If from the public way you turn your steps
Up the tumultuous brook of Green-head Ghyll,
You will suppose that with an upright path
Your feet must struggle; in such bold ascent
The pastoral mountains front you, face to face.
But, courage! for around that boisterous brook
The mountains have all opened out themselves,
And made a hidden valley of their own.
No habitation can be seen; but they
Who journey thither find themselves alone
With a few sheep, with rocks and stones, and kites
That overhead are sailing in the sky.
It is in truth an utter solitude;
Nor should I have made mention of this Dell
But for one object which you might pass by,
Might see and notice not. Beside the brook
Appears a straggling heap of unhewn stones!
And to that simple object appertains
A story—unenriched with strange events,
Yet not unfit, I deem, for the fireside,
Or for the summer shade. It was the first
Of those domestic tales that spake to me
Of Shepherds, dwellers in the valleys, men
Whom I already loved;—not verily
For their own sakes, but for the fields and hills
Where was their occupation and abode.
And hence this Tale, while I was yet a Boy
Careless of books, yet having felt the power
Of Nature, by the gentle agency
Of natural objects, led me on to feel
For passions that were not my own, and think
(At random and imperfectly indeed)
On man, the heart of man, and human life.
Therefore, although it be a history
Homely and rude, I will relate the same
For the delight of a few natural hearts;
And, with yet fonder feeling, for the sake
Of youthful Poets, who among these hills
Will be my second self when I am gone.

     Upon the forest-side in Grasmere Vale
There dwelt a Shepherd, Michael was his name;
An old man, stout of heart, and strong of limb.
His ****** frame had been from youth to age
Of an unusual strength: his mind was keen,
Intense, and frugal, apt for all affairs,
And in his shepherd’s calling he was prompt
And watchful more than ordinary men.
Hence had he learned the meaning of all winds,
Of blasts of every tone; and oftentimes,
When others heeded not, he heard the South
Make subterraneous music, like the noise
Of bagpipers on distant Highland hills.
The Shepherd, at such warning, of his flock
Bethought him, and he to himself would say,
“The winds are now devising work for me!”
And, truly, at all times, the storm, that drives
The traveller to a shelter, summoned him
Up to the mountains: he had been alone
Amid the heart of many thousand mists,
That came to him, and left him, on the heights.
So lived he till his eightieth year was past.
And grossly that man errs, who should suppose
That the green valleys, and the streams and rocks,
Were things indifferent to the Shepherd’s thoughts.
Fields, where with cheerful spirits he had breathed
The common air; hills, which with vigorous step
He had so often climbed; which had impressed
So many incidents upon his mind
Of hardship, skill or courage, joy or fear;
Which, like a book, preserved the memory
Of the dumb animals, whom he had saved,
Had fed or sheltered, linking to such acts
The certainty of honourable gain;
Those fields, those hills—what could they less? had laid
Strong hold on his affections, were to him
A pleasurable feeling of blind love,
The pleasure which there is in life itself .

     His days had not been passed in singleness.
His Helpmate was a comely matron, old—
Though younger than himself full twenty years.
She was a woman of a stirring life,
Whose heart was in her house: two wheels she had
Of antique form; this large, for spinning wool;
That small, for flax; and, if one wheel had rest,
It was because the other was at work.
The Pair had but one inmate in their house,
An only Child, who had been born to them
When Michael, telling o’er his years, began
To deem that he was old,—in shepherd’s phrase,
With one foot in the grave. This only Son,
With two brave sheep-dogs tried in many a storm,
The one of an inestimable worth,
Made all their household. I may truly say,
That they were as a proverb in the vale
For endless industry. When day was gone,
And from their occupations out of doors
The Son and Father were come home, even then,
Their labour did not cease; unless when all
Turned to the cleanly supper-board, and there,
Each with a mess of pottage and skimmed milk,
Sat round the basket piled with oaten cakes,
And their plain home-made cheese. Yet when the meal
Was ended, Luke (for so the Son was named)
And his old Father both betook themselves
To such convenient work as might employ
Their hands by the fireside; perhaps to card
Wool for the Housewife’s spindle, or repair
Some injury done to sickle, flail, or scythe,
Or other implement of house or field.

