I

In that November off Tehuantepec,
The slopping of the sea grew still one night
And in the morning summer hued the deck

And made one think of rosy chocolate
And gilt umbrellas. Paradisal green
Gave suavity to the perplexed machine

Of ocean, which like limpid water lay.
Who, then, in that ambrosial latitude
Out of the light evolved the morning blooms,

Who, then, evolved the sea-blooms from the clouds
Diffusing balm in that Pacific calm?
C'etait mon enfant, mon bijou, mon ame.

The sea-clouds whitened far below the calm
And moved, as blooms move, in the swimming green
And in its watery radiance, while the hue

Of heaven in an antique reflection rolled
Round those flotillas. And sometimes the sea
Poured brilliant iris on the glistening blue.

                        II

In that November off Tehuantepec
The slopping of the sea grew still one night.
At breakfast jelly yellow streaked the deck

And made one think of chop-house chocolate
And sham umbrellas. And a sham-like green
Capped summer-seeming on the tense machine

Of ocean, which in sinister flatness lay.
Who, then, beheld the rising of the clouds
That strode submerged in that malevolent sheen,

Who saw the mortal massives of the blooms
Of water moving on the water-floor?
C'etait mon frere du ciel, ma vie, mon or.

The gongs rang loudly as the windy booms
Hoo-hooed it in the darkened ocean-blooms.
The gongs grew still. And then blue heaven spread

Its crystalline pendentives on the sea
And the macabre of the water-glooms
In an enormous undulation fled.

                        III

In that November off Tehuantepec,
The slopping of the sea grew still one night
And a pale silver patterned on the deck

And made one think of porcelain chocolate
And pied umbrellas. An uncertain green,
Piano-polished, held the tranced machine

Of ocean, as a prelude holds and holds,
Who, seeing silver petals of white blooms
Unfolding in the water, feeling sure

Of the milk within the saltiest spurge, heard, then,
The sea unfolding in the sunken clouds?
Oh! C'etait mon extase et mon amour.

So deeply sunken were they that the shrouds,
The shrouding shadows, made the petals black
Until the rolling heaven made them blue,

A blue beyond the rainy hyacinth,
And smiting the crevasses of the leaves
Deluged the ocean with a sapphire blue.

                        IV

In that November off Tehuantepec
The night-long slopping of the sea grew still.
A mallow morning dozed upon the deck

And made one think of musky chocolate
And frail umbrellas. A too-fluent green
Suggested malice in the dry machine

Of ocean, pondering dank stratagem.
Who then beheld the figures of the clouds
Like blooms secluded in the thick marine?

Like blooms? Like damasks that were shaken off
From the loosed girdles in the spangling must.
C'etait ma foi, la nonchalance divine.

The nakedness would rise and suddenly turn
Salt masks of beard and mouths of bellowing,
Would--But more suddenly the heaven rolled

Its bluest sea-clouds in the thinking green,
And the nakedness became the broadest blooms,
Mile-mallows that a mallow sun cajoled.

                        V

In that November off Tehuantepec
Night stilled the slopping of the sea.
The day came, bowing and voluble, upon the deck,

Good clown... One thought of Chinese chocolate
And large umbrellas. And a motley green
Followed the drift of the obese machine

Of ocean, perfected in indolence.
What pistache one, ingenious and droll,
Beheld the sovereign clouds as jugglery

And the sea as turquoise-turbaned *****, neat
At tossing saucers--cloudy-conjuring sea?
C'etait mon esprit batard, l'ignominie.

The sovereign clouds came clustering. The conch
Of loyal conjuration *******. The wind
Of green blooms turning crisped the motley hue

To clearing opalescence. Then the sea
And heaven rolled as one and from the two
Came fresh transfigurings of freshest blue.

NOTE TO THE READER – Once Apun a Time

This yarn is a flossy fabric woven of several earlier warped works, lightly laced together, adorned with fur-ther braided tails of human frailty. The looms were loosed, purling frantically this febrile fable...

Some pearls may be found wanting – unwanted or unwonted – piled or hanging loose, dangling free within a fuzzy flight of fancy...

The threads of this untethered tissue may be fastened, or be forgotten, or else be stranded by the readers and left unravelling in the knotted corners of their minds...

'twill be perchance that some may  laugh or loll in loopy stitches, else be torn or ripped apart, while others might just simply say “ ’tis made of hole cloth”, “sew what” or “cant seam to get the needle point”...,

yes, a proper disentanglement may take you for a spin on twisted twines of any strings you feel might need attaching or detaching…

picking knits, some may think that
       such strange things ‘have Never happened in our Land’,
       such quaint things ‘could Never happen in our Land’’,
       such murky things ‘will Never happen in our Land’’…

and this may all be true, if credence be dis-carded…

such is that gooey gossamer which vails the human mind...

and thus was born the teasing title of this fabricated Fantasy...

                                NEVER LAND

An ancient man named Peter Pan, disguised but from the past,
with feathered cap and tunic wrap and sabre’s sailed his last.
Though fully grown, on dust he’s flown and perched upon a mast
atop the Walls around the sprawls, unvisited and vast -
and all the while with bitter smile he’s watching us aghast.

As day begins, a spindle spins, it weaves a wanton web;
like puckered prunes, like midday moons, like yesterday’s celebs,
we scrape and *****, we seldom hope - he watches while we ebb:

The ***** grinder preaches fine on Sunday afternoons -
he quotes from books but overlooks the Secrets Carved in Runes:
“You’ve tried and toyed, but can’t avoid or shun the pale monsoons,
it’s sink or swim as echoed dim in swinging door saloons”.
The laughingstocks are flinging rocks at ball-and-chained baboons.

While ghetto boys are looting toys preparing for their doom
and Mademoiselles are weaving shells on tapestries with looms,
Cathedral cats and rafter rats are peering in the room,
where ragged strangers stoop for change, for coppers in the gloom,
whose thoughts are more upon the doors of crypts in Christmas bloom,
and gold doubloons and silver spoons that tempt beyond the tomb.

Mid *** shots from vacant lots, that strike and ricochet
a painted girl with flaxen curl (named Wendy)’s on her way
to tantalise with half-clad thighs, to trick again today;
and indiscreet upon the street she gives her pride away
to any guy who’s passing by with time and cash to pay.
(In concert halls beyond the Walls, unjaded girls ballet,
with flowered thoughts of Camelot and dreams of cabarets.)

Though rip-off shops and crooked cops are paid not once but thrice,
the painted girl with flaxen curl is paring down her price
and loosely tempts cold hands unkempt to touch the merchandise.
A crazy guy cries “where am I”, a ****** titters twice,
and double quick a lunatic affects a fight with lice.

The alleyways within the maze are paved with rats and mice.
Evangelists with moneyed fists collect the sacrifice
from losers scorned and rubes reborn, and promise paradise,
while in the back they cook some crack, inhale, and roll the dice.

A *** called Boe has stubbed his toe, he’s stumbled in the gutter;
with broken neck, he looks a wreck, the sparrows all aflutter,
the passers-by, they close an eye, and turn their heads and mutter:
“Let’s pray for rains to wash the lanes, to clear away the clutter.”
A river slows neath mountain snows, and leaves begin to shudder.

The jungle teems, a siren screams, the air is filled with ****.
The Reverent Priest and nuns unleash the Holy Shibboleth.
And Righteous Jane who is insane, as well as Sister Beth,
while telling tales to no avail of everlasting death,
at least imbrue Hagg Avenue with whisky on their breath.

The Reverent Priest combats the Beast, they’re kneeling down to prey,
to fight the truth with fang and tooth, to toil for yesterday,
to etch their mark within the dark, to paint their résumé
on shrouds and sheets which then completes the devil’s dossier.

Old Dan, he’s drunk and in a funk, all mired in the mud.
A Monk begins to wash Dan’s sins, and asks “How are you, Bud?”
“I’m feeling pain and crying rain and flailing in the flood
and no god’s there inclined to care I’m always coughing blood.”
The Monk, he turns, Dan’s words he spurns and lets the bible thud.

Well, Banjo Boy, he will annoy with jangled rhymes that fray:
“The clanging bells of carousels lead blind men’s minds astray
to rings of gold they’ll never hold in fingers made of clay.
But crest and crown will crumble down, when withered roots decay.”

A pregnant lass with eyes of glass has never learned to cope.
Once set adrift her fall was swift, she slid a slipp’ry ***** -
she casts the Curse, the Holy Verse, and shoots a shot of dope,
then stalks discreet Asylum Street her daily horoscope -
the stray was struck by random truck which was her only hope.

So Banjo Boy, with little joy, he strums her life entire:
“The wayward waif was never safe; her stars were dark and dire.
Born midst the rues and avenues where lack and want aspire
where no one heeds the childish needs that little ones require;
where faith survives in tempest lives, a swirl within the briar,
Infinity grinds as time unwinds, until the winds expire.
Her last caprice? The final peace that no one could deny her -
whipped by the flood, stray beads of blood cling, splattered on the spire;
though beads of sweat are cool and wet, cold clotted blood is dryer.”

Though broken there, she’s fled the snare with dying thoughts serene.
And now she’s dead, the rumours spread: her age? a sweet 16,
with child, *****, her soul dyed red, her body so unclean.
A place is sought where she can rot, avoiding churchyard scenes,
in limey pits, as well befits, behind forbidding screens;
and all the while a dirge is styled on tattered tambourines
which echo through the human zoo in valleys of the Queens.

Without rejoice, in hissing voice, near soil that’s seldom trod
“In pious role, God bless my soul”, was mouthed with mitred nod,
neath scarlet trim with black, and grim, behind a robed facade -
“She’ll burn in hell and sulphur smell”, spat Priest and man of god.

Well, angels sweet with cloven feet, they sing in girl’s attire,
but Banjo Boy, he’s playing coy while chanting in the choir:
“The clueless search within the church to find what they desire,
but near the nave or gravelled grave, there is no Rectifier.”
And when he’s through, without ado, he stacks some stones nearby her.

The eyes behind the head inclined reflect a universe
of shanty towns and kings in crowns and parties in a hearse,
of heaping mounds of coffee grounds and pennies in a purse,
of heart attacks in shoddy shacks, of motion in reverse,
of reasons why pale kids must die, quite trite and curtly terse,
of puppet people at the steeple, kneeling down averse,
of ****** tones and megaphones with empty words and worse,
of life’s begin’ in utter sin and other things perverse,
of lewd taboos and residues contained within the Curse,
while poets blind, in gallows’ rind, carve epitaphs in verse.

A sodden dreg with wooden leg is dancing for a dime
to sacred psalms and other balms, all ticking with the time.
He’s 22, he’s almost through, he’s melted in his prime,
his bane is firm, the canker worm dissolves his brain to slime.
With slanted scales and twisted jails, his life’s his only crime.

A beggar clump beside a dump has pencil box in hand.
With sightless eyes upon the skies he’s lying there unmanned,
with no relief and bitter grief too dark to understand.
The backyard blight is hid from sight, it’s covered up and bland,
and Robin Hood and Brother Hood lie buried in the sand.

