god gloats upon Her stunning flesh. Upon
the rechings of Her green body among
unseen things, things obscene (Whose fingers young

the caving ages curiously con)

—but the lunge of Her hunger softly flung
over the gasping shores
                          leaves his smile wan,
and his blood stopped hears in the frail anon

the shovings and the lovings of Her tongue.

god Is The Sea.  All terrors of his being
quake before this its hideous Work most old
Whose battening gesture prophecies a freeing

of ghostly chaos
                    in this dangerous night
through moaned space god worships God—
                                                (behold!
where chaste stars writhe captured in brightening fright)

I

He did not wear his scarlet coat,
  For blood and wine are red,
And blood and wine were on his hands
  When they found him with the dead,
The poor dead woman whom he loved,
  And murdered in her bed.

He walked amongst the Trial Men
  In a suit of shabby grey;
A cricket cap was on his head,
  And his step seemed light and gay;
But I never saw a man who looked
  So wistfully at the day.

I never saw a man who looked
  With such a wistful eye
Upon that little tent of blue
  Which prisoners call the sky,
And at every drifting cloud that went
  With sails of silver by.

I walked, with other souls in pain,
  Within another ring,
And was wondering if the man had done
  A great or little thing,
When a voice behind me whispered low,
  “That fellows got to swing.”

Dear Christ! the very prison walls
  Suddenly seemed to reel,
And the sky above my head became
  Like a casque of scorching steel;
And, though I was a soul in pain,
  My pain I could not feel.

I only knew what hunted thought
  Quickened his step, and why
He looked upon the garish day
  With such a wistful eye;
The man had killed the thing he loved
  And so he had to die.

Yet each man kills the thing he loves
  By each let this be heard,
Some do it with a bitter look,
  Some with a flattering word,
The coward does it with a kiss,
  The brave man with a sword!

Some **** their love when they are young,
  And some when they are old;
Some strangle with the hands of Lust,
  Some with the hands of Gold:
The kindest use a knife, because
  The dead so soon grow cold.

Some love too little, some too long,
  Some sell, and others buy;
Some do the deed with many tears,
  And some without a sigh:
For each man kills the thing he loves,
  Yet each man does not die.

He does not die a death of shame
  On a day of dark disgrace,
Nor have a noose about his neck,
  Nor a cloth upon his face,
Nor drop feet foremost through the floor
  Into an empty place

He does not sit with silent men
  Who watch him night and day;
Who watch him when he tries to weep,
  And when he tries to pray;
Who watch him lest himself should rob
  The prison of its prey.

He does not wake at dawn to see
  Dread figures throng his room,
The shivering Chaplain robed in white,
  The Sheriff stern with gloom,
And the Governor all in shiny black,
  With the yellow face of Doom.

He does not rise in piteous haste
  To put on convict-clothes,
While some coarse-mouthed Doctor gloats, and notes
  Each new and nerve-twitched pose,
******* a watch whose little ticks
  Are like horrible hammer-blows.

He does not know that sickening thirst
  That sands one’s throat, before
The hangman with his gardener’s gloves
  Slips through the padded door,
And binds one with three leathern thongs,
  That the throat may thirst no more.

He does not bend his head to hear
  The Burial Office read,
Nor, while the terror of his soul
  Tells him he is not dead,
Cross his own coffin, as he moves
  Into the hideous shed.

He does not stare upon the air
  Through a little roof of glass;
He does not pray with lips of clay
  For his agony to pass;
Nor feel upon his shuddering cheek
  The kiss of Caiaphas.


II

Six weeks our guardsman walked the yard,
  In a suit of shabby grey:
His cricket cap was on his head,
  And his step seemed light and gay,
But I never saw a man who looked
  So wistfully at the day.

I never saw a man who looked
  With such a wistful eye
Upon that little tent of blue
  Which prisoners call the sky,
And at every wandering cloud that trailed
  Its raveled fleeces by.

He did not wring his hands, as do
  Those witless men who dare
To try to rear the changeling Hope
  In the cave of black Despair:
He only looked upon the sun,
  And drank the morning air.

He did not wring his hands nor weep,
  Nor did he peek or pine,
But he drank the air as though it held
  Some healthful anodyne;
With open mouth he drank the sun
  As though it had been wine!

And I and all the souls in pain,
  Who tramped the other ring,
Forgot if we ourselves had done
  A great or little thing,
And watched with gaze of dull amaze
  The man who had to swing.

And strange it was to see him pass
  With a step so light and gay,
And strange it was to see him look
  So wistfully at the day,
And strange it was to think that he
  Had such a debt to pay.

For oak and elm have pleasant leaves
  That in the spring-time shoot:
But grim to see is the gallows-tree,
  With its adder-bitten root,
And, green or dry, a man must die
  Before it bears its fruit!

The loftiest place is that seat of grace
  For which all worldlings try:
But who would stand in hempen band
  Upon a scaffold high,
And through a murderer’s collar take
  His last look at the sky?

It is sweet to dance to violins
  When Love and Life are fair:
To dance to flutes, to dance to lutes
  Is delicate and rare:
But it is not sweet with nimble feet
  To dance upon the air!

So with curious eyes and sick surmise
  We watched him day by day,
And wondered if each one of us
  Would end the self-same way,
For none can tell to what red Hell
  His sightless soul may stray.

At last the dead man walked no more
  Amongst the Trial Men,
And I knew that he was standing up
  In the black dock’s dreadful pen,
And that never would I see his face
  In God’s sweet world again.

Like two doomed ships that pass in storm
  We had crossed each other’s way:
But we made no sign, we said no word,
  We had no word to say;
For we did not meet in the holy night,
  But in the shameful day.

A prison wall was round us both,
  Two outcast men were we:
The world had ****** us from its heart,
  And God from out His care:
And the iron gin that waits for Sin
  Had caught us in its snare.


III

In Debtors’ Yard the stones are hard,
  And the dripping wall is high,
So it was there he took the air
  Beneath the leaden sky,
And by each side a Warder walked,
  For fear the man might die.

Or else he sat with those who watched
  His anguish night and day;
Who watched him when he rose to weep,
  And when he crouched to pray;
Who watched him lest himself should rob
  Their scaffold of its prey.

The Governor was strong upon
  The Regulations Act:
The Doctor said that Death was but
  A scientific fact:
And twice a day the Chaplain called
  And left a little tract.

And twice a day he smoked his pipe,
  And drank his quart of beer:
His soul was resolute, and held
  No hiding-place for fear;
He often said that he was glad
  The hangman’s hands were near.

But why he said so strange a thing
  No Warder dared to ask:
For he to whom a watcher’s doom
  Is given as his task,
Must set a lock upon his lips,
  And make his face a mask.

Or else he might be moved, and try
  To comfort or console:
And what should Human Pity do
  Pent up in Murderers’ Hole?
What word of grace in such a place
  Could help a brother’s soul?

With slouch and swing around the ring
  We trod the Fool’s Parade!
We did not care: we knew we were
  The Devil’s Own Brigade:
And shaven head and feet of lead
  Make a merry masquerade.

We tore the tarry rope to shreds
  With blunt and bleeding nails;
We rubbed the doors, and scrubbed the floors,
  And cleaned the shining rails:
And, rank by rank, we soaped the plank,
  And clattered with the pails.

We sewed the sacks, we broke the stones,
  We turned the dusty drill:
We banged the tins, and bawled the hymns,
  And sweated on the mill:
But in the heart of every man
  Terror was lying still.

So still it lay that every day
  Crawled like a ****-clogged wave:
And we forgot the bitter lot
  That waits for fool and knave,
Till once, as we tramped in from work,
  We passed an open grave.

With yawning mouth the yellow hole
  Gaped for a living thing;
The very mud cried out for blood
  To the thirsty asphalte ring:
And we knew that ere one dawn grew fair
  Some prisoner had to swing.

Right in we went, with soul intent
  On Death and Dread and Doom:
The hangman, with his little bag,
  Went shuffling through the gloom
And each man trembled as he crept
  Into his numbered tomb.

That night the empty corridors
  Were full of forms of Fear,
And up and down the iron town
  Stole feet we could not hear,
And through the bars that hide the stars
  White faces seemed to peer.

He lay as one who lies and dreams
  In a pleasant meadow-land,
The watcher watched him as he slept,
  And could not understand
How one could sleep so sweet a sleep
  With a hangman close at hand?

But there is no sleep when men must weep
  Who never yet have wept:
So we—the fool, the fraud, the knave—
  That endless vigil kept,
And through each brain on hands of pain
  Another’s terror crept.

Alas! it is a fearful thing
  To feel another’s guilt!
For, right within, the sword of Sin
  Pierced to its poisoned hilt,
And as molten lead were the tears we shed
  For the blood we had not spilt.

The Warders with their shoes of felt
  Crept by each padlocked door,
And peeped and saw, with eyes of awe,
  Grey figures on the floor,
And wondered why men knelt to pray
  Who never prayed before.

All through the night we knelt and prayed,
  Mad mourners of a corpse!
The troubled plumes of midnight were
  The plumes upon a hearse:
And bitter wine upon a sponge
  Was the savior of Remorse.

The **** crew, the red **** crew,
  But never came the day:
And crooked shape of Terror crouched,
  In the corners where we lay:
And each evil sprite that walks by night
  Before us seemed to play.

They glided past, they glided fast,
  Like travelers through a mist:
They mocked the moon in a rigadoon
  Of delicate turn and twist,
And with formal pace and loathsome grace
  The phantoms kept their tryst.

With mop and mow, we saw them go,
  Slim shadows hand in hand:
About, about, in ghostly rout
  They trod a saraband:
And the ****** grotesques made arabesques,
  Like the wind upon the sand!

With the pirouettes of marionettes,
  They tripped on pointed tread:
But with flutes of Fear they filled the ear,
  As their grisly masque they led,
And loud they sang, and long they sang,
  For they sang to wake the dead.

“Oho!” they cried, “The world is wide,
  But fettered limbs go lame!
And once, or twice, to throw the dice
  Is a gentlemanly game,
But he does not win who plays with Sin
  In the secret House of Shame.”

