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The hallowing of Pain
Like hallowing of Heaven,
Obtains at a corporeal cost—
The Summit is not given

To Him who strives severe
At middle of the Hill—
But He who has achieved the Top—
All—is the price of All—

On the stiff twig up there
Hunches a wet black rook
Arranging and rearranging its feathers in the rain.
I do not expect a miracle
Or an accident

To set the sight on fire
In my eye, nor seek
Any more in the desultory weather some design,
But let spotted leaves fall as they fall,
Without ceremony, or portent.

Although, I admit, I desire,
Occasionally, some backtalk
From the mute sky, I can't honestly complain:
A certain minor light may still
Lean incandescent

Out of kitchen table or chair
As if a celestial burning took
Possession of the most obtuse objects now and then --
Thus hallowing an interval
Otherwise inconsequent

By bestowing largesse, honor,
One might say love. At any rate, I now walk
Wary (for it could happen
Even in this dull, ruinous landscape); skeptical,
Yet politic; ignorant

Of whatever angel may choose to flare
Suddenly at my elbow. I only know that a rook
Ordering its black feathers can so shine
As to seize my senses, haul
My eyelids up, and grant

A brief respite from fear
Of total neutrality. With luck,
Trekking stubborn through this season
Of fatigue, I shall
Patch together a content

Of sorts. Miracles occur,
If you care to call those spasmodic
Tricks of radiance miracles. The wait's begun again,
The long wait for the angel,
For that rare, random descent.

There are who lord it o'er their fellow-men
With most prevailing tinsel: who unpen
Their baaing vanities, to browse away
The comfortable green and juicy hay
From human pastures; or, O torturing fact!
Who, through an idiot blink, will see unpack'd
Fire-branded foxes to sear up and singe
Our gold and ripe-ear'd hopes. With not one tinge
Of sanctuary splendour, not a sight
Able to face an owl's, they still are dight
By the blear-eyed nations in empurpled vests,
And crowns, and turbans. With unladen *******,
Save of blown self-applause, they proudly mount
To their spirit's perch, their being's high account,
Their tiptop nothings, their dull skies, their thrones--
Amid the fierce intoxicating tones
Of trumpets, shoutings, and belabour'd drums,
And sudden cannon. Ah! how all this hums,
In wakeful ears, like uproar past and gone--
Like thunder clouds that spake to Babylon,
And set those old Chaldeans to their tasks.--
Are then regalities all gilded masks?
No, there are throned seats unscalable
But by a patient wing, a constant spell,
Or by ethereal things that, unconfin'd,
Can make a ladder of the eternal wind,
And poise about in cloudy thunder-tents
To watch the abysm-birth of elements.
Aye, 'bove the withering of old-lipp'd Fate
A thousand Powers keep religious state,
In water, fiery realm, and airy bourne;
And, silent as a consecrated urn,
Hold sphery sessions for a season due.
Yet few of these far majesties, ah, few!
Have bared their operations to this globe--
Few, who with gorgeous pageantry enrobe
Our piece of heaven--whose benevolence
Shakes hand with our own Ceres; every sense
Filling with spiritual sweets to plenitude,
As bees gorge full their cells. And, by the feud
'Twixt Nothing and Creation, I here swear,
Eterne Apollo! that thy Sister fair
Is of all these the gentlier-mightiest.
When thy gold breath is misting in the west,
She unobserved steals unto her throne,
And there she sits most meek and most alone;
As if she had not pomp subservient;
As if thine eye, high Poet! was not bent
Towards her with the Muses in thine heart;
As if the ministring stars kept not apart,
Waiting for silver-footed messages.
O Moon! the oldest shades '**** oldest trees
Feel palpitations when thou lookest in:
O Moon! old boughs lisp forth a holier din
The while they feel thine airy fellowship.
Thou dost bless every where, with silver lip
Kissing dead things to life. The sleeping kine,
Couched in thy brightness, dream of fields divine:
Innumerable mountains rise, and rise,
Ambitious for the hallowing of thine eyes;
And yet thy benediction passeth not
One obscure hiding-place, one little spot
Where pleasure may be sent: the nested wren
Has thy fair face within its tranquil ken,
And from beneath a sheltering ivy leaf
Takes glimpses of thee; thou art a relief
To the poor patient oyster, where it sleeps
Within its pearly house.--The mighty deeps,
The monstrous sea is thine--the myriad sea!
O Moon! far-spooming Ocean bows to thee,
And Tellus feels his forehead's cumbrous load.

  Cynthia! where art thou now? What far abode
Of green or silvery bower doth enshrine
Such utmost beauty? Alas, thou dost pine
For one as sorrowful: thy cheek is pale
For one whose cheek is pale: thou dost bewail
His tears, who weeps for thee. Where dost thou sigh?
Ah! surely that light peeps from Vesper's eye,
Or what a thing is love! 'Tis She, but lo!
How chang'd, how full of ache, how gone in woe!
She dies at the thinnest cloud; her loveliness
Is wan on Neptune's blue: yet there's a stress
Of love-spangles, just off yon cape of trees,
Dancing upon the waves, as if to please
The curly foam with amorous influence.
O, not so idle: for down-glancing thence
She fathoms eddies, and runs wild about
O'erwhelming water-courses; scaring out
The thorny sharks from hiding-holes, and fright'ning
Their savage eyes with unaccustomed lightning.
Where will the splendor be content to reach?
O love! how potent hast thou been to teach
Strange journeyings! Wherever beauty dwells,
In gulf or aerie, mountains or deep dells,
In light, in gloom, in star or blazing sun,
Thou pointest out the way, and straight 'tis won.
Amid his toil thou gav'st Leander breath;
Thou leddest Orpheus through the gleams of death;
Thou madest Pluto bear thin element;
And now, O winged Chieftain! thou hast sent
A moon-beam to the deep, deep water-world,
To find Endymion.

                  On gold sand impearl'd
With lily shells, and pebbles milky white,
Poor Cynthia greeted him, and sooth'd her light
Against his pallid face: he felt the charm
To breathlessness, and suddenly a warm
Of his heart's blood: 'twas very sweet; he stay'd
His wandering steps, and half-entranced laid
His head upon a tuft of straggling weeds,
To taste the gentle moon, and freshening beads,
Lashed from the crystal roof by fishes' tails.
And so he kept, until the rosy veils
Mantling the east, by Aurora's peering hand
Were lifted from the water's breast, and fann'd
Into sweet air; and sober'd morning came
Meekly through billows:--when like taper-flame
Left sudden by a dallying breath of air,
He rose in silence, and once more 'gan fare
Along his fated way.

