There was once a kite flyer
who flew his kites so high
He can hold on to his strings
and never get tired

He makes his kites by hand
He makes 'em colorful
He makes 'em grand

So one day, the kite maker flew his finest kites
In the hopes of showing everyone his amazing feats of flight
But because there were so many and the wind was strong
His strings tangled and the flight patterns got all wrong
one of the strings snapped and one of the kites flew
the wind took it and away it blew

One by one the strings broke
and all the kite flyer can do was to watch them float
away from him, the kites were set free
All his hard work, his dreams. his reality

The kite flyer looked up the sky
crying and regretting
There's nothing left of him
nothing but broken strings

This is not, a time to loosen up
Or nine to five job to give up
Just saddle up the power is in you
Five ladies cafe to dine at five and
drove_* the meter is running
(The Canadian Cup) team versus the
     Taxi Cup
He swooned you in your
Five dreamy but half heart sugars
Come on Baby bloomers
Let's see some boom!!

In your hips men will be men taking
frequent flyer trips temptation 1 2345
We need fewer digs one love teo reasons
World  345  heart flags
We don't have to cross our hearts
Perhaps tattoo heart legs no more strikes
Jumping Jack flash
What a rope in this isn't the Pope

Somehow we all get broke
To court her like your the lasso
stars cosmos hearts like Lassie
Never a change of subject how it
remains in your heart how it hit hard
to react but changed to five cards
Digging too long  lucky 777 like heaven
Heart digs

1-where?
Oh! There

No, I am here
We are always  
In-between
numbers_ I only
have 5 minutes
No I phone have a heart
Oh! where is designed for me
Those five plates

Whats in between them
      *Him
We are opening Live- Five
Strong heart to give the caring
The useful heart is never so daring
My gate* Girls are nail digging
Hugging
Or losing add +

Flirty
*****
Our community
Heftier like Jupiter
Heart to build
the gravity
A big kiss hunch
of five roses

Your getting to bloom
but only have
5 extra movie parts
The front dress mermaid tail
Your heart delicate hands
opened up your emails
I think you hit the
Jackpot

Max to the million shot
No heart of gold
Only more leaders
Scrambling and digging
your fork
Mixing those egg beaters

Five men think they know
there women
like ten
commandments
Turn to five wrong
engagements
There it goes the lucky
five arguments

A plot beating
like a hot-shot
The French Baguette
Bread 9 to 5 firecracker
Five-carat baguette
wedding band in her safe
Heart digs to five hands
Heart neck guilty as a giraffe

The cafe house had only
5 cups left  they sold you out
Only Five Bed and breakfast
stayers
Do detailed with their Ladyfingers
But need more alone time
Be on time get sweet key lime
What is real-time so sublime

That rose- paper cut- origami
Sorcerer of five he was like the
cold cuts of big Sub Salami
Japanese sword samurai
What a Geronimo Oh! no
Jericho
This wasn't a hot potato

Or Gizmo No-Go
Getting a shot for Polio
The gusto songs to the heart play
Maestro the Cosmo's
The five stars to heart his
afterglow
Like a titanic ship but heroics

Five lunatics wedding horns ******
Five two timer Mario gamers
so demonic
DOMINO'S bed five students wed
We dug deeper get-up sleepy-head
Exposed cries location set
Network U- dig cups

Something lip curved
He misplaced my lips
What did he do in exchange
More stocks and hard stone rocks
Like frying pan egg
scrambled words

Crossed heart Rapper so believing
The Fox five sticking tacky glue
His CD Rose lying pants no clue
Painful pointed shoes need R&R
     Robin's *Responsibilities
       The Heart On Replay
The deeper you dig to restart

The healthy organically grown brain
Men on Pause I truly believe nature
takes its course
but another beat to go is that so?
And if so heart digs to five
Feel the good vibe in another tribe
Five times I had to wake you up
I am the love cure reminiscing

Giving me five reasons
Our beautiful change of
heart in season
Studying the fine art heart
Referencing
Never refusing thats life
five-step to strive nothing
Fancy

Robin shoutbox she getting
her point across
Either you're the worker or loner
The heart pleaser the boss
Your heart looks good
on your dress
Whether we win or deep mess
The good heart can change to
a bad start

Recharge your heart count to five
Venus- beauty moved on like a
pathologist digging over staying alive

Not everyone flies.
You land hard a lot.
Then just as you think
it's time for a new direction,
just as you think
it's not worth another stumble,
a fresh fall onto your knees,
you launch and take flight.

An updraft catches your wings
and you're airborne.
And when you eventually land
you see that you've got
somewhere new,
a whole new perspective.
That's when you know you're a flyer.

Not every line flies.
You land hard a lot.
Then just as you think
it's time for a new direction,
just as you think
it's not worth another stumble,
a fresh fall,
your thoughts take flight.

An updraft catches your wings
and you're airborne.
And when you eventually land
you see that you've got
somewhere new,
a whole new perspective.
That's when you know you're a poet.

Not every prayer flies.
You land hard a lot.
Then just as you think
it's time for a new direction,
just as you think
it's not worth another stumble,
a fresh fall onto your knees,
your prayer takes flight.

Your spirit resonates with His
and you see His face.
And when you get to your 'Amen',
you see that you've got 
somewhere new,
a whole new perspective.
That's when you know you're a pray-er.

if i was a pearl i’d feel itchy scratchy stuck inside an oyster shell if i was a tree i’d  be a big fat redwood fantasizing about Julia Butterfly Hill living and peeing around me if i was a dog i’d be a Catahoula hound if i was Italian i’d be Sicilian if i was pasta i’d be spaghetti if i was Icelandic i’d be Bjork if i was a rock star i’d be Elvis Presley Bob Dylan Jimi Hendrix Jim Morrison John Lennon Bruce Spingsteen Maynard James Keenan if i was i writer i’d be Herman Melville Mark Twain James Joyce William Faulkner Thomas Bernhard Yukio Mishima Naguib Mahfouz Phillip K. **** Gabriel Garcia Marquez Annie Proulx Lydia Davis if i was a poet i’d be Walt Whitman Sylvia Plath Ted Hughes Gwendolyn Brooks Pablo Neruda  Heather McHugh Carl Sandburg Robert Frost Arthur Rimbaud Dante Alighieri Homer if i was a painter i’d be Leonardo Da Vinci Michelangelo da Caravaggio Johan Vermeer Rembrandt van Rijn Paul Cezanne Marcel Duchamp Jackson ******* Mark Rothko Ad Reinhardt Anselm Kiefer Susan Rothenberg if i was a photographer i’d be Man Ray Ansel Adams Edward Weston Diane Arbus Robert Mapplethorpe Sally Mann Helmut Newton Richard Avedon Annie Leibovitz if i was a philosopher i’d be Socrates Plato Aristotle Jean Jacques Rousseau Sören Kierkegaard Immanuel Kant Karl Marx Georg Hegel Friedrich Nietzsche Henry David Thoreau Ralph Waldo Emerson  Jean-Paul Sartre Jean Baudrillard Michel Foucault if i was a singer i’d be Woody Guthrie Otis Redding Grace Slick Bob Marley Joni Mitchell Marvin Gaye Johnny Cash Patsy Cline June Carter Patti Smith Chrissie Hinde Nick Cave P J Harvey Beyonce if i wa a band i’d be Velvet Underground Ramones *** Pistols Clash Cure Smiths Joy Division Uncle Tupelo Pixies Nirvana Nine Inch Nails Madrugada Sigur Ros White Stripes Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra Justice of the Unicorns if i was a boot i’d be Chippewa Frye Ariat Red Wing Tony Lama Wellington if i was a shoe i’d be Christian Louboutin Jimmy Choo Kedds Chaco Chuck Taylor p f flyer if i was a dress i’d be Channel Dolce & Gabbanna Giorgio Armani Marc Jacobs Comme des Garçons if i was a cowboy shirt i’d be H bar C Rockmount Temp Tex Karman Wrangler Levis Strauss Lee if i was a hat i’d be a Stetson Borsalino Stephen Jones if i was a fruit i’d be a mango apple banana blackberry if i was an scent i’d smell like fresh perspiration jasmine sandalwood ylang ylang the ocean if i was a doctor i’d be a gynecologist neurosurgeon if i was a flower i’d be a hibiscus rose orchard if i was a stone i’d be a sparkling ruby diamond opal if i was a knife i’d be a k-bar switch-blade machete if i was a gun i’d be a Remington Winchester Beretta Glock AK-47 if i was a car i’d be a Lamborghini Ferrari BMW Saab Volkswagen GTO Ford Mustang Dodge Challenger if i was a  TV show i’d be Law and Order if i was actor i’d be Charlie Chaplin Humphrey Bogart Steve McQueen Robert De Niro Ed Norton Shawn Penn if i was an actress i’d be Marlene Dietrich Ingrid Bergman Natalie Wood Audrey Hepburn Marilyn Monroe Helen Mirren  Meryil Streep Brigette Fonda Robin Wright Julianne Moore Angie Harmon if i was a female comedian i’d be Gilda Radner Lily Tomlin Nora Dunn Joan Cusack Sarah Silverman Tina Fey if i was a  football player i’d be Sid Luckman George Blanda Walter Payton **** Butkus Mike Singletary Joe Montana Jerry Rice Payton Manning LaDanian Tomlinson  Drew Breeze if i was a celebrity i’d be Charlotte Gainsbourg if i was a rapper i’d be Tupac Shakur if i was a movie director i’d be Sam Peckinpah Robert Altman Stanley Kubrick Roman Polanski Werner Herzog Rainer Fassbinder Louis Bunuel Alfred Hitchcock Jean-Luc Godard François Truffaut if i was a bird i’d be a eagle hawk sparrow bluebird if i was a fish i’d be a dolphin shark narwhal Charlie the tuna if i was breakfast i’d be a French toast pancake folded in half with 2 strips of bacon in between if i was a cold cereal i’d be snap crackle popping rice crispies shredded wheat cheerios oatmeal if i was tea i’d be Japanese green matcha Irish breakfast Tulsi Thai holy basil Lapsang souchong Luzianne Lipton if i was a soap i’d be French hand milled ayurvedic Avon Ivory Dove Pears Aveda  if i was a man i’d be a football basketball baseball tennis swimmer athlete if i was a woman i’d be a track star runner writer painter gardener doctor nurse yoga mom i'm just scratching the surface and the beat goes on lahdy dah dah