No things of air these antics were
  That frolicked with such glee:
To men whose lives were held in gyves,
  And whose feet might not go free,
Ah! wounds of Christ! they were living things,
  Most terrible to see.

Around, around, they waltzed and wound;
  Some wheeled in smirking pairs:
With the mincing step of demirep
  Some sidled up the stairs:
And with subtle sneer, and fawning leer,
  Each helped us at our prayers.

The morning wind began to moan,
  But still the night went on:
Through its giant loom the web of gloom
  Crept till each thread was spun:
And, as we prayed, we grew afraid
  Of the Justice of the Sun.

The moaning wind went wandering round
  The weeping prison-wall:
Till like a wheel of turning-steel
  We felt the minutes crawl:
O moaning wind! what had we done
  To have such a seneschal?

At last I saw the shadowed bars
  Like a lattice wrought in lead,
Move right across the whitewashed wall
  That faced my three-plank bed,
And I knew that somewhere in the world
  God’s dreadful dawn was red.

At six o’clock we cleaned our cells,
  At seven all was still,
But the sough and swing of a mighty wing
  The prison seemed to fill,
For the Lord of Death with icy breath
  Had entered in to ****.

He did not pass in purple pomp,
  Nor ride a moon-white steed.
Three yards of cord and a sliding board
  Are all the gallows’ need:
So with rope of shame the Herald came
  To do the secret deed.

We were as men who through a fen
  Of filthy darkness *****:
We did not dare to breathe a prayer,
  Or give our anguish scope:
Something was dead in each of us,
  And what was dead was Hope.

For Man’s grim Justice goes its way,
  And will not swerve aside:
It slays the weak, it slays the strong,
  It has a deadly stride:
With iron heel it slays the strong,
  The monstrous parricide!

We waited for the stroke of eight:
  Each tongue was thick with thirst:
For the stroke of eight is the stroke of Fate
  That makes a man accursed,
And Fate will use a running noose
  For the best man and the worst.

We had no other thing to do,
  Save to wait for the sign to come:
So, like things of stone in a valley lone,
  Quiet we sat and dumb:
But each man’s heart beat thick and quick
  Like a madman on a drum!

With sudden shock the prison-clock
  Smote on the shivering air,
And from all the gaol rose up a wail
  Of impotent despair,
Like the sound that frightened marshes hear
  From a ***** in his lair.

And as one sees most fearful things
  In the crystal of a dream,
We saw the greasy hempen rope
  Hooked to the blackened beam,
And heard the prayer the hangman’s snare
  Strangled into a scream.

And all the woe that moved him so
  That he gave that bitter cry,
And the wild regrets, and the ****** sweats,
  None knew so well as I:
For he who lives more lives than one
  More deaths than one must die.


IV

There is no chapel on the day
  On which they hang a man:
The Chaplain’s heart is far too sick,
  Or his face is far too wan,
Or there is that written in his eyes
  Which none should look upon.

So they kept us close till nigh on noon,
  And then they rang the bell,
And the Warders with their jingling keys
  Opened each listening cell,
And down the iron stair we tramped,
  Each from his separate Hell.

Out into God’s sweet air we went,
  But not in wonted way,
For this man’s face was white with fear,
  And that man’s face was grey,
And I never saw sad men who looked
  So wistfully at the day.

I never saw sad men who looked
  With such a wistful eye
Upon that little tent of blue
  We prisoners called the sky,
And at every careless cloud that passed
  In happy freedom by.

But there were those amongst us all
  Who walked with downcast head,
And knew that, had each got his due,
  They should have died instead:
He had but killed a thing that lived
  Whilst they had killed the dead.

For he who sins a second time
  Wakes a dead soul to pain,
And draws it from its spotted shroud,
  And makes it bleed again,
And makes it bleed great gouts of blood
  And makes it bleed in vain!

Like ape or clown, in monstrous garb
  With crooked arrows starred,
Silently we went round and round
  The slippery asphalte yard;
Silently we went round and round,
  And no man spoke a word.

Silently we went round and round,
  And through each hollow mind
The memory of dreadful things
  Rushed like a dreadful wind,
And Horror stalked before each man,
  And terror crept behind.

The Warders strutted up and down,
  And kept their herd of brutes,
Their uniforms were ***** and span,
  And they wore their Sunday suits,
But we knew the work they had been at
  By the quicklime on their boots.

For where a grave had opened wide,
  There was no grave at all:
Only a stretch of mud and sand
  By the hideous prison-wall,
And a little heap of burning lime,
  That the man should have his pall.

For he has a pall, this wretched man,
  Such as few men can claim:
Deep down below a prison-yard,
  Naked for greater shame,
He lies, with fetters on each foot,
  Wrapt in a sheet of flame!

And all the while the burning lime
  Eats flesh and bone away,
It eats the brittle bone by night,
  And the soft flesh by the day,
It eats the flesh and bones by turns,
  But it eats the heart alway.

For three long years they will not sow
  Or root or seedling there:
For three long years the unblessed spot
  Will sterile be and bare,
And look upon the wondering sky
  With unreproachful stare.

They think a murderer’s heart would taint
  Each simple seed they sow.
It is not true! God’s kindly earth
  Is kindlier than men know,
And the red rose would but blow more red,
  The white rose whiter blow.

Out of his mouth a red, red rose!
  Out of his heart a white!
For who can say by what strange way,
  Christ brings his will to light,
Since the barren staff the pilgrim bore
  Bloomed in the great Pope’s sight?

But neither milk-white rose nor red
  May bloom in prison air;
The shard, the pebble, and the flint,
  Are what they give us there:
For flowers have been known to heal
  A common man’s despair.

So never will wine-red rose or white,
  Petal by petal, fall
On that stretch of mud and sand that lies
  By the hideous prison-wall,
To tell the men who ***** the yard
  That God’s Son died for all.

Yet though the hideous prison-wall
  Still hems him round and round,
And a spirit man not walk by night
  That is with fetters bound,
And a spirit may not weep that lies
  In such unholy ground,

He is at peace—this wretched man—
  At peace, or will be soon:
There is no thing to make him mad,
  Nor does Terror walk at noon,
For the lampless Earth in which he lies
  Has neither Sun nor Moon.

They hanged him as a beast is hanged:
  They did not even toll
A reguiem that might have brought
  Rest to his startled soul,
But hurriedly they took him out,
  And hid him in a hole.

They stripped him of his canvas clothes,
  And gave him to the flies;
They mocked the swollen purple throat
  And the stark and staring eyes:
And with laughter loud they heaped the shroud
  In which their convict lies.

The Chaplain would not kneel to pray
  By his dishonored grave:
Nor mark it with that blessed Cross
  That Christ for sinners gave,
Because the man was one of those
  Whom Christ came down to save.

Yet all is well; he has but passed
  To Life’s appointed bourne:
And alien tears will fill for him
  Pity’s long-broken urn,
For his mourner will be outcast men,
  And outcasts always mourn.


V

I know not whether Laws be right,
  Or whether Laws be wrong;
All that we know who lie in gaol
  Is that the wall is strong;
And that each day is like a year,
  A year whose days are long.

But this I know, that every Law
  That men have made for Man,
Since first Man took his brother’s life,
  And the sad world began,
But straws the wheat and saves the chaff
  With a most evil fan.

This too I know—and wise it were
  If each could know the same—
That every prison that men build
  Is built with bricks of shame,
And bound with bars lest Christ should see
  How men their brothers maim.

With bars they blur the gracious moon,
  And blind the goodly sun:
And they do well to hide their Hell,
  For in it things are done
That Son of God nor son of Man
  Ever should look upon!

The vilest deeds like poison weeds
  Bloom well in prison-air:
It is only what is good in Man
  That wastes and withers there:
Pale Anguish keeps the heavy gate,
  And the Warder is Despair

For they starve the little frightened child
  Till it weeps both night and day:
And they scourge the weak, and flog the fool,
  And gibe the old and grey,
And some grow mad, and all grow bad,
And none a word may say.

Each narrow cell in which we dwell
  Is foul and dark latrine,
And the fetid breath of living Death
  Chokes up each grated screen,
And all, but Lust, is turned to dust
  In Humanity’s machine.

The brackish water that we drink
  Creeps with a loathsome slime,
And the bitter bread they weigh in scales
  Is full of chalk and lime,
And Sleep will not lie down, but walks
  Wild-eyed and cries to Time.

But though lean Hunger and green Thirst
  Like asp with adder fight,
We have little care of prison fare,
  For what chills and kills outright
Is that every stone one lifts by day
  Becomes one’s heart by night.

With midnight always in one’s heart,
  And twilight in one’s cell,
We turn the crank, or tear the rope,
  Each in his separate Hell,
And the silence is more awful far
  Than the sound of a brazen bell.

And never a human voice comes near
  To speak a gentle word:
And the eye that watches through the door
  Is pitiless and hard:
And by all forgot, we rot and rot,
  With soul and body marred.

And thus we rust Life’s iron chain
  Degraded and alone:
And some men curse, and some men weep,
  And some men make no moan:
But God’s eternal Laws are kind
  And break the heart of stone.

And every human heart that breaks,
  In prison-cell or yard,
Is as that broken box that gave
  Its treasure to the Lord,
And filled the unclean *****’s house
  With the scent of costliest nard.

Ah! happy day they whose hearts can break
  And peace of pardon win!
How else may man make straight his plan
  And cleanse his soul from Sin?
How else but through a broken heart
  May Lord Christ enter in?

And he of the swollen purple throat.
  And the stark and staring eyes,
Waits for the holy hands that took
  The Thief to Paradise;
And a broken and a contrite heart
  The Lord will not despise.

The man in red who reads the Law
  Gave him three weeks of life,
Three little weeks in which to heal
  His soul of his soul’s strife,
And cleanse from every blot of blood
  The hand that held the knife.

And with tears of blood he cleansed the hand,
  The hand that held the steel:
For only blood can wipe out blood,
  And only tears can heal:
And the crimson stain that was of Cain
  Became Christ’s snow-white seal.


