Mike and I were best of friends
and we drank together
and walked home together
And we’d walk along the railway tracks
and Mike
was always the more observant of us two
Yes, I always looked up to him
He’d be first to point out any irregularities
and so he’d say:
“There sure are a lot of steps
along the way”
And I’d concur
and I’d say:
“Yes, Mike…
And the problem is
the ****** handrails
are so low down”

And you know what
Mike is gone
and I still walk back
along the railway tracks
and the ****** idiots in charge of the railway
after all these years
they still put a lot of steps all the way
and worse –
they still put those ****** handrails
so low down…
Some people never learn;
they never change

I shout these things aloud
And I look up to Mike as I say these things
as I walk alone

Willets cull the seawall
snapper on the grill
rock ***** swoon
in shallow lagoons
long boats pass
under quiet
palm shade

Plovers dance and flutter
handrails frayed and torn
graffiti spots
at lovers rock
frigate-birds fall
from a high
noon sun

Thatched roof on a mud wall
fish flags settle score
anchors arch
in front line march
pillar cracks form
under rust brown scars

Elegant tern and grebe
watchmen fall in cue
children play
on crested waves
whimbrels and notchers
perch above Tentaciones

Striped pelícanos
the bandits of the sea!
merchants grow
in steady flow
siblings jostle
in a tide cooled sand

Heerman gull and boobie
durango smoke in yurt
boiler shrimp
and puffer blimp
castle buckets and scrapers
under a dusk light cheroot

Six pulls on a lead line
painted toes in sand
shearwater run
in a rainbow sun
the portly mexicano
flaunts his tacos
and wares

Rooster house for swordfish
bamboo shoots and sails
broken shells
and ocean swells
rise
on the
perfect
La Ropa bay

The concrete jungle.
Home of the dreaded concrete beasts
Who lie in plain sight for the world to see

Crouched in marble ledges, twisted in metal beams
Wrapped around handrails, perched in their cemented trees
They laugh at those who cannot perceive
Because they don’t believe.

And who am I,
Yes possibly me
To find my identity
In removing my wooden sword from its sheath

Placing it beneath my two shuffled feet
To answer the alluring call of the beasts beckoning
To my hero’s heart, for my eyes to blink
To suddenly see them as they were meant to be.

In a world between
Real and imaginary.

For it is I,
Yes I believe it to be
Chosen to find my destiny
In a single push

That propels me
Into the path of the snarling beasts
Approaching their stairs and rails, ledges and beams
Gaps and bumps and ramps with speed

And as they stare at me hungrily
Opening their mouths expecting me
I will stand strong on my wooden sword
As the wheels of fire erupt beneath

And the scenery blurs in the flash of the rapidity
I bend my knees and grit my teeth
My eyes narrow and the drum in my chest crescendos its beat
A shout explodes from my chest, a primal scream

As I press on
In the concrete jungle.

Home of the dreaded concrete beasts
Who quiver in plain sight for the world to see
And whimper at the sight of who they now perceive
Because I do believe.

And it is I,
Yes undoubtedly me
Who will find my destiny
Conquering the concrete jungles of the world unseen

Surfing the concrete waves of the world between
With my loyal vessel being the wooden sword from the sheath,
That remains steady in the face of danger beneath my feet.

I am alive
In the concrete jungle.

Liturgy in Time of War

I will go to the altar of God
To God who gives joy to my youth

ENTRANCE ANTIPHON

The dawn (evening) is coming, another hot, filthy, wet dawn (evening).  Let us arise, soaked in sweat, exhausted, to speak with sour, saliva-caked mouths, to meet the deaths of this day (night).

GREETING

In the name of Peace in Our Time,
For the Hearts and Minds of The People,
For the Land of the Big PX
For round eye and white (black) (brown) thigh,
I greet you, brothers.

PENITENTIAL RITE

All:

I confess to almighty God
And to you my brothers
That I have sinned through my fault
In my thoughts and in my words
In what I have done
And in what I have failed to do,
And I ask Blessed Mary…

But how can I ask Her anything now?

My brothers,
Pray for me to…

But how?
Priest: (But there is no priest)

KYRIE

Lord, have mercy
Christ, have mercy
Lord, Lord, have mercy on us now

Have mercy, Lord, on a generation
That sits smugly in college lecture halls
And protests endlessly in coffee shops
The war they hear, see, on T.V., for free
Justice and peace by the semester hour
Like, y’know, peace, love, Amerika sux
Play the guitar, ****, apply to law school

Have mercy on us
Who crouch behind sand bags
And clean our weapons
And protest nothing
And **** in the heat
And die in the hear
And throw ham and lima beans away

