The cultural filters are all in place
And truth, some say, is past its sell-by date
Weak hymns embalmed by hippies, and lost in space
Where time is always 1968

A poison-green tattoo on a fleshy back
No incense, but the Purell’s pretty strong
A ten-year-old gobbles his comfort snack
During Communion and a three-chord song

Our bishops quack and honk in flocks and herds -
We need a starets
                                           but all we get are words:


Intensify the Dallas Charter accountability focus accountability exclusively accountability collegial collective accountability responsibility address theme encounter dialectic collegiality variety universality unity flock dealing topic difficult reasons unexplored differences crisis difficult for bishops enable abusers gravely irreparably failures governance responsibility question engage conversation point brother problematic behavior cultivate culture correctio fraterna enables offending other recognize criticism opportunity to tasks related willingness personally mistakes to each other feeling maintain fraternal relationship cases we damaging weakness anecdotal parenthesis to his speech encounters course ministry recollection forgive counseling for healing discussing matter rationally headway realized psyche of the person measure semblance justice inability forgive his  apparently perplexing consternating remarked noting changed personality of person realize humility mistakes learn mistakes better question unanswered unaddressed mistakes allowed consequences mishandling cases gathering conferences participants and journalists effective concrete measures combat scourge scandal technical theological sense term list reflection points adjunct secretary special portfolio combatting meeting chief architects roadmap for our discussion very, very concrete understatement seriously utter understatement things discussed follow-up meeting continued model of reform the so-called intensify the Dallas Charter metropolitan model metropolitan investigating disciplining wayward ecclesiastical provinces briefing responded you have to read the footnote disgrace investigations systemic coverup dismissed briefing expressed hope report position power prominence leadership structure report findings influence broader jurisdictions Accountability focus accountability exclusively accountability collegial collective accountability responsibility address theme encounter dialectic collegiality variety universality unity flock dealing topic difficult reasons unexplored differences crisis difficult for bishops enable abusers gravely irreparably failures governance responsibility question engage conversation point brother problematic behavior cultivate culture correctio fraterna enables offending other recognize criticism opportunity to tasks related willingness personally mistakes to each other feeling maintain fraternal relationship cases we damaging weakness anecdotal parenthesis to his speech encounters course ministry recollection forgive counseling for healing discussing matter rationally headway realized psyche of the person measure semblance justice inability forgive his  apparently perplexing consternating remarked noting changed personality of person realize humility mistakes learn mistakes better question unanswered unaddressed mistakes allowed consequences mishandling cases gathering conferences participants and journalists effective concrete measures combat scourge scandal technical theological sense term list reflection points adjunct secretary special portfolio combatting meeting chief architects roadmap for our discussion very, very concrete understatement seriously utter understatement things discussed follow-up meeting continued model of reform the so-called Metropolitan model metropolitan investigating disciplining wayward ecclesiastical provinces briefing responded you have to read the footnote disgrace investigations systemic coverup dismissed briefing expressed hope report position power prominence leadership structure report findings influence broader jurisdictions accountable faithful promises episodes  accountability supportive talking collegiality obligation misbehavior failures circumstances reputation representative discreet inquiries interview expression concern geographically confronted reported matter subject investigating disciplining malfeasance proposal wrongdoing explained carefully considered matter alternatives remarks paragraph  rehearsed alternatives footnote 6 of text speeches delivered sessions briefing spoke involvement laity lay involvement transparency transparent offending other recognize criticism opportunity to tasks related willingness personally mistakes to each other feeling maintain fraternal relationship cases we damaging weakness anecdotal parenthesis to his speech encounters course ministry recollection forgive counseling for healing discussing matter rationally headway realized psyche of the person measure semblance justice inability forgive his  apparently perplexing consternating remarked noting changed personality of person realize humility mistakes learn mistakes better question unanswered unaddressed mistakes allowed consequences mishandling cases gathering conferences participants and journalists effective concrete measures combat scourge scandal technical theological sense term list reflection points adjunct secretary special portfolio combatting meeting chief architects roadmap for our discussion very, very concrete understatement seriously utter understatement things discussed follow-up meeting continued model of reform the so-called Metropolitan model metropolitan investigating disciplining wayward ecclesiastical provinces briefing responded you have to read the footnote disgrace investigations systemic coverup dismissed briefing expressed hope report position power prominence leadership structure report findings influence broader jurisdictions accountable faithful promises episodes  accountability supportive talking collegiality obligation misbehavior failures circumstances reputation representative discreet inquiries interview expression concern geographically confronted reported matter subject investigating disciplining malfeasance proposal wrongdoing explained carefully considered matter alternatives remarks paragraph  rehearsed alternatives footnote 6 of text speeches delivered sessions briefing spoke involvement laity lay involvement transparency transparent intensify the Dallas Charter…

A ***** couch rests in the living room,
Like an old green stump.  
Worn from too many soap operas and football games
The pillows droop like tired eyelids.  
The smell of exhaustion and grime clings to the well-worn skin
That itches if you get too close.
Dog hair is sprinkled across the cushions
Along with mysterious stains and crusty popcorn between seats.  
It gobbles up change, remotes and secrets.

Far from a fairy-tale throne
It has as much romance as a sock.
But since the bedroom was off-limits,
It would have to do.

Joanne Rowlgobbleng was born on 31st July 1965 at Yate General Hospgobbletal just outsgobblede Brgobblestol, and grew up gobblen Gloucestershgobblere gobblen England and gobblen Chepstow, Gwent, gobblen south-east Wales.  

Her father, Peter, was an agobblercraft enggobbleneer at the Rolls Royce factory gobblen Brgobblestol and her mother, Anne, was a scgobbleence techngobblecgobblean gobblen the Chemgobblestry department at Wyedean Comprehensgobbleve, where Jo herself went to school.  

The young Jo grew up surrounded by books. “gobble lgobbleved for books,’’ she has sagobbled. “gobble was your basgobblec common-or-garden bookworm, complete wgobbleth freckles and Natgobbleonal Health spectacles.”  

Jo wanted to be a wrgobbleter from an early age. She wrote her fgobblerst book at the age of sgobblex – a story about a rabbgobblet, called ‘Rabbgobblet’. At just eleven, she wrote her fgobblerst novel – about seven cursed dgobbleamonds and the people who owned them.  