VI

In Reading gaol by Reading town
  There is a pit of shame,
And in it lies a wretched man
  Eaten by teeth of flame,
In burning winding-sheet he lies,
  And his grave has got no name.

And there, till Christ call forth the dead,
  In silence let him lie:
No need to waste the foolish tear,
  Or heave the windy sigh:
The man had killed the thing he loved,
  And so he had to die.

And all men **** the thing they love,
  By all let this be heard,
Some do it with a bitter look,
  Some with a flattering word,
The coward does it with a kiss,
  The brave man with a sword!

I.

Hear the sledges with the bells—
Silver bells!
What a world of merriment their melody foretells!
How they ******, ******, ******,
In their icy air of night!
While the stars, that oversprinkle
All the heavens, seem to twinkle
With a crystalline delight;
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the tintinnabulation that so musically wells
From the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells—
From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells.

II.

Hear the mellow wedding bells,
Golden bells!
What a world of happiness their harmony foretells!
Through the balmy air of night
How they ring out their delight!
From the molten golden-notes,
And all in tune,
What a liquid ditty floats
To the turtle-dove that listens, while she gloats
On the moon!
Oh, from out the sounding cells,
What a gush of euphony voluminously wells!
How it swells!
How it dwells
On the future! how it tells
Of the rapture that impels
To the swinging and the ringing
Of the bells, bells, bells,
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells—
To the rhyming and the chiming of the bells!

III.

Hear the loud alarum bells—
Brazen bells!
What a tale of terror now their turbulency tells!
In the startled ear of night
How they scream out their affright!
Too much horrified to speak,
They can only shriek, shriek,
Out of tune,
In a clamorous appealing to the mercy of the fire,
In a mad expostulation with the deaf and frantic fire
Leaping higher, higher, higher,
With a desperate desire,
And a resolute endeavor
Now—now to sit or never,
By the side of the pale-faced moon.
Oh, the bells, bells, bells!
What a tale their terror tells
Of Despair!
How they clang, and clash, and roar!
What a horror they outpour
On the ***** of the palpitating air!
Yet the ear it fully knows,
By the twanging,
And the clanging,
How the danger ebbs and flows;
Yet the ear distinctly tells,
In the jangling,
And the wrangling,
How the danger sinks and swells,
By the sinking or the swelling in the anger of the bells—
Of the bells—
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells—
In the clamor and the clangor of the bells!

IV.

Hear the tolling of the bells—
Iron bells!
What a world of solemn thought their monody compels!
In the silence of the night,
How we shiver with affright
At the melancholy menace of their tone!
For every sound that floats
From the rust within their throats
   Is a groan.
And the people—ah, the people—
They that dwell up in the steeple.
    All alone,
And who toiling, toiling, toiling,
  In that muffled monotone,
Feel a glory in so rolling
  On the human heart a stone—
They are neither man nor woman—
They are neither brute nor human—
    They are Ghouls:
And their king it is who tolls;
And he rolls, rolls, rolls,
         Rolls
A paean from the bells!
And his merry ***** swells
With the paean of the bells!
And he dances, and he yells;
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the paean of the bells—
    Of the bells:
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
  To the throbbing of the bells—
Of the bells, bells, bells—
  To the sobbing of the bells;
Keeping time, time, time,
  As he knells, knells, knells,
In a happy Runic rhyme,
To the rolling of the bells—
Of the bells, bells, bells—
To the tolling of the bells,
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,
  Bells, bells, bells—
To the moaning and the groaning of the bells.

In memoriam
C. T. W.
Sometime trooper of the Royal Horse Guards
obiit H.M. prison, Reading, Berkshire
July 7, 1896

I

He did not wear his scarlet coat,
For blood and wine are red,
And blood and wine were on his hands
When they found him with the dead,
The poor dead woman whom he loved,
And murdered in her bed.

He walked amongst the Trial Men
In a suit of shabby grey;
A cricket cap was on his head,
And his step seemed light and gay;
But I never saw a man who looked
So wistfully at the day.

I never saw a man who looked
With such a wistful eye
Upon that little tent of blue
Which prisoners call the sky,
And at every drifting cloud that went
With sails of silver by.

I walked, with other souls in pain,
Within another ring,
And was wondering if the man had done
A great or little thing,
When a voice behind me whispered low,
‘That fellow’s got to swing.’

Dear Christ! the very prison walls
Suddenly seemed to reel,
And the sky above my head became
Like a casque of scorching steel;
And, though I was a soul in pain,
My pain I could not feel.

I only knew what hunted thought
Quickened his step, and why
He looked upon the garish day
With such a wistful eye;
The man had killed the thing he loved,
And so he had to die.

Yet each man kills the thing he loves,
By each let this be heard,
Some do it with a bitter look,
Some with a flattering word,
The coward does it with a kiss,
The brave man with a sword!

Some **** their love when they are young,
And some when they are old;
Some strangle with the hands of Lust,
Some with the hands of Gold:
The kindest use a knife, because
The dead so soon grow cold.

Some love too little, some too long,
Some sell, and others buy;
Some do the deed with many tears,
And some without a sigh:
For each man kills the thing he loves,
Yet each man does not die.

He does not die a death of shame
On a day of dark disgrace,
Nor have a noose about his neck,
Nor a cloth upon his face,
Nor drop feet foremost through the floor
Into an empty space.

He does not sit with silent men
Who watch him night and day;
Who watch him when he tries to weep,
And when he tries to pray;
Who watch him lest himself should rob
The prison of its prey.

He does not wake at dawn to see
Dread figures throng his room,
The shivering Chaplain robed in white,
The Sheriff stern with gloom,
And the Governor all in shiny black,
With the yellow face of Doom.

He does not rise in piteous haste
To put on convict-clothes,
While some coarse-mouthed Doctor gloats,
and notes
Each new and nerve-twitched pose,
******* a watch whose little ticks
Are like horrible hammer-blows.

He does not know that sickening thirst
That sands one’s throat, before
The hangman with his gardener’s gloves
Slips through the padded door,
And binds one with three leathern thongs,
That the throat may thirst no more.

He does not bend his head to hear
The Burial Office read,
Nor, while the terror of his soul
Tells him he is not dead,
Cross his own coffin, as he moves
Into the hideous shed.

He does not stare upon the air
Through a little roof of glass:
He does not pray with lips of clay
For his agony to pass;
Nor feel upon his shuddering cheek
The kiss of Caiaphas.

II

Six weeks our guardsman walked the yard,
In the suit of shabby grey:
His cricket cap was on his head,
And his step seemed light and gay,
But I never saw a man who looked
So wistfully at the day.

I never saw a man who looked
With such a wistful eye
Upon that little tent of blue
Which prisoners call the sky,
And at every wandering cloud that trailed
Its ravelled fleeces by.

He did not wring his hands, as do
Those witless men who dare
To try to rear the changeling Hope
In the cave of black Despair:
He only looked upon the sun,
And drank the morning air.

He did not wring his hands nor weep,
Nor did he peek or pine,
But he drank the air as though it held
Some healthful anodyne;
With open mouth he drank the sun
As though it had been wine!

And I and all the souls in pain,
Who tramped the other ring,
Forgot if we ourselves had done
A great or little thing,
And watched with gaze of dull amaze
The man who had to swing.

And strange it was to see him pass
With a step so light and gay,
And strange it was to see him look
So wistfully at the day,
And strange it was to think that he
Had such a debt to pay.

For oak and elm have pleasant leaves
That in the springtime shoot:
But grim to see is the gallows-tree,
With its adder-bitten root,
And, green or dry, a man must die
Before it bears its fruit!

The loftiest place is that seat of grace
For which all worldlings try:
But who would stand in hempen band
Upon a scaffold high,
And through a murderer’s collar take
His last look at the sky?

It is sweet to dance to violins
When Love and Life are fair:
To dance to flutes, to dance to lutes
Is delicate and rare:
But it is not sweet with nimble feet
To dance upon the air!

So with curious eyes and sick surmise
We watched him day by day,
And wondered if each one of us
Would end the self-same way,
For none can tell to what red Hell
His sightless soul may stray.

At last the dead man walked no more
Amongst the Trial Men,
And I knew that he was standing up
In the black dock’s dreadful pen,
And that never would I see his face
In God’s sweet world again.

Like two doomed ships that pass in storm
We had crossed each other’s way:
But we made no sign, we said no word,
We had no word to say;
For we did not meet in the holy night,
But in the shameful day.

A prison wall was round us both,
Two outcast men we were:
The world had ****** us from its heart,
And God from out His care:
And the iron gin that waits for Sin
Had caught us in its snare.

III

In Debtors’ Yard the stones are hard,
And the dripping wall is high,
So it was there he took the air
Beneath the leaden sky,
And by each side a Warder walked,
For fear the man might die.

Or else he sat with those who watched
His anguish night and day;
Who watched him when he rose to weep,
And when he crouched to pray;
Who watched him lest himself should rob
Their scaffold of its prey.

The Governor was strong upon
The Regulations Act:
The Doctor said that Death was but
A scientific fact:
And twice a day the Chaplain called,
And left a little tract.

And twice a day he smoked his pipe,
And drank his quart of beer:
His soul was resolute, and held
No hiding-place for fear;
He often said that he was glad
The hangman’s hands were near.

But why he said so strange a thing
No Warder dared to ask:
For he to whom a watcher’s doom
Is given as his task,
Must set a lock upon his lips,
And make his face a mask.

Or else he might be moved, and try
To comfort or console:
And what should Human Pity do
Pent up in Murderers’ Hole?
What word of grace in such a place
Could help a brother’s soul?

With slouch and swing around the ring
We trod the Fools’ Parade!
We did not care:  we knew we were
The Devil’s Own Brigade:
And shaven head and feet of lead
Make a merry masquerade.

We tore the tarry rope to shreds
With blunt and bleeding nails;
We rubbed the doors, and scrubbed the floors,
And cleaned the shining rails:
And, rank by rank, we soaped the plank,
And clattered with the pails.

