If I held out my hand
would you take it ?
it's warmth ready to permeate your soul
but what would it tell you of me ?
the scar on my finger
the wrinkling skin
the crooked pinkie
the gnarl on my thumb
stories to be told
if you would only take hold.

chain lightning blows across the sky like a radiant touch;

strikes the same tree in my hometown every time i fall in love.

what breed is it, this ruinous love? striking,

the white caustic light of it irradiating

the surrounding cornfields.



were you ever there to see it? from your bedroom window?

the arc and crackle? this tuning fork of astral flame resonating

between cloud and timber? this crippled elm where

my skinny suicidal teenage love bid me scale limbs?

where each time, like a surgeon, my shaky fingers stitched bark

with the corded sinew of raccoons and my fluids held it all glued?

in the dark? how so like an heirloom it seems now;

this lone tree, cordoned in scars,

all gnarl and char.



i turn to the map of my circulatory system in these moments,

follow the red army over a causeway of capillaries,

watch them fattened on oxygen.

how else to know that amongst all this,

there remains

a richness deep

down things?



make a supple leather from the hides

of the nights I knuckled crabapples down your roof.

It will be the color of a bruise; of a secret. all you do

is carve, slicing carefully to cut out my

silhouette projected against your bedroom wall –

all this, time and memory, just arts and crafts. molding

the vectors of us, hurtling through space

like coins drifting

to the bottom

of a well.



memory, the fashion and fashioning of it:

the way we wear our existence. our skeleton

to cobble and clothe. so while we’re at it…

let us forget the moments of trepidation.

Obliterate the clamminess of our palms clenched together,

the schoolyard drama of it all. pasted in layers

until it’s just a mess of glue. until the moments that matter

are traced with dotted lines

and lusted over

by the appetites

of scissors.

Gnarl your toes,
Know that you can’t catch everything
That comes flying through the rye
We are rosebuds trying to
Find the right window.
The right person to pluck us apart bit by bit
Trying to make up their minds
Yes’s or No’s
Gnarl your toes
Because either way, you will face
Him, Bruce Wayne
And cast your conscience in to the dark
but somehow you’ll come out of it
Harry Pottering your way through the darkness
finding her in front of you
And you’ll show her all the reasons
To the hate the sun
You’ll pour galaxies in cups
Trying to measure what this feeling is
You’ll take her words like nebulas
meek and hazy swimming inside your
ears
Show her where the stars sleeps
Where they go when you die
tell her the stories that your
parents told you at night
you will love her until the snow falls
upward
and when she’s gone the streets will no
longer be slippery
So gnarl your toes like you use to do
For there’s plenty of things to be scared of
Plenty of things to be angry about
Plenty of things to corrupt you
To change your mind, to make you Darth Vader
Down the path you did not want
and if you do, know that it is fine
because you will grow like the universe before you
and in that process you will find
poetry etched in between chopsticks, lips, fingertips, maps of big cities
and small towns. first loves and second dates .
you will find them on the places you hate—
On your parents graves.
know that they were the ones that left them for you

It was on a night like this, not long ago.
The air stood still and the moon hung low.

A loathsome lad on the bow of a whaler.
Not much of a farmer but a pretty good sailor.

Made a wish on the breast of Blue he killed.
"Your mightiest dead, his blood I've spilled!"

Most gods didn't listen save one who did care.
Poseidon held steadfast, his attention was snared.

"Poseidon pay forth my wish which I've earned!
My fortunes everlasting and enemies burned!"

Poseidon appeared though not as you think him.
He appeared as fresh water so the sailor would drink him.

"My favor you seek?" The lads stomach it snarled.
"You killed one of my daughters your heart I will gnarl!"

"Oh dear god who hath forsaken my favor.
Spare me your wrath, my heart don't savor."

The young sailor pleaded his tables now turned.
The house of his dreams Poseidon has burned.

"Quiet you fool your tears do not pang me.
One day I favor you will marry a banshee.

She'll be quite striking, clever, and loyal.
For her hand and her heart you mustn't recoil.

You'll live quite well your fortunes more fair.
You'll suffer no fools, you will not despair.

One night though I'll come back to collect.
I spared your life tis quite a large debt."

Our whaling friend abided then his muscles began to quake.
Poseidon made him ***** so an exit he could make.

They parted ways and many years of travels came to be.
Our whaling lad he had searched those perilous seven seas.

Soon he met and fell in love with a girl from the forests edge.
He proposed to her in sight of Poseidon on high upon a ledge.

A few years passed and soon she bore this man a son.
He couldn't believe his very eyes what favors had he won.

Then one night Poseidon came and rapped his trident on the door.
"A debt must be paid with your own son. I mustn't wait anymore!"

The lad he knew better than to argue with Poseidon.
He took his son from his wife's arms knowing better to abide him.

Poseidon took his son and cast him to the stars.
A reminder far more lasting than any mortal scars.

The young mans wife done cast herself into the firey hearth.
Having done cursed her love and self, for ever giving birth.

The sailor said "What penance, if any, was there ever to be made?"
Poseidon turned away from him for the debt the man had paid.

"Does your pain right now not make you favor death?
Do you not savor in the thought of smelling Cerebrus' breath?

Can you fashion upon your eyes a single saving grace?
How about your soul for one more look upon her face?"

The whaling man said nothing putting pistol to his temple.
The plan it seems all along had been well, rather simple.

A discharged flash and his eyes opened wide.
Prone in his bed his lovely wife there by his side.

His son began to bellow from the crib by the hearth.
Everything was as it was, his love and the birth.

A new moon shone out upon the quiet sea.
Poseidon beckoned the old man to venture out to he.

"Poseidon I don't know what I could do to honor you my god.
Your feats are grand and generous your efforts I applaud."

