Forth from the dust and din,
The crush, the heat, the many-spotted glare,
The odour and sense of life and lust aflare,
The wrangle and jangle of unrests,
Let us take horse, Dear Heart, take horse and win--
As from swart August to the green lap of May--
To quietness and the fresh and fragrant *******
Of the still, delicious night, not yet aware
In any of her innumerable nests
Of that first sudden plash of dawn,
Clear, sapphirine, luminous, large,
Which tells that soon the flowing springs of day
In deep and ever deeper eddies drawn
Forward and up, in wider and wider way,
Shall float the sands, and brim the shores,
On this our lith of the World, as round it roars
And spins into the outlook of the Sun
(The Lord's first gift, the Lord's especial charge),
With light, with living light, from marge to marge
Until the course He set and staked be run.

Through street and square, through square and street,
Each with his home-grown quality of dark
And violated silence, loud and fleet,
Waylaid by a merry ghost at every lamp,
The hansom wheels and plunges.  Hark, O, hark,
Sweet, how the old mare's bit and chain
Ring back a rough refrain
Upon the marked and cheerful *****
Of her four shoes!  Here is the Park,
And O, the languid midsummer wafts adust,
The tired midsummer blooms!
O, the mysterious distances, the glooms
Romantic, the august
And solemn shapes!  At night this City of Trees
Turns to a tryst of vague and strange
And monstrous Majesties,
Let loose from some dim underworld to range
These terrene vistas till their twilight sets:
When, dispossessed of wonderfulness, they stand
Beggared and common, plain to all the land
For stooks of leaves!  And lo! the Wizard Hour,
His silent, shining sorcery winged with power!
Still, still the streets, between their carcanets
Of linking gold, are avenues of sleep.
But see how gable ends and parapets
In gradual beauty and significance
Emerge!  And did you hear
That little twitter-and-cheep,
Breaking inordinately loud and clear
On this still, spectral, exquisite atmosphere?
'Tis a first nest at matins!  And behold
A rakehell cat--how furtive and acold!
A spent witch homing from some infamous dance--
Obscene, quick-trotting, see her tip and fade
Through shadowy railings into a pit of shade!
And now! a little wind and shy,
The smell of ships (that earnest of romance),
A sense of space and water, and thereby
A lamplit bridge ouching the troubled sky,
And look, O, look! a tangle of silver gleams
And dusky lights, our River and all his dreams,
His dreams that never save in our deaths can die.

What miracle is happening in the air,
Charging the very texture of the gray
With something luminous and rare?
The night goes out like an ill-parcelled fire,
And, as one lights a candle, it is day.
The extinguisher, that perks it like a spire
On the little formal church, is not yet green
Across the water:  but the house-tops nigher,
The corner-lines, the chimneys--look how clean,
How new, how naked!  See the batch of boats,
Here at the stairs, washed in the fresh-sprung beam!
And those are barges that were goblin floats,
Black, hag-steered, fraught with devilry and dream!
And in the piles the water frolics clear,
The ripples into loose rings wander and flee,
And we--we can behold that could but hear
The ancient River singing as he goes,
New-mailed in morning, to the ancient Sea.
The gas burns lank and jaded in its glass:
The old Ruffian soon shall yawn himself awake,
And light his pipe, and shoulder his tools, and take
His hobnailed way to work!

Let us too pass--
Pass ere the sun leaps and your shadow shows--
Through these long, blindfold rows
Of casements staring blind to right and left,
Each with his gaze turned inward on some piece
Of life in death's own likeness--Life bereft
Of living looks as by the Great Release--
Pass to an exquisite night's more exquisite close!

Reach upon reach of burial--so they feel,
These colonies of dreams!  And as we steal
Homeward together, but for the buxom breeze,
Fitfully frolicking to heel
With news of dawn-drenched woods and tumbling seas,
We might--thus awed, thus lonely that we are--
Be wandering some dispeopled star,
Some world of memories and unbroken graves,
So broods the abounding Silence near and far:
Till even your footfall craves
Forgiveness of the majesty it braves.