Jo left home at egobbleghteen for Exeter Ungobbleversgobblety, where she read so wgobbledely outsgobblede her French and Classgobblecs syllabus that she clocked up a fgobblene of £50 for overdue books at the Ungobbleversgobblety lgobblebrary. Her knowledge of Classgobblecs would one day come gobblen handy for creatgobbleng the spells gobblen the Harry Potter sergobblees, some of whgobblech are based on Latgobblen.  

Her course gobblencluded a year gobblen Pargobbles, where she shared an apartment wgobbleth an gobbletalgobblean, a Russgobblean and a Spangobbleard. “gobble lgobbleved gobblen Pargobbles for a year as a student,” Jo tweeted after the 2015 terrorgobblest attacks there. “gobblet’s one of my favourgobblete places on earth.”  

After her degree, she moved to London and worked gobblen a sergobblees of jobs, gobblencludgobbleng one as a researcher at Amnesty gobblenternatgobbleonal.  

“There gobblen my lgobblettle offgobblece gobble read hastgobblely scrgobblebbled letters smuggled out of totalgobbletargobblean reggobblemes by men and women who were rgobbleskgobbleng gobblemprgobblesonment to gobblenform the outsgobblede world of what was happengobbleng to them. My small partgobblecgobblepatgobbleon gobblen that process was one of the most humblgobbleng and gobblenspgobblergobbleng expergobbleences of my lgobblefe.”  

Jo concegobbleved the gobbledea of Harry Potter gobblen 1990 whgobblele sgobblettgobbleng on a delayed tragobblen from Manchester to London Kgobbleng’s Cross. Over the next fgobbleve years, she began to map out all seven books of the sergobblees. She wrote mostly gobblen longhand and gradually bugobblelt up a mass of notes, many of whgobblech were scrgobblebbled on odd scraps of paper.  

Takgobbleng her notes wgobbleth her, she moved to northern Portugal to teach Englgobblesh as a foregobblegn language, marrgobbleed Jorge Arantes gobblen October 1992 and had a daughter, Jessgobbleca, gobblen 1993. When the marrgobbleage ended later that year, she returned to the UK to lgobbleve gobblen Edgobblenburgh, carrygobbleng not just Jessgobbleca but a sugobbletcase contagobblengobbleng the fgobblerst three chapters of Harry Potter and the Phgobblelosopher’s Stone.  

Gobblen Edgobblenburgh, Jo tragobblened as a teacher and began teachgobbleng gobblen the cgobblety’s schools, but she contgobblenued to wrgobblete gobblen every spare moment.  

Havgobbleng completed the full manuscrgobblept, she sent the fgobblerst three chapters to a number of lgobbleterary agents, one of whom wrote back askgobbleng to see the rest of gobblet. She says gobblet was “the best letter gobble had ever recegobbleved gobblen my lgobblefe.”  

The book was fgobblerst publgobbleshed by Bloomsbury Chgobbleldren’s Books gobblen June 1997, under the name J.K. Rowlgobbleng.  

The “K” stands for Kathleen, her paternal grandmother’s name. gobblet was added at her publgobblesher’s request, who thought a book by an obvgobbleously female author mgobbleght not appeal to the target audgobbleence of young boys.  

Her fgobblerst novel was publgobbleshed gobblen the US under a dgobblefferent tgobbletle, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, gobblen 1998.  Sgobblex further tgobbletles followed gobblen the Harry Potter sergobblees, each achgobbleevgobbleng record-breakgobbleng success.  

Gobblen 2001, the fgobblelm adaptatgobbleon of the fgobblerst book was released by Warner Bros., and was followed by sgobblex more book adaptatgobbleons, concludgobbleng wgobbleth the release of the egobbleghth fgobblelm, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, gobblen 2011.  

J.K. Rowlgobbleng has also wrgobbletten two small volumes, whgobblech appear as the tgobbletles of Harry’s school books wgobblethgobblen the novels. Fantastgobblec Beasts and Where to Fgobblend Them and Qugobbleddgobbletch Through The Ages were publgobbleshed gobblen March 2001 gobblen agobbled of Comgobblec Relgobbleef.  

Gobblen December 2008, The Tales of Beedle the Bard was publgobbleshed gobblen agobbled of her gobblenternatgobbleonal chgobbleldren’s chargobblety, Lumos.  

Gobblen 2012, J.K. Rowlgobbleng’s dgobbleggobbletal company Pottermore was launched, where fans can enjoy news, features and artgobblecles, as well as content by J.K. Rowlgobbleng.  

Gobblen the same year, J.K. Rowlgobbleng publgobbleshed her fgobblerst novel for adults, The Casual Vacancy (Lgobblettle, Brown), whgobblech has now been translated gobblento 44 languages and was adapted for TV by the BBC gobblen 2015.  

Under the pseudonym Robert Galbragobbleth, J.K. Rowlgobbleng also wrgobbletes crgobbleme novels, featurgobbleng prgobblevate detectgobbleve Cormoran Strgobbleke. The fgobblerst of these, The Cuckoo’s Callgobbleng was publgobbleshed to crgobbletgobblecal acclagobblem gobblen 2013, at fgobblerst wgobblethout gobblets author’s true gobbledentgobblety begobbleng known.  The Sgobblelkworm followed gobblen 2014, and 2015 saw the publgobblecatgobbleon of Career of Evgobblel.  All are publgobbleshed by Lgobblettle, Brown. The sergobblees gobbles begobbleng adapted for a major new televgobblesgobbleon sergobblees for BBC One, produced by Brontë Fgobblelm and Televgobblesgobbleon.  

J.K. Rowlgobbleng’s 2008 Harvard commencement speech was publgobbleshed gobblen 2015 as an gobblellustrated book, Very Good Lgobbleves: The Frgobblenge Benefgobblets of Fagobblelure and the gobblemportance of gobblemaggobblenatgobbleon (Sphere), and sold gobblen agobbled of Lumos and ungobbleversgobblety-wgobblede fgobblenancgobbleal agobbled at Harvard.  

gobblen 2016, J.K. Rowlgobbleng collaborated wgobbleth Jack Thorne and John Tgobbleffany on an orgobbleggobblenal new story for the stage. Harry Potter and the Cursed Chgobbleld Parts One and Two gobbles now runngobbleng at The Palace Theatre gobblen London’s West End. The scrgobblept book was publgobbleshed (Lgobblettle, Brown) to mark the play’s opengobbleng gobblen July 2016, and gobblenstantly topped the bestseller lgobblests.  

