the orange glow from the fire
partially lit the man's face
catching each crack and valley in a shadow
"Gather round if you'd hear a tale"
a voice of gravel and coals
and too much moonshine
"once there was a young boy
the type of young boy,
who never leaves home
without his skinned knees,
and oh, what a boy he was
brave and good
yes once there was a boy
who was well and truly lost..."

once there was a boy
who had a thirst for adventure
that only young boys have
and there was an old forest
in his small village
ancient and mystic
possessing untold wisdom
it was said to be alive,
mothers told their children
to give it a wide berth
but some kids
just can't be told
the boy walked past the forest every day
and felt some great force
humming from deep inside
calling to him
enticing him,

One day it was too much
he packed his supplies
of bread and water
with his shoulders back
his chest puffed out
he walked on into that forest,

In the low afternoon light
the forest was pleasant
and the air stood sober, serene
shafts of light came down like spears from heaven
breaking through the clouds
and the thick forest canopy
but it was all a mirage
an oasis in the desert
and as the sun dipped below the earth
the forest began to change
and the boy stood true
foolishly thinking
that the dark is nothing to be scared of
how little he knew

The branches took on twisted new shapes
and the little demons came out to play
the wind in the trees
a groan of death
a groan of ******
the forest creek turned to ice
and the pathways all twisted
and formed circular paths
and before long
the boy was lost
now this was before telephones
and the boy was deep in the forest
he knew it was trouble for sure

Now the boy wasn't much good with directions
and he wasn't much good
at telling the time
and the canopy was so thick
that the north star was lost
but he still felt that humming
drawing him deeper into the forest
and he had no choice but to follow
so he walked
and he walked
and he walked some more
for many days
and many nights
his shoes were battered
his clothes,
***** and torn
and he grew skinny
from foraging nuts
but he climbed up hills
and crawled through thorns
and went deeper
into the forest
the humming was growing louder
with each wayward step
until it split his skull like a shriek
and he brought his palms to his temples
and carried on with a grimace
because the forest had filled the boy
with **** and grit and steel
and just when he thought he could no longer take it
he came upon a small pool
more like a natural well
of the clearest water he had ever seen
the world went quiet
only the vibrations of humming birds were heard
as the boy hunkered down over the water
and what he saw in the reflection
was strange and troubling
for it was no longer a boy
who returned his scowl
but a man
a rough man with a scraggly beard
so the boy no more
stood up,
turned around,
and went to find his home

"Now I know what you're thinking
old man you drank one too many drinks
and that's true,
my mind isn't what it used to be
but I know that forest
like an old friend
and mark my words
in the eyes of the Lord
I knew that boy once
a long time ago
and as for the man
well now he's an old man
sitting at a camp fire
telling tales to strangers
missing the adventures of boyhood
oh once there was a boy,
but no more,
no
more"

Before the Dawn Of  Agriculture men like ME where slapped into the shadow of ****** shame but now who needs muscles or chiseled chins, great size or strength, a lover’s passion or a manly countenance ‘cause  for ten thousandyears now I  can persecute any female for infidelity towards ME  and hold paternity privilege over MY biological  children  because we exceptional farmers invented marriage to  destroy human sexuality  by enslaving women with MY property for *** so I no longer need to share or compete or settle for an alpha males’ sloppy seconds within foraging groups  that are forced to share what they carry  with them instead of our  enforced legal couplings that takes the innocent, primal pleasure and mystery out of *** by connectingshtooping  to birth thanks to dirt MY dirt MY very own thousand acres of seeded soil littered with pens full of  MY trapped sheep, cattle, goats and pigs which means I can pork any female  I fancy and  destroy any man who thwarts MY desire as simply as the bulls I castrate  into submission to easily herd  into MY  slaughterhouses that feed all the inferior people no longerdependent on their hunting and gathering skills but on ME to stay alive so not only am I not considered a sociopath by hoarding food but am praised at harvest time like a ******* Babe Ruth hero because I have legally claimed and legally ***** those precious few life giving inches of topsoil with rotating crops and extended grasslands that exhausts and shrinks the earth, MY earth MY reign of  forcing agricultural workers  to bend over in the fields, stupidly exposing hairless backs to sun poisoning  instead of their protective hunters’ heads of hair  harvesting MY food that shrinks the  testicles of everyone who is forced to feed on the  cheap calories of MY  industrialized plants and animals that lowers fertility, but who needs big ***** anymore when you don’t have to **** larger animals  in order to survive or attract females with your superior physical attributes proving I am the social parasite Sultan of Swat who grows fat on the food  I’ve  seized by stealingPaleo land in the name of government protected ownership.

