Wrapped inside
A confederate flag

Why allow ‘em
To break in armed?
Threatening folks
Will sure be harmed
If they reject them
Or aren’t charmed
Because the government claims
The land that’s farmed

Are takeovers
The new pandemic
Or do I sound schizophrenic
They are clearly becoming
Endemic
And more to the point
Pathogenic
Now they’ve even become systemic




Cedric McClester, Copyright © 2016.  All rights reserved.