You've been together for almost a month now
It's time that you shared this with friends
But, beware of the wolf in sheeps clothing
Because this is how most friendships end

You feel it is time to expose him
To your friends and to let them all in
But, beware of the wolf in sheeps clothing
He's the original purveyor of sin

You've opened the door to the hen house
There's a fox running lose in the pen
You opened the door to the hen house
He will feast and return to his den
You opened the door to the hen house
You've let him meet your girl friend
You opened the door to the hen house
Now the fox will run wild till the end

Your girlfriends all think he is ****
He laughs when they laugh and you too
But, do you know of this wolf in sheeps clothing
and just exactly what he plans to do

He flirts and he turns down advances
He smiles and he's light on his feet
but remember the wolf in sheeps clothing
Is busy picking which one he shall eat

You've opened the door to the hen house
There's a fox running lose in the pen
You opened the door to the hen house
He will feast and return to his den
You opened the door to the hen house
You've let him meet your girl friend
You opened the door to the hen house
Now the fox will run wild till the end

He may be the one you've been wanting
But, in truth, he's not really the one
Deep down, he's a wolf in sheeps clothing
And he's only out looking for fun

He fooled you and used you for pleasure
He'll move on, when you say settle down
Remember, he's a wolf in sheeps clothing
He's the king and he wears the crown

You've opened the door to the hen house
There's a fox running lose in the pen
You opened the door to the hen house
He will feast and return to his den
You opened the door to the hen house
You've let him meet your girl friend
You opened the door to the hen house
Now the fox will run wild till the end

Just past dawn
She toddles out in
A flour-sack apron,
A hatchet in her
Pocket.

Beside the upright
Log, its bark aging,
Leans a potato sack
With one white
Cackling hen inside.

The woman is all
Business, this job
Nothing new,
Dinner comes soon.

The log is capped
With two rusty nails
About 2 inches apart.

The hen continues
Her song, ignorant
Of her fate.

The woman grabs
The hen in her left
Hand, the hachet
In her pocket.

With deft attention,
The woman places
The hen’s neck between
The nails.

The cackling becomes
A maniacal squawk,
But no one is there
To grieve.

One quick stroke
Is all it takes, and
The hen’s head is
On the ground.

The stump is full
Of blood, and the
Proverbial body
Is running around,
Minus the squawk.

The woman grabs
The hen and shoves
Her back into the
Potato sack, minus
Its head.

The task is done,
Five minutes max.

Time to take her
To the kitchen for
The plucking of
Feathers and the
Saving of edible
Internal organs.

The woman and her
Hen are ready for
The family’s Sunday
Dinner, only hours
Away.

The hen’s head
Rests outside, its
Comb, beak and
Wattle the worse
For wear.

The woman sings,
Rehearsing:
Komm, Herr Jesu,
Sei unser Gast….


© Lewis Bosworth, 2016

first step

when he looks at a woman he searches for qualities that attract him because he wants to desire her yet this tendency creates an imbalance or disadvantage he is rendered weak to a woman’s beauty or whatever traits he idealizes self-realizing this propensity he looks away from women years of disappointment neglect change him he becomes afraid of women gynophobic

2

when she looks at a man she searches for qualities she is critical of because she wants to be impervious to his power she is suspicious of all men their upper body strength penchant to be in control misperception of women as property misogyny emotional immaturity neediness to be mommyed selfishness insensitivity or over-sensitivity depending she wants to be treated with equal respect a loving nurturing relationship she is suspicious of all people their alternate realities passive aggressive behavior co-dependence craziness

3

he sees her then looks away she suspiciously notices nothing happens they go back to their separate homes alone always home alone grown calm in resignation yet disbelieving of this destiny saddened by this fate both worry about future she looks at her face naked body in mirror her stomach churns feels sad sickening remembers time when she was more carefree he puts one foot in front of other then walks tries to remember who taught him to walk how many times did he fall who taught him to laugh where did his sense of humor go

4

he sees her thinks she is lovely resists the urge to turn away he smiles says hello she notices nervously smiles her shaky voice articulates louder than a whisper hi

Tucson 2-step

they are standing in line at a café on 4th avenue he is directly behind her she is lanky wearing white background faded colors patterned summer dress thin straps over bare shoulders long brown hair few gray strands small unfinished tattoo on left calf leather slip-ons 1 inch heals he is at a complete loss for words thinks to make remark about the weather decides not to overhead fan stirs hot humid July air barista girl asks what she would like her eyes scan blackboard menu behind counter she hesitates remarks help him i need an extra moment to decide he steps up to counter money in hand orders small to go Arnold Palmer half black current lays $3 on counter mentions change goes in tip jar thank you barista girl moves fast he lifts cup from counter glances at woman still deciding then at barista girl says have a wonderful day turns walks out door dawns on him woman grows hair under her arms his 2nd most compelling female physique adornment fetish oh god he thinks to himself should i wait for her to make up her mind then approach try to craft conversation at least find out her name no i’m too weak in this moment she is so lovely let her go

2

she orders double Americana in small cup to go room for soy milk thinks to herself he did greet her perhaps their paths will cross on street why did he run off so fast she glances toward front of café notices window seat changes her mind instructs barista ******* 2nd thought make it for here digs through purse realizes she left wallet in truck explains to barista girl she needs to run out to her vehicle to retrieve wallet forgotten under front seat the air on the street is heavy dense she smells her own perspiration looks north then south does not see him walks to truck feels exhausted appetiteless almost nauseous wishes she did not order a drink thinks to get behind wheel drive home go to sleep

Tucson 3-step tango

she feels disappointment by her recent writings as if she is reaching a more sophisticated audience and setting a higher standard for her work yet she is not living up to her ambitions her recent writings smell of her past writings too emotional the damaged woman wounded child she wants to write more introspectively with detached humor that only comes from keener intelligence she slams her laptop shut decides to go to Club Congress for a ****** mary or margarita but Club Congress is haunted with small town cretins losers wannabes she considers Maynard’s decides Maynard’s is too safe suburban yuppyish finally gives in to thought of glass of pinot noir at Plush next comes what to wear jeans in mid-July desert heat is unacceptable perhaps loose fitting thin cotton white summer dress thin leather belt ankle high indian moccasins hair in ponytail no pigtail braids no ponytail no makeup maybe little ylang ylang oil no she thinks about her recent writings

2

i am one breath away from crying in every moment one breath away from flying m.i.a. in every moment one breath away from destroying everything there is beauty in ugliness beauty in decrepitude disease beauty in harm hurt suffering beauty in greed injustice betrayal beauty in corruption contamination pollution beauty in hate cruelty ignorance beauty in death we spend our whole lives searching for a good death we spend our whole lives searching for eternal love this modern world is too much for me over my head the horrors of this place are beyond words unspeakable voice inside maybe mom yells quit your whining or dad hollers stop complaining i am trying to smile through tears one breath away from giving in one breath away from becoming stranger to myself winter spring winter spring there is beauty in nothingness we spend our whole lives searching for ourselves learning who we are not finding grasping secrets from dark paths light trails winter spring winter spring i am one breath away

3

she sits alone at bar at Plush glass of pinot noir glass of ice water in front of her 2 bearded older men eye her from other end of bar she ignores them glances at her wristwatch tries to look like she is waiting for someone music from speakers antiquated rock standard it is early friday hours from dusk moderate middle aged crowd mingle wait for local jazz trio to begin she thinks about her recent writings wonders is it too late for love considers lesbian affair from 5 different perspectives 5 woman’s voices each describing same lesbian affair in 5 opposing accounts hmmm she sips dark red wine from glass chases it with ice water she considers a story about a gang of female bikers who ride south to Mexico

4

the Americans came through here last night crossing border illegally climbing over our fences digging tunnels beneath our barrier walls littering along their trail they travel in packs of every skin color carry guns knives explosives wear leather boots some are shirtless tattoos dyed hair mischievously smiling conceitedly stealing when in question murdering they rob our homes slaughter our chickens ransack gardens loot our harvest you can still smell the stink of their fast food breaths

5

she swallows the last dark red wine from glass chases it with ice water local jazz trio begins to play as bar fills with more people she decides to walk home one foot in front of other wonders who taught her how to walk how many times did she fall she laughs to herself

Tucson square dance

TPD 10-18 unconfirmed data report

7 post-University of Arizona female graduates go to Cactus Moon for several drinks and dancing then drive to Bashful Bandit for more drinks and dancing 2 women get into scuffle victim Brittany Garner female 23 years of age race #5 (Native American, Eskimo, Middle -Eastern, Other) 5’ 2” long black hair cut-off blue jean shorts clingy light blue top falls hits head on side of bar dies of fatal blow to skull forensics report crushed occipital lobe assailant Stacy Won female 31 years of age race #4 (Asian) 5’6” black jeans black leather jacket red helmet Honda motorcycle still at large

witness accounts

Jess Delaney female 33 years of age race #2 (White) 6’ tight black pencil skirt white sleeveless undershirt no bra 3” heels blond ponytail “that squirting little **** deserves everything she got she lied told Stacy i’m a ***** i never cheated on Brittany i don’t understand we were all having a good time getting buzzed and dancing we should never have left Cactus Moon **** Kerrie thought some biker dude might be hanging around the Bandit hell maybe the Bandit was a biker bar once but now it’s just a college sink hole full of drunken frat boys when Monique flashed a little *** they went crazy cheering and buying us shots it just got out of hand never should have happened the way it happened Stacy didn’t mean to **** Brittany it’s ****** up i want to go home please let me go home”

Sabrina Starn female 29 years of age race #2 (White) 5’8” trendy corporate gray suit black pumps red shoulder length hair “i have to be at work at 8 AM Stacy was drunk out of control she gets crazy when she drinks Brittany was trash talking pushing all Stacy’s buttons then Stacy accused Brittany of sleeping with Monique and all hell broke loose i didn’t see what happened i was in the powder room it’s a terrible tragedy unfortunate accident can i please be released i need to sleep this is madness”

Kerrie Angeles female 27 years of age race #1 (Hispanic) 5’ 6” black pants white shirt black hair cut stylishly short silver crucifix around neck red fingernails “when we got to the Bashful Bandit i was ***** soaking between my legs thinking about a cowgirl at Cactus Moon ready to **** anyone i saw fantasized pulling a train with those frat boys Monique had been kind of quiet at Cactus Moon but when we got to the Bashful Bandit she lit up dancing wild unbuttoning her top jacket Sabrina went to the ladies room to snort coke with biker dude Kerrie wanted but he wasn’t into her then Brittany started saying crazy stuff accusing Stacy of stealing Monique from Jess Jessie goes through women heartlessly she doesn’t give a **** about Monique Jessie knows if she wants Monique back she can simply fiddle a finger my guess is Stacy is half way to Argentina she never meant to **** Brittany i’m going to miss her real bad she was a good kid”

Ann Skyler female 28 years of age race  #2 (White) 4’ 11’’ green white red Mexican peasant skirt black t-shirt black high-tops hair in messy bun “i’m confused i saw them dancing laughing grinding up against each other Rage Against the Machine came on then Nine Inch Nails the room felt quaking dizzy claustrophobic then they were pushing each other shoving yelling frat boys cheering the next thing i knew Brittany was supine on the floor blood pouring out maybe she just slipped hit her head i don’t know what to think i feel real sad confused sick to my stomach scared”

Monique Smithson female 24 years of age race # 3 (Black) 5’ 9” blue jeans jean jacket cowboy boots nose ring braided pigtails “Stacy had it in for Brittany from the start i saw it in her eyes at Cactus Moon she made several clever toxic remarks they snapped at each other i never thought it would escalate to ****** poor sweet Brittany was always so susceptible i was looking down adjusting my jeans over my boots when it happened i heard felt a big thump glanced up Brittany was lying there lifeless blood spilling everywhere Stacy ran out fast i heard her bike engine take off in a hurry”

Rodeo Drive Tucson

matt’s hats tom’s tools & tobacco lou’s liquors fred’s beds frank’s planks bill’s drills jane’s drains & panes chuck’s check cashing cheryl’s barrels hank’s tanks tina’s trucks & tractors walt’s asphalt sean’s pawn rick’s rifles mom’s guns terry’s tires charlie’s harleys rhonda’s hondas jim’s rims art’s parts gus’s gasoline mike’s bikes frank’s feed gwen’s pens ann’s cans nancy’s nursery joes‘s clothes jess’s dresses bert’s skirts steve’s sleeves paul’s shawls michelle’s shells & bells al’s pails & snails sam’s hams & jams patty’s pancakes phil’s chili don’s donuts betty’s spaghetti bob’s burgers alycia’s quiches jean’s beans jerry’s berries anna’s bananas andy’s candies cathy’s taffies tony’s ponies roy’s toys kim’s whims marty’s parties jill’s pills rick’s tricks alice’s palace debbie’s disposal dave’s graves

Quinta Waltz de Tucson

she is definitely displeased profoundly disappointed in her latest literary efforts she dreams aches to create deeper discourse higher insight more thoughtful philosophical inquiries about life’s challenges beauty a better world overpowering love inspiration instead she writes paperback television trash stupid inadequate answers to solemn questions she wonders if she is too scratched dented to find love her ******* are definitely changing she is deeply disturbed not ready for menopause too young for menopause she wants to remain a fertile woman with smooth skin wet ******