You know what? I need to tell you something. I'm ****** up. Yeah. I didn't know I was still so bad. I fooled myself into thinking I had control, when, once again, I really had none. And I trusted you when you held me, and then when you pulled away it hurt, even though I knew it was coming. Hell, the whole thing happened BECAUSE I knew it was coming. The relationship, the love, the breakup, and the fallout happened in one night, and I wasn't behind the wheel anymore by the end.
But that's not what I need to tell you.
I need to tell you that even when I was in your arms, crying, I still didn't know if I wanted to be with you. I'm so used to wanting you, it's a natural setting. But I remember it distinctly (and I sort of hate how distinctly I remember that night, because the good parts hurt to know they're over and the bad parts are embarrassing as **** and bring up questions and issues I don't want to deal with, like will I ever be able to be close to someone I love without being sick with fear? And why the **** does that even happen anyhow? And why did it have to be you who saw me fall apart, again?) But... I remember thinking, "Do I want to be with her?"
I remember wondering if I loved you as much as I love her.
And it's not that I thought "No, I don't."
It's just that... I didn't know the answer. I truly did not.
I think you need to know about this girl.
She is the girl who, 3 days into knowing her, I took her face in my hands and looked her straight in the eye and said, "I am going to FALL in love with you." and she smiled.
She's the girl who kept coming back to me even though I'm crazy, and I told her all about it, and wrote her poetry far too soon, and cried in front of her, and she had a boyfriend, and she never expected me.
She's the girl who picked me flowers at 3 am from the trees by the Sociology building and couldn't keep the grin off her face when she saw me catch my breath just looking at her. We broke in, and we pushed each other down the hallways in wheeley chairs in the dark, and she kissed me on the little bridge by the lake because we couldn't keep our eyes off each other.
Everything I do that makes you squirm, because you don't want anyone to love you that much, that's the stuff that makes her grin even when she doesn't want to. Even when she thinks it's a terrible idea to be out in the middle of the night with a girl she barely knows, holding hands where somebody might see.
She is the girl I was sure would **** me over, who hasn't yet.
And that doesn't mean she won't. I know that. But...
When I met her, I told myself it wouldn't be like it was with you. I wouldn't love someone who hated all the little things I thought about them.
So I just said them.
All.
From the moment we met, if I thought she was beautiful, I let myself whisper it to her like a prayer. I've traced her face with my fingertips. I've handed her every poem I ever wrote about her. I've woken up in the middle of the night beside her, and told her with just my eyes that I was terrified she would be gone if I closed them, and she said, "It's okay, come here." and held me until we fell asleep again. And the next day, she didn't hate my weakness for her.
She knows that if she walks away from me, I stand and watch her go until I can't see her anymore, and even then, stand a minute more just hoping I'll glimpse her again.
Every time I walk over that bridge where she kissed me, I throw a penny off and wish for her.
Every time I see a flower growing and I'm going in that direction, I pick it and I leave it there for her, because I like giving her flowers, even if she never sees them.
Every single night that I walk outside, I look up, and find the first star I see and say her name under my breath. I do it so often that I do it in my dreams without intending to.
I wear that bandanna because I wore it on Halloween, when I was a gypsy and she kissed me on the 4th floor at 4:30 in the morning, and I was brave enough to ask her if she was ******* with me, and she was brave enough to tell me she wasn't, and I was crazy enough to force her to meet my eyes and say, "I am in love with you." and she was crazy enough to smile at me and kiss me, instead of running away.
That was the night that, after she went into her room, I sank to my knees in the hall and cried, and I thought to myself, "Come back, I'm still here. Know I need you." and *******... the door opened, and she walked out and saw me wiping tears away and held me,
And I looked up at her like she was god and I kissed her fingertips and asked her how she knew, and she said she just did.
That's this girl.
And yeah, it's unlikely this will end well. Look at me, and my life, and my emotions, and the **** I've been through, and what a ******* disaster you and I can be if we are both stupid at the same time.
But the thing is... I'd rather be me than you. I'd rather have these experiences. It hurts, and sometimes it ***** so much I wonder what the hell is wrong with me, but loving someone the way I can is worth it. And someday, if I am brave and stupid and strong enough to keep opening my heart after people mutilate it, I will find someone who loves every single thing about me that *****. I believe that.
It might not be her. And if it's you... it's not the you you are right now. But it will be someone.
And if someday you find that you love me, and you are ready to try and give me what I need instead of giving me what you think I'm demanding and then taking it back, and I've found someone like this girl, or someone even greater than her.... Then I'm really sorry.
I'd rather be me than you. I'd rather risk everything, every ******* time, for that tiny chance that my love will work out, than spend my life being practical, and recoiling from the people who give more to me than I think I deserve.
**** deserving. **** plans. **** fear.
Even as I am consumed by it I can say that: **** fear.
That's what being brave is.
I know that people I love can have that effect on me, and here I am, trying to find them anyway.
What's anyone's excuse? Fear? **** that.
Life is so short.
I want to love someone so much that I love the stars.
That I love every flower I see growing.
That I love every lucky penny and little footbridge and time the sun reaches through the clouds.
I want to love someone so much that the happiness they give me scares me.
That I feel home. Everything else is a waste of time, time I don't have.
Somewhere somebody will take me as I am, and she might not understand fully, but she will be tolerant. She WILL understand that I am easy to misinterpret, and easy to push away, and hard to help. She'll get that whatever she gives me, she better MEAN it, FOREVER, because it is worse to give me something I need and take it away than to just leave me without anything at all. And she'll stay when we fight. And she'll stay when we don't. And she'll smile when her beauty takes my breath away, not because she necessarily agrees with me, but because she feels lucky that anyone could see her in such a beautiful way and still accept her flaws.
Someday I am going to BE happy. And it'll take work, and it'll take me getting hurt by a lot of people, and it'll take me wanting to give up and never quite being able to, but it will happen. Because I can't give up.
This girl I fell for who's not you, who I miss, who I dream about, who I hope will love me... she's a symbol. She is the knowledge that there are people out there that I can love who will want to BE loved.
And maybe this all goes to hell, who knows?
But it's different. It's new.
And I am sick to death of the old dance, of being misunderstood and pushed away and blamed because I'm always willing to apologize.
I did that to her once. I said I was sorry for being too intense.
She said she didn't want me apologizing for who I was, that I didn't need to throw myself at her feet, and I told her I'd never known anything else.
I am afraid of her, just like I'm afraid of you. But the thing is...
I need to try for this. I need to try everything I can to find someone I love who will have me. She's given me so much, just by tolerating me in a whole new way.
Because when I met her I was shocked. Every time I'd do or say something and think, "This is it. She's gonna think I'm crazy. She's gonna RUN away right now." she'd surprise me.
Every time.
And every time she'd say something ominous and I'd be sure she was trying to get away from me and freak out, she'd surprise me then too, by saying things that were actually constructive, that didn't imply she wanted out, that honestly weren't hurtful because they were nothing compared to stuff I'd heard from other people I loved.
If there's a chance this could work, I am taking it.
I have the flowers she picked for me stuck in the dreamcatcher above my bed.
I have this flyer... See, one night at 3 am, she showed up at my door in her blue sports bra with her hair trying to reach its way out of a messy bun. I love her hair. It never stays where she puts it. And when I opened the door she blushed and stuttered and handed me a pink flyer and ran off down the hall before I could soak up her presence. And I closed the door grinning. It was a poetry slam flyer, and at the top she'd written, "Mikaila, do this. -TM". As if I wouldn't know who it was. As if she had been standing out there, just gonna slip it under the door and walk away, but had knocked instead last-minute. I love her handwriting. It looks like it'd be hers. I kept the flyer, long after the date for it passed. I have it, and when I miss her I sleep holding it. I'm pretty sure she actually knows I do that and still talks to me. If that's not extraordinary, I don't know what is.
The night I met her, she kept tripping over her words, apologizing, as if there was something she could say that would make me like her less, or something. I think I've spent more time looking into her eyes in the few months I've known her than I have looking into yours in two years, because you and I, our whole time together was so full of hiding, and she and I have never hidden. Hell, half of our conversations are through looks. When we met we didn't break eye contact for two hours, I swear.
When I think of her I smile like hell, and it doesn't hurt, it just feels... it feels like wondering if you made the school play you've been rehearsing an audition for all summer.
Like not knowing if the college you wanted to go to will accept you- If it doesn't happen, it'll hurt so much, oh... but if it does. If it does your world will be JOY.
And that's enough. The hope is more than the fear. It's stronger.
And maybe it'll do its damage, maybe life has a whole new torture laid out for me.
But I'm doing this.
And if I lose her, I will not lose my faith in love. I will not punish myself for it.
I will open my heart and say, "Somebody come in." and somebody will. Over and over until someday, someone will decide they like it there, and stay.
And if it's you, I will be ecstatic. Shocked, but ecstatic.
And if it's her, I will make her tea every morning and hold her hands when she has nightmares, and listen to her rambling stories, and learn the planes of her body the way I know the curve of her face because I still see it in my dreams even though I haven't seen her in 3 months.
And if it is neither of you, it will be someone.
Someone wonderful.
And she will be lucky, and she will have someone to love every flaw she ever hated in herself, and she will be forgiven for every sin she never spoke, and she will be supported through every loss and every heartbreak, and she will be given wings instead of shackles. And she
Will
Know
The
Difference.
Sometimes, when you love me, you say that my life will be more extraordinary than yours. And maybe you are right. But if you are right, it will only be because I am willing to do this to myself. FOR myself. I am willing to take these chances. And maybe you are too, who knows. Who am I to assume?
All I know is that I have taken chances with you, many more than you have taken with me. And that's why you have the power. And I don't mind. And I'll keep taking them. Because there are very few people on earth who I think could make me happy for the rest of my life, and you are one of them.
But you are not the only one.
And if you never want me for real, somebody will.
Somebody wonderful.
And that's why I'm still here. And that's why I won't ever be able to quit, no matter how bad things get. Somebody wonderful is waiting for me. You, or her, or somebody else.
Somebody wonderful.

it's time
time to load my most personal  things
taking only the most important

escape this apocalypse
you'll see me on the side
of the road
my cardboard box full of notepads

a lifetime of heart things
feelings tear stained yellow
page after page
pulling a Radio Flyer

on I-10
three  cats and an old faithful
black labrador dame
and one box

i see the flyer at starbucks

"are you caucasian?
without mental health
and drug problems?"

wow
i don’t know the answer to any of these questions
is a jew a caucasian?
is the occasional naked, ****-slamming drunken rampage
a drug problem?
as for mental health
i’m a deadbeat poet and unpopular pop musician
i’ve got a job fighting death and boredom
and i just changed my facebook password to "eat ****"
my frustrations have driven weaker souls to homicide
but are these PROBLEMS?