"Save face my friend for you have learned your lesson well.
And that's to say this **** right here is by Jamison ****** Bell!"

'The storm is in the air,' she said, and held
Her soft palm to the breeze; and looking up,
Swift sunbeams brush'd the crystal of her eyes,
As swallows leave the skies to skim the brown,
Bright woodland lakes. 'The rain is in the air.
'O Prophet Wind, what hast thou told the rose,
'That suddenly she loosens her red heart,
'And sends long, perfum'd sighs about the place?
'O Prophet Wind, what hast thou told the Swift,
'That from the airy eave, she, shadow-grey,
'Smites the blue pond, and speeds her glancing wing
'Close to the daffodils? What hast thou told small bells,
'And tender buds, that--all unlike the rose--
'They draw green leaves close, close about their *******
'And shrink to sudden slumber? The sycamores
'In ev'ry leaf are eloquent with thee;
'The poplars busy all their silver tongues
'With answ'ring thee, and the round chestnut stirs
'Vastly but softly, at thy prophecies.
'The vines grow dusky with a deeper green--
'And with their tendrils ****** thy passing harp,
'And keep it by brief seconds in their leaves.
'O Prophet Wind, thou tellest of the rain,
'While, jacinth blue, the broad sky folds calm palms,
'Unwitting of all storm, high o'er the land!
'The little grasses and the ruddy heath
'Know of the coming rain; but towards the sun
'The eagle lifts his eyes, and with his wings
'Beats on a sunlight that is never marr'd
'By cloud or mist, shrieks his fierce joy to air
'Ne'er stir'd by stormy pulse.'
'The eagle mine,' I said: 'O I would ride
'His wings like Ganymede, nor ever care
'To drop upon the stormy earth again,--
'But circle star-ward, narrowing my gyres,
'To some great planet of eternal peace.'.
'Nay,' said my wise, young love, 'the eagle falls
'Back to his cliff, swift as a thunder-bolt;
'For there his mate and naked eaglets dwell,
'And there he rends the dove, and joys in all
'The fierce delights of his tempestuous home.
'And tho' the stormy Earth throbs thro' her poles--
'With tempests rocks upon her circling path--
'And bleak, black clouds ****** at her purple hills--
'While mate and eaglets shriek upon the rock--
'The eagle leaves the hylas to its calm,
'Beats the wild storm apart that rings the earth,
'And seeks his eyrie on the wind-dash'd cliff.
'O Prophet Wind! close, close the storm and rain!'

Long sway'd the grasses like a rolling wave
Above an undertow--the mastiff cried;
Low swept the poplars, groaning in their hearts;
And iron-footed stood the gnarl'd oaks,
And brac'd their woody thews against the storm.
Lash'd from the pond, the iv'ry cygnets sought
The carven steps that plung'd into the pool;
The peacocks scream'd and dragg'd forgotten plumes.
On the sheer turf--all shadows subtly died,
In one large shadow sweeping o'er the land;
Bright windows in the ivy blush'd no more;
The ripe, red walls grew pale--the tall vane dim;
Like a swift off'ring to an angry God,
O'erweighted vines shook plum and apricot,
From trembling trellis, and the rose trees pour'd
A red libation of sweet, ripen'd leaves,
On the trim walks. To the high dove-cote set
A stream of silver wings and violet *******,
The hawk-like storm swooping on their track.
'Go,' said my love, 'the storm would whirl me off
'As thistle-down. I'll shelter here--but you--
'You love no storms!' 'Where thou art,' I said,
'Is all the calm I know--wert thou enthron'd
'On the pivot of the winds--or in the maelstrom,
'Thou holdest in thy hand my palm of peace;
'And, like the eagle, I would break the belts
'Of shouting tempests to return to thee,
'Were I above the storm on broad wings.
'Yet no she-eagle thou! a small, white, lily girl
'I clasp and lift and carry from the rain,
'Across the windy lawn.'
With this I wove
Her floating lace about her floating hair,
And crush'd her snowy raiment to my breast,
And while she thought of frowns, but smil'd instead,
And wrote her heart in crimson on her cheeks,
I bounded with her up the breezy slopes,
The storm about us with such airy din,
As of a thousand bugles, that my heart
Took courage in the clamor, and I laid
My lips upon the flow'r of her pink ear,
And said: 'I love thee; give me love again!'
And here she pal'd, love has its dread, and then
She clasp'd its joy and redden'd in its light,
Till all the daffodils I trod were pale
Beside the small flow'r red upon my breast.
And ere the dial on the ***** was pass'd,
Between the last loud bugle of the Wind
And the first silver coinage of the Rain,
Upon my flying hair, there came her kiss,
Gentle and pure upon my face--and thus
Were we betroth'd between the Wind and Rain.

I've borne the heavy load.
I've worked all the day.
Got two children at the house to feed.
Husband's gone away.

I've a bunion on my toe,
But I've got a corn pad.
With a smile upon my face,
Swear, it don't hurt so bad.

Don't the moonlight look so grand,
Shining in the sky!
Walking home from second shift,
Clean cars are wizzing by.

There's a light mist in the air
That gives me some relief.
In the crock *** waits at home
Hash and good corned beef.

My fingers gnarl and seize,
The handle's hard to grip.
I hope the boss don't send me home.
The kids have a field trip.

When the kids get on the bus
To travel out of town,
I might take a few days off
To lay my tired head down.

Don't the moonlight look so grand,
Shining in the sky.
Walking home from second shift,
Clean cars are wizzing by.

There's a light mist in the air
That gives me some relief.
In the crock *** waits at home
Hash and good corned beef.

I am faithful to the work.
I don't call in sick.
I'm hardworking as a man.
The foreman calls me "chick."