Also gobblen 2016, J.K. Rowlgobbleng made her screenwrgobbletgobbleng debut wgobbleth the fgobblelm Fantastgobblec Beasts and Where to Fgobblend Them, a further extensgobbleon of the Wgobblezardgobbleng World, released to crgobbletgobblecal acclagobblem gobblen November 2016.  A prequel to Harry Potter, thgobbles new adventure of Maggobblezoologgobblest Newt Scamander marked the start of a fgobbleve-fgobblelm sergobblees to be wrgobbletten by the author.  

J.K. Rowlgobbleng has been marrgobbleed to Dr Negobblel Murray sgobblence 2001. They lgobbleve gobblen Edgobblenburgh wgobbleth thegobbler son, Davgobbled (born 2003) and daughter, Mackenzgobblee (born 2005).

I've walked many places
Many journeys unspoken of
Inner cities of my mind
Underground railroad
The streets of Salem
Marching for the word
A whisper in a city's dream

I looked to see the faces
A look of determination
As their stomach starts caving in
Ribs poking out
Mountains of disire
Watching...
As the white man gobbles food
Grinning for another day
American flag flying high
Confederate sitting beside
Laughing at fallen man
Monsters of the cotton field
Fear nesting in remains
Bullets holes holding on
A home for sin

I am hungry and tired
Melting from the pits of hell
Or the ground of more to come
I'm sick
Needing treatment
Needing king
To help me march
And the true god to help me sing

And we watch
Oh we watch for hope to rain
Needing freedom on our plate
Believe me
We all are starved

The screeching sound of the metal tin can,
Pulls up around the corner of desperation.
Hair flying, adulation from fans,
You know its nothing but imagination.
Howls from inside echo through the sheet,
Music to the ears, and she gobbles it like nectar.
The door opens, and you're looking at her feet,
"Don't move, lest it should fester."
She speaks in an exotic tongue,
Like the animals in the wild.
She places a strong hand on your lung,
While your breathing goes mild.
The tool, ah yes, the tool,
She wields it like a paintbrush.
"Sit still, you pretty fool.",
She spouts, with an excited gush.
The lion's face peers at you,
From the far side of the room.
While a peculiar broth begins to brew,
And a dark mist begins to loom.
The rhino looks helpless on the wall,
Its horn standing out in the line.
" Oh, be calm you sweet little doll,
This should do just fine."
You can smell the taste of the wax,
And breathe in its visual splendor.
While her pleasure has reached its max,
Through the willing gifts, you lend her.
At last, its done and dusted,
And your face adorns the wall.
Wondering how on earth she could be trusted,
But alas! You cannot resist the caravan's call.

EDNA: Hello there, Dan my dear, please take a seat, but before you sit down, just let me put a plastic sheet over the chair.

DAN: Thank you so much, Mrs Sweetlove.

EDNA: Now, Dan, please tell me why you are known far and wide as Dan, Dan, the ***** Old Man. How did you come to acquire such a salubrious soubriquet? Don't spare us any of the more sordid details. My readers are all agog.

DAN: Well, there are three aspects to my dirtiness. Firstly, my sanitary arrangements and personal hygiene. How can I put this delicately? [scratches head in puzzlement and several lice are dislodged, much to Edna's distaste. She squirts them with super-strength LICEOKILL.] To be blunt, Edna, I don't wash much and I very seldom change my clothes. This means I smell quite strongly. And, as you will observe, my skin is quite grimy and unpleasant to behold; the boils and sores are not attractive to many people.

EDNA: Fortunately I am afflicted with a rather bad head cold at the moment, so I can't really whiff you too strongly. However, I can see your skin is disgusting and your clothes are a total disgrace. Tell me, is there any particular reason why you are so careless of your hygienic duties?

DAN: Well, I see it as a vicious circle. If I were to take a bath or a shower, I would only get ***** again quite soon. And anyway, getting dressed again in my old clothes means any olfactory benefit would be negated. Again, if I were to put on some clean clothes, they would only be rendered odorous by my unwashed body. And defecation and urination tend to get your lower parts ***** two or three times a day anyway, even if you wipe thoroughly which I don't. So what's the point, unless you want to waste all your life on synchronising cleansing activities? Also, between you and me, I quite enjoy the stench of my own unclean body. And it has several benefits: I always get a row of seats to myself at the cinema and I normally have no problem with queues when I go shopping: people tend to give way to me as a mark of respect.

EDNA: And the second aspect of your dirtiness?

DAN: May I talk to you freely about ***, Mrs Sweetlove?

EDNA: Oh yes, be frank! [nods eagerly] Be frank!

DAN: Well, let's put it like this: I am not very particular when it comes to ***. I can honestly say I have never ever turned down a ****** approach of any sort. I am, of course, bisexual and when I feel like a bit of impersonal *******, I nip down to the public lavatory in the park and have some there. What I normally do is wait by the ****** and whip out my grimy, stinking **** and flash it whenever someone comes in. I don't care who it is. What does it matter? Most people run away in horror, a few attack me and shove my face down a pan, but one or two let me **** them.

EDNA: What sort of people would that be, dear?

DAN: Usually tramps, the short-sighted, people with no sense of smell, degenerates, psychos, masochists, you know. A reasonably varied selection. Buggers can't be choosers. Who cares anyway? I've been arrested by the cops a few times, but they don't like to put me in their nice clean police car, so they usually let me go with a bit of a thumping. Which I quite like anyway, although it's cost me several teeth [shows hideous maw of rotting stumps].

EDNA: And how about when you feel like a little bit of the old hetero rumpy-pumpy action, Dan, my love?

DAN: To be honest, I don't get much rumpy-pumpy, even though that's probably what I'm most famous for. Speaking candidly, not many women fancy anyone as filthy as I am, even lady tramps have to draw the line somewhere. So I tend to have to be a bit pushy when I feel like a bit of female company. What I usually do is lurk around girls' schools, ladies' gyms, ballet dancing classes, hockey grounds, netball pitches, the park where the young mums push their babies' buggies, anywhere really where you get women and girls in reasonable numbers. When I see someone I fancy, which is anything female between sixteen and the grave, I just drop my pants and show them what I've got down there. They scream a bit but I can usually get a quick one off the wrist before they've run too far. I've been arrested a few times for that too, but it's a hazard of the game of love, I feel.