My bipolar fantasy is that one day,
I’m going to come home and leave my bipolar at the door,
Scatter it along with muddy boots and raincoats and winter mittens
I have no use for currently,
That I’m going to take it off and enter my house unencumbered.
My bipolar dream is that I’m going to go to bed tonight
Without measuring my sleep,
Wondering if it’s an indication of mania or depression,
If it’s stress or I need medication to push me into a nocturnal daze,
The haze of which will bleed over into daytime.
My bipolar wish is that this illness
That I lug around like a suitcase made of brick
Might lighten in load or unpack itself once in a while,
That it will not brand me as a traveler on a road
Pockmarked with landmines and loneliness.
I wish that this suitcase did not bear the mark of mental illness.
My bipolar life is a story,
One laid out in the lines of swinging,
Of flying and then falling
Before realizing they are often too closely related to tell the difference.
My story is written in the narrow margins between creativity and hospitalization.
Sometimes the two occur together.
My life’s manuscript is forever alternating
Between the way the night sky speaks to me
Or the way the bathroom smells like my blood.
It is being abuzz with electricity and then short circuiting your battery
And not being able to move.
My bipolar song is a tune alternating between grandiosity,
All hail my intelligence and beauty (psych!)
Before falling into apathy and self-loathing.
Sometimes it’s not knowing what version of me I’m going to wake up to in the morning.
My bipolar hope is that the dizzying combo of diet, exercise, and daily medication
Will keep me out of that 1 in 5 number I’ve danced with so perilously,
Keep me off of those bridge ledges and out from empty pill bottles,
Keep me alive in my skin even in this painful reality.
My bipolar fear is that when mania and depression have a love child
And mixed mania runs amuck in its terrible two’s,
The anger will taint the feelings of loved ones.
I fear callous words uttered insouciantly in my own misery,
Slithering from my mouth agonizingly slowly yet too quickly to stop
Might wound those I care for when I do not mean it.
My distress and agitation sometimes equal cranky.
My bipolar prayer is that when energy plus impulsiveness plus danger is no longer
A concept I understand collaborate,
Those around me know this is not who I am.
My mood is a high-flyer, a free-faller, and an everywhere in between,
But that is not my personality.
I am an optimist, a free thinker, creator, compassion giver.
My story is broader than the confines of bipolar.
I am sometimes aflame and others underwater,
But I weather it all with a twisted sense of humor.
I am a person before I am bipolar.

His Funeral was today.  Well, his wake rather.  It was in his old colonial home on Elm Street, a bought of irony that Paolo would never get.  Anyway, it was an odd set up at his house. Family and friends downstairs in the living room, acquaintances and honorable mentions meandering through the hallways clearly more interested in the intricate little floral patterns that adorned the wallpaper than how his family was holding up.  The company of the house was split, everyone either legitimately full of sorrow, or completely full of ****.  In everyone’s grasp either handkerchiefs or hand grenades it was as if the invitation read “Come see it to believe it!” In the study across the hall a small memorial was set up.  Big cards, tons of photos, some flowers, anyone who actually cared stayed there and stared at his once happy face, who knew what it looks like now.  
He had died of some sort of overdose, one that destroyed his heart, so he would have looked fine in an open casket.  The doctors say it was *******.  I don’t believe them.  Paolo had his fun in college, ***, *****, sure, but coke?  There’s no way.    The services weren’t to take place for another two hours, so his family rolled him onto the second floor balcony.  It was actually his dad’s decision, something about a “disgrace” and not wanting to look at his face.
Apparently his mom had felt bad letting her dead son chill on the porch for a few hours, so she rolled him across the hallway to his own room him and kind of laid him out on the bed, as if letting her baby boy take his eternal sleep where he’d have had most of his shorter ones.  
Picturing him lying up there was the first negative connotation I ever had with the image of him on that bed.  He had that kind of headboard that when we started getting at it the bed would hit the wall with each rhythmic movement.  Steady and almost tribal as our bodies danced to the ever increasing beat of a talking drum.  Our clothes off and our skin glazed with sweat it was like my own personal method for getting high. Now don’t get the impression that our relationship was based purely on a physical connection, we’d been dating for three and a half years, the love was there all right.  
We had met in the strangest of ways, through a mutual friend that I was kind of, almost, sort of, but not really having a “thing” with, you know?  Cisco was his name.  So we were together one day and he, being the adorable spaz that he was, had forgotten that his own birthday party was that same night.  He asked if I didn’t mind tagging along, it was a celebration for him and two friends whose birthdays followed his in sequence.  
This had been going on for several weeks, and I know we weren’t dating but I still had a feigning interest in the guy.  So we arrive to this girl, Cristina’s, house and I noticed this other boy almost immediately.  In a backwards cap and pair of boot cut jeans he was jumping around, tossing his arms, right in the middle of reciting some hilarious anecdote to any of his friends who hadn’t heard it yet; even those who had seemed riveted.  He was so full of charisma and with such assurance.  Besides that he was kind of cute so, though pathetically, I tried flirting with him for the rest of the night; he didn’t really catch on.  We left that night without having exchanged more than ten words between each other, I thought I’d never see him again, turns out I was wrong.  
“Broadway CAREols.  Show others that you care by enjoying a night of with your favorite blend of Christmas ditties and Broadway biddies” And before you ask, Yes, I did come up with that title, I think it was great and it was at the top of each flyer in big red and green letters and if you asked me “If you could do it again…” I would do it the same each and every time don’t judge me.
It was a show I had to direct for a community service project and of all people he played the piano for my show.  Only me and several other girls made up the cast, and I knew how easy it was to mistake a positive attitude for flirtation when it comes from a handsome young man.  He ran the music over three or four times individually with each cast member before the night of the show, but when Paolo and I worked that night he stopped me and just sang. For me.  
Each night after rehearsal I had to give him a ride home, I was a year older and thus had my license a year sooner.  I’d never mind allowing myself more time to bask in the glow of his perfectly understated confidence, so I was happy to oblige.  Technically Connecticut state imposed a law forbidding new drivers under the age of 18 to be on the roads past 11 at night.  My mom, being a government employee, really stressed this one.  His house was a solid ten minutes drive from our rehearsal spot, and my mom often warned me to allow myself enough time to get back home before 11.  What started as me beginning to drive faster and faster during the trip home ended as a routine each night, where I would finally allow him to step out of my car just as the clock read 11:00 PM.  
Our first kiss was in that car, my first uncontrollable breakdown was in the car, hell the first time he told me he loved me was in that car…right at the lip of the driveway.  I learned to ride my brakes perfectly to the point where I could park just beyond the edge of the sidewalk yet just before the point where the porch light would flash on, reminding his mother that his son is out past ten on a school night.  It was so warm.  I’ll never forget the cadence of his laughter as it trailed off, seamlessly merging with that next statement “Anna, I love you”.  I could have sworn the porch light went on.  

Now I know it may seem like I don’t care for his being dead right now, but the thing is, I did something.  I did something really bad.