GLORIA

Glory to God in the highest
how many bodies yesterday?
And peace to His people on earth
Vietnamese? Or us?
Lord God, heavenly King, almighty God and Father
ham and lima beans?
We worship you, we give you thanks, we praise you for your glory
Doc, I can’t go home to my wife with this clap
Lord Jesus Christ, only Son of the Father
cigarette, canteen cup of instant coffee
Lord God, Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world
******* magazine
Have mercy on us
relief behind the sand bags
You are seated at the right hand of the Father
i rot
Receive our prayer
i want to be clean and dry
For You alone are the Holy One
clean and dry.  just once.
You alone are the Lord
why do they chew that?
You alone are the most high
you mean the betel nut?
Jesus Christ, with the Holy Spirit, in the glory of God the Father
incoming!
Amen


PRAYER

A

Father, you make this day holy.
Let us be thankful for
The many little joys of
This day, for life, for
The chance to worship
You.  In the end, bring
Us to you, so that we
May be cleansed of mud
And sweat and filth and
Guilt, and live with you
In peace forever.

B

Father, just get me through
Another day of this mess.

LITURGY OF THE WORD –

FIRST READING

From the Intensive Care Unit, NSA DaNang

A twilight world
Of neither peace nor battle
And of both

A man world
Embracing life and the grim death
Both

Peering into infected wounds
Night building shiver
Down from the black sky flares float

Broken bodies from the war somewhere
Eyes of a shattered nineteen-year-old Marine
Staring at the door to Yokosuka

PSALM

A Song of Descents

I cast down my eyes
Into the mud
Into the blood
It seems cleaner than death and drugs and casual ***
Drink Coca-Cola

I turned my eyes away from you, O Lord
And made this
Build this
Came to this
Samantha and Darren on Bewitched

Have mercy on…but how can we ask?  How dare we ask?

SECOND READING

Old Man, Viet Nam

Old man, a dog is barking at your heels
Old man, with the tired, weathered face
Are you afraid to turn around and deal
This dog a kick, to put him in his place?

Or is it, old man, that you’re just too tired?
Just too tired to turn and show anger
Just too tired to have your temper fired
Beaten by years of contempt and danger

Where are you going, trudging so slowly?
What are you thinking, behind those tired eyes?

Probably not about ham and lima beans

GOSPEL

In the Cold White Mist

After an all-night run on the river
Our boats arrive in the village at dawn
Dawn is never cold along that rive
Along that steaming, green, hell-hot river
But the mist is cold, the grey-green dawn mist
And after the engines are cut – stillness
Foul brown water laps at the mudding bank
Sloshing softly with fertile, smelly death

In the cold white mist

The boats are secured, and watches posted
We step off the boats and onto wet land
And follow the track into the deep mist
It becomes the street of a little town
A dairy lane along which cows slopped home
And where dogs and chickens and children
      played
Bounded by carefully swept little yards
And little wooden houses with tin roofs

In the cold white mist

But some of the houses are burnt.  The smoke
Still hangs heavily in the whitening mist
The lane is littered with debris.  A lump
Resolves itself into a torn, dead child
Across a smaller lump, a smaller child
Their pup has been flung against the fence, its
Guts early morning breakfast for the morning
      flies
We smoke cigarettes against the death-smells

In the cold white mist

Beneath a farm tractor rots a dead man.
When they – they – had come at sunset
He had hidden there.  And they shot him there
A man with bare feet and work-calloused
      hands
His hair is black; his teeth need cleaning
They shot him beneath the village tractor
His blackening blood clots into the mud
And our lungs choke in the white mist of death

In the cold white mist

White mist.  The path disappears into it
Smoky skeletons of little houses
In which there will be no tea this morning
No breakfasts of hot tea and steaming rice
No old widows to smile in betel-nut
No children to mock-march alongside us
Pointing at our ******* boots, and laughing
At us, for wearing shoes in the summer

In the cold white mist

They are dead and rotting in the white mist
On the edge of the jungle on the edge
Of the world, here along the Vam Co Tay
And the people pour out of their houses
To greet us on the fine summer morning
A corpse across a doorway, another
******-doubled across a window sill
Still another strewn down the garden path

In the cold white mist

The other patrol doubles back to us
And they tell us that the Ruff-Puff outpost
Must have been overrun the night before
He had heard their radioed pleas, and had
Run the river at night to get to them
And the ARVNs had fled through the village
And the VC had stormed in behind them
And it was knife-and-gun-club night in town

In the cold white mist

A little girl is the lone survivor
She looks may six.  Cute, except for the
Bubbling, *******, bayoneted chest wound
We patch her, and tube her, and use suction
Sort of like fixing a bicycle tire
And in the wet, gasping heat take her back
With us downriver, where a charity
Hospital leaves her on the steps to die

In the cold white mist

It will be our turn again tomorrow
Not a one of us died today.  Today.
But a village is gone, burnt and rotting,
Soon to disappear into the jungle
Along the green Cambodian border
Up some obscure river.  Up there.  Somewhere.
A few hundred people.  Their ancestors’ graves
Will fade with them untended, forgotten

In the cold white mist

Radio Hanoi might blame it on us.
But maybe not.  We made our report and
Nobody really noticed; no one cared
The talk is of the VC battalion
And where it has gone, and where it might go –
Maybe into death under an air strike
“And you guys better get in some sack time,”
Says the C.O. as he turns to his maps.