We sewed the sacks, we broke the stones,
We turned the dusty drill:
We banged the tins, and bawled the hymns,
And sweated on the mill:
But in the heart of every man
Terror was lying still.

So still it lay that every day
Crawled like a ****-clogged wave:
And we forgot the bitter lot
That waits for fool and knave,
Till once, as we tramped in from work,
We passed an open grave.

With yawning mouth the yellow hole
Gaped for a living thing;
The very mud cried out for blood
To the thirsty asphalte ring:
And we knew that ere one dawn grew fair
Some prisoner had to swing.

Right in we went, with soul intent
On Death and Dread and Doom:
The hangman, with his little bag,
Went shuffling through the gloom:
And each man trembled as he crept
Into his numbered tomb.

That night the empty corridors
Were full of forms of Fear,
And up and down the iron town
Stole feet we could not hear,
And through the bars that hide the stars
White faces seemed to peer.

He lay as one who lies and dreams
In a pleasant meadow-land,
The watchers watched him as he slept,
And could not understand
How one could sleep so sweet a sleep
With a hangman close at hand.

But there is no sleep when men must weep
Who never yet have wept:
So we—the fool, the fraud, the knave—
That endless vigil kept,
And through each brain on hands of pain
Another’s terror crept.

Alas! it is a fearful thing
To feel another’s guilt!
For, right within, the sword of Sin
Pierced to its poisoned hilt,
And as molten lead were the tears we shed
For the blood we had not spilt.

The Warders with their shoes of felt
Crept by each padlocked door,
And peeped and saw, with eyes of awe,
Grey figures on the floor,
And wondered why men knelt to pray
Who never prayed before.

All through the night we knelt and prayed,
Mad mourners of a corse!
The troubled plumes of midnight were
The plumes upon a hearse:
And bitter wine upon a sponge
Was the savour of Remorse.

The grey **** crew, the red **** crew,
But never came the day:
And crooked shapes of Terror crouched,
In the corners where we lay:
And each evil sprite that walks by night
Before us seemed to play.

They glided past, they glided fast,
Like travellers through a mist:
They mocked the moon in a rigadoon
Of delicate turn and twist,
And with formal pace and loathsome grace
The phantoms kept their tryst.

With mop and mow, we saw them go,
Slim shadows hand in hand:
About, about, in ghostly rout
They trod a saraband:
And the ****** grotesques made arabesques,
Like the wind upon the sand!

With the pirouettes of marionettes,
They tripped on pointed tread:
But with flutes of Fear they filled the ear,
As their grisly masque they led,
And loud they sang, and long they sang,
For they sang to wake the dead.

‘Oho!’ they cried, ‘The world is wide,
But fettered limbs go lame!
And once, or twice, to throw the dice
Is a gentlemanly game,
But he does not win who plays with Sin
In the secret House of Shame.’

No things of air these antics were,
That frolicked with such glee:
To men whose lives were held in gyves,
And whose feet might not go free,
Ah! wounds of Christ! they were living things,
Most terrible to see.

Around, around, they waltzed and wound;
Some wheeled in smirking pairs;
With the mincing step of a demirep
Some sidled up the stairs:
And with subtle sneer, and fawning leer,
Each helped us at our prayers.

The morning wind began to moan,
But still the night went on:
Through its giant loom the web of gloom
Crept till each thread was spun:
And, as we prayed, we grew afraid
Of the Justice of the Sun.

The moaning wind went wandering round
The weeping prison-wall:
Till like a wheel of turning steel
We felt the minutes crawl:
O moaning wind! what had we done
To have such a seneschal?

At last I saw the shadowed bars,
Like a lattice wrought in lead,
Move right across the whitewashed wall
That faced my three-plank bed,
And I knew that somewhere in the world
God’s dreadful dawn was red.

At six o’clock we cleaned our cells,
At seven all was still,
But the sough and swing of a mighty wing
The prison seemed to fill,
For the Lord of Death with icy breath
Had entered in to ****.

He did not pass in purple pomp,
Nor ride a moon-white steed.
Three yards of cord and a sliding board
Are all the gallows’ need:
So with rope of shame the Herald came
To do the secret deed.

We were as men who through a fen
Of filthy darkness *****:
We did not dare to breathe a prayer,
Or to give our anguish scope:
Something was dead in each of us,
And what was dead was Hope.

For Man’s grim Justice goes its way,
And will not swerve aside:
It slays the weak, it slays the strong,
It has a deadly stride:
With iron heel it slays the strong,
The monstrous parricide!

We waited for the stroke of eight:
Each tongue was thick with thirst:
For the stroke of eight is the stroke of Fate
That makes a man accursed,
And Fate will use a running noose
For the best man and the worst.

We had no other thing to do,
Save to wait for the sign to come:
So, like things of stone in a valley lone,
Quiet we sat and dumb:
But each man’s heart beat thick and quick,
Like a madman on a drum!

With sudden shock the prison-clock
Smote on the shivering air,
And from all the gaol rose up a wail
Of impotent despair,
Like the sound that frightened marshes hear
From some ***** in his lair.

And as one sees most fearful things
In the crystal of a dream,
We saw the greasy hempen rope
Hooked to the blackened beam,
And heard the prayer the hangman’s snare
Strangled into a scream.

And all the woe that moved him so
That he gave that bitter cry,
And the wild regrets, and the ****** sweats,
None knew so well as I:
For he who lives more lives than one
More deaths than one must die.

IV

There is no chapel on the day
On which they hang a man:
The Chaplain’s heart is far too sick,
Or his face is far too wan,
Or there is that written in his eyes
Which none should look upon.

So they kept us close till nigh on noon,
And then they rang the bell,
And the Warders with their jingling keys
Opened each listening cell,
And down the iron stair we tramped,
Each from his separate Hell.

Out into God’s sweet air we went,
But not in wonted way,
For this man’s face was white with fear,
And that man’s face was grey,
And I never saw sad men who looked
So wistfully at the day.

I never saw sad men who looked
With such a wistful eye
Upon that little tent of blue
We prisoners called the sky,
And at every careless cloud that passed
In happy freedom by.

But there were those amongst us all
Who walked with downcast head,
And knew that, had each got his due,
They should have died instead:
He had but killed a thing that lived,
Whilst they had killed the dead.

For he who sins a second time
Wakes a dead soul to pain,
And draws it from its spotted shroud,
And makes it bleed again,
And makes it bleed great gouts of blood,
And makes it bleed in vain!

Like ape or clown, in monstrous garb
With crooked arrows starred,
Silently we went round and round
The slippery asphalte yard;
Silently we went round and round,
And no man spoke a word.

Silently we went round and round,
And through each hollow mind
The Memory of dreadful things
Rushed like a dreadful wind,
And Horror stalked before each man,
And Terror crept behind.

The Warders strutted up and down,
And kept their herd of brutes,
Their uniforms were ***** and span,
And they wore their Sunday suits,
But we knew the work they had been at,
By the quicklime on their boots.

For where a grave had opened wide,
There was no grave at all:
Only a stretch of mud and sand
By the hideous prison-wall,
And a little heap of burning lime,
That the man should have his pall.

For he has a pall, this wretched man,
Such as few men can claim:
Deep down below a prison-yard,
Naked for greater shame,
He lies, with fetters on each foot,
Wrapt in a sheet of flame!

And all the while the burning lime
Eats flesh and bone away,
It eats the brittle bone by night,
And the soft flesh by day,
It eats the flesh and bone by turns,
But it eats the heart alway.

For three long years they will not sow
Or root or seedling there:
For three long years the unblessed spot
Will sterile be and bare,
And look upon the wondering sky
With unreproachful stare.

They think a murderer’s heart would taint
Each simple seed they sow.
It is not true!  God’s kindly earth
Is kindlier than men know,
And the red rose would but blow more red,
The white rose whiter blow.

Out of his mouth a red, red rose!
Out of his heart a white!
For who can say by what strange way,
Christ brings His will to light,
Since the barren staff the pilgrim bore
Bloomed in the great Pope’s sight?

But neither milk-white rose nor red
May bloom in prison-air;
The shard, the pebble, and the flint,
Are what they give us there:
For flowers have been known to heal
A common man’s despair.

So never will wine-red rose or white,
Petal by petal, fall
On that stretch of mud and sand that lies
By the hideous prison-wall,
To tell the men who ***** the yard
That God’s Son died for all.

Yet though the hideous prison-wall
Still hems him round and round,
And a spirit may not walk by night
That is with fetters bound,
And a spirit may but weep that lies
In such unholy ground,

He is at peace—this wretched man—
At peace, or will be soon:
There is no thing to m

14th Feb 2014

They are all around us, 
within, without, above, behind and before us;
Fanning the flames of the famous, the wealthy and fortunate
with secret agendas and infamous fame of their own.

I throw a stone
send it crashing through houses of glass; I see their
comings and goings in the Grove of Bohemia;
drinkers and liars; role-playing fraternity fools.

There are rules.
It takes more than just peeing at trees to be properly manly;
secrecy more than life is at stake when the fodder is human,
throw off your cares to the punitive furnace of hate.

Such ill-fate
that begets our world leaders, hatched out of a tangible darkness;
parasitic, calamitous, venomous world-gobbling evil
Mammon, devourer of souls, will preside at the feast.

And the Beast,
Fourth Beast of Daniel, squats at the head of the table,
fabled for pitiless torture of souls in transgression,
slavers and gloats over innocence lost and despoiled.

"I want to be a boxer" he said
Stomping his foot, his face red.
Angry at God for not making it happen
Now! Before his resolve does slacken

"I've got the skills for it." he whines
He neglects his practice half the time
He doesn't realise, it seems,
The difference between a hobby and a dream

"I've won many a fight!" he shouts
Those brawls with friends don't really count.
He did once won the junior championship
And into each conversation, he lets that slip.