                      Far had he roam'd,
With nothing save the hollow vast, that foam'd
Above, around, and at his feet; save things
More dead than Morpheus' imaginings:
Old rusted anchors, helmets, breast-plates large
Of gone sea-warriors; brazen beaks and targe;
Rudders that for a hundred years had lost
The sway of human hand; gold vase emboss'd
With long-forgotten story, and wherein
No reveller had ever dipp'd a chin
But those of Saturn's vintage; mouldering scrolls,
Writ in the tongue of heaven, by those souls
Who first were on the earth; and sculptures rude
In ponderous stone, developing the mood
Of ancient Nox;--then skeletons of man,
Of beast, behemoth, and leviathan,
And elephant, and eagle, and huge jaw
Of nameless monster. A cold leaden awe
These secrets struck into him; and unless
Dian had chaced away that heaviness,
He might have died: but now, with cheered feel,
He onward kept; wooing these thoughts to steal
About the labyrinth in his soul of love.

  "What is there in thee, Moon! that thou shouldst move
My heart so potently? When yet a child
I oft have dried my tears when thou hast smil'd.
Thou seem'dst my sister: hand in hand we went
From eve to morn across the firmament.
No apples would I gather from the tree,
Till thou hadst cool'd their cheeks deliciously:
No tumbling water ever spake romance,
But when my eyes with thine thereon could dance:
No woods were green enough, no bower divine,
Until thou liftedst up thine eyelids fine:
In sowing time ne'er would I dibble take,
Or drop a seed, till thou wast wide awake;
And, in the summer tide of blossoming,
No one but thee hath heard me blithly sing
And mesh my dewy flowers all the night.
No melody was like a passing spright
If it went not to solemnize thy reign.
Yes, in my boyhood, every joy and pain
By thee were fashion'd to the self-same end;
And as I grew in years, still didst thou blend
With all my ardours: thou wast the deep glen;
Thou wast the mountain-top--the sage's pen--
The poet's harp--the voice of friends--the sun;
Thou wast the river--thou wast glory won;
Thou wast my clarion's blast--thou wast my steed--
My goblet full of wine--my topmost deed:--
Thou wast the charm of women, lovely Moon!
O what a wild and harmonized tune
My spirit struck from all the beautiful!
On some bright essence could I lean, and lull
Myself to immortality: I prest
Nature's soft pillow in a wakeful rest.
But, gentle Orb! there came a nearer bliss--
My strange love came--Felicity's abyss!
She came, and thou didst fade, and fade away--
Yet not entirely; no, thy starry sway
Has been an under-passion to this hour.
Now I begin to feel thine orby power
Is coming fresh upon me: O be kind,
Keep back thine influence, and do not blind
My sovereign vision.--Dearest love, forgive
That I can think away from thee and live!--
Pardon me, airy planet, that I prize
One thought beyond thine argent luxuries!
How far beyond!" At this a surpris'd start
Frosted the springing verdure of his heart;
For as he lifted up his eyes to swear
How his own goddess was past all things fair,
He saw far in the concave green of the sea
An old man sitting calm and peacefully.
Upon a weeded rock this old man sat,
And his white hair was awful, and a mat
Of weeds were cold beneath his cold thin feet;
And, ample as the largest winding-sheet,
A cloak of blue wrapp'd up his aged bones,
O'erwrought with symbols by the deepest groans
Of ambitious magic: every ocean-form
Was woven in with black distinctness; storm,
And calm, and whispering, and hideous roar
Were emblem'd in the woof; with every shape
That skims, or dives, or sleeps, 'twixt cape and cape.
The gulphing whale was like a dot in the spell,
Yet look upon it, and 'twould size and swell
To its huge self; and the minutest fish
Would pass the very hardest gazer's wish,
And show his little eye's anatomy.
Then there was pictur'd the regality
Of Neptune; and the sea nymphs round his state,
In beauteous vassalage, look up and wait.
Beside this old man lay a pearly wand,
And in his lap a book, the which he conn'd
So stedfastly, that the new denizen
Had time to keep him in amazed ken,
To mark these shadowings, and stand in awe.

  The old man rais'd his hoary head and saw
The wilder'd stranger--seeming not to see,
His features were so lifeless. Suddenly
He woke as from a trance; his snow-white brows
Went arching up, and like two magic ploughs
Furrow'd deep wrinkles in his forehead large,
Which kept as fixedly as rocky marge,
Till round his wither'd lips had gone a smile.
Then up he rose, like one whose tedious toil
Had watch'd for years in forlorn hermitage,
Who had not from mid-life to utmost age
Eas'd in one accent his o'er-burden'd soul,
Even to the trees. He rose: he grasp'd his stole,
With convuls'd clenches waving it abroad,
And in a voice of solemn joy, that aw'd
Echo into oblivion, he said:--

  "Thou art the man! Now shall I lay my head
In peace upon my watery pillow: now
Sleep will come smoothly to my weary brow.
O Jove! I shall be young again, be young!
O shell-borne Neptune, I am pierc'd and stung
With new-born life! What shall I do? Where go,
When I have cast this serpent-skin of woe?--
I'll swim to the syrens, and one moment listen
Their melodies, and see their long hair glisten;
Anon upon that giant's arm I'll be,
That writhes about the roots of Sicily:
To northern seas I'll in a twinkling sail,
And mount upon the snortings of a whale
To some black cloud; thence down I'll madly sweep
On forked lightning, to the deepest deep,
Where through some ******* pool I will be hurl'd
With rapture to the other side of the world!
O, I am full of gladness! Sisters three,
I bow full hearted to your old decree!
Yes, every god be thank'd, and power benign,
For I no more shall wither, droop, and pine.
Thou art the man!" Endymion started back
Dismay'd; and, like a wretch from whom the rack
Tortures hot breath, and speech of agony,
Mutter'd: "What lonely death am I to die
In this cold region? Will he let me freeze,
And float my brittle limbs o'er polar seas?
Or will he touch me with his searing hand,
And leave a black memorial on the sand?
Or tear me piece-meal with a bony saw,
And keep me as a chosen food to draw
His magian fish through hated fire and flame?
O misery of hell! resistless, tame,
Am I to be burnt up? No, I will shout,
Until the gods through heaven's blue look out!--
O Tartarus! but some few days agone
Her soft arms were entwining me, and on
Her voice I hung like fruit among green leaves:
Her lips were all my own, and--ah, ripe sheaves
Of happiness! ye on the stubble droop,
But never may be garner'd. I must stoop
My head, and kiss death's foot. Love! love, farewel!
Is there no hope from thee? This horrid spell
Would melt at thy sweet breath.--By Dian's hind
Feeding from her white fingers, on the wind
I see thy streaming hair! and now, by Pan,
I care not for this old mysterious man!"