I live in a shoe
And before you ask me any questions
Or if this a metaphor
Or try to sell me a spot in the latest **** development
Let me assure you, I most definitely live in a shoe
It is the left shoe to be exact
Worn down and some spots extra layers of duct tape
To keep out the winter cold
And when it gets icy, I have to be careful
For if I jostle it just right, the shoe can slide a couple feet
You may ask me why, when, what and how
And this is what I will say
I used to work at a school, a crossing guard in the morning
Lunch lady in the afternoon, and chaperone seeing the children off in the afternoon
And with budget cuts, my job was the first to hit the floor
And so was my pension
My retirement was limited and with no health care
It was impossible to see a doctor for my growing aches and pain
And I was left with nothing, until I came across this shoe
Abandoned and tattered, I took to fancying it up
Scrubbing it out, making it into a home
It took me a winter or two to get the insulation right
And the city has all but forgotten this area
So for now, I am safe
Before the corporate giants clamor over the countryside
Pulling up homes like weeds so they can plant their boxed in communities
I am okay in my little spot
Not long the runaways found me
In school the children always ran to me for safety, and now
Their children have found me, these lost children
We are a little family of misfits, foraging off the land
Keeping each other safe
In a world that doesn’t even care if we are alive

In the morning, I gather my thoughts of yesterday
Like the foraging chipmunk, collecting acorns
And stuffing them miserly in my jowls
The past is sustenance for a somnolent soul

As age condemns my faculties
I pull, from my once copious jowl
A jewel of sorts
A garnet set in fool’s gold

My memory is manufactured
Assembled and disassembled
No longer what was or is or will be
But was and is and never has been

I confine my thoughts to winter
Where barren fields and sterile trees
Offer less to recollect
And empty my jaws of these useless reminiscences

Progress
by Michael R. Burch

There is no sense of urgency
at the local Burger King.

Birds and squirrels squabble outside
for the last scraps of autumn:
remnants of buns,
goopy pulps of dill pickles,
mucousy lettuce,
sesame seeds.

Inside, the workers all move
with the same très-glamorous lethargy,
conserving their energy, one assumes,
for more pressing endeavors: concerts and proms,
pep rallies, keg parties,
reruns of Jenny McCarthy on MTV.

The manager, as usual, is on the phone,
talking to her boyfriend.
She gently smiles,
brushing back wisps of insouciant hair,
ready for the cover of Glamour or Vogue.

Through her filmy white blouse
an indiscreet strap
suspends a lace cup
through which somehow the ****** still shows.
Progress, we guess, ...

and wait patiently in line,
hoping the Pokémons hold out.

NOTE: This poem is almost entirely fiction. There was a Pokemon craze when my son Jeremy was a little boy, and I did see birds and squirrels foraging in parking lots from time to time (and sometimes fed them myself from my car’s window), but everything else is fiction. On the rare occasions that I went to a Burger King, I would go through the drive-in, so I wouldn’t have known who the manager was, or how much time he/she spent on the phone. I think the poem probably started with the image of birds and squirrels squabbling for scraps of food in a parking lot as I waited in a line of slow-moving cars, then evolved as I imagined the hassle of going inside to “speed things up.” Keywords/Tags: America, Americana, American, culture, society, vanity, youth, progress, fast food, video games, Pokemon, MTV, music videos, glamour, models, supermodels, fashion, transparency, see-through, bra, breast, *******

for Onorio Zaralli

Wherever we look, my friend,

we see children at play.
and children in school .
     We see children in triumph
     and children at risk.
  
We see mothers at work
or lost in thought.
     We see mothers on the edge -
     survivors striving for a rainbow.

We see aged ones,
proud of their grand-kin's deeds
      and of marks they have etched
      on the universal ledger.
      
We are our forefathers and sons,
granddaughters and mothers,
     foraging our way through chaos -
     searching for the best map home.

So we hone our skills
and practice our trades
     to harvest our daily portions
     and navigate the tides of time.

Whoever we are today,
wherever we might wander.
      we are our only hope for a better day
      the only “us” we can cherish.

Lost in dreams, my eyes gently close
hoping for a well-marked path to follow
     paved with respect, compassion and justice
     where we may all walk together in harmony.

© 2019 by Robert Charles Howard

I know this space, and in that knowing, a creature was born, strange and shining. It is yours and it is not yours. It is mine and not mine.
I know these people, the ones who have come and will come, the ones who seek to remember.
You will not find another so easily, for the bow I wield was shaped by violence, cut from the tree, carved deep with courage, survival, longing, seeking, beauty. I have always been the first to raise my hand, the firstborn, first to fail, first to leap toward faith. You will not be able to pick it up, this now, for it was made for my hand alone. Yours is waiting, still.
I know these women. We became girls again, building forts, hiding, finding, cutting trails through the wilds, through our shared heartbreak, picking berries, laughing, crying.
I know this lovely thing which moves and grows, foraging on the unknown. This thing, you do not understand, but there is no need for you to understand, stop trying.
You are the farmer’s hand, worn by time and practice. You bring water, decide where to prune and let wither; decide where to graft and where to plant the next crop.
Do not forget. This is a place of remembering. You need not understand it to feed it, to make way for it, to love it as we do.  Do not dismiss it. It will not be diminished by disbelief.
You need not understand to see it’s power and its purpose.

My time machine whirled and stuttered
as I left today behind -
setting my course for yesterday
questing clues to the ultimate mystery.