Sewer rats bottleneck into a Carnival of Depravity. Due to the bizarre circumstance of their fingers, they allow their limbs to become limp. As Valkyries, they are aware of the juxtaposition of their clown pantaloons and their hobnailed mudboots. In this benefit carnival, a ferris wheel runs amok. Within it, GI’s holler their way through the vermillion skyway, zippoing the dented carapace with their M16s. In a true practice of youthful bliss, the 5.56 returns to the cosmos. However, the bullets, streaming out and homewards, are soon constrained to the circular path of the wheel itself.
“Centripetal farce!” goes Lance.
“Hey what, man?” whimpers Mr. Clean.
“Well, y’see: centripetal fOrce makes an overwhelming amount of sense. So much so, that when superimposed on the Carnival Cavalcade™, it must make no sense, for it’d shake us all up something mad.”
“So, the bullets aren’t real?”
“Oh, they’re plenty real. Just touch it, it’d melt you, starting with the neurons, cat. Other than little blue reality though, it’s out there. Its dancers are not chained to any concrete block of nature.”
“Oh, they’re sufferin’?”

Under the family banner
talking about my nana
who was not fat,
I would say more rounded than that and
a Victorian lass
pince nez on her nose and a tin of *****,a pinch of
which went.. but that enough..
Did I say,she was not fat?
she was grounded in the roots of
cotton mills and rolling hills
and hobnailed clogs and miners boots,she's now long gone but fair play to her, she lived a good few years after reaching ninety one,I guess it was the Mackeson that helped her to live so very long.
Grandad,dad of my dad fought in the great war which brought him ****** all except a medal from the military for being outstanding in the fields of bravery,he battled Passchendaele each and every day until like all good men and soldiers he faded,faded slowly,slowly,slowly and marched quite vaguely somewhere far away.
My dad was a great dad a wait and then we'll see dad,a make your Sunday tea dad,but you never see the greatness when you're stood upon its shoulder,that only happens if you're lucky when you get a little older and I'm older now,able to look back and see how this family handed down to me,that look back into history.....

There goes mary...
On her way down to the shop
She's off to buy some liquorice
And lots of fizzy pop...

Sweet tooth mary...
With her teeth as black as sin
She gave the children nightmares
When she smiled her mouldy grin

She chomped her way through toffee bars
And bags filled to the brim
With sugar cakes and frosted flakes
But mary's fate was grim

For mary learnt a lesson
A price for her sweet taste
She spent her cash on candy
And never bought toothpaste

That night as mary lay in bed
With sweet wrappers beneath
Toothfairies came with hobnailed boots
And kicked out all her teeth !

what is hate?
if not a toddler's tantrum,
wearing hobnailed boots....
and stomping about.

He never came out in the daytime, though
He’d always come out at night,
I’d hear his feet, pass in the street
By the gaslamp’s feeble light,
He’d peer through the frosted window glass
And I swear that he always hissed,
Whenever I opened the trap, he’d gone
A-swirl in the yellow mist.

We huddled under the chimney piece,
We huddled under the stair,
Whenever his steps were echoing
From here to the you-know-where,
I tried to protect my Carolyn
Who would shut her eyes and ears,
He had the power, for over an hour
To bring Carolyn to tears.

He’d come when the frost brought icicles
He’d come when the wind would blow,
He’d come when I left her tricycle
Outside, and covered in snow,
And then when the ice on the window ledge
Began to go crack-crack-crack,
She often hid, right under the lid
Where the firewood lay in a stack.

And then when the door blew open, from
A gust in the wind out there,
We’d lie, with fears unspoken
As the creaking rose up the stair,
Then Carolyn shrieked, while I couldn’t speak
For hearing her cries and moans,
As terror spread, from under the bed
And chattered through teeth and bones.