EDNA: [gulps excitedly] I think you mentioned three reasons why you are known as a ***** Old Man par excellence......

DAN: Yes, well the third one is a bit more personal. You see, I have a very sensitive stomach and I often get very bad indigestion, which means I **** and burp a lot. And I frequently ***** too, as you can see from the state of my trousers - this is probably a reflection of the fact that my kitchen is crawling with rodents and insects large and small. And did I mention this last bit? I really like eating my own snot in public [voids nostrils onto grimy paw and gobbles product thereof].

EDNA: I'd like to thank you, Dan, for sharing your opinions, emotions and ambitions with me and my readers here today [switches off tape recorder]. You truly are an unusually repellent *******. Get out of my lovely house.

*[END OF INTERVIEW]

He’s a material man
On a material planet.
Gobbles up money like a gannet.

Seeking status and promotion,
Upwardly mobile is his motion.
At his side is Madonna’s Girl,
In for a diamond, in for a pearl.

This poor creature has no soul,
Making a fortune his only goal.
Grandeur or Greatness is his God,
For the beauty of Nature he don’t give a sod.

This man doesn’t know what he is missing,
Life’s simple pleasures and Love’s real kissing.

Who really needs all those houses and cars,
Or getting seen in swanky bars?
What’s so fine about a designer label?
We seem to have built our Tower of Babel.

This man will be deaf to these words of mine.
The only mine HE wants, is a glittering Gold Mine.
Humanity divided into Rich and Poor,
Anyone sensible knows the score.

Nations chasing seas of oil,
While back at home the slaves they toil.
Waging wars for piles of money,
Everyone knows it isn’t funny.

Any hope for Material Man?
Unless he changes, he’s down the pan.
Please sir will you open your eyes?
Only Love is loved by the wise.

Paul Butters

The indifference of paper kaleidoscopes
touches the afternoon's stained glass.

Scattered bubbles of blood
repeat the vaporous names of rocks.

The world itself wavers between
straying syllables of books.

A blank moment arrives
staring at secrets made visible.

All day is the stillness of
unchanging light around the temple.

Between 'come' and 'go'
the same motionless theater of rest.

Time gobbles up
the elusively throbbing reflections.

Myself the ghostly transparency
made of circular-turning glass.

this is a fine morning and the man in the bathroom mirror smiles
though he admittedly isn't the friendliest person but honestly
he seemed genuinely glad to be awake and alive on such an Autumn day
with the birds chirping and the window near the kitchen slightly ajar
allowing safe passage to a nice chill breeze. he finds the cat up as well
meowing "Good morning!" cheerfully and innocently in its tiny cat voice
and he chuckles and meows back in the most accurate manner available.
on the kitchen table there's a mug of coffee, the newspaper rolled like a cigar,
a plate of waffles, bacon, scrambled eggs and powdered happiness which
the man gobbles wholeheartedly while reading the day's fresh headlines:
President Declares Peace on Earth, Local Man Defeats Dog - Gives Too Many Treats,
Cop Buys Medical Lemonade From Child's Lemonade Stand, World Hunger Exterminated...
permitting the felines to rule our existence was truly the best of ideas!

Take me back to Chelsea please
Where the flossed and glossed smile at me
And everyone’s kind to an open mind
That’s materialistic in design.
Where locals embrace me all open armed
Whenever I’m crinkling cash in my palms.
So eject me fast from this boorish ******
And take me back to Chelsea please.

Take me back to Chelsea please
Outside the city’s financial squeeze
Where mummy and daddy pay the cheques
For my escargots and Ready Brek.
I’ll wield through the system with the family name
And use all the power of my local fame.
Oh, to live life without la joie de fees
Come take me back to Chelsea please.

Take me back to Chelsea please
To put my social norms at ease.
I miss my measly excuse of friends
Who constantly ***** to make amends
For their failed entrepreneurial careers
Their dialect a hodgepodge of gobbles and sneers.
I long for their monotonous wheeze
So take me back to Chelsea please.

Chelsea, Chelsea you’re all I adore
From the A308 to the A304.
You’re the sole nirvana I can’t bear to depart,
Your femmes fatales know the paths to my heart.
But you will always have the its lock and key
So Chelsea: come and take me back please.

The night gobbles
My mind
Convincing me of
Who cannot be fiend,
But how can they not?
They that stare from windows
They lying in open discussion
With legs spread apart
They whence
Committing crimes.

At dawn we eavesdrop
On bedroom secrets,
Someone's prayers
As they kneel.

There is longing
In the caressing of sheets
Viewing dim light
Slow
Breath.

Wood creaks
Another has
Left with
Your silence.

This sandstone sculpture,
soft, ephemeral, unreal,
we create every moment,
just for ourselves,
fighting the fragile nature
of the material, that
       at once, facilitates,
       and equally resists,
       is both memory
       and forgetfulness,
      harmony and dissonance.
      Tongues of time active ever,
      love its taste, than anything else,
      gradually gobbles it up
with relish.
Come, stop by,
and appreciate.
It won't be here,
after some more summers,
but it won't be destroyed too.
It would be the grains ,
in any sandstorm,
for ever.

Ridvan Dibra


Everyone forgot Sephorah, the Prophet’s wife.



The heavens are unfolding like pages of a book,
My Lord.

Pages worn from time
Yet I say they are more worn from their daily reading,
Some are creased and some are shredded
From bolts of lightning and our impatience.

Just as blind as we were in the beginning,
My Lord.

Not a single page did we know how to decipher,
Not a single line, not a single letter,
Simply because we searched upward and afar
When the alphabet was taught around us and everywhere.

Just as deaf as we were in the beginning,
My Lord.

We did not know how to hear your voice
Distracted by a thousand and one false voices,
When everything was so simple and light
It sufficed that we bow our heads and listen to our breathing.

Just as hungry as we were in the beginning,
My Lord.

Simply because we desired our neighbour’s vine
And never blessed our wild weeds
Neither the globe that we should not have bitten
In a rush like the unripe apple.

Just as alone as we were in the beginning,
My Lord.

Scattered about like grains of sand
From the wind that we blew with our cheeks,
Or rather like repentant orphans
Because they raised their hands and slew their parents.
Just as much in the dust as we were in the beginning,
My Lord.

On our lips, in our lungs there is dust
And when we think we are flying higher and higher
The dust pursues us simply because we are idle or forget
To cleanse ourselves before every departure.