I never complain about my back.
Lord, He knows, I need this job.
I can take the stripes they give.
Don't give my raise to Bob.

Don't the moonlight look so grand,
Shining in the sky.
Walking home from second shift,
Clean cars are wizzing by.

There's a light mist in the air
That gives me some relief.
In the crock *** waits at home
Hash and good corned beef.

Wretched
Gangly and torn from the lonely nights in his room
He is not safe
He is not home

skirting the rusty rose of a brooch
dangling on canvas bodice as she leans
tightly over me; the waves of wrinkles
on her be-bangled red hands pointing to the
wrong punctuation; this is dream-building
in the fifth grade; don't end the dream
too soon, she gruffs sing-song like
a prize-winning racoon; and still applauds
the bricklaying we so clumsily feign
for our castles in the sky; tho she, too,
dies of cancer in the last year; the tubes at the
very last weaving through the canvas;
something of a final stitch to the making
of a dream; and so i think all dreams in me
they die in darkness and still i wonder
what happens to the crenellated castle
walls i abandoned scores of years and
many As ago; and still we pat our doeeyes
on their infinitile heads and **** our
cynical shacks-by-the-forest-fires back
into our heads, begging beneath the
damp light of early-onset reverie: save
us, won't you, from the stiff stillborn of
dreams our generation lost to the fantasy
of getting what the saddest, dreamless
dollared dupes decree; oh be better yet for me,
my naive sums, and take your brick-laying;
your canvas sheen; your impossible, doubtless
dreams with broach and gnarl; with gruff and
soundless trill; your soulful self metastasized  
with every beat
to the happy grave.

.
In disused field is a blooming temple.
An ancient apple tree waiting eternal,
This stone bold sculpture was forged
With nimbus hands and windy eyes.
In hushed airs, Shiva dances to light,
Waves, sacred arms without swaying.

Bearded ones come to pay homage,
The solemn chickadees, the ranging
Sparrows, red robed robins— priestly                                                         ­   
Doves, all who see are one enveloped
In graces of the New World Bodhi tree,
Waiting for blossoms so dearly come.

Edge of boughs brim under heavens
Landing with mystic verges of spirit
Into the mind of the eyes of nature—
Kali-flowered ears of lichen are pale
Green in their devotions, pummeled
By seas of seasons, foggy to the fray.

Finches, yellow, reflecting in a star,
Devout wee lamas golden with halo,
Are kneeling above berm, this nobby
Trunk, stave, inside bodacious stupa
Bell who sings clear, without ringing,
Body of elder grace, wisdoms, ages.

In cast irreverence, seldom do crows
Visit, when they do there is menace
Of the Jinn, dark giants in the levels,
Mercifully, out of shame, they do not
Stay, black wings due, die in luminous
Day moon, rain soak sun, balmy mist.

On pilgrim journeys, whirlings, prayer
Wheels, guide shy flocks riding gnarl,
Indie goddess, to overreaching love,
By sores of hollow in the steps, open
To being, brindles of myriad meadow
In temple blossoms— numinous suns.

Of both earth and sky, shines a beauty,
Whose form is written in blistering bark,
The ciphers of tongue to Sanskrit leaves
And lost fruits, given over, unforbiddens,
Within old apple tree a great wilderness
And all the branch of wings are knowing.

.all of Dante: no feminism; surely woman was such a half-"breed" that she didn't deserve the partiarchal sustenance anomaly of a Dante... a: mutation... half-wit me: succor? no succor! surely a man these days, would rather read ****-****** poetry from the 20th century, and watch football... than be levelled to a "need" to fathom the courtship of woman... it's enough for me to read the Braille of a key and a keyhole: and... like... some miraculous enterprise of a door... i'm out: dodo project... all the man that i will ever be: is being the man i was not expected to be: one thing being a puppet in the hands of the gods: another to be a puppet being kicked and shoved by a fellow human mob; fin; yep... fancy a gambled spotting of a Dante on a roundabout of: on a whim, within a whim, and... whenever she puts on lipstick in an advert: i am not thinking about her thinking of the metaphor for: *******.

you know...
i once stop myself...

i'm reading some
homosexual poetry
from the 1950s

and then i...
"reflect":

what is woman
writing in
the 21st century...

??????

archeologist...
certainly not
an entymologist...

one word...
pre-
whatever ethnic
grouping i was
part of...

***'gy'el...
one word savior,
much more
than an "our father..."

oh i'm way, way past
brown, coco,
copper tanning,
way past the Bangladeshii:
100 shades of
  goo...

gold smitten...
and some of Cairo
hushed extra-
     extravagance
of the dimmed
sandy-
-hued locket of
             timid amber...

4 artifacts from
the 20th century
imprinted on my collectivised
aspect of a singling out
mind:
the holocaust
of the 1940s...
itallian **** from the 1970s...
music videos
from the 1980s...
t.v. reruns of cartoons
in the 1990s...
4th artifact... ****!
****!

what's the fourth 'un?

westerns:
with their scoop of:
any action, no action,
all action:
   panorama to boot...
a decade bias:
'60s...

             and with so many
takes on, "the trip",
i sometimes they didn't
drag god, the word, logos,
into their phantoms
upon the wake...
if only... they didn't desecrate
the shrines of
ingesting hallucinogenic
fungus,
by simultaneously
writing about them:

no go: zombie area...
   i too wish:
no x-ray was handy
in the variety of poem...
but:
******* desecrated
the sights...
like the machu picchu
of the soul...

what then:
at the end of a bottle?
another bottle!

       and prior to?
all of the worthy set
that constitutes
the making of life:
in the collective quest
of the repeated set
of mistakes.