You see, I had mentioned that he was up in his room, right?  Still, stiff, simply waiting to be brought down in a few hours as the catalyst to another round of tears.  Now don’t get me wrong, I did my share of crying the night before.  He’d been in the hospital for only a few days and when they told us he was dead…God, he was just so young, two years into college, the friend you have who was chasing his dreams down with a brand new pair of sneakers.  That kid the whole town knew because of the multitude of silly town functions he attended.  He would always insist.  Every other weekend was one silly thing or another “Oh you’re gonna love this.  Two words – ‘Poetry showdown’.  If you can’t take the heat, don’t stay in the kitchen”
The day of the funeral I just had to see him.  I snuck up the two floors to his room on the third floor.  As I neared his door at the top of that final flight of stairs each creak of the floorboard seemed to resonate through the house, followed by the hollow silence of my stillness.  I paused with each step as if stepping in larger spans of time would make what I was doing seem less suspicious, should someone hear me.  Upon touching his doorknob I felt an immediate chill. I couldn’t tell whether it was some ghostly feeling of being in the presence of a dead person, or the fact that the thermostat had been turned down to keep his body prime for viewing.
I held my breath as I opened the door, and blinked a couple times when I saw him.  He was wearing what everyone else was in downstairs, black tuxedo and a dark tie.  I know he would have scowled had he known he was going to be buried in a constricting penguin suit.  We had a conversation about it, you know?  Out on Academy Hill, right in the middle of a picnic. We were in enough shade that his transition lenses were only half tinted, and when he sat up, it was abruptly.  Pushing my head off his chest he kind of leaned in to the cemetery in the distance and pointed out how sad it is that no one really ever gets the chance to choose how they want to spend the rest of eternity dressed in.  He would have preferred his puma sneakers, still white after seven months, his striped green and blue socks, his only pair of ripped designer jeans and that express shirt he loved so much because it showed off his natural physique.  
I moved closer, inching toward him at first, then quicker as I broke through a place where I just relaxed, and for a moment he wasn’t dead.  For a moment he was just sleeping, all ready in his fancy get up simply waiting for me to wake him up.  I found myself sitting next to him, my eyes cast downward, half expecting his gaze to meet mine, and while stroking his hair I got an idea.  It happened quickly, and I kind of have a problem with acting upon my impulses, it’s something he used to criticize me on that and I never really improved.  Without thinking I threw open his drawer and pulled out what I knew he’d have wanted to be dressed in, should he have gotten the chance to create a will concerning his death-wear.  As I pulled of his starchy shirt my hand brushed against his chest, chilled as the room was, eerie as nothing else.  I finally got him down past his pants and saw, of all abominations, that he was outfitted in a fresh pair of tighty whities.  God, it’s as if the funeral home was asking to be haunted by his tormented soul.  I found his single pair of silk boxers and reassembled him in the way I knew he’d have wanted to be.
So great, now everyone will think I’m a loon for having desecrated his body.  Well what do they know; I’m the only one who ever really knew him! But how the hell would I explain it to his parents when the pallbearers march in and there he is, laying face up in his street clothes?  
This wasn’t right.  He didn’t belong here, he needed to be somewhere comfortable, someplace he enjoyed, not sitting upstairs in a suit with the lights off and the air blasting.  He hated the cold!  Certainly he would have hated a hundred people staring at his dead and lifeless shell, and he would, without a doubt, hate being six feet under, pushing daises at the Nichols Road cemetery.
I wrapped my arms around him, and as the building adrenaline made my breaths deepen I inhaled several moments of ecstasy off his clothes that still clung to his musty scent.  I lowered him gently to the floor and took care as I dragged him across the carpet to his door.  After fumbling, for what felt like several minutes, on his door handle I got him onto the awning introducing the stairs.  I even made it down the first flight of stairs without freezing up at the tiniest creak when I heard someone coming my way.  ******, they must need to use the bathroom, why couldn’t they just use the one downstairs like any normal person?  Without hesitation I throw open up the window near bottom of the stairs, heaving myself and him, sending us tumbling onto the garage roof.  Ignoring my probable bruises I spring up and slam the window behind me while taking special care to hide us both as far away from the bathroom window as possible.
Sitting up there, my heart racing, I felt his hand in mine and it was probably because my palms had gone clammy but I swear for a span of time he was alive again.  I closed my eyes and felt the breeze in my hair and was transported to a place where I spent a single moment in each day we ever shared.  Each beach side sandcastle, each afternoon spent cloud gazing, those same afternoons turning into evenings of star gazing, each and every night spent utterly and irrevocably lost with this silly boy that chose to love me.  
I was torn from my oasis as I heard the bathroom’s occupant exit and continue downstairs.   Knowing that my van was parked on the other side of the street I pushed his body as close to the edge of the roof as I could without his falling off and let him be. I hopped back inside and ran downstairs, but not before flying through the doors of the memorial and interrupting his mothers eulogy.  In an act of sheer brilliance I mustered a few tears and tore out the back door.  Everyone figured I was just so taken away by his death that I couldn’t stand to be there anymore.  Who knew anxiety could be mistook for remorse so easily?
I ran down the driveway, losing the grace I had composed in my dress in high heels the moment I slammed that door.  I jumped into Emmet, my van, because only crazy people drive around in un-named vehicles.  
I pulled out of my spot, nearly ruining the paint job on both my and his Uncle Ed’s car.  I flew my trunk door open and set the third row down, the general idea being his landing securely in my back seat.  I reversed up the driveway with the precision of a surgeon and the speed of a leopard right back to the edge of the garage where I had tossed his body.  I jumped out of my car nearly forgetting to put it into park before I shut off the engine.  I barely got halfway around my car before becoming transfixed on his hand, hanging off the gutter as if reaching for mine to grab hold and pull him to sweet salvation.  I jumped up a few times, unsuccessfully before I took off my shoes and got a good running start.  I flew up, grabbed his arm and ****** towards the car in a sideways downward motion.  He nearly cracked his head on the pavement coming down, he would have too if it wasn’t for my body breaking his fall.  I got up, too distracted by the sheer volume of my own heart to realize the pain I felt.  I shoved him into my back seat, slammed the trunk, stumbled into the car, stuck it in reverse and stepped on gas without even putting my shoes back on.

I told you I had done something bad.

At the mailbox, again:
“Who loves me, baby?”
Well, let’s see: there’s a flyer from Mercury Insurance,
Reminding me that most middle-income customers
Save an average of $4 million smackaroons when they switch too.
The Penny Saver USA.com is here,
Thank God, almighty!
So now I know that Thomas Roofing & Paving
Is having a special on 20-year leak-free flat roofs;
"All work guaranteed & insured.
No job too big or small.
Free estimates/Emergency services/License # I8U-69."
And thank you, Jesus,
For another $4.99 Farmer Boys 3-Egg Breakfast
Combo with Coffee coupon, and that
Little Caesars Hot-N-Ready, $5.00 cheese or pepperoni,
Mae-West-“why-don’t-you-come up and see me sometime?”—mailer. And, of course, another technology Siren’s song:
Verizon FiOS delivers entertainment this big,
Dish me up some dish NETWORK, $19.99 a month . . .
Are you ******* me?
For 12 ******* months?
AT&T;: whack me off on 120 channels.
DIRECTV.com - DIRECTV® Official Site‎
Worry-free 99.9%  . . . cue Joe E. Brown,
"Some Like It Hot“ Osgood:
"Well, nobody’s perfect!"
Time Warner/Sprint/T-Mobile;
And ******* Leather, Polk Street, San Francisco.
******* leather?
Must be for my neighbor: that ***** ****!
And here’s the weekly 8-page color fold-out from Stater Bros:
Lowering prices every day, large cantaloupes
(Jessica Lange, are you back?)
10 for $10.00, 32 oz. Gatorade
Or 24 oz Propel in 30 assorted varieties @ 79 cents
+ CRV: California Redemption Value?
Nice euphemistic cover-up for a TAX.
Nice, nice, very nice, CA elected state officials;
Nicely done, Sacramento.
Everywhere else in the country you get real money—
A fixed number of pennies, nickels, or dimes—
For your plastic bottles and aluminum cans.
But in California, the licensed recyclers
Get to pull the market price out of their *** each morning.
California Redemption Value?
What ******* genius government kleptocrat thought that one up? Conspiracy Alert: who gets all that CRV money?
And what are they doing with it?
Feeling plain, Jane?
Marinello Schools of Beauty, want you,
Offer you hands-on training in cosmetology,
Skin care esthetics, manicuring and vaginal deodorizing—
Just kidding, Babaloo.
Food tip for the Third World:
Never try to write poetry on an empty stomach.
Sizzler 6 oz juicy & succulent.
RENEGADE DEAL:
El Pollo Loco guacamole chicken sandwich,
Coupon free, small drink and small chips,
When you purchase a guacamole or jalapeno sandwich,
includes pepper jack cheese and a southwest sauce.
Gardenas sandia con semilla, 7 lbs 99 cents.
GARDENAS: “en precios, servicio y calidad, nadie nos iguaia.”
Bud Gordon’s Quality NISSAN:
One at this price after a $1500 factory rebate.
TERMINIX: get them before they get you!
The Kingdom Animalia, Phylum Arthropoda, Class Insecta
Bug up my *** again.
And a form letter from the VA
Asking me to please update my whereabouts.
And a form letter from the VA asking me
To please update my whereabouts.
And miles to go before I sleep.
Bite me, Mr. Frost!

An outing, at last.
I am going for a walk around the inside of my gates.
I live in one of those gated over-55 lunatic asylums.
There are gates. It is gated. Get it?
GATED! We feel safe here.
Probably a good thing at our age:
Self-imposed institutionalization,
Putting oneself in an asylum to ferment and die.
The fact that so many of us
Need it so bad at only 55
Says something itself about the current state of
Baby Boomer metal-fatigue.
I am now standing at the far end of the golf course.
I wait at the far end of the 18th Hole.
A ball bounces past my head and
Rolls off past the green into the far rough.
The 18th Hole is perched atop a small plateau,
Out of sight, far above the horizon for anyone teeing off.
I am Puck, invisible and impish.
I pluck the ball up.
I scamper to the green.
I pop the ball into the hole.
Which is better than popping a hole in the ball,
Surely, kind of a drag,
As we were once fond of saying.
Deflated Ball.
Deflator Maus.
OPERA can be ****.
Bodice-ripping corsets, whorehouses and naked ******!
Hardly what you might expect from
A night with the Welsh National Opera,
But they found their way into this production of "Die Fledermaus."
Ripe language, contemporary jokes and
Toilet humor thrown in, adding immensely
To the pleasures of Strauss’s operetta.
"Die Fledermaus," or The Bat’s Revenge,
Is all about drunkenness and adultery.
Despite being written in the 1870s,
It remains equally pertinent to today’s pub culture of excess.
Daring; Colorful; ****: PGA golf.
I steal a golf ball on the far end of the 18th Hole.
I pick up the Titleist and stick it in the hole
(Steady Jessica, not yours.
I hide behind your bush.
(Cue up PSA, First Lady Bird Johnson’s 1960s
Nationwide Beautification Campaign:
“I want everyone in America to plant a tree,
A sherrrr-rub, or a booosh.”)
The golfer now searching frantically:
Why is the cup always the last place they look?
Then, wham, bam, he looks:
A legend is born.
A hole in one,
His name forever immortalized
On a plaque over the bar, the proverbial 19th Hole.