While all night queens carve figurines in gelatine and jade,
behind a door and on the floor a deal is finally made;
the painted girl with flaxen curl has plied again her trade
and now the care within her stare has turned a darker shade.
Her lack of guile and parting smile are cutting like a blade.

Some boys with cheek play hide and seek within a house condemned,
their faces gaunt reflecting want that’s hard to comprehend.
With no excuse an old recluse is waiting to descend.
His eyes despair behind the stare, he’s never had a friend
to talk about his hidden doubt of how the world will end -
to die alone on empty throne and other Fates impend.

And soon the boys chase phantom joys and, presto when they’re gone,
the old recluse, with nimble noose and ****** features drawn,
no longer waits upon the Fates but yawns his final yawn
- like Tinker Bell, he spins a spell, in fairy dust chiffon -
with twisted brow, he’s tranquil now, he’s floating like a swan
and as he fades from life’s charades, the night awaits the dawn.

A boomerang with ebon fang is soaring through the air
to pierce and breach the heart of each and then is called despair.
And as it grows it will oppose and fester everywhere.
And yet the crop that’s at the top will still be unaware.

A lad is stopped by roving cops, who shoot in disregard.
His face is black, he’s on his back, a breeze is breathing hard,
he bleeds and dies, his mama cries, the screaming sky is scarred,
the sheriff and his squad at hand are laughing in the yard.

Now Railroad Bob’s done lost his job, he’s got no place for working,
His wife, she cries with desperate eyes, their baby’s head’s a’ jerking.
The union man don’t give a ****, Big Brother lies a’ lurking,
the boss’ in cabs are picking scabs, they count their money, smirking.

Bob walks the streets and begs for eats or little jobs for trying
“the answer’s no, you ought to know, no use for you applying,
and don’t be sad, it aint that bad, it’s soon your time for dying.”
The air is thick, his baby’s sick, the cries are multiplying.

Bob’s wife’s in town, she’s broken down, she’s ranting with a fury,
their baby coughs, the doctor scoffs, the snow flies all a’ flurry.
Hard work’s the sin that’s done them in, they skirmish, scrimp and scurry,
and midnight dreams abound with screams. Bob knows he needs to hurry.
It’s getting late, Bob’s tempting fate, his choices cruel and blurry;
he chooses gas, they breathe their last, there’s no more cause to worry.

Per protocols near ivied walls arrayed in sage festoons,
the Countess quips, while giving tips, to crimson caped buffoons:
“To rise from mass to upper class, like twirly bird tycoons,
you stretch the treat you always eat, with tiny tablespoons”

A learned leach begins to teach (with songs upon a liar):
“Within the thrall of Satan’s call to yield to dim desire
lie wicked lies that tantalize the flesh and blood Vampire;
abiding souls with self-control in everyday Hellfire
will rest assured, when once interred, in afterlife’s Empire”.
These words reweave the make believe, while slugs in salt expire,
baptised in tears and rampant fears, all mirrored in the mire.

It’s getting hot on private yachts, though far from desert plains -
“Well, come to think, we’ll have a drink”, Sir Captain Hook ordains.
Beyond the blame and pit of shame, outside the Walled domains,
they pet their pups and raise their cups, take sips of pale champagnes
to touch the tips of languid lips with pearls of purple rains.

Well, Gypsy Guy would rather die than hunker down in chains,
be ridden south with bit in mouth, or heed the hold of reins.
The ruling lot are in a spot, the boss man he complains:
“The gypsies’ soul, I can’t control, my patience wears and wanes;
they will not cede to common greed, which conquers far domains
and furtive spies and news that lies have barely baked their brains.
But in the court of last resort the final fix remains:
in boxcar bins with violins we’ll freight them out in trains
and in the bogs, they’ll die like dogs, and everybody gains
(should one ask why, a quick reply: ‘It’s that which God ordains!’)”

Arrayed in shawls with crystal *****, and gazing at the moons,
wiled women tease with melodies and spooky loony tunes
while making toasts to holey ghosts on rainy day lagoons:
“Well, here’s to you and others too, embedded in the dunes,
avoid the stares, avoid the snares, avoid the veiled typhoons
and fend your way as every day, ’gainst heavy heeled dragoons.”

The birds of pray are on their way, in every beak the Word
(of ptomaine tomes by gnarly gnomes) whose meaning is obscured;
they roost aloof on every roof, obscene but always herd,
to tell the tale of Jonah’s whale and other rhymes absurd
with shifty eyes, they’re giving whys for living life deferred.

While jackals lean, hyenas mean, and hungry crocodiles
feast in the lounge and never scrounge, lambs languish in the aisle.
The naive dare to say “Unfair, let’s try to reconcile.
We’ll all relax and weigh the facts, let justice spin the dial.”

With jaundiced monks and minds pre-shrunk, the jury is compiled.
The Rulers meet, First Ladies greet, the Kings appear in style.
Before the Court, their sins are short, they’re swept into a pile;
with diatribes and petty bribes, the jurors are beguiled.

The Herd entreats, the Shepherd bleats the verdict of the trial:
“You have no face. Stay in your place, stay in the Rank and File.
And wait instead, for when you’re dead, for riches after while”;
Aristocrats add caveats while sailing down the Nile:
“If Minds are mugged or simply drugged with philtres in a vial,
then few indeed will fail to feed the Pharaoh’s Crocodile.”
The wordsmiths spin, the bankers grin and politicians smile,
the riff and raff, they never laugh, they mark a martyred mile.

The rituals are finished, all, here comes the Reverent Priest.
He leads the crowds beneath the clouds, and there the flock is fleeced
(“the last are first, the rich are cursed” - the leached remain the least)
with crossing signs and ****** wines and consecrated yeast.
His step is gay without dismay before his evening feast;
he thanks the Lord for room and, bored, he nods to Eden East
but doesn’t sigh or wonder why the sins have not decreased.

The sinking sun’s at last undone, the sky glows faintly red.
A spider black hides in a crack and spins a silken thread
and babes will soon collapse and swoon, on curbs they call a bed;
with vacant eyes they'll fantasize and dream of gingerbread,
and so be freed, though still in need, from anguish of the dead.

Fat midnight bats feast, gnawing gnats, and flit away serene
while on the trails in distant dales the lonesome wolverine
sate appetites on foggy nights and days like crystalline.
A migrant feeds on gnats and weeds with fingers far from clean
and thereby’s blessed with barren breast (the easier to wean) -
her baby ***** an arid flux and fades away unseen.

The circus gongs excite the throngs in nighttime Never Land –
they swarm to see the destiny of Freaks at their command,
while Acrobats step pitapat across the shifting sands
and Lady Fat adores her cat and oozes charm unplanned.
The Dwarfs in suits, so small and cute when marching with the band,
ask crimson Clowns with painted frowns, to lend a mutant hand,
while Tamers’ whips with withered tips, throughout the winter land,
lure minds entranced through hoops enhanced with flames of fires fanned.
White Elephants in big-top tents sell black tusk contraband
to Sycophants in regiments who overflow the stands,
but No One sees anomalies, and No One understands.
At night’s demise, the dither dies, the lonely Crowd disbands,
down dead-end streets the Horde retreats, their threadbare rags in strands,
and Janes and Joes reweave their woes, for thoughts of change are banned.

The Monk of Mock has fled the flock caught knocking up a tween.
(She brought to light the special rite he sought to leave unseen.)
With profaned eyes they agonise, their souls no more serene
and at the shrine the flutes of wine are filled with kerosene
by men unkempt who once had dreamt but now can dream no more
except when bellowed bellies belch an ever growing roar,
which churns the seas and whips a breeze that mercy can’t ignore,
and in the night, though filled with fright, they try to end the War.

The slow and quick are hurling bricks and fight with clubs of rage
to break the chains and cleanse the stains of life within a cage,
but yield to stings of armoured things that crush in every age.

At crack of dawn, a broken pawn, in pools of blood and fire,
attends the wounds, in blood festooned (the waves flow nigh and nigher),
while ghetto towns are burning down (the flames grow high and higher);
and in their wake, a golden snake is rising from the pyre.
Her knees are bare, consumed in prayer, applauded by the Friar,
and soon it’s clear the end is near - while magpie birds conspire,
the lowly worm is made to squirm while dangling from a wire.

The line was crossed, the battle lost, the losers can’t deny,
the residues are far and few, though smoke pervades the sky.
The cool wind’s cruel, a cutting tool, the vanquished ask it “Why?”,
and bittersweet, from  Easy Street, the Pashas’ puffed reply:
“The rules are set, so don’t forget, the rabble will comply;
the grapes of wrath may make you laugh, the day you are to die.”

The down and out, they knock about beneath the barren skies
where homeward bound, without a sound, a ravaged raven flies.
Beyond the Walls, the morning calls the newborn sun to rise,
and Peter Pan, a broken man, inclines his head and cries...

MY FROG MASTERS

How thoughtful were the rainfalls
To water our gardens and flowers
The flowers spread wide garments
To celebrate their terminal beauty

The joyful frogs occupied my pond
To orchestrate their vocal prowess
They taught me to take blind leaps
Like lightning bouncing in the skies

Squatted, stretched, beeped down
I was a millstone on the pond floor
My slippery pond mates wondered
How soft I was in the maritime arts

Mortally rescued in a muddy mood
The clouds sent in rescuing showers
To confirm my firm loss to the frogs
Like a grain of salt cast into the seas


673. MONEY BAGS IN THEIR BODY BAGS

The money bags shopping for their body bags
Waggled through the makeshift supermarkets

Their ancestral homes they plotted modernity
Like the general gathering fine forces together

To the villages they made to return with pride
Like pregnant elephants caught up in the mud

Their desolate villages are deep and sickening
Glowing flamingly in the crucibles of local gins

The dusty and gravy pathways are like furnace
Burning the leather off from their frozen souls

Traditional birth attendants cut off their cords
And zipped the money bags in their body bags

674. A GLORIOUS DAY

The new day spoke powerfully
Like a war making superpower
And his voice roared forcefully
Like the skies forced to shower

The sunrays came dynamically
Like love responding to silence
Beauty crawled in submissively
Like the mixed arts and science

One eagle soared energetically
Like lions feuding in the colony
Far clouds relocated peacefully
Like souls betrayed to harmony

The breeze sighed thoughtfully
Like horses galloping on the lea
Inspiration unfolded thankfully
Crowns monuments with a pea

675.  THE FOG BANK

The sun had gone to pay our bill in the fog bank
The world foggily crawled into the strong rooms
Darkness demonstrated her strong mindfulness
Provided for the strong gale with lurking shrieks

The black paint billers snowballed to our dreams
With the bill of exchange for wild sunny excesses
Ghostly bats emerged with the bill of indictment
In demonstration of our acrophobic dispositions

We packaged the sunrays for our folk memories
To reassure the day of our eternal followerships
We cherish our follow-throughs in our dark beat
To usher the sunlight out of the hollow fog bank

676. THE PROTRACTED INTERNECINE FEUD

These things had happened before we were born
Like sulphur deep into our fresh hearts they burn
Now we stumble on the bumpy terrains in horror
Like one frightened by ghosts in a standing mirror