I swore that he wore a ******* hat
With a brim that covered his eyes,
Carolyn wrote that he wore a cloak
As part of his dread disguise,
But nobody would believe us, ‘til
We heard he was coming back,
His hobnailed boots on the cobblestones
Approached, a-click and a-clack.

They’d slow, and stop by the outer door
Our hearts in our mouths, alas,
And then his shadow would fall right there
He’d peer through the frosted glass,
The knocker had an echoing sound
As he knocked, went rat-tat-tat,
And mother leapt to the door in a bound,
‘Dear God! It’s Uncle Jack!’

David Lewis Paget

The river, muddy brown,
ran sluggish,
thuggishly,
full of menace on
the outskirts of the town.

The chemical factory was planted to be
the silent assassin,
passing,
without a sound in full sight
above the ground.

I wish like the fish, who are
no more
that the chemical plant
wore hobnailed boots.

Then we could have seen the danger.

her seductive voice
and a forbidden love


the black and white photo:

2 men smiling

gaberdine coats and hobnailed boots

the delighted dance in their eyes
the intriguing puzzle

finely woven into their subtle smiles
of wind and lightning and snow

they have heard
the goddess of the sky
and she beckons,
COME

her beauty, cold and captivating
snow and vanishing hopes
and into the silence of no turning back

for king and country
climb high or die


the black and white photo

2 men
smiling


2 men smiling
about something
few men
will ever know

Mallory and Irving disappearing into the clouds.

Three days after the ides, and the story
told of a spirit that calls for vengeance,
to this very day, while it is called Today.

Entranced, couchlocked, looking dazed…
but none see me, to challenge me, vie with me
for watcher-alarm sounder silencing
clouds of knowing growing deeper, thicker, sort
of jello-time from post -2022

Monstor Fighter wannabes, realize
your fantasy, word to word,
sword to sword, progress, keep time, watch,
imaginations
bound in bundles and packeted for consumption,
- feel like a hero,
- just like that, that's the spirit, believe
- in the dream
Really,

see the lie you first believed, take your life exam.

Who really established
the stack you stand your ground rule upon.

Tell me no lie, I can check your facts, and my own,
a gazer into the abyss, must dare the awareness,
more than once, of the abyss staring into the gazer.

Life, lived a breath per moment of note, taken
as if this were me alive, and well taken care of,
by a benign monstor arm of benignity itself,
war feeds me and clothes me, I survived,
so the proof of the nation's promise,
I am, a trained-will that will obey rules,
conserved as rights held by heads of state,
- liberal conservation of meaning trees
- frees old readers from fishing for facts,
- we, the augmented, have public access…
- good citizen status, unto death…

as paraded boys, with fixed bayonets, pledged
and inspired by ancient incantations, patience,
steady cadence, rank and file,
perform as a mass minded thing agreed, a team,
- call to attention, respond
Testudo, hold. Sistere, hobnailed to your ground,
our
ground, hold that line, hold it,
hold it, get the rush,
without the dread duty of picking up the dead.
- Flash, my first duty in Vietnam, was
- to identify a body, that was not there…

shield walls, all games now, stories tell life
as a game, a test for bestness, or likestness,

yet, ever spun off, a few, a little leaven,
welsh held tongue song word long whole ideas,
by and bye, ye ken the less,
what's an hour's worth?