As you know, I speak for all mediocrities,
Safe in my 55+ gated-community.
I go next to the Club House,
"The Lodge" as it’s called.
Each afternoon, the usual suspects
Claiming first come/first serve tiered mini-theater seats
Where Netflix matinee gems are screened.
It is two minutes to DVD show time.
I walk to the front of the room.
I stare at my audience.
I count the house slowly,
Making meaningful eye contact with each wrinkled face.
I cup my hands behind my back and speak:
“I assume you are all here for my lecture on Kierkegaard.”
No one reacts.
I turn to leave but do a double-take and smile.
One old woman in the top right corner of the amphitheater laughs, Perhaps the one other human being within the gates
Who has also smoked a joint today.
For an instant, I am overwhelmed with paranoia,
Perhaps I’ve gone too far over the line:
No longer “oh-he’s-a-character;”
I am now “that creep is ******* nuts.”
Is it time for someone to approach my family,
My next of kin, my “who-to-contact-in-event-of-emergency” number? Who will make the call on behalf of the HOA—
The Homeowner’s Association—
The Tsars, the Duma, the Supreme Soviet in these parts?
They are the power inside the gates;
Those who determine the state’s enemies,
Who govern its community norms.
Power within the gates.
Law within the asylum.
Little Hitlers one and all.
Hopefully they reach my sister first.
She’s been briefed.
KEY POINT IN THE NARRATIVE:
The new narrative is non-linear.
We can no longer sustain a narrative understanding of ourselves;
We are each an individual stream of consciousness,
All of us random, non-linear and disconnected.
We grow more and more disconnected from others.
We may be neighbors in space and time,
But we remain deprived of any significant human contact;
Any spiritually significant human contact.
Our social circle narrows to what can fit in The Telescreen;
We become more intimate with a legion . . .
Did someone say a legion? SPQR:
Am I having some sort of genetic-linguistic seizure here?
Am I channeling Benito Mussolini again?
Il Duce speaks to me from the grave,
Still blowing smoke up my Hopi-Jew-*** ***,
Filling in my insecurities,
Plugging the holes in my character
With delusions of classical Roman grandeur, glory and empire. Hmmmm? Quite an appetizing pitch for the average *****,
A message so completely, so ethnocentrically slick,
Olive oily, and so seductive.
A non-Italian would have thought
American Legion or Legionnaire’s disease,
Or The Foreign Legion, The French Foreign Legion.
The French: a virulent, promiscuous people.
Do you want fries with that, Simone?
No, I don’t get out much.
Only an occasional brisk walk around the asylum,
In and around the golf course, around but inside the gates. (LINKS) Bill Gates. Daryl Gates. Billy Bathgate’s Gates? Ghiberti’s Gates? The Hot Gates? Thermopylae? 300 Spartans/700 Thespians:
“The noun causing idiots to think of
Two girls sloppily eating each other’s mighty vaginas,
When they hear mention of someone being an actor.” http://www.urbandictionary.com
Not even close.
No, I rarely venture out.
This is Hemetucky.
There are methamphetamine-stoked
Teenage zombies at the gate.
Note to costume control:
Perhaps camouflage clothing is the safe choice?
No loud red Hawaiian.
No garish Indonesian batik.
Fleet of feet are these Hemet tweakers,
These cranked up Riverside County teenage barbarians,
These Huns & Visigoths,
These amped up, ravenous jackals.
And why stop there?
These Vandals & Vandellas.
A Motown flashback:
“Nowhere to run, baby, nowhere to hide.”
With or without Martha—
They remain dangerously lethal.
Yes, let it be camo clothes for me.
Those **** heads may be young.
They may be fast.
They may be able to run me down
On a dry grass dog-legged fairway savannah,
Tearing the meat from my carcass.
But the sons-a-******* have to see me first.
Besides, we know who are real friends are.
Hooray for our media peeps!
We become more intimate with a legion
Of television personalities on 125 different channels.
Most of these we know by name and context.
We know their families, their friends,
Their histories, their tragedies,
Their favored hyperbole and manner of speech.
Sometimes we establish intimacy with celebrities
Strictly on the basis of universal body language.
At times–in the absence of any other
Empathetic facility of identification–
We connect on instinct alone.
Instinct: perhaps animal at its core,
An animal kingdom affinity group,
Connecting on a bio-linguistic level,
Particularly when the Korean, or Spanish,
Mandarin, or Arabic,
Japanese, or even Hebrew language version is broadcast.
All languages cryptically alien,
A dense boundary, a barrio border wall,
Undecipherable, impenetrable concrete.
But we’ve never spoken to our neighbors,
Nor do we know their names.
Celebrities are the neighbors we know best;
Although the intimacy is an illusion,
Permission to invade their privacy presumed,
Tacit in the relationship between celebrities and their fans.
I am an independent contractor now,
An outside consultant to the NSA.
Try as I might I cannot crack the enigma,
Kim Kardashian remains far beyond my code-breaking prowess.
I repeat myself:
We can no longer sustain a narrative understanding of ourselves;
We are each an individual stream of consciousness,
All of us random, non-linear and disconnected.
We are more and more disconnected from others.
We may be neighbors in space and time,
But we remain deprived of any significant human contact;
Any spiritually significant human contact.
Our social circle narrows to what can fit in The Telescreen; we become more intimate with a legion . . .
Back to you, David Ulin:
“Sometime late last year—I don’t remember when, exactly—I noticed I was having trouble sitting down to read. That’s a problem if you do what I do, but it’s an even bigger problem if you’re the kind of person I am. Since I discovered reading, I have always been surrounded by stacks of books. I read my way through camp, school, nights, and weekends; when my girlfriend and I backpacked through Europe after college graduation, I had to buy a suitcase to accommodate the books I picked up along the way.”
Thank you, David L. Ulin.
I cannot help myself.
I grow more eccentric each day.
My eyeballs glued to that flat screen!

Cosmo Kramer: "The bus is outta control.
So I grab him by the collar, I take him out of the seat,
I get behind the wheel, and now I’m driving the bus."
Jerry: "Wow!"
George Costanza: "You’re Batman."
Cosmo Kramer: "Yeah, yeah, I am Batman.
Then the mugger, he comes to and he starts choking me.
So I’m fighting him off with one hand,
And I kept driving the bus with the other, ya know.
Then I managed to open up the door,
And I kicked him out the door, ya know,
With my foot, ya know, at the next stop."
Jerry: "You kept making all the stops?"
Cosmo Kramer: "Well, people kept ringing the bell!"
(Share this moment with a stranger.)

I speak for all mediocrities.
I am their champion, their patron saint.
Boom Chaka Laka. Boom Chaka Laka.
Boom Chaka Laka. BOOM!
Isn’t it time Salieri tempted Constanze–
Frau Mozart–with a plateful of Capezzoli di Venere:
“******* of Venus.”
You had me at hello, Kidman.
I know you too well, Nicole.
I knew you from before,
Way before Tom’s Oprah couch freak show.
Listen to me, Nicole:
We are face to face
With the most profound question in American literature:
"What is the grass?
The flag of my surrender?
The flag of my disposition?"
I resort to Socratic maxims: Know yourself;
The un-****** life is not worth living.
Is it stress? Is it lack of conviction?
Everything Jeff Lebowski neither wants nor needs in his life?
I watched you *** in "Eyes Wide Shut," Nicole.
Now I know you with my eyes and your legs wide open.
Thank you, Sidney Pollack.
Sidney knew.
Sidney dealt us cards
From his Hollywood Tarot deck.
We are intimate, Nicole.
I watched you squat.

The Avro Vulcan, a majestic big old iron bird, sublime,
was to do a flyby for just one memorable last time.
Maybe with a jet fighter or a Spitfire on each wing, who knew?…
Unthinkable to miss it… almost a crime.
Thousands turned up every year, always a great day out -
but this year would be special, there'd be no doubt.
The last flight of such a legendary plane made it essential…
So, after the flyers’ break for lunch, the crowd filled out.

The entry fee to occupy the field was heinous. 25 quid!
That was for adults - and a fiver for each kid.
So, many more than those that paid, sat happily outside pubs.
Others found shelter in the perimeter’s trees and... kinda hid.
Now, to see a Vulcan fly anytime, anywhere, was magic…
She was a Leviathan of the Cold War,
that held players in the planet’s power games in awe.
And this would be her last time doing the rounds on the air show circuit -
Seeing this locally was hard to ignore.

Mark (a nephew) was a window cleaner by trade.
A regular, down to earth, happy go lucky guy.
…Saturday comes and the kids all voted "McDonalds"…
“A Happy Meal!” they’d cry.
He said that was fine - they’d all go after he’d nipped over
to the airshow to watch the Vulcan fly.
No idea whatsoever, of course, that just by going to Shoreham
just 5 miles away, for half an hour or so… that he might die.

He told his fiancé he’d only be an hour or so…
be back in time to take the kids for a burger and, "NO!"...
He wouldn’t stay. He was the only one in the family
who was bothered anyway…so he wouldn’t ****** up their day.
So, in haste, because apparently Chicken Nuggets & Fries
was much better for the kids than a load of old planes,
he cranked the best out of his bike along the 27 and,
once at the lights by the Sussex Pad,
he pulled over to the kerb to watch from the bushes.
Good view? Well not bad!

Andy Hill was a flyer of many years. His weekday job,
flying for BA.Taking holiday makers, business folk, transatlantic in Seven Four Sevens...
A flight deck maestro, soaring up, just under the heavens.
He’d done Shoreham loads of times… it was exciting, exhilarating... almost sport, his game!
He was off the hook,  became an ace. It gave him that 15 minutes of fame!
Free to thrill - a hero! Standing out from the crowd with every daring step. His aim!

He wasn’t just a petrol head… this bloke had aviation fuel in his blood.
Adrenalin on tick-over. Nought to 60 in 2.7 seconds with 22,000 Horsepower under the hood.
He left Epping full of fuel, just 90 miles away, so in two ticks he was with us, fully loaded and, the weather? It was good.
First up after lunch at half past one… he streaked across the crowded field.
Over and out and up, up, up… Little did the spectators know that Andy had forgotten he was flying a Hunter…
He thought it was last year’s aborted routine in a Jet Provost… The one they'd stopped part way through being, too risky.

