Late August, given heavy rain and sun
For a full week, the blackberries would ripen.
At first, just one, a glossy purple clot
Among others, red, green, hard as a knot.
You ate that first one and its flesh was sweet
Like thickened wine: summer's blood was in it
Leaving stains upon the tongue and lust for
Picking. Then red ones inked up and that hunger
Sent us out with milk cans, pea tins, jam-pots
Where briars scratched and wet grass bleached our boots.
Round hayfields, cornfields and potato-drills
We trekked and picked until the cans were full
Until the tinkling bottom had been covered
With green ones, and on top big dark blobs burned
Like a plate of eyes. Our hands were peppered
With thorn ******, our palms sticky as Bluebeard's.
We hoarded the fresh berries in the byre.
But when the bath was filled we found a fur,
A rat-grey fungus, glutting on our cache.
The juice was stinking too. Once off the bush
The fruit fermented, the sweet flesh would turn sour.
I always felt like crying. It wasn't fair
That all the lovely canfuls smelt of rot.
Each year I hoped they'd keep, knew they would not.

1
Shh…the rain cooed, calming the flood that rages
Still a concern…or was
Now placed upon the wetted soil
Transfigured, blessed in holy oils scented with cinnamon.
#2
I grasp at the compass that Donne reassured,
Tragic to find it etched in notes
Of the Song of Swans:
It may commune beneath a firmament of birds
Yet, it seems divided in this steely sky—the color of wrathful swords—
I sniff: it smells of cinnamon.
#3
I am drawn by the scented bliss, anointed in general
That is, with the rest,
But somehow, cologned, it’s too sweet, too new
Now a criminal to laws of ancient Hebrew.
To the iron clouds, the necks will bend,
To turn from he who smells of
Cinnamon
That is, with the rest.
#4
Yet, they do not smell
Nor peel back its bark lest it poison the oil
As rain poisons soil,
And ignore, as they do, when rain is to come,
The oil is fragranced evil with cinnamon.
#5
And though I complain, clack to the mud
It, too, smells of cinnamon,
And so we’re the same.
#6
“****” is my cry. “**** them to their hell,”
Burn the concrete buildings, tear away social offal
That, with some entreaty, seems to plague us all! Why so much Injustice?
Who are you? A God? What makes one lump of clay
A clod, the other a home? Upon the heads of refused beings
How do you stand so tall? You can’t lest your empire fails
While the seesaw of suffering hoist up the side of wails
And smoke the vital oxygen,
Scowls, the first impression
Worried not about advancing goals but living day to day,
The things that move metabolisms, world-wide, subject to pay,
Wasting our lives not in 9-to-5s but looking
And failing to find
And toting excess and praising their holders
While blaming the others born from behind
Partitions drawn in world wars started for oil
For money, for wealth, both so glutted and glutting pride a nation wide
While its cells are tinged with cancer,
Both sides of false dichotomy claiming they have the answer, to answer the question
Of recidivism, the poor and they are to live or get along, dangling the carrot so high
It goes above their dreams, and it’s so blurry that it’s hard to tell
What exactly one pursues,
Or race, religion,
Of a woman’s place in the is to see how absurd such a question should be,
Here is a question that seems appropriate: why are differences discouraged,
Who says what is better but the powers that be
Lenses shaped for us to see only those things specifically made
To make the made untouchable,
And they do it, and will not stop, we’re left with no hope
But from where pleasure is wrought: drugs and sedatives that
Blunt the mind that worries, sober, replacing them until they’re over
But without any solution; a bandage to a bandage
Since a sober mind that cognizes problems can’t possibly solve them in the same state
Of mind.
A lust for love with no genuine conception,
*******, deflowering with cold, stony hearts
Fostered in a day and age where manipulation is more inescapable means
And less insidious art,
So broken by our broken dreams and forced to walk without contention
Compromising on who we are
No struggle to help make us strong
A simple shrug to carry on,
While the most powerful blood, the fire in our veins is given, given, given
To those we think we love,
While we sit dreaming and falling in love with love
Always coddling the scars, where the blood and sinew were streaming
Until they are closed and pink, taut and empty like a drum
Still yearning to beat the same rhythm again,
Needing to learn before synchrony may happen
And two drums may beat to the other’s tune,
Feeling some pulse that holds us feet from decay
All the warmth and butterflies
Come in a zephyr smelling of fetid, carrion meat
That makes true affection
Feel like maggots in the skin
And we leave to new horizons, akin in their process:
Where they end, where they begin.
And yet we’re so weak in every regard, being the forge of our own fortress’ petard
Sade-masochists that run, run, run away
Feeling as though we’re cast to sea, waiting for the problem to deal with itself
A shining light house on a miserable horn
Hides by our back, the shore receding out, and even in the darkness
The vastness of the sea, there’s still the light cast ‘cross the sky
With the same, though fleeting, periodicity.
And I can do nothing, least, nothing of worth
Being as I am, a whiny little white boy with middle class struggles,
Well-fed, well-cared for, and some domestic unrest
But I am minor, mediocre at best,
And have never had the muscles, the mettle, put truly to the test.
So I can only complain beneath the anthill of my worries
And all my attempts to make any change are thwarted by my failings, my comfort
My life,
Doing drugs, self-medicating because it’s the best I can come up with
Spiraling beyond uncontrollable until it is no longer
Me whose spinning down to destruction,
That was something of the past
Now, I truly have nothing to grasp
And I kick and I scream and I try and I try and I try
But look in dismay at any hope I may have for people to change, yet their conduct belies
A sense or desire to be anointed enspiced
Since the general oil has seemed to suffice, and that’s not enough, but I just want some change
Some honesty, but I can’t find it, I know not what I feel
All this angst piling up, like a chapter in the life of Holden Caulfield:
He’s my ******* idol since I pressed with all this
Stupidity with no venue but complaints
And this is doing nothing, this ******* poetry, neither solving nor affording comfort
Back to me. It is art and no one cares
It has no voice, save the face-value point
And I want meaning, and so I try to make it knowing full well
The intention is demeaning, but not in my writing
Its filthy fingers touching on everything that I’d like to achieve
Legitimately, but it’s all conditioned
It’s breakdown is imminent  
If only I knew how accept
Oils scented with cinnamon.
I wish I was different, or acted upon it, instead of just ******* in the lines
Of a sonnet,
Or that others may smell of their own fragranced oils
Then trifles, then problems may seem something
Of little toil
But, but, but, where am I to go, where do I begin?
I’ve gone in circles, where I stopped I’ll start again
And I’ll never escape because…
#7
Shh…the rain cooed, calming the flood that rages
Still a concern…or was.
In due time the sun will do as it does:
Show us what is, is soon to be what was.
The nature of me, with little consistency, is grasping for a dawn
I see it coming up
Now that I’ve smelled the breeze
Of cinnamon.