In the cold white mist

HOMILY

I’m scared, and I want to go home.  I don’t care any more about justice or fighting Communism or winning the hearts and minds of the people.  I can’t think about all that right now, because I’m scared, and I want to go home.
I don’t care about truth or loyalty or bravery or honor.  If Miss March were here she wouldn’t get cold, but she sure would get sunburnt.  And in a few days her skin would start rotting.  Then nobody would want to see her in the **** anymore.  
I’m scared, and I want to go home.
Up the Vam Co Tay, everyone is scared, everyone is tired, everyone is sick, everyone could die: sailor, soldier, officer, priest, farmer, fisherman.  Everyone rots in the wet heat.  The skin bubbles and flakes and peels, and is pink again, to bubble and flake and peel again.  
I’m scared, and I want to go home.
I’m Doc.  I’m a scared, stupid kid with an aid bag and a few months’ training.  But I’m Doc.  I’ve got to fake it.  I’ve got to be cool and calm because this other kid with his guts hanging out will probably make it if I don’t ***** up and if the dust-off from Saigon can get out here now.
I have an old dog at home, and my folks write and tell me she sleeps outside my window at night, waiting for me to come home.  Someday we’re going to run and play in the woods and fields again.  She’ll bark and run wide circles, and dare me to catch her.  I will laugh under the autumn leaves.  But now my nights are glaring darkness, fits of sweat-soaked half-sleep, then sirens and falling glares and falling mortars, and then the Godawful racket of all our engines of destruction.  There isn’t any use in all this.
I’m scared, and I want to go home.

And I don’t want any ham and lima beans.

CREED

We believe in the Land of the Big PX
In presidents in suits, and generals,
In makers of economic strategies
We believe in flak jackets and .45s and peace

We believe in swing ships and dust-offs, yes
In the dark, green omnipresent Huey
Eternally begotten of technology
Blades to rotor, windscreen to machine guns
Made, not begotten, one in being with us
Through it all things are transported to us
For us men and our hunger and our hope
It comes down from the skies
By the high power of technology
It was born of the long assembly line

For whose sake are we crucified today?
Who suffers, and who dies and is baggied?
And on the third will arrive back home
To be neatly packaged in stainless steel

But not in ham and lima beans

LITURGY OF THE EUCHARIST

Preparation of the Gifts

Celebrant:

Blessed are you, Lord, God of all creation.
Through your goodness we have this cheap Algerian wine to offer,
Fruit of the vine and work of human hands.
It will become anaesthesia for our souls.

People:

Blessed be…we just don’t know

Celebrant:

Pray, brothers, that our sacrifice may be acceptable to God, the almighty Father, to somebody.  Maybe.

People:

May the Lord, or the baggies, accept the sacrifice we offer with
our own burnt hands
For the praise and glory of…of what?
For our good, and the good of all His Church.

PRAYER OVER THE GITS

Little green cans, and I don’t care
Little green cans, and I don’t care
Little green cans, and I don’t care
Air cover’s gone away.

EUCHARISTIC PRAYER

Preface for the Monsoon Season:

Father, all-powerful
And ever-living God,
We do well always and everywhere
To give You thanks
Through Jesus God our Lord
Even with diarrhea
thanks
When the mail doesn’t come
thanks
When we rot
thanks
When the heat ***** at our brains
thanks
When the mud ***** at our boots
thanks
When the horror ***** at our souls
thanks
We’re alive
thanks

SANCTUS

Holy, holy, holy, Lord, God of power and might
The bunkers are full of blood and death.
Hosanna in the mud.  Blessed is he who comes with the mail.  Hosanna in the mud.

EUCHARISTIC PRAYER

The Kien Tuong Province Canon:

A sailor is silhouetted against the dawn
Along a steamy river
Mostly helmet and flak jacket
Above dark plastic gunwales

The sailor has lost his New Testament
But there’s a ******* around somewhere
Naked, willing women –
Miss March wants to be an actress

He also carries an old plastic Rosary
To touch occasionally
While whispering a hurried Hail Mary
He hopes She understands

Those who in bell-bottoms and head-bands
Fight Fascism
In Sociology 201
Will never forgive him

A sailor is silhouetted against the dawn
This day he is to be elevated
His body broken and his blood shed
For you and for all men

OUR FATHER

Our Father, who art in Heaven
this ain’t it
Hallowed be thy name
Thy kingdom come
this ain’t it
On earth as it is in Heaven.
Give us this day…
not ham and lima beans
And forgive us our trespasses
as we shoot them that trespass against us
And lead us not into ambush
But deliver us from evil

SIGN OF PEACE

Peace on you.