  He spake, and walking to that aged form,
Look'd high defiance. Lo! his heart 'gan warm
With pity, for the grey-hair'd creature wept.
Had he then wrong'd a heart where sorrow kept?
Had he, though blindly contumelious, brought
Rheum to kind eyes, a sting to human thought,
Convulsion to a mouth of many years?
He had in truth; and he was ripe for tears.
The penitent shower fell, as down he knelt
Before that care-worn sage, who trembling felt
About his large dark locks, and faultering spake:

  "Arise, good youth, for sacred Phoebus' sake!
I know thine inmost *****, and I feel
A very brother's yearning for thee steal
Into mine own: for why? thou openest
The prison gates that have so long opprest
My weary watching. Though thou know'st it not,
Thou art commission'd to this fated spot
For great enfranchisement. O weep no more;
I am a friend to love, to loves of yore:
Aye, hadst thou never lov'd an unknown power
I had been grieving at this joyous hour
But even now most miserable old,
I saw thee, and my blood no longer cold
Gave mighty pulses: in this tottering case
Grew a new heart, which at this moment plays
As dancingly as thine. Be not afraid,
For thou shalt hear this secret all display'd,
Now as we speed towards our joyous task."

  So saying, this young soul in age's mask
Went forward with the Carian side by side:
Resuming quickly thus; while ocean's tide
Hung swollen at their backs, and jewel'd sands
Took silently their foot-prints. "My soul stands
Now past the midway from mortality,
And so I can prepare without a sigh
To tell thee briefly all my joy and pain.
I was a fisher once, upon this main,
And my boat danc'd in every creek and bay;
Rough billows were my home by night and day,--
The sea-gulls not more constant; for I had
No housing from the storm and tempests mad,
But hollow rocks,--and they were palaces
Of silent happiness, of slumberous ease:
Long years of misery have told me so.
Aye, thus it was one thousand years ago.
One thousand years!--Is it then possible
To look so plainly through them? to dispel
A thousand years with backward glance sublime?
To breathe away as 'twere all scummy slime
From off a crystal pool, to see its deep,
And one's own image from the bottom peep?
Yes: now I am no longer wretched thrall,
My long captivity and moanings all
Are but a slime, a thin-pervading ****,
The which I breathe away, and thronging come
Like things of yesterday my youthful pleasures.

  "I touch'd no lute, I sang not, trod no measures:
I was a lonely youth on desert shores.
My sports were lonely, 'mid continuous roars,
And craggy isles, and sea-mew's plaintive cry
Plaining discrepant between sea and sky.
Dolphins were still my playmates; shapes unseen
Would let me feel their scales of gold and green,
Nor be my desolation; and, full oft,
When a dread waterspout had rear'd aloft
Its hungry hugeness, seeming ready ripe
To burst with hoarsest thunderings, and wipe
My life away like a vast sponge of fate,
Some friendly monster, pitying my sad state,
Has dived to its foundations, gulph'd it down,
And left me tossing safely. But the crown
Of all my life was utmost quietude:
More did I love to lie in cavern rude,
Keeping in wait whole days for Neptune's voice,
And if it came at last, hark, and rejoice!
There blush'd no summer eve but I would steer
My skiff along green shelving coasts, to hear
The shepherd's pipe come clear from aery steep,
Mingled with ceaseless bleatings of his sheep:
And never was a day of summer shine,
But I beheld its birth upon the brine:
For I would watch all night to see unfold
Heaven's gates, and Aethon snort his morning gold
Wide o'er the swelling streams: and constantly
At brim of day-tide, on some grassy lea,
My nets would be spread out, and I at rest.
The poor folk of the sea-country I blest
With daily boon of fish most delicate:
They knew not whence this bounty, and elate
Would strew sweet flowers on a sterile beach.

  "Why was I not contented? Wherefore reach
At things which, but for thee, O Latmian!
Had been my dreary death? Fool! I began
To feel distemper'd longings: to desire
The utmost priv

. give me enough *****, lime juice and pepsi, the right song, and i will show you a control-environment psychotic episode...

sometimes, it's not about what you
know, versus who you know -
notably? when you're aiming at knowing
yourself...

      and psychosis?
   the synthesis of a soul while within
the confines of a body?
       one such example is walking
under two street lamps,
and spotting two shadows,
   immediately investigating,
whether or not, someone is walking
behind you, with a stalking
proclivity...

  you turn around -
  nothing but a hallowing voice
on the slightest of breezes -
the kind that barely motivates
branches to bow...

       - everyone knows that
the italians are famous for their pasta,
just like the french are, for their buns...
some Pakistani makes a joke
about the western love for cabbage...
esp. pickled cabbage -
mashed up with wild mushroom
to make up the filling for slavic
dumplings...

       sure... how's the turmeric?
i've been dying for the turks
working in kebab shops
to elevate the lamb doner (kebab)
using pickled cabbage -
  like they might use pickled
chillies -
       oh look... both are muslims -
the Ottoman's might have
figured out the southern slavic
palette, having occupied
the Balkans...

          we do more with potatoes
than a mere boiling down
to, what could never become an Irish
famine...
   first?
     there's the *****...
    nothing quiet unlike the whiskey
perfumery of pict-land of Scotland...

     Silesian potato doughnuts -
usually served with a cabbage radish -
pickled -
          and a thick pseudo-Hungarian
sauce...
   the potatoes are boiled,
then mashed,
   then sliced into 4 portions,
1/4 is moved aside,
      potato flower is added in equal
volume, and one egg...
   then it becomes mashed bashed
and given the skin
     tenderness of a drunk's wife's skin...
cut and molded into little doughnut
shapes,
   the index finger is inserted
into each one,
          and then each "infantry" member
is boiled,
till ready, i.e. floating on top
of the salted water...
             and there you have...
        Silesian potato doughnuts -

and there is a variant - potato hooves...
same ergonomics -
but instead of potato flower,
plain flower -
               i can't remember the proportions...
also boiled...
         but best cooled,
and subsequently fried -
for a crispness -
         mingled with honey
and something the Hindus know
that the Slavs also make -
     not exactly quark cheese -
   but getting there - more flaky...

    mind you...
   the whole out of Africa story?
   given that so many Roma live and trade
in Poland?
            perhaps having incorporated
the Africans into your pre- and post-colonial
nations, the genesis story would
begin with: out of Africa...
  
        and they swam across the mediterranean...
funny...
    you's sooner see a white competitor
in the 100m sprint final,
   than in the 100m final of
     the breast stroke / butterfly / etc. final...

no...
      i place my origins in India...
moving across the platitude of Siberia...
i have more in common with
Raj origin story... than i have anything
to do with: Zulu and the pinnacle
of Giza...

     i place my origins there...
         and those potato hooves?
they have a name in Italian...
       they're called gnocchi...
served with parmigiano-reggiano
       & pesto...
    never fried,
          and subsequently hardened -
next time i hear the cabbage
joke from some copper-skin
about a group's palette...
       having, actually enjoyed
the other group's palette?
             skin is a base no one works
from to make obsolete
     and redundant bigotry...
    we don't have to share
the same physiognomy...
  but sure as **** we can share
a meal;
        like among the russian drinkers...
i honestly quiet enjoyed
their dried fish ***-bits
to nibble on...
    because, whoever said that...
beer was to be accompanied by
peanuts?