2

her neighbor Leslie awoke to horrible morning Leslie’s 6 chickens were assaulted overnight precious Mabel dragged off feathers everywhere trail down the street other hens cowering slumped together with wilted necks 3 of them with puncture wounds Leslie carried them one by one inside washed their wounds hugged them cried who did this terrible act a neglected abusive neighborhood cat or some desert predator why didn’t Leslie wake to sounds of savage marauding now this creature knows hen’s whereabouts when will it return for more massacre what modifications need to be enforced to ensure their coup before nightfall

3

she wants to remain a hen keep producing eggs does not want is not ready to enter the next **** stage of this **** existence it was fun being pretty for men inspiring them to say do whacky things she wants to remain a hen she is definitely displeased profoundly disappointed in her latest literary attempts “Tucson square dance” (self-referential) ****** bit about Americans came through here last night in “Tucson 3-step” ****** "Rodeo Drive" tepid perhaps the pinot noir lowered her standards everything is becoming nothing she cannot sleep tosses turns thrashes sheets in humid heat of her lonesome bed is she is too scratched dented to find love she worries for Leslie

4

tomorrow is another day they say the rain will come last year’s monsoon never came the baking sun smothered her garden died one by one sleepless she will miss tomorrow’s pilates class the infrequent delightful chatty breakfast afterwards she dreams aches of deeper discourse higher insight with detached humor that only comes from keener intelligence more thoughtful philosophical inquiries about life’s challenges beauty a better world overpowering love inspiration she crossed the line tonight her ******* are definitely changing

Tucson 666

he decides to shave eighth to quarter inch length salt and pepper beard a.k.a. unshaven look he has worn for years and grow full mustache the whiskers on his upper lip are darker with sparse gray at first no one notices after weeks the mustache gradually fills evoking many contrasting remarks several women loath it several men admire it girl at grocery store suggests he grow Fu Manchu so she can tug on it shopgirl says he looks like Charlie Chaplin downstairs neighbor from Turkey explains most Turkish men traditionally wear mustaches he read mustaches masculinize and empower men especially men in authoritative positions he thinks back to the 1960’s when many hippie males grew mustaches then in the 70’s gay men fashioned mustaches then in the 80’s cops adopted mustaches he wonders why a swatch of hair beneath nose is so provoking examines his visage in mirror discerns the mustache confers a Pepé le Pew quality or European accent to his appearance he remembers when he was young hippie with many amorous episodes how his mustache preserved the scent of a woman but there are no women in his life for many years do post-menopausal women possess scent? he feels indecisive whether to retain it or be rid of it

2

she observes her figure in mirror thinks to herself maybe her ******* are not changing perhaps it’s all in her head she inspects the little lines forming near her eyelids studies her features for signs of aging hardly any silver strands in long brown hair she examines neck ******* arms elbows fingers tummy hips pelvic region thighs knees shins calves ankles feet detects subtle changes thinks to herself my ******* are possibly slightly changing turned 40 in March married briefly in late teens no children a 15 year old dog beginning to suffer veterinarian promises to warn her when the time comes she wonders why it is so difficult finding fitting mate men sleep with her several times then move on maybe she is not such a great lover perhaps she would be better if one of them stuck around perhaps she is a lesbian the whole ide

"I think I am more important than you"
suggested the hen to the very pink pig.
"Well, think on, I dont think that's true"
snorted the pig, "you're small, I'm big.

"Size does not come into the equation"
declared the hen, standing her ground.
"You are being a bit brave now you mention"
grunted the pig sniffing underground.

"She's got a flaming cheek" thought the pig
"telling me she's more important, good grief".
The pig was more than a little put out.
"Since when was she the little chief".

Her snout got apparently stuck deep in the mud
The more she pulled, the deeper it went.
The air around her became blue, not very good
So deep in fact she couldn't now possibly comment.

The hen saw her opportunity to retaliate
and finally stick the knife in as it were.
wandering over to the pig to interrogate
she thought there is trouble here to stir.

"Think you are smarter than me do you"
It's not me that's got ones nose in the mud."
"I don't sink lower than that, I'm no cuckoo,
I'm better than you, is that understood."

This made the pig fly into an instant rage
I say fly, she was about six inches under by now.
The hen giggled on the way back to the cage
leaving one fit-to-burst, mad, angry sow.

The more the pig struggled, the more she became stuck
Her mind having murderous thoughts about the hen.
Flipping through the pages of "how to stay calm" book
Counting to five, seeing red, and counting to one again.

"When I wriggle free I'll set that bird straight
sniffing inhaling a shed load of stinky wet earth.
That **** bird will await her fate.
The pig pulled for all she was worth.

She aparently catapulted hersef over the hen house
and fell flat on top of a surprised and dazed fox.
Underneath which crawled a thankful to be alive mouse
who was now staggering to hide behind a box.

So one shocked pig, one flattened fox, one lucky mouse
had faces on them to scare the average man.
The hen was dying with laughter by now
she hadn't noticed the butcher's van.

The other three did however and sort of hid a bit
peeping now and then to report what they could see
The butcher was seeing how many chickens he could fit
in a tiny space. The pig thought "I'm glad it's not me."


It is just a food chain.

this will make sense in the end, or at least along the way... a modern version of the Ruben's judgement of Paris, although if you watch the debate, the mediator already insinuates the "confusion": to my left or to my right, ha ha, left to right, right to left, 1st 3rd 2nd... that's putting it mildly, if i were Paris i'd have given the apple of knowing to Hera, queen of the goddesses... naomi wolf... beauty is in the eye of the beholder... and your phallus in the hand of... mhmm... softer than the flesh of an oyster at the end of the day... they did say once in times just after Pericles: make my inner as beautiful as my outer, and my outer as beautiful as my inner... then take art as not representing images: or the "shallow" arguments... any man would have given the apple to the intellectual Aphrodite (karen straughan)... we all know that antigone darling is Athena: who speaks so little you start to equate wisdom to be a distant synonym of needing courage to engage with a plebiscite crowd... oh don't give that prize to her: she'll probably tongue-tie herself and will never be able to speak into a microphone, the intellectual Aphrodite knows all too well the conundrum... it's the cougar attired in crimson that fuels the whole debate... she doesn't need to have inner beauty, you phallus is already shouting 'sir! yes sir!' at the drill sergeant anyways... you take Aphrodite as a paradoxical beauty, namely that of long conversations and not long interludes of ******* and baking cookies... you'll leave Aphrodite confused... i once heard an English motto: don't take for a wife a woman that's too attractive... that wasn't intended to be within the bias of intellect, i mean a beautiful woman within the bias of being able to manage a harem of 72 male virgins... well **** yeah, artists leave clues, whether knowing or unknowing... they're working from triangles, poets end up writing from Δ, they obscure textures and antonyms of what appears to be monochromatic, we say: red, crimson, burgundy in x-ray confines... the point being: there's no intellectual debate to be had with someone representative metaphorically or not of Hera... you can't have a Parisian fashion week catwalk where you find dehydrated beauty on the outside and an anorexic ego on the inside... what you find in Hera is a volume (voluptuousness) on the inside, within which there's a leech libido that transgresses all demands for intellect... unless it's pistons-well-oiled orientated... please, read some Marquis... if you get an ******* having read a few of his works: you're qualified - or as i like to call it: neo-classical *******... ever masturbated over Bronzino's Venus, Cupid, Folly and Time? well, if you haven't i guess **** ******* and gang-banging is your outlet: mine are pictures of Aria Giovanni and Chloe Vevraire (googlewhack no. 3!): Chloe Vevrier... but if you're never done the Odysseus pokes fun at Polyphemus... yep: the ghost hand: nobody!


you know, you can cram a lot into a 30 hour "day",
which results in the complete erosion
for the capacity to dream afterwards,
to actually work from the unconscious and create
a subconscious medium vector that connects
to points of consciousness: 30+ hours awake,
however many hours asleep, and then awake again
for another 30+ "day" to digest...
the classical definition of the subconscious, in theory,
is that you get plenty of sleep,
and it's a bit like that schematic A x B (algebraic)
A knows x     and B knows x...
   something mutual acknowledgment
via the same schematic but
A knows x, B knows x,
A knows that B knows x,
A knows that B knows that A knows x,
   which is all very Aristotelian to be frank,
it's this hyperlogic of having to acquire
great technological feats and reduce such
complexities to cat-videos on the internet as
the Egyptian partake in the genius that actually
made it possible... the slogan goes
Moses, you fool! said Nefertiti...
    so B knows x and knows that A knows x
and knows that A knows that B knows x
and B knows it's not necessarily anywhere
alphabetically less, even though the French said
a, b, c... which was very imperial of them,
that's the imperial version of what the mathematical
imperialism proved with the English inches, miles
and furlongs... but in this French case of imperialism
it wasn't a e i o u, b c d f g h j...
            that's what 30 hours awake does to you,
you wouldn't think of alcohol as a party drink,
a social barrier deconstruct... after 30 hours
you're hoping to meet Vladimir Klitschko on your
way to bed... aye pleasing Cossack, give us a
smacker goodnight... one glove it filled with
whiskey, the other with naproxen and amitriptyline...
boom! k.o. snooze, baby:
you gotta love buddhist honesty...
at least you get to see the bright side of life...
  and if people start thinking that Kant was the harbinger
of ill fate... you obviously haven't met a necromancer...
it was only von Kleist for ****'s sake!
       and he had the American option of a suicide
pact with a terminally ill woman and a bullet from
a pistol in a ditch... you can't get more romantic than that...
and there i was, mid-afternoon, having done a few of
the household chores: the washing, the ironing and
cooking a two-course meal while my mother did
the taxes (seems only mothers understand their sons
these days... women my age?
   ever see David Attenborough describe Emperor
penguins? money was invented for women,
because it brokered the end of the brotherhood of man,
we became famished by feminine needs
and have reduced inherent sports in us (hunting)
to sledgehammer bashing entertainment...
i'm the "drunk" that would rather watch ten hours
worth of ping-pong that tennis...
    i don't know why they resurrect the Olympics
every four years, have a **** coverage of it anyway
and then go back to that Glaswegian diet
of deep-fried pizza and haggis... and i hope to never know,
maybe Sepp Blatter knows...
but that's 30 hours of being awake, and only not
able to relax, by writing...
                 you wouldn't see this sort of "abuse" of
alcohol anywhere in the world...
the Soviet sleep experiment is actually not that silly...
too much sleep can also make you feel the minutes
upon your wake as if you've been stung by a bee...
three of my all time favourite songs?
the stone roses'* i wanna be adored,
    chromatics' cherry,
and finally: i can be forgiven for having missed this,
i got into them seriously with the album aufheben
and didn't really move anywhere else,
the dandy warhol effect got me...
but this song out of obscurity, 20th century technology
translated into mp3 and then onto c.d. and then
back into mp3... a song from an album that doesn't
even appear on their discography...
the brian jonestown massacre's pol ***'s pleasure penthouse,
the song in question? fingertips.
so there's that three...
      but **** on me, i half expected android (2015)
to be like ex_machina (whatever year that was)...
same topic... what the difference between android
cyborg and robot?
                                  aren't robots the proper a.i.?
as in: in production, the thing that's not hand-crafted
is artificially crafted, because it is crafted to a large yield
of a product? isn't that so? i can't distinguish (as of yet)
the difference between android and cyborg, i guess
as a Latin man (a - z user) i have to condescend the Grecian
pompousness of demeaning Hebrews (original anti-semitism
originated in Greece, not Rome, the Romans gave
the Jews not elaborate architectural schemes to abide by
in honour of Octavian, but the supposed pride in Greek
thought, undermined what later science would provide
a Latin man with, given the translation of יחֵוָחֵ,
indeed variables... i once wrote a piece about
the two Adams... namely how אָ (alef)
and עַ (ayin) are prominent letters among consonants,
but no vowel kindred of Eve is equal...
or how Eve is covered in both mainstream Islam
and orthodox Judaism... and Christianity is
a Rastafarian dream for more jerky reggae reggae...
they never sing down with Rome, judgement upon
Rome... they always sing about Babylon...
well, polytheistic or poly-schismatic,
it's all Hindu from hereon in - apart from that
here's a very tiny heresy... is that yod he vav he
or is it yod he vav het?
         there is a difference, afterall:
he (ה)        and het (חֵ) obviously differ... oh!
xet!                   god this garden is a mess,
               i guess the fruit of knowing good from evil
was intended to say: till the land, deforest,
learn agriculture... that's good, the **** you do to each
other... well: that's hardly a tonne of grain...
but they so alike though, even when you apply a noun
to these two symbols!
  could have said he xet but instead it's known as he het:
no wonder the Hittites came along for a curious look...
mind you, had not a prominent Roman, a centurion,
asked for help... we'd be prudish in runic from the northern
invaders... so thankfully no one within the Roman confines
of encoding sounds didn't have the bright spark idea
of looking at the very tiny little island of Israel and that
four lettered word and how it became known
to say o = omicron, ε = epsilon and γ = gamma,
   and cutting those things apart leaving only letter
having done plastic surgery on the noun that denotes the
letter that's denoted by the symbol, rearranged it
and got the idea of εγo: ****** marvellous!
- this is not brian pallenberg's story about the pleasure
penthouse album...
but you know what really got me in those 30 hours:
day, night, day, night: a NHLF debate between
naomi wolf, karen straughan & antigone darling,
the part where karen makes the point that
once upon a time men who beat their wives
in Scotland were publicly whipped (dhaal,
straugan), and if they were beaten-up instead by
their wives, a plebiscite of good-wishers would turn up
at the house and apply the Freudian theory of
a castration to the man, bang pots and pans,
and then in public display him having to ride on a
donkey backwards, having to hold the donkey's tail
for stability...
     see that woman in red in that debate? a true political
man-eating beast of ***** readied in atom bomb
explosions... the one next to her isn't wearing any tights...
unconsciously you're thinking: i like her french freestyle
of not having shaved her legs... the smart one is wearing
jeans and she looks oh so desperate to get out...
    the discussion doesn't even enter the realm of ideas...
hen-picking is discussed... all poetry ascribed to language
is gone... is it politically correct to ascribe the sexuality
of female chickens with the word hen to women?
behind me in Blackpool stag-dos (dos? no does...
there isn't even a ******* spelling for that phrase...
hen-nights and the inflatable Juan)...
well obviously your mind is working out why you'd
**** the middle 'un right away... she doesn't say divorcee
which is so "unsexy" but say she's a mum twice,
a mum, a single mum... polly wants a *******...
her address is new york city? ******! i'm heading there,
right now! can a white guy use urban colloquial
in the suburbs on a piece of pixel paper, which he claims
is mere the cartesian extension of his thought
and disinterest in rhetorical skills? i hope so...
it's not like herr adolf wrote a disclaimer saying:
read this or a thousand volts up your ****!
that really was a constipated debate, plus the red was all
provocateur and peppered with "you know",
   and "i know absolutely nothing": there were no ideas
in the debate! whenever there was a chance to debate
ideas, the debate turned into a debated about words,
and what words to use: to simply brush aside any clinching
to a idea-debate... perhaps because feminism is
an ideology without any coherency of ideas, as stated
from the debate: a coherency of wording: and that better
be hen = an asexual chicken, rooster = an asexual chicken...
it's still a chicken kiev at the end of the day.
now? i might squeeze in another poem...
     but it would still be great to get any kind of analysis
comparing the movie android and ex_machina...
the only problem would be: both creators are men...
so that's gender-stereotyping already...
but hell! she gets to build a buggie that she directs with
a laser pen... so that's nice...
but i'd love a discussion on these two films,
given that the music in both films is very oomph!
thriller genre always had better music than horror...
horror music is too romantic... thriller music?
***** back-stabbing you whenever you think you're
going to get a comfortable 10 minute slot...
but it's there... aside from both robotic creators being male...
woman: ex_machina - out of the machinery of man
          ergo? deus, or woman as...
i actually have a problem with the word android...
the woman is a factor of playing the two men against
each other... the android actually find a mechanical
part of himself in the way the "human" talks to the woman,
while the "android" is prejudiced against the rigidity
of his ****** movement: unlike the "human" having
an intellectual rigidity... the woman plays the two against
each other... well, 30 hours no sleep...
  i'm doing the helter-skelter trying to throw ideas
by way of remembering the actual plot of the film...
this obviously adds nothing to the discussion:
meaning i probably gave away a "spoiler" -
but more the point, i need a refill and some fresh air
to breath, having farted into a leather chair for the past
hour.