AGNUS DEI

Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world: have mercy on us.

Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world: have mercy….

Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world: grant us peace.

Priest:

(But there is no priest)

People:  

Lord, I am not worthy to receive you,
But only say the word and I shall be killed.

COMMUNION ANTIPHON

They ate, and were not satisfied
They killed, and were not without fear.

PRAYER AFTER COMMUNION

Lord,
If we do not get out of this
Make some sense of it to those who remain
May we go home.  Home.  Or if not,
Take us unto you, in mercy.
Home.  Where you reign, for you are Lord
Forever and ever.  Amen

BLESSING

May you walk on grass that does not explode
May you sleep without rot
Without fear
May you never see or smell ham and lima beans again.
May you live
May you play with puppies
May you find forgetfulness
May you find peace
In the Name of Him who took your death for you

DISMISSAL

This is to certify that____is Honorably Discharged from the____on theday of____.  This certificate is awarded as a testimonial of Honest and Faithful Service.

CLOSING HYMN

Old men, smoking in the sunshine
Exiled outside the doors of life
Old uniforms, old pajamas
The chrome of wheelchairs, shiny, bright

Inside, polished wooden handrails
Line the hot, polished passages
Something to cling to on the way
To the lab, to x-ray, to death

And more old men, shuffling along
In a querulous route-step march
From Normandy, from The Cho-sen,
From the Vam Co Tay, from the deserts,
Past the A.I.D.S. ward and the union signs
On waxed floors to eternity

Portions previous published:

“Closing Hymn” is from “Outpatient Surgery – Veterans’ Hospital,” Juried Award, Houston Poetry Fest 1993

“In the Cold White Mist” is a Juried Award, Houston Poetry Fest 1991

“Old Man, Viet-Nam,” was published in Pulse, Lamar University, 1982

Something awful happened late last night,
And here I lie awake at six AM
Upon the sand of Santa Monica.
The cars drive by, but I don’t notice them.

I used up all my gas to get away
From the ****** pond on my bathroom rug.
It’s more than bleach can handle and I’m scared
That I’ve found a more seductive drug.

Fish intestines line the pier and I
Feel no misery for gutless souls.
The rocks are caked in birdshit, kelp and shells
And, as if in mourning, the cormorant calls.

Upon the rusty handrails, seagulls gossip
Just like feathered girls with brains, persisting
To trumpet my depravity in savage squawks,
And to harass the rest of us for existing.

The white-wimpled, cruel, sadistic nuns
Choose an injured sea lion as their prey.
Cowardly, they flee at his sharp barks–
It’s guts that will decide who wins today.

***** creep over the brown-furred body.
Fighting for its life, it bites the shell
And kills its fellow lifeform.  When given
The chance, I’ll defend myself as well.

We were ledge-sitters.

We understood why birds perch themselves on penthouse patio rails

And why airplanes sigh with breaths of relief when they are defying gravity.

We would hold the crooked hems of our dresses while we climbed metal stairs like mountains.

The urge for heightened perception of depths, distances, and the disarranged built in us like skyscrapers we hung ourselves over.

For instance, recall daisies,
or if you have not seen one, so much the better.
Paint me a crass picture and sleep
on the shallow crevasse. Stilt through
the orchard and search there: nothing still.
Even the nothingness is form-fitting, and thus,
your vestigial image of daisies. Mold something
out of the vacuity, and there a retrograde sculpture
will wind back to clay. Cornerstones have your name,
and your name even so, has taciturnly placed stones.

Stones. These tiny bodies that lay, undemanding,
scourged by the rapid passage of a carriage.
I wait there, with them, still thinking of daisies.
I know of a child, cylindrically obtuse, in front of the mirror.
Have you seen yourself in the hazy windows
of the Metro? What do you see? I still see daisies.
Or people with heads of daisies. But remember your
forethought of daisies? They are nothing. I am a beheaded daisy
in the lackadaisical wind of Summer. There is nothing to gain
here but the sadness of cold passing. And the child that I am speaking
of, his name, Magno. Sturdy like the rucksack he’s carrying,
lovelessly trundling altogether with the pipes and the
handrails, almost signaling the alarm without warning.