The cat lies on the table. She is keeping her own council, a philosophical feline. It is mid afternoon, an hour before the possibility of tea and cake. Already the room is retreating from the lamp's light into a dusky gloom. Outside the winter garden lies still, damp and cold and still.

Rain comes. A winter rain, almost snow, spreads itself across the window.  Ice-full it is a drum with tiny particles rolling across a taut skin of glass. The cat stirs, turns on his side exposing a tummy of white fur. An old cat this, a silent presence now, hardly a purr on a waiting lap.

Books. Piles of books. A book open to reveal pencilled annotations. Several arrangements of papers paper-clipped together, colourfully highlighted. There's a scholarly journal 'borrowed' with a concert programme marking a ‘required’ read. Telemann and Bach infiltrate an investigation of Jewishness in George Eliot's Daniel Deronda.

A framed photograph stands companionably amongst today's letters and the coloured cards of Christmas to come. There's a red-haired girl, a portrait against old roses., a child in a school-blue dress, freckled with green eyes she is smiling carefully, as though not convinced taking this photo is a good thing.

As darkness encroaches, the stories in this space circle the lamp like moths. They rise from the table, detach themselves from the walls (like bats) and float in their own form. Catching leaves, wish-making in a September wood; the fierce tide pouring across the Lindisfarne causeway; small children picnicking by a cricket field. The recent thrill of Jerusalem. Taverner's Mass –

Oh Western Wind,
when will thou blow,
the small rain down can rain?
Christ! If my love were in my arms,
and I in my bed again!

Here in this small suburban room there comes together a past; a life reverberates in a temporary peace, a truce in the long campaign of family, ageing, ****** discomfort, obligation, regret (always regret), passion unspent, books unread, poems still to write. And this waiting for a clear answer yet to come, a promise yet to be fulfilled? All is contained here as the alarm clock's digits move towards 16.30 and it is time for tea and cake. Time to rise from the table and feed the cat.

Excuse me Miss, the test results are back.
We’ve spoken to your family, and we are
Sad to say that you are numb.
You will start your treatment tomorrow.

I’m


                  So


                                   Sorry


I’ve been numb for some weeks now

It started at my toes

It nibbled on my legs

It flirted with my head

Slowly but surely tiptoeing in

Numbness is a silent killer

It plays nice and deceives you

Creeping through my body

Then it took my heart

For numbness is a backstabber

It is not what it seems

It uses other emotions to find you

It is covered by fear, for they are good friends

It hides under sadness’s billowing cloak.

And it is smuggled through the heart’s border by anger

But now it’s in my heart

For the soldiers have come out of the Trojan horse

They pillage and take

For numbness is greedy

They start at interests and the hobbies

It makes them seem boring and not worth while

See numbness is tactful, precise, and deadly

It plays with your mind, and slowly eats away at your heart

Hallowing it out, emptying you

Numbness is always hungry

And now I don’t know what I have left that it could take.






Do not worry, for this illness you have, this plague, it is not deadly

And while the treatment we have prepared for you will not change you back

Because once numbness steals, It does not give back easily

It taints your mind, and like wine on a white tablecloth

It does not fade easily

Numbness scars the mind

It leaves its signature with a heart

You will not be who you used to be

You will be faded version of yourself

And a talkative young girl like your self should not be worried

For those who come into our hospital as vibrant and colorful as you

Don’t fade as much as the quieter ones

See you were stronger than them

Your mind did not give up as easily as theirs

But we are treating you early

And you will be fixed, not to worry

Our results of this treatment are stellar

See you will not be fully put back together

Just a little shattered

Not as broken

Total me a dream
Find me, a corner of an eye
Save me, the turn of chaste, in whim
And poise, me is a reason to be why

A house...
A character of decency, we delve long and tight
A stirring hour, we hope is beyond a days shroud
Taken with the memory, of sincerity to share might...?

A place...
Found with the eyes of wonder, we make for ourselves
Chance heiring, in the name of a vice's pace
Of coping how, and the semblance of seclusion, a wealth?

A room...
For sign's of witness, particular to shadows of change
Wealth is to be the common, the thought to let liberty mushroom
And become a friend, of worth in loyal sates; however strange...

A step...
Forward with communion to entail even the solitude, we meant
For a night's angel, and the demands of couth we select for wit?
See the composed guide me to the strength I know, is more sent...

A stone we should know...
Passing all to follow the method of our following
Promise and privilege, in the seem, to wish once upon a time to owe
Swept away with the today we accept, is a now in the hallowing...

Black Rook In Rainy Weather

On the stiff twig up there
Hunches a wet black rook
Arranging and rearranging its feathers in the rain.
I do not expect a miracle
Or an accident

To set the sight on fire
In my eye, nor seek
Any more in the desultory weather some design,
But let spotted leaves fall as they fall,
Without ceremony, or portent.

Although, I admit, I desire,
Occasionally, some backtalk
From the mute sky, I can't honestly complain:
A certain minor light may still
Lean incandescent

Out of kitchen table or chair
As if a celestial burning took
Possession of the most obtuse objects now and then --
Thus hallowing an interval
Otherwise inconsequent

By bestowing largesse, honor,
One might say love. At any rate, I now walk
Wary (for it could happen
Even in this dull, ruinous landscape); skeptical,
Yet politic; ignorant

Of whatever angel may choose to flare
Suddenly at my elbow. I only know that a rook
Ordering its black feathers can so shine
As to seize my senses, haul
My eyelids up, and grant

A brief respite from fear
Of total neutrality. With luck,
Trekking stubborn through this season
Of fatigue, I shall
Patch together a content

Of sorts. Miracles occur,
If you care to call those spasmodic
Tricks of radiance miracles. The wait's begun again,
The long wait for the angel,
For that rare, random descent.

The Response*

Even while flashbulbs go out, every now and then, we all must gather our arms and legs in a heap of human kindling, to rap tap tap on the downstairs neighbors door- for a set of candles, perhaps a chance to go completely insane for one terse moment when the hyperbole of vowels *just don't matter anymore.

And speaking of the sordid state of griseous gull-like creatures. Ravenous ravens gnawing outside the window of the kitchen table. How boring life can become, for at the moment, when we are not biting our nails, playing dress up, or playing doctor- all *******. Or maybe even burying our heads in the looks of rooks or with our noses brimming over with the tops of books.

The tea we have set in the study awaits us, as we all have to drink our tea some time.

Just don't leave the lights on baby. Who needs lamps at full lux at high noon any who? You, Mrs. Sylvia Plath Hughes? Maybe you ought to buy a book of stamps- at the nearest Hobby Lobby, pack a paper bag with an apple and a 'sammich', and list formally your complaints.

We can't all waste our time narrating other people's lives in the third person.

Sermoni propriora.—Hor.