The internecine feud has razed our men of valour
With their carcasses dumped in their cold parlour
Our community cattle graze in the barren pasture
Like the unrepentant sinners awaiting the rapture

For our plight the once glorious sky is grown pale
Like the ***** fetching territorial waters with pail
The storms have rolled off the catalogues for rain
All our efforts to mop up the mess end up in vain



677. THE AREA LEADERS

They cracked coconuts on the heads for the crown
And embraced our days with their castaway pollen
Sadness and sorrow have dyed our garment brown
With the strongest song sung when night has fallen

These are the blinding dusts from our barn’s grains
They breed cunning serpents in the soft pasturages
They are failed cargoes on our broad societal trains
They dedicate our common committee to outrages

Now our days seek deliverance from their tentacles
Like the colourful fields immersed in gloomy beauty
They play our eyeballs with the stenciled spectacles
With our consciences to sight and found us off duty

To rescue us the colossal clouds were born gadarene
Our communal life was willed to pageants of gaieties
Then moonlight stories held us for a larger gathering
Now all the objects we sight dress up like cold deities

678. THE LAST DESCENDANTS

The rapacious thunderstorms ***** the skies for their tears
The hot embers were born to glow mourning the late forest
The moon crawled out of the blue like a great grandmother
Cuddling her descendants wrapped up in her ancient shawls

The wild waves were weird weavers weaving withering wails
The captioned wigs gyrated on stunning shoes upon auctions
The little creatures crouched in primeval baskets of the night
To gnaw at the generational tubers in the creative farmlands

The dazzling specimens of dentitions relaxed in water basins
Like bright red artistic architectures on potent ocean boards
Golden hearts glow in the threatening prisms of the furnace
As beautiful sunset defines her beauties in her nightly corset

It had been a sweet pill for the past descendants to swallow
Depending on the colonial masters for loaves, lore and lures
Our creativity had been packaged in their mortal depravities
Like the tranquil days resting sorrowfully upon the dark oars

The centenarian thunders downgraded our minute whispers
We had been kept upon our toes by the eternally sworn foes
At last our worthy artworks have worn their wormy catwalks
The refreshed dawns greet our easting days in their greenery



679. VICTIMS IN THE VALLEY

The victims in the dark rally
Caged, dried and browning
Therein their meanings tally
With waves born drowning

In the depth of a cold valley
Horrible nobles are cultures
Like pilgrims in the dark alley
Willed to ravenous vultures

The victims all robed in tears
With hearts like potter’s clay
For pains they have no fears
Only mimed games they play

For victory awaits the victims
Alien to a blind mimed game
Glorious are eternal rhythms
For death Christ died to tame

680. THE GIANT SCARS

These are our giant threatening scars
Engraved on our demonstrative heads
Our sympathies crawled on superstars
Weeping for us on their moonlit beds

They threatened us with nasal sounds
Like thunderclouds seasoned to burst
For us their galleries are out of bounds
Behind the iron bars plagued with rust

Our patience passed their wildest tests
Like the lions roaring in the thick jungle
On the heart of the Lord our faith rests
Like numbers posted on the right angle

681.  A LADY

In a lady’s handbag
Is her hidden hunchback
Stuffed with her heart ache
For the pains relieving groom

In a lady’s tender smile
Is hidden miles of similitude
Marked with the zebra crossings
For the ever winning marathoner

In a tender lady’s heart
Is hidden her cowboy’s hat
Soaring within the white clouds
To soothe the earth with the latter rains

682. BRING BACK OUR GIRLS

Bring back our homesick girls
Their vacant cradles are bleeding
Bring back our innocent girls
On the chariots of fire descending

Bring back our suckling girls
Their feeding bottles are weeping
Bring back our infant girls
Their mothers’ ******* are heavy

Bring back our harmless girls
The united universe is thundering
Bring back our dewy girls
In the sharp sun rising in the skies

Bring back our beautiful girls
Like light plucked from darkness
Bring back our glorious girls
Aboard the shore-bound waves

Bring back our worthy girls
On their fresh faces our lights seek to glow
Bring back our living girls
Our fountains of joy are bubbling to burst

For our returned girls the skies shall bear
Roaring rivers, singing seas, chiming clouds
With gongs and songs, pianos and praises
Dulcet dulcimers and documentable dances
With healthy hymns and eloquent embraces
All nations shall into a common cathedral flow

683. ****** GENEOLOGIES

They electrify their demonic high tables with old fears
Only their ****** genealogies are bookmarked to reign
The sight of their portables whetted our eyes to tears
We are reinforced by the clouds born to the later rain

Our skins have renovated the sickening cattle wagons
With our dreams flying upon huge smokes in the skies
Beneath their tables we abridge their creaking jargons
Upon their floors with our generational landmark tiles

The dew drops dropped like old crops upon our brows
To soften the veils falling to the flaming edged swords
The flaming hearted sword of the penetrating sunrays
Born to pluck us alive from our hotly bandaged bruises

684. LET US SPEAK UP

The light is climbing downstairs
And danger is sprouting abroad
Our feet are listening for a word
Let us speak up lest they go deaf

The light is melted on the glades
And terror grazing our eyelashes
Our feet are listening for a word
Let us speak up lest they go deaf

The light is late and lately buried
The mourners are on danger list
Our feet are listening for a word
Let us speak up lest they go deaf

The light has divorced the grave
Her grave clothes are dew dyed
Our feet are listening for a word
Let us speak up lest they go deaf

Silence is a forgotten tombstone
Lost in the din of cold morticians
Our feet are listening for a word
Let us speak up lest they go deaf

685.  THE SUN

The sun smiles on all prescriptively
Like the waves spreading on shores
The green grass glows descriptively
Like the full moon upon dark sores

The sun is a tailor fixing the buttons
Preparing the sky for incoming stars
Like the weaverbird weaving cottons
To conceal the day’s damnable scars

The sun is a marker on diurnal pages
Tall grace he bestows on the flowers
The sun retains his graces for all ages
Bees and butterflies are his followers

Our common laughter is endangered
When sun bows down in big setbacks
All mortals have the starlets fingered
When the night comes on drawbacks

686. UNTIL HERE

(For Lou Lenart and his team)

Their floods came seeking Jewish bloods
Like streams they roared for our dreams
They emerged as columns of soldier ants
Like whirlwinds they zoomed towards us

Until here we were crumbs for the reptiles
Until here we were like airborne cloudlets
But here the sudden change unveiled to us
From here the elusive victory embraced us

With skeletal jets we fought like bold lions
Soared like eagles and spoke like thunders
We conquered columns of invading armies
The bleeding armies turned back and blank

From here we turned from victims to victors
From here enemies’ defeat our greatest feat
Upon this memorable bridge it all happened
Victories leapt upon our pool like joyful frogs

687.  JOY UNLIMITED

The fledging sun offers its rays
And the rays offer golden trays
For our joy a platform to spray
Rowdy paratroops like thunder
To scoop roses from pure oasis

Our joy is ripe upon celebrations
Our celebrations with decorations
Decorations with documentations
Documentations for all generations
Generations in our joyful habitations

688. ANOTER RAINING DAY

The dark clouds are wandering river basins
Spiral bounded by breakable outer casings
The rivers and the seas display empty cups
For the swift blessings descending the tops

The rains come as defense troops’ missiles
And the drowning lands look like imbeciles
Now we are groaning in the watered claws
With the liberated scales marking our flaws

The retreating clouds crawl away in a belch
Dumping the missing cargoes on the beach
The winds bow in a state of shock in a cord
Praying and fasting for a visit from the Lord

689. GRANDMOTHER

Grandmother, please wake and get up
The sky is quarreling with her husband
Soon they will spill their freezing sweat
On our bodies for us to catch dead cold

Grandmother, please sneeze not louder
The sky and her husband are quarreling
Soon they will send old floods like gales
To sweep mankind away from the world

Grandmother, you are everything I have
My moon, my sun and my morning stars
Provoke not the couples with your cough
Lest they refill their greasily wraths again

Grandmother, the big reptiles have come
With their lethal grandchildren following
They are laced with secret burial shrouds
With sympathetic tears tearing their eyes

Grandmother, I kiss you a shaky goodbye
With broken pains roaring within my soul
Grandmother, where are your groundnuts
To conduct my solo heart as you sing away

690.  A NIGHT WALK THROUGH THE FOREST

Lured away on an alluring dream by fables
I trudged along the grassy paths with fears
Upon my steps spilling the prevailing dews
The shadows bowed their heads in silence
Like the soul issued with a death sentence

The night crawlers emerged above boards
Throwing light upon contrary communities
In their hearts and eyes were painful tears
Crawling down their exaggerated eye *****
Like a handbag filled with rotten cosmetics

The shadows were bold animators’ shelves
Stage managing the horror motion pictures
In the ghostly commodities I met wild hosts
Lifeworks evaporated from my fresh breath
Like foreign tragedies in common comedies

The sorrowful shadows cast away their veils
Like the candles letting go of the weird wax
Sadly I sat in the sack for conflicting fetuses
Another sun appeared like a serial divorcee
Counting the testicles of another naked day

691.  SUBJECTIVE SUBJECTS

The sad sun descended upon her haunting melodies
Reeling from mysterious layers for electoral riggings
To harden the flowerbed for flower girls born tender
Disenfranchised voters came weeping in barren polls
Dressing the blank nest for the fat electoral parodies
With the mourners the faulty bells they came ringing
Like the angry water castigating a ****** port fender
And the smokes climbed upon their wide aerial poles
Arching over the emptied shelves with liberal singing
They subjected their subjective subjects to all objects

She saw the face of Judas in him.
The bearded kiss festered no truth
and the metallic breath
exhaled putrid faithfulness.
The trampled petals spoor no lusting stares,
redolent no more
even as the tongue creeps by the shoulders.

The razors have summoned from the stinking room!
A slit in the neck
could rhythmically go by the thrusts unnoticed
But the chorus of the beasts
as shrill as the gongs of hell
maiming vengeance yet
not in the loss of blood will you die.
Not in my hands.

His demonic pleasures went on as the voodoo doll
resurrected in the beat of my own gongs.
Keep stirring as this spindle rouses my anathema!
his chest hairs
pint of blood
vulture’s beak
stallion’s tails
bobcat’s eye
dead evergreen
Deborah’s tears.
Stir and stir and stir!
Murmur satan’s prayer
mana mana mana boo!
ruba ruba ruba hoo!
Count the sands of the transient hourglass
expiring ‘fore tic tac sound.
Now her man froze,
bulging eyes, blackened pulse!


‘tis freedom, Deborah!

Free.

Doomed.