I swooped down at the hour of my birth
to gaze through the glass at Wyandotte General
where mother’s exhausted smile
eased my empathetic dread.

      The long journey was underway.

Steering my vessel back in time
I soared across the Atlantic -
high above the tall ships bearing
my ancestors to unimagined destinies.

      A giant leap to be sure,
      but the minutest turn of the wheel.  

I wondered how my people
had evaded the claws
of Europe’s wretched plagues
and homicidal pretenders
brandishing swords and chalices.

I wondered and watched with sorrow as
empires flourished and vanished.

The hypnotic rhythm
of first and final breaths
wearied my soul
as life's relentless cycle
spiraled back to antiquity.

The breath of prophets
drifted over hills and rivers,
past fields, flocks and shepherds.

      But there was still
      no glimpse of a beginning.

My forebears' footfalls
led me back from Europe
to the tangles of tropical Africa
to record our first words
in a course and extinct tongue.

In wonder, I witnessed
our first cautious bipedal steps
10,000 generations ago
by the light of new found fires
dotting the evening campgrounds.

      I slipped my vessel back in gear
      and fed it some fuel;
      for I still had eons to go.

And I saw bands of ancient cousins
foraging woods and glades -
fur - covered on all fours:
eyes scouring the earthscape
in search of higher paths.

I waited patiently on the beach
as waves lapped the shore.
for mega-great grandmother
to crawl from the sea
and drink oxygen fresh from the sky.

      Though she was first on land
      my destination was not yet in sight.

My craft passed beneath clouds
over vast and restless waters
where countless ocean denizens
fed and multiplied.

The numbers of species diminished
with each millennium traveled -
bringing me closer to the source
and the sea was a lonelier
and more desolate expanse.

DNA strands shortened.
our precursors losing
organs and motility.
Minute sea creatures,
buffeted by the shifting currents,
had but a few cells

and then -

one.

      Three and a half billion years from home,      
      I waited silently at the threshold.

Hovering over the turbulence  
of an oceanic storm
buffeted by cyclonic gusts,
I peered into the darkness.
a sudden flash broke the surface
and a cluster of amino acids
began to assemble, vibrate and divide.

The tingling beneath my skin
told me I had arrived at last
at my primordial self,
rocking gently
in the dark fertile folds
of the vast and inscrutable sea.

*August,  2007

you learn it the hard way, you actually can drink warm shots of *****,  provided,  you have a brisk, Icelandic chaser, notably white European Bison *****, and apple juice infused with mint...

pije, pali, konia wali...

it has been agreed, a drunk man is half
the miserable sight of a woman...
no wonder a woman *******
is more appealing than a man,
who shines.., like Louis XIV,
******* in a lightbulb...
            ha ha... ******* want *******...
and there I was, thinking that
bottle of alcohol also ought to have
warnings about any *******,
other than oral with a pregnant woman...
wonder... does alcohol really harm
foetuses, or does the constant banging
of a cockrel do more harm than
awaiting sunrise good?

hence the question, i don't know.

pije, pali, konia wali...

as a drinker, in company?
i can have a social drink,
my grandmother had a nostalgic
hallucination of a taste that
provoke memory, so I bought her
a porter beer...
and we drank it together...
książęce: aromas of honey,
coffee, rührkuchen und
bitterschokolade...

grandfather simply replied:

koniec świata;

now the IVF part quest for ****** chills...
citation granny, is no citation
worthy of the urban lawyer,
frozen egg + spe4m donor factory...
the part where I'm cited as "******"...
urban mongrels contra
                  rural pedigrees.

pije, pali, konia wali...

there are but three ways to clear the head
before the excavation of a blank
page... rarely it involves addressing a delayed
slightly constipated dump...
but sometimes it does...

pije, pali, konia wali...

           then it also takes doing no.
1, no. 2 (as mentioned above)...
and no. 3...
                 i have no idea where ****
additiction comes from...
i'm more of a claccisist in this field...
moving pictures do not really
stimulate the mind to work off
a stattic picture...
    if you never did no. 3 i. e.
****** off on the toilet...
                 because you never bought
a ***** mag with your casual take
on the metaphor of smithfield market...
or you've never been,
driving to it at 1am in the morning...
coming back with half a porky corpse...

pije, pali, konia wali...

I think people are confusing objectivity
with ***** subjectivity...
like any clean cut of a scalpel...
or like eating a soft boiled egg...
you crack the shell, leaving the papist
yolk, intact...

pije, pali, konia wali...  

at leat objectifying a woman
does not subject her to the cring worthy
labyrinths of emotional men,
or whatever the hell cheating is...
   or juggling...
        ****** off at fine art,
only once did I bother to explore
the ****** extension of latex...
a kinda of bedroom niqab fetish...
but most of the time...
static images, blood down below,
paths of imagination in the head...
not to mention that ***-mad mongrel
that **** my leg...
luckily I didn't kick him,
but politely asked... are you finished,
and ready, to hunt a mare?

pije, pali, konia wali...