- i tune in into
the speakeasies of
american psychologists
who:
a controversial
opinion is as much
degrading
as a shot of *****...

they could have tripped
all they wanted...
but have recorded:
nothing of their
experiences...

   and all would be:
just as well...
stiff & the stale Vatican:
holy men
for a worth of a leather
shoe... or a cotton shroud's
worth of a hood 'n'
fabric...

                as i sometimes...
have to stop...
no writing,
and interlude of reading...
and nothing but
a shelter in music...

rarely does the sound
of falling rain
compensate
music...

     i remember that the first
time i heard
       ola gjeilo i was in
transit, i cried,
because only the kind
of beauty never to be
attached in attaching itself
to the world, the organic,
will ever make me
cower into complete
shadow:
disowning a heart,
both in rhythm as
           in subject-matter...

now i know the word
to counter what
is being strained:
4000 b.c.

                to boot...
summary:

40s lamb for the slaughter...
70s italian ****,
80s music videos,
90s televised cartoons...
50s new york poetry...

         some jazz,
some painting,
   and then some of 21st century's
summary "criticism"...
         19th century architecture...

but of course...
  none of this even
suggests a chance to savour
  a contemplation
as recuperation...

         to me?
the poets of the 20th century...
should have never have
dragged
  the word into the phantasmagorical
world of the fungus "deity":
namely?
whatever word
is to be extracted from the dream
world is nothing but:

****, skyscraper,
*****, oyster, hat...
             screwdriver...

we have been abandoned
by dreams...

we have been kicked out
from our "2nd Eden",
the Eden of Dreams...
and, it's as if:
we... "don't know it"...

i can only see my persistent
inability to dream,
the anglo-saxon lie that:
we can elaborate on
sleep with: staggering
dream-architectures...

      no! we've been kicked out!
second strike!
i blame the beatnik poets:
because why would you
drag the word into
hallucinogenic experiences...
while desecrating
the altar of the unconscious?

to have been kicked out
of the Eden of Sleep...
is to face the reality
of standing before
the Narcissus of a mirror's
rejection of the 3D man...
an no 2D avatar waiting:
mind you...
   the atom, the... "man"...

i sleep, i don't dream,
all i see is the
gnawing worm:
                         εποχoν -
the bulwark
released from
being tied to an orbit
for our safety: on a leash:

gnarl - up!
and gnashing teeth
like a mythology
of a grinding into
    spit
from a crushing wheel;

however much i try...
i can't dissociate
the following:

fjør-

                             & -skå...

da!

             no anglo-saxon can
lie to me,
in saying:
  he's the architect of
the dream-world:
while mine:
    remains shackled
to ruin...

                     and sometimes:
baron music
shoves a sock soaked
in **** down my throat:
and i...

mingle fingers away from
flesh,
and entomb them
in the wind:
and lacerate myself
with a vision
of an x-ray's worth
of gaze.

happy is not
a crime
it's just a circled thought
on which you cannot climb

twist of wood
gnarl of segment found
there will be sad enough
after you **** it
with slants of sounded furies
dropping you a line

this feeds me: http://tinyurl.com/hvz44mr - sure, when you see flowers pollinate more frequently, and pigs slaughtered more so, you begin to wonder: this gentlemanly approach to things is really paying off... sure is... oh well, why are they born to necessitate such matrimony kindred to sadism? why?! by now i'm in the refugee camp: i really don't care, just get me off this orbital **** of pathos.

when bass and drums merge,
and soon overpowered rhythm guitars
all long gone...
                                    i don't have to be right,
or wrong,
                      Sacha Baron Cohen and the Cohen
brothers (albeit distinctive) and
     Mel Brooks still understand comedy:
has to do about something concerning genitalia,
but feel the rhythm,
                      it's slightly dangerous,
it's thematic according to a rheumatic
piston sharpening to pulverise you into
a state of being brain dead, that's dangerous,
skin-heads aplenty, with the fake dodo-extinction
of the left leaves the right ripe and open
to invigorate itself... just like
Urban the 2nd launched the crusades during
the first crusade... my ethnic cousins were not involved,
we waited for the Teutons, then the Mongols,
what a magical ethnic diversity,
                         you end up discarding English
media, even if or whenever they come up with a story
akin to *all the king's men - whoop d d'ah:
               helium filled balloons...
                      because what you're speaking is: i'm not
discovering as a legitimate differentiation
basis for either Lenin or Lennon -
                            shoot the dummy,
well: you're all Clinton and California is orange...
                         you see, techno punk is vague...
i'm vague...
                     i loved being in brothels,
they told me about black boys with elephants *****
and tried to get me angry,
         hell, i passed the test when one ******* stole
my bank card and the **** showed me an *** array of
stolen cards in his plagiarism wallet...
                                many more examples...
why did i retire my youth and beauty to
encounter prostitutes?
                ever tried courting an English girl?
i dare say, gnarl?
                                             you'd sooner find a *******
leprechaun than **** an English girl...
                               the bony **** of my own extensive limb
curled got boring, university wasn't the 1960s,
               i didn't want to ****...
i didn't want a Clinton reputation...
                 what's the answer? am i gay? no!
brothel 999.
                          well: if you're not going to **** me,
and i'm tired of yanking the doodle and saying
*** is actually Switzerland, where am i to go?
          the only way is brothel-land.
                                  **** a nippy chicken off a supermarket
shelf? is that your idea of currency?
                  oh i heard, two guys drugged a girl
***** her then impaled her like a Polish-Lithuanian
          Commonwealth baron speaking Ukrainian
in Argentina... then the street protests...
           i'm convict for rightfully paying for ***,
paying an extra £10 for eating the genitals out,
         making a Jewish joke akin to Balaam -
getting what i want,
                                    telling the British girls:
oh here comes the Pakistanis, curry kebab dab in that?
sure!
               whey hey!
                                   Sinjit's your uncle!
why the **** would you wonder why i designate
myself as being misogynist?
                                   i conceptualised the idea by
splitting the Cartesian Siamese distraction
into two: ergo doesn't necessarily precipitate into
the arithmetic...
                    i coordinate otherwise...
                                        going to the brothel liberated
me from dating culture,
                          from dating apps,
                                  from that i call pork trimmings.
easy to say you're an atheist but have no atheistic
thought to back it up... and few hardly do:
    because it's easy to assume you are something
but have no agreeable thought to manage the throttling
being as such.
                  a man can masquerade his delving
into lost genital interaction for only so long,
but when you live in a society where women are deaf
and blind, and prefer the company of perverts...
hey **! the ****** are parading and knocking on your
front-doors...
                      because they can, and because they will...
            what, you want to date?
                       is that eating a date while breaking
the Raamadam fasting month?
                      you got to be ******* kidding me...
don't bother...
                                      you'll die a *******-load of
squatting ***** exercises that's politically merely a
handshake... if the English girl don't give to a man:
        then let the perverts come -
i'm done.... Bulgarian ****** taught me all i need to know,
and i even decided to pay an extra £10 to slurp up that
excess of Isaac's necktie on the altar of Abraham -
funny how the Aztecs built pyramids but where not
interrupted: 'cos they were palaces of capital punishment
not trivial tombs!
                                  they taught me more than
i could have ever learned...
             when it comes to dating these days?
i can't be bothered, should i be bothered? probably no.
well, there's that case of drugging a girl, ****** her
and then impaling her in Argentina...
                       with so many insects roaming the place,
you're bound to feel a desire to ****,
  and when not gratified and not interested in games,
you go the source of your woes and
                    desire to buy salt,
and you buy salt,
                 and oh god, it's so impersonal
and yourself so intact,  and then you leave,
                                      and then you have very or merely
little concern for keeping certain things memorable.