Just as homeless as we were in the beginning,
My Lord.

Our huts collapse before being completed,
No thousand years could they suffer your anger,
Until, one after the other, we blame
The walls and the roof, and then the foundations.

Just as thirsty as we were in the beginning,
My Lord.

With our dried and withering lips blistered as in August
We desiccated the sources of life one by one,
Sought and then created
Endless springs of blood.  

Just as ignorant as we were in the beginning,
My Lord.

Simply because we took the second step before the third
And said the first word after the second,
Thus, even our knowledge is nothing
But a correction of errors once made.

You are still everywhere
And we are nowhere,
My Lord.

We disregarded all the reasons for blood,
We forgot even the screams of grieving folk,
We forgot that the wounds of our foes
Would one day hurt even more in our *******.

And they hurt in my breast,
My Lord.


THE FIRST PLAGUE: BLOOD


You shake more from the blood than from the shadows, Sephorah.
From the blood that has no name, that rises out of the fresh wound,
Blood that shines the same in all wounds,
Blood that never knew how to become water.

But the water becomes blood,
My Sephorah.

I only need to strike it with my snake-shaped staff,
That is, with my untamed will,
Bang-bang-bang,
Bang-bang,
Bang.

See how the rivers and all other waters have been bloodied,
The snow is melting and it drips blood
The sharp-pointed icicles are dripping blood,
Drip-drip-drip,
Drip-drip,
Drip.

Understand now the value of water
And let my purpose go
You blistered lips and you arid lands,
You thirsty ******* and you hungry fish,
You forgot that they fished me from the water with my name:

It was life at the beginning
Death followed in its footsteps.


THE SECOND PLAGUE: THE FROGS  


You shudder more from the swamp than from the blood, Sephorah,
The swamp called oblivion and lack of attention,
The sallow swamp that chokes the green,
As the moment strangles eternity.

The swamp that spawns monsters,
My Sephorah.

All sorts of reptiles, repulsive, slowly creeping,
All types of lilies, brightly coloured, but poisonous,
All kinds of breaths, all of them muddied,
And in the end, the emblematic frogs:

Lured by my snake-shaped staff,
That is, by my untamed will.

They approach and enter your home, Sephorah,
In the room where you sleep,
They creep into your bed.

They stain its white sheets
Disturb your tranquil sleep
With their salivating cries,
Croak-croak-croak,
Croak, croak,
Croak.

When the Gods fight with one another
Man must make peace with himself.

My Sephorah.


THE THIRD PLAGUE: THE MOSQUITOES


You recoil more from the cause than from the consequences, Sephorah,
The cause that is me or somebody else within me,
It happens rarely, very rarely to human beings,
And perhaps never to the daughters of Eve.

The swirls of dust have now become clouds of mosquitoes,
My Sephorah.

Over your face and over your tall body,
Over your lips and over your small *******,
Over your sleep and over your ****** dreams,
Over your silence and over your divine patience,
Over your tears and over your rare smile,
Over your motherhood and over your rare fruit,
Over your roots and over your green stem
Have remained the gray scars of bites,

My Sephorah.


THE FOURTH PLAGUE: THE FLIES


They are tiny and everywhere and drive you crazy, Sephorah,
Like grains of the pale sand falling through the fingers,
Or like words and daily routines
That we could do without.

This cloud of flies is the shroud,
My Sephorah.

Neither wound, nor bite, nor poison
On your marble-white body
Or all three at once, somewhere under your skin
Where feelings sting like an uncommitted sin
And where the start is projected as an expected end.  

Because death comes rarely
Without being invited in advance by us,

My Sephorah.


THE FIFTH PLAGUE: THE BEASTS


Once I spoke of you as I did of the beasts, Sephorah.
Finding in them everything that is yours
Or finding in you everything that is theirs, it’s the same thing.

I am talking about those times when you were called nature
Or when nature was a woman, it’s the same thing.

But the beasts all perished,
My Sephorah.

They perished in you, grievously, one by one
Died the grace of mares in the fields at sunset,
Died the sacrifice of camels in the fallow desert,
Died the naivety of the donkeys chewing on thorny bushes,
Died the kindness of the sheep and the fertility of the cow.

They were cut, one by one ,
And perhaps it was I who cut them, one by one,
The threads that tied you to nature,

My Sephorah.


THE SIXTH PLAGUE: THE DUST


The dust is like prejudice, Sephorah,
With your lungs you breathe it in,
It envelops you entirely
In a mantle that changes according to season.
It’s the sky that sifts furnace ashes,
My Sephorah.

On you and on every other breathing being around
Falls the gray sorrow that thereafter conceives
Autumn, eternally ailing,
From its inability to be another season,
More similar to human beings and their fate,
For fates under the dust all become the same,
Or so it may seem to the untrained eye
To the stare that only strokes the surface
Like the dust strokes your senses,

My Sephorah.


THE SEVENTH PLAGUE: THE HAIL


Intermediate things have always caused you to shake, Sephorah,
Hail, for example - neither a raindrop nor a snowflake,
Not even a raindrop and a snowflake together.  

You are alone between fire and ice,
My Sephorah.

They are not pearly garlands that hang in the heavens
But ropes with hailstone spines,
Enticed by my wooden staff
With the fiery snakes of lightning,
Scorching like blind passion.

The barley in the sheaves is scorched and withered
As is the flax which just bloomed,

But not the wheat that endures and is late to ripen
Nor your invincible core,

My Sephorah.  


THE EIGHTH PLAGUE: THE LOCUSTS


The healed wound brings forth another, Sephorah,
As desire brings forth desire and pain brings forth pain,
Until the moment when the soul becomes a soulless object
And the body a soul and a breath together

The dancers of death are approaching,
My Sephorah.

A wind from the east has borne them in throngs,
An army of hungry moments, never satiated,
A plague that gobbles up everything that remains
Especially young sprigs, as yet to grow shoots
And everything else that is green and that nourishes the hope
Sown in your soul
And in your warm body,
My Sephorah.


THE NINTH PLAGUE: THE DARKNESS


You dread more the darkness than the fire, Sephorah,
When shapes disappear and everything becomes the same,
The highest and the lowest, and the black and white

You dread the darkness that is touched by hands,
My Sephorah.