"He’s not gonna make it… I can’t look!" There was a hush… a nanosecond’s silence and then the rush,
the whoomph that said it all… that hush! The ground shook!
And the eleven - plus others injured - went up in Andy Hill’s very own fireball!
No, of course, Mark wasn’t the only one to die that day.
Ten other ‘innocents’ left us in pretty much the same way…
Maurice, Dylan, Tony, Matthew, Matt, Graham, Mark R, Daniele, Richard & Jacob.
Mark T, our Mark, had the distinction of having two funerals, not just the one…
More remains were discovered, analysed and found to be his!
Even after he’d…already well... ‘gone’.

The injustice that eleven spectators or just passers by should die
when the survivor, the off target driver, who sped too low from the sky, should, after a suitable pause in this ghoulish game, be exonerated and not take any blame.
Well it’s all sort of things… It's ridiculous, pathetic, obtuse, a joke… who do they think we are?

But the great and the good deliberated, scratched their heads and worked hard to make everything look ’right’…
Tolerance for the bereaved to grieve, platitudes, condescending attitudes, a memorial service.
Thanks - genuinely - to the emergency services… Not just a little buck-passing… But the public often judged them. Arsing about - to cover their corporate backside.
They can’t insult me (or us)… intelligent people have tried…

Andy Hill was judged to be not guilty of 11 counts of manslaughter by gross negligence.
But he claimed he blacked out in the air, having experienced ‘cognitive impairment’ brought on by hypoxia … possibly due to the effects of G-force…. Of course!
The 11 were either hit by the plane or roasted in a fireball caused when the jet flew too low and too slow. But if it wasn’t Andy’s fault then whose was it?

Surely this can’t be the end of this travesty of justice!!

BUT, there IS a new memorial to the dead. And, trust this...it’s a good one too…  The best that money can buy - and that anyone can do.

But there's is also a very bitter taste, still today…
that somehow... just won’t go away!

Under the old house
cast in conglomerate mix
the cataract window
and cracked sill
broken joists
and cross beams
wringer wash
and saddle set

A draw string light
brings life
to the corner bench
fowler toads
and fingerlings
jitter bugs
and dazzy vance
dirt planks filled
with mason
crown classics

Buggy whip
and whippletree
shelved on the
chopboard
tackle and mucks
stacked at the back
horseshoe and jack rod
bend the pike pole
a sawhorse placed
for the Martindale push

Gallon jars
and growlers
prepped
for the taking
ropes and reins
for transport
and fest
goggle eye
jumps the flyer
setting up nicely
for the
Haldimand town fair

Oft too a flyer.


Thrown to the wolves as lions approach,
Never just left alone.
Kicked out of the club for being too drunk,
The ghosts have stolen your phone.


In this midnight hour a traffic cone,
Is thrown through a greenhouse window, waking up the neighbourhood.
They all see you walking back home;
“He’s up to no good.”


Cans on strings as letters of complaint leap,
Along the local grapevine.
Playing the telephone game, muggle messages,
They all watch and pass a guilty verdict; eye for an eye.
You stand accused of drinking legal beer.
Social complaints against late night cheer.


Revelry is not welcome here,
At the cul-de-sac at the end of the road of fear.
So scared of youth because envy gets old.
So cold to you because you smile like a fool.
So angry!  About nothing.
The rain pours down, feel water proof.
So pointless to have a conversation,
When you are thirty five percent proof.


The drunk is a punk to conservative ways.
They would never be that drunk in their day.


They only ever drank every time they got paid
And every day is now a liquid lunch.
Do you remember an Irish coffee breakfast,
After the after hour’s club?
Now a fine brandy, a sherry or two when visiting;
Or are you so drunk you are still misremembering?


I am righteous!  Pride takes me to church!
To drink the blood and fall asleep
And because whiskey is the only thing that gets you forward,
You lurch!
And stumble over all the pews.
You end with an almighty crash!  


Make up, slapdash,
You landed at the altar and got up to say “I do.”
You got in your car and now you are so sure;
Oh so sure, that you are pure.
You are better than they are…
Really?...
You?


And later as you blow into the straw,
You realise you are not so sure,
That you can see a way out of this.
Why not arrest them!  Instead of me!
Those stupid drunken kids!
They vandalize and disturb my peace!
What about me!  I never did a thing!
I only had a glashh or six (laughs)
And there wasn’t a…er, a lasting damage.


I’m not a drunk!
I think!
I think…

I think I love you…


What place is this...?
Where am I...?
Hey!  
Who are you!  To arrest me!  For being drunk!


The following day, you wake up and say…

What time is it?

Excuse me officer…
What day is this?

It’s Tuesday.


(C)2017 Aa Harvey. All Rights Reserved.

There was a shooting in Redstone
Only one man dead, none hurt
He was found dead in the morning
With just one hole right through his shirt

He was lying in the main street
Face down, right there in the dirt
He was found dead in the morning
With just one hole right through his shirt

I'T WASN'T SUPPOSED TO END LIKE THIS
FACE DOWN HERE, IN THE STREET
I'M A GUNFIGHTER OF MUCH RENOWN
I'M JUST A GUN WHO CAN'T BE BEAT
I'M NOT SUPPOSED TO BE HERE
LYING DEAD, SHOT IN THE BACK
I WAS GUNNED DOWN BY A COWARD
I DIDN'T HEAR THE GUNSHOT CRACK

The crowd had formed around him
Lying there, all hard and cold
No witnessess to the shooting
At least not one so bold

They knew him from his weapon
The sixteen notches on the grip
He came in on the Flyer
He won't be on the return trip

I'T WASN'T SUPPOSED TO END LIKE THIS
FACE DOWN HERE, IN THE STREET
I'M A GUNFIGHTER OF MUCH RENOWN
I'M JUST A GUN WHO CAN'T BE BEAT
I'M NOT SUPPOSED TO BE HERE
LYING DEAD, SHOT IN THE BACK
I WAS GUNNED DOWN BY A COWARD
I DIDN'T HEAR THE GUNSHOT CRACK

He was staying at The Belfry
He only brought one bag to town
No one knew why he had come here
Except to shoot somebody down

The papers ran the story
The next morning in THE SUN
They ran a picture and a story
Of the "Man With The Pearl Gun"

I'T WASN'T SUPPOSED TO END LIKE THIS
FACE DOWN HERE, IN THE STREET
I'M A GUNFIGHTER OF MUCH RENOWN
I'M JUST A GUN WHO CAN'T BE BEAT
I'M NOT SUPPOSED TO BE HERE
LYING DEAD, SHOT IN THE BACK
I WAS GUNNED DOWN BY A COWARD
I DIDN'T HEAR THE GUNSHOT CRACK

The story was quite lengthy
Considering no one saw him shot
But, as usual there was someone
Who had a story to be bought

He'd been shot from an end window
Above the Local Mercantile Store
One bullet from a rifle
And the gunman was no more

I'T WASN'T SUPPOSED TO END LIKE THIS
FACE DOWN HERE, IN THE STREET
I'M A GUNFIGHTER OF MUCH RENOWN
I'M JUST A GUN WHO CAN'T BE BEAT
I'M NOT SUPPOSED TO BE HERE
LYING DEAD, SHOT IN THE BACK
I WAS GUNNED DOWN BY A COWARD
I DIDN'T HEAR THE GUNSHOT CRACK

Turns out the gunman's killer
Was the one he'd come to find
The shooter was the killer's child
The only son, he'd left behind

They never met before this
He'd never ever met his Dad
But, The Gunman came to find him
And in the end, it's kind of sad

I'T WASN'T SUPPOSED TO END LIKE THIS
FACE DOWN HERE, IN THE STREET
I'M A GUNFIGHTER OF MUCH RENOWN
I'M JUST A GUN WHO CAN'T BE BEAT
I'M NOT SUPPOSED TO BE HERE
LYING DEAD, SHOT BY MY SON
I WAS GUNNED DOWN WITHOUT KNOWING
I GUESS HE'S NOW THE WANTED GUN.

collected flyer miles
for 27 years of
to and fro
from distant places
and the many faces
who sat by me
during the journey

memories remain collected
the smiles, gestures and hugs
all together in one coupon
ready to be redeemed

I'll be moving on now
away from the small world
to see to places, new faces
into the unknown.

I know how hard you’re trying:
caught between what’s good and what’s right,
triangulated by compliance to a routine that leaves you restless.
You’ve spent your childhood dreaming of ‘somewhere else’
but now that you’re here, you dream again:
of ‘somewhere new.’
You can’t pin down a pilot,
and you’re a high flyer
with a heart for danger and full of desire
from the stardust in your veins
and the galaxies mirrored in your eyes.
You’re no Harry Potter--
their attention drives you wild,
craving counteraction to the demons that
followed you from your home planet
and have tainted your every breath.

(he’s got stars in his smiles
that stretch like galaxies.
oh, god, you know what that means.)

Like I said, you can’t pin down a pilot,
and you don’t want to be found.
You’ll push and push until your heart gives out,
compensate and retaliate by breaking the hearts that beat for you.
If you’re going down,
they will too.
You’re a beautiful disaster creating
new paths for strength to rise out of,
a beautiful disaster caught between cliffs and a hard place.
You wanted to touch down on every planet in your system,
but you never planned
on your engines failing.
You can’t pin down a pilot,
not until he’s crashing.

The mouse
Knows he can fly
(She told him so)
He straps paper wings
To his paws
And climbs the Tower
Of Mouseville
To the cheers of all his mousefriends

Standing atop the Tower
His little chest swells with pride
At the sight of the crowd
The parades, the balloons
The thousands who gathered
For him, for his flight
His dreams are becoming reality

He sniffs the wind and concludes
It smells of promise
Of adventure
Of opportunity
Drawing in every ounce of air his mouse lungs
Could hold
He bellows
"I am Mouse
And I will soar"

The crowd watches as their little mouse
Takes a flying leap from the Tower
To splatter at their feet

A hush fell over Mouseville.