Low was our pretty Cot; our tallest Rose
Peep’d at the chamber-window. We could hear
At silent noon, and eve, and early morn,
The Sea’s faint murmur. In the open air
Our Myrtles blossom’d; and across the porch
Thick Jasmins twined: the little landscape round
Was green and woody, and refresh’d the eye.
It was a spot which you might aptly call
The Valley of Seclusion! Once I saw
(Hallowing his Sabbath-day by quietness)
A wealthy son of commerce saunter by,
Bristowa’s citizen: methought it calm’d
His thirst of idle gold, and made him muse
With wiser feelings: for he paus’d, and look’d
With a pleas’d sadness, and gaz’d all around,
Then eyed our Cottage, and gaz’d round again,
And sigh’d, and said, it was a Blessed Place.
And we were bless’d. Oft with patient ear
Long-listening to the viewless sky-lark’s note
(Viewless, or haply for a moment seen
Gleaming on sunny wings) in whisper’d tones
I’ve said to my Beloved, ‘Such, sweet Girl!
The inobtrusive song of Happiness,
Unearthly minstrelsy! then only heard
When the Soul seeks to hear; when all is hush’d,
And the Heart listens!’
                                   But the time, when first
From that low Dell, steep up the stony Mount
I climb’d with perilous toil and reach’d the top.
Oh! what a goodly scene! the bleak mount,
The bare bleak mountain speckled thin with sheep;
Grey clouds, that shadowing spot the sunny fields;
And river, now with bushy rocks o’erbrow’d,
Now winding bright and full, with naked banks;
And seats, and lawns, the Abbey and the wood,
And cots, and hamlets, and faint city-spire;
The Channel, the Islands and white sails,
Dim coasts, and cloud-like hills, and shoreless Ocean—
It seem’d like Omnipresence! God, methought,
Had built him there a Temple: the whole World
Seem’d in its vast circumference:
No profan’d my overwhelmed heart.
Blest hour! It was a luxury ,—to be!

  Ah! quiet Dell! dear Cot, and Mount sublime!
I was constrain’d to quit you. Was it right,
While my unnumber’d brethren toil’d and bled,
That I should dream away the entrusted hours
On rose-leaf beds, pampering the coward heart
With feelings all too delicate for use?
Sweet is the tear that from some Howard’s eye
Drops on the cheek of one he lifts from earth:
And he that works me good with unmov’d face,
Does it but half: he chills me while he aids,
My benefactor, not my brother man!
Yet even this, this cold beneficence
Praise, praise it, O my Soul! oft as thou scann’st
The sluggard Pity’s vision-weaving tribe!
Who sigh for Wretchedness, yet shun the Wretched,
Nursing in some delicious solitude
Their slothful loves and dainty sympathies!
I therefore go, and join head, heart, and hand,
Active and firm, to fight the bloodless fight
Of Science, Freedom, and the Truth in Christ.

Yet oft when after honourable toil
Rests the tir’d mind, and waking loves to dream,
My spirit shall revisit thee, dear Cot!
Thy Jasmin and thy window-peeping Rose,
And Myrtles fearless of the mild sea-air.
And I shall sigh fond wishes—sweet Abode!
Ah!—had none greater! And that all had such!
It might be so—but the time is not yet.
Speed it, O Father! Let thy Kingdom come!

I.  
A rumble of a failing engine and an abandoned heart does not always make for the best mixed drink you’d typically order at the bar
The gasoline fumes rising towards my nostrils, the taste replicated on the taste buds, not exactly the main course you’d hope to appear on the main entrée menu
The shrinking world swallows my perception, and all I can see are endless forests with an unending road, not exactly the picturesque view you’d pick from the 5-star hotel you presumed to stay in comfortably

II.
Recurring whiplash carries me deep within the foliage of the woods, where the bristles from the furious trees feel like spikes brushing across my fragile skin
My thoughts are encompassed by my wildest fears, intensifying the pitter patter in my chest, nearing a detonation, but no witnesses to confirm or deny it
The limbs outstretch themselves and enfold me inside a hallowing clasp, resemblance of an agonizing chokehold
The fires begin slowly, but hurriedly strengthen into a sore, sweltering sensation that hastily seizes control over my nervous system, rendering me helpless with no one to soothe me from it, for isolation is the true affliction of it all

III.
And suddenly I am traveling through a dark neighborhood, the ones we were all warned about as adolescents, as the lamp posts house stood-up lovers and lost souls who are trying to catch a fresh thought aside from the filthy repetition we are provided with
The light bulbs flicker and the yellow paint dividing the two paths incases my thoughts, stimulating every sensory input to intake the detection of safety between the two opposite directions, because once a path is chosen, returning is forbidden
This social deprivation surely beholds my salient inner pain, as I cannot confide in anyone on this lonely road except for the shining Milky Way and smiling crescent moon, eons away from my reach

IV.
Foaming salt water crashes over me, encumbering my lungs from performing their simple task successfully, caught in a riptide sensing my discomfort with reality and self-hatred brought upon by the overriding waves that deteriorate my sanguinity
I cannot control anything in my life and the sea acknowledges this weakness, What a real favor it is! Killing me, for me, subduing the airflow right out of me but also purifying my corrupted being, freeing my aggressions, letting go of faulty hearts, and ensuring arcadia by ripping away a future I could not survive in
The sunken sailors in their sinking ships do not drown by choice, like I, but they may not be as grateful for the gift of release as I am
I realize I may have a shot at social encounters, until I gather that the glass wall that separates me from the world is unbreakable, and the water pressure is much too great to fight through, so I must die alone

V.
As my vision fades to black, I am awakened once again, stranded on this Earth, this place where life exists but living does not
And I feel like ever since the door slammed shut as I collapsed in cascading tears on the floor in your favorite white button down, I’ve been a bit lonesome and defunct, my mood has a constant sullen adjective attached to it
Adventure and spontaneity meant everything to you, and I took on the same attitude, breaking out of my comfort zone and implementing yours instead
What once was now lingers as a painful memory and acts as a narcotic because I am experiencing a difficult withdrawal of your voice, and I cannot last much longer before the insanity devours me from the inside out

VI.
As the hourglass passed all of the time, your personality withered as each interest you held dear to your heat contracted into an abhorrent piece of art, dedicated to miserableness
And as your presence no longer fills up my time, maybe I too am disappearing, or so I wish
Because losing you to yourself felt like being stranded in the middle of nowhere with an unceasing life of despondency and unanswered questions
It felt like being burned alive to ashes from a forest fire, so deep in that not a single person would notice its evanescence
And worst of all it felt like drowning, as my control slipped away from the tight grip I once had, like nobody could resuscitate me from
I play over every doting moment with you over in my head as my mind slowly fades to darkness, a blank state of depression

VII.
So tell me from the heavens once more that I do not need you, because you see what I am experiencing in your absence
Maybe I need you as a constant in my life and not a fleeting breeze in the persistently bipolar wind movements
But you bolted the moment the poisoned fog touched your fingertips and your fear took you away from me
So how can I possibly hold on, when I am clearly alone and depressed?
I know death is merciful compared to losing my one true love
Tell me you’re listening, I need someone to talk to
I cannot leave all these words left unspoken

fraud!
she knew it, smirks, so she applaud.
-
lame. that was a fallacy
herself is the mistery

Have you seen her in the clarity of dripping scarlet riverflows?

she's still the secrecy of midnight that no one ever knows

Even hallowing hazy fog of cold could made us blinded

in this knotted ropes of white lies, dead end

Lowfully dare to follow her illusionary footsteps in waters

fraud. she's the one whose following your shady runners
she is the vulture and the prey;
the moth and the flame;
the wicked and the good;
the water and the blood;

Peace in your mind, her sojourn.

she's the only one who smiled in the midst of mourn

Mellow greetings when she entered the juvenile dreams

when the night visits, it'll be silent screams

fraud?