******* what?!
   classical *******...
whatever happened to the tabloid
page 3?
   apparently men with recoding hairlines
have more testosterone...
apparently watching a woman's breast
releases, whether dopamine
serotonin, or... as the cigarette quote
goes... Oscar Wilde?
    the most pristine five minutes,
that leaves one (mm  hmm...
a royal pronoun,  both singular,
and plural, for a pleb that's minus
the entourage of leeches...
mind you... why not the common
slang of sycophancy in syco...
that Y... not tree not serpent splits...
hollowed out... to differentiate
from the other,  crude grafitti of
******pathy, shortening)
    most disatisfied...

pije, pali, konia wali...

perhaps j. c. is the king of kings,
but i sit on the, throne of thrones...
no. 1, 2 and 3...
    no scented candles,
no... god... cursed the theistic joke...
a woman has to *** squatting...
a man just stands...
than again: bigger bladders?
*******, easing analysis muscles,
jerking off to static nudes...
how is it on the other side?
moods, scented candles, lying back...
literature that ought to be
read with one hand?
        d'uh and the *****...
sure... g. i. Joe of a boy aged 8
when Barbie burned in th stash...
out comes Ken 2.0...

pije, pali, konia wali...

easier for a man to stomach a hand
as if it were done ****...
than explore beyond the floral pouch...
than... getting a manicure...
and... not using the Vizzz...
the Vizier... hardly a comparison to
encapsulating... snoring...

i always ask the intrigued relic of
dating... so... you want to hold
my hand, or is male maturation
so grotesque that it has no...
voyeuristic appeal?
   well... thank **** for that!
with my little finger I served
poached, a former hydra behemoth...

the knowledge of, good and evil...
                                                X
which isn't exactly a mistery of +...
   the conjunction translates as X,
cross-eyed... not +...

pije, pali, konia wali...

                      it's easier calling it
the no. 3, considering how...
sitting on the throne, apparently
masages the prostate...
hence the stigma it would seem...
no scented candles...
no grand whizz of faking headache
and snoring of excavating dodos...

pije, pali, konia wali...
    
ah... back into the syco contra
****** and the hollowed out
Y question...
                         σý-co...

         'sigh-co...

hence not so much the hollowed-out
Y... but rather, akin to gnome gnostics...
the particular instance of
surd letters,
not being clothed in surd attire...
     elsewhere diagnostic...
otherwise in the already given example:
   'nome...         'nostics...

yes, i know, the borderline 'sigh-co...
psst... as happens, when letters
ignoring greco-semite
        stubbornness,
remain syllable amputees looking
for torsos of words....
magnetised limbs mechanic...
letters primitive, bound to syllables...
not the greco-semitic
construct of names...
       shortcuts with the NATO
alphabet is the curse of 15...
   a ******* worth of a telephone
conversation will not craft
an originality of either Aleph,
Omicron, Ayin, or Omega...

       may i remin you the greco-semitic
stubborn ram... ploughing
constants in science?
aha! ****** music thought...
no one really heard of
rotting christ or
         mícháel greilsammer...
last of the Roman sons...
sang arias of castratos!

pije, pali, konia wali...

     finally! ad the title implies...
what's the diffrence between
a man buying shoes,
and a woman buying shoes?
probably the packaging,
or more to the point...
a man walks into a shoe shop
wearing old shoes...
he buys a new pair,
buys them, puts them on,
packs his old pair into
the newly bought pair's shoebox...
and walks out with
his new: economic sketch
and the concept of recycling...
primarily because i've never seen
a woman buy a pair of shoes,
and walk out of a shop
wearing them...
   not once....
      and thank **** it rained hail
and razor rain today,
after post-noon greenhouse
suffocating toffee sun...
and the sky was painted a continental
grey & plum as the earth gave
its first, authentic breath of spring...
not once, have i seen a woman
buy shoes... and walk out
in them, putting the ones she
wore walking into the shop,
among the moosehead trophies,
skinned furrs,
and her, other,
      hunting expedition catches...
into the insomnia and iron
forest, of foraging for sales.

thank **** i had an existential
****** looking at me,
as I put the newly purchased shoes
onto my feet, and the old shoes
into a carrier bag...
    in those rare instances,
as true as: mould the iron while
it's lukewarm...
          come to think of it...
this is french existentialism
in the open... unable to encompass
a voyeurism with a guilt
of a peepingtom or Cambridge Analitica...
pure existential voyeurism...
guised Edenic...
     out in the open...
       bound to the habits of
man shopping, for shoes...
                 rather than a woman...

hell, hades and the high-water mark
of a tide...
      