This uncared-for sultry evening decides to splinter
itself against the masses. Again, the daisies appear to me,
this time, in heady form rogue with peripatetic fragrance.
Magno used to unearth daisies and give them to her
mother when he was stiflingly young – he hustled through
the carefully placed furniture. Whatever happened to him,
I know not. And just like the daisies we have come to know now,
trains that do not belong to anyone, and the daisies too, that go
unheard of and unknown to the behest of the city,
have gone into the subtle beginning of everything
that once started in itself, the form of splendor. Nothing.

You can't safely have a cigarette outside of the bus terminal
without a couple of folk asking for one.
You can't safely have a cigarette in general.
But, if five of them have to last you a night and a sunrise,
you don't really mind turning down a few nameless hands.
Some of the bus drivers like to talk about football, weather;
others complain about management or the patrons;
a few don't say much at all, avoiding sympathy.
They're probably the smart ones.
They don't want to learn the sad stories in between stops.
I usually like to just sit in the back and ride out the best bumps.
The handrails jiggle and crash with every pothole.
-
The men who work at the metal scrap yard
usually get on in front of Debbie's Diner on 22nd street.
Bundled up for warmth and firm of face, they only speak to each other.
Small talk about who almost missed the bus, broken crane joints,
and who moved the most barrels of copper piping fill the blocks.
They tend to pick on the guy who runs the aluminum can crusher;
big guy, they call him "Boose" and he couldn't be much older than I am.
His hands and lips are dry and cracked from exposure,
but his face still shows ember of teenage years, though jilted.
There is a bar that serves three-dollar chili across the street, spicy.
The workers go there when they miss the first bus, have a beer,
down a bowl of boiling chili, and catch the return bus in better moods.
-
The railroads on Brush College road tend to hold up traffic.
The ADM plant doesn't really mind if a few twenty-something mothers
are late to their practical nursing and phlebotomy classes,
but they voice their complaints out of a cracked window to the side
of a ten story soybean silo nonetheless; steaming ears and all.
I stare at the graffiti on the laggard train cars, each unique
in color, quality, style, and message; the industrial Louvre.
These waits sometimes last a half hour or more.
In the days before Pell grant rewards come in,
when students still feel like they're working toward tangible cash,
the seats are all packed with heavy breathers.
The air becomes thick with community college carbon coughs.

Around two weeks ago, part of a three-part dream,
I hadst seen Christ as he is; and always wilt be.
I wont speaketh of the other sections-
Just the part of the Savior,
Get thou to the right direction.

I sawest mineself, what looked to be in a hospital bed,
Fear and anguish wrapped mine mind, was I living-
Was I dead?

The two women I thought, originally to be nurses,
Saidst to me Brandon art thou ready for thine
Shot, I felt the rush and high they gave was
Perfect.

They stuck the needle in, pain medication's rush,
I calmed, de-stressed, mine spirit un-bunched.
After a few minutes, of this reality's vivid way,
The two I thought to be nurses spoke to me-
"Brandon art thou ready to meet God",
Mine high started floating away.

They saidst to me, come on " follow us", twill be ok-
I argued " I'm not ready " not ready today;  yet they
Hadst a tranquility about them, as I noticed these
Weren't thy average nurses, I followed them out
Of curiosity, as the shot faded from working.

They led me to a gigantic tree, not the norm you'd see,
It was like an oak, but it's height spoke, from heaven's
Reach. The tree hadst a door, they opened it for me-
Again they saidst " Brandon art thou ready "?
I stepped into the tree, getting first view,
Their was a stairway leading up, the path
Narrow, darkened, with handrails on the
Sides, as an abode, or earthly view.

As soon as I looked up the stairway, to the unknown,
I sawest a face observing downward to me; mine eye-sight
Hadst froze. I couldn't seeith the ****** features, just the glowing
White thick glorious beard, and thickened wool-set hair, I didint look at the body, because his countenance shone- as a million sun's, I got ****** into the light, from his face I felt one.


Beams were rapturous, as if a halo around his head, though
Twas not a halo, just the way he glow's tear's wilt be shed; then the man I sawest, disappeared as if mist, it hit me it was Yeshua ha'mashiach, Jesus Christ in mine midst.

The two women saidst again, ready to meet God? Fear built inside me, I wasn't ready because the sin I've got; though the man I sawest, didint cause me any fear, he was waiting for me, ready-
As tis I followed these two nurses up into the tree's care.

Getting up inside this tree, I stepped mine feet on hard ground,
It looked as if I walked into a new York flat, if in luxury Earthly
Bound. The room was big, with a brick wall in the back setting;
The two women took a right, into a wall they disappeared.
Again I thought, " Lord I'm surely not ready ".

I kneweth where they went, into the realm where God's throne-room was, I cowered behind them, I ran back down the step's for mine own good. I ran all the way back down the tree, closed the top door, ran out the bottom, shut the other one behind me, coming out of the trunk, not needing to know more.

