I thought I heard
               Canadian slang
from the opposite bed-side
Like it's 2009, rub some lines off my face.
Inner space bleeding outward,
deep red, a nosebleed,
angled points on white of The Maple Jack.
               A Nip at the Sal's on Esplanade-Riel.

Grab your runners and toque,
               it's warm, but not forever
and these legs are sore. Polar bears
on the sweater you wore in the Fall--
Churchill, Manitoba, the streets are full of teeth and claws.
Awoke and wanted warmth lacking.
I thought I heard Canadian slang.

I thought I heard "it'll be okay"
from the voices of feathers fletching arrows falling.
     they whisper and screams sink deep behind
                                     eyelids
                                     closing.
A sentence unfinished,
                sinking in flesh
                              in time
                sinking
                              in snow and ice
                sinking
                              in water in Summer
                sinking
                              in memory.

I thought I heard
               plans being made
and shy laughter.
I heard it 5 times. Didn't I?
Days fade, ears dull*
Walking on streets, in the cold
towards her home
I thought I heard laughter--
                                   heard something
                        like laughter--
I thought I heard rain, as the Lodgepoles drank water.

I thought I heard laughter.

I thought I heard wax melt.
I thought I smelled fairness.
I thought you wanting more time
to bleed and blur tenses.
I thought I heard rivers rushing and roaring
                                                 their battle cries--
--asserting their presence.
I thought I heard cars pass and sounds of the daytime
                    and late March walk along bridges.

I could swear I heard something
     Like Canadian slang,
                 sweet
                     water
                  light
                      laughter.
Som­ething.

Mongst the salacious ferns of
Artemis requested in the land
of the handsome labyris women
wealing and weaving Vulcans
shrewd hearts of jasper and
chalcendony, governess Hulda
cleaves Muspellsheims yew bones
fletching mandrakes philtre whetting
hie Cupids perfuse herb of grace
intercessorial unto volcanic pious
virtues haranguing loves cataract
dashing herewith demotic enditements
distempered of ludic ordination;
forging a year and a day halest
cledonomancies volley of truths
bequeathing privity of Heavens
prismatic trajectory.


ELEETE J MUIR.

Thatcher vacuum seals nicotine
Slurps cigarette like mosquito
Ravenous lungs gnaw and grind for the slow pander,
Thatcher’s just another name for the labeling
We plaster and pine for an out,
Stitch that finite lie beneath squeamish child skin,
Thatcher’s the black lung paradise,
******* infancy coddling cigarette stifle,
The caloric crack of his canines fletching out lust and sickly groove
As he’s scopes out fiend and vexed vandals,
Clutches the sick theistic *******
Cuddle those bruise licked hips
Give God the gross percent,
Cause heaven’s in those greenbacks
and God’s in the ******* kick,
Suckling bout the American tip
The Christian capitol,
Seething on shadow puppet ****** and American dream,
Gods got nothing to do with the slickened crinkle of gain and glamour,
Thatcher’s just the candy man give and cult,
Cough the crutch of contagion greed
And clutch the cuff of your porcelain sleeve,
Thatcher gleans your blackest suite tight,
Struts raven blade shoulders perched on American made spine,
Thatcher does as Thatcher please,
Thatcher thinks as Thatcher bleeds,
And Thatcher bleeds venereal blend,
Gout with the American veneer of broken girl and scabbed moral traumatic,
Trauma tastes as the hollow pixies give out the get out,
Bandaged baby girls,
The teenage horror show,
Just another blazoned hit of one two take the hand me down generic give away,
Desensitize the humanize,
Girls got to get the days glossy puff and sniff,
Thatcher’s content to satisfy,
Callous coroner a spectator suckling Marlboro lick,
Lodging thick smoke and toxin between spittle slick lips,
Albino plumes clotting and unfolding,
Thatcher clicks back the cartridge
Filter and cigarette,
Thatcher gulps back the need because brain’s got a favoring kink for the buzz,
Thatcher sings with the screaming in his straggling lungs,
Hums the western creed
Laughs fickle with God at his need,
Thatcher’s the true American dream

shielding emotion with every arrow that slips through my chest
i would rather pull it from its fletching,
ripping through my arteries and ventricles,
as my blood waters the seeds you tried to plant for us,
before i lose control again
and trust me, i'm dying inside
but my face holds a smile as cherry red trickles from my mouth
because at least i didn't fall in love with you

©L.F.

The night silence screams in my ears after I startle awake.

Another nightmare.

The crying whistle of iron, wood and fletching echoes in the night
Memories of a dead mother sinking in a sea of vibrant autumn leaves
dead eyes commanding me to run
but I don't run

The girl needs me.

Tanya, child of chains, of blood, of regret, of sin, of... hope.

She taught regret like its something I lost
Like it wasn't torn from my chest and replaced with hammers
and blades and chains and blood dripping in silence

I see in her eyes a seed, something that grows in a land that hasn't seen green in a century
And footsteps in the night herald our death, heed my words, a life of such misery and cruelty brings only misery and cruelty in return.