     Down from the ceiling, by the chimney’s edge,
That in our ancient uncouth country style
With huge and black projection overbrowed
Large space beneath, as duly as the light
Of day grew dim the Housewife hung a lamp,
An aged utensil, which had performed
Service beyond all others of its kind.
Early at evening did it burn—and late,
Surviving comrade of uncounted hours,
Which, going by from year to year, had found,
And left the couple neither gay perhaps
Nor cheerful, yet with objects and with hopes,
Living a life of eager industry.
And now, when Luke had reached his eighteenth year,
There by the light of this old lamp they sate,
Father and Son, while far into the night
The Housewife plied her own peculiar work,
Making the cottage through the silent hours
Murmur as with the sound of summer flies.
This light was famous in its neighbourhood,
And was a public symbol of the life
That thrifty Pair had lived. For, as it chanced,
Their cottage on a plot of rising ground
Stood single, with large prospect, north and south,
High into Easedale, up to Dunmail-Raise,
And westward to the village near the lake;
And from this constant light, so regular
And so far seen, the House itself, by all
Who dwelt within the limits of the vale,
Both old and young, was named The Evening Star.

     Thus living on through such a length of years,
The Shepherd, if he loved himself, must needs
Have loved his Helpmate; but to Michael’s heart
This son of his old age was yet more dear—
Less from instinctive tenderness, the same
Fond spirit that blindly works in the blood of all—
Than that a child, more than all other gifts
That earth can offer to declining man,
Brings hope with it, and forward-looking thoughts,
And stirrings of inquietude, when they
By tendency of nature needs must fail.
Exceeding was the love he bare to him,
His heart and his heart’s joy! For oftentimes
Old Michael, while he was a babe in arms,
Had done him female service, not alone
For pastime and delight, as is the use
Of fathers, but with patient mind enforced
To acts of tenderness; and he had rocked
His cradle, as with a woman’s gentle hand.

     And, in a later time, ere yet the Boy
Had put on boy’s attire, did Michael love,
Albeit of a stern unbending mind,
To have the Young-one in his sight, when he
Wrought in the field, or on his shepherd’s stool
Sate with a fettered sheep before him stretched
Under the large old oak, that near his door
Stood single, and, from matchless depth of shade,
Chosen for the Shearer’s covert from the sun,
Thence in our rustic dialect was called
The Clipping Tree, a name which yet it bears.
There, while they two were sitting in the shade,
With others round them, earnest all and blithe,
Would Michael exercise his heart with looks
Of fond correction and reproof bestowed
Upon the Child, if he disturbed the sheep
By catching at their legs, or with his shouts
Scared them, while they lay still beneath the shears.

     And when by Heaven’s good grace the boy grew up
A healthy Lad, and carried in his cheek
Two steady roses that were five years old;
Then Michael from a winter coppice cut
With his own hand a sapling, which he hooped
With iron, making it throughout in all
Due requisites a perfect shepherd’s staff,
And gave it to the Boy; wherewith equipt
He as a watchman oftentimes was placed
At gate or gap, to stem or turn the flock;
And, to his office prematurely called,
There stood the urchin, as you will divine,
Something between a hindrance and a help,
And for this cause not always, I believe,
Receiving from his Father hire of praise;
Though nought was left undone which staff, or voice,
Or looks, or threatening gestures, could perform.

     But soon as Luke, full ten years old, could stand
Against the mountain blasts; and to the heights,
Not fearing toil, nor length of weary ways,
He with his Father daily went, and they
Were as companions, why should I relate
That objects which the Shepherd loved before
Were dearer now? that from the Boy there came
Feelings and emanations—things which were
Light to the sun and music to the wind;
And that the old Man’s heart seemed born again?

     Thus in his Father’s sight the Boy grew up:
And now, when he had reached his eighteenth year,
He was his comfort and his daily hope.