At the end of the dream, switching to the last part, I took mine parent's to the scene, as mine story touched their heart's. I showed them the wooden giant I was taken up into, I told them of the two women I thought to be hospital worker's; though in reality being Angel's of God's truth. I spoke to them of the face I sawest up the stairs in the tree, how it shone like the star's all together for thou and me. In the tree there was a shelf, mine parents walked in, saw it for themselves. The shelf hadst huge tomatoes, and fresh vegetables I've never discovered, this was a tree of life with Christ, it's signifying mean's soon a death for me, as Christ awaits me; or like all the rest having rapture dream's- Yeshua is telling me his coming is soon, I'm just warning one another.


©Brandon Nagley
©Lonesome poet's poetry
©My dream 2 seeks ago,

When I was eight years old,
I overlooked a moment of compassion
And challenged the will of a fellow third grader
Compelled by my ignorance
She gave the most astute summary of my life ever uttered.

When I was eight years old,
A frizzy haired girl asked me an impudent question
A question of infinite importance:
How do you sleep?
How do you sleep at night, since you know yourself?

When I was eight years old, my arrogant mind brimmed with resentment
Reaffirming that I,
I, apart from my arrogance,
Was the best person I knew.

I was eight years old, and a prophet had spoken.

Eight years later,
I long to be swallowed by the sheets
Eyes stare mockingly at the dormant ceiling
Clinging to the handrails
As my train of thought
Careens off the tracks
Exploding in a cloud of terror and regret

Eight years later,
I long for the simple arrogance of my eight year old mind
I long to close my eyes
And remember nothing

Because today,
Today I am sixteen
And tomorrow I will be twenty-four
And the next day I shall be eighty

When I'm eighty,
I'll stare at the bleached walls
Succumbing to the force of the past
As it consumes the present.

When I turn eighty-eight,
I'll look to the end of my starched bed
And He shall smile
Saying, "Well done!"

I hope I lie, when I'm eighty-eight,
Because If I am honest
If I tell the truth
I do not know who he is
And I never have
I will be cast away
because, eighty years before,

When I was eight years old,
I was arrogant
But still innocent
eighty years from death
and eighty years from shame
I could have heeded those words
The words of the frizzy haired girl

When I was eight years old,
I could have decided
I could have had him sing me to sleep
I could have died entirely unlike myself.

Now that I'm sixteen,
I still do nothing.

solitary howl
growling trial chill ridden
tightening chest and pain
behind one eye
stress reduces
jelly legged machismo sulking
regression completion
seeking seclusion revolved by a reflection
churning bowel Elvis hip
flipping tripper gripping imaginary handrails
rising heat to hot spit gurgle
sweat breaking head spinning grasping
grinning

we find ourselves crumpled like paper
my nosebleed acts like glue
you smell and taste like pixie dust
my eyes roll around the room

ascending towards heaven
i grip your ribs like handrails

you stop me short -
'i'm going to...'

and like a napkin under the dinner table
i’m falling off your lap

you'll remember me when you need to clean up
when you need to wipe your hands

she wrote words in
between the cracks of
sidewalks, so people wouldn't
step on them

she scribbled in notebooks
and left them at bus stations,
where strangers took
them home

she wrote her words in
aquafresh on the bathroom
mirror, and the next
person would have the
arduous task of
cleaning her mind off
and flushing it

she wrote on the stalks of
wheat, which baked into
bread fed rich and poor and
stealing orphans who became
trancelike

she wrote in red sharpie ink
across the train platform
and up the handrails and across
the 90's patterned seats

she wrote pieces on the graffiti
boards in skate-parks
because they were covered
by *** leaves and ying-yang
signs that are anything but balanced,
smiley faces more crooked
than the person who painted it

she scribed phrases into
candy given to children, sitting
in stomachs and spit on the
ground

she wrote everywhere so
someone might remember her, and
they didn't

they remember words across
their cheeks, maybe a glimpse
of beauty in the
twirling joy of a child in the rain

they do not remember a girl with
cropped hair and eyes
that pierce, they do not
remember a writer, only a

book that spans the entire world with a page

Concrete beneath seats
of listeners
Chalk artists
creating frames for the
next rainfall

Wash away
sun burnt big toes
beads of sweat
on sunglasses
Spoken word next to
handrails

The river below
huffs the wind
Spits it
to the current
of artistry
waving back from shore

Cancel the 12:50
replace the interruption
with impromptu colors
of the rainbow
Let children wander
under bridges
and pop balloons
filled with water
Color paint

Let the world
around us drink
water of guitar strings
and gaze at
ambient light
with star-struck eyes

Let the world
revolve around
lightning bolt revolt
Protect sacred
performing stages
Say yes to
Art-spired revolution