Night sets,
The sun falls.
Moon and stars become uncovered.
A pink faced child crawls under the covers.
A cardboard book is clutched in soft bands.
A                           f
                       d          a
                   e                   r
               r                          m
                     c                b
                    u                 a
                    t                  r
                    e ­                n
looks innocent and careless.
Mother hen, baby calf, wiggly pig,
their  smiling faces send the child off to sleep.

That child remembers that story.
They remember the smiling faces of
mother hen, baby calf, wiggly pig.

That child is no long a child,
they no longer read that cardboard farm book.
They remember their childhood with that book,
they blur into one.
They see a barn just like the  
                             f
                       d          a
                   e                   r
               r                          m
                     c                b
                    u                 a
                    t                  r
                    e ­                n
just like the picture in the cardboard farm book.

They stop to revisit their childhood,
they stop to revisit their innocence,
they stop to revisit those smiling faces.


                             f
                       d          a
                   e                   r
               r                          m
                     c                b
                    u                 a
                    t                  r
                    e ­                n
is only a step away,
that no longer child pushes open the sun warmed door.
They except innocence,
they except those smiling faces,
but they did not see what they expected.

The innocence of their childhood was a lie,
there are no smiling faces here.

This is not the
                              f
                       d          a
                   e                   r
               r                          m
                     c                b
                    u                 a
                    t                  r
                    e ­                n
from their cardboard book,
from their childhood,
they blurred into one.

Mother hen is not smiling,
her beak is cut off with a hot blade, she cannot move her wings in her cage,
her daughters are taken to live her fate,
her sons are ground alive to be feed to her,
mother hen is not smiling.

Baby calf is not smiling,
baby calf is just born,
then taken by a man in blood soaked boots,
baby calf watches helpless as their mother cries,
as their mother chews the metal bars,
as their mother fights the electric shocks.
Baby calf does not know their father,
neither does their mother.
Baby calf is put in a metal cage,
they will live a year or two,
baby calf will not move,
that is the point of veal.
Baby calf is not smiling.

Wiggly pig is not smiling,
wiggly pig can only wiggle,
only enough so her babies can drink her milk,
she cannot reach them though.
Wiggly pig will watch her babies grow,
but beyond what is natural,
beyond what their hearts can handle,
but there is a big demand for bacon.
Wiggly pig can see her babies hung from their hooves,
and slit open alive,
but wiggly pig can only wiggle.
Wiggly pig is not smiling.

That                     f
                       d          a
                   e                   r
               r                          m
                     c                b
                    u                 a
                    t                  r
                    e ­                n
is not as innocent as the cardboard farm book.
That farm in the book,
it was a lie,
but that cardboard farm book was their childhood right?
They blur into one.
Their childhood was a lie.

That no longer child lived a lie,
because power wanted them to only see the smiling faces,
they wanted them to believe that farm in the book
to be true,
not the lie that really is.
Power took away their innocence of childhood.
Power took away babies from their mothers.
Power took away my smile.
The                      f
                       d          a
                   e                   r
               r                          m
                     c                b
                    u                 a
                    t                  r
                    e ­                n
from my child no longer sends me off to sleep.
Instead it keeps me awake with the image of a farm,
not the farm in the cardboard book though,
a farm not filled with smiling animals,
a farm filled with cries, blood, sorrow, pain, horror, death.
A farm that is a lie.

They Bake A Cake
They asked if they could dabble in a bit of cooking.
She gulped said her prayers and counted to ten
They asked if they could steal the eggs while the hen wasn’t looking
So without delay and morals they whipped them away from the hen.
They were in a flap so that most of his stuff landed on the floor.
They had found the good butter and thick double cream.
Which apparently smeared everywhere including the door
While she  was relaxing and in a huge daydream.
She was in a good mood and was listening to Elgin
Barely keeping awake and had nodded off again.
They were searching the saucepan cupboard looking for a cake tin
When the door sprang open and in marched the old hen.
She shouted, they froze and she began to shake
They were struggling to find the right words to say.
They offered her some nice tea and a fairy cake
And they were devising a plan to get away.
They turned tables and said she wanted to bake
Thought that she could have bought the eggs instead
She said that there had been a bit of a mistake
But they went bright red and held their heads.
The hen ordered that her precious eggs be put back
And was disappointed they had taken them in the first place
They were discussing who should put them back
And the guilt began to show on each and every face
She said they were flippant and not thought it through
They were all gripping to death their handkerchieves
Now it seems they all thought the hen had gone cuckoo
But one stepped forward and said he was the thief.
Later on they both said they would go and see Mrs Hen
On arrival he dropped onto his knees.
The rest were wondering what their friend was up to again
and heard him begging forgiveness for stealing please!
“Well, you are a turncoat, what’s come over you”
They although that his situation is now rather bleak
and all gave advice what he could do
which was the topic of conversation for the rest of the week!

A white hen sitting
  On white eggs three:
Next, three speckled chickens
  As plump as plump can be.

An owl, and a hawk,
  And a bat come to see:
But chicks beneath their mother's wing
  Squat safe as safe can be.

fischers rap
on a hot tin roof
bristol creek pools
over rock and seed
english wolfhound (and the barkbuster)
stroll pine lane
vibrant colors
of a cool spring
in cob yellow and
forest green

field mice squander
in cotton wind
goats and ferret
hold seven hour trim
raven and ****
meddle and forage (on a splendid fiaker goulash!)
crickets and frogs
hidden
in swollen grey logs

creepers fill the
cut stone walls
coy wolf high
on a frayed white rope
eagles perched
at trudy’s bend
catamounts laze
on a snow base cedar
(pared arbutus bent  
through a failed ground rock)

brush spider spins
a timely web
brown bears fumble
at the spirit jamboree
quizzical squirrels
crack their nuts
as pillow clouds float
over telegraph trail

12 point dances
on talus and scree
hen hawks float
in a big hard sun
clydesdale and coach
trot copper smith road
(glancing down
on finch and the warbler
whistling through
colander row)

lavender fills
the peat soil box
mountain cats
guard the heavenly gates
black eyed ridge
is wide and open
the country squire hails
this fruitful land

ϖ↑∅⊕↓☺↨☼♀


The dawn is nigh at hand. The clouds
begin to lift above the grange.
Arise, O Phoebus, bless the crowds—
let poultry roam the range.

I’ll bind a broom of gathered hay
to sweep the hen-house free of hate.
Let roosters hail the crack of day
and chicks with ***** tempt fate.

A fractured self and a challenge hurled:
they left the shell, but found it rough
because our bigoted barnyard world
cannot get queer enough fast enough.

They flutter through the *******’s farm
subverting gender’s useless role.
We feel their pain, and mean no harm—
yet question this progressive goal.

They cluck a brand-new barnyard song:
Gender Identity Obsolete!
(As long as they claim God hatched them wrong,
biology signals their defeat.)

While poultry scratches rhymes for “hen”
and chicks are combing crests for *****
let’s ring the dinner bell and then
we’ll synchronize the global clocks.

Let Mankind’s unmanned race delight
at Jesus’ gender-free return.
Soon Africa shall see the light
and Araby’s sun more brightly burn.

Then dawn shall break o’er Russian plains
to liberate the Tartar races;
loose their limbs from Gender’s chains
to stride with polymorphous paces.

China too, and Southeast Asia
swift shall follow in their train
celebrating ***-aphasia
joining in the West’s refrain.

Hindu multitudes will rise
to vanquish gender, caste aside
and shake the slumber from their eyes
with metro-ambisexual pride.

Carib isles, with Latin kingdoms
From the tropics to the mountains
Shall announce they too are Wisdom’s,
drinking from de-gendered fountains.

Juveniles, raised to simply be
shall pioneer new modes of life;
explore horizons happily
set free from biologic strife.

Then shall our earth, in glad array
***** dirt upon Tradition’s tomb;
unshackled from that dark dismay
to grieve—but nevermore exhume.

Alas, the global dreams descend.
We’re back in the barnyard, gender-queer…
where hens have ***** and eggshells bend
transcending Nature’s reign of fear.

The henhouse still votes hetero;
their eggless chickens cluck for rights
biologists, ex utero
are born to further futile flights.

(Because I was almost one of them
I’ve earned the right to make fun of them.
Time alone will tell if the trend
remains coherent to the end.)

Ode to a Hen
A Prose by Corset

Just yesterday I contemplated
never to pick up a pen again,
then I realized,
In a different reality
I could be a hen,
and I began imagining life
as a chicken.

A huge **** would wake me
long before the frost burned off,
climb on my back
pull out my neck feathers
make me birth a football
every **** day,
only to have cold human hands
steal it away while it's warming,
frying up my unborn child
and having it for breakfast.

Inevitably, a fox will show up
during the dead of night and
steal my clucking sisters,
but never
the **** bird that wakes me
before the sun rise; and I
having no sleep at all;
will birth another football.

now, I feel better,

don't you?

the fat  black hen
that looked
a symbol of something
hidden, one can't
exactly pin point what;
ubiquitous,
around the courtyard,
busy racking up trash
for something to peck at,
vanished at the moment
it was in high demand.
Who would think
it could be perfidious
like this?
When the oracle demanded
fresh blood of a black hen,
as sacrifice for a dark divinity,
none could guess
it would vanish in to thin air!
Some blame went to foxes,
on the prowl,
some thought
the  black magic men
who seeks to gain
powers supernatural,
by spilling blood
of hens and civet cats
are responsible for this
let down!

Don’t focus on your problems
Or cry “The Sky is Falling”
Like startled Chicken Little
And all your work be stalling

You can focus on your tasks
Like the Little Red Hen chose
For her daily work and effort
Will build her wealth - she knows

Chicken Little authored fear
In those with whom she spoke
Causing all to leave their work
As their confidence she broke

The Red Hen on the other hand
Gave example to her friends
And if they didn’t help this time
She will win them in the end

So choose to be a strong Red Hen
With diligence - and vision too
And do not let “Chicken Littles”
Attempt to put their fears in you

This English Thames is holier far than Rome,
Those harebells like a sudden flush of sea
Breaking across the woodland, with the foam
Of meadow-sweet and white anemone
To fleck their blue waves,—God is likelier there
Than hidden in that crystal-hearted star the pale monks bear!