     While in this sort the simple household lived
From day to day, to Michael’s ear there came
Distressful tidings. Long before the time
Of which I speak, the Shepherd had been bound
In surety for his brother’s son, a man
Of an industrious life, and ample means;
But unforeseen misfortunes suddenly
Had prest upon him; and old Michael now
Was summoned to discharge the forfeiture,
A grievous penalty, but little less
Than half his substance. This unlooked-for claim
At the first hearing, for a moment took
More hope out of his life than he supposed
That any old man ever could have lost.
As soon as he had armed himself with strength
To look his trouble in the face, it seemed
The Shepherd’s sole resource to sell at once
A portion of his patrimonial fields.
Such was his first resolve; he thought again,
And his heart failed him. “Isabel,” said he,
Two evenings after he had heard the news,
“I have been toiling more than seventy years,
And in the open sunshine of God’s love
Have we all lived; yet, if these fields of ours
Should pass into a stranger’s hand, I think
That I could not lie quiet in my grave.
Our lot is a hard lot; the sun himself
Has scarcely been more diligent than I;
And I have lived to be a fool at last
To my own family. An evil man
That was, and made an evil choice, if he
Were false to us; and, if he were not false,
There are ten thousand to whom loss like this
Had been no sorrow. I forgive him;—but
’Twere better to be dumb than to talk thus.

     “When I began, my purpose was to speak
Of remedies and of a cheerful hope.
Our Luke shall leave us, Isabel; the land
Shall not go from us, and it shall be free;
He shall possess it, free as is the wind
That passes over it. We have, thou know’st,
Another kinsman—he will be our friend
In this distress. He is a prosperous man,
Thriving in trade and Luke to him shall go,
And with his kinsman’s help and his own thrift
He quickly will repair this loss, and then
He may return to us. If here he stay,
What can be done? Where every one is poor,
What can be gained?”

                                          At this the old Man paused,
And Isabel sat silent, for her mind
Was busy, looking back into past times.
There’s Richard Bateman, thought she to herself,
He was a parish-boy—at the church-door
They made a gathering for him, shillings, pence,
And halfpennies, wherewith the neighbours bought
A basket, which they filled with pedlar’s wares;
And, with this basket on his arm, the lad
Went up to London, found a master there,
Who, out of many, chose the trusty boy
To go and overlook his merchandise
Beyond the seas; where he grew wondrous rich,
And left estates and monies to the poor,
And, at his birth-place, built a chapel floored
With marble, which he sent from foreign lands.
These thoughts, and many others of like sort,
Passed quickly through the mind of Isabel,
And her face brightened. The old Man was glad,
And thus resumed:—”Well, Isabel! this scheme
These two days has been meat and drink to me.
Far more than we have lost is left us yet.
—We have enough—I wish indeed that I
Were younger;—but this hope is a good hope.
Make ready Luke’s best garments, of the best
Buy for him more, and let us send him forth
To-morrow, or the next day, or to-night:
—If he could go, the boy should go to-night.”

     Here Michael ceased, and to the fields went forth
With a light heart. The Housewife for five days
Was restless morn and night, and all day long
Wrought on with her best fingers to prepare.
Things needful for the journey of her Son.
But Isabel was glad when Sunday came
To stop her in her work: for, when she lay
By Michael’s side, she through the last two nights
Heard him, how he was troubled in his sleep:
And when they rose at morning she could see
That all his hopes were gone. That day at noon
She said to Luke, while they two by themselves
Were sitting at the door, “Thou must not go:
We have no other Child but thee to lose,
None to remember—do not go away,
For if thou leave thy Father he will die.”
The Youth made answer with a jocund voice;
And Isabel, when she had told her fears,
Recovered heart. That evening her best fare
Did she bring forth, and all together sat
Like happy people round a Christmas fire.

     With daylight Isabel resumed her work;
And all the ensuing week the house appeared
As cheerful as a grove in Spring: at length
The expected letter from their kinsman came,
With kind assurances that he would do
His utmost for the welfare of the Boy;
To which requests were added, that forthwith
He might be sent to him. Ten times or more
The letter was read over, Isabel
Went forth to show it to the neighbours round;
Nor was there at that time on English land
A prouder heart than Luke’s. When Isabel
Had to her house returned, the old man said,
“He shall depart to-morrow.” To this word
The Housewife answered, talking much of things
Which, if at such short notice he should go,
Would surely be forgotten. But at length
She gave consent, and Michael was at ease.