     (he) drinks, (he) smokes,
   (he) smacks the monkey...

     if you didn't know, already.

beautiful blackbirds
ebony adorned from head to foot
camouflaged for stealth
in shadows and night time sky
sleek sateenic sheen
iridescence of well oiled machine
efficient avian predators
ruthless in their call
attacking nested eggs and fledglings
with never ending caw
boldly bantering by day
foraging in parks, parking lots, streets and alleys
searching for food with eerie, ethereal, slow motion hops
seemingly phasing, at will, out of sync with time
ancient spirit travelers to another plane
they watch the world with weary eyes
spying and recording the day’s events
atop skies, trees and telephone lines
then whispering into the ears
of gods and poets and cornfields

Can this be the time once more
Of utter giving up of our control
The simple folliwing of commercial madness
Our desire for the day when food and wine
Have to be gathered about us like the defences of yore
Headlong we run from mid-summer until
We are exhausted in body, spirit or credit
The desperate worry of what to buy whom
Or when to order the especially fattened bird for your table
The ridiculous overspending on presents
When time could be the finest present you could give

Yule tide is a special period for Druids and all pagans alike,
The wonder of simplicity of reflection of our past year
The elements of sleep as mother earth regenerates herself
Resting often under the warmth of a blanket of snow
Gathering of families and loved ones
Blessings of the solstice as the wheel of the year turns
Once more into the light as the sun begins it's journey
Returning to the northern hemisphere
Our birds and native animals preparing for the winter
Storing their food, digging deep as they look for vitals

Likewise the land is resting,
The soil teems with dormant life, every insect and worm
Every root, form and bulb
Slowing right down as the degrees fall to freezing
The frosty and rime ridden mornings giving the flora
A lift of white dusting and sparkling light reflecting
The weak, beautiful winter sun
Heaves itself onto the low glancing position
Just making it to the tree tops before retiring once more to sleep
Leaving glorious swathes of orange and red
Painting the sky as it falls and rises.

Yule tide comes as all seasons, times and periods
But once a year in our short lives
The earthy sounds, the images and emotion
The smell of the newly fallen snow and woodsmoke
The foraging birds and squirrels
The warbling and tuneful song of the blackbird
And the tut tut of Mr Robin resplendent in his
Bright red waistcoat bobbing around in the crisp frost
Our lifetime of Yules is a wonder to enjoy,
I know as I look from my window where my heart is
As the distant tree bare in it's winter shroud speaks
To me as a friend and anchor within this beautiful planet.

Wednesday morning I woke up from my first night sleeping in the camper, and  I had that  disjointed feeling that comes from unfamiliarity.  I recognized  the interior of the camper, so that was not what was  triggering that closed in feeling that enveloped me, not claustrophobic really, it was more: comforting.  It is hard to put into words that kind of feeling, but as I am supposed to be an aspiring writer ......It would seem to be my responsibility to do so,,  or at least try.
    So as I lay there cradling the warm afterglow of a satisfying night of slumber and with pleasant dreams of…I’m hungry ! I suddenly thought to myself.  No! Actually I am starving, and just one look down at Stormy , lying on the floor and staring at me and  it was more than obvious that he too was hungry..
    “Okay, boy, I know.  I hear you..”
     “All we ate last night was those Fritos wasn’t it?”Stormy just stared at me with those big brown, expectant and hungry eyes..
   “ Sorry boy !  I am new at this.”  I said as I was just  realizing that I was fully clothed, This fact reminded me that I had come into the camper cruiser nine hours earlier, intending to fix me some food, had seen the bed laid out , done while setting up camp hours earlier, so I decided to see how comfortable it could possibly be .
    I remember laying down and  saying to myself, “  this ain’t too bad.”  Looking down at Stormy -closing my eyes- and well , here I am, nine hours later,  starving and being stared at by Stormy .
    .  6:30 AM Wednesday morning- and both of us starving  .   "Man!   Talk about exhaustion.!" I said to the world at large .
    “Just hang in there for a few minutes more  and we  will both have bacon and eggs today....  Okay?”
To which stormy happily  wagged  the whole rear half  of himself in undying gratitude.
     After breakfast I had a cup of coffee in my hands, and a buzz in my head as I sat down in the lawn lounge thingy ( It had even come with the camper) and watched the other people  go about their morning..
     Was this my story--the ever evolving story  of… Come on dude!  I chastised myself,  this is not your mission, to write about camping spots,  and the ever evolving state of one parking spot that                they are occupying.   .  But as I was beginning to slowly realize  ; my story , just might be more elusive than I  had taken time to consider.
      I glanced down at storm to see if he had any insight, an opinion of some great revelation for me,  but he was in his own world; lying there beside me and watching with rapt interest the antics of a pair of foraging gray squirrels as they skipped and be bopped among the branches of a huge white oak;   wherein  Stormy, unlike myself,  saw the big picture,,  all the story he needed was playing out in the branches of that tree.  This tree was his tree ……of life..!
    “Crazy little buggers   ain’t they boy?”  I remarked to him as I rubbed his head and neck , taking away a few precious seconds of his squirrel watching while he looked around me before returning his gaze back to the  acrobatics  of the little be boppers of the tree..  I went back to watching my new neighbors,  for in a sense-that is exactly what this is . Nt much  different from  the cul-de-sac.  I grew up on. ..  With one exception-vital as it is . I mean  that I only have  the imaginary view of these people , not  the  reality  that I had with… But then, I reassess my thought,,  reorganize my pattern as I remember that morning  .
     That crazy day with all the police  and ambulances suddenly appearing in the street..  All the neighbors  having  been bunched up  in curious knots to wonder what was happening at the Angleton’s.
   Like wind swept fire  to a field of tall grass, the rumors began spreading through  the street.
   “He killed her!”  Someone remarked abstractly..
    “Who?”  They all asked in comatose reality.
    “George Angleton” they said, “he killed his wife  and then he killed himself--I think”
    “Whyyyyy?”  They   bleated .
    “Do not know-I heard they had financial problems,  maybe that was it.”  They quoted equivocally.
    “There was always something funny about them.”  The little man said   fumbling the ball
   “Who?”  They all questioned again.
    “Angleton’s…  It was strange, I wouldn’t  let my kids go up there  on Halloween.. and that time he gave all comic books!”  The little man said with an air of superiority.
   “   Why is that?”  They argued in question.
     “You asked me he was trying to lure them kids in.”  He blundered and fell
    “You are nuts!  He was a sweet old man… It had to be… financial”  they persisted..
     “Say what you want-  but I know what I know-and he was weird.”  The little man overstated.
    “You did not even live around here.  That year he gave out comic books-did you?”   Somebody pointed out aggressively.
      “Well.... no,,” the little man sputtered,, “bububut I heard about it..”   The little man  beleaguered now     “So you never even met George!”   Someone accused  ..
     “Not personally; but all  the…” The little man started.
      “Get the hell away from me little man.” the whole crowd expressed in screaming silent looks .