Eccentric.

she is an oxymoron but more of a paradox.

Jan. 22nd, 2013

The bird tweets, but not for you.
Like a teapot screaming with no one to remove it;
Your voice is like a teleprompter on a fuzzy station telling me the evening news

But it's not as if you are hallowing out my bones with every word
The rings of age on my trunk are colored red and blue when you were there
but now green with life and growth and care

and I can't figure out if I'm completely full of ****
or if I'm just over it.

Chasing the dreams to touch the sky, shaking the roots of feminism;

Happy to shoot for the Vogue, Cosmopolitan and Gia's plagiarism-

All for her superstar Angel, she lived the attitude of lesbianism;

From Philadelphia to New York she sold, her fraternity and parental prism-

The ambitious gal, the ambition gal felt addicted to ******* and heroinism.

Climbing the hills in Beverly was not tough enough, shredding chastity for mean;

Hallowing for her Tomb Raider, she swallowed her city of sin-

All in her attempts she brewed her habits, she tattooed destiny for her queen;

From abortion to scandals;   she breathed to see her prolific akin-

The injured gal, the pitted gal still nearly was not doomed to grin.



Succumbing like the serpentine in salt, still longing to meet her dream star;

One fine morning she was found half-dead down the alley, waging her life-war-

All the fever she had, yet not looking to get out of the foxfire;

From one hospital to another, she was taken and was declared a patient of cancer;

The lucky gal, the ******* gal was lame enough to meet her jester.

The tumor had eaten her bones, like the steroids that made her a body-

Donating a million dollars in charity, made a brief appearance by Angelina Jollie;

All in her graceful charm, she penetrated hope to fight the disease folly-

From a life directionless to the motive of her strife, she kissed her cheeks and regretted being silly-

The ambitious gal, the ambition gal had just a single day to cherish her so called glory.

You make me smile
And my heart ache
In your presence
My hands quickly begin
To shake
My skin secretes
A lot of sweat
My heart thuds and starts hammering
Against my chest
I hear the hallowing
Of my lungs as I take my last
Breath
That you borrowed because
You deserved much less
Grasping my chest realizing my
Mistake
I still have enough air to whisper
Your name.

Think positive

                   Have you learned nothing about      
                   me?

Have you learned nothing of me?

                      -.-

Fire with fire... Questions with questions

                     Smoke with ashes, I'll smother
                       you -.-

After nine lashes, you've nothing better to do?

                      Before your funeral, you've got
                      nothing better to say?

Inhibitions compensated, though so futile. Bury yourself beneath your yesterdays.

                      Trial and error, yet so naive.
                       Through your mistakes and
                       heartaches, you still
                       overcompensate.

Smiling through tears, and tearing through smiles? What do you fear--everything prior, or just one more trial?

                       Been crying through the pain
                        for far too long. I fear...
                       Simply everything, to avoid
                      the hurt, why is that so wrong?

Not wrong, but you hold doubt where hope belongs. Don't wallow in the dirt, or hold on to this morning's dawn.

                       But where I should see hope,
                       there's only despair. I'm not
                       wallowing, simply realistic. It's
                       really not fair, to assume I'm
                       being over dramatic.

Learn to cope when people are unfair. Try hallowing what you know's simplistic. There's much in the air, besides the cruelness of fanatics.

                          But the evil is overwhelming,
                           it truly surrounds me, in my
                          mind and my heart.
                          Sometimes, I can't help but
                         fall apart...

When the Devil is swelling, his doings unruly, and it all mounts on you, know there is kindness. Just part with the bad times and take the goodness to heart.

When you sit in your room and cry,
You can't blame me,
For I did nothing wrong.

When you decide that you don't want to go to school,
You can't face their taunts and teases,
You can't blame me.

When you find that the one person that you trusted, turned against you,
You can't blame me,
For I did nothing wrong.

When you find me sitting here,
My blood barely seeping through my hallowing veins,
You can't blame me,
For I just found an escape.

But you see,
While you can't blame me for any of these things,
I can...

Nothing is sweeter
than waking
to the silence
of snow
of the movements
your chest makes
before the closed-eye smile
stirs
the ancient Woman in me.
I crawl into your arms
like stepping
into the sunshine abyss
of my childhood
like conjuring
the music
of my sister’s laugh
like conjuring
the dead.
Some mornings
I wake
so full of love
that it takes all of my
strength
to keep my chest
from hallowing
my ribs from cracking.
At 6 a.m.
on a
snow-covered lawn
the revelation
of love
accompanies a cigarette
and cup of
watered-down coffee.
All of the words
you whisper
my porch cowboy
are stuck to me
on a morning
so unaware
of its own
beauty.

I get drunk to forget myself
And for a little while, pretend I am someone else
Tortured souls feel the most
And me myself and I, don't mean to boast
But I've seen all the coasts

Swallowing me up whole
Pretty words don't mean much when I constantly drink in the ugly
I used to think alone was better
That if I was the one to hurt me
It would feel better than leave myself open for someone to scar me

But the winter winds are blowing from the skies
And this autumn jacket lining is frail and thin

Sipping on bottles of reoccurring notions
Soaring through broken promises

Don't leave me lonely
One foot, another day
Once more, the hallowing wind

Nothing set in stone can stand the test of time.

In the mode mankind has long called
talking to the maker,
listening for knowing, while

hoping merciful repair instruction
waiting
for the quest ion
to twist right
-indeed, I hand ground, with a tool,
toy like coffee grinder that gives fixin's
for a stout cup of robust character,

I bought it, for ten dollars,
had the beans,
bought the grinder, to give me a ritual,
something to spend two minutes doing,
each time I don't use a kuerig dealybob,
adding upper *** to my brewtime pacing
for blood pressure, while electric fire
fills my habitual yellow mug with umph.