Then you have no other salvation but to turn towards yourself
As to a friend lost and found after many many years,
Because darkness is darkness, and dissipates not like the mist,
Because it hides the unknown and reveals the known.
Man does not see man, and touches him only
When avoidance becomes impossible.

The belated reward pains you
As it does me and my rediscovered self,

My Sephorah.


THE TENTH PLAGUE: DEATH


You’re disturbed more by death than by life, Sephorah,
That is, life near to me and my isolated people
With their eternal and false aspirations for salvation
In their arduous attempts to be understood.,

While the death itself flees from you,
My Sephorah!

On your wise brow as on the crossbeam of a heated house
I have left the telling sign of blood:
May death remember and seek another shelter,
For man can recognize only what he has created himself,
Whereas the beginning and the end are the creations of others,
Even though the elephants return to die in their birthplace.

“Who is not with me is against me”
Said even death to itself one day.

My Sephorah.


THE ELEVENTH PLAGUE: SEPHORAH


Stronger and safer than on my wooden will,
I rely on your silent sacrifice, Sephorah,
You, the most unhealed of all my wounds
That pains me most when the others are silent.

Long has been the road, Sephorah, far too long,
Full of turns and ambushes that delayed my purpose,
Even though I knew that only children expect instant victory
And that all the prophets of old were marching through me.

But long roads never end, Sephorah,
My staff and my faith were too small: only to the Lord does its own self suffice.
I needed more love than understanding,
And then you came, with your body enwrapped in spirit.

I loved only the purpose and thus the people did not love me, Sephorah,
Filled with poison, the cup in your fair hands
And yet, despair is a virtue and joy is a sin,
Whereas events live less than people.

When you teach someone, they pay you, Sephorah,
When you teach all, you must pay yourself.

It is both beautiful and hard to be the wife of a prophet,

My Sephorah.  


March, 2000


Translated from the Albanian by Shinasi Rama, Janice Mathie-Heck and Robert Elsie

Romantic moonlight edges over the mighty cupola;
I stroll enchanted by the timeless beauty of St Peter's Square;
I casually enquire of a passing nun whether she would consider
Going down on me behind the marble columns.

After a brief but heated haggle over the price
(I hitherto thought nuns were generous sisters of mercy)
She gobbles me professionally but rather noisily
Causing me to leave a generous donation on her dental plate.

I hear a half-strangled cry of "Bejasus" from a passing Paddy priest
As he gives himself a quick one off the wrist
Into his already badly stained cassock
Before hurrying off to keep a hot date with a choirboy.

The Cardinal knows that he is a pretty bird
Splendidly attired in feathers bright and gay
He publishes loudly; he will be heard
Among the squawks of mockingbird and jay

He gobbles and scatters husks, rusks, and seeds
In self-indulgent abandonment
He ignores all others in his wants and needs
They’re secular birds; they can take a hint

The Cardinal certainly loves to be seen
At the public feeder in all his pride
Attentive to fashions, and always keen
For the Best Birds to be posed at his side

But then one day

A few remnant feathers, a ripped cardinal’s hat -
He seems to have forgotten the watchful cat

Tonight is the night, be it All Hallows' Eve
One filled with fright most refuse to believe,
For deep amongst the shadows, silently lurking,
'Tis a terrifying creature, his jagged teeth smirking.

Thou hast all heard of demons, and hast battled thine ghouls
Whilst this terrible beast watcheth with hunger and drools.
It's spittle, like acid, can burn through thine flesh
Making thee so much easier to digest.

No name shalt be found for a creature so foul
That gobbles up goblins, and ogres disembowels.
Dost thou think that thine lanterns shall frighten it hence?
Oh foolish man, it shall consume the light thence.

It standeth hunched over, twelve feet in height;
Stalking thou, watching thou, waiting for night.
It cometh from deep within the forest, as the moon wanes
His fur smelleth of death, his claws favouring pain.

He shan't be stopped ere his hunt is over
Yet he only hunts the thirty-first of October
Take ye heed, then, and hear the warning of the raven
For this beast is coming, and from him there is but one haven.

He preyeth upon the weakest, and the one full of fear
So stand fast, take courage and in another likeness appear
Put on a mask, as treacherous as can be
Conceal what layeth within, do not let him see

Or else you shall be taken, beaten and devoured
For this beast prefers to torture just to see thee cower.
So please, take heed to this warning and believe;
Thou art only safe if thee wearest a mask on All Hallows' Eve.

11/3/16

Such a trip this is
      Together on this tour
     Heartily I toil
      For this is no great chore
      But I ensconce away
    Once the grouches
     ***** their inveighs
     Safe from fools abrades
   with no thought
    and little aide
      My pencil strokes are laid
        So heavenly on the page
      It tells us not to run
      Stand against the shadow
       let it not dislimn the Sun
         The Machine The Machine The Machine
        It gobbles away all our fun
  
Gus
                                              My skin be-jeweled
                                                      ­                                         In this prizm Lake
             Just be here                
                                                  -             ­      Don't be fake
                                                            ­                                                        Don't loose your love  
                                                          ­                                                                 ­                               in daft's wake

                                     Let loose your love
                                                            ­                 Eyes wide
                                                                ­                                                             awake


                              No rush


                                                          ­                         I'm cool


                                                          ­                                                                 ­         Out here floating

                                                               ­                        in this pool


    Dust just scatters

                                                       ­                                                                 ­                its own way



                                                     I'll be here

                                                           ­                           just swimming

                                                       ­                                                    Cleansed n Sane

This place was new to her
Tendrils of envy
That had over ran her heart
Like spilled ink

The witch gobbles six Lorazepam
Just to survive the after noon
And trips from her botched stride of self righteousness

Her inaccuracy, in her mind is fact

Her sense of superiority over shadows any type of kindness that trickles out every now and then

Her flippant demeanor
Is known and is spoken of in fork tongued folklore

Her spells of insanity and depravity

Leaving all the passes in a stated of relentless unease

She trots the ash covered cobble ****** alleyways of the sullen slums
And the scornful ****** watch from rusted fire escapes
Blades in hand, back-pocket crucifix

They swoop down and surround her

She who caused the drought, the death of all live stock and infants’ demise

She falls to the ground

“May the truths of the universe diminish your incantations!”