A fellow bear crossed my path
several times that day

Yellow neon struck the cowardice
and the coffee shop as the sand,
grey of cloud night began to fall.

There were two women
and one was exhaling mist
as she smiled and said,
‘you’re on the merry-go-round,
be careful not to fall off.’

Complex formed cracked cobble slabs
feet tip tap splashed,
floating on the water and the air.
Red eyed in the green smoke, sleepless,
growing resent with the man
obsessed with destruction of the dream.

Scattered bears tight between tall towers
closed together by the mortar
a noise from us will scare.
There are not many of us left now.

The last fish of the night briefly shared,
climbing mountain steps to wooden cave.
The laughter on the way, do not forget me!

When the snow season chill draws closer
and the people light the sun;
they wander alone, foraging and fishing.

For the bear to commune
is a difficult thing,
you must listen to them roar
if you ask them to sing!

The bears they are a quiet folk.
and it's best they use a pen.

The cold wind swirls and blows
                                       on the now deserted farmers field
A snow flake falls from the deep dark grey clouds
                                     that now covers the once blue golden sky
On the nose of the white winter hare
                                     as he sits watching
His noise twitches the snow flake to the ground

A blanket of white winter snow now fills the field
                              
A Robin darts from tree to tree
                                    foraging for the last red winter berries
Which colour the ruby red Robins’ breast

A sly white winter fox stirs in the undergrowth
                                    Looking
Then disappears into the white winter field

A tear falls from the white winter hare
                                  that melts a hole the white winter snow
As he retreats into his winter sleep

He started out by telling stories about his childhood
All of us crowded around him
Our mouths caught open wide with wonder
When he recited heroic tales of dragons and fire
Adolescent eyes as round as saucers
The smell of starry nights and wild fire permeated
A cabin built by his calloused hands casting shadows at sundown
Bears always came out at night
We could hear them outside of our tents foraging
He would leave them crisp apples, sharp teeth crunching
Soon our deep breaths mingled with crickets
The whole valley asleep and quiet beneath us
As we dreamt of bean talks and Grandad's guarding sword

Depth without Labels

The world is changing, ever so vividly described in my subconscious but it's encoding cannot be retrieved; an alternate state that cannot be retrieved; a side of me that cannot be retrieved.

The skies above are blending in with my mind and I am uplifted into the heavens and past the atmosphere, stratosphere, troposphere, mesosphere.... Conscious-sphere.

Layers of my mind, layers of my mind....

Time has stopped in my mind as I await an answer in my heart....Data cannot be retrieved; emotion void and null, noxious pain in my heart -A blood-stained memory is it's root.

Encompassing consolidated eons in my own era, I await a Golden Age where my mind has eliminated threats that are non-existent and yet present in a ghostly form; vestiges.

Blind to the heart of a matter, that strength is derived from, that a solution is obtained through emotional fervency symbolized through reckless flecks, careless mistakes, vivid flaws imprinted on an innocent canvas.

Phantasmagoria; pain is red, emotion blue, and yet contradictions are intertwined; these elements are one in the same.

Pyroclastic eruptions upwards, icebergs falling down from the sky, these elements are headed towards a collision and then ecstasy will cease.... But why....?

Elements of darkness course through my veins; I've been infected by the demons of an unforgotten past.

Foraging for bloodshed, they indulge in another's pain; they hunt for an abscess so they can bite their way in.