© Glenn Sentes
03-06-13

we had monsters in our house.
they had come uninvited, of course, and they wouldn’t go away.
hush

we had monsters in our house. they had come uninvited, of course, and they wouldn’t go away so we stuffed them in my cupboard
we thought we had hid them well.
only they didn’t like it – at all.

we had monsters in our house and we stuffed them in my cupboard where they took all the space but didn’t like it there at all
we thought they wouldn’t – but we didn’t care
they cared, of course, because they didn’t like it at all

the monsters from my cupboard would beat gongs to protest – I don’t know how they got them there –
the monsters in my cupboard would never rest.
the monsters in my cupboard would not give up.
we would tell we couldn’t hear them but our eyes betrayed us every time.
one would point at the other when they saw several small circles of red veins on their irises
and black clouds underneath
but the fingers would also point back at ourselves so we never had to say
shush

Our Lips Were Sealed.

our lips were sealed except on days we screamed, altogether
we would scream and scream while the monsters from my cupboard would play a thunderous clap
they would shout in alien languages and beat gongs, and roll drums – I don’t know how they got them there but they would. none would tire.

our lips were sealed until the monsters from my cupboard Won and found a way Out
the monsters in my cupboard were no longer monsters inside my cupboard for they found a way out
when they found a way out they hid under my bed. they had better plans to take revenge.

every time the screaming happened, a similar series ensued:
we always got tired and slept cuddling each other, demanding warmth, pleading for safety in The Most Silent Language Ever
we never wanted the monsters to hear. you see, we were trying to manage everything despite suffering
every time the screaming happened and we went to sleep afterwards, craving warmth and safety, rubbing scars revealing fresh blood, one of us wouldn’t sleep.
one of us couldn’t sleep.
one of us couldn’t sleep because the monsters that were stuffed in my cupboard and were now hiding under my bed would find them.
they would face them boldly, ruthlessly, and make a living mess out of them.
they would threaten to shred their skin and scar their lips. pull their bulging eyes out.
(our eyes would be bulging because of our fear.)

every time the screaming happened, a similar series ensued:
we always got tired and went to sleep with one another, but the monsters wouldn’t sleep
they preyed on one of us.
they would eat some of their flesh, and gargle with their blood
and finally, they would pull them under their bed and put a hand over their mouths
As If They Could Scream

one by one, we fell prey to the monsters – at night
during our days we would live like each other.
and did we see our wounds and half fleshes? of course we did.
but we didn’t say for we couldn’t help it. none of us could
and we were losers who had lost while pretending all the way that we knew better
we became them.
and started biting ourselves.

Whales of thought
Dance unceasing
Bellies full curved
Chambers of bones and water
Eyes small and young
Old and wise

Whales of thought
Holding their breath
Ten seconds
Letting out song
Gongs of the ocean
Ten seconds

Rippled currents
Vibrations of voice

Stifled caresses
Tongue licking touch

Whales of thought
Songs
Ten seconds
Gongs of the ocean
Ten seconds

I want to look out the window
And see bright stars
Lights, and shattered visions.
I want to see
Colors and flying discs.
People thinking, dreaming,
On the edge of discovering
Always not knowing,
Always around the corner.
The timepiece etched in diamonds
Solid, imbued with living darkness
And sheltered worlds.
Pass the time along rivers
Motion, curling smoke and ladies dancing
I want to hear bells and raindrops.
Scattered droplets of rejuvenation
And solitary gongs calling into the depths,
I crave to see the night
For what it could be.

For what it really is behind
Closed doors, and open windows
Behind every mind the desire to know
Others and people
Moving flesh and deep breaths,
Sighing into one another
Haunted by control,
Thoughts of distaste for the lack of
Efficiency.

For I fear acceptance,
To accept a flaw,
A spiraling flood of color
A crack in the shield of dawn.
The weeds pushing up through
Concrete,
Trees, skyscrapers grasping at the atmosphere.
Shadows beyond the fences
And your eyes when I've asked too much.
I want to feel the night for what it is.
Not for what it could be.

1
*Gongs and drums sound rambunctious,
a wild rhythm tears the silence of the night,
a slow number first, then in quick time
racing fast,everything ends in a blast.
his self control lost, he dances like one possessed,
in the moon lit places and shadows alike.
This angst is not his alone, he feels,
as if mad at the way the world these days is.
Freedom of a special kind, it was, catharsis,
drums sounding mysterious, made life different.
                               2
Once when he and his girl were making love
deep in his veins drums rumbled,
and he couldn't but stop and listen,
she was curious,"What is this, what do you listen?"
smiling, he resumed his dance
thorough the valley and plains, like wind,
to the tune of temple drums,
his hair flying and sweat pouring  like rain,
she could catch the change of rhythm
intense love was there, in the depth of fury.

Then, they ended up panting,then lying quiet.
holding each other tight,she said;
"you are like one possessed, fantastic,"
but he had felt the presence of a third,
he felt in his bones,
a benign female presence, who is she?
                      3
The oracle holding a sword with a shining blade,
wearing a red silk turban and a white **** cloth, told:
"It's the possession of a woman, a wild spirit,
her songs and dance were snuffed out
at a young age, when it slowly emerged,
it happened at a time we don't know when,
a kindred spirit, your tumult suits her soul."
the oracle was in a trance when he opened his eyes,
"Not a curse, a blessing, symbiotic it is"
the oracle  threw a bit of holy ash on him and said:
"Well son, in you Devi, the mother goddess
is pleased, this spirit will survive,
her speakings will come out from you,
all will be just fine, being kind you received her,
so pleased and contented she is, wouldn't disturb"

They walked together, the woman without a body
to fulfill her dreams or sing her songs,
at times of loneliness the drums sound,
she comes in to his tumultuous soul, he makes her alight,
in their entwined destiney, he sings her songs, they dance.

I think in Japanese,
write down my thoughts in English,
then twist it all back into sushi:
a tasty bite to eat.

My mind is like origami
folding thoughts into meditation;
meditation unfolds
into a crisp sheet of city lights.

I love you big much,
love you big time;
I love the way you giggle nervously.
Titter-titter,
"Tee-hee-hee!"
It must be amazing to find everything so funny.

Big city, sake sunset;
a karaoke moon rises
over a robotic, neon inception.
(transmutation)
Transformers, Transformers:
autobotic-neurotic Bumblebee
comes to the aid of Samurai Prime.
"Autobots, transform!!"

Bored of the bright lights?
Weary of the snappy-happy gaijin
doing photo-photo
while they look for a sweet sakura-panpan?
Then take a leisurely stroll up to Hokkaido,
where there's less sucky-sucky,
and more bow-down-low-austerity
alongside the 108 gongs a-bonging.
Chant a few prayers,
speak with the sacred cedars,
take a dip in the hot springs
with some smiling monkeys,
and watch snow fall, together.

Nippon, you offer everything.
I can eat 20 times a day
without gaining a pound.
There's always more room
for miso, chanko nabe, shabu-shabu,
gyozo, okonomiyaki—
I am going to stop writing this list
so that I don't drown in my saliva.

I refuse to look back,
refuse to go back to the boredom
of white picket fences and hamburger dreams;
I want to stay here forever.
I love you big much,
love you big time;
totemo ureshii da.




March 1st, 2012

I am here, risen up
from dust
and I sit in the sand
beneath the mangroves
as fruits fall around me
thudding softly in the
strewn leaves.

We sit here,
where I am,
these fruits
and these insects
and small reptiles,
watching the clouds roll in from the east,
where the ocean sprawls,
lavishing the beach with delicate hands
under the phosphorescent moon.

We all sit here,
the fruits,
insects,
reptiles,
the ocean,
and I-

We watch dense clouds roll in
as distant flashes of light
and gongs of thunder
grow more frequent-

we sit-
we watch-
and we wait-

for the rain.

Winding down the alleyways,
Climbing up the walls,
Delivering their urgent schemes,
Yelling down the halls,
Hammering on all the drums,
And pounding on the gongs,
Calling out my burning thrums,
And writing all my songs,
Small things- all things,
These cause my ways.

Harmonica and strums sail my shores
Tell my whole clan sonny, he ain't good
That I met a troller under a sycamore
He passed me all the love as he veiled

We walked around,camouflaged by leaves
Tell mummy he was a preacher's son
A soul that was open and hid it's stick
Unharmonised in accapellas I drowned

Swingers of melodic stormy strings
Tell sassy to keep her tassels tucked
To calm her tussles and noisy gongs
Shake on the octave of the beats

Whisked dreams of the lost yesterdays
Tell Jimmy to listen to her heart raise
Tie her down, bring her back home
Liberate and let her fly like a wild bird

Gently close the door before
Running away from the sangha of the gongs,
Running to the sangha of the forest.
Dualities, so extreme,
Oneness, so infinite.

I step more patiently now,
With the same wonder,
But with increased senses.
The senses feast on stimuli.
The senses fast on deprivation.
Yes the green is greener.

I return to the chakras,
The protection of the fox,
The fuzzy comfort of soft things.
To hear music, to bake bread,
To feel touch.

Now our distance is greater,
And it creates closeness.
Now the sadness of spaces
Creates refreshed longing.

I smile at the mystical and curious
May Apple Retreats.
The Big Tree, the threshold.
The portal, welcomes me,
Shelters me.

Practices breathing fully,
Proclaiming:

                            “LIVE LIFE,
                              LIVE LIFE”

I am the past and I am the present. I am the digger of graves and the conveyance to them.
I am the string; connected to the puppets that wield my blows.

I am the thing they call, “Havoc” I am the Blue Monkey.

The key to my cage, that which sets me free is your disinterest, your apathy and hate. My freedom to roam unabated is your ignorance, and retribution’s ****** slate.  Man’s violence upon himself is my ignorant inspiration, and I revel in the thought of his de-creation.

I can be found in city and town, in far flung reaches around the world. I can be seen in newscast scenes, I can be found in the eyes of a starving child. My name is celebrated in ball ammo flight, and the pungent aroma of smoke and cordite.

I am the flame set to irreverent crosses; lighting the sky with racist delights, I am the tailor of white sheeted banners so bias. I am the unjustified 13 knots of retribution, fashioned on the hangman’s noose.

I am the thing they call “Havoc” I am the Blue Monkey.

Complacency is my friend, Revenge, my *****. Blood letting my delight, to even senseless scores. My hands are soiled with the lives of many, and I have been given freedoms in place of your outrage. Look around in farm and town, in village and city streets, my presence is everywhere…

Keep sleeping; keep sleeping,
For when you awake, I shall have to go.

I am the vehement articulations of opinion and rhetoric, and in spite of your diatribes,
It is they that give me wing. I am the developer of future battlefields. I was the architect of the Auschwitz oven, the builder of the Berlin wall. I was the sharpened blade of Tutsi, Hutu cleansings. I am the mix master of Jim Jones’s cool aide. I am confusion; I am disassociation, alienation and empty pride.

I am the thing they call “Havoc” I am The Blue Monkey.

You will find me in back alley shooting dens, on skid row’s bleeding pavement.
You will find me in lonely fields and dark forests, within the graves of the murdered unknown. You will see my reflection in broken mirrors, for I celebrate their fall,
And I will revel in the screams of your unheard call.
They call me destruction; I am your neutron bomb. I am the wings of the Enola Gay at thirty thousand feet, reaching out to touch you. With nuclear, holocaust treats.
I am dynamite, TNT, I am the thought imposed in political superiority. I am the IED
On the path of Man’s sacred journey.  I am travail and tribulation.