Her footsteps echo
between the gnarl'd, elder trees
pursued by mem'ry.

1.
It's odd Time never came
To wonder under these beaches' loam,

To walk forty steps to a tide
Where sea-green foam flashes full its blade.

     2.
     Trammeled like a nun, the girl
     Swept by me thoughtless. A root's gnarl

     Could symbolize slim pain
     Beneath the scleras: two jackals' den.

     3.
     Hurt inwardly, like darkened stars,
     So bursting silence is all one hears.

4.
The monotony of this shoreline is a throwback.
What phantoms come: an electric shock.

Why ten years ago is all I know
Is not half as important as who or how.

5.
The autumnal tremor, the rainless moonlight...
Memories of little weight....

Embedded in the crease of streets
Lies litter from this wasteland world.
Grandiosity of trees despoiled by plastic bags
Shredded to a baleful wind-whipped bunting.
Cans and bottles glint in summer sun.
Their quenching duty done, they figure
In a losing landscape, tinged by neglect.
Dog-eared gutters crouch against the kerbs,
Lusting for a sluice of cleansing rain.
At least the leaves all lavished beauty once,
To cast a vibrant coloured throw
Across a calloused landscape
Through the gnarl of tarmac
And turgid, timeless traffic.

In the not too far off distance
I here the faint splashing of an indie song,
That reminds me of you ?

Maybe not of you,
But your gait
And if I want to reminisce about
Your demeanor I will twist
And gnarl and damage the song
To be who you were,

To me , it is as if
Whenever I think of the grand entrance
Of the natural history museum you are there
On the steps, in a deceitful black dress

And I weep like a wound infected
Half because you are heaven
An eighth because you are a day at the DMV
Or worse

I’m not alone
I have a partner for checkers
The computer
But I find that you can’t have a laugh
About how bad you are
With someone that much better than you

I’m now on loan
But what a strange feeling it is to own
Half of someone
Like when you take a lean
On a car,
Sure, the bank could take it back

But would they understand the eight-week-old,
Chulupa in the back seat?
Would anyone understand

Your tongue?
Or might they ****
The life out of it
Only to cut it out later

I recognize the song
And draw it closer to me
I have bent the sound to fit me,
To suit you,
Fake- deaf, I tune it out
Only to have my conk- shell –for- an- ear
Throw it back up in a fishy -mess

Then it laughs at me and says,
“Don’t be silly now, I’m your song forever.”

I can’t handle that
So I run away leaving my brain
Behind
My brain is on the ground bleeding
Saying, “Oh! How embarrassing to wear red after my birthday!”

In disused field is a blooming temple.
An ancient apple tree waits eternal,
This stone bold sculpture was forged
With nimbus hands and windy eyes.
In hushed airs, Shiva dances to light,
Waves, sacred arms without swaying.

Bearded ones come to pay homage,
The solemn chickadees, the ranging
Sparrows, red robed robins— priestly                                                         ­    
Doves, all who see are one enveloped
In graces of the New World Bodhi tree,
Waiting for blossoms so dearly come.

Edge of boughs brim under heavens
Landing with mystic verges of spirit
Into the mind of the eyes of nature—
Kali-flowered ears of lichen are pale
Green in their devotions, pummeled
By seas of seasons, foggy to the fray.

Finches, yellow, reflecting in a star,
Devout wee lamas golden with halo,
Are kneeling above berm, this nobby
Trunk, stave, inside bodacious stupa
Bell who sings clear, without ringing,
Body of elder grace, wisdoms, ages.

In cast irreverence, seldom do crows
Visit, when they do there is menace
Of the Jinn, dark giants in the levels,
Mercifully, out of shame, they do not
Stay, black wings due, die in luminous
Day moon, rain soak sun, balmy mist.

On pilgrim journeys, whirlings, prayer
Wheels, guide shy flocks riding gnarl,
Indie goddess, to overreaching love,
By sores of hollow in the steps, open
To being, brindles of myriad meadow
In temple blossoms— numinous suns.