My soul is an anomaly that ***** everything in; words have been internalized; an omen is set in my heart.

Pushed six feet under with nails in my wrists, I experience a painful memory and I fear that I might die…….

"Why, oh why? Why, oh why?"

"You've wounded me!".... A death; a wish; a hope.... Life.

For a while I am undead as I roam about in pain, I observe all of the living with a glimmer in their eyes.

Feeling unworthy of prayer, I wish for virtue instead and that the sun will be over the horizon to gaze upon it in peace.

In that day undead vessels will be dissolved, then a vessel of sanctity will arise to take that vessel's place....

A star falls from the heavens and shines iridescent lights; "How will I survive in a world that is so full of hate!?"

Thoughts within me are changing, instead of data I finally feel; a deity lurks within me and artificiality is no more.

Evaluations can be scourging, but my skin is growing back; no longer is it evil, but divinity that courses through my veins.

Butterflies are embracing a warm and airy heart; my shackles have been broken and my love is here instead.

Blessings will ravage those demons then their identities will be revealed; no longer will their hunts be fruitful and they will have to replot their course.

What is my future? Eventualities will never cease; time will be everlasting and passion will be it's core.

My soul is efflorescing, and in time it will be revealed, that The Crag will be my Shelter and it's rivers will be my Shield.

                            To The Demons of An Unforgotten Past,

                                     *By Sanders M. Foulke III

The sun falls faster and the colour of the leaves I'm drawn to,
No longer am I longing for that lawn dew.
Gotta fight the cold, feel I need to wrap up warm too
As the season turns it's something that I can't warm to.

I see the squirrel foraging within the leaves,
What lies for him fills me with jealousy,
Because once his work is done,
He gets to sleep and just like the sun
We won't see him for several weeks.

Theres something I, just can't put my finger on,
Theres something that burns within
Me which lingers on,
It's as black as the winter clouds
I stop, think and look around
Has anybody else been veiled with this shroud?

Of course, smiling faces, festivities are near,
I can't face it, wake me when Easter's here,
When the sun goes, so does my soul,
Burns me up like Nich's coal,
Winters drawn and I can't go on.

Maybe it's in my breed, when I start the freeze,
My body starts to cease so I need to sleep
Within the winter leaves,
Just wake me please in 28 weeks,
Jeez!

The pain in my chest, it's all too much,
Had since I was 12 and nothing has changed
Its strange, I go blue and slow,
Before we get the snow,
And when we get that very first light
My body start to excite.

Sun worshipper - no I'm not,
I'm guessing its my body clock
No matter how I try to fight it off,
Its a feeling, I just cannot stop,
On the other hand the feeling can't be topped.

Maybe I'm like the birds, the bears and the lot,
Work hard all season now need this winter break,
To reset my brain, to enable me to carry on,
Just ring me when spring has sprung.

Watched over by magnificent ancient trees
though perfectly placed to capture the sun
surrounded by walls of multi coloured ivy’s
there lies a paradise second to none.
Bright vivid colours, shades and hues
only add to the general splendour
yellows, pinks, oranges, reds and blues
colours any artist would be challenged to render.
There are lilies, marigolds, roses and petunias
creepers and climbers racing down and up
geraniums, pansies, lavenders and begonias
grass peppered with daisies and buttercups.  
All day butterflies, wasps and bumble bees
work tirelessly alongside one another
relentlessly searching for flowers that please
flitting constantly from one to the other.
A wide variety of flowers, plants and shrubs
burst forth from hanging baskets, flower beds and tubs
providing shelter thus becoming teeming hubs
full of worms and snails, insects and grubs.
Birds rear young nesting in trees and bushes
foraging for food amongst the growing throng
blackbirds, finches, pigeons wrens and thrushes
together creating truly melodic birdsong.
A place that transforms long after night fall
when nocturnal creatures have hunting to do
field mice and hedgehogs from the undergrowth crawl
while the odd wary fox occasionally passes through.
Alas for many the garden becomes just another chore
far too busy to see it can offer so much more
never making the most of the opportunity to see
what a wondrous, thriving paradise a garden can be.

Sometimes i wish life could be easier:

i wish that i could live in a cabin in the moutons of Austria,
where snow blocks all the roads,

and the only company i have are deer and birds maybe the odd bear,
i wish for peace and tranquility,
for a time where everything just stops moving so fast.

i wish for a place where even the most mundane jobs take hours,
like chopping wood for the stove,
hunting for food,
foraging for sweet berries,
making everything yourself,

i wish for a time where i can just be at rest and not worry about coming back to this life that i live.

Death is a ******
who never misses.
He stalks us all,
calmly awaiting
the proper moment,
takes perfect aim, fires,
and thinks we are gone.
Looking anxiously
over your shoulder
will not avail.
Death is patience incarnate.
He is a gatherer,
ceaselessly collecting,
eternally foraging,
and when he finds us
he slips us into his bag
and thinks we are gone.
Death is a messenger
delivering the telegram
that says our time is up.
He reads it to us
and thinks we are gone.
Death is a conductor
who calls a stop,
sees us off the train
and thinks we are gone.