Those violet-gleaming butterflies that take
Yon creamy lily for their pavilion
Are monsignores, and where the rushes shake
A lazy pike lies basking in the sun,
His eyes half shut,—he is some mitred old
Bishop in partibus! look at those gaudy scales all green and gold.

The wind the restless prisoner of the trees
Does well for Palaestrina, one would say
The mighty master’s hands were on the keys
Of the Maria *****, which they play
When early on some sapphire Easter morn
In a high litter red as blood or sin the Pope is borne

From his dark House out to the Balcony
Above the bronze gates and the crowded square,
Whose very fountains seem for ecstasy
To toss their silver lances in the air,
And stretching out weak hands to East and West
In vain sends peace to peaceless lands, to restless nations rest.

Is not yon lingering orange after-glow
That stays to vex the moon more fair than all
Rome’s lordliest pageants! strange, a year ago
I knelt before some crimson Cardinal
Who bare the Host across the Esquiline,
And now—those common poppies in the wheat seem twice as fine.

The blue-green beanfields yonder, tremulous
With the last shower, sweeter perfume bring
Through this cool evening than the odorous
Flame-jewelled censers the young deacons swing,
When the grey priest unlocks the curtained shrine,
And makes God’s body from the common fruit of corn and vine.

Poor Fra Giovanni bawling at the mass
Were out of tune now, for a small brown bird
Sings overhead, and through the long cool grass
I see that throbbing throat which once I heard
On starlit hills of flower-starred Arcady,
Once where the white and crescent sand of Salamis meets sea.

Sweet is the swallow twittering on the eaves
At daybreak, when the mower whets his scythe,
And stock-doves murmur, and the milkmaid leaves
Her little lonely bed, and carols blithe
To see the heavy-lowing cattle wait
Stretching their huge and dripping mouths across the farmyard gate.

And sweet the hops upon the Kentish leas,
And sweet the wind that lifts the new-mown hay,
And sweet the fretful swarms of grumbling bees
That round and round the linden blossoms play;
And sweet the heifer breathing in the stall,
And the green bursting figs that hang upon the red-brick wall,

And sweet to hear the cuckoo mock the spring
While the last violet loiters by the well,
And sweet to hear the shepherd Daphnis sing
The song of Linus through a sunny dell
Of warm Arcadia where the corn is gold
And the slight lithe-limbed reapers dance about the wattled fold.

And sweet with young Lycoris to recline
In some Illyrian valley far away,
Where canopied on herbs amaracine
We too might waste the summer-tranced day
Matching our reeds in sportive rivalry,
While far beneath us frets the troubled purple of the sea.

But sweeter far if silver-sandalled foot
Of some long-hidden God should ever tread
The Nuneham meadows, if with reeded flute
Pressed to his lips some Faun might raise his head
By the green water-flags, ah! sweet indeed
To see the heavenly herdsman call his white-fleeced flock to feed.

Then sing to me thou tuneful chorister,
Though what thou sing’st be thine own requiem!
Tell me thy tale thou hapless chronicler
Of thine own tragedies! do not contemn
These unfamiliar haunts, this English field,
For many a lovely coronal our northern isle can yield

Which Grecian meadows know not, many a rose
Which all day long in vales AEolian
A lad might seek in vain for over-grows
Our hedges like a wanton courtesan
Unthrifty of its beauty; lilies too
Ilissos never mirrored star our streams, and cockles blue

Dot the green wheat which, though they are the signs
For swallows going south, would never spread
Their azure tents between the Attic vines;
Even that little **** of ragged red,
Which bids the robin pipe, in Arcady
Would be a trespasser, and many an unsung elegy

Sleeps in the reeds that fringe our winding Thames
Which to awake were sweeter ravishment
Than ever Syrinx wept for; diadems
Of brown bee-studded orchids which were meant
For Cytheraea’s brows are hidden here
Unknown to Cytheraea, and by yonder pasturing steer

There is a tiny yellow daffodil,
The butterfly can see it from afar,
Although one summer evening’s dew could fill
Its little cup twice over ere the star
Had called the lazy shepherd to his fold
And be no prodigal; each leaf is flecked with spotted gold

As if Jove’s gorgeous leman Danae
Hot from his gilded arms had stooped to kiss
The trembling petals, or young Mercury
Low-flying to the dusky ford of Dis
Had with one feather of his pinions
Just brushed them! the slight stem which bears the burden of its suns

Is hardly thicker than the gossamer,
Or poor Arachne’s silver tapestry,—
Men say it bloomed upon the sepulchre
Of One I sometime worshipped, but to me
It seems to bring diviner memories
Of faun-loved Heliconian glades and blue nymph-haunted seas,

Of an untrodden vale at Tempe where
On the clear river’s marge Narcissus lies,
The tangle of the forest in his hair,
The silence of the woodland in his eyes,
Wooing that drifting imagery which is
No sooner kissed than broken; memories of Salmacis

Who is not boy nor girl and yet is both,
Fed by two fires and unsatisfied
Through their excess, each passion being loth
For love’s own sake to leave the other’s side
Yet killing love by staying; memories
Of Oreads peeping through the leaves of silent moonlit trees,

Of lonely Ariadne on the wharf
At Naxos, when she saw the treacherous crew
Far out at sea, and waved her crimson scarf
And called false Theseus back again nor knew
That Dionysos on an amber pard
Was close behind her; memories of what Maeonia’s bard

With sightless eyes beheld, the wall of Troy,
Queen Helen lying in the ivory room,
And at her side an amorous red-lipped boy
Trimming with dainty hand his helmet’s plume,
And far away the moil, the shout, the groan,
As Hector shielded off the spear and Ajax hurled the stone;

Of winged Perseus with his flawless sword
Cleaving the snaky tresses of the witch,
And all those tales imperishably stored
In little Grecian urns, freightage more rich
Than any gaudy galleon of Spain
Bare from the Indies ever! these at least bring back again,

For well I know they are not dead at all,
The ancient Gods of Grecian poesy:
They are asleep, and when they hear thee call
Will wake and think ‘t is very Thessaly,
This Thames the Daulian waters, this cool glade
The yellow-irised mead where once young Itys laughed and played.

If it was thou dear jasmine-cradled bird
Who from the leafy stillness of thy throne
Sang to the wondrous boy, until he heard
The horn of Atalanta faintly blown
Across the Cumnor hills, and wandering
Through Bagley wood at evening found the Attic poets’ spring,—

Ah! tiny sober-suited advocate
That pleadest for the moon against the day!
If thou didst make the shepherd seek his mate
On that sweet questing, when Proserpina
Forgot it was not Sicily and leant
Across the mossy Sandford stile in ravished wonderment,—

Light-winged and bright-eyed miracle of the wood!
If ever thou didst soothe with melody
One of that little clan, that brotherhood
Which loved the morning-star of Tuscany
More than the perfect sun of Raphael
And is immortal, sing to me! for I too love thee well.

Sing on! sing on! let the dull world grow young,
Let elemental things take form again,
And the old shapes of Beauty walk among
The simple garths and open crofts, as when
The son of Leto bare the willow rod,
And the soft sheep and shaggy goats followed the boyish God.

Sing on! sing on! and Bacchus will be here
Astride upon his gorgeous Indian throne,
And over whimpering tigers shake the spear
With yellow ivy crowned and gummy cone,
While at his side the wanton Bassarid
Will throw the lion by the mane and catch the mountain kid!

Sing on! and I will wear the leopard skin,
And steal the mooned wings of Ashtaroth,
Upon whose icy chariot we could win
Cithaeron in an hour ere the froth
Has over-brimmed the wine-vat or the Faun
Ceased from the treading! ay, before the flickering lamp of dawn

Has scared the hooting owlet to its nest,
And warned the bat to close its filmy vans,
Some Maenad girl with vine-leaves on her breast
Will filch their beech-nuts from the sleeping Pans
So softly that the little nested thrush
Will never wake, and then with shrilly laugh and leap will rush

Down the green valley where the fallen dew
Lies thick beneath the elm and count her store,
Till the brown Satyrs in a jolly crew
Trample the loosestrife down along the shore,
And where their horned master sits in state
Bring strawberries and bloomy plums upon a wicker crate!

Sing on! and soon with passion-wearied face
Through the cool leaves Apollo’s lad will come,
The Tyrian prince his bristled boar will chase
Adown the chestnut-copses all a-bloom,
And ivory-limbed, grey-eyed, with look of pride,
After yon velvet-coated deer the ****** maid will ride.

Sing on! and I the dying boy will see
Stain with his purple blood the waxen bell
That overweighs the jacinth, and to me
The wretched Cyprian her woe will tell,
And I will kiss her mouth and streaming eyes,
And lead her to the myrtle-hidden grove where Adon lies!

Cry out aloud on Itys! memory
That foster-brother of remorse and pain
Drops poison in mine ear,—O to be free,
To burn one’s old ships! and to launch again
Into the white-plumed battle of the waves
And fight old Proteus for the spoil of coral-flowered caves!

O for Medea with her poppied spell!
O for the secret of the Colchian shrine!
O for one leaf of that pale asphodel
Which binds the tired brows of Proserpine,
And sheds such wondrous dews at eve that she
Dreams of the fields of Enna, by the far Sicilian sea,

Where oft the golden-girdled bee she chased
From lily to lily on the level mead,
Ere yet her sombre Lord had bid her taste
The deadly fruit of that pomegranate seed,
Ere the black steeds had harried her away
Down to the faint and flowerless land, the sick and sunless day.

O for one midnight and as paramour
The Venus of the little Melian farm!
O that some antique statue for one hour
Might wake to passion, and that I could charm
The Dawn at Florence from its dumb despair,
Mix with those mighty limbs and make that giant breast my lair!

Sing on! sing on!  I would be drunk with life,
Drunk with the trampled vintage of my youth,
I would forget the wearying wasted strife,
The riven veil, the Gorgon eyes of Truth,
The prayerless vigil and the cry for prayer,
The barren gifts, the lifted arms, the dull insensate air!

Sing on! sing on!  O feathered Niobe,
Thou canst make sorrow beautiful, and steal
From joy its sweetest music, not as we
Who by dead voiceless silence strive to heal
Our too untented wounds, and do but keep
Pain barricadoed in our hearts, and ****** pillowed sleep.

Sing louder yet, why must I still behold
The wan white face of that deserted Christ,
Whose bleeding hands my hands did once enfold,
Whose smitten lips my lips so oft have kissed,
And now in mute and marble misery
Sits in his lone dishonoured House and weeps, perchance for me?

O Memory cast down thy wreathed shell!
Break thy hoarse lute O sad Melpomene!
O Sorrow, Sorrow keep thy cloistered cell
Nor dim with tears this limpid Castaly!
Cease, Philomel, thou dost the forest wrong
To vex its sylvan quiet with such wild impassioned song!

Cease, cease, or if ‘t is anguish to be dumb
Take from the pastoral thrush her simpler air,
Whose jocund carelessness doth more become
This English woodland than thy keen despair,
Ah! cease and let the north wind bear thy lay
Back to the rocky hills of Thrace, the stormy Daulian bay.

A moment more, the startled leaves had stirred,
Endymion would have passed across the mead
Moonstruck with love, and this still Thames had heard
Pan plash and paddle groping for some reed
To lure from her blue cave that Naiad maid
Who for such piping listens half in joy and half afraid.

A moment more, the waking dove had cooed,
The silver daughter of the silver sea
With the fond gyves of clinging hands had wooed
Her wanton from the chase, and Dryope
Had ****** aside the branches of her oak
To see the ***** gold-haired lad rein in his snorting yoke.

A moment more, the trees had stooped to kiss
Pale Daphne just awakening from the swoon
Of tremulous laurels, lonely Salmacis
Had bared his barren beauty to the moon,
And through the vale with sad voluptuous smile
Antinous had wandered, the red lotus of the Nile

Down leaning from his black and clustering hair,
To shade those slumberous eyelids’ caverned bliss,
Or else on yonder grassy ***** with bare
High-tuniced limbs unravished Artemis
Had bade her hounds give tongue, and roused the deer
From his green ambuscade with shrill halloo and pricking spear.

Lie still, lie still, O passionate heart, lie still!
O Melancholy, fold thy raven wing!
O sobbing Dryad, from thy hollow hill
Come not with such despondent answering!
No more thou winged Marsyas complain,
Apollo loveth not to hear such troubled songs of pain!

It was a dream, the glade is tenantless,
No soft Ionian laughter moves the air,
The Thames creeps on in sluggish leadenness,
And from the copse left desolate and bare
Fled is young Bacchus with his revelry,
Yet still from Nuneham wood there comes that thrilling melody

So sad, that one might think a human heart
Brake in each separate note, a quality
Which music sometimes has, being the Art
Which is most nigh to tears and memory;
Poor mourning Philomel, what dost thou fear?
Thy sister doth not haunt these fields, Pandion is not here,

Here is no cruel Lord with murderous blade,
No woven web of ****** heraldries,
But mossy dells for roving comrades made,
Warm valleys where the tired student lies
With half-shut book, and many a winding walk
Where rustic lovers stray at eve in happy simple talk.