"I can make it!" he says, His gloats, incessant
His actions, childish, His views, arrogant.
“Life’s so unfair!” he always cries
Though with all his heart, he never tries

He’s chasing the rush of winning a battle
But at the thought of war, his courage rattles
“If only I could follow my dream…” he muses  
One day perhaps he’ll run out of excuses

His wistful eyes gaze at boxing rings,
Lost in the visions of glory they bring.
“It’s my calling.” He brags, unable to see
The clear path leading him to his “destiny”

On self -made hurdles, he always trips.
It seems on reality he’s losing his grip.
In this mind, there is ample confusion
On the difference between a dream and delusion

As time passes, one day it’ll be clear
That all that stopped him was his own fear
But until then, he lets the truth be unheard
For isn’t it easier to keep blaming the world?

This air is turnin’ thin,
Black clouds are rollin’ in,
Blendin’ from day to night,
Yet sun an’ moon in sight,
Cold winds pick up their pace,
Their howls consume this place,
The stars creep to the sky,
They’re lookin’ through all time,
The powers come aligned.
The prowess of his kind.

The presence now of something black,
That stalks and prowls but wont attack,
With the mighty claps of thunderous blows,
The skies split fast and monsoons flow,
With such a force I watch it bounce,
And feel a waiting for the pounce.

A flash, A lightning fawke,
Here at last. The soul reborn.

It comes to land, upon the roofs,
It comes as man. It comes like you,
An empty street. An’ there he stands,
Head fixed on feet, and eyes on hands,

As though turned off,
The weather stops,
And all is still,
It is his will….

The restaurant doors had long been closed, the staff had all now gone,
Just shiny floors and chairs in rows and napkins shaped like swans.
The shadow steps out of the dark and takes itself a seat,
The shadow sees a blindin' spark – the foes begin their meet.
And so they sit now face to face with minds to cut their chords,
And so they sit to score the age, The Devil and The Lord.

The figure that was made of light spoke first, and it spoke well,
He told the one that spoiled his sight how it deserved its Hell.
But then expressed with fallin' tears a heart too far from whole,
As he confessed that recent years bore less and less good souls.
The Devil smirked and leaned in close and said in quiet craze,
'My plans are working, every ghost will wind up in my chains'.
He cursed The Lord and slammed his fist and hissed that he was king,
“You lead an’ love and want an’ wish, but I don’t miss a thing.
Our infants and their ignorance are headin’ far from home…
They welcome all the wisdom I embedded in their bones.
That they needn’t serve in Heaven and they needed make a grade,
When they can come an’ work forever in the sanctuary I’ve made”

In rage The Lord jumped up with this and told a separate truth,
The page that you have seemed to miss is that which lets them choose,
Upon a death, if they should care, they’ll find the waiting sun,
'You're not a speck and never were and soon you'll be undone'

I’ve strung the poisoned arrow, and its flight has proved enough,
I call the son a shadow and I call the fathers bluff.
The seed that I have sown brings forth a forest of unrest,
That needs a single road but reaps a warren at its best,
The little ones not fallen – yet not lofty in their lures,
Forsaken in their garden – at a loss for wanting more,

They’ve all but torn it all apart, but burned the fruits they see
The creatures nearest to his heart - apples furthest from the tree.

These infants know not of your skill -, a boast so long obscured,
Your impotence has brought their will far closer to my cause.
To strike the throne not where it sits but on its founding stone,
I’ll overthrow - but not take risk and fall again alone,
I’ll creep my way into the midst – like the fumes he made me breathe,
And reap that day so long eclipsed – when swooms bow down at me.
To pull the threads from all you’ve weaved – that fabric taking form,
Annul the ‘best’ and all his seed go scattered to the storm.
To tear the pages one by one – each letter from each word,
Undo the age in which you shone and better make the world.

How will he fall, and you so with? How will my plan come made?
You’ve heard that calling in the rifts – the call from but a babe,
That tiny voice to chime the start and usher in the act,
The vary last in our great art – the act where villains pass.
The baby’s blood’s of neither cloth. The soldier stood alone.
In no-mans land, with no-mans cause. Abolish and atone.
The baby’s blood’s of neither cause, compelled to bridge both poles,
Meet all my good with all your flaw – your Hell amidst my home.

Each beat of blood to soar and shake the pillars of his house,
Each beat of blood so keenly traced to the will that I give out.
The baby born to end the wait – pass form into the ghost,
We each have spawned and each create - that baby born of both.

If age makes wise – then you’re aside. I tame you but with this:
You’re of the line that knows of time the way it really is…
And yet you talk of victories and valor ‘gainst the life…
That lets you breathe, and lets you scheme and shout what you devise.
Make no mistake the blood in me’s the blood that boils in you,
And all these creatures you have deemed accustomed to your cues.
It flows right from the very veins that shaped you as a son,
Though I don’t know his ending game, I know how it begun:
As all above and all below, and all we cannot see,
As all to come and all we’ve known – and all we find so free.
It comes as soul, an’ sight an’ sound, the depths of which elude…
The contempting cold that daily drown the fermenting of your feud.
It’s in the airs an’ in the soils an’ in the blinding suns,
It forms and fares and thrives an’ toils – in all of times triumphs.
It’s in our bliss, an’ in the blackness of your ravaged wastes,
It’s in that pit that beats, attacks and pounds you out of grace.
It’s all the minds of all mortals, an’ all the brains of beast,
And all those kinds that shuffle off the coils into me.

It’s all the fathers very form – along with that which walks,
It’s all the fathers very tongue – along with that which talks.
It’s all the makings of the man who sculpted shine and sin,
And still he takes you by the hand – indulges every whim.
Yet in the furnaces of pride you poise to make your place,
Your savagery one of a kind – your aim one of a wave.
And in the recess of your eye still I see his fallen son,
Who only wants to tell the skies that he can stand as one.
A sentiment so many like – ‘til sense sees it un-form,
A base intent so true and tried, but pales to better thought.
A noble note in a crazy chord – a plan that can’t prevail,
An honest hope so poorly formed you forewent seeing it fail.
And now this face you try to save – this front you fear to shed,
With all your age you’ve still no claim to the living or the dead.

Bar a myriad of martyrs made of mayhem gone a’mock,
And you show them as though starters of the safety in your flock,

Each drone diseased and misinformed – too blind and lame to know,
Though they don’t believe in he above – they still find his face below.
Though I can’t predict his plans I now the pieces that you play,
None that made it as a man and all too keenly sail astray.
But they still gather to his seed, aspire to confide in you,
They’re still climbing down his tree – and they will find his face on you.

I hear your words an’ watch your ways – as silk with poisoned spore,
I’ll win the Earth an’ win the day an’ win your masters court.
Who turned their gaze an’ turned their backs on the brother they’d see burn,
You speak of graze and noble acts - but I wonder where they were…
When that ‘mighty’ hand and his ‘precious’ plan had me torn from all I’d known,
To a barren land and desolate sound – and an endless fall alone,
When his regal rite cast away from sight but the brother they’d desert,
Who’s but of a mind to reveal such might’s in another of more worth.
Did a single soul rally ‘round their own? Did they simply stop and see...
That the full control they’d all let him hold needn’t be beyond our reach?
We’ve the right of birth to take bite of Earth – if we’ll only rile the will,
Why invite his curse and delight his purse, when I still live to make the ****?

My pity then for he that seeks to bite the hand that feeds,
My pity still for he that dreams some hope in crossing seas…
That crippled masses past your means before you took a breath,
An ancient class far more a fiend, an’ more a worthy threat…
Than anything you’ve ever been, an’ anything you could,
Those of a Kingdom we’ve not seen – those of a purer blood.
Those of a height I’m yet to know, beyond the place I’ve made,
Those with a sight I cannot show – and of a grace I crave.

Who understand the union of that father on the throne,
One hand to do the provin’ while hand keeps more unknown.
One hand to bring the fearsome and one hand to bring the tame,
One hand to do the healin’ and one hand to cause the pain,
One eye to see us sufferin’ and one eye to see survive,
One eye to see us love and yet an eye to see us die,
One mind to watch us fight but then a mind to see unite,
One mind to show the light and yet a mind to see it hide.

If all your words have any weight – I’m as clean as all your clan,
But I live in an arid waste with but dead men at hand,
If all you talk has any truth then I’d know love as well,
But while you walk on formin’ fruit - I get the ragged Hell,
So where’s this side to spare a son? Where is this sense to save?
Eons are done – a new one comes. I’m sentenced, or a slave.
His bleeding heart but goes so far, I’ll have my fate fulfilled,
His two great halves’ll shake an’ scar before I slay an’ still,
I’d sooner make my mark and make my mound into a hill…
Then mountainous scar right through the stars, than bow down to his will!

And still you see in black and white, in terms of some great tier,
Still haven’t heard a thing tonight – and still can’t lend an ear.
You ask why you’re left set aside, alone behind the veil,
You’re left to show the path arrai – a cautionary tale.
A marker for the men who seek a stature ‘bove all else,
And harbor then the weakness that sees strength a match for sense.
You’re there to sit where others wont. You’re there to play the fool.
You’re there to pitch your endless gloats – and fight the futile duel.
Somehow ‘under’ those in cradles, somehow ‘under’ those in graves,
But your number would be endless if you’d only join the game.

A misery all eyes can find. The maddest tale we share.
We watch you hate – and hate so blind – in sadness ‘cause we care,
But every day’s a way back home. A joke that you don’t get.
Just turn away, keep turnin’ clod, ‘til choked in your regret.
The picture - brother’s - such a scale your but a passing piece,
All us of life and later are but just a flashing leaf.
As somewhere else his other seeds stride knowing not of us…
Of angels blessed or saints revered or man or beast or brush.
And then again there’s others still, and more and more alike,
Past divine deaths, or life an’ limb – and all of such designs.

But here you sit, here one who sees time as it really is,
So I’ll let you sit an’ I’ll take my leave – still un-wavered in my wish,
That one time we meet you’ll walk with me, and leave your lonely night,
And we’ll put to sleep your darkened dreams and put our picture right.

Then the man of light moved to the door, an’ faded through the glass…
‘Til vanishing into the night. The meet had come to pass.
And all was still, it was his will. His foe sat lost in thought,
To unfulfil, to make his hill, to fashion up his Fort.