Of both earth and sky, shines a beauty,
Whose form is written in blistering bark,
The ciphers of tongue to Sanskrit leaves
And lost fruits, given over, unforbiddens,
Within old apple tree a great wilderness
And all the branch of wings are knowing.

Underneath a willowtree
twists your summerbeard
with your winterbeard
entwined

You think your greenthoughts
of gnarl, leg, branch, and twig
of foretime kisses under moonlight
of nowtime creakings under foglight

You grasp with groaning fingers
after a moth in flight
and catching him
lick the dust from his wings

You crunch with rotten legs
through leaves in swirl
and crushing them
soak sunlight from their blood

Underneath your willowtree
your bark whitens
and in breathing out
unwinds

Hey girl
(you boy too)
before the thumbs gnarl
use for sweeter things to do.

There's a sky awaiting you
a cloud paused from sail
a poem in your heart overdue
fetus of one tale.

Hey girl
(you boy too)
leave the shell to find the pearl
before times flew.

There's a grass still growing green
in wind love's whisper
a birdsong to catch from din
before years stray too far.

Hey girl
(you boy too)
the hidden is for you to unfurl
color them in your hue.

Piece together each dormant word
on scrap of leaf in ink
pour out within's flutter unheard
before runs out time in a wink.

i don't get inspired... i get prompts,
e.g.?

one in particular...
her name? sam leith -
the saturday the times weekend
magazine (july 29th 2017) -
the usual load of *******
from the ***
of west london...

sam? why not samuel but
samantha?
  what sort of man cites his
father as the guiding beacon?
me? you?
s(he) - ah, transgender perfect,
armed with a rifle, and a bra
stuffed with scrambled eggs -
she he he she, she she he she,
it dot, tag, you're it! he she
she she he she, she she he, he she,
she she, he he, shish kebab,
samuel beckett's watt:
bonkers, boing boing boing,
apache heli-copter! trampoline!

slap in the face seriousness...
she-******
quotes her father citing
ecclesiastes (oof fra fra in essex,
high-brow y'ah tellin' moi?!
   neece... nice? n'eh ce pa?
tortoise mangetout peckam, n'es pas?)...
dog ****.

         to, every, thing, there, is, a, season,
     and, a, time, to, every, purpose, under,
the, heaven.

and then ******-he goes on to add:

        post-60... never pass an alleyway
for a wee... (not little, down south it's
called the glaswegian pish-soother),
     *******? no, thank you,
   i do mine almost daily while taking a ****...
for some reason an eager **** always
provides the ***** with some mexican
"artist"... milk that cow boy! milk it!
         boy milk it!
                         ah sweet maritza...
hombre in ex hombre... y'allah...
                                                     im'she!
(camel talk, spit and gnarl at toon poond
uh'xtra!)...
                      point no. 3: farts are boring,
unless in a tight space,
where all solipsism disappears...
   there is a proof for solispsism,
but it doesn't come from either head or mouth...
psst... comes from the ***...
    the argument for solipsism comes from
the ***... evidently the theory stands on the proof
that: everyone enjoys their own stink...
  and i believe that's a universally accepted
logic... you can smell your own ****,
but dare not to gag at someone else's,
     there, solipsism, proved via farting.

no man cites his father unless he be a semite.

so this bothered me... she-******-it-he-it-she-ooh
the following (age-limit requirement in brackets):
- not knowing how to cook (30)
- long hair for men (20)
- wheelie pavement transport (35)
- having one-night stands (26)
- posting selfies on instagram (35)
- long hair for women (50)
- jeremy "che" corbyn t-shirts (30)
- going clubbing (37)
- saying you're a d.j. (30)
- tattoos (age limit: never!)                  huh?
    - not being able to drive (20)
- baseball caps (36)
- going to festivals (50)
- wearing shorts (40)
- cleavage (40)
- showing other people your
poetry (16)....
   that's what got me, **** the rest...
what are you?
   spank-the-monkey-tiger-mommy?!
you the whip the ****** latex c.e.o.?!
the **** is this ******* rambling?!
    oh look... what's next...
an article!
   let's see:
           post-cougar, pre-pensioner -
it's a.... "tricky" stage by a 57 year old...
sure, i'd **** a granny... if i were african
working in a care home...
  as the headlines read only two days ago...
no... it's one thing philosophy attacking poetry,
but it's another when journalists do it...
no you ****-****-faced-*******....
you're not going to get away like the so easily...
******* leeches of conversation...
       barren wastelands of introspection!
i know my patron... at least this ****
german appreciated the craft...
   you? you?! you're a pathetic waste of time
trying to replenish a taste for
ancient greece... and all that pederastic education.

poets? masters of listening to
silence,
   within hearing sound

                (vacuus in vox, papilio in turba columba).

we slept all
bundled up in
beds too tiny
meant for
one


limbed and
twiny under
breathy blanket
quilted by
your mom

​
in pokey dorm rooms
loud and
clambersome
​

we slept all
upside down
in princess bed
of brass ornate
and painted
ceramic of
flowers pink
and dainty