The harmless rabbit gambols with its young
Across the trampled towing-path, where late
A troop of laughing boys in jostling throng
Cheered with their noisy cries the racing eight;
The gossamer, with ravelled silver threads,
Works at its little loom, and from the dusky red-eaved sheds

Of the lone Farm a flickering light shines out
Where the swinked shepherd drives his bleating flock
Back to their wattled sheep-cotes, a faint shout
Comes from some Oxford boat at Sandford lock,
And starts the moor-hen from the sedgy rill,
And the dim lengthening shadows flit like swallows up the hill.

The heron passes homeward to the mere,
The blue mist creeps among the shivering trees,
Gold world by world the silent stars appear,
And like a blossom blown before the breeze
A white moon drifts across the shimmering sky,
Mute arbitress of all thy sad, thy rapturous threnody.

She does not heed thee, wherefore should she heed,
She knows Endymion is not far away;
’Tis I, ’tis I, whose soul is as the reed
Which has no message of its own to play,
So pipes another’s bidding, it is I,
Drifting with every wind on the wide sea of misery.

Ah! the brown bird has ceased:  one exquisite trill
About the sombre woodland seems to cling
Dying in music, else the air is still,
So still that one might hear the bat’s small wing
Wander and wheel above the pines, or tell
Each tiny dew-drop dripping from the bluebell’s brimming cell.

And far away across the lengthening wold,
Across the willowy flats and thickets brown,
Magdalen’s tall tower tipped with tremulous gold
Marks the long High Street of the little town,
And warns me to return; I must not wait,
Hark! ’Tis the curfew booming from the bell at Christ Church gate.

Sa aking lupang tinubuan
Na sinakop ng mga dayuhan noon pa man
Ang una'y mga espanyol na mananakop
Dala daw nila'y kristiyanismo
Upang ipakilala sa ating mga katutubo
Ngunit ang tanging hangarin pala'y manakop at gawing kolonyanismo
Kaya ilang daan taon tayong hawak ng mga ito
Ating mga katutubo walang nagawa kundi ang sumunod at magsawalang-kibo
May ilan ding nagsisipag aklas upang makalaya
Ngunit sa kalauna'y sila'y bigo sapagkat pawang malalakas at makapangyarihan silang mga nilalang
Nariyang si Gat. Jose Rizal na kinulong at binaril sa bagong-bayan
Na tinatawag na natin ngayong (LUNETA/RIZAL PARK)
At si Gat. Andres Bonifacio na hanggang ngayo'y hindi alam kung sino ang pumatay
Ang tanging alam natin sa kanya'y siya ang "Ang Ama ng himagsikan"
Sa kabilang banda'y hindi nagpatinag ang ating mga katutubo
Nagbuo ng mga samahan upang mapag-aralan kung kailan ang tamang panahon para lumaban
Kaya nung dumating na ang tamang panahon upang sila'y magsipag-aklas
Marami ang sa kanila'y naghimaksik upang ang kalayaa'y makamtan
Kaya noong taong Hunyo labing dalawa, isang libo't walong daan, siyam na pu't walo
Nakamtan ng ating mga katutubo ang kalayaan na kanilang pinaglalaban
Sa bahay ni Hen. Emilio Aguinaldo sa Kawit, Kabite
Kanyang iwinagayway ang ating watawat
Sagisag ito ng ating kalayaan sa kamay ng mga mananakop na espanyol
Sa mga nakalipas na taon, tayo'y naging malaya na
Ngunit, ano ba ang kahulugan ng isang malaya?
''Ito ay ang pag-gawa sa isang partikular na bagay ng walang humahadlang o kumokontra sayo at may kakayahan kang kumilos batay sa kung ano ang iyong gusto o nais''
Oo nga't malaya kang gawin ang iyong gusto
Subalit, labag naman ito sa karapatang pantao
At nakapapanakit ka na ng kapwa mo
Marami ang sa ati'y nakakalimot na sa mga paglapastangang ginawa sa ating mga katutubo
Marapat nating pagkatandaan na ang ating kalayaa'y utang natin sa ating mga bayaning nakipaglaban
At ang kalayaa'y dapat igawad sa lahat
Magkaroon ng pantay-pantay na karapatan ang bawat nilalang
Mapa mayaman o mahirap man
Mapa babae o lalaki man
Mapa bata o matanda man
Maging tunay sanang malaya tayong mga pilipino
Hindi lamang sa salita, kundi sa isip at sa ating mga gawa.

Wren

Who’s team is she on, the brown pawn?
Magical thinking and double-speed blinking can’t help me now
Standing tall, I pushed her to fall
Now I cry, sob and all

I laid her down like a lever
Lost last words, because I didn’t believe her
Took her out by my king and sword
Then masked the crime scene on on the board

But she was mine, right to her core!
She was my chance to regain my *****
Brown on the outside but I should have known better
I was playing the win/loose game, however









Karma caught me with it’s decree
Now I’m ******, and doomed is me
I should have asked what’s under her clothes
But I knocked her down and broke her nose

Regret is nothing but the wish to be free
Perhaps that’s why she came to me
In order to test where I stand and what I’d do
Maybe, just maybe, I’d need the upper hand over you

Hedging is for wussies so I bet my hen
Then I bent down beside her to find her name is Wren
I helped her back up to stand on her base
And told her I’m sorry right to her face







I walked away and thought to myself
Why only her, why nobody else?
Because if I were her I would have brought my whole squad
Could’ve stood a chance, for the love of God!

I compose myself to answer my question
She came alone because that was her intention
A lone brown pawn, in a checkered domain
Oh, I knocked her out, but she left me slain

I turn back around to touch Wren’s face
The brown mirage, in a black and white place
More brown than beige, and way darker than cream
Wren was fire, and looking at me!








My hen in the balance, I learn who I am
**** playing games, show skin if you can!
I lost my hen on my subsequent move
They took down my king, plus another few

It was a great game from the start, a match for the books
All ‘cause that pawn on the board with her looks
Brown on the outside, black if you squint
Real to the bone, if you get my drift

Now that i’m looking, her aura is green
Just like mine, captain of the the former reigning team
I thought I was white, now I know I was wrong
My skin is cream coloured, hers, you know, is brown









We have but one mini-conversation
While I try to decide if she’s Indian or Asian
I didnt take notes, but it went like this
Before she smiled and withheld her kiss  

I ask her “who is the black team? and why am I so angry?”
“I guess you just lost it” Wren said to me blankly
“Why did i loose it?” I asked in return
“Because your a bird, with lots to learn”

I rack my mind to know what she sees
Tigers and lions on a gold leash!
The sky with cherry kisses, flamingoes and geese
She sees the whole game before her, and each piece








I rack my mind to just know what I see
It’s only what I want to see and believe
I play a challenging game of monochrome
Instead of being like Wren and knowing my home

But back to my chess game, time to celebrate the opponent
The black team won, if you hadn’t noticed
I join the party and find Wren’s brothers there
First I see four, then three, then more pieces in pairs!

“Oh no, what now? how did this happen?” I yell
“I already lost, so it’s a bad day in a nutshell”
Wren gathered my hen as the blacks and browns cheered  
I stood by and waited, feeling all weird








In exchange for my hen she tried give me cash
I took offence, as if she called me white trash
But I needed the money, I gamble too much
So I left the party politely in a rush

I was already in search of my next game
When a moment of reasoning flashed through my brain
Wren was a pawn with no seat at the table
She was only looking for game to win if she’s able

Skin means nothing, brown black or cream
I slowly learn this as I reflect on Wren and her team
Sometimes I see her,  the pawn that I hurt
Brave as a knight and perched on a rook








When know what to do I’ll make my move
The miracle of chess is the chance to improve
I wonder if cardinals and bluebirds get along
And I wonder if they’d let a swan sing their songs

If one day I meet Wren again, face to face
I’ll invite her to my square, she can sit in my space
She may call me names, only fair I guess
Then I’ll challenge her to a game of chess

I cannot watch people cry,
I cannot watch them suffer as I know I have suffered,
Begging the world to have mercy on my sanity.
With their tears falling like the
The torrential downpour that nobody wants
Onto the table their head lies upon.
I cannot ignore these salty drops
That stain faces red and puffy
Because I know that rubbing your eyes only makes it worse.
I cannot help but go over, awkward but sincere,
And ask quietly, “Are you alright?”
While hoping that I’m not coming off as nosy and bizarre.

If my comforts are not rejected
I may end the conversation with your tears on my shirt
And your head in the crook of my neck.
My fingers gliding against your hair,
My arms rocking you gently
As a child is rocked by their mother.
I suppose that’s what I am then,
The mother hen worrying for her chicks
As they struggle to survive in a cruel existence.
Most of the time I don’t mind,
I even enjoy comforting my chicks
Because this gives me purpose.

Sometimes, not often,
I have to stop and wonder,
Who will be my mother?

Among the orchard weeds, from every search,
Snugly and sure, the old hen’s nest is made,
Who cackles every morning from her perch
To tell the servant girl new eggs are laid;
Who lays her washing by, and far and near
Goes seeking all about from day to day,
And stung with nettles tramples everywhere;
But still the cackling pullet lays away.
The boy on Sundays goes the stack to pull
In hopes to find her there, but naught is seen,
And takes his hat and thinks to find it full,
She’s laid so long so many might have been.
But naught is found and all is given o’er
Till the young brood come chirping to the door.

thoughts these are
of fox and hen..
predator and protector..
these are images of
our inner separation
the suffering we endure
as we identify with
these old beliefs..

we suffer as we search
for a restoration which
we know is near..
the fox and hen
wait to be relieved
as the agents of
our long delusion..
which is promised
with the recognition
of a new identity
bathed in grace...

In that age of aged seasons
predating our own's four-square rhyme,
a reasonable jape was hatched
beaked but hairy to a guilt-free Hen
whose humors ran with jaw-slackening
creatures, foul and not at all bird-like.

Soon after its mixed-up cracking,
two prattle-prone Wrens hopped to spread
rumors of an un-chickity chick
and the ungodly origins
of fatherless yowls. Their tittered jeers
found welcome ears, and Mother Hen preened
her babe chased by merciless guffaws.

This Hen was not one to lay
down meekly, and a never stony
tongue rolled out its antidote myth
to a pair of gabby Gulls: "My child
may look not-much, but he's divine
engendered and miraculous born.
Sure he's messy, ah, but you'll see
he'll grow to be, much-much-more than
any feathery tykes your like did bear."

She clucked it so seriously,
who were they to doubt her? The plumed
sniggering ceased. But before another
grateful day could dawn in a hallelujah
glare of right angles, out pecking
up a snack, Mother made eye
contact with an unfortunate Fate
brandishing his lucky-gripped ax.

What of her wonder-why, joke of a boy?
Left alone at straw-pocket home,
waiting for his Hen to return,
he starved then decayed to hollow bones,
and was never thought of again.

.
        A dandelion-yellow chick
        Lately has lost her smooth white cap
        With edges chipped out tap by tap
And peck by peck and tick by tick.

        She moves with careful steps between
        Her mother's not-too-careful strides,
        And with a careless foot collides,
And falls (kerplunk!) sans any teen.

        Today as small as a mother wren,
        She'll soon outsize a mother dove,
        Then shortly after will she prove        
A natural mother—a mother hen.
        
^ ^

Ballerina stance leaner
porcelain poised demeanor
lined up for a chance at that old 500 gram repeater.
Yeah, a little firecracker,
a little fire eater.
Twiggy figure, ****** fire dome where her little wires teeter.
Excellent muse material
my ***** optics viewed ethereal
Beauty, and she knew it.
Arrogance.
Noted, duly.
Pittsburgh's resident fire ant, with a grace to match her face
And a whole crew of troglodytes racing to get a taste
So thanks Angela Chase;
I prefer the fantasy too.
And thanks to you my chickens won't be sleeping easy in their coup.
Loop Jabberwocky with Calligraphy
and dabbled in polygamy. purpose:
****** cyst bubbles to the surface.
Misinterpret the tongue touching and hand clutching,
you were baby girlie thumb-*******
But thought more than twice about it when it came to dumb-*******.
Pretty face: check
Depression: not yet
Appreciating phonemes, but still a nervous wreck
false carrot tops to bed, awkward with the ***** work.
Near waif redhead. Pittsburgh Boys. the city lurks
It's been a minute since the girl scouts got at me, I bought it.
Hop in the DeLorean tell Lauren that I'm off it.