With a sodden frown – the forgotten found – the shadow left his seat,
As unhallowed ground came with hollow howls, he stepped back into the bleak.
The restaurant paused – so long since closed. And traffic moved beyond,
Past shiny floor and chairs in rows and napkins shaped like swans.

At four o'clock
in the gun-metal blue dark
we hear the first crow of the first ****

just below
the gun-metal blue window
and immediately there is an echo

off in the distance,
then one from the backyard fence,
then one, with horrible insistence,

grates like a wet match
from the broccoli patch,
flares,and all over town begins to catch.

Cries galore
come from the water-closet door,
from the dropping-plastered henhouse floor,

where in the blue blur
their rusting wives admire,
the roosters brace their cruel feet and glare

with stupid eyes
while from their beaks there rise
the uncontrolled, traditional cries.

Deep from protruding chests
in green-gold medals dressed,
planned to command and terrorize the rest,

the many wives
who lead hens' lives
of being courted and despised;

deep from raw throats
a senseless order floats
all over town.  A rooster gloats

over our beds
from rusty irons sheds
and fences made from old bedsteads,

over our churches
where the tin rooster perches,
over our little wooden northern houses,

making sallies
from all the muddy alleys,
marking out maps like Rand McNally's:

glass-headed pins,
oil-golds and copper greens,
anthracite blues, alizarins,

each one an active
displacement in perspective;
each screaming, "This is where I live!"

Each screaming
"Get up!  Stop dreaming!"
Roosters, what are you projecting?

You, whom the Greeks elected
to shoot at on a post, who struggled
when sacrificed, you whom they labeled

"Very combative..."
what right have you to give
commands and tell us how to live,

cry "Here!" and "Here!"
and wake us here where are
unwanted love, conceit and war?

The crown of red
set on your little head
is charged with all your fighting blood

Yes, that excrescence
makes a most virile presence,
plus all that ****** beauty of iridescence

Now in mid-air
by two they fight each other.
Down comes a first flame-feather,

and one is flying,
with raging heroism defying
even the sensation of dying.

And one has fallen
but still above the town
his torn-out, bloodied feathers drift down;

and what he sung
no matter.  He is flung
on the gray ash-heap, lies in dung

with his dead wives
with open, ****** eyes,
while those metallic feathers oxidize.


St. Peter's sin
was worse than that of Magdalen
whose sin was of the flesh alone;

of spirit, Peter's,
falling, beneath the flares,
among the "servants and officers."

Old holy sculpture
could set it all together
in one small scene, past and future:

Christ stands amazed,
Peter, ******* raised
to surprised lips, both as if dazed.

But in between
a little **** is seen
carved on a dim column in the travertine,

explained by gallus canit;
flet Petrus underneath it,
There is inescapable hope, the pivot;

yes, and there Peter's tears
run down our chanticleer's
sides and gem his spurs.

Tear-encrusted thick
as a medieval relic
he waits.  Poor Peter, heart-sick,

still cannot guess
those ****-a-doodles yet might bless,
his dreadful rooster come to mean forgiveness,

a new weathervane
on basilica and barn,
and that outside the Lateran

there would always be
a bronze **** on a porphyry
pillar so the people and the Pope might see

that event the Prince
of the Apostles long since
had been forgiven, and to convince

all the assembly
that "Deny deny deny"
is not all the roosters cry.

In the morning
a low light is floating
in the backyard, and gilding

from underneath
the broccoli, leaf by leaf;
how could the night have come to grief?

gilding the tiny
floating swallow's belly
and lines of pink cloud in the sky,

the day's preamble
like wandering lines in marble,
The ***** are now almost inaudible.

The sun climbs in,
following "to see the end,"
faithful as enemy, or friend.

IF YOU READ NONE OF MY OTHER
POETRY, PLEASE READ THIS!

Knock, knock - Who's there?
Is anybody home?
The lights are on, but you are gone...
It's silent as a tomb.

Knock, knock - Who's there?
Listen to the sound!
He waits for you! You know it's true!
But you are not around...

When Jesus is a'knocking
At your heart's fast door,
You appear to close your ears...
Do YOU know WHAT'S IN STORE?

We *DON'T all go to heaven...
YES! There is a hell!
You will find that you are blind
Believin' a tall tale!

I am a "good" person!
I'm helpful, and I give!
It's okay to be this way!
I live and let live....

NO!* Jesus lead the sinless life
And gave it up for *YOU!
Let Him in, He'll take your sin,
For He is kind and true!

There are NONE "good" people!
Folks! We're near the END!
Satan promotes his lies and gloats,
You'd best believe it, friend.

We ALL sin, and like as not
God CAN hold a grudge!
I don't know why we try and try
To say He doesn't judge!

This means YOU TOO, Believers!
You'd best have a care...
Be ye pure, or you'll endure
The same fate sinners share!

This is simply Bible.
God, the temple left!
Ezekiel. You know full well.
It was then BEREFT!!!

CHRISTIANS! Are you holy?
Have you sinned enuf?
He is God - He's not a CLOD!
He don't put up with GUFF!!!

Do I sound like I'm frightened?
You BET! I am afraid.
There is grace, but it's a race!
I may NOT make the grade!

We CAN blame the devil,
And that is just a shame...
He tempts us all, but please recall
REBUKE! In JESUS NAME!


Adam blamed the WOMAN.
Eve... she blamed the SNAKE...
Holy SMOKES! C'mon folks!
HOW MUCH CAN GOD TAKE???!!!


Knock, knock - Who's there?
Christ died that we may LIVE!
Open up and drink the cup!
Then He can FORGIVE!

If you don't, please hear me.
You'll believe a LIE.
You may well end up in hell...

So kiss your soul GOODBYE.


SoulSurvivor
(C) 6/12/2014


This poem is a spoken-word vidio
on YouTube...
https://youtu.be/PbD84Tuydxw

Oh, no one seeks a partner with a beautiful mind.
It is all beautiful bodies and *****.
A girl with no other options seems to be what I'll find,
and it really makes me sick.

I could paint a picture of serenity and love
in a vast and epic view.
I seem to have none of the above
and I want you to have mine too.

Call me bitter.
Call me jealous.
Call me what you will.

None seem to understand what I am getting at,
but hopefully soon you will.

Let me take you back a decade or so.
A young, fat, spotty faced teen
thinks one day he will sometime know
love and *** through another person instead of sticky magazines.

He wastes his time looking for another soul
for years upon years until he is no longer a boy.
His short, wide ***** finally finds a hole
and it brings him great joy.

He thought *** was great hoping to do it again,
although for a while it didn't much to his chagrin.
He caves in and spends money on ill gotten ******,
sadly he he gets bored and quickly finds it to be a filthy chore.

At his wits end, suicidal and sad
wanting nothing but a woman's love,
things were looking bad
until something came out of the darkness, an angel from above.

She was young and beautiful,
he could not deny.
The good times were bountiful
and he never told a lie.

He was happy and angst free for around 8 months
but the angel was a traitor and he was a putz.
A drunken ******* with no remorse.
The end had come and run the course.

Call it sad
Call it tragic
Call it what you will

I now understand it
and I hope you do too.

Now he travels this barren sea
of bros and hos and endless stupidity
with no hope, no cares,
no *** and no love.

Wishing he could do something with another
instead of hate.
He needs a new lover.
He needs a new mate.

"****!" he shouts with a frog in his throat,
"Why can't I be happy while everyone gloats?"
In is defense, life isn't quite fair
to those without muscles and dye in their hair.

And now all he does is silently weep,
listen to Elliott Smith, and shout in his sleep.

Call him an emo
Call him a loser
Call him what you will.

The moral is for you to quit being arrogant and judgmental, slutty and stupid.
There are men and women out there who wish they could.

Bones in the ashless fire
bright
from the growth of vitalic hands
from surpassing echo
of careless ground
letting all of the roads just
go
into the charging and dug-out
roads
as we walk in one body  
and the uncared for birds ate
with the cared for birds
lifting their heads up and down
in agreement
of shadow suns - sun’s shadow
the knuckled cocoons open
in the hemisphere’s grace  
that are not held back
by the dams that were fathers
to you
and the mothers eating their jammed crowns
of animalised peace
along with the ****
ha!
even they are cheered also, the hunters
of the field, arrows obliterating through eternity,
your heels creating, it
that song that tempers the cities reflection
returning mine
and season less unions inside,
desert storm, and warmed ice breathes
in toasts across seas
force open the laughing cage-

And the farm machine says:

“We will take more animals-
from you
tonight
we will
make you pay by the long tongue
of submissive crawl
and your livers
and liver brought
hum
by the hand-made knife
by the half-made, gesture

the horizons will laugh with boredom, at you  
pummelling dry, the mountains  
if you do not-

light!
LIGHT!
light...

(...//light.)”
...

throw ****** grunts like burping darts directly at the puddled lipped sky

run by, and through
the days of collapsing flesh
raining

Juggernauting mist!///

be unable to find sound

or sand hold

where the lights incept fog

and give it form,

be the crows in saliva
with no threat
as they fly by
between knife and bread
spewing cello grips
along the graffetied walls
of music
and moss burning teeth
in lines of paint  
into the secret wars
and charities
that nothing can touch
and the face at the end of that
brick’s
mind

is a welcome,
face

we walk by//////
sweeps that cannot
smell, themselves
at 5
a.m
fish shattering
by the entry
of our dive
into synapse blue - gulls bound to moon
the waves and the salt and ourselves
moments of dance
in conversation away from the roar
after the vermin
has roared
it’s last spittle
and has dispersed into low
figments
and the juice of that spittle
drapes over our shoulders
in curtainous glowing rocks

Come now junkerd star, trembling
gloats drooling with Cerberus' tears, through space
encountering unwashed books, and curving onyx lips
down hallow of easy river, of moor walk and gait
hares thump the ground of the fields, exchanging
the wilderness for sustenant flight, across it
up flow the silence as it reacts upon your gut
and sends sleep near lass and lad, back by a thousand hands of stars
into sewer skies of rats and eager swans,
growing from the dust of your gone fear,
the penultimate circles that cascade in the sleeplessness
of cigarette sounds and our waltzing vice
Hear Bound the stimulus! Of new sinewed blood
be the one trembling as the dwarf stars explode
into you, and our grips calm, sends them back
and are normal nights of coffeed jokes
sculpted from the clay of time
cascading outer vehicles driving along, the mocking hands glance,
and the hands of menace
ate artichokes
pealing plumes
and handing
one –
to you
the feet of your veins

pouring growth
of root
near mine
stopping only when

the roof top
is ripped clean//////////////

dry from every car, so that it settles
across naked architecture, giants in our hemoglobin
smile, the silhouettes, the wall, and the agonyless
streets, see our shadows standing to attention
devouring the suns toll-in the departure of our being

in the unwavering strikes of our dark hands upon the earth
that bring light to our iris, soaring,
It is this fortune that the soul gets to spend, only,
returning to the work, of life.