But death is mistaken.

Death is certain,
but it is not final.
The world we touched
is changed forever
by our journey in it,
however brief or long.
Something of us remains
in a child, a garden,
a painting, a poem,
a kiss, a caress,
a gasping ******.
Our hearts stop beating,
but breath does not depart.
It floats in clouds
of atoms that we were.
Those we leave behind
have only to inhale
and once again
we are with them,
and within them.
Bodies die; love never does.
Each life, sacred and eternal,
inspires Creation.
We are never truly gone.

Setting: Black and white landscape, grayscale populace. Dull droning frequency progressively inaudible, machine type quartz operated movement from birds eye view.                •••••••• READ•THE•MESSAGE••••••••

Way -  too - much.

You're not spending enough.
You need a car like this.
You don't look like them.

Next Setting: The brain. Synapses and dendrites/stalactites and stalagmites.

••••••••IN•ANOTHER•PLACE••••••••

Reading angels write hymns of summer sight, snowflake moonlight; life to no end, broken door still shut with moist eyes and dry lips. Sing to me from fallen skies and invade my prison mind.

Fever clutch shadow craving collapsed oxygen bandages soaked red with blood and organized by decomposition rate.

Capsized ship sunk mentality, leveled from the tarnished mirror. Scoop hand down for packaging cassette tapes neatly. No kneel working while busy foraging the soft shore for answers to the newer questions yesterday. Grains and globular surface melting molten and traveling through the path of least resistance.

••••••••OLD•NEWS•NEW•ESCAPE••••••••

Commence the countdown!

8/11/2016

i want something electric, so vivid and blinding that it leaves an imprint in my vision like walking into a dark room after being in the sun
i want passion so rare it leaves me foraging for whatever's left of me by the time you're gone
i want to speed down the coastline [evolved yet unchanged]
i don't know how to unglue myself from what you are
maybe i'll keep giving into the callousness in my heart that's been growing like a cancer since the first betrayal
you've used those lines before
they're carved in me with lingering pains that things are an illusion and i'm here to boost your ego
i've played this game long enough to know who the bad guys are
but what if i'm the bad guy for escaping something stable and unwavering
for a toxic replacement
[albeit you're pretty easy on the eyes]
teeter-tottering between saying something and actually doing it
my soul on a string like a tether ball where the players are you versus everyone else
and you say one thing
one tiny, insincere affirmation
my mind goes around the pole in circles until it's completely wrapped around the edges the way you have me singled around your rough fingers
creating knots out of my insides
yet all of your red flags fly violently
so i swing the other direction
loosening at the peak before you come back around and hold me like a child again
a vicious cycle
dangling a dangerous scenario in front of me like an animal eyeing food until it's clawing at your leg to rip it from your hands with their bare teeth
even in my fair share of evenings i was better off not having, you're miles ahead
pretending to be big kids an adult's world
and my mind goes miles a minute at the thoughts
you're not helping slow it down
you are no more an animal than i

Discovered I forgot to post this on HP

Mar 25. 2010

Tony Boy – Chapter 2
A few weeks ago Tony was standing in the door way and said, “Grandpa?: Yes. “Grandpas need grandkids so they won’t get bored.” He is correct in that assumption since there is not a day that some surprise doesn’t pop up. I won’t be dying from boredom any time soon. I have been retired three years now and boredom is not a problem.

We were checking out at Target the other day and the checker and Tony was having a great conversation. As we were leaving, he turned around and said to the checker, “You are missing a tooth. You know that if you put it under your pillow, you can get some money for it from the tooth fairy.” The checker and the people in line were having a chuckle. Me, I laughed all the way to the car. When we got in the car he was questioning me as to why I was laughing. Oh, I just saw something funny.

Today (03/17/2010) we were in Costco foraging about 2:30. It is a great way to pass some time together. The food tables were set up and we had hit the ravioli stuff a couple of times already. The lady running it said one time she had noticed us coming in since he was in a stroller. Anyway, Tony headed back to get another sample and she was talking to a friend. As I rounded the corner Tony was talking to the friend. She was asking him how old he was. “Four.” At which she said, “You are smarter than my 15 year old.”

Tony is 5 today (3/24) A lot of people know his name. Me? Oh I am just Tony’s grandpa. A few weeks back we were in Sears to visit one of his many “friends”. Tammie was not available at the moment and we were wandering around looking at TVs. A fellow was down on his knees putting together a new display. Tony walked up to him and ask, “Do you know what you are doing?” The guy looked rather surprised and then the two got into a discussion of what tools to use. Tony told him about all the tools he has and what should be used on the job. Along came the usual question people ask Tony. “How old are you?” “I am four.” I heard the guy telling some of his fellow workers about being ask if he know what he was doing. They all had a good laugh together. We found Tammie and Tony got picked up and a BIG hug. Most of the people working in the electronics and appliance department know all about the little boy named Tony Boy. It is interesting to see their faces light up when Tony comes around the corner.