Come queen of months in company
Wi all thy merry minstrelsy
The restless cuckoo absent long
And twittering swallows chimney song
And hedge row crickets notes that run
From every bank that fronts the sun
And swathy bees about the grass
That stops wi every bloom they pass
And every minute every hour
Keep teazing weeds that wear a flower
And toil and childhoods humming joys
For there is music in the noise
The village childern mad for sport
In school times leisure ever short
That crick and catch the bouncing ball
And run along the church yard wall
Capt wi rude figured slabs whose claims
In times bad memory hath no names
Oft racing round the nookey church
Or calling ecchos in the porch
And jilting oer the weather ****
Viewing wi jealous eyes the clock
Oft leaping grave stones leaning hights
Uncheckt wi mellancholy sights
The green grass swelld in many a heap
Where kin and friends and parents sleep
Unthinking in their jovial cry
That time shall come when they shall lye
As lowly and as still as they
While other boys above them play
Heedless as they do now to know
The unconcious dust that lies below
The shepherd goes wi happy stride
Wi moms long shadow by his side
Down the dryd lanes neath blooming may
That once was over shoes in clay
While martins twitter neath his eves
Which he at early morning leaves
The driving boy beside his team
Will oer the may month beauty dream
And **** his hat and turn his eye
On flower and tree and deepning skye
And oft bursts loud in fits of song
And whistles as he reels along
Cracking his whip in starts of joy
A happy ***** driving boy
The youth who leaves his corner stool
Betimes for neighbouring village school
While as a mark to urge him right
The church spires all the way in sight
Wi cheerings from his parents given
Starts neath the joyous smiles of heaven
And sawns wi many an idle stand
Wi bookbag swinging in his hand
And gazes as he passes bye
On every thing that meets his eye
Young lambs seem tempting him to play
Dancing and bleating in his way
Wi trembling tails and pointed ears
They follow him and loose their fears
He smiles upon their sunny faces
And feign woud join their happy races
The birds that sing on bush and tree
Seem chirping for his company
And all in fancys idle whim
Seem keeping holiday but him
He lolls upon each resting stile
To see the fields so sweetly smile
To see the wheat grow green and long
And list the weeders toiling song
Or short note of the changing thrush
Above him in the white thorn bush
That oer the leaning stile bends low
Loaded wi mockery of snow
Mozzld wi many a lushing thread
Of crab tree blossoms delicate red
He often bends wi many a wish
Oer the brig rail to view the fish
Go sturting by in sunny gleams
And chucks in the eye dazzld streams
Crumbs from his pocket oft to watch
The swarming struttle come to catch
Them where they to the bottom sile
Sighing in fancys joy the while
Hes cautiond not to stand so nigh
By rosey milkmaid tripping bye
Where he admires wi fond delight
And longs to be there mute till night
He often ventures thro the day
At truant now and then to play
Rambling about the field and plain
Seeking larks nests in the grain
And picking flowers and boughs of may
To hurd awhile and throw away
Lurking neath bushes from the sight
Of tell tale eyes till schools noon night
Listing each hour for church clocks hum
To know the hour to wander home
That parents may not think him long
Nor dream of his rude doing wrong
Dreading thro the night wi dreaming pain
To meet his masters wand again
Each hedge is loaded thick wi green
And where the hedger late hath been
Tender shoots begin to grow
From the mossy stumps below
While sheep and cow that teaze the grain
will nip them to the root again
They lay their bill and mittens bye
And on to other labours hie
While wood men still on spring intrudes
And thins the shadow solitudes
Wi sharpend axes felling down
The oak trees budding into brown
Where as they crash upon the ground
A crowd of labourers gather round
And mix among the shadows dark
To rip the crackling staining bark
From off the tree and lay when done
The rolls in lares to meet the sun
Depriving yearly where they come
The green wood pecker of its home
That early in the spring began
Far from the sight of troubling man
And bord their round holes in each tree
In fancys sweet security
Till startld wi the woodmans noise
It wakes from all its dreaming joys
The blue bells too that thickly bloom
Where man was never feared to come
And smell smocks that from view retires
**** rustling leaves and bowing briars
And stooping lilys of the valley
That comes wi shades and dews to dally
White beady drops on slender threads
Wi broad hood leaves above their heads
Like white robd maids in summer hours
Neath umberellas shunning showers
These neath the barkmens crushing treads
Oft perish in their blooming beds
Thus stript of boughs and bark in white
Their trunks shine in the mellow light
Beneath the green surviving trees
That wave above them in the breeze
And waking whispers slowly bends
As if they mournd their fallen friends
Each morning now the weeders meet
To cut the thistle from the wheat
And ruin in the sunny hours
Full many wild weeds of their flowers
Corn poppys that in crimson dwell
Calld ‘head achs’ from their sickly smell
And carlock yellow as the sun
That oer the may fields thickly run
And ‘iron ****’ content to share
The meanest spot that spring can spare
Een roads where danger hourly comes
Is not wi out its purple blooms
And leaves wi points like thistles round
Thickset that have no strength to wound
That shrink to childhoods eager hold
Like hair—and with its eye of gold
And scarlet starry points of flowers
Pimpernel dreading nights and showers
Oft calld ‘the shepherds weather glass’
That sleep till suns have dyd the grass
Then wakes and spreads its creeping bloom
Till clouds or threatning shadows come
Then close it shuts to sleep again
Which weeders see and talk of rain
And boys that mark them shut so soon
will call them ‘John go bed at noon
And fumitory too a name
That superstition holds to fame
Whose red and purple mottled flowers
Are cropt by maids in weeding hours
To boil in water milk and way1
For washes on an holiday
To make their beauty fair and sleak
And scour the tan from summers cheek
And simple small forget me not
Eyd wi a pinshead yellow spot
I’th’ middle of its tender blue
That gains from poets notice due
These flowers the toil by crowds destroys
And robs them of their lowly joys
That met the may wi hopes as sweet
As those her suns in gardens meet
And oft the dame will feel inclind
As childhoods memory comes to mind
To turn her hook away and spare
The blooms it lovd to gather there
My wild field catalogue of flowers
Grows in my ryhmes as thick as showers
Tedious and long as they may be
To some, they never weary me
The wood and mead and field of grain
I coud hunt oer and oer again
And talk to every blossom wild
Fond as a parent to a child
And cull them in my childish joy
By swarms and swarms and never cloy
When their lank shades oer morning pearls
Shrink from their lengths to little girls
And like the clock hand pointing one
Is turnd and tells the morning gone
They leave their toils for dinners hour
Beneath some hedges bramble bower
And season sweet their savory meals
Wi joke and tale and merry peals
Of ancient tunes from happy tongues
While linnets join their fitful songs
Perchd oer their heads in frolic play
Among the tufts of motling may
The young girls whisper things of love
And from the old dames hearing move
Oft making ‘love knotts’ in the shade
Of blue green oat or wheaten blade
And trying simple charms and spells
That rural superstition tells
They pull the little blossom threads
From out the knapweeds button heads
And put the husk wi many a smile
In their white bosoms for awhile
Who if they guess aright the swain
That loves sweet fancys trys to gain
Tis said that ere its lain an hour
Twill blossom wi a second flower
And from her white ******* hankerchief
Bloom as they ne’er had lost a leaf
When signs appear that token wet
As they are neath the bushes met
The girls are glad wi hopes of play
And harping of the holiday
A hugh blue bird will often swim
Along the wheat when skys grow dim
Wi clouds—slow as the gales of spring
In motion wi dark shadowd wing
Beneath the coming storm it sails
And lonly chirps the wheat hid quails
That came to live wi spring again
And start when summer browns the grain
They start the young girls joys afloat
Wi ‘wet my foot’ its yearly note
So fancy doth the sound explain
And proves it oft a sign of rain
About the moor ‘**** sheep and cow
The boy or old man wanders now
Hunting all day wi hopful pace
Each thick sown rushy thistly place
For plover eggs while oer them flye
The fearful birds wi teazing cry
Trying to lead their steps astray
And coying him another way
And be the weather chill or warm
Wi brown hats truckd beneath his arm
Holding each prize their search has won
They plod bare headed to the sun
Now dames oft bustle from their wheels
Wi childern scampering at their heels
To watch the bees that hang and swive
In clumps about each thronging hive
And flit and thicken in the light
While the old dame enjoys the sight
And raps the while their warming pans
A spell that superstition plans
To coax them in the garden bounds
As if they lovd the tinkling sounds
And oft one hears the dinning noise
Which dames believe each swarm decoys
Around each village day by day
Mingling in the warmth of may
Sweet scented herbs her skill contrives
To rub the bramble platted hives
Fennels thread leaves and crimpld balm
To scent the new house of the swarm
The thresher dull as winter days
And lost to all that spring displays
Still mid his barn dust forcd to stand
Swings his frail round wi weary hand
While oer his head shades thickly creep
And hides the blinking owl asleep
And bats in cobweb corners bred
Sharing till night their murky bed
The sunshine trickles on the floor
Thro every crevice of the door
And makes his barn where shadows dwell
As irksome as a prisoners cell
And as he seeks his daily meal
As schoolboys from their tasks will steal
ile often stands in fond delay
To see the daisy in his way
And wild weeds flowering on the wall
That will his childish sports recall
Of all the joys that came wi spring
The twirling top the marble ring
The gingling halfpence hussld up
At pitch and toss the eager stoop
To pick up heads, the smuggeld plays
Neath hovels upon sabbath days
When parson he is safe from view
And clerk sings amen in his pew
The sitting down when school was oer
Upon the threshold by his door
Picking from mallows sport to please
Each crumpld seed he calld a cheese
And hunting from the stackyard sod
The stinking hen banes belted pod
By youths vain fancys sweetly fed
Christning them his loaves of bread
He sees while rocking down the street
Wi weary hands and crimpling feet
Young childern at the self same games
And hears the self same simple names
Still floating on each happy tongue
Touchd wi the simple scene so strong
Tears almost start and many a sigh
Regrets the happiness gone bye
And in sweet natures holiday
His heart is sad while all is gay
How lovly now are lanes and balks
For toils and lovers sunday walks
The daisey and the buttercup
For which the laughing childern stoop
A hundred times throughout the day
In their rude ramping summer play
So thickly now the pasture crowds
In gold and silver sheeted clouds
As if the drops in april showers
Had woo’d the sun and swoond to flowers
The brook resumes its summer dresses
Purling neath grass and water cresses
And mint and flag leaf swording high
Their blooms to the unheeding eye
And taper bowbent hanging rushes
And horse tail childerns bottle brushes
And summer tracks about its brink
Is fresh again where cattle drink
And on its sunny bank the swain
Stretches his idle length again
Soon as the sun forgets the day
The moon looks down on the lovly may
And the little star his friend and guide
Travelling together side by side
And the seven stars and charleses wain
Hangs smiling oer green woods agen
The heaven rekindles all alive
Wi light the may bees round the hive
Swarm not so thick in mornings eye
As stars do in the evening skye
All all are nestling in their joys
The flowers and birds and pasture boys
The firetail, long a stranger, comes
To his last summer haunts and homes
To hollow tree and crevisd wall
And in the grass the rails odd call
That featherd spirit stops the swain
To listen to his note again
And school boy still in vain retraces
The secrets of his hiding places
In the black thorns crowded copse
Thro its varied turns and stops
The nightingale its ditty weaves
Hid in a multitude of leaves
The boy stops short to hear the strain
And ’sweet jug jug’ he mocks again
The yellow hammer builds its nest
By banks where sun beams earliest rest
That drys the dews from off the grass
Shading it from all that pass
Save the rude boy wi ferret gaze
That hunts thro evry secret maze
He finds its pencild eggs agen
All streakd wi lines as if a pen
By natures freakish hand was took
To scrawl them over like a book
And from these many mozzling marks
The school boy names them ‘writing larks’
*** barrels twit on bush and tree
Scarse bigger then a bumble bee
And in a white thorns leafy rest
It builds its curious pudding-nest
Wi hole beside as if a mouse
Had built the little barrel house
Toiling full many a lining feather
And bits of grey tree moss together
Amid the noisey rooky park
Beneath the firdales branches dark
The little golden crested wren
Hangs up his glowing nest agen
And sticks it to the furry leaves
As martins theirs beneath the eaves
The old hens leave the roost betimes
And oer the garden pailing climbs
To scrat the gardens fresh turnd soil
And if unwatchd his crops to spoil
Oft cackling from the prison yard
To peck about the houseclose sward
Catching at butterflys and things
Ere they have time to try their wings
The cattle feels the breath of may
And kick and toss their heads in play
The *** beneath his bags of sand
Oft jerks the string from leaders hand
And on the road will eager stoop
To pick the sprouting thistle up
Oft answering on his weary way
Some distant neighbours sobbing bray
Dining the ears of driving boy
As if he felt a fit of joy
Wi in its pinfold circle left
Of all its company bereft
Starvd stock no longer noising round
Lone in the nooks of foddering ground
Each skeleton of lingering stack
By winters tempests beaten black
Nodds upon props or bolt upright
Stands swarthy in the summer light
And oer the green grass seems to lower
Like stump of old time wasted tower
All that in winter lookd for hay
Spread from their batterd haunts away
To pick the grass or lye at lare
Beneath the mild hedge shadows there
Sweet month that gives a welcome call
To toil and nature and to all
Yet one day mid thy many joys
Is dead to all its sport and noise
Old may day where’s thy glorys gone
All fled and left thee every one
Thou comst to thy old haunts and homes
Unnoticd as a stranger comes
No flowers are pluckt to hail the now
Nor cotter seeks a single bough
The maids no more on thy sweet morn
Awake their thresholds to adorn
Wi dewey flowers—May locks new come
And princifeathers cluttering bloom
And blue bells from the woodland moss
And cowslip cucking ***** to toss
Above the garlands swinging hight
Hang in the soft eves sober light
These maid and child did yearly pull
By many a folded apron full
But all is past the merry song
Of maidens hurrying along
To crown at eve the earliest cow
Is gone and dead and silent now
The laugh raisd at the mocking thorn
Tyd to the cows tail last that morn
The kerchief at arms length displayd
Held up by pairs of swain and maid
While others bolted underneath
Bawling loud wi panting breath
‘Duck under water’ as they ran
Alls ended as they ne’er began
While the new thing that took thy place
Wears faded smiles upon its face
And where enclosure has its birth
It spreads a mildew oer her mirth
The herd no longer one by one
Goes plodding on her morning way
And garlands lost and sports nigh gone
Leaves her like thee a common day
Yet summer smiles upon thee still
Wi natures sweet unalterd will
And at thy births unworshipd hours
Fills her green lap wi swarms of flowers
To crown thee still as thou hast been
Of spring and summer months the queen

Enrique,
Emilio,
Lorenzo,

the three of them frozen:
Enrique by the world of beds;
Emilio by the world of eyes and wounded hands;
Lorenzo by the world of roofless universities.