She screams

They cover their ears and douse her with holy water

Her skin peels revealing her grotesque scaly red skin
Her yellow eyes gleam as its pupils dilate

“And with these blades of sanctuary we obliterate your being”

A typhoon of stabs follows
And a sacred jar is laid out
To capture her spirit
So it may never return

Mixtape coming prolly sooner then expected
Just like me! But far more passion is invested
Into these nourished flourishing musicals channeling beauty
I know one day you'll see the shine no matter how you view me
You can hide inside & draw the blinds; ignore me, or adore me.
Story goes, the fire stays alive, throughout the winds it's soaring.
I am burning and i'm flying now, you'll hear me crying out
"My love is unconditional, come join me in this flying bout!"
Please come flow and fly around, melting the tempting forces
That are always shrieking "DON'T YOU DARE GO IN THAT AIR! THIS CHAIR IS HOME, *****!"
Traveling the speed of flight, no motors, cells, seatbelts, or doors.
You'll start to wonder why they never thought of shaking feet from floors
Or you could say "No thanks, I'm busy, I got all my medicine."
Ok... Just know i'll always be around to give your head a spin c;
Direction with a mending twist, I wanna see you free as ****
A lion cub, a rising sun, the shackles falling from your tongue
I'll never win, I'm loser loser, still I channel breath & depth,
So if you wish, the floor is yours, keep following the steps,
I and all who fly will soar so far beyond our deaths.
We're always getting better,
Till the sun gobbles the shelfs.
We crack a laugh back at the past,
Glad we made it past ourselves.

Scattered Thought.
Coming soon.

My mother said beware the pips
and wipe your chin and sticky lips
now bin the skin and tidy up
put away your plate and cup

Or Else....


The watermelon tiger comes
with great white teeth and flashing eyes
he hungers for your sticky thumbs
and feasts upon your anguished cries

he gobbles down your fingers four
and licks his lips with growing glee
then in a flash he eats four more
and laps upon your misery

He licks your face to check for juice
and nibbles at your mucky chin
searching out seeds still hanging loose
giving him chance to tuck right in

Mummy mummy keep him away
I'll wash and scrub and brush and clean
pray let him far from me now stay
for I'm afraid he sounds so mean

So eat your food with gusto kids
and leave the kitchen like a swamp
but dont you dare shut tight your lids
as he will come to chomp Chomp CHOMP

My tongue sharpened today

Angles fell off it like classroom fancies

Rationalised to a point, its first act

Was to knock out my fangs from behind.


I stumbled about the house

Slopped through the bathroom door

And foamed at the toilet seat, a

Wave broken over a rim of briny coral.


My salt winked about the walls, around the tap, between the wiped tiles

In the shower head of porous sponge

The seaweed in the pipes crawled up

And drowned me in the sickly sweet.


Downstairs smelt the same, logically the sea dumped down

Underwater fish glided past my window, all with the same

Grim face against the mirrors, aping the ocean

With me trapped inside.


I turned on the same song, fifteen times,

The sound tried to reach me with such ambition

But it floated to the top, belly up in its bubbles

Ridiculous, I scratched the date on the seafloor and entered the kitchen.


Drips everywhere, grease stalactites, from the tiles, the yawning oven, the spatulas

A Cretaceous museum where savagery is kept

In little plastic boxes, with clear peelable lids

A fresh, messy ****.


In the hall the grey light descends through slit windows

Colour settling at the bottom like grit, all the greys so tall

Give the narrow rectangle an aftertaste of dust

Just one keeper before me


It devours my key, hacking as it gobbles

But it does not anticipate my twist

I gut it from inside, it spits its meal back at me

And I swing its limp, dead frame 90 degrees.


Stepping out feels like a moonwalk, with Houston's neutral formulas

Unheeded in my ear, finally I can greet the clouds, that probably escaped,

Like me, fumes from the chimney

Pale and fading away from lack of auspicious sun.

I.

To steal away three oranges for love he was
instructed by long-ago’s cackling voices, but over time
words once sharply plucked and sealed in the wide mouth
of his boyish memory have grown up vague and bushy.

So, this night he picks to stalk the storybook rows
of stubby trees that squat smack in the middle of a maze
unknown but tender hands have pulled straight to hide
riddles in their patchwork of endlessly seamed sameness.

Aided by a sickle moon’s pointed glances, he hastily
harvests the wages of three waxy fruit and plops
his juicy hopes sweetly into a leather pouch, as loosed
the feather-leafed branches snap back skyward.

II.

Home on the next morning’s edge, first love he sights.
She has a narrow white face and blush-dabbed features
below a tall swab of swirled scarlet hair that wags
a bobbed tongue’s tale as she comes bouncing into view.

Striped dawn glows, and tickled he, perhaps too eagerly,
reaches into his bag with the lust of hurried hands.
An orange, yet under-ripe and unready, he blurts out to her
as a wholly careless, green-topped, and unpeeled gift.

She takes it and rolls it through her nest of slender tips.
The thumbs inspecting its sadly misshaped bits find
the bumps and crevices around a knobby stem are proof
of a worthless fruit. Dropping it, she walks on, nose up-turned.
III.

Twelve days left to his less-than-virtuous devices,
he fusses over the second orange. His nails dig in
to *****-cut peel its thick rind. He picks off odd
pieces of pith and smooths its newly gleaming surface.

These would-be idol hours spent preening could
pay off when another amour falls as an acid-yellow
figment. She floats down to him from the distant hilltops
with a floppy mop of golden curls and a broad pink brow.

Pristine fruit on palm extended, he waits his worth,
while the citrusy flesh, exposed to a mid-day sun,
shrivels brown and collapses into a pulpy mess. When
she passes, it draws a mere wave and topples easily.

IV.

As the shadows of a jagged-tooth fencepost lengthen
a sudden and thoughtless appetite grows in him.
He grabs the third orange and gobbles it all down
but a lone slick seed that sticks in his deflated cheek.

Bewitched from the seemed break in magic’s promise,
he makes this kernel an offering to devouring soils
and lays his hard head upon the single-seeded bed
where he’ll drowse rocked by soft-chirped serenades.

Then, a quake and a tree sprout. Spreading branches
lift him up among the strangely branded fruit
that an orange-tongued fairy nibbles as she tosses
green locks and smiles at him with her hazelly gaze.