​
pulled and
rubbled out
from rummage
sale in
somebody's
front yard

​
enclosed by walls
of wood
a-seep with
rugged deep
grotesque koala
gnarl

​
we slept all
pulled out long
on foamy
futon
​

slats a-stick
in ribs and
jutting out
​

to wailing
whooping
siren sounds
and tv screams
and chopper
chops
and others'
midnight
lovers' fights


a-pound and
hot and grimy


we slept all
lofted up
and alcoved
cozy
high in castle
attic


nunnery
monastic


circled round
by clouds
and crows and
osprey


wings a-soar
wings a-flap
dizzying up our
weathered dreams


with
cat a-curled and
purring at
our tender feet


and farback
memories
swirling sweet


of bygone nights

​
of bygone plights


of sleeps
slept other
places


© 2017 Adelaide Heathfield

The light above me flickers and scares forcing  my reflection to changes and distort
Your bleeding into my thoughts
My own horror show but you perform
Shakily, I push into the wall, trying to find some kind of balance within
Your nails dig, rip and shred my skin
3 years on, we don’t talk anymore but your still present. Like a demonic possession where I may need an exorcism  
                                                  ……….­.      
I know you saw me when I was 17, I was a mean beauty queen with my life torn at the seams
Still, you thought there was something about me
I was captured in your eyes your hand reached into my chest to grab my heart
There was no one else who wanted me quite like you did from the start
But I knew you could tear me apart
For an entire summer you became the feeling of loneliness that felt so similar, corruption and destruction I knew so well
For you I fell
She’s going to **** me but the night we kissed I didn’t see you resisting me
While she rested peacefully unknowingly with you on my lips  
                                                 ……….
Your in and out of my life, your never a consistent ghost
I don’t know why you like haunting me the most
Obsession and a dangerous lust was all we ever knew
You said if you weren’t with her you would be with me
*******
You made your choice now live with it
I gave you countless chances
How about the night you told me you loved me when I was in a relationship  
Then you forget about me like a nightmare clothed in deceit
Four years of being your slave and praying your love will set me free from these chains you bound me in
But you stayed on that throne while I bled for you on the floor
A master of the lying game, a king of heartbreaks
I wanted to be your reality, your truth from all the fakes
But you wanted me to be your Sasha Grey instead
While your girlfriend sleeps in your bed
I was a ***** little secret you never wanted to tell
One of the many ****** you condemned to hell
Still, I would had done anything for you
Because your kiss rendered true
                               ………….

I’m glad we don’t talk anymore, honestly, I couldn’t take it
The phone call when I was twenty years old confessing my love for you, I was the only one who said it
You ran away and hid, didn’t come back until you were ready
To use me yet again
My mind became your playroom, chain me, spit on me, abuse me, choke me, use me but never love me….. how could you?
When I didn’t even know my own value
I ran to you countless of times because your malevolence felt like my childhood home
The way you would play with my heart was incredibly low
You knew what you were really doing inside
Like Satan preying on the catholic girl in the church
Burning the rosary of passion into my skin to hurt, you laughed at the pain  
But no, we don’t talk anymore and thank god
                             ………..
It amazes me but you still have the power to burn inside me
My body wanting to reject your entity
Depraved, obscene, revolting, my first love when I was 17
My mouth opens wide, twisted searing hot liquid rides
Straight out of my mouth, back to the hell where you come from
I plead, like that poor catholic girl trying to escape your grasp
“Please let me go, don’t haunt me anymore”
But I can feel your hand inside, pulling my words down, I bite, I chew, I tear, I gnarl
I steady myself before I feel them rise up
I start to feel the burn I move away and turn
You stand before me in the doorway, I don’t want to hear what you have to say
“Tell me you loved me once and I will believe you”,
**** surrounds me as you inhale, you ignore everything I say, you just stand there in a daze.
I nod and realise, it’s me who never let you go, not the other way around
“I don’t want you here anymore, understand? You’re the past I no longer want, your not even a real man, you’re the ghost who just likes to haunt for fun to keep his game playing, you will not take me back down to hell with you”,
I stand, breathing heavy
I feel him slipping away from me
If it was that easy I would had done that years ago
But I guess I wasn’t ready back then to let you go
I’m glad we don’t talk anymore, sorry, but I am

my eyes bleed to claim the word fuse, should they not claim the word sounded, and twin the chemist's reprimand, arable either.*

you made my eyes bleed;
such poem
suffices;
such poem is:
gnarl mud on cement
as is the walked on geographic!

By saying none, I have promised more than enough.
To her, the word means as much as "them all".
My ways and words prove only to be rough.
When in fact, I'd wish for our distance to fall.

Rhymes and songs to me come crawling.
Yet from herself I feel but love.
Gnarl all I may, my heart is howling.
I wish her not, to see from above.

His hands shake as they grip the edge of the bima.

It was not always like this. Once
His fingers tapped spry and nimble,
His knuckles did not gnarl and swell,
Spots dotted his face in freckles and not his skin as it aged.
His right knee twinges. He swallows dry.
Perhaps he should visit a doctor.  It is not wise, they tell him,
For a man his age to continue his work under such pressure -- he simply laughs it off.
Pah. Meshugge, you are.
He maintains, he will manage, his kind were built to endure.

His kind have walked miles in red sand that burned the soles of their feet.
His kind have strained their eyes to see the hazy shape of hope
In lamplight that burned eight days too long;
His kind stood tall in front of kings and pharaohs and Führers
That ordered them to kneel, bow, lay dead, rot beneath ten feat of Earth.
His kind broke their backs to remain steady on their own two feet --
Who is he to fail them by resting now?

He can certainly stand on a bima, facing a congregation that has come to expect
The sound of his voice, passion in his words,
The life in his eyes glowing behind a cloud of cataracts
(I do not need to see, he claims, to recite the words of Hashem; I read with my heart.)
Like candles through a foggy window,
Tinted glass distorted,
Faint chanting ringing from within.

Kol Nidrei.
He had to break fast this morning -- God forgive me, I did not want to --
I’d rather have died. But pills must be taken.
He scans his audience and knows others must have taken pills of their own:
They are old. No one lives forever.
His joints ache as theirs do,
They too feel the weight of seventy, eighty years settled in their bones
Like rocks, like sediment,  
Shifting with the current of the river that teems above them.
Such is the will of God.
They will be carried upstream when their time comes.