We tear our skin on greedy grasping and groping thorns
fleeing the howls another night again

Black hair like the stars were plucked from the sky just to give something to liken it to
Brown eyes that sound like chains rattling on stone, so I don't forget my promises.
She speaks of hope, as if it's something tangible and abundant, enough for everyone.
But like a stubborn candlelight in the winter night, fighting the wind for survival, it does warmy my heart.

Perhaps the road does not have to end.
Perhaps we have bled and fought and wept enough, and we have finally paid our dues.
Perhaps we can find it in ourselves to find forgiveness for the wicked things we have done, and if not, at least we have found forgiveness in each other.

Perhaps life without pain is possible.

...

The night no longer screams silently, but speaks the hidden language of footsteps, of drawn daggers and ill intent.
Years turned a child into the promise of a young woman.
The promise of a life lived in peace.
But as I know, the enemy of peace is the cutting midnight whistle of an arrow, and the earth itself opening up to swallow anything I hold dear.
She sinks into a sea of dead leaves and tides of blood.

It was not a ******. It was a theft.

A theft of the last good thing in the world.
The last star in the sky, snuffed out, to leave all in darkness.

A theft of a promise, made to a naive child in early summer.
Where once a promise stood, now a blade named Vengance.

A theft of lives, not one.
But regret was not something I lost. It was torn from me. The ones who gave me my hammers and blades are the ones who took my child.

And now, I go to return my hammers and my blade.

And to take back my regret.

we shared spaces
as limping spectres
with manifold directions
looping ghost based conversations
amidst ***** portholes and boxes of dust
learning to bow to spirits in the dark
reaffirming treaties on yet another trek through projection
witness to recurrent episode arcs of radio subterfuge
server rack haven stroll invoked as a heaven, often,
flashes of weathered piano keys atop enemy remarks
wraiths propping heathens into ornate frames
should've been more careful with the strings
expected effects
dart fletching, inevitably dented, bent,
stains from water specks waging war with hints
splattering countless tints of humane intent
constellations gesturing in the mirror
flecked for the better
riot gear graced in paint
place to face, delayed
stone ship sailing away
similes rippling in the wakes
faceless groves of streetlight cones choking
albeit in the stakes it felt the same
retreating, twin searching for testing
doodled a giraffe without intending to
and threw it away

No stuntman/woman showed up,
albeit intervened in timely fashion
to thwart mishaps experienced
courtesy me I bemoan,
and poet lore re: yet of Perkiomen Valley
Pennsylvania, United States of America
never suffered major illness nor broken bone
(specifically life and death health crisis,
nor compound fracture respectively)
cuz guardian angel intervened,
though aim of mine heretofore
forthwith literary endeavor
merely expressing, exhibiting, examining...
a painfully ****** mishap,

where Lady Luck gussied up as crone
perhaps female spirit of  
Matthew Scott Harris
in the guise of wizened older woman
himself affecting doppelganger
as grotesquely personified...
well lemme cease written jibber jabber
without rhyme nor reason
nor sense and sensibility
analogous to being subjected to annoying drone  
and describe and elucidate
how stunted man (me) amazingly graceful,
nevertheless, yours truly accident prone

The following bonafide poem
fleshed out ~ October 2019
I did accidently revisit
painfully suffering with silent true grit.

Aw shucks, I did sustain
moderately serious injury
series of unfortunate events
ludicrous and quite insane,
yours truly did previously explain
while crouching (think

Tony as papier mâché Tiger),
aye fell backward, where sharp
desktop corner didst train
ground zero right side rib cage domain
punched thru L.L. Bean Autumn jacket
zapped, tattooed, lacerated... bloodstain

proof positive bow tocks sing
arrowing, fletching, notching,
piercing, searing targeting ... pain
prestidigitation went awry
courtesy "fake" legerdemain,
yours truly incapacitated plain

vanilla and simple
found me mortally slain,
more tortuous than spelunking thru
eye of needle size tunnel,
no bigger than sand grain,
and/or trumpeted by suzerain

arrogant, boastful, contemptuous...
arid, barren, cerebrally desolate brain,
a definitive liability,
(not just from Ukraine
stormy din yelled brouhaha), profane
but..., I wholeheartedly ascertain,

the former commander in chief
an absolute zero inane
purpose twittering acrimonious, disdain
calamitous, egregious, gangrenous..., arcane
rumbustious, venomous,
zealous... carte blanche

bigoted, misogynistic, racist..., inhumane
blathering, excoriating, insulting...
seeding, planting, muckraking... dogbane
demanding obeisance till
germane henchmen verstehen
unwittingly declaring himself
jejune bloodhound August huss

preening, primping, proofing
orange-blond mane
more attentive to applying
gray matter to strain
Midas coated self
important fiery propane
verbal quid pro quo

explosions inevitably spray'n,
nothing but antisemitism, barbarism,
demagoguery, hatred...
diatribes roiling the masses
til rabid rantings attain
intolerant decibel threshold
usurping totalitarian refrain.

And he whittles his stick
And it whittles him back
They've done it before
But they're glad to be back
He's fletching an arrow
He's making a bow
It feels a bit different from decades ago,

But he has the Wind
Like never before