I am the thing they call “Havoc” I am the Blue Monkey.

I am the summation of all your perceived wrongs, and yet you tarry about,
Clanging self-righteous gongs,
You see, but you are blind, you listen but do not hear. Instead you wallow in the pits of self loathing and determinate fear. And in that fear, it becomes quite clear that indeed your hearts are closed, for to open them wide would cause your heart to collide with the awful truth about me.

Yes, keep sleeping; and sleep well,
For when you awake, I shall have to go.

For I am the thing they call “Havoc” I am the Blue Monkey…

Villanelle: The Divide
by Michael R. Burch

The sea was not salt the first tide...
was man born to sorrow that first day,
with the moon―a pale beacon across the Divide,
the brighter for longing, an object denied―
the tug at his heart's pink, bourgeoning clay?

The sea was not salt the first tide...
but grew bitter, bitter―man's torrents supplied.
The bride of their longing―forever astray,
her shield a cold beacon across the Divide,
flashing pale signals: Decide. Decide.
Choose me, or His Brightness, I will not stay.

The sea was not salt the first tide...
imploring her, ebbing: Abide, abide.
The silver fish flash there, the manatees gray.

The moon, a pale beacon across the Divide,
has taught us to seek Love's concealed side:
the dark face of longing, the poets say.
The sea was not salt the first tide...
the moon a pale beacon across the Divide.

"The Divide" is essentially a formal villanelle despite the non-formal line breaks.



Villanelle: Ordinary Love
by Michael R. Burch

Indescribable―our love―and still we say
with eyes averted, turning out the light,
"I love you," in the ordinary way

and tug the coverlet where once we lay,
all suntanned limbs entangled, shivering, white...
indescribably in love. Or so we say.

Your hair's blonde thicket now is tangle-gray;
you turn your back; you murmur to the night,
"I love you," in the ordinary way.

Beneath the sheets our hands and feet would stray
to warm ourselves. We do not touch despite
a love so indescribable. We say

we're older now, that "love" has had its day.
But that which Love once countenanced, delight,
still makes you indescribable. I say,
"I love you," in the ordinary way.

"Ordinary Love" was the winner of the 2001 Algernon Charles Swinburne poetry contest. It was originally published by Romantics Quarterly and nominated by the journal for the Pushcart Prize. It is missing a tercet but seemed complete enough without it.―MRB



Villanelle: Because Her Heart Is Tender
by Michael R. Burch

for Beth

She scrawled soft words in soap: "Never Forget,"
Dove-white on her car's window, and the wren,
because her heart is tender, might regret
it called the sun to wake her. As I slept,
she heard lost names recounted, one by one.

She wrote in sidewalk chalk: "Never Forget,"
and kept her heart's own counsel. No rain swept
away those words, no tear leaves them undone.

Because her heart is tender with regret,
bruised by razed towers' glass and steel and stone
that shatter on and on and on and on,
she stitches in wet linen: "NEVER FORGET,"
and listens to her heart's emphatic song.

The wren might tilt its head and sing along
because its heart once understood regret
when fledglings fell beyond, beyond, beyond...
its reach, and still the boot-heeled world strode on.

She writes in adamant: "NEVER FORGET"
because her heart is tender with regret.



Because Her Heart is Tender (II)
by Michael R. Burch

Because her heart is tender
there is hope some God might mend her, …
some small hope Fates might relent.

Because her heart is tender
mighty Angels, come defend her!
Even the Devil might repent.

Because her heart is tender
Jacob’s Ladder should descend here,
the heavens open, saints assent.

Because her heart is tender
why does the cruel world rend her?
Fix the world, or let it end here!



Villanelle: Hangovers
by Michael R. Burch

We forget that, before we were born,
our parents had “lives” of their own,
ran drunk in the streets, or half-******.

Yes, our parents had lives of their own
until we were born; then, undone,
they were buying their parents gravestones

and finding gray hairs of their own
(because we were born lacking some
of their curious habits, but soon

would certainly get them). Half-******,
we watched them dig graves of their own.
Their lives would be over too soon

for their curious habits to bloom
in us (though our children were born
nine months from that night on the town

when, punch-drunk in the streets or half-******,
we first proved we had lives of our own).



Double Trouble
by Michael R. Burch

The villanelle is trouble:
it’s like you’re on the bubble
of beginning to see double.

It’s like you’re on the Hubble
when the lens begins to wobble:
the villanelle is trouble.

It’s like you’re Barney Rubble
scratching itchy beer-stained stubble
because you’re seeing double.

Then your lines begin to gobble
up the good rhymes, and you hobble.
The villanelle is trouble,

just like getting sloshed in the pub’ll
begin to make you babble
because you’re seeing double.

Because the form is flubbable
and is really not that loveable,
the villanelle is trouble:
it’s like you’re seeing double.



Villanelle Sequence: Clandestine But Gentle
by Michael R. Burch

Variations on the villanelle. A play in four acts. The heroine wears a trench coat and her every action drips nonchalance. The “hero” is pallid, nerdish and nervous. But more than anything, he is palpably desperate with longing. Props are optional, but a streetlamp, a glowing cigarette and lots of eerie shadows should suffice.

I.

Clandestine but gentle, wrapped in night,
she eavesdropped on morose codes of my heart.
She was the secret agent of delight.

The blue spurt of her match, our signal light,
announced her presence in the shadowed court:
clandestine but gentle, cloaked in night.

Her cigarette was waved, a casual sleight,
to bid me “Come!” or tell me to depart.
She was the secret agent of delight,

like Ingrid Bergman in a trench coat, white
as death, and yet more fair and pale (but short
with me, whenever I grew wan with fright!).

II.

Clandestine but gentle, veiled in night,
she was the secret agent of delight;
she coaxed the tumblers in some cryptic rite

to make me spill my spirit.
Lovely ****!
Clandestine but gentle, veiled in night

―she waited till my tongue, untied, sang bright
but damning strange confessions in the dark...

III.

She was the secret agent of delight;
so I became her paramour. Tonight
I await her in my exile, worlds apart...

IV.

For clandestine but gentle, wrapped in night,
she is the secret agent of delight.



Villanelle: Hang Together, or Separately
by Michael R. Burch

“The first shall be last, and the last first.”

Be careful whom you don’t befriend
When hyenas mark their prey:
The odds will get even in the end.

Some “deplorables” may yet ascend
And since all dogs must have their day,
Be careful whom you don’t befriend.

When pallid elitists condescend
What does the Good Book say?
The odds will get even in the end.

Since the LORD advised us to attend
To each other along the way,
Be careful whom you don’t befriend.

But He was deserted. Friends, comprehend!
Though revilers mock and flay,
The odds will get even in the end.

Now infidels have loot to spend:
As ****** as Judas’s that day.
Be careful whom you don’t befriend:
The odds will get even in the end.

NOTE: This poem portrays a certain worldview. The poet does not share it and suspects from reading the gospels that the “real” Jesus would have sided with the infidel refugees, not Trump and his ilk.



Villanelle: The Sad Refrain
by Michael R. Burch

O, let us not repeat the sad refrain
that Christ is cruel because some innocent dies.
No, pain is good, for character comes from pain!

There’d be no growth without the hammering rain
that tests each petal’s worth. Omnipotent skies
peal, “Let us not repeat the sad refrain,

but separate burnt chaff from bountiful grain.
According to God’s plan, the weakling dies
and pain is good, for character comes from pain!

A God who’s perfect cannot bear the blame
of flawed creations, just because one dies!
So let us not repeat the sad refrain

or think to shame or stain His awesome name!
Let lightning strike the devious source of lies
that pain is bad, for character comes from pain!
Oh, let us not repeat the sad refrain!



Villanelles by Michael R. Burch

The modern formal villanelle is a poetic form with a double refrain, although in early incarnations it was simply a pastoral poem with a refrain. The villanelle is related other poetic forms with refrains, such as the rondel, the roundel and the rondeau.



Villanelle: The Divide
by Michael R. Burch

The sea was not salt the first tide...
was man born to sorrow that first day,
with the moon―a pale beacon across the Divide,
the brighter for longing, an object denied―
the tug at his heart's pink, bourgeoning clay?

The sea was not salt the first tide...
but grew bitter, bitter―man's torrents supplied.
The bride of their longing―forever astray,
her shield a cold beacon across the Divide,
flashing pale signals: Decide. Decide.
Choose me, or His Brightness, I will not stay.

The sea was not salt the first tide...
imploring her, ebbing: Abide, abide.
The silver fish flash there, the manatees gray.

The moon, a pale beacon across the Divide,
has taught us to seek Love's concealed side:
the dark face of longing, the poets say.
The sea was not salt the first tide...
the moon a pale beacon across the Divide.


'The Divide' is essentially a formal villanelle despite the non-formal line breaks.



Villanelle: Ordinary Love
by Michael R. Burch

Indescribable―our love―and still we say
with eyes averted, turning out the light,
'I love you, ' in the ordinary way

and tug the coverlet where once we lay,
all suntanned limbs entangled, shivering, white...
indescribably in love. Or so we say.

Your hair's blonde thicket now is tangle-gray;
you turn your back; you murmur to the night,
'I love you, ' in the ordinary way.

Beneath the sheets our hands and feet would stray
to warm ourselves. We do not touch despite
a love so indescribable. We say

we're older now, that 'love' has had its day.
But that which Love once countenanced, delight,
still makes you indescribable. I say,
'I love you, ' in the ordinary way.

'Ordinary Love' was the winner of the 2001 Algernon Charles Swinburne poetry contest. It was originally published by Romantics Quarterly and nominated by the journal for the Pushcart Prize. It is missing a tercet but seemed complete enough without it.―MRB



Villanelle: Because Her Heart Is Tender
by Michael R. Burch

for Beth

She scrawled soft words in soap: 'Never Forget, '
Dove-white on her car's window, and the wren,
because her heart is tender, might regret
it called the sun to wake her. As I slept,
she heard lost names recounted, one by one.

She wrote in sidewalk chalk: 'Never Forget, '
and kept her heart's own counsel. No rain swept
away those words, no tear leaves them undone.

Because her heart is tender with regret,
bruised by razed towers' glass and steel and stone
that shatter on and on and on and on,
she stitches in wet linen: 'NEVER FORGET, '
and listens to her heart's emphatic song.

The wren might tilt its head and sing along
because its heart once understood regret
when fledglings fell beyond, beyond, beyond...
its reach, and still the boot-heeled world strode on.

She writes in adamant: 'NEVER FORGET'
because her heart is tender with regret.



Villanelle: Because Her Heart is Tender (II)    
by Michael R. Burch

Because her heart is tender
there is hope some God might mend her, …
some small hope Fates might relent.

Because her heart is tender
mighty Angels, come defend her!
Even the Devil might repent.

Because her heart is tender
Jacob's Ladder should descend here,
the heavens open, saints assent.

Because her heart is tender
why does the cruel world rend her?
Fix the world, or let it end here!