May I for my own self song’s truth reckon,
Journey’s jargon, how I in harsh days
Hardship endured oft.
Bitter breast-cares have I abided,
Known on my keel many a care’s hold,
And dire sea-surge, and there I oft spent
Narrow nightwatch nigh the ship’s head
While she tossed close to cliffs. Coldly afflicted,
My feet were by frost benumbed.
Chill its chains are; chafing sighs
Hew my heart round and hunger begot
Mere-weary mood. Lest man know not
That he on dry land loveliest liveth,
List how I, care-wretched, on ice-cold sea,
Weathered the winter, wretched outcast
Deprived of my kinsmen;
Hung with hard ice-flakes, where hail-scur flew,
There I heard naught save the harsh sea
And ice-cold wave, at whiles the swan cries,
Did for my games the gannet’s clamour,
Sea-fowls, loudness was for me laughter,
The mews’ singing all my mead-drink.
Storms, on the stone-cliffs beaten, fell on the stern
In icy feathers; full oft the eagle screamed
With spray on his pinion.
    Not any protector
May make merry man faring needy.
This he little believes, who aye in winsome life
Abides ’mid burghers some heavy business,
Wealthy and wine-flushed, how I weary oft
Must bide above brine.
Neareth nightshade, snoweth from north,
Frost froze the land, hail fell on earth then
Corn of the coldest. Nathless there knocketh now
The heart’s thought that I on high streams
The salt-wavy tumult traverse alone.
Moaneth alway my mind’s lust
That I fare forth, that I afar hence
Seek out a foreign fastness.
For this there’s no mood-lofty man over earth’s midst,
Not though he be given his good, but will have in his youth greed;
Nor his deed to the daring, nor his king to the faithful
But shall have his sorrow for sea-fare
Whatever his lord will.
He hath not heart for harping, nor in ring-having
Nor winsomeness to wife, nor world’s delight
Nor any whit else save the wave’s slash,
Yet longing comes upon him to fare forth on the water.
Bosque taketh blossom, cometh beauty of berries,
Fields to fairness, land fares brisker,
All this admonisheth man eager of mood,
The heart turns to travel so that he then thinks
On flood-ways to be far departing.
Cuckoo calleth with gloomy crying,
He singeth summerward, bodeth sorrow,
The bitter heart’s blood. Burgher knows not—
He the prosperous man—what some perform
Where wandering them widest draweth.
So that but now my heart burst from my breast-lock,
My mood ’mid the mere-flood,
Over the whale’s acre, would wander wide.
On earth’s shelter cometh oft to me,
Eager and ready, the crying lone-flyer,
Whets for the whale-path the heart irresistibly,
O’er tracks of ocean; seeing that anyhow
My lord deems to me this dead life
On loan and on land, I believe not
That any earth-weal eternal standeth
Save there be somewhat calamitous
That, ere a man’s tide go, turn it to twain.
Disease or oldness or sword-hate
Beats out the breath from doom-gripped body.
And for this, every earl whatever, for those speaking after—
Laud of the living, boasteth some last word,
That he will work ere he pass onward,
Frame on the fair earth ‘gainst foes his malice,
Daring ado, …
So that all men shall honour him after
And his laud beyond them remain ’mid the English,
Aye, for ever, a lasting life’s-blast,
Delight mid the doughty.
    Days little durable,
And all arrogance of earthen riches,
There come now no kings nor Cæsars
Nor gold-giving lords like those gone.
Howe’er in mirth most magnified,
Whoe’er lived in life most lordliest,
Drear all this excellence, delights undurable!
Waneth the watch, but the world holdeth.
Tomb hideth trouble. The blade is layed low.
Earthly glory ageth and seareth.
No man at all going the earth’s gait,
But age fares against him, his face paleth,
Grey-haired he groaneth, knows gone companions,
Lordly men are to earth o’ergiven,
Nor may he then the flesh-cover, whose life ceaseth,
Nor eat the sweet nor feel the sorry,
Nor stir hand nor think in mid heart,
And though he strew the grave with gold,
His born brothers, their buried bodies
Be an unlikely treasure hoard.

It used to be
After we parted
Your face was everywhere--
Every billboard, every flyer--
And your words were everywhere--
Every billboard, every flyer--
And I couldn't escape you
No matter how hard I tried.

Then time passed.

And I'd be going through my day,
And your face was just somewhere--
Some billboards, some flyers--
And your words were just somewhere--
Some billboards, some flyers--
And I found myself actively looking
To see if I could find you somewhere.

And time passed.

And today I realized the date,
And turned expecting to see a memory,
A face,
My past,
You,

But your face was nowhere,
And your words were nowhere,

Because it wasn't the date I thought it was--
That date had passed
Without my realizing,
And today was no special day,
Just another ordinary day,
And I smiled,
Which made it an extraordinary day.

I'm going about my life everywhere--
Every billboard, every flyer--
Just another model in an advert.

Alone the groans of humanity that were once united in love at last. finds its rest .
We wait for a call that never comes ,
and close our eyes in death .


Now the cricket finds its leaf on some Tunisian shores weaves silk
it’s song of love ,
just as
My hand reaches out to yours only for you to flinch and turn from love .
the pebble washed over by the shore  finds itself on ship wrecked Oceans of thee .
Where once lovers walked hand in hand their love like the sands of time exposed .
Like pebbles stolen from the beach where once Greek lovers found  play ,Their. wedding songs bliss ,
hand in hand on moon set tidel bays .

So the twilight casts its gaze ,
Soon my time moves ever on  ,
the midnight flyer i once caught
Only to never find the one .
Love and death have yet to follow me ,
their paths I know not well ,
the sunshine tomorrow’s ring brings sage of old to tell .
Out of these dark ages Saxon roamed ,
Autumn leaves once green in bloom ,
have turned a golden brown only
now to deaths decay .
Their  sorrows winter shall take and find ,

An Ampetheatre of Chicken bones they gorge,
eight thousand demon hoards ,
helmet , belt and sword and my victory is assured .
“ Now set the table honey just mix the salad dear “  
“ Look mother an olive all by itself can I have it please ? ”
“Yes , now wash your hands “
and i was swollowed ,
...whole ..

Peculiar seagulls soar in the skies of my mind, wondering where you are now. i run forever on this internal ocean's shore, your love the cruel lunar tide. i try but i am not fast enough; your undertow pulls me down, spiraling forever toward the black hole bottom of your heart.

i need you now,
deep into this madness,
no life preserver in sight.
my lungs scream
for resistance--
your love choking me,
c h o k i n g.
we need no white picket fence,
no charming stallion
to sweep us from
this black death.

Sugarcoma lovers with nothing left to hold back & subzero heartbreaks stinging worse than the sun.
You loved me once upon a time
& it was absolutely perfect.
I need you now but i promise it won't scar.
(My darling how beautiful you are.)

some years back, not too difficile to recall,
revive and animate those memories of love and disasters,
but the distance is comparable to half-a-dozen
eighty day trips around the world, many frequent
flyer  miles accumulated with trips to love disasters,
interspersed with the days of shock and awe believing
(sigh) that stumbled, fumbled my way in what we silly
call true love, which is really the high of believing
that you deserved the easy way, but now know, there
is no easy way, and romance is a hard earned privilege,
and sensory deprivation can  fool you, absence makes
you vulnerable, don’t be vulnerable, stand up right,
**** out, and eyes smiling but phasers on full, nonetheless…

this not a downer, but a dis-claimer, even I claim the
never be sure of the 100% foolproof methodologies for
discerning the genius of genuine,
when the risk is the reward
maybe when your 22, even 23,
you’ll be better at true discernment,
but until then be wise,
there is no saving the day,
till your knees are scraped,
and crackling and cracking
heart seem like the same thing


but they’re not
do not confuse
causality with correlation
love is not your cause, be-all,
or even the end-all, do the  work
on your self to betterment
24/7, knowledge to be wiser
comes with vive les expériences!
and

someday you’ll senses will be tickled,
and the aroma of possibilities will
arose that dormant hunger, and may
be a correlation to another human in the
immediate vicinity, a man, swimming
in your moat without permission, then,
check him out and maybe, jump in,
once you’ve passed the red cross lifesavers
test, cause the murk is murky, and is never
fraught with just rose water, but jump a
few toes in and if you’re still sinking,
hell he’ll
find away and give him the rope to help
you climb a board, yeah, a broad tough as
clear varnished nails with a heart radiating
the nuclear fission of Strontium 90.

This is one American that drops beats, not bombs
This is one American that admits when she’s wrong.
But an ocean doesn’t divide us
Only you divide us
With your words for labels that say what’s you, not me
Your stereotypes are gunna be the death of me
You’re killing me with these close-minded philosophies
And Who the hell ever said you were the referee of me?

We gotta spend less time sneering and swearing
We gotta spend less time jeering and tearing

You should never have to defend when you love
You should never have to defend why you love
You should never have to defend who you love

We are all created equal;
That’s the condition of the receiver
And we are all the receivers
But some keep spewing that hate; those hate-believers

But we don’t accept their judgment upon us
We gotta rise up out of adversity placed on us

Some out there will go to their graves justifying
Committing acts based on fear is nothing but mortifying
And I’m gunna be truthful; I’m not even lying
When your preach your *******, the human race is dying.

You see United this house stands strong
Every new hand we hold pushes us along
Every brick makes us higher
Acceptance makes us flyer

Gotta keep hate out of your heart
And maybe then we’ll get to start
To come together
To love one another
And to be free like it is intended
Maybe then the human race will be mended
Maybe then this bad movie will get a better sequel
Maybe then we’ll realize We are all created equal.

I want to stop it all
To go into a free-for-all
To rip those signs apart
To take that hate from that heart
All I can do is spread the word on love
And hope to God that will be enough
All I can do is be me and let you be you
All I can do is all I can do
But together we can appreciate
That all together we can officiate
Love that knows no bounds
That type of harmony with unreal sounds.

We may measure success by what’s published
We may measure it by what’s re-said
By how much money we make
By the course that we take
But one thing I know that will bring us deliverance
All that matters is that one voice that says
You make a ******* difference.

There are sleeping dreams and waking dreams;
What seems is not always as it seems.

I looked out of my window in the sweet new morning,
And there I saw three barges of manifold adorning
Went sailing toward the East:
The first had sails like fire,
The next like glittering wire,
But sackcloth were the sails of the least;
And all the crews made music, and two had spread a feast.