Last week of October, all the girls
from the garden are hanging in the shade,
mellowing and emitting
nasal acknowledgment that something's
in the air, in the at most fearful zone's

made light of in the culture that
commercialized hallowing effects,
calling all and sundry come, think this
paradigm of time and chance and fate.
On or near
the third Tuesday after the last
Friday the thirteenth, in memory
of the fallen DeMolay and
of the Templars Money Power,
became sacred ***** to the victors,
in what must have been secret,
for some
time.
Secret treasures all carry curses.
Heart hordes hold plentyscarychits.

Horror film fans, value the genre,
at some certainly not shallow depth
toward center mass, media you, reader
dear to any writer drawn by forces
caffine and cannabis contrive to link,
I think,
and think,
and listen, and learn, and
learn, and live and learn, once more,
learn, and live on learning, wind
walking
thinking lines and times cross threads,
tighten right, down from up, stuck,

dead center, the first tie in reader,
lost
the most self centered individual ever,
once, we all get such a once, it's you,
reading a line riding a reason used
to hang the authors of confusion,
using old lies used to make slaves
of those whose houses, the boss said,
were made by the heathen for the chosen.

The riches of the wicked are laid up
for the just, is it not written, is it not so?

Fibers, strands, not long drawn out
end to end DNA strands crammed in you,
{but as a thought experiment, that distance
will leave the first timer incredulous, fine
point, credulousness, would you believe…}
meandering is rain twisting its way
to experience the sea and all it holds
in water memory that foam back along shores.
Edgewater
Seafoam and twigs,
and tiny sticky things. No,
Pondscumfoam at a puddle's edge
before the first snows.
Did you know…
Some Katscina have long plaited hairs
twisted from cotton,
patented seed, registered weevil free,
Pima cotton fiber, long desert strands.

Daily grind, think twice, cut once…
made the difference, indeed done
not thought about in theories of good
uses knowledge can be made of good
smoke and strong coffee with character.

AND the biggest indexed library in the universe.
{far as I can tell}
Kenophonia, eh, imposter syndrome?
First guess, you got me.
I see my name, wow, tough tag.
Then I met a cat named Cuitláhuac.
Tough tag for a kid in Spanish class.
Euphluxing idyotom automaton'/
bop.
You phony us, joy us riddle make you think
you know, kennen Sie, Ich bin ein fake.

Nein, es ist vieleicht Xenophobia, other people's eh,
opposing right lane reasonings as old as dominion.

Tech, teach us patience to learn with, or prove us
know it alls, therefore machines, not minds at all:
My own, for the use, under usus fructus rules,
Ai summarizes thus:
Kenophobia is an irrational fear
of empty spaces or voids.
It is the opposite of claustrophobia,
where the person is afraid
of tight spaces such as
elevators or crowded rooms,
auditoriums or malls.
In Kenophobia,
the person is terrified
of open fields or spaces that they generally expect
to be filled with mountains or people.
The word Kenophobia is derived
from Greek ‘kenos’
meaning ‘blank’
and phobos
meaning deep fear or aversion.

{aha, there's literature on the subject}
The fear can be passed on
from parents who have lived
in a house full
of stuff that fills the emptiness
of the home.
Filling voids gives the phobic personality the feeling
that they are placing boundaries
around themselves.
- {okeh, thank the whole idea tech is.}

Be honest, you never saw it said just so. Kenophobia,
pity such folk.

Have ye sent yer imps pulse to test my resolution,
have my effectually silent prayers been rebuffed?

Blown off, sent swirling with the motes dancing
in sunbeams peaking through a tough old live oak,
rattling its gnosis psuedonumos

Any morning, thus far, can start with
trickling falling sunlight.

It takes nearly half a day, in late fall,
for direct sunshine to dapple
the great granite wave my home rides, silly child poet, wishing words
will or would,
or could
or should make the universe
alter its course and force all things
to work together for me, the prayer,

me, the selfish
center of my experience
in your universe, all of which
is none of my handiwork, none at all.

Filling the emptiness some there
then I laugh, and think I lost count
so there was one…

Guess with me, a number,
between… no,
analyze, guess with me that rooted
science e-use, per se, must be ancient, deep wisdom
old as governing forces conceived by mankind,
magi sage staged conversations to teach,
public discourse
in my time allows me to be the seeker
guaranteed the prize, to be the bringer back
of the substance used to build the bridge,
between the you and the me, generally,
mere
Logos used in dialog.

God and mind determined to seem designed,
as in the Goldilocks lesson fed children of empire.

The northern clime survivors, thought themselves
the only people brought to the full duty of man,
the only set apart and given heros in story,
the grand saga of all we must each become.

Story born heros, from the child gifted language,
strings of sounds tied to things with threaded intuition,
same same, red and sweet, yellow and sweet,
red and black, step back, black and yellow, watch
and learn, smoking out the honey
from an old rotted tree,

following how many trails, at once,
parallel par-all-el yes, oddly, so far
On track, or in rut. All at once, each system
self esteeming umphumph push

Upto par, are we, 2023 and beyond, the flat tire
on the current axial age, fixing to imagine a scene,
in a community of broken children,
led by two twisted adult children of mean, maybe selfish,
adults who disputed the legitimacy of ligous gnosis knots.
The scene we share, we can imagine meaning
Religize legality, tie me to my tree.

Ancestor worth, how come you think somethings, you know.
Yeh, how come…
Say, old sprite, if I listen, do I learn? Why,
yes, I'd say I do imagine so. Well, good sport
then, shan't we push past worthless me, and be this
other thing we become, when two or more agree, as
touching any thing in all thingdom, and, yes, it's guaranteed.

Life is not a strange woman,
wisdom does not demean the experience, adulting
brings, with no real maps to meaning in your case,
you arrived in that old fashioned tabula rosa state,
knowing nada,
zip, nothing, infantile in totality, until
art of you
meness, ah, I, me, mine, this that, the other, mad
dissatisfaction, rage, comfort, ah, golden excrement of gods.
Teocuitlatl , not only Cecelia, but God, shat.

Golden silence.

Of course, you could feel it, if you knew, personally,
post adulting & shared nurturing of offspring exposure,
then watching as each of those offspring bring forth adultable
blossoms on the branch where all my heretic relatives hung.

As and so, like anything, timed, sequentially, unhomogenized,
the cream is taken to make butter, using the shaking up
of globs of coagulating milk fat, imagine making that,
butter, with salt,
once, learning that, who knew that first?

how butter is made,
how cows are made to give milk gently taken,
why we have hands that can do this thing,
and cows don't,
I don't know, ' never asked, likely some story teller
made this whole thing up, we being but words by now.

The iron in your blood is palpable

And as my nose discovered it

It was like a new religion to me-

A break into your apartment

In the middle of the night,

Wearing knee socks and a football jersey,

Hallowing religious experience.



And as much as you like them

I can NOT appreciate Corn flakes.



My feline has found a base in my guitar case

Much like I have made a mansion,

A toasty nest in your dominance wafting veins.

Watching her lay there

I understand

What it is like to be.

What it is like to be

the supplier of ultimates

And not ultimatums.