The ending to your voice haunts me
Late at night when I'm tearing into my flesh
with words I've cut from train wrecks and false hopes
I can hear the echo of your presence creep onto me
with my numb heart beating pacedly
and raptures of flesh rupturing,
my spine tingles in sensations I've longed for years to grasp within me,
these fleeting moments fleeing my wanting arms
turning me inside out, spilling this ink on splintered handrails
exposing my ribs for you like a delicacy you have yet to enjoy but readily dig into
my cavities craving, devouring languidly from your wistful whispers
the faintest sketch of your ghost whistling past my ear
like the way I've known how you could laugh all along
these splinters scriven into the palms of my hands
as Dawn rises with practiced perfection on the outside world
the coldness of breath overtakes me filling my lungs with icy lavishness
The ending to your voice haunts me from worlds I've never known
and from worlds I've longed to be a part of.

first glance
penetrating blue
hostility
embodied
embroiled in inconsistency
irregular heartbeat
palpitates
facilitating fallacies
like ‘health’ and ‘well-being’
beings damaged goods are sold on clearance
shouldn’t the mentally ill be sold into slavery
eliminating national debt
by selling the sick to Chinese factories
sending those who drain our health care system
the **** outta the country –
broken records repeat 16 bar blues
supreme court embraces homosexuality and marijuana
while removing campaign donation limits
and the woman’s right to choose
maintaining balance
is often ugly for the masses
passing gasses for solar fuel
poisoning the producers
creating cancerous lesions
attempting to save the sky –
dangerous liaison as the corrupt
meet with the condemned
concentrating on collusion and coercion
of the community at large
so as to better control the carefree
bleeding calluses hold broken handles
handcuffed to the handrails
hanging on for dear life—
beaten seals stain beaches
furless
representing the future
freedom looks like death
sprinkled with red, white, and blue
candy
at least in my homeland –

Once mingled,
free-floating piano tunes
and
sun-harshed highway
could be a match.
The Light Rail
took its time on the causeway,
I am a passenger,
safely guarded from the
unapologetic summerness
like tourists from the safari park.
I am a outrageous punk,
perching onto handrails
lost in his romantic dream of an
impossible summer. Romeo and Juliet in my hand.
Vehicle garages rusting
along palm trees lined
railway.
This is Yuen Long. This is the outskirts
with gated dogs with feral barks,
this is a compromise between bungalows and nature.
Piano symphonies morphed into
eighties tunes
in the Call Me By Your Name soundtrack album,
and the eighties synths
draws the archived mystics,
out from avenues
that leads to villas similar to those I have sojourned.
And the world as I see it, it is beautiful.

Welcome to Landfill where they bury your free will,
please
hold tight to the handrails we're all going in.

Passing through fallen arches past the smashed dreaming warriors into abandoned stone quarries,
taking time for a tea on the way.

Welcome to Landfill where they still fly the standard although at half mast.

Reserve a place for the saviour
he's playing a card game unaware that his fame has spread out like confetti and is whetting the appetites of Satan and his acolytes.
Here in dystopia where hope's hoping it's fooling ya the lights are being turned off one by one.

worn-out marble floors
hard against black high heels
gleaming in a fifty shades of grey
under the heavy strip lights
rows and rows of cheap clothes
expensive junk for poor fools
contaminated handrails
a shocking blur of different colors
bloodshot eyes screaming
everywhere red lipstick and lace
attracting young women
smells overlaying each other
advertisements and hushed words
surrounded by general noise
pillars crumbling under pressure
faked smiles and aching feet
tired escalators
elevators that have given up
a raging headache
'exit' sign shining green

On the third day
She clung to the handrails
Near the door
All the way back

Zigzagging in knots
Shining incandescent
With the sun

Chained to a swing
Piled in drifts
Of faces
Marching on and off
Almost invisible
To the way she
Clung herself

Constantly trying
To get my attention
Like tapping on
A ***** window

And only successing
On the way out
Like a feather on the wind
Breathless in an unfinished flight.

(From the ongoing series of 30 ghost poems. Get in contact if you want to read the rest online)

you will learn to shift your weight around
You will learn to lean against things
To always clutch handrails

You will learn to rate things from one to ten ten being the worst you’ve ever felt

You will learn loss
You will lose functionality
You will lose what you used to love doing
You will learn not to partake in barbecue games, bowling nights
You will learn to politely decline invitations
You will lose friends
Hobbies
Muscle memory

You will learn to accept it
You will learn that it is unacceptable

You will lose sympathy for others
You will lose track of things
You will learn that there is always something more to lose
You will learn to hold just a few things sacred
to cling only to that which you cannot lose
You will learn that those things too can be lost

You will learn to hate god

You will learn how unobservant most people are
You will learn not to disclose
You will learn what not to say to avoid their suggestions and advice