     Near the tumultuous brook of Green-head Ghyll,
In that deep valley, Michael had designed
To build a Sheep-fold; and, before he heard
The tidings of his melancholy loss,
For this same purpose he had gathered up
A heap of stones, which by the streamlet’s edge
Lay thrown together, ready for the work.
With Luke that evening thitherward he walked:
And soon as they had reached the place he stopped,
And thus the old Man spake to him:—”My Son,
To-morrow thou wilt leave me: with full heart
I look upon thee, for thou art the same
That wert a promise to me ere thy birth,
And all thy life hast been my daily joy.
I will relate to thee some little part
Of our two histories; ’twill do thee good
When thou art from me, even if I should touch
On things thou canst not know of.—After thou
First cam’st into the world—as oft befalls
To new-born infants—thou didst sleep away
Two days, and blessings from thy Father’s tongue
Then fell upon thee. Day by day passed on,
And still I loved thee with increasing love.
Never to living ear came sweeter sounds
Than when I heard thee by our own fireside
First uttering, without words, a natural tune;
While thou, a feeding babe, didst in thy joy
Sing at thy Mother’s breast. Month followed month,
And in the open fields my life was passed,
And on the mountains; else I think that thou
Hadst been brought up upon thy Father’s knees.
But we were playmates, Luke: among these hills,
As well thou knowest, in us the old and young
Have played together, nor with me didst thou
Lack any pleasure which a boy can know.”
Luke had a manly heart; but at these words
He sobbed aloud. The old Man grasped his hand,
And said, “Nay, do not take it so—I see
That these are things of which I need not speak.
—Even to the utmost I have been to thee
A kind and a good Father: and herein
I but repay a gift which I myself
Received at others’ hands; for, though now old
Beyond the common life of man, I still
Remember them who loved me in my youth.
Both of them sleep together: h