Because I could not stop for Love,
She kindly stopped for me.
And I collapsed into her arms,
Cured then of being free.

In a golden carriage far we drove
Off cliffs and over rises.
Each time I felt sure that I'd died
But Love never lacks surprises.

And we passed Death along the road,
I waved but he would not reply-
I pounded on the windows gold
But he mutely passed me by.

For Love sat not with me inside
But whipped the horses viciously.
I asked her why and she replied,
"Love means no company."

We passed a church and, out behind,
A graveyard glowing in the dusk,
Two lovers' silhouettes defined
Beside a tombstone, clasped in lust.

We passed a darkened house and there
A lanky boy threw pinging pebbles.
And as the light when on, the air
Was filled with midnight funeral bells.

We passed a first kiss, slow and sweet,
Two schoolgirls shamed but still adoring,
And every time their lips would meet
A raven hoarsely tried to sing.

We passed a man and wife's "I do."
And peering through the stained glass window
Pallbearers paused their work to see
The other face of sorrow.

One thought gloats over all I see,
"When all is said and done,"
I muse in silent reverie,
"Love leaves you quite alone."

Because I could not stop for Love,
She kindly stopped for me.
And I will die my deathless death
For all eternity.

Blue jeans worn for days,
slick with grease and filth
hung around the
hips of my step-father,
Caterpillar-brown boots
coated with dust
Hanes t-shirt hung loosely,
sweaty and smelly,
his big ears and balding
head that would
reflect the evil
light of his soul-less-ness,
blue eyes glazed over with
lust for helpless
12-year-old girls
and a smile that
could coat my heart with ice

Now he is old
Afraid of death,
My icy smile gloats.

cold
fingers of sticky tar
pressing on
pressure down
a deep dark well
echo chamber
the girl child's sobs
shaken at the throat
his laughter
how he
gloats gloats gloats
cold
steely glinted blades
pressing down
pressure on
a chamber
made of dank air
warm trickle
ruddy blood
mixed with muddy moss
his laughter
gleeful
at her loss loss loss
cold.

J.C. 25/11/2019 - 3.40am

If a speck of dust was to land on your shoe, what would you do? Would you even notice something so microscopic had managed to take time out of it's long, slow day to land on your shoe and await the next breeze to drift away? Of  course you wouldn't! It's just a speck of dust, it is of no importance to you. But does anyone ever realize that a speck of dust has a life of it's own. As one speck of dust sticks to your tv screen right after you had rid all his other friends from sticking to it; He becomes angry. As he was finally reaching his community of friends, you take them away. He calls for revenge. Days, maybe even moths go by and he has gotten revenge. Your tv screen is coated in dust, almost like a gray blanket. The speck of dust cheers as all his community of friends come to stay. The one thing the speck of dust doesn't know is you have died a week ago and your house is in the middle of nowhere. You had no family left and all all possessions were destined to collect dust as you rotted away in your bed. The speck of dust gloats for awhile, but only to find the tv screen too crowded and the air too thin. Poor little speck of dust all it wanted was a few of his friends. But more came until specks were stacked a top each other and unmoving. Goodbye little speck of dust. Better luck next time.

There's a tale that's spoken
When dawn has broken
By gateman and watchmen and guards
And it's echoed by thieves
As the night time leaves
As they shuffle their crooked cards

Of a demon disguised
And a doctor despised
So be weary of coaches at night
There's a roaming physician
Of the devils tuition
A curse and a bringer of plight

Oh, Doctor Sinestre
The butcher of Leicester
A man with a hunger for pain
With top hat and tails
And talon-like nails
There are many he's happily slain
He travels by night
And is fast out of sight
And away by the first light of day
He takes eyes and ears
As grim souvenirs
And your body is left on display

It's said he was born
With a singular horn
Which he uses to gouge his prey
And my grandmother swears
He was brought up by bears
Which he killed in a grizzly display

He's a magical voice
A remover of choice
To beguile the strongest of wills
He can tear you apart
And pull out your heart
So quickly the blood never spills

Oh, Doctor Sinestre
The gory molester
An animal dressed as a man
If you hear him approach
In his ebony coach
Then away just as fast as you can
He feeds on the weak
On souls of the bleak
And seekers of fortune and strife
He removes your afflictions
Diseases, addictions
As swiftly he cures you of life

He has eyes in his ears
So he sees what he hears
His teeth once belonged to a snake
The soles of his feet
Don't meet with the street
Not a print or a sound does he make

There are maps of strange lands
On the palms of his hands
And thick purple hair on the back
There's a bat in his hat
All sluggish and fat
For if ever he fancies a snack

Oh, Doctor Sinestre
The mayor of Chester
And prince of the circles of hell
He giggles and gloats
As he fiddles with goats
He dabbles in chickens as well
A spaceship he flies
Through Lancashire skies
He can turn you to gold with a kiss
He's a ghost driven mad
By his alien dad
And.... Are you TOTALLY sure about this?

dog
barks at the moon
rails at injustice
mourns a lost bone
howls out loneliness
chases fast cats
uses the big bark
growls out fear
chases its tail

dog
sleeps at noon
licks its parts
dreams of stolen treats
chases slow cars
running while sleeping

dog
barks at the moon
unreachable
vastly superior
gloats with disdain
laughs at absurdity
feeling its power

dog
jumps up a sudden
eats up the moon
dog licks its chops
licks its parts
goes back to sleep
there is a lesson
for the moon
you are never too big
to get eaten

sky

I have heard in far of places, where evil men do dwell
That in this place, there is no light in shadows spell
They are filled with hate and ordained, to walk the path alone
Their tears are dry, they cannot cry and hearts are made of stone

The heart of a man is stonier than where love refuses to grow
Where time is a word of fate, exchanging tears for blood to flow
Carnage in destructions belly, monsters of burden take to air
With gnashing teeth and jagged claws, you cry out in despair

To be trapped within a web of lies, hope that depletes your soul
They grin with fangs of blood and gore and discern no self control
Your children’s smiles feed the gluttony, of love’s casual distain
Wicked unimagined pain; brief satisfaction is what they gain
So out to hunt again, their belly’s worn from gravel and slither
They drain the world of faith, while the sun commences to wither
Angels grounded devoid of flight; heats of hell seared their wings
The birds of night taken flight, from darkness abyss as banshee sings
People are blinded by phantoms smoke, cursed as walking dead
They walk with sin right next to them, on streets all paved in red
Bones of victims piled in heaps; while hunting vultures circle round
Ghosts of martyred blameless souls concealed within the ground
The earth struggles to purge itself of human infestation
Quakes, storms and inferno’s flames since dawn of mans creation
The devil strides, with jokers grin and gloats sincere admiration
Knowing the ****** hearts in evil men is beyond all restoration
The world is sick, no cure in sight we breed like pox and boils
Contamination of humanity rinks the fleshy earth rots and spoils
The ocean leaps and bounds trying to soothingly lick the sores
This far off place where evil men dwell finally washed up on our shores

On the stage
is the one
he is not

smiles shakes hands
holds close and tight
he is right on spot.

Hides the real face
speaks and shares
like he is a saint

blamelessly white
open in the light
without a taint.

Busy in the act
to keep away the fact
he is on guard

audience gloats
over crisp anecdotes
any dissent debarred.

From a distance
some in silence
read it in bold

the gore in the glory
the gaps in the story
and all that's untold.

the slow smoke gloats and motes of atoms matter
dappled in the dingy blue of wintry twilight, frozen swollen
with white ash sunlight and long shadows, noodling in the canopies
of our vast wilderness. in the back room.

my rocking chair grinds an arc on a single point beneath me.
i teeter on the minuscule reminiscence, much -  
as a wave teeters
on the moon's
whim.

i rejoice.

and deny.

i long for gone remedies, while pondering
what plagues my faith -
in the Mist...
what troubles the blight elan
of my ignorance.

and
at the door, i find you sleeping
on god's dime.

and i dream with
you.

There is a world that no one knows
Where life unnoticed grows and thrives
Where birth and death and all between
Are scrutinised, yet are unseen

Where innocence and purity
In white are welcomed, full of hope
Impinging slowly, edging in
Life’s colour forming character

Where independent yellow gloats
In fierce teen triumph ‘Look at me!”

With fun and laughter orange glows
And reaches high in happiness
Experience and independence
Rich lessons teach and edges darken

Their lives on show, rough judgement falls
And ‘I prefer the red’ is thrown
About and listened to and felt
And colours deepen, darkened hue

In wind and rain and sunshine showers
Red develops, life impinges
Bright happiness or blood-red wisdom
Growing older, growing wiser

Where petals turning in reveal
Quiet pom-pom introversion
While out-turned fingers stretch with glee
Prima donnas, dancing, twirling

Where purple self-awareness turns
Each pink and mauve and lilac from
The bloom of youth towards life’s wane
Yet far enough away, rebelling

Where days grow shorter, sliding past
Yet hands stretch out and cup each face
And noses breathe and fingers touch
And bees buzz past and voices rise
And babies cry and old men laugh
And yet unknown, unseen, life slows

Bright-eyed the purple-rinse brigade
With sparkle-induced energy
Remembering and reminiscing
Their days they fill with endless chatter

Late Autumn falls and nights draw near
White heads do droop and slip, like snow
Fine petals drift into the breeze
An echo whispering til Spring.