Remembering Not to Call
by Michael R. Burch

a villanelle permitting mourning, for my mother, Christine Ena Burch

The hardest thing of all,
after telling her everything,
is remembering not to call.

Now the phone hanging on the wall
will never announce her ring:
the hardest thing of all
for children, however tall.

And the hardest thing this spring
will be remembering not to call
the one who was everything.

That the songbirds will nevermore sing
is the hardest thing of all
for those who once listened, in thrall,
and welcomed the message they bring,
since they won’t remember to call.

And the hardest thing this fall
will be a number with no one to ring.

No, the hardest thing of all
is remembering not to call.




Villanelle of an Opportunist
by Michael R. Burch

I'm not looking for someone to save.
A gal has to do what a gal has to do:
I'm looking for a man with one foot in the grave.

How many highways to hell must I pave
with intentions imagined, not true?
I'm not looking for someone to save.

Fools praise compassion while weaklings rave,
but a gal has to do what a gal has to do.
I'm looking for a man with one foot in the grave.

Some praise the Lord but the Devil's my fave
because he has led me to you!
I'm not looking for someone to save.

In the land of the free and the home of the brave,
a gal has to do what a gal has to do.
I'm looking for a man with one foot in the grave.

Every day without meds becomes a close shave
and the razor keeps tempting me too.
I'm not looking for someone to save:
I'm looking for a man with one foot in the grave.



Villanelle: An Ode to the Divine Plan
by Michael R. Burch

This is how the Universe works:
The rich must have their perks.
This is how the Good Lord rolls.

Did T-Rexes have souls?
The poor must live on doles.
This is how the Universe works.

The rich must have their dirks
to poke serfs full of holes.
This is how the Good Lord rolls.

The despot laughs and lurks
while the Tyger slaughters foals.
This is how the Universe works.

What are the despots' goals?
The poor must mind, not shirk.
This is how the Good Lord rolls.

Trump and Putin praise the kirks
while the cowed mind ancient scrolls.
This is how the Universe works.
This is how the Good Lord rolls.



Ars Brevis
by Michael R. Burch

Better not to live, than live too long:
this is my theme, my purpose and desire.
The world prefers a brief three-minute song.

My will to live was never all that strong.
Eternal life? Find some poor fool to hire!
Better not to live, than live too long.

Granny ******* or a flosslike thong?
The latter rock, the former feed the fire.
The world prefers a brief three-minute song.

Let briefs be brief: the short can do no wrong,
since David slew Goliath, who stood higher.
Better not to live, than live too long.

A long recital gets a sudden gong.
Quick death’s preferred to drowning in the mire.
The world prefers a brief three-minute song.

A wee bikini or a long sarong?
French Riviera or some dull old Shire?
Better not to live, than live too long:
The world prefers a brief three-minute song.



The vanilla-nelle
by Michael R. Burch

The vanilla-nelle is rather dark to write
In a chocolate world where purity is slight,
When every rhyming word must rhyme with white!

As sure as night is day and day is night,
And walruses write songs, such is my plight:
The vanilla-nelle is rather dark to write.

I’m running out of rhymes and it’s a fright
because the end’s not nearly (yet) in sight,
When every rhyming word must rhyme with white!

It’s tougher when the poet’s not too bright
And strains his brain, which only turns up “blight.”
Yes, the vanilla-nelle is rather dark to write.

I strive to seem aloof and recondite
while avoiding ancient words like “knyghte” and “flyte”
But every rhyming word must rhyme with white!

I think I’ve failed: I’m down to “zinnwaldite.”
I fear my Muse is torturing me, for spite!
For the vanilla-nelle is rather dark to write
When every rhyming word must rhyme with white!
I may have accidentally invented a new poetic form, the “trinelle” or “triplenelle.”



Why I Left the Right
by Michael R. Burch

I was a Reagan Republican in my youth but quickly “left” the GOP when I grokked its inherent racism, intolerance and retreat into the Dark Ages.

I fell in with the troops, but it didn’t last long:
I’m not one to march to a klanging gong.
“Right is wrong” became my song.

I’m not one to march to a klanging gong
with parrots all singing the same strange song.
I fell in with the bloops, but it didn’t last long.

These parrots all singing the same strange song
with no discernment at all between right and wrong?
“Right is wrong” became my song.

With no discernment between right and wrong,
the **** marched on in a white-robed throng.
I fell in with the rubes, but it didn’t last long.

The **** marched on in a white-robed throng,
enraged by the sight of boys in sarongs.
“Right is wrong” became my song.

Enraged by the sight of boys in sarongs
and girls with butch hairdos, the clan klanged its gongs.
I fell in with the dupes, but it didn’t last long.
“Right is wrong” became my song.



What happened to the songs of yesterdays?
by Michael R. Burch

Is poetry mere turning of a phrase?
Has prose become its height and depth and sum?
What happened to the songs of yesterdays?

Does prose leave all nine Muses vexed and glum,
with fingers stuck in ears, till hearing’s numbed?
Is poetry mere turning of a phrase?

Should we cut loose, drink, guzzle jugs of ***,
write prose nonstop, till Hell or Kingdom Come?
What happened to the songs of yesterdays?

Are there no beats to which tense thumbs might thrum?
Did we outsmart ourselves and end up dumb?
Is poetry mere turning of a phrase?

How did a feast become this measly crumb,
such noble princess end up in a slum?
What happened to the songs of yesterdays?

I’m running out of rhymes! Please be a chum
and tell me if some Muse might spank my ***
for choosing rhyme above the painted phrase?
What happened to the songs of yesterdays?



Trump’s Retribution Resolution
by Michael R. Burch

My New Year’s resolution?
I require your money and votes,
for you are my retribution.

May I offer you dark-skinned scapegoats
and bigger and deeper moats
as part of my sweet resolution?

Please consider a YUGE contribution,
a mountain of lovely C-notes,
for you are my retribution.

Revenge is our only solution,
since my critics are weasels and stoats.
Come, second my sweet resolution!

The New Year’s no time for dilution
of the anger of victimized GOATs,
when you are my retribution.

Forget the ****** Constitution!
To dictators “ideals” are footnotes.
My New Year’s resolution?
You are my retribution.



Rondels, Roundels and Rondeaux are poetic forms with refrains that are related to the Villanelle.



Rondel: Merciles Beaute ("Merciless Beauty")
by Geoffrey Chaucer
loose translation/interpretation Michael R. Burch

Your eyes slay me suddenly;
their beauty I cannot sustain,
they wound me so, through my heart keen.

Unless your words heal me hastily,
my heart's wound will remain green;
for your eyes slay me suddenly;
their beauty I cannot sustain.

By all truth, I tell you faithfully
that you are of life and death my queen;
for at my death this truth shall be seen:
your eyes slay me suddenly;
their beauty I cannot sustain,
they wound me so, through my heart keen.



Rondel: Rejection
by Geoffrey Chaucer
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Your beauty from your heart has so erased
Pity, that it’s useless to complain;
For Pride now holds your mercy by a chain.

I'm guiltless, yet my sentence has been cast.
I tell you truly, needless now to feign,―
Your beauty from your heart has so erased
Pity, that it’s useless to complain.

Alas, that Nature in your face compassed
Such beauty, that no man may hope attain
To mercy, though he perish from the pain;
Your beauty from your heart has so erased
Pity, that it’s useless to complain;
For Pride now holds your mercy by a chain.



Rondel: Escape
by Geoffrey Chaucer
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Since I’m escaped from Love and yet still fat,
I never plan to be in his prison lean;
Since I am free, I count it not a bean.

He may question me and counter this and that;
I care not: I will answer just as I mean.
Since I’m escaped from Love and yet still fat,
I never plan to be in his prison lean.

Love strikes me from his roster, short and flat,
And he is struck from my books, just as clean,
Forevermore; there is no other mean.
Since I’m escaped from Love and yet still fat,
I never plan to be in his prison lean;
Since I am free, I count it not a bean.



Rondel: Your Smiling Mouth
by Charles d'Orleans (c. 1394-1465)
loose translation/interpretation/moderniz  ation Michael R. Burch

Your smiling mouth and laughing eyes, bright gray,
Your ample ******* and slender arms’ twin chains,
Your hands so smooth, each finger straight and plain,
Your little feet―please, what more can I say?

It is my fetish when you’re far away
To muse on these and thus to soothe my pain―
Your smiling mouth and laughing eyes, bright gray,
Your ample ******* and slender arms’ twin chains.

So would I beg you, if I only may,
To see such sights as I before have seen,
Because my fetish pleases me. Obscene?
I’ll be obsessed until my dying day
By your sweet smiling mouth and eyes, bright gray,
Your ample ******* and slender arms’ twin chains!



Oft in My Thought
by Charles d'Orleans (c. 1394-1465)
loose translation/interpretation/moderniz  ation Michael R. Burch

So often in my busy mind I sought,
Around the advent of the fledgling year,
For something pretty that I really ought
To give my lady dear;
But that sweet thought's been wrested from me, clear,
Since death, alas, has sealed her under clay
And robbed the world of all that's precious here―
God keep her soul, I can no better say.

For me to keep my manner and my thought
Acceptable, as suits my age's hour?
While proving that I never once forgot
Her worth? It tests my power!
I serve her now with masses and with prayer;
For it would be a shame for me to stray
Far from my faith, when my time's drawing near―
God keep her soul, I can no better say.

Now earthly profits fail, since all is lost
And the cost of everything became so dear;
Therefore, O Lord, who rules the higher host,
Take my good deeds, as many as there are,
And crown her, Lord, above in your bright sphere,
As heaven's truest maid! And may I say:
Most good, most fair, most likely to bring cheer―
God keep her soul, I can no better say.

When I praise her, or hear her praises raised,
I recall how recently she brought me pleasure;
Then my heart floods like an overflowing bay
And makes me wish to dress for my own bier―
God keep her soul, I can no better say.



If
by Michael R. Burch

If I regret
fire in the sunset
exploding on the horizon,
then let me regret loving you.

If I forget
even for a moment
that you are the only one,
then let me forget that the sky is blue.

If I should yearn
in a season of discontentment
for the vagabond light of a companionless moon,
let dawn remind me that you are my sun.

If I should burn―one moment less brightly,
one instant less true―
then with wild scorching kisses,
inflame me, inflame me, inflame me anew.



Recursion
by Michael R. Burch

In a dream I saw boys lying
under banners gaily flying
and I heard their mothers sighing
from some dark distant shore.

For I saw their sons essaying
into fields―gleeful, braying―
their bright armaments displaying;
such manly oaths they swore!

From their playfields, boys returning
full of honor’s white-hot burning
and desire’s restless yearning
sired new kids for the corps.

In a dream I saw boys dying
under banners gaily lying
and I heard their mothers crying
from some dark distant shore.



I AM!
by Michael R. Burch

I am not one of ten billion―I―
sunblackened Icarus, chary fly,
staring at God with a quizzical eye.

I am not one of ten billion, I.

I am not one life has left unsquashed―
scarred as Ulysses, goddess-debauched,
pale glowworm agleam with a tale of panache.