..............there’s such a clamour
         so much choring
    memory thread
I sit
armchair
rocking head
receiver of motion
    bleaker of putty trauma
                creator of mammary craving

.....best take up knitting or wood carving

the fortress of thought
(in strict connivance with a bewildered host)
compiles the 'person idea'
protects the fragile calculator
               from biting at its own exposed
                  and useless self mating psychology
               from glutting on its own tail 
                   and merry going mad
                        in a tune of hoops...

..stammering to achieve valuation

for our decent management
projector
may you continue operations falser still
defeating our own polygraphs and making fools of our internal courtrooms

i sit on this chair
things go still
thoughts occur elsewhere
am i left to not be ?....................

Terror evolves in the pure open space
where sparked by the doubt of one who resents
the consequence of living and knowing
nothing of the terrible, terrible
confrontation, it propounds incessant
problems of being and ceasing until
entangled Reason entangles itself
in implications of implications,

confounding the space, conceiving a place
of refuge bounding Nowhere’s edge,
where ponderous dreams of life without care
augment the power and anger and dread
of Terror itself, thickening like air,
glutting the infinite heart of the head.

I find myself standing before the gates of hell. It is here, in this place of fear and pain, that I must fight my battles and face my enemies. The smell engulfs me…the stench of ignorance and glutting fill the air. The wind blows with the sounds of nothingness and you destroy who I was and I try to hold back who I want to be.

It is before the gates of hell I face you. My blood flows with each blow I allow you to make. My adrenaline pumps with each strike and contact. Vengefulness lingers in my heart. My body is hot while my skin is cold to the touch. With each thought I relive the pain you inflicted on me. I bleed from the wounds you made. My heart aches and my soul cries out.

I stand alone, here at the gates of hell. No one to have my back. No one to put you in your place. I stand alone to fight a battle I ignored for many years. Trying to erase the marks you left on my body. Trying to eliminate the scars you put in my memories. Blocking out the sounds when I said NO and you refused to hear me.

I stand here at the gates of hell; alone, cowering, crying, and searching for someone to hold me, to tell me all will be okay, to keep me safe, and help me up when I fall. Someone who will be there for me when I seek help.

It is at the gates of hell I throw my punches, scream my brains outs, and there is nothing but silence and emptiness. My punches make no impact, my screams have no sound. It is here at the gates of hell I stand.

                                                                     *My own personal hell.

Past Prejudices arise Again,
Feed a Feast of Fear to them
Prey upon their Greatest fears
And Raise a Fascist tide

Let Loose the Tide of Lies
Greased by Economic ties
Lubes the Rails of Ruin, And
Veils the Dawning of the Truth

Brave they Are, who have
Never seen the Rise of Battle
Willing to sacrifice, those who are...
as if to War, the Chaf and Chattel

The Leaders Lead us into Pens
To leash us to Ideologies in Need
To Insure the remaining 1 percent
That they can fulfill their greed

Glutting on the Middle class, and
Feast upon the Poor, to upraise
The Pile of Bones Before, Each
Fat and Wanton Priviledged Bore

For us a need, is all that we Possess
Feeling Lost, all in Due Process
Yet Voices can be Heard and Votes
It seems only to be  logical.....

WE CAN SLAY...the Necrological


All the Work here is licensed under the Name
®SilverSilkenTongue and the © Property of J.Flack

The fragility of life
Witnessed via passing time.
Where physical strength once was rife
Now only the strength of mind

The passing of life
Witnessed by those younger
Than we, audience to strife
Seeing lifes hunger

And how avoraciously it eats.
Glutting on human flesh,
And all other meats.
To time, all life is fresh.

The breeze that ripples
through the clematis vine;

shakes the aphid cloak
glutting on its purple pendants.

We touch, and suddenly,
my mouth is the whole me,
and I give everything I know I am
(what remains of me
is everything I don't know).

I found you along the way,
and I found myself, then, happy,
for the chance that gifted me,
for the sky that smiled with all that blue,
happy for the chain reaction
of a cosmic accident,
a divine lapse,
that put us together, there, in the same place,
with all that contained energy,
the spark of a thirsty bomb,
uncontrollable, devastating,
a seducing destruction
of millions megatons,
semitones, shadows and lights,
skin tones,
skin, that I felt
cover my own flesh,
to enfold all my body,
completely blind, dumb and breathless
by a kiss,
as if the grass itself,
that bore our weight,
was our feet
burying and entangling themselves,
feeding just of ground, air, water,
glutting myself of everything I'm not,
like if the world, at that moment,
started to shrink and became small,
a little bouncing (untamed) ball
that we suddenly could reason
all its mysteries and secrets.

Then the air occupies the space between our lips
and everything returns to normal.