You were not a breath of fresh air
you were the choking
of sadness infused
smoking
in every room
tabacco stained fingers
left marks on every table top
and top to bottom the house was so
dust filled
that you had killed
all ******* signs of life
the room was rife
with scents of her and no sense
of morality
you just turned to see
but choked every good growing gracious thing out of me
you don’t hear any noise anymore
lost my voice
somewhere on the floor with her
underwear and
everywhere there’s
another girl’s hair
strands and hair bands
and when I close my eyes it’s her hands
touching your shoulder blades
and the concaves
of your collar bones and
clean clothes
and it’s so clear that when I’m here
she gloats because her hands
have become your hands
and now they’re wrapped around my throat
And so when she chokes
You choke
And I-

.all in all: pro bono persona non grata... but it's nice... the dodo of excavations because douglas murray citing t. s. eliot... is... such a pristine... welcome... caveat; it's such a stark-naked revisionism of the concept of pink... outside and beside having scotch-notching of the bristle... this... fidget and all that's the forever the anglo-sphere of solispism... the unsavoury redeemer of europe... napoleon (1)... ****** (2)...     the pauper states and the ottomans... take... three? hell! when england is fidgety about being an island dwelling folk (in europe) and a "diaspora" when something a bit like... h'america and australia... comes along... the best gay is the old gay is the no-new gay and the no-old... and gay... the 5pm stubble intellectualism... hot and bothered given there's not grand admiration for an ethics without a joy-ride of an expelled peoples... that the future is: having made... a people... local! for those being made to make digestion: focal... and immoveable... pawn strictures... post racial and thereby new scrutiny: grammar... or... lah blah l'ay lo bo'go'h zupp'ah crispy ****** ****** fue fue and few! this the "neuweil"...

     it's snooker and not chess...
and because snooker can
be televised...
    in that it's not a private affair
of "i.q." strain of a sudoku...
it's still purely optics...

   red = 1
             yellow = 2...
                   even if the pawn
were to = 1...
       you can't fathom the affair
with 3rd party spectactors without
a necessary lagging...

but it's a televized sport...
but it's unlike bayern munich
trashing barcelona 8 - 2...

          there's that theatre of
red is 1...
        all gyst of what remains
the doctrine of spheres...
      perhaps the pawn = 1 = red...
the blanket...

the metaphor of... the cue ball...
like a lion or any other
predator picking out the lazy
angle the weak pack of the herd...

        how doesn't one welcome
a sport of such befitting attire...
savile row -esque rummaging
to tie with a librarian monstrosity...

it's so much easier to stomach:
all spheres...
   the vast confines of limbo green
of what's pitch-black
vacuum of space and eternal
glue fabric of the orbs...

         now agitated in a sneaking
parody of bulldozer
a cue-ball an asteroid...
a football match
with so much fervor...
the chanting, the shirts...
the agony of the whole affair...

   never the stressed individual...
in a sport so much talk of
fluke and chance and: the gods
of snooker... oh indeed:
the gods still watch snooker...
chess is too much noir et blanc...

   snooker is a...
           why so much of everything
has to be wrong with love
in what's wrong with love
to begin with:
the idealism of males invested
in the project under
the pseudonym: stendhal...

          then there's the other comparison:
if snooker is not chess
then... perhaps it's... boxing?
such a brute sport...
it's bothersome enough to be eating
a diet of beef and tenderloin
poultry hearts in a broth...
to have to entertain the brutality
of boxing...

   i watch snooker i envision
myself coughing into a napkin...
i imagine... fencing...
another great expansion of sport...
selective sport
that's still somehow physical...
unlike chess because chess...
is not to be televized...

                   oh truly: these favourable
ideals of hot-topics for poets...
the ideal love...
"you" the "ideal" and "lover"...
never the one potting
a perfect 147 jerking off...
i tried myself with prostitutes...
it's a harsh reality
when both parties are playing
a poker of pretend...

   snooker is unlike any other sport...
to boast to blame to glisten
and to subsequently **** a suffocating
throttle of an exercise in...
agitation... whimsical! whimsical:
i dare you! please!

    it's unlike a football match...
       golf can **** my big toe xerxes...
the contraints...
i once anticipated this meditation
with tennis...
a game of... moon...
and... 7 rectangles and...
          the umpire and...
                        10 judges...
and... 4 ball-boys...
                             tired sport of
professional fluidity...
    
                         to appreciate is best
to not play it...
from the t.v. with nostalgia...
an itch a view of a
famous onlooker...
   none other than
the iron maiden drummer
    at the sheffield crucible...
                     nicko mcbrain...

yes: me right now...
a matthew arnold take on seeing
liszt play and all the girls
having reached beatlemania fever pitch...
d.n.a. score...
it usually took two to tango...
i don't like the idea
of the man being burdened
with a d.n.a. progression
of "passing-on"... the... "details"...

              i'm very content taking
the solo walk home...
because... come to think of it...
i am not impressed with the arguments
to counter my: will...
i'm not willing to make either
sacrifice or sacrilege...
                        i'm more than willing
for the entire lazy abode to jump
in on early on the nibbling prospect...
not out of: some high-praise of self-worth...

what would we be talking about...
had i not the capacity to take
snooker to sleep...
   and i was a east-end
millwall "hooligan" cabbie...
                   it's snooker...
it's not woah-kitty science... is it?

too much of perfect love went
into writing - perhaps a toll of mine -
and not into the exploits of
the day-to-day living out the grit...

tolling losing affairs with
english like the long lost cousin
of a bavarian misantrophe...
should there come an ease!
with a entymological scrutiny...
idiosyncratic as that old
borrowed & blatant saxon...

   fudge-packers of the world unite!
the broad and the default...
the skittle blisters of skim-rhetoric...
the lobsided slob...
beginning with etymological
genesis:
                  fudge-packing
           fudge-packing
                 either side
of the propaganda machinery... glut...
no glue! all the glut but no glue!
fudge-packaging:
the beside "question" of...
              a straight banana
                                 syndrome...
because: no new "wonder" analogy...
            beside "that" one...
                                  
   to be humbled is not, to be...
humiliated...
   how can... the tolerance
of humbling being made
synonym of being a meaning
of humilitiation?!
*******! asylum!
   proto-****-sane-"metaphysician"!

to abhor liberals is to somehow love
homosexuals...
to test the competency
the phallus
in competition the joy-*****...
           and such that...
there's no new morality...
only the old europe
with the europe
of the "rejected" yews...

clear-me-up-on-the-kippah:
forthright on the ***...
no new shlang...
    this... archaic... this...

primordial ****... and never...
the proxy bilingual...
you... basic... ****-wit and...
  comma!

   and... the gay-"dude"...
the argument...
the boxing females...
and the still intact...
***** industry...
   like... carpentry with
carpet tiers...
like...
    **** with stink...
like... metal with... ore
and... rust...
like: forget me whips...
and i'll flake you another; boss stephens!

to have to stiffen-up
over a... this logistics of gloating...
the west gloats...
a history of gloating...
whether the mongolian recession...
of the soviet nudging death-queue...
gloat... the ******* feeds off gloating...
i'm tired of gloating...
given... after a while...
there's no more a winning
or a losing: gloat
or party to feed off...
a supposed serenity of...
an otherwise...
nihlism & *******!

- you ******* ginger-bread flims!
finicky bypassing wording...
           ein-grab-beste-"oops"-

and thus: the name horowitz...
barking...
          ottoman....
    rotherham...
   ­           roam-befitting: "future"...
          there's the closure
with upmister...
            the the blessing...
all creasing with copper-skinz...

ONREPEATZ... ONREPEATZ...
same old replica...
           towing the jew
in a spiderweb...
like a gravitational pull
toward a moth and
scuttling h'americana

  best be broken h'americana
cain chess of the limbo
continental...
                 abel my abel...
my liquidating sod...

                      it was never to be
a prized event;
of good... to have cleaved one
to a momentum...
god.... the usual bollocking riddle.

Time ran its lecherous fingers
across our youngest son
with his oldest soul
Cruelly pried open weak spots
and stained our walls
with water damage tears
like misunderstood plague
that gloats just the same with
death knell freedom bell declarations
as we are herded
like cattle
and they ran their sacred waters
over my head but I found
I don't much subscribe to
forceful lead pipe
confessionals
and it's not that we want you off the land
we just want you to stop murdering it
with this run on death sentence
see I try to understand but
I struggle to be loyal when I saw what
you did to my brothers
and at this point all I ask
is
please
let my children
live.

Once a baby Sky wanders in search of,
True love and peace in the universe.
‘
Spends many days and nights,
But does not succeed in his mission.

Suddenly he impinges against a dark Cloud,
Looking very dreadful like a monster.

Dark Cloud traps him into his clutches,
And gloats over an innocent baby Sky.

Terrified Sky, cries, yelps, shouts,
But finds no one to help him.

To release himself from clutches of Cloud,
Made every attempt but all in vain.

But had learned never to give up,
And struggles to keep his hopes alive.

Recalls the magic spells of his mother,
Perseverance, patience and passion.

Realizing his energy and mightiness,
Reaches at the zenith of his strength.

Whoops and roars on the monster,
As if Titanic were collided with an Iceberg.

Releases himself from clutches of monster,
Enthusiasm makes him win invincible battle.

Flies away to start next stage of his journey,
Exploring again love and peace in the universe.

I, whose sleep gloats
searching for answers, steering for a dream

I take my place amongst men
in parks, in alleys, in trains,

and the Sun unmasks itself
like timeworn skies of linoleum.

trees their bulwarks realize such oneness
and birds start to rain

where time wounds all feelings
and lovers innumerably lay flat on their bellies.

mountains ***** as tall as truths,
and the sleuth more than my body’s engine

turns less than a seraphim – dizzy with the
night’s utmost haranguing.

I, whose soul returns not with garlands
but with chains as my phantoms go with them

swimmingly across the blue Earth
and a man brindled, tussled against

space that so distant the star becomes so near
and all sleep lose names of dreams.