I get confused when
People discuss love as if
It's a vague word
But no it's so much more
Love was portrayed wrong
In fairytales because they introduced
Love at first sight
But didn't emphasize that love isn't about looks
Sometimes the evil villain
Could be the one with the pretty face
Or the one with the white horse
Whereas Prince Charming
Could be a pauper
Who has to work for a living and perspires a lot
He could be clad in not-so-fancy clothings
Then again,that's only one aspect of love
There could be siblings love
There could be passion
Also faith .
I witness love first hand,
when people pray
when a person gobbles up their food
Without showing off on social media
When a pair of old couple uses sign language to
Understand each other.
Love isn't so simple
It's weird and complicated but
One day, I want to have my own love story,
A little but less than a Fairytale.

The lies that are brought to the table to nourish your family for another day,
There is pride, your wife. The one you hold dearest,
There is Ego your son,
Then there is gamble, your daughter,
And then there is the dog that hates you but loves everyone else,
Truth,

As you sit at the table Pride beams as you tell another story,
In her mind she wonders what actually happened,

You begin to slice the juicy ham of victory perfectly glazed with a hint of devilish intent,
And you pass a piece of ham around the table,
Truth begs but you kick him away,

Next the mashed potatoes fluffy with dreams ,
As the peas come around they fall and Truth gobbles them up off the floor,
A reminder of the money spent on each pea,

Finally the carrots , boiled to perfection with anger and regret,

The room goes quiet as you lead the family in saying grace,
Truth begins to bark,
You tell him to shut up but he barks louder,
You kick him, but you miss as he bites your leg,
You bleed the lies and you cry ,
For all of that effort to feed your family was for nothing,
So Pride, Ego, and Gamble turn to ashes as you pick up truth and walk away,

NaPoWriMo 2016 - Day 21 - Poem from a minor character in a fairy tale.

Oh Grandma

Well m'dears,
I never fancied a care home, or
meals on wheels.
With a shrivelled up lump
Of God's knows what.
Delivered twice a day.

But I'm blessed.
With family who
look after me,
in their own way.
My daughter sends her girl
every couple of day with a basket full of "goodies".

I don't know who is more feckless mind.
Her mother who dresses her up
in a stupid red cape.
Or the child who can't follow
simple instructions.
Go straight to grandma's cottage.
Do not talk to strangers.

Anyhoo, I lay there,
my stomach thinking
my throats been cut.
When I here a knock at the door.
I remind the idiot child
the door is on the latch.
My hips too dodgy to be getting up and down.
This suspect looking character
saunters in.
All big eyes, big ears, big teeth
Now I'm old, but no fool
I says "you're a..."

Before I've got a word out.
That great slathering beast
Gobbles me up.
Not so much a by your leave
No one respects their elders these days.

To add insult to injury.
He starts cavorting about
In MY nightie.
Now, I'm not one to judge
What a slathering beast does
Behind closed doors is his own affair.
But it was my best flannelette
He ripped the buttons right off, the brute.

Half an hour later my granddaughter,
Little miss take your own sweet time comes along.
Now I've mentioned she's not
the sharpest ax in the woodshed.

Well she gives Mr Wolf, my cake, my wine.
Then, after his washed that down, THEN, she gets an inkling something MIGHT be amiss.
I can hear all this from the cavernous belly of the wolf.

Oh grandma what BIG eyes, ears, teeth, you know the story.
Is she blind?
His a 6ft humanoid wolf.
In drag.
I'm 4ft nothing.
I've bounced that girl since she was a babe in arms.
Ok, perhaps once or twice I MAY have dropped her on her head.
But to not recognise her own grandmother.

Well long story short
There is a scuffle
A local arborist is passing.
Sweeps in saves the day.
Gives old wolfy a taste of cold steel.
Felling him from crown to toe.
I flop out like a wriggling infant.

I've come to see it,
as a rebirth.
A second chance of life if you will.
I'm carpe dieming and seizing what fishes I can catch.
I've sold the cottage, me and Sven the wandering arborist are shacking up together.
People say it's shocking
That he's only after me for my money.
But it beats feckless family or sheltered accommodation
Plus I've got a nice fur stole
Much more fetching than a Red Riding Hood.

The noonday demon striking at midnight,
The end of daylight, shadowing my cove.
A journey solitary in obnoxious overtures,
Or of demise denouncing such pails of ruin.

The noonday demon that dwells in my head.
That black cat of old, it looms large nigh.
Insignia, memoribilia .. it's scriptures swell.
Inscriptions in alien hand scribble my mind.

The noonday demon pushes me on edge.
A hairlength between relapse and freefall.
Arbitrary insignificance caress my nerves,
Neurotic endeavours imminent, and I halt.

Halt for thought, convictions sedate.
Paralysis;  onset of dementia ensues.

And the noonday demon
Gobbles me up at midnight.

A dragon fly, sits on a low wire,
with cross swords on his back,
looking like a gymanst,
  on the pommel horse,
balanced for the attack.
I drag my ciqerette, then give it a tap,
as fast as a gas fire,
the dragon gobbles up all my ash.

Strange pieces
Gather from all around.
Put piece near piece,
Then something takes
Shape from the gritty ground.
Pour sadness
And nightly haunting thoughts in those remains,
Then sprinkle tragedy in those dim needled veins.

Suddenly, shadows came and took their same old place -
Eyes as lucent phantasms and gloomy lips are carving a face.
This messy view throws sounds, shaping a requiem;
You see...
This living corpse is me,
It's just who I am.

I've been laying there, for a while...
Wished to revive, but didn't knew how.
Whatever was called life, now it's called "denial".
Memories are flowing back and I remember now
... I fainted.

I know... I've failed.

Time has forgotten me on its way and I painted
Fears all over me, overwhelming me...
Tears don't listen anymore - they're playing dead,
They've lived forever in a sable
For my soul lies in the dust.
Hopes traded my breathing, for a second in redemption's gust
'Cause believing in pure forgiveness, I'm not able.

My life's blink has been crucified... and I'd cry -
But they haunted and trapped my wishes in gobbles.
So here i dive
In this place my "strange pieces" used to lie.
My sight is empty and thoughts are dry -
Dreams I cherished rised into cloudy bubbles
So anxious to fly...

maybe it's the weather
maybe it's because i'm turning a year older
but whatever it is, there is something
that gobbles me up from inside
and my bones get weaker and
my chest feels heavy and
i want to die

sunday to sunday i crawl to cling on to life
and i scrape my knees on the sidewalk
i think of tiny things that could possibly
change my tainted view of living,
i think about you.