The first choir breathed in flutes,
And fingered soft guitars;
The second won from lutes
Harmonious chords and jars,
With drums for stormy bars:
But the third was all of harpers and scarlet trumpeters;
Notes of triumph, then
An alarm again,
As for onset, as for victory, rallies, stirs,
Peace at last and glory to the vanquishers.

The first barge showed for figurehead a Love with wings;
The second showed for figurehead a Worm with stings;
The third, a Lily tangled to a Rose which clings.
The first bore for freight gold and spice and down;
The second bore a sword, a sceptre, and a crown;
The third, a heap of earth gone to dust and brown.
Winged Love meseemed like Folly in the face;
Stinged Worm meseemed loathly in his place;
Lily and Rose were flowers of grace.

Merry went the revel of the fire-sailed crew,
Singing, feasting, dancing to and fro:
Pleasures ever changing, ever graceful, ever new;
Sighs, but scarce of woe;
All the sighing
Wooed such sweet replying;
All the sighing, sweet and low,
Used to come and go
For more pleasure, merely so.
Yet at intervals some one grew tired
Of everything desired,
And sank, I knew not whither, in sorry plight,
Out of sight.

The second crew seemed ever
Wider-visioned, graver,
More distinct of purpose, more sustained of will;
With heads ***** and proud,
And voices sometimes loud;
With endless tacking, counter-tacking,
All things grasping, all things lacking,
It would seem;
Ever shifting helm, or sail, or shroud,
Drifting on as in a dream.
Hoarding to their utmost bent,
Feasting to their fill,
Yet gnawed by discontent,
Envy, hatred, malice, on their road they went.
Their freight was not a treasure,
Their music not a pleasure;
The sword flashed, cleaving through their bands,
Sceptre and crown changed hands.

The third crew as they went
Seemed mostly different;
They toiled in rowing, for to them the wind was contrary,
As all the world might see.
They labored at the oar,
While on their heads they bore
The fiery stress of sunshine more and more.
They labored at the oar hand-sore,
Till rain went splashing,
And spray went dashing,
Down on them, and up on them, more and more.
Their sails were patched and rent,
Their masts were bent,
In peril of their lives they worked and went.
For them no feast was spread,
No soft luxurious bed
Scented and white,
No crown or sceptre hung in sight;
In weariness and painfulness,
In thirst and sore distress,
They rowed and steered from left to right
With all their might.
Their trumpeters and harpers round about
Incessantly played out,
And sometimes they made answer with a shout;
But oftener they groaned or wept,
And seldom paused to eat, and seldom slept.
I wept for pity watching them, but more
I wept heart-sore
Once and again to see
Some weary man plunge overboard, and swim
To Love or Worm ship floating buoyantly:
And there all welcomed him.

The ships steered each apart and seemed to scorn each other,
Yet all the crews were interchangeable;
Now one man, now another,
--Like bloodless spectres some, some flushed by health,--
Changed openly, or changed by stealth,
Scaling a slippery side, and scaled it well.
The most left Love ship, hauling wealth
Up Worm ship's side;
While some few hollow-eyed
Left either for the sack-sailed boat;
But this, though not remote,
Was worst to mount, and whoso left it once
Scarce ever came again,
But seemed to loathe his erst companions,
And wish and work them bane.

Then I knew (I know not how) there lurked quicksands full of dread,
Rocks and reefs and whirlpools in the water-bed,
Whence a waterspout
Instantaneously leaped out,
Roaring as it reared its head.

Soon I spied a something dim,
Many-handed, grim,
That went flitting to and fro the first and second ship;
It puffed their sails full out
With puffs of smoky breath
From a smouldering lip,
And cleared the waterspout
Which reeled roaring round about
Threatening death.
With a ***** hand it steered,
And a horn appeared
On its sneering head upreared
Haughty and high
Against the blackening lowering sky.
With a hoof it swayed the waves;
They opened here and there,
Till I spied deep ocean graves
Full of skeletons
That were men and women once
Foul or fair;
Full of things that creep
And fester in the deep
And never breathe the clean life-nurturing air.

The third bark held aloof
From the Monster with the hoof,
Despite his urgent beck,
And fraught with guile
Abominable his smile;
Till I saw him take a flying leap on to that deck.
Then full of awe,
With these same eyes I saw
His head incredible retract its horn
Rounding like babe's new born,
While silvery phosphorescence played
About his dis-horned head.
The sneer smoothed from his lip,
He beamed blandly on the ship;
All winds sank to a moan,
All waves to a monotone
(For all these seemed his realm),
While he laid a strong caressing hand upon the helm.

Then a cry well nigh of despair
Shrieked to heaven, a clamor of desperate prayer.
The harpers harped no more,
While the trumpeters sounded sore
An alarm to wake the dead from their bed:
To the rescue, to the rescue, now or never,
To the rescue, O ye living, O ye dead,
Or no more help or hope for ever!--
The planks strained as though they must part asunder,
The masts bent as though they must dip under,
And the winds and the waves at length
Girt up their strength,
And the depths were laid bare,
And heaven flashed fire and volleyed thunder
Through the rain-choked air,
And sea and sky seemed to kiss
In the horror and the hiss
Of the whole world shuddering everywhere.

Lo! a Flyer swooping down
With wings to span the globe,
And splendor for his robe
And splendor for his crown.
He lighted on the helm with a foot of fire,
And spun the Monster overboard:
And that monstrous thing abhorred,
Gnashing with balked desire,
Wriggled like a worm infirm
Up the Worm
Of the loathly figurehead.
There he crouched and gnashed;
And his head re-horned, and gashed
From the other's grapple, dripped ****** red.

I saw that thing accurst
Wreak his worst
On the first and second crew:
Some with baited hook
He angled for and took,
Some dragged overboard in a net he threw,
Some he did to death
With hoof or horn or blasting breath.

I heard a voice of wailing
Where the ships went sailing,
A sorrowful voice prevailing
Above the sound of the sea,
Above the singers' voices,
And musical merry noises;
All songs had turned to sighing,
The light was failing,
The day was dying--
Ah me,
That such a sorrow should be!

There was sorrow on the sea and sorrow on the land
When Love ship went down by the bottomless quicksand
To its grave in the bitter wave.
There was sorrow on the sea and sorrow on the land
When Worm ship went to pieces on the rock-bound strand,
And the bitter wave was its grave.
But land and sea waxed hoary
In whiteness of a glory
Never told in story
Nor seen by mortal eye,
When the third ship crossed the bar
Where whirls and breakers are,
And steered into the splendors of the sky;
That third bark and that least
Which had never seemed to feast,
Yet kept high festival above sun and moon and star.

Glances in passing and nothingness,
I'll drop out and take up gardening.
And you are so cool, all German bred,
and sometimes braided. I see you, so
well-read and rather regal. ***** blonde
nuclear, alabaster, aluminum rods -
electricity dripping from the soles of
your shoes. This classroom, my own
ink blotted incubator, the radiator sits,
flatlining. Your jaw as two razor blades,
your shoulder blades, broad, gentle.

I wonder how you look in the morning,
How you look at yourself in the mirror.
Do you practice smiling, and
how often do you wash your hair? Oh,
you exist in glass, and I will not try to
know you. Leaving this poem limited,
and yet. Your jam drop mouth houses all
well-spoken soliloquies, radical requiems.

So, what would happen if we brushed
shoulders in passing? Your little accent.
Accident, we appeared in the same
huddled mass. Literary plugs in the
drain, and your new American. So,
why don't we just go walking on
airplane wings? Some transcontinental
affair. Frequent flyer *******, stranger.

She needs that drink to start the day
When the children play
To get away
Meetings, lunch, that **** report
The neverending stress
A drink to rest
She makes love like the dead
Her mind ahead
Major decisions racing instead
A drink to unwind
To go to bed
Tomorrow a drink to get ahead
Engagements, talks, drinks to go
The high powered girl has hit the low
Make up getting thicker now
Drink the crutch
Husband having an affair
It’s all too much
Drinks to get up
Starts to fall
Crashing down against the wall
Pulls herself up
In a daze
Looks in the mirror
In a haze
Sees a face
A slight trace
Pitiful tragic being
For the first time seeing
The ghost finally screaming
She stands up
The words would set her free
I am an alcoholic.

I wonder why I withheld it the story was overdue
Summers back I wrote for her from heart ‘I love you’

I see those days of careless time her face still girlish bright
A boy’s heart she took away left him some wakeful nights

Petals blew away with the wind that must have stolen her sight
The girl I knew once playmate she knew how to fly a kite

She frolicked around in a polka dot skirt a prancing butterfly
Babbled in joy clapped in glee as her string spread to the sky

I watched in awe her graceful hands way she pulled the string
Wrote her name many a time about love I knew nothing

A girl so cute so full of life so loving and carefree
I dipped my mind deep in her nothing else it could be

The daring girl I held in stare trapped my eyes like a star
Those afternoons would be cruelly void lifeless without her

Once alone on the wall of attic I inscribed it with my nail
No other way to relieve my mind couldn’t write her a mail

Those three words on the mossy wall for times there they stood
My heart’s outpour carved in bold if only they remained for good

Next afternoon at the rooftop to me she looked anew
My knees went weak I knew alone the mystery of ‘I love you’

None broke the lull as she pointed the wall her face red with rage
Her probing eyes rolled on the faces till they held me in their gaze

‘It cannot be you I’m sure I exclude you from suspicion’
If only she knew the little boy’s mind secrets of his emotion

A few years thence I went back to that house to see if it still was there
Those candid three words from a timid boy laying his child’s heart bare

The house was gone so was the roof in its place stood an apartment new
None would ever know the girl never knew I wrote her from heart ‘I love you’

Back to the days of my little red wagon,
I was strong and once sleighed a ******* dragon
My heart was broken over losing my toys,
Not because of cootied boys
I brewed special potions
And fought my friends in slow motion
Cuts and bruises were healed with a kiss,
This was a time full of magic and bliss