I am not one life has left unsquashed.

I am not one without spots of disease,
laugh lines and tan lines and thick-callused knees
from begging and praying and girls sighing "Please!"

I am not one without spots of disease.

I am not one of ten billion―I―
scion of Daedalus, blackwinged fly
staring at God with a sedulous eye.

I am not one of ten billion, I
AM!



This World's Joy
(anonymous Middle English lyric)
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Winter awakens all my care
as leafless trees grow bare.
For now my sighs are fraught
whenever it enters my thought:
regarding this world's joy,
how everything comes to naught.



Elegy for a little girl, lost
by Michael R. Burch

... qui laetificat juventutem meam...
She was the joy of my youth,
and now she is gone.
... requiescat in pace...
May she rest in peace.
... amen...
Amen.



How Long the Night
anonymous Middle English lyric, circa early 13th century AD
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

It is pleasant, indeed, while the summer lasts
with the mild pheasants' song...
but now I feel the northern wind's blast,
its severe weather strong.
Alas! Alas! This night seems so long!
And I, because of my momentous wrong
now grieve, mourn and fast.



Fowles in the Frith
anonymous Middle English lyric, circa 13th-14th century AD
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The fowls in the forest,
the fishes in the flood
and I must go mad:
such sorrow I've had
for beasts of bone and blood!



I am of Ireland
anonymous Medieval Irish lyric, circa 13th-14th century AD
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I am of Ireland,
and of the holy realm of Ireland.
Gentlefolk, I pray thee:
for the sake of saintly charity,
come dance with me
in Ireland!



Whan the turuf is thy tour
(anonymous Middle English lyric, circa the 13th century AD)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

1.
When the turf is your tower
and the pit is your bower,
your pale white skin and throat
shall be sullen worms’ to note.
What help to you, then,
was all your worldly hope?

2.
When the turf is your tower
and the grave is your bower,
your pale white throat and skin
worm-eaten from within...
what hope of my help then?


Ech day me comëth tydinges thre
anonymous Middle English lyric, circa the 13th to 14th century AD
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Each day I’m plagued by three doles,
These gargantuan weights on my soul:
First, that I must somehow exit this fen.
Second, that I cannot know when.
And yet it’s the third that torments me so,
Because I don't know where the hell I will go!



Ich have y-don al myn youth
anonymous Middle English lyric, circa the 13th to 14th century AD
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I have done it all my youth:
Often, often, and often!
I have loved long and yearned zealously...
And oh what grief it has brought me!



I Sing of a Maiden
anonymous Medieval English Lyric, circa early 15th century AD
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I sing of a maiden
That is matchless.
The King of all Kings
For her son she chose.
He came also as still
To his mother's breast
As April dew
Falling on the grass.
He came also as still
To his mother's bower
As April dew
Falling on the flower.
He came also as still
To where his mother lay
As April dew
Falling on the spray.
Mother and maiden?
Never one, but she!
Well may such a lady
God's mother be!



Regret
by Michael R. Burch

Regret,
a bitter
ache to bear...

once starlight
languished
in your hair...

a shining there
as brief
as rare.

Regret...
a pain
I chose to bear...

unleash
the torrent
of your hair...

and show me
once again―
how rare.



Enigma
by Michael R. Burch

O, terrible angel,
bright lover and avenger,
full of whimsical light
and vile anger;
wild stranger,
seeking the solace of night,
or the danger;
pale foreigner,
alien to man, or savior...

Who are you,
seeking consolation and passion
in the same breath,
screaming for pleasure, bereft
of all articles of faith,
finding life
harsher than death?

Grieving angel,
giving more than taking,
how lucky the man
who has found in your love,
this, our reclamation;

fallen wren,
you must strive to fly
though your heart is shaken;

weary pilgrim,
you must not give up
though your feet are aching;

lonely child,
lie here still in my arms;
you must soon be waking.



The Effects of Memory
by Michael R. Burch

A black ringlet
curls to lie
at the nape of her neck,
glistening with sweat
in the evaporate moonlight...
This is what I remember

now that I cannot forget.

And tonight,
if I have forgotten her name,
I remember:
rigid wire and white lace
half-impressed in her flesh...

our soft cries, like regret,

... the enameled white clips
of her bra strap
still inscribe dimpled marks
that my kisses erase...

now that I have forgotten her face.



The Quickening
by Michael R. Burch

for Beth

I never meant to love you
when I held you in my arms
promising you sagely
wise, noncommittal charms.

And I never meant to need you
when I touched your tender lips
with kisses that intrigued my own:
such kisses I had never known,
nor a heartbeat in my fingertips!



Ah! Sunflower
by Michael R. Burch
after William Blake

O little yellow flower
like a star...
how beautiful,
how wonderful
we are!



Published as the collection "Villanelles"

Keywords/Tags: villanelle, refrain, repetition, chorus, rhyme, sea, tide, moon, heart, love, rondel, roundel, rondeau, poetic form, poetics, poetic expression, Chaucer, Orleans, love, art, beauty, mercy, merciless, words, heart, hearts, pity, pride, prison, mrbvill, mrbrondel

How will one's feet dance to the rhythms if the gongs have ceased to pump the veins?

Are the hues of the palette enough for a leonardeschi art to transcend?

When your mezzo-soprano fails to hit, will your story still get heard?

Will a cyclist still pedal to savor the orange horizons without his friends?

Who will listen when the wrinkled fingers lay on the dusty piano?

Do these words still tell of a poet who once penned in flames?

along the red marble hall in the east wing
on either side, hung from the talons of granite stones
resting on their brother's shoulders in the bitter load baring
framed in golden oak and cherry wood, gilded arcane; several paintings
in the style of the Old Masters. And a long rug from foreign fjords
like a flat dune of spice, the length of a mile. pinched to a vantage point
in a spider's web. and a draft.
a draft through the twelve senses. your song un-gongs the gamelan
and the bells remain. pecked by crows of a different summer.
beads of honey making war
on paraplegic bees. we keep these in styrofoam cups to just enough; seal our wounds.
we encounter the lost rooms with the odd keys
on either side, the full length of the east hall. stout, brawny portals to discord and fable.
perhaps even windows of a different winter.
perhaps we know.

You bide my time, and cleanse your mind, and board in damped corners of mine.
You fall asleep at the wrong time to rouse when gongs resound inside.
None be so scarred to sleep as he; let him emerge for me to see.
Here I am; I've won already. On my God, how are you doing?

~ A.M, F.H.

rickety  minutes twitch in wood stained cabinets;
mittens in a bin .  birch tones postpone in mauve
twilight... an unfinished diorama.
clandestine. a small glitch in a good rain... cabbages
smitten in mist.  a thirst groaning; long bones caw
fully reclined...  as timeless Brahmans.

old beams of light stack like gold bricks in a humidor;
mittens in a bin.  black  birds comb rogue stones then.... [ pause ]
triffids... blemish barnacles.
crystalline. a ball of lint in a storm drain... vanishes -
bitten out of sight.  at first, toning old gongs... wind
chimes... earth's most wanted.

I have been urged by earnest violins
And drunk their mellow sorrows to the slake
Of all my sorrows and my thirsting sins.
My heart has beaten for a brave drum's sake.
Huge chords have wrought me mighty: I have hurled
Thuds of gods' thunder. And with old winds pondered
Over the curse of this chaotic world,-
With low lost winds that maundered as they wandered.

I have been gay with trivial fifes that laugh;
And songs more sweet than possible things are sweet;
And gongs, and oboes. Yet I guessed not half
Life's symphony till I had made hearts beat,
And touched Love's body into trembling cries,
And blown my love's lips into laughs and sighs.

This is a psalm by my friend Mad Pastor Grovell*

Praise the Lord with the sound of the trumpet!
Praise the Lord with the psaltry
(whatever on God's green earth that is!)
And with the harp while you are at it!
Praise the Lord with the tambourine
(another queer one!) and with dancing!

Praise the Lord with stringed instruments and electronic organs!
Praise the Lord on the loud cymbals and gongs
(and the high sounding cymbals too)!
Let every thing that breathes praise the Lord
(even midgets and the clinically obese and perverts)!

And that includes YOU - so get praising Him straight away!
Get down on your knees, blow your trumpet,
Rattle your silly tambourine like a mongo!
Clash your assorted cymbals and play with your *****!
Sing songs and hymns and cries of adoration to the Heavens

And clap till your hands are bleeding with joy!
Be a one-man band of earhole-busting praise for the Lord!
Praise ye the Lord lest He smite thee totally ******* senseless!
Or else WATCH OUT FOR THE GOOD LORD
WILL BASH OUT YOUR ******* WORTHLESS BRAINS
FOR YOUR FILTHY ***-SINS AND ALSO CONDEMN YOU
TO AN ETERNITY OF PASSIVE ****** IN HELL!

Out of the loop de loop into the swirl of hoopla hoop
Transfer into the oasis of illusion, awaiting the water boat
Fall over the bolder dropped from your shoulder
Rolling and gathering moss, scraping off the parasites
Bowling the ball down the aisle into the skittle alley
Knocking down those fellows who denounce you
Don't hear you, read through your eyes to the back of
Your head and beyond, into their own ace of space
Rolling around the ground belly aching their sound
Machine, mean warriors of gloom, for soon they'll fall
Short of time to relish their pleasure boat, punting along
Paddling their pedalo into the grey below, capsizing
Forlorn arms stretching out to capture, only trickery
Bickering, as you fall through the gaps and rake your ratted
Soul with grit between teeth, spit, of solemn men who
Give out black track thoughts for you to devour.....
Finality bleats, gongs the looming song....the hour, fatal shower

Lily on my crown,
My soul is rooted with sunflowers,
Love springs from my lungs.
Death is a garden.
Affection a coffin.

Hedge around ribs,
Holy light tightened on heart,
Beating carols only heard by dogs
Like a whistle, thistle on my knees cutting heaven real deep.

Tulips lace my tongue
Taste of angels, backwash of Lucifer.
Eyes pupiled amethyst. The healing stone. My world is healing while thorns and samsara hold my ankles to material and the edge of avarice.

World of loom hill parade ecstasy while weather ignites to 24° psychic readings being hosted in palace atrium & column walls where the archaic clock gongs upward to ****** addict ghosts and mental wards in lucid Babylons.

Lovers screaming against bombs, blister billow black clouds and smoke with marijuana haze in flats and compassion for grief cottoned years.
Rumble of music soaked into ratless insulation, long conversations with the insomniac self who hides from monsters inches over his head.

World of daysetting group understandings amidst orange moonlight. Coalmine haired bereaved droop nose man crawls from darkness for another cigarette on the balcony, 4th floor apartment complex in May. Depression hit like **** **** fogging out the brain.
Emptiness is the west.

Travelers who sway on driftwood face The Cascades acknowledging past times, revolving themes and bullet mouthed villains who seek away from starvation from ego lacking.
Their bile is sentences and the rest, anyways.  

Japanese instrumental rolls through closed eyelids in flashing Technicolor, rabbits watch the highways unaware of mortality.