Ve’esarei, ush’vuei,
A glass of water rests on the floor at his feet,
Already half drained --
Droplets still sit moist on his lips.
Vacharamei, vekonamei,
He is a humble man, as all of Hashem’s servants should be --
He is blessed with dexterity unusual for his age.
He has no cause to complain, and yet even on the day of atonement,
Deep within his chest burns pride.
He is scared.
Vekinusei, vechinuyei,
Adonai, please,
Give me the strength.
I know why I hesitate.

He fears his voice will catch in his throat --
Will waver, will break to cough,
That the silver in his tone has tarnished,
That his pitch will strain, fall flat,
That his voice is not fit to sing God’s words,
That this chant will be his last.
That he will have to stop.

Kol Nidrei. All Vows.
He is nothing but a man. He is a mouthpiece for the words that pour out of him,
That float through the synagogue as they’ve floated for years upon years.
If he silences himself, he has no purpose.
If he silences himself, he is already unfit to sing God’s words.
He must begin without fear:
His kind know how to endure without fear. It is in their blood.
His mournful voice sings for them.
He takes a breath. The congregation holds theirs.

Kol Nidrei.
Ve’esarei, ush’vuei, vacharamei, vekonamei, vekinusei, vechinuyei.
Prohibitions, oaths, consecrations, vows that we may vow --
His voice is his vow.
He vows his life, the rest of his year, however many those may be, he pledges all of them,
That he may stand before his people in front of him,
And sing to his people that lived behind him.
Kol Nidrei.
All vows.
His voice soars and echoes off of the ceiling of the synagogue.

the worst feeling in the world, to me
is feeling stuck.
it's worse than having to dig out the wheel
in the limbs of sloppy rain,
or the shock value of biting the inside
of your mouth.

it's the opposite of the realization you have
when you remember the mouth heals quickest; and then
there is hope.

imagine the life path of dreams -
with a lush natural fence on the threshold.
one step over summons vines from under
that lash and snag and gnarl and gnash
and you're frozen stone: forest
desert arctic all in one.

the stuck swallows me inside
an imperial chamber
that i am not in the slightest bit worthy
to be surrounded by.

a perception of the world
in your mind...
it cracks,
shatters, hiss,
obliterated.

i welcome struggle into my arms as i go
to the bittersweet valley below;
maybe i will find the seeds that
will allow me to grow.

I could not see the next summit,
the gashed gnarl of its face.
I guessed only that its steepening
inclines had been set against me.

I could hear all the echoings
of the dead in their ice-tombs
where their aims had led them
and buried them, then, deeper,

the incredible footfall
of sherpas, spirited, light
and deft, unbetraying. A silence
stretched on toward a night

long with unhuman testimony.
Then it came: the world-clearing
hammer-blows of distant avalanches,
the palpitations of chaos,

one whiteout of potentiality.
My tent fluttered and gripped
at the snow that stored for spring
all paths to the peak, leading

through veils of embraces,
inconsolable losses, charms,
fantastic indictments. Swelling
its stormfront, then collapsing

into a voice like winter, the wind
took up a human song and broke
across the horizons. It sang,
'You are an unborn fjord,

a chasm yet to be. Only water
sculpts its beauty: let it pass.
Throw no harness over the clouds,
they hold no secrets, but are.

Here, while you plan your ascent
each night, exalting the fey,
the indolent, the totemic, you are
like a thief on a watchtower.

Until every such night has passed
you will light, tend, and watch die
a small, tense fire, but awake
surrounded by footprints.'

I just met her a week ago and
I can still smell her as the days go
Never have I felt such zeal for a lassie
A gnarl feeling is beginning to spiral
I'm starting to think my minds tired
Or just crazy

She's the girl of my dreams
The one I see when I sleep
I love the way that she speaks

With my phone I'm never wondering who should I call
I'd like to say we met at the mall
Just to make this poem rhyme but we met at a time
Were a mall was not an option

I treasure her affection,  let her know I'll never desert her
But that's a lie
We aint God , so we make promises we can't reach
You're lier till proven honest

So in the sense of the word "Honest" you can't preach

Beware our first kiss
that uncrossed line of
once done is done
ours will not be a tickled fancy
nor plain nor incidental

First kiss will come from deep within our souls
where desire has slept for months,

Our ****** lip-lock longing
with the torrent of rivers Teslin and Yukon merging
the craving colours change from soft navy blue, shadows of olive
to stark aqua marine, glowing brilliant teal
seen through eyes closed, the witness of deep arousal
from deep within

Mouth water poaches an intensity, hearts race, we forget to breathe
teeth gnarl one another in a **** or flight instinct
towers of oral energy cascade through a single line of longing
faces twisting right and left in attempts to find suitable alignment
not caring when they don’t
nothing else matters
when uncrossed lines are crossed

Beware the first kiss
once
    there is no turning back
let go the vertigo, we will hold one another
while tearing our tongues into one another’s souls
push deeper with all passion’s purpose

this once
will be
      – just once

Self righteousness would be the doom of us all,
We are quick to judge without proper explanation given to us. If it looks bad then it is bad, and if it looks good then it is good. No grey lines. Just black and white.
In trying to protect ourselves we hurt others,
Some would call it the casualty of war.
Our story defines complications.
Your sin is permissible because it is your sin,
Mine is not because it isn't yours,
So you'd stare and gnarl at me,
And commence to throw that sin on me.
It is your way not the highway,
Your view has to be the last say,
Because you view yourself to be a better saint.

it's cold here
in the shade
of your waning love
blue moon bruises
of the heart
left to rot
like fruit in the bowl
as the gnarl in my stomach
tightens
dark matters knot
to a widow black hole

© J.C.