I
Ribb at the Tomb of Baile and Aillinn
BECAUSE you have found me in the pitch-dark night
With open book you ask me what I do.
Mark and digest my tale, carry it afar
To those that never saw this tonsured head
Nor heard this voice that ninety years have cracked.
Of Baile and Aillinn you need not speak,
All know their tale, all know what leaf and twig,
What juncture of the apple and the yew,
Surmount their bones; but speak what none ha've
heard.
The miracle that gave them such a death
Transfigured to pure substance what had once
Been bone and sinew; when such bodies join
There is no touching here, nor touching there,
Nor straining joy, but whole is joined to whole;
For the ******* of angels is a light
Where for its moment both seem lost, consumed.
Here in the pitch-dark atmosphere above
The trembling of the apple and the yew,
Here on the anniversary of their death,
The anniversary of their first embrace,
Those lovers, purified by tragedy,
Hurry into each other's arms; these eyes,
By water, herb and solitary prayer
Made aquiline, are open to that light.
Though somewhat broken by the leaves, that light
Lies in a circle on the grass; therein
I turn the pages of my holy book.
II
Ribb denounces Patrick
An abstract Greek absurdity has crazed the man --
Recall that masculine Trinity.  Man, woman, child (a
daughter or a son),
That's how all natural or supernatural stories run.
Natural and supernatural with the self-same ring are
wed.
As man, as beast, as an ephemeral fly begets, Godhead
begets Godhead,
For things below are copies, the Great Smaragdine
Tablet said.
Yet all must copy copies, all increase their kind;
When the conflagration of their passion sinks, damped
by the body or the mind,
That juggling nature mounts, her coil in their em-
braces twined.
The mirror-scaled serpent is multiplicity,
But all that run in couples, on earth, in flood or air,
share God that is but three,
And could beget or bear themselves could they but
love as He.
III
Ribb in Ecstasy
What matter that you understood no word!
Doubtless I spoke or sang what I had heard
In broken sentences.  My soul had found
All happiness in its own cause or ground.
Godhead on Godhead in ****** spasm begot
Godhead.  Some shadow fell.  My soul forgot
Those amorous cries that out of quiet come
And must the common round of day resume.
IV
There
There all the barrel-hoops are knit,
There all the serpent-tails are bit,
There all the gyres converge in one,
There all the planets drop in the Sun.
V
Ribb considers Christian Love insufficient
Why should I seek for love or study it?
It is of God and passes human wit.
I study hatred with great diligence,
For that's a passion in my own control,
A sort of besom that can clear the soul
Of everything that is not mind or sense.
Why do I hate man, woman Or event?
That is a light my jealous soul has sent.
From terror and deception freed it can
Discover impurities, can show at last
How soul may walk when all such things are past,
How soul could walk before such things began.
Then my delivered soul herself shall learn
A darker knowledge and in hatred turn
From every thought of God mankind has had.
Thought is a garment and the soul's a bride
That cannot in that trash and tinsel hide:
Hatred of God may bring the soul to God.
At stroke of midnight soul cannot endure
A ****** or mental furniture.
What can she take until her Master give!
Where can she look until He make the show!
What can she know until He bid her know!
How can she live till in her blood He live!
VI
He and She
As the moon sidles up
Must she sidle up,
As trips the scared moon
Away must she trip:
"His light had struck me blind
Dared I stop'.
She sings as the moon sings:
"I am I, am I;
The greater grows my light
The further that I fly'.
All creation shivers
With that sweet cry
VII
What Magic Drum?
He holds him from desire, all but stops his breathing
lest
primordial Motherhood forsake his limbs, the child no
longer rest,
Drinking joy as it were milk upon his breast.
Through light-obliterating garden foliage what magic
drum?
Down limb and breast or down that glimmering belly
move his mouth and sinewy tongue.
What from the forest came? What beast has licked its
young?
VIII
Whence had they come?
Eternity is passion, girl or boy
Cry at the onset of their ****** joy
"For ever and for ever'; then awake
Ignorant what Dramatis personae spake;
A passion-driven exultant man sings out
Sentences that he has never thought;
The Flagellant lashes those submissive *****
Ignorant what that dramatist enjoins,
What master made the lash.  Whence had they come,
The hand and lash that beat down frigid Rome?
What sacred drama through her body heaved
When world-transforming Charlemagne was con-
ceived?
IX
The Four Ages of Man
He with body waged a fight,
But body won; it walks upright.
Then he struggled with the heart;
Innocence and peace depart.
Then he struggled with the mind;
His proud heart he left behind.
Now his wars on God begin;
At stroke of midnight God shall win.
X
Conjunctions
If Jupiter and Saturn meet,
What a cop of mummy wheat!
The sword's a cross; thereon He died:
On breast of Mars the goddess sighed.
XI
A Needle's Eye
All the stream that's roaring by
Came out of a needle's eye;
Things unborn, things that are gone,
From needle's eye still goad it on.
XII
Meru
Civilisation is hooped together, brought
Under a mle, under the semblance of peace
By manifold illusion; but man's life is thought,
And he, despite his terror, cannot cease
Ravening through century after century,
Ravening, raging, and uprooting that he may come
Into the desolation of reality:
Egypt and Greece, good-bye, and good-bye, Rome!
Hermits upon Mount Meru or Everest,
Caverned in night under the drifted snow,
Or where that snow and winter's dreadful blast
Beat down upon their naked bodies, know
That day brings round the night, that before dawn
His glory and his monuments are gone.

Look:

If mankind is a forest and you then a tree
then I am the one who stands sentry
and watches for signals in a distant belfry
one of if by land and two if by sea
a position not revered watching danger near
and screaming curdled-canticles dear
that fire is sweeping and the kindling is fear
the smoke's in the distance – it doesn’t just appear
you frogs oblivious to the quick melting veneer
to afraid to strip it away, to look in the mirror
and see yourself for what you are; for what we're
becoming – something less than...

Stop:

And you think there's truth in this verbal climbing
but it's just that what I'm saying was designed to be rhyming
and is syncopated to give it an ear-pleasing timing
like a...a........a
***-***-***
heartbeat
a heartbeat pinging unbirthing mountains
on a static-shot blue monitor
in a faraway
hospital where all the rooms are
painted black and the
Doctors curse themselves.

Cursed like we are cursed,
to our death marched and the only
sound ringing is the bleating
of a New Orleans trumpet
in a funeral march – our coffin
into the dirt sank and left behind
these idolatrous sycophants who
have like pigs at a trough suckled
the very marrow of genius from our
bones, then spit back but a slim
shadow of our once impeccant brilliance.