Lorenzo,
Emilio,
Enrique,

the three of them burned:
Lorenzo by the world of leaves and billiard *****;
Emilio by the world of blood and white pins;
Enrique by the world of the dead and abandoned newspapers.

Lorenzo,
Emilio,
Enrique,
the three of them buried:
Lorenzo in one of Flora's *******;
Emilio in the dead gin forgotten in the glass;
Enrique in the ant, the sea, and the empty eyes of birds.

Lorenzo,
Emilio,
Enrique,
the three in my hands were
three Chinese mountains,
three shadows of a horse,
three landscapes of snow and a cabin of white lilies
by the pigeon coops where the moon lies flat under the rooster.

One
and one
and one,
the three of them mummified,
with the flies of winter,
with the inkwells the dog ****** and the thistle despises,
with the breeze that freezes theh eart of all the mothers,
by the white ruins of Jupiter where drunks snack on death.

Three
and two
and one,
I saw them disappear, crying and singing
into a hen's egg,
into the night that showed its skeleton of tobacco,
into my sorrow full of faces and piercing bone splinters of moon,
into my happiness of whips and notched wheels,
into my breast troubled by pigeons,
into my deserted death with one mistaken wanderer.

I had killed the fifth moon
and the fans and the applause drank water from the fountains.
Hidden away, the warm milk of newborn girls,
shook the roses with a long white sorrow.
Enrique,
Emilio,
Lorenzo,

Diana is hard,
but somtimes she has ******* of clouds.
The white stone can beat in the blood of a deer
and the deer can dream through the eyes of a horse.

When the pure forms sank
under the cri cri of  daisies
I understood they had murdered me.
They searched the cafés and the graveyards and churches,
they opened the wine casks and wardrobes,
they destroyed three skeletons to pull out their gold teeth.
Still they couldn't fine me.
They couldn't?
No. They couldn't.
But they learned the sixth moon fled against the torrent,
and the sea remembered, suddenly,
the names of all her drowned.

Persia,
The land of God,
Where God stayed in person,
As he traversed desert sand dunes to Irag,
To have a look at rivers Euphrates and Tigris,
When Adam had just finished playing the first human ***,
With Eve, the non ****** companion he gave him,
He then meted out to them eternal nemesis
Out of his anger and selfish jealous,
Other-wise what was wrong,
For Adam to have a ****,
With the unclothed eve,
Any answer please,
Or no please,
Persia,

Persia Now is Nuked,
A nuclearized oil exporter,
She has a Koran, oil-wells and Nuclear,
She also has no-nonsense masculine Arabic culture,
****** grounds in which mushrooms the messy Islamic soup,
Blessed and Glorified by my good ****** brother; Barrack Obama,
Who was once God and sent the inverse of angel Michael to Laden Osama,
To impregnant the ****** mother of death that sired laden’s demise,
Game in which Obama dwarfs Netanyahu a global dweeb,
Left on a wrong inglenook in a dwaal at Jerusalem fire,
Biasly blessing the Israeli Nuclear and Hydrogen bombs,
As security of the world, and condemning Iran,
Calling their Kosher Nuclears a threat,
To the israelized world security,
But his Gaza **** is not,
His refuge camps
Are not

Blessed are the Nuclear stuffs of Persia,
They are blessings of Allah to those that are guided,
Maunderings of the jackanapes like Netanyahu is not news,
For he has more nuclear in Jerusalem, hydrogen bombs too he has,
Then arming Persia must a usual game of violence not anything of his sort,
For  they are Koran, the nuclear, the oil wells, and the woman,
That will frame up the Islamic state to stable counterzionism,
To stave mania of European Jews for settlerism
To eat what they deserve un¬¬-rapaciously,
To at least breed homespun respect,
For those that differ with them
In faith and skin
Like afro-persians


Persia,
Your nuclear stuffs,
Are blessed and glorified,
For they are counter-apartheid,
To the Zionist apartheid in Palestine,
They are acts that resemble the acts in the past,
By those that oppressed, colonize, imperialize for settlerism,
For a line in Shakespeare’s king Lear has some blessings for you;
The un-armed (Arabs) provokes (Israeli) enemy’s attack,
Thus reality of equal nuclear mighty and strength
Will nurse thought for de-imperialism
Sense of respect and discipline,
By those who belong to God,
To those who don’t,

Who Bombed Charlie Hebdo?
And what of the Yankee Twin Towers?
Was it Al Qaeda or the Israelis, can I blab or not?
O, there were also Nuclear stuffs in De Klerk’s White South Africa,
But when blackness came to corridors of power, the nukes followed color,
What of what I was dreaming yester night? About Netanyahu,
He ployed for the European hatred against Islamic statesmen,
He bombed Charlie Hebdo, masquerading as an Arab,
For European war on Islamic state to intensify,
Then it intensified, but God only knew,
The truth; Islamic statesman are only mouthy,
But foolish in war and offense,
They didn’t bomb
Charlie Hebdo,

Boris Nemetsov,
A Russian speaking Jew,
Was shot dead in Moscow,
(RIP) Boris, for the human soul must die,
Death and grave is the kismet for us the living,
But why were you weak as a post hatch cackling hen,
To make noise and preen around as a jade in the land of fox,
The African sisal fox that ate all the Crimean chicken,
Noise of a hen cannot fetter fox’s appetite,
Noise of a hen cannot shake culture,
Of Nuclear power in Iran and Korea N,
Why live in Russia, but you love Israeli?
I don’t need the answer dudes,
But always oppression
the oppressor always
it kills,

Alexander  Khamala Opicho
Lodwar ,  Kenya

dunedin. friday, three, afternoon.
set from home under a blue sky
with full& prepared pack,
a somewhat empty stomach,
and a necessity to get away from the city.
hiking boots tread asphalt down to the depot,
where, in thirty-seven minutes punctuated
by plastic seats grafted to a wall
and a mildly disjunct group of small or
big-time travellers, the naked bus
pulled in, a hematite centipede
crawling into the lot. it was a bus,
no complaints. all others' bags
stowed, twenty seven bucks outta pocket
and swung into the front-right-window seat,
bid a farewell to the beat-down
pub across the road and onto the one-way
merging into a highway and outta
town the dark bug skittered, on
schedule or something resembling it.
behind the driver, the sun came through
around the beam in the window. warm patterns
laid on skin, the countryside's broad expanse:

cylindrical bales of hay scattered about
paddocks, dark late-autumn florets of flax
on roadsides, plumes of white smoke from
bonfires in townships as small as a thumbnail,
hedgelines of eucalyptus, pine; russet streaks
through bark of single gum trees stood
off-centre in fields. sticky-wooded hillsides
punctured by fire breaks roll almost forever
and back. the rushing sound of passing cars
through the 3/4-golden ratio of the driver's
ajar window; twenty-first century mansions
verging on out-of-place. saplings emerging,
bracketed, through verdant grass patches.
museum abbatoirs. toitoi like hen's plumage
lining drainage ditches. another Elizabeth st-
(how many could be counted out by now?) tidy
front yards and milton liquorland through this
small town. an everpresent tilting sun. fields
of flowered nettle. s-bends through pancake layers
of hills. a delapidated gravel quarry at stony
creek. deer farms, sheep farms, bovine farms, alpaca
farms (favourite); another bonfire seen down a
long gulley; a power substation, all organized
tangles. a two-four 300m before the bridge into

balclutha. 4.40pm.
across the road into the i-site
two friendly ladies circle locations
to make (got a car) or try to make (on foot),
offering a ride in half an hour,
leave it to chance.
across another road, drifter's emporium
(that's the name, no joke) got a knife
to open up cans- bought no cans, brought
no cans, still nice to have one anyway.
down the road, 200ml from unichem, waste
no time, turn ninety degrees, cross a
railway, then outta town in a sec. first
photo: half highway, half clutha river. fine
shot. sit down, watch the water couple mins,
head down the road. red-black ferns radiate
under willows down the riverbank. metal
bumper-bars keep legs on, the road rolls
gentle turns, diverges from the river. stick
to the former, faster that way. no intentions
of hitching. just wanna walk. and walk. and
walk. guy yells out a car window. envy,
likely. who cares. apple tree hangs over
a dry ditch. pick a small one, gone in
a minute. probably ain't sprayed. been
eating ice-cream dinners more often'n
not the last coupla weeks- isn't much
the stomach won't or can't handle anymore,
anyway.

odours of decay from the freezing works.
seagulls sound out nearby.
typical.

down the road, the reek of death fades
out. back to grass. sit in some of the
tall stuff, under a spindly tree. put down
some ink, a handful of asst. nuts. 'bout
thirteen fingers of daylight left. no idea
if the coast is further than that. little
care. down the road the land flattens out,
decent sign. the junction was a fair bit
past reckoned, though. flipped a chunk
of bark (too lazy to get a coin out) to
figure whether the coast was worth it. bark
said no, went out anyway. gotta see the sea,
keeps you sane. past a lush native
acre or two- some lucky ******'s front lawn-
changed mentality, slung out a thumb (first
time). beginner's luck, kid straight outta
seventh form pulls over in a mustard-yellow
*******' kinda beach-van. was headin' out
to the coast, funnily enough. had been up
in raglan (surf central, nz), back down with
the 'rents now, though. out kaka point, only
one of his age, he reckoned, no schoolhouse
there, just olds. was going to surf academy,
pretty apt. little envious.

the plains spread out and out, ocean just
rose up out of a field. there's nothing
more perfect. gentle waves stroke the sands,
houses stare intently out at the mingling of
blues. one cloud hovers so far away it doesn't
even exist. down the other end of kaka point,
back on solid ground, walking into a gorge, laments
about not choosing the coastal route. but owaka
is the new destination, bout 11ks, give or take
(5ks later, sign says another 15.. some give). nothing
coulda beat that sight anyway, stepping outta
a van onto that pristine beach.

entry: gorge route to owaka. seven.
late light painted the tops of hills absolute
gold. thought maybe this way ain't so bad. beside a
converging valley, phone got enough reception
for dad to get through. said in balclutha coulda
got a room with a colleague. too far out now. lost
him in the middle of a sentence about camera film.
surprised to have even got that far. road wound
troughlike through the bottom of the gorge, became
parallel to a cute little stream. climbed down chickenwire
holding the road in place, ****** in it (had to).
clambered back up, continued walking as the occasional
campervan rolled on by. took a photo of the sun perched
on a hilltop, sent it to mel. dunno why. anxieties
over the perfect sunrise picture came frequently,
a goal become turmoil. the gorge flattened out,
and soon in countryside my fears allayed. round
a corner in picturesque nowhere, found my shot.
sat in long grass. stole it. sighed. ate a handful
of nuts. moved on. {about eight}

dark consumed the surrounding gentle-rolling hills,
nowhere near owaka, which was probably the tiny bundle
of lights nestling a little below the foot of a
mountain in the distance (not too far off, in
reality). near the turnoff to surat bay (was heading
there, plans change) a ute honks. taken as friendly.
a right turn instead of a left, farmsteads lit
up in fireplace tones, the sound cows make at
dusk. it got colder. would one jersey be sufficient?
hoepfully. stars began pinpricking the royal blues of the
night sky in its opening hues. eight-fourty-ish slugged
back about 3/4 of the syrup, along with half of a box
of fruit medley (so **** delicious), in light of dull
calf aches becoming increasingly apparent. needed
to walk a helluva lot more. ain't one for lettin'
nothing get in the way of that. lights in the distance
became the entry sign for a camp-site. no interest,
head on. past another farmhouse, stars came out in
packs. three cows upon a slight hilltop. next junction
pulled left a good eighty degrees and was on the
straight to owaka. less than two minutes later,
a dog-ute pulled to a halt and offers up a ride down
most of the stretch. didn't say no.