Like how God feels when he see someone

Bathe in the diminutive properties.



And as much as you like them

I cannot appreciate Corn flakes.

They taste like toenails.



I want to fasten my seatbelt to this.

I want to send you text messages

That are blank and know you know exactly

What I meant to say.

I want to make love to you

Without ever touching you

Because grip might be too rough

For what subsists here.



I will eat your Cornflakes, Mr. Prufrock-

I will eat them up.

Heaven, O, Heaven, is the path to you through intentions or artifacts?
They are hallowing the moves, the writings but not the heart's acts.
Heaven you are not close in a place like this,
They "follow" the man to achieve, but all they do is miss.
They miss God and make out of people a bliss.
Compensating for the void with the material, marching to the abyss,
A "renaissance" they claim, while we here the truth reminisce.

Mon coeur est confus, J'ai le cœur en aller-retour,
Quand je vais trouver enfin l'essentiel? Ici, je suis secoué,
c'est possible? Suis-je le seul esprit qui ne soit pas doué?
ou la verite est-elle, quelque part, écroué?
Repondez-moi, est la vérité dans l'oubli ou dans un carrousel?
la vérité, je vais, avec mon cœur, avec vous, me renouer.

It is the silence of the truth, that makes the sound of lies loud,
It is the paralysis of rationality that leaves peace unfound.
It is the loud not that rational that guides the crowd.
It never was what they vowed.  

You are a "master" that is creating a disaster-piece

It goes from one hand to another, the cross,
Throwing it from one hand to another, with no loss.
Selling angels and demons, sending to heavens and hell fires,
But O, the lives are not a coin you toss.

Je ne vais pas donner ma langue au chat
Le salut est entre les mains des gens, cette fois.
Ce n'est plus pas entre vos mains, Monsieur.
Aujourd'hui, le chat ne mangera pas ma voix.
la liberté est un choix.

I despise myself for not being the obedient you could cherish.
Shall I follow or shall I purge out the poison and perish?
If I am gone, my writing will be there in the dark, garish.

Actually, you are a "master" that created two disaster-pieces;
A corrupt generation, and me; the one whom you, despises.

I am glad I am enslaved to no one, but my "rotten" thoughts.
I lost my home; my peace. Today, I cannot connect the dots.
Tomorrow, you will be the first to take a sip from my tea,
When I sew a better reality with my weary knots.
My home; peacefulness, is given away to the kids,
To the cats, to the birds and clean pots.
Call me by my name, when he applauds.

My heart pounds
at the beat of the drum
the weight of the stick
thrusting against the symbols
the vibrations hallowing out my insides
weakening the core, releasing the vibrato

The strings of the guitar
puppet my motion, igniting my being
physical but immobile to the sweet sound
casting the reflections of the shadows of my soul

I stand tall, mocking the vocal stick
Numb to the sounds that are screaming
and singing deep within my soul
The lyrics spit out without effort
though are silenced, and chained
And composed upon the spinning record

praise them
or dance them
or skip rocks onto sand
and let fields
melt into
crystal diaries of mass extinction
hilltop love in a heat
hallowing the indestructible
march on to the field
and walk right back out
flick bugs and make them out to be your own enemies
nevermind that you wish you could fly
because
because
because

my mind is a football stadium
filled with sports anchors
hallowing our conversation
in class
the other day

did I say this right?
did you mean your laugh?

i am nothing but a child!
mazed by a fable or
some sort of
fairy book story

i imagine the other day in
class, wanting it to be
all days
all moments
in different aisles of hallways
different shades of walls

i am still a child

picking on my mind
like a sunflower on valentines day
"will he like me"
"will he not"

and you have nothing to do with this
but you are everything to blame

my poems are just passive voices
asking you questions without saying your name
indirectly

it is 10:03 I am
lying between the covers of my bed
pondering when you told me you like music

i am listening to the
same song
over and over
each time,
thinking of you
differently

A mocking, a knocking, a rock at the sill
I untilled out the fill like mill undistilled
A swoon not too soon- at the moon's right prevail
A pail-friend, a trail end, and a heartfull of ale
A whiting, a blighting, a light-hollow place
Undisgraced I defaced the lying lier's place
A sweat-vine, a death mine, a whetted time, my beau!
In the shallow grave's hallowing, comforting bow
A mocking, a knocking, a rose on the sill
I lay his arm over me an pray I fall ill

The keys, that
Dribbling waxy fingers
Turn, their gritted smiles splice
As peppered silence
Slices through the hours,
Sinking sunlight strikes
Another ashen pair
Of eyes, closed harder
Than doors on tipsy tongues,
Painted lips
Peeling cracked whispers,
Since open woos,
Seethe rapturously
Throughout the widowed house,
Her violent shudders
Rake my ears
And aching for clenched nails
I turn
The keys, the
Greasy lock
Is deep, yet her eyes are deeper,
Hallowing my gaze
And spitting back swallowed wishes,
Sweetening flusters that tease
Wildly she smiles,
And snatched by the hook
Writhing upwards we arch,
Toes curled and eyes squinting
As the door burst open
And the light fluttered in.

Saucerful.

The candy lights won’t come back on.
My boots have been swallowed.
The table cloth chess players.
Roped into hallowing out their arms.
It’s ok the blankets don’t know any better.





Garrett Johnson.

The feeling like the razor sharp noise of a fan blade scraping across the inner surface of your scull. Hallowing out a cavity. Leaving a space for those wintery cold thoughts to ice over inches above the current, solidify themselves, just the same as the concrete numbness in one who feels frozen feet but remains trembling at the spine. A shivering transference of short circuiting energy and no wonder your hands shake so balancing on pins and needles. Wobbly knees. Graceful feathered voice.

hallowing darkness
wordless psychedelic sounds
transcending my griefs

I saw a satyr in the woods,
A centaur in the meadow;
Travelling on, I remarked on a fawn
Hallowing out reeds for a pipe.
The world around me was green,
The water ran clear, cold and fresh,
The air I breathed was historic.
Crosses were in the future.
No Mecca to visit,
No Temple to rebuild.

I am a beach ***, a sun-worshipper, a tree hugger.
I will worship the dove, not the sacrifice.
I will homage the god of the kingdom that is here,
Before she rejects her offspring.

Numbness conquers my body,
Darkness invades, leaving its trace
Inside the sun's blinding rays.
And everything starts to twist-
Out of place.
The feeling persists,
But it doesn't exist.
I can recall living in this
Moment, having you hold it
The fragile boulder on your
Aching shoulders.
Crumbling bones,
I'll snort your dusty marrow.
Hallowing your hollow,
Promising tomorrows.
I can't recall having burrowed
This deeply, getting lost in the scenery
Of wickedness and fiery horizons.
I can see the sun set behind your eyelids.

I can't recall living this moment,
When you took words and swore it,
That the light would persist
When the darkness was swollen.

-SLuR