Like the unborn galaxies of celestial mothers,
like the toxic lessons of a distempered
youth, like the sullen, momentary terror of a
child before sleep: let it be said that we
are forgotten.

Let it be said that it is as though we never were,
that the banshee curses we have screamed at the
horrors and the inequities we have witnessed
are for naught, are
disappeared, are into the ether ****** until
the great unknowable beyond has become
the altar of our yesterdays, forgiving the
domain of God and forgetting that of man:
show me a man of faith and I will show
you one of fear; man the animal, the scourge,
man the fiend who cannot forgive, merely
erase the memory and think not of the
transgressions done to him

Forget us and we will forget
what you have done to us;
but do not ask us to forgive the
pillage of our sacred rights, to forgive
the devolution of our ideas into the mire
of the ordinary, to forgive at all- No
man is not an animal who forgives; leave that
to God and **** him for it.


Forget we ever were; it is a greater kindness
than to remember the mutant bile we will become.


All of which is to say this:

Earlier I wandered outside and heard cries
behind the closed doors that guard our loyal lies
and this boy sitting near with a gold hooped ear
called it a ghost town
then took another drag and tears
slipped past his locked up frown.
I'll never know his name

This is the third time
I've planted climbing roses

The first two failed to fulfill
my romantic fantasy of
efflorescent roses
flaunting their naughty
frilly pink bodice
and hooped skirts
draped in loops
like gingerbread scroll-work
or fleur-de-lis
gamboling, sauntering
across the white French trellis

I guess I'm really a fairy trapped
inside this 5' 8" terrestrial body
I love how the amethyst moon-flowers
with the pentagram tattooed on their
belly button petals
cast a magic spell over the garden

And the night blooming jasmine's
enchanting fragrance wakens the
dreaming gardenia and makes everybody
including our blue eyed ragdoll kitten
a wee bit tipsy

I curl up on my midnight Jhoola
topiary shadows crouch
like royal sphinxes
in the starlit courtyard
and reflecting pools of water
from summer rains
swirl open their third eyes
~portals to another world~

I wander down padded blue halls and hear cries
behind closed doors guarding our summer lies .
The boy outside with the gold hooped ear
calls it a ghost town
then takes another drag and tears
slip past his locked up frown.
I never knew his name

It is deafening silence
Beneath the lanky pine shrouded of darkness
And the bed of needles soft under hand,
Snow sits shallow and dulled behind a curtain,
The hushed breath of a boy out of hand,

And the bark rough against back,
And the stick of sap against the palm, and the screech
Of tires far afield, and the breakneck cold
Cries with hidden desires of dark shadows breach
In the low mountains of housed hills where silence holds.

Once when warmth was in the heart
Among the walls solid evergreen held,
As the food hot and the flames low, a boy unfolded
The truth of heart that smoldered in anguished meld,
Rushed and tumbled forced out upon the wold

Of snow. And alone then
In the darkening cold, run by the streets light
And the pavements white with turned ash and the men
Roosting asleep while the barking dog grew trite
Whom echoed among the covered grounds and then

Stumbled on with anxious limb,
Thus feet sting, the glacial frost bitterly bites,
The hooped ring luminescent and hung, the lanky pine
Comforting in its shelter bare of lights,
And there to rest and rebuild new spine.

“He knelt, he wept, he prayed,”
By the hurt of his heart feeble in the dense dark night
And huddled bellow the knotting pine though in the homes,
In the past warmth, in the slow light,
At the loves gracious hold, he wished to roam.

“He knelt” in spindled branches,
“He wept” being cast out, “he prayed” to the hidden gods
That he be found rescued restored to right
Darkness pushed aside by the cars beam and the boy at odds
And the shimmering diamond studded earth and the black white

Into that light of promise
He wished to go but he sits eyes closed to darkness
With out the car which passed and broken he stands.
His heart wrenched breaking him choked by the collar
And up the way whence came to the shattered lands

It is deafening silence,
Reentering in the house torn, in the whirl-
Wind of heated battle, into his room
He crawls, in the slow light of the dreams world.
And he rises with new light arching through the sky.

Up in the land of Temalahoo's
the people forgot the number two!
The start of races was often cut short
with a Three... One... oh wait! Abort!