World of bicycle rides on packed ** Chi Minh
City 2016 Winter where twenty-something North Americans go for pho while others go for broke. Palm trees polka dotting college campus in Afternoon, insects whine for the daydreamers. One is writing poetry in a small Vietnamese cafe sipping earl grey inspired by the Oriental clutter and a redheaded girl back home who paces frantically in the attic besides a crooked lamp scrawling flowers to the rotted whitewood panel work

The artist’s craft is a keepsake for eternity, as wells dry out and desert becomes ocean, poems will melt to matter zipping to outer space, satellite ink spots expanding by forever realms.

Pillow foot sole cracks shell casings on forgotten battlefields in later decades, wiping off grit shoeshine boy corpse particle reformation and fairy spit from brow, the last mad prophet sees visions of Christ as arachnid wretch black widow who venomed our bones with rapture,
doom wax peeling away after the damages had been committed.  

Now I check for spiders beneath my sheets.

Banshee howl symphonic sorrows leak in unison with all lanes of commuting traffic. Denial curse for positivity, mindset slate hiding
The weary souls radiance. On the 15x down Johnson! psychedelic chasm quakes through the wheels and my thoughts are spinning sunshine!
Washing machine dynamo recollections of whiskey spilt over carpet dark sand shade while La Vie En Rose resonates from playerless pianos topped with incense sticks in arabesque ashrams, imaginary shelters. We all have one!

Nick Cave is sleeping by back row while we approach final stop in front of bankrupt Chinese corner stores. He’s murmuring Oblivions and the bus keeps on going.

Death is a garden.
Tears are its rainwater and bucket flow.
Nectar pattern reveries honeybee the flowerpots.
Peoples sprout from them bloomed full.

Rosy reaper blasts past the solar system in a comet rocket since she saved the aliens, she hums Vivaldi and huffs a good huff from her cherry cigar.
She tightens her starlight hood and black holes be born.
Torn apart Pluto goes

B    A    N    G

Comet delirious ignores the decimation
And shouts the Lotus Sutra

“ALL GODS WERE TOO PASSIVE”
Reaper hollers back steering by the milky way and beyond on their hallucinogenic trip.

Lily on my crown.
Crown for the kingdom
wherein Reaper resides
and sings with galaxy ukulele to
the great empty.
Great as all can be.

Kyoto rock garden:
mist rises among the pines...
where is that remote?

Bashō-san help me !
That big frog on lily pad
scared me with Haiku.

Shinto temple dawn...
monks ringing the temple gongs:
what a hangover.

Island of robots
poetic soul of *****
and those weird soft drinks

From bowlegged troops
invading the entire East
to bland consumers.

Japanophilia:
weakness of the western mind
grass no greener

Sing a song that all folks know
Sing a song with soul, real slow
Sing songs of triumph and pain
Sing a song and feel the hard rain

Songs of life's injustices and wrongs
Songs of protests, wars, and gongs
Songs of love and life and peace
Songs of captivity's sweet release

Sing a song that all folks know
Sing a song with soul, real slow
Sing songs of triumph and pain
Sing a song and feel the hard rain

For folks like you and folks like me
For folks who need open eyes to see
For folks who feel a tortured soul
For folks whose lives are at a lull

Sing a song that all folks know
Sing a song with soul, real slow
Sing songs of triumph and pain
Sing a song and feel the hard rain

There are times
When the clock
Stands still
And has no use at all

There are times
When the hourglass
Is empty
Without  a single speck of sand

There are times
When true love
Is not the fiery flame of bursting rose petals

But holds the guilty pleasure
Of a freshly exhaled cigarette
Crying its way into split grey and blue wall paper
Water stains splattered around
Like a shotgun blast
To the temple
Of Pollack

In this hour of stillness
The sound of dripping water
Is like
A solitary fortress
Filled with Ancient
Chinese gongs

The crow taunts with universal preciseness
Staining itself with blind savageness

They are like my ex's
Crying for
More and more
Love

Here
This place of pink eraser head monotony
Head bobbing as blue faced doctors
Flick their butts into the eyes of God
Their names being called half way through their break
Their lives being spent and bent around the dismal dead
Their lives to be revealed as the table of savage time slowly slowly turns
And they will look into the eyes of the young and say...
"That was me once"

But here
In this lapse between love and loneliness
Ambition and Ambivalence
Passion and Impotence
Elegance and Clumsiness

This place I
Clumsily
Naively
Stumbled upon

Where the block is ****** with heads
With all that have come before me
Strewn mile long entrails
Lining a wooded dust covered stage
As  thousands of peering peasants and tight tipped thieves and makeshift martyrs and raving royals
Watch
With keen and stale horror

Here where eyes and ears and teeth belong to everyone who has ever lost

Men and women
Lift their heads
Towards the last stretch
Of key clicking
Infinity

Here
In this place
I turn and stare into the gritty haze
Of the past

I turn again
Like the wheel of mismatched fortune
Toward the blinding illusion
Of a future
With no clear stars

In this place

A lone tree poses atop a hill of fire and death and freedom
And I stand
Beside it

As if
It were

My only

True

Friend

Menaced by a triumphant chanting of lament
Entrancing the soul of Hades’ kin
Missed eruptions of the sensory nerves
Onomatopoeic of hollow gongs
Resonating, maimed through the indescribable facets of
Your  forgotten youth.

Tonight the starving children are on my mind,
and how I carry on,
as if I'm blind.

The sorrow is not mine to bare,
so I carry on as if they aren't there.

I ***** and moan about a wounded heart,
how someone stole my dues today.
I stuff my mouth with beer and bread,
and a shallow laugh gongs from the hole in my head.

I know those kids are selfish too,
and want to live just like me and you-
so they eat leaves and stones and sticks that don't satisfy,
until they fade away on a dusty floor,
while their mothers cry until they are no more.

I think about the love I have lost,
now I walk on past while I count my costs.
Too much effort in my busy life,
for guilt trips that will wring me dry.

Its cosy here with my petty doings,
meaningless pursuits and incoherent spewing.

Sing the songs monkey.
Bash the gongs monkey.
Do no wrongs monkey.
Do as you're told.

Life's a game honey.
It's all the same honey.
What's your name honey?
Come when you're called.

Don't back down sweetie.
Yell in the crowd sweetie.
Take off the shroud sweetie.
Fight it till your death.

Where you going kiddo?
Time keeps flowing kiddo.
There's just no knowing kiddo.
Give it up or else.

Run the risk of dying dear?
For the chance at flying dear?
Sadly I've been lying dear.
Get down from there.

Listen to the letters kid.
Listen to your betters kid.
Just accept your fetters kid.
You won't change anything.

It's not real dude.
You can't feel dude.
All you do is steal dude.
So just shut up.

Break from all the violence friend?
Break from all the silence friend?
Or maybe just the islands friend?
You can try all you want.

I'm just a clown spirit.
Talk me down spirit.
Break me down spirit.
Please, do it for me.

Break the rhythm.

Break lies.

Break the sadness.

Break me please, spirit.
Bring me ease spirit.
And as you leave spirit,
Shut the door behind you.

the sun is at its zenith
blazing down
from an unsullied sky
baking the black sand
beneath my feet
so hot it burns

a strong onshore wind
is chasing luminous white horses
across the surface
of a deep indigo sea
leaving their salty touch
on my skin as it passes

a melody gamelans and drums
gongs and cymbals
laughter and chatter
ripples around me
and the song of an ice cream seller
is making my mouth water

I turn my gaze towards the heavens
watching the kites
write their poetry
in the sky
as they float high above
our sea of sea of smiles

Another *****,
over easy on the ice and just  another would be nice, but it would then progress and mess my morning up
and so I dazzle and make a cup of tea,two toast,some marmalade and look at me,as
sober as a high court judge,which is just about as sober as one can be,when one sentences to prison and relieves a man of liberty.

What Identity this man,
who can decide a span of time that another would pretend ,and inside where the attitude of days is played out on the prison walls,and in the canteens where I have seen great mountains of men fall and go to waste,
I have also seen those other men of God,men of Satan waiting for the dinner bell,and as thick as thieves they all fell into fighting righting wrongs ,dinner gongs and more mountains fall in the dining hall,more wasted words upon the wall.

1... I never did what they said
2....I was framed
3....The cops are bent
and those these words were never said or spoken each broken head and blackened eye was another,and one more reason why,
I lent myself to education,got certificates,elucidation but it was all a waste of effin time,the judge was right,send this man to jail
and ticked the fail box on his score card,
Hard labour never did me any harm ,not that it did me any good but for some it poisoned and where the blood runs hot,eyes bloodshot,riots,guns and more blood runs.

The sums seem never to add up and so I make another cup of tea and think how fortunate it was to see the end game,to see my own name written on the hand rails and when all else fails,
it's head or tails,win or lose and only one can get to choose one's
final destination

Half-lidded eyes gaze
into blue light from
screen as upper legs
clasp together involuntarily,
chest still heaving randomly
with gasps or sighs as comfort
and relaxation wash through
tense, electrically charged muscles

static cling from sleeves' struggle
with woolen blanket, inner
thighs' heat spreading to
surface from friction and
folly and fumbling and my lip is sore from my teeth
because when my whole body climbs into divinity
I feel no pain

my stomach aches suddenly
for filling, but the rest of my
body quiets the noisiest of us
since we're so cozy in our
splendid vibrance, muted
as the world seems after
gongs and cymbals clash like
titans in my heartbox and veins
tremble and thrum and throb
in the pleasant-est of places
here

I am suddenly again climbing
that mountain, white and gold
heat like sunshine and water
became one element and they
pour through my skin into my porous bones
as I drink

Mouth, don't leak these secret passions!
I shudder to myself and I think of this energy
as life embodied in one small window, have I glimpsed heaven?

the moment on the top of Mount Shasta,
           peering over the vast green landscape,
walking beside the Yuba river,
           bubbling and overflowing in blue and green hues
underneath the willow tree in my back lawn,
          it is reaching down to envelope me.

It is silence.
         more than all the clatter of noiseless gongs trying to prove worth
It is goodness.
         more than the righteousness we believe we have
It is oneness.
         more united than the waters on the surface of this earth.

Ten years to the day
Waves crashed like gongs
And the sirens played
In the froth singing their songs

Nightingale lady
Nothing is ever ok
The pressing of power takes me away
And there is no way I can stay

A breath of fresh air takes her
To a place of sin and cater
Cold blooded wind weaves through her hair
Holding five cards, she shows a pair

Now take my hand
And show no fear in your face
For the lace that I have given you
Is not dark purple, but burgundy blue

These windows are fogged up
No one around here knows my name
Across the yard, the rivers are boiling
As lover's intertwined clash in coiling

Take your time with your hasty prayers
Keep your head down to avoid their stares
My shoes are shined and my watch is whined
Through the fog, the sun shines through the pines

Emptying courage from my flask
I see no face that I can ask
The time, the place, the hour to meet
A lover who said I was hers to keep

Agatha parsley trees burnt by ember
All eyes fall on the coming month of September
Wishes fall from the sky like rain
As the cackling **** spins his golden cane