still stable, as two pig-hunters tell
of their drive back from picking up a couple
pig-dogs somewhere north. they were heading
out bush to shoot, thought they'd seen
another guy they'd picked up a couple weeks
ago, who'd taken 'em out somewhere they
couldn't remember. paranoia grips, but
the lads are fairly innocuous. they say it's
dangerous out here, gotta be ballsy walking
middle of the night, no gun, no dog,
all by yourself. wasn't worried, got nothing
to lose anyway (still, this sets helluva
mood). by a turnoff a k outta owaka, dropped
off. said probably all that'll be open there
is a pub, if that. bid luck and set their way.
above, the whole sky is covered with shining
glitter. down a dip and turn, **** in the
middle of the road. an ominous sign indicating
the outskirts of

owaka. approximately 9.40pm

my head loosens as i approach. the lights
form across a small valley i can't verify
exists or not between dog barks i mistake
for the yells of drunkards and lights
pirouetting from cars behind me. i slow
down i don't want to do this.

owaka is terrifying. plastic.

the street corners thud like cardboard. i
walk past a garden of teapots, a computer
screen inside the house glares through the
window pane bending breathing outward. there
is nobody here, still there is a feeling
like there's people everywhere, flocking
in shadows. a silhouette moving in a
distant cafe doorway. the sound of teeth,
of darkness fallen. thick russian tones
sound from a shelf of a motel. eyes
everywhere, mostly mine. i stop only round
a bend and down near a police station, yet
feeling no more safe, sitting in a gutter to
send mel my plans, to tell myself my plans.
i want to be nowhere again. i am soon nowhere.

out of breath, out the other end of owaka,
the sick streetlights fade into comforting
dark nestled between bunches of indistinct
treelines. the feeling of safety lasts but
twenty minutes, where another dip in the
road leads through a patch of bush, in which
gunshots ring periodically and laughter and
barking rings through. breaking down, it takes
five minutes to resolve and keep going. ain't
got nothing to lose, anyway. boots squeak like
diseased hinges all down the road. hadn't
noticed beforehand, the only thing noticed
now. an impending doom hangs thick like fog,
the thought of being strung up like an
underweight hog. walking faster and
not much quieter, the other side of the
bush couldn't have come sooner. the fear
lasts until the gunshots are distant nothing.
still alive, still out of breath, still
fairly ****** up, there's no comfort like the
sound of nothing but the occasional insect's
chirp. vestiges of still water came around
a corner and just kept coming as the golden
moon sung serenity all over. finally, a peace
came to rest over the landscape. sitting by
the road with a clear view of the moon's light
sheathed in the waters, the stars above wreath
a cirrus eye to watch over the marshland
plants leading into the placid waters of

catlins lake, west. ten fifty-one.
crossing a one-way bridge over a river winding
its way into the lake, another turning point
decision arose: continue down the highway
along the river, or head straight out and
toward the coast again. having resolved to
make it to a waterfall by dawn, and the latter
offering a possibility of this, the decision
made itself. turning back around the other side
of the lake, the road wound a couple times
up a gentle ***** out and up from the valley
at the tail of the lake, and into a slightly
more elevated valley. the country roads ran
easily and smooth, paved roughly but solid.
not a car came by for kilometers at a time.
lay on the road past a turnoff for quarter
of an hour letting serenity wash over, the
hills miniscule in comparison to home, the
sky motionless, massive thin halo about the
moon. walking on, night-birds called from
time to time (no moreporks, though. not until
dawn), figuring out how to whistle them back.
a turnoff to purakaunui bay strongly
considered and ultimately ignored; retrospectively
a great call, considering the size of the detour.
hedgerows of macrocarpa, limbs clearly cut
haphazard where once they'd hung over the
road. occasional 4wd passing, always a 4wd,
be it flash new or trusty old. you'd need
one out here. have no fun, otherwise.
monolithic pine-ish hedge bushes, squatting
giants. once, a glimmering in the sky, a
plane from queenstown (assumedly) almost
way too far to make out. the colossus of
the one human-shaped shadow cast down
from the moon to my boots. how small
a thing in this place. swamped out by
the beauty of this neverending valley.
breathless.

the road turned, not quite a hairpin,
but not entirely bluntly, a welcome
break from the straight or gentle
sway, and five minutes turned to dirt.
had to lay down again- legs screaming
by this point for rest. still, they
had nothing against pressing on. dad
taught me to just keep going. that's
the thing about walking. stop for a
little bit and you're good to go
again. pushing for the fall was probably
overkill, but no worry now. dirt road
felt so right after a good 20+ks of
asphalt, only infrequently punctuated
by roadside moss or thin grass. it
was as if beginning again (well,
kinda, if only with as much energy).
having downed only a litre of water
(leaving only half a litre more), a
litre of fruit juice and about 100
grams of assorted nuts since more
than twelve hours ago by this point,
it should have been a shock to
still be going by this point. don't
really need that much anyway, though.
gone on less for longer. hydration,
anyway, was the least of all worries,
the air being thick with water, ground
fog having been laid down hours ago.

up the dirt track, more cows. they make strange
sounds at night. didn't know anything yet,
though. that's still to come. a ute swang past
going the other way, indiscriminate hollers
from the passenger-side window. waved back
cheerily. so far from anything to be anything
but upbeat now. not even the heavy shroud of
tiredness could touch that, yet. the track wound
on forever. was stopping every half-kilometer
to stand and stretch, warding off the oncoming
aches. the onset was unwieldy, though. didn't
have long. past a B&B;, wondered whether anyone
actually ever stayed there (surely would, who'd
not revisit this place over and over once they'd
discovered it?)- certainly would've, having the
cash (apparently parts of "lion, witch and the
wardrobe" were filmed here. huh). further on, the
road turned back to seal, unfortunately, but
with small promise- surely, at least fairly
close by this point. turning a corner, a small
and infinitely beautiful indent against the bush,
a small paddock bunched up against it, stream
wound against the bases of trees, all lit by
the clear tones of a now unswathed moon, sat
aside the road. it was distilled perfection.
it was too much, just had to keep goin' or
risk shattering that image. next turn was
a set of DOC toilets, an excellent sign. must be
basically sitting on the path entry now. searched
all 'round the back for it, up the road, nothing.
not entirely despondent but bewildered, moved
forward and found a signpost. the falls were now
behind? turned around and searched even more
thoroughly, quiet hope turning to desperation
by the silent light of the moon. finally,
straight across the road from the toilets,
was the green and gold sign, cloaked in
darkness under clustering trees, professing
a ten-minute bushwalk to the

purakaunui falls. saturday. 1.32 am.**
venturing into the bush by the dull light
of a screen of a dying phone, the breeze
made small movements through the canopy. it
couldn't have been any more tranquil. edging
way through the winding cliffish track through
dense brush, the sound of a trickling stream
engorged into a lush symphony of water. crossing
a single-sided bridge across an unseeable chasm,
twinkling from the ferns behind became apparent.
turning off the dull light, the tiny neon bulbs of
glow-worms littered the dirt wall risen up about
half a metre, where the track had been cut out.
my heart soared. all heights of beauty come
together. continuing down the path, glow-worms
litter the surroundings and the rushing of
water comes to a roar. at a look-out platform
above the falls, nothing can be seen save a
slight glisten. down perilous steps (wouldn't
be too bad if you could actually see 'em) the
final viewing platform lay at level with the
bottom of the falls. they stood like a statue
in the dark, winding trails of thin white wash
through the shadows hung under trees. left
speechless from something hardly made out, turned
around and back up the stairs to where the
glowing dots seemed their most concentrated.
into the ferns above, clambered through and
around moss-painted tree trunks and came to rest
a couple hundred metres from the trail, under
a fern, under a rata. packed everything but
a blanket from nan into the bag, laid it out
on curled leaf litter and folded up into it,
feet too sore to remove 'em from boots, curling
knees up into the blanket and tucking a hand
between 'em to keep it warm. only face and
ankles exposed, watched the moon's light trickle
through canopy layers for a few hours, readjusting
tendons in legs as they came to ache. sleep (or
something resembling it) set in, somewhere
around four.

some time slightly before six, the realisation
that my legs had extended and become so cold that
they'd started cramping all the way through hit,
coupled with the sounds coming through the bush.

she is definitely displeased profoundly disappointed in her latest literary efforts she dreams aches to create deeper discourse higher insight more thoughtful philosophical inquiries about life’s challenges beauty a better world overpowering love inspiration instead she writes paperback television trash stupid inadequate answers to solemn questions she wonders if she is too scratched dented to find love her ******* are definitely changing she is deeply disturbed not ready for menopause too young for menopause she wants to remain a fertile woman with smooth skin wet ******

2

her neighbor Leslie awoke to horrible morning Leslie’s 6 chickens were assaulted overnight precious Mabel dragged off feathers everywhere trail down the street other hens cowering slumped together with wilted necks 3 of them with puncture wounds Leslie carried them one by one inside washed their wounds hugged them cried who did this terrible act a neglected abusive neighborhood cat or some desert predator why didn’t Leslie wake to sounds of savage marauding now this creature knows hen’s whereabouts when will it return for more massacre what modifications need to be enforced to ensure their coup before nightfall

3

she wants to remain a hen keep producing eggs does not want is not ready to enter the next **** stage of this **** existence it was fun being pretty for men inspiring them to say do wacky things she wants to remain a hen she is definitely displeased profoundly disappointed in her latest literary efforts “tucson square dance” (self-referential) ****** bit about Americans came through here last night in “tucson 3-step” ****** perhaps the pinot noir lowered her standards everything is becoming nothing she cannot sleep tosses turns thrashes sheets in humid heat of her lonesome bed is she is too scratched dented to find love worries for Leslie

4

tomorrow is another day they say the rain will come last year’s monsoon never came the baking sun smothered her garden died one by one sleepless she will miss tomorrow’s pilates class the infrequent delightful breakfast afterwards she dreams aches of deeper discourse higher insight more thoughtful philosophical inquiries about life’s challenges beauty a better world overpowering love inspiration she crossed the line tonight her ******* are definitely changing

Tainted by transparency
broken and indignant
a speckled hen
ready for plucking

For winter comes soon
and when all is dark
the butchers blade
will cleave your neck

Then you will run around headless
thoughtless with wings a flutter
and when potted
the rest for the gutter


By Christos Andreas Kourtis aka NeonSolaris
By NeonSolaris

© 2010 NeonSolaris (All rights reserved)

Well as the title suggests it is not a chase
Quite possibly because running’s out of the question
And also they are not even involved in a race
No, not even the hint of an exercise session.

The story is as follows: if I can put it clear
The day started slowly, they were in hiding
He did not want to, as usual, interfere
And generally the atmosphere was
subsiding.

That was until she burst in through the door.
With a worried frown on her floury face.
noticed the Duck had his nose to the floor
And heard the chicks were not in the nesting place.

“Maybe they’ve hatched and walked off
”The Pig thought it obvious and straightforward.
The Hen spluttered a nervous type of cough
And out from his hiding place shot a worried bird.

“Oh dear, oh dear,said the Hen we will help you”
The Duck sprang into action straghtaway.
The Pig was saying no and had gone blue
Which was turning to an angry twitchy grey.

The Duck was pelting down the lane searching
Calling, enticing but no chicks were found.
Under his breath he was grunting
And heard the Pig suggesting they had drowned.

He slapped Mr Pig on his wig and frowned
He put his wing around Mrs Hen and dried her tears.
Assured her that the chicks would be safe and sound
And said Mr Pig had only added to her fears.

He shot off again at a greater speed than before
His instinct came into play good and proper
Found the chicks and what is more
The Hen has adopted her star, her show stopper

The Duck a hero, was splashed on the news
The Pig hid behind the paper for a week
Where he had more than a little snooze
And the Duck’s goose chase was a winning streak.

Well as the title suggests it is not a chase
Quite possibly because running’s out of the question
And also they are not even involved in a race
No, not even the hint of an exercise session.

The story is as follows: if I can put it clear
The day started slowly, they were in hiding
He did not want to, as usual, interfere
And generally the atmosphere was
subsiding.

That was until she burst in through the door.
With a worried frown on her floury face.
noticed the Duck had his nose to the floor
And heard the chicks were not in the nesting place.

“Maybe they’ve hatched and walked off
”The Pig thought it obvious and straightforward.
The Hen spluttered a nervous type of cough
And out from his hiding place shot a worried bird.

“Oh dear, oh dear,said the Hen we will help you”
The Duck sprang into action  straightaway.
The Pig was saying no and had gone blue
Which was turning to an angry twitchy grey.

The Duck was pelting down the lane searching
Calling, enticing but no chicks were found.
Under his breath he was grunting
And heard the Pig suggesting they had drowned.

He slapped the Pig on his wig and frowned
He put his wing around the Hen and dried her tears.
Assured her that the chicks would be safe and sound
And said the Pig had only added to her fears.

He shot off again at a greater speed than before
His instinct came into play good and proper
Found the chicks and what is more
The Hen has adopted her star, her show stopper

The Duck a hero, was splashed on the news
The Pig hid behind the paper for a week
Where he had more than a little snooze
And the Duck’s goose chase was a winning streak.

An affable Irregular,
A heavily-built Falstaffian man,
Comes cracking jokes of civil war
As though to die by gunshot were
The finest play under the sun.

A brown Lieutenant and his men,
Half dressed in national uniform,
Stand at my door, and I complain
Of the foul weather, hail and rain,
A pear-tree broken by the storm.

I count those feathered ***** of soot
The moor-hen guides upon the stream.
To silence the envy in my thought;
And turn towards my chamber, caught
In the cold snows of a dream.