when does saving time, as a way to change
the season, in an effort
to increase productivity,
cease being a grand plan
for empowering all the needs intuited,
solar- leanings, shade and sunlit,
future from now, reckoned some how,
- wait, the engine driving the beast
- global economic collapse, is war, the idea
- that it is a god idea,
- monstrous fact of what we are, in agreement.
Peace, as proven ever winning, edgewise,
at the core, the intention we assume is true,
people have a reason in the whole ever idea,
immeasurable,
from inside.
..
the reason I wish
to live, longer,
money, use of it, actually,
literal debts for my luxury,
paid by the rules, the game, I won,
my life, in soul possession,  
is the rational measure, the cup of essence
of mankind to be supplied
to all agreeable minds, all free, to try, read
grown-up learn to read as teacher read
from the abundance of answers,
already to be taught to form
foundational anchors,
fears, joys, honor and disdain
of the garden earth is,
under, or behind great magnetic shields,
set to let life function to frame a state,
a stasis, relative to ever, after time
has no measure, the racer's mind,
long run pace, cadence call,
hup, two, three, four, heart beat

fit to the cultures of old, when all boys
were tough, or never boys at all.

"A rather Spartan lifestyle", an eastern reporter,
for Sun Jung Moon's Washington Star, said
of my cohort, during the prepper years.
---
old days --- always better after survival
from warstory to biography
--- look inward

Cranking jams in my haptic suit,
leaping valleys, sweeping down
canyons like I'm little Luke Skywalker;

When my eyes accept the invitatory story
challenge, vie for the power try,
triumphant,
meaning #2, spiritual victory.
Define spirit - breath, breathe, the one to the other
spirit of the bayonet - the word as command, ****
****, ****
take life take life take life, imagine too long,
as the addicted to hormones video triggers,
words
unspoken, live to prove the lie,
ready, read

I feel your pressure, fused with super lies,
unbelievable incredible opposition to peace or mind,
manifested handily as joy in breath,
imagine loving your enemies is your duty,
smile,
laugh and sigh. Some never try.
What can possibly be true, is;
what cannot possibly be true is not and never was.

ABASE PEOPLES SPIRITS, CLIP AND STICK OIL THICK


Abase people’s spirits, try to clip, then stick oil thick tar onto far reaching feathers. Try to demean and dull simple aspirations, by slicing and hacking at the high vibrating senses; and you will witness that negative black thermal rise aloft, you will view a majestic feathered wing hasten on its draft and swirling gust, you’ll wonder at its graceful effortless stretch towards the bright sky Apollo heights.
Abhor and hate a religious slant, emasculate the margin wards, hound and hush at a dream state narcotic, and you will face a strident strong, grit nailed fist, a well-trodden hobnailed boot, and a weathered wise skin wearing a cook splattered apron with histories blood spilt.
Admonish and oppress free seeking thought, blind deny widening lids of open minds eye, pick and pull at oral bones, and you will hear the rat-tat-tat of a printing press repeat, and the bull horns static, followed by the clip clop sounds of many marching feet.
Alienate and nullify peoples, then meddle with boarder’s joint sown crop, ostracise then chemical spray your neighbours hard worked organic plot; and you will witness diligent worn meats, with chore sweating heat that honest toil only seeps, you will smell fresh baked sharing bread, and taste all provincial wines from well-worn supping cups.
Abnegate and abolish choices on sovereign taxes paid, try and hinder imagination with an impassive thrill, like a fairground ride where precious coins are lost, and you will only illuminate action style paints on a ****** white canvas or mould some sculptures odyssey path, and then finally read red blood ink articles in a bold, strident thought-out font print.
Always deny, always see the black and low, a force misunderstood will be born from high aloft, spirits grow where weeds grow strong, muscles pulse and flex when faced with the downing speak. Internal juices which blood only boils, Adrenalin spikes the fighting tooth pick, watch chest rise and free imagination thoughts think.

"On this site!" -
didn't you know?
Nothing to see here now.
The dust of past civilisations
blows along the pavement
crowd surfing
empty crisp packets.
Should we marvel at how
latitude and longitude
can briefly connect us?
Or are we being dared to peer
deeper, beneath
those ancient feet?
Hobnailed soles.
Decorative embroidery.
Fashionable, in their day.
The rhythms of routine,
echoes around us with
each unsteady step.
Is it history or the sign writers
that makes us feel so futile?