You will learn to be alone

You will learn the difference between NSAIDs and acetaminophen
between hydro and oxy
the difference between SSI and SSDI
between deductibles and out of pocket maximums
You will learn to cry in hospital parking garages
You will learn the limits of modern medicine for the working and middle classes
You will learn to lower your expectations
You will learn the definition of the word palliative

You will learn to live with it
You will learn to smile for pictures
You will learn to claim a seat early
You will learn to summarize
You will learn good days and bad days
You will learn sorry I know this is last minute but I have to cancel

You will learn to love deeply
You will learn to apologize profusely

You will learn how successful other people will become

You will learn what it means to be a body

You will learn so much
You will learn so so much

what an unsuccessful dream
got me imagining i’m metamorphosing into some queen

gag me with a torch, not liable for these factions
don't put this on me, i was born into royalty
polish the handrails,
don't forget you can't be late.

fashionably late at best, when everything in reality is such a mess
curtsy my dear madam, or else you might be ******
"twirl around let me see those perky curls!"
why do i put you on a pedestal when all you do is drool over another's way

desire doesn't lay here with the underpaid service maids
father i'm so much stronger than the curtains or the drapes
hear me out for there isn't much time
i'm afraid the clocks passed nine and tea is in due time

i understand your master plan
it would be grand if i had a say in the upper hand
seems like you're golden
does it seem like you're weak oh because it does to me

the people
the tide of people
the swarm hurrying across gargantuan
sun-streamed rooms as
they rush in a glide along golden handrails
before descending through smooth marble stairwells,
the people,
some tense, and cross, and expended,
brows furrowed, forlorn with unrest
while others,
the people
who walk brightly with anticipation,
indefatigable,
their comings and goings
each a new adventure,
life not waiting to be lived

A vacant room sign hangs outside the door.
I watch from the lobby as potential customers take a peek and leave, underwhelmed and disappointed with what they see.

Rusted handrails on stairs.
Peeling wallpaper with mold at the edges.
Creaking chairs that barely supports any visitors.

Not that there are any.

Sometimes I think I could convince them to stay for a while.
To fill the empty room, but my mouth refuses to open.
It refuses to sell the room using eloquent, convincing words.

How am I supposed to convince them when I can't convince myself?
I wouldn't stay here if I had the choice, so why would they?

I see the same thing onlookers see.
A beaten-down, useless, sad hotel.
There's too much to fix and repair.
It's beyond the stage of renovation.

So my heart stays vacant.

Tick.
Tock.
Tick.
Tock.
       Waiting on the clock release us from whatever confines us. From work or from school. From sleep or from family. For our favorite shows or our favorite books. Or maybe the movie of today to finally end so you can go home.
       The difference between my home and yours is that my heart is embedded in every shift of the sheet and turn of the page, which occurs within the time I label free. Yours is your own, your heart and your soul and what you breathe your every breath to return to.
       My home is a relaxing place with no time limits and no thoughts of please, please be time to leave, just let me leave. My home knows not of my impatience and frustration or my tears of aggravation but it knows of my sorrows. It holds me in its motherly grasp ‘til the 'morrows. It grasps to my positivity and shows me the light that I need to grip the handrails of life and climb the next stair.
       Though we all have different homes, some all alone, others filled with crowds of chit chatters or silence. We are quiet minded in the place that speaks its volumes upon our hearts. In my home I wait not, for I fear not for the impending doom of responsibility, as home will always be there. It will be waiting, waiting for me to rest my weary shoulders onto its freshly made beds and close my eyes, cradled in its embrace.
       I don’t stare at the clock waiting for its tick or its tock.
       I am home.

Why are there worms when it rains
Gathering to the surface for air, for sun
The pinecones curling like dead bugs
Like upturned cockroaches and beetles
The scent of forgotten aquariums hanging over the dirt
The petrichor stained metal handrails
With grass soaked pools

And after it rained
The corpuses of worms sat
Gruesomely pressed into pavement fossils
Beneath a brown soled sneaker

The shifty shutter flash and the focus
Warp around distraction and addiction
Where the scream commences many a smile.
Here is my heart.
Where is my mind?
There is the start.

The conundrum of the searing secret within
The fight to keep polar handrails in alignment
The stop of the lethargy and slow motion.
Here is my heart.
Where is my mind?
There is the start.

Because I love the way words spring from your mouth
And I am stretched thin with my left lobe sitting
Far from that which pushes and pulls boundless blood.
Here is my heart.
Where is my mind?
There is the start.

And the chambers of my heart expand
And I feel the dark dash at the flip of a switch
And the familiar, but new eyes lock to mine.
Here is my heart.
Where is my mind?
There is the start.

The tears fall for the first true time
Finally the dreams start to rhyme
The dreary down becomes a beautiful climb
Here is my heart.
Where is my mind?
There is the start.