Nobody could seem to come up with a fix
except for the little jolly kid Nix.
See little Nix was really quite young
about eleven months past the age of one.
Never forgetting his next step of the way
little boy Nix knew the number astray.

But because of his age, no one would listen
and little boy Nix grew frustrated with them.
He hooped and he hollered that lonely lost number,
but simply could not awake his fellow mind's slumber.
And it wasn't until he had long since grew,
that little boy Nix got through to the Temalahoo,
but by then little Nix was no longer so small
and he too had forgotten along with them all.

Waved bangs frame
Your fair young face,
And flowing clothes hang
Like drying laundry
From your gangly limbs

We met for lunch once:
You, daughter of
the stars and I the curious
Traveler. My words did
Not flow as I’d hoped,
But hung limp in
The air vulnerably--
For your guarded heart
Ignored their pleas.

I see you daily, star child,
With your hooped earrings
And painted lips, eyes
twinkling like distant suns.
I will continue to admire
you from afar,
Even if our worlds are
Not in orbit and our
galaxies sit light years apart.

“The Revenant”(Ghost Song Inspiration)
Awake yearning Asleep
Barnacles of riveted keel ajar with wonder keepsakes to sweep
Traipsing the moonlit path between equidistant insanities
Billowing fumes of rage fulgurant in the vogue modality
Whispering 9 Billion hymns to an immemorial cemetery
Silenced by shattered quakes rumbling in the deep forest
Imagined long ago yet again…
Surfing the few fragile crestfallen waves Tighter Nooses in tsunamis on Portugal in the eleventh month hanging ten
Fragile swoons of kenspeckel verbatim echoed in hallowed halls of evening Diaspora gilded in excellence
Limit is no boundary to the timeless clock of tilted tendencies towards barbed decadence
Revelry is no artifact tethered to a patibulary pole folded in the pokerish sneakthievery of triumphant owl’s night
We laugh like soft mad children waxing the candlelit vigil of barren Beirut struck down with ultrageous fright
Cackling as misfortune trespasses are shot on sight
That The Remedy asphyxiates National Anthem hues
Slippery in the crevasse of caffeinated daydream sues
Toasting butter cretaceous with wonder a lapse of sentience is its ultimate blunder of 1015 Rooz
Because the tottering paragon overlooks his habitable tomb
Bequeathed in Nero’s fright askew for the itching view
Spawned instants of thunderous applause serenade the weaning night littered with dancing fragments of illusion
Time is no object to objective dimples on Helicopter dime
Swank is no subject because the predevoted pause owes all to cadence of currency in the heyday of sublime
Long-winded but curt
Outskirts to every vacant and inhabited skirt suburban to muses crooning with antiquity destitute with forbidden flirt
Livid with indignation over fallen hands outstretched to unheralded bands
Simpering with scalded water of tattered whisper of the nauclatic heralds of sunrise over moonlight land
Effort is no music without tragedian Shakespearean rebuke
Taylor’s stop-and-go with flashlight frisk a Pharaohs’ Zion too much of a Fluke
Greco-Roman travesty blinks with scary flicker in an alpenglow Apollon stained-glass window summit
Dirges always precede precipitate glamour aflame with spectral filibustered blight and plummet
besieged by fallen wonders
Sunken by echoes of consequence in Heavy Metal Thunder
Glimpsing the Revenant of a future tango with backwards sentinels of séance
Grief overtakes the rejuvenated sunlit hike
Hitched by Horses with No Name Painless by harnessed spike
Of a Roadhouse Blues not Red enough for the Scarlet Letter Hues of Bill the Butcher White with Tweed nullifying his diacopes of spite
Cadence peerless paling to mirrored reflection of recapitulated mated soul
Limpid nexility that ghosts flex with reflective Jazzy soul
Jailhouse rocking Malone swerves with jaunt
Easy to dance easier to flaunt
Dastardly darts four score and seven jerseys ago
The seamstress of violence alacrity to sow
Vindication belonging to orphaned asylum 44th
A King lost too soon because of masons coming fourth
Degrees of Solomon rustling through A Biff’s Palace
Jimpster hitman an Akabu of hustled alarm pegged to wild shadows dancing a delicate filigree of spawn and spark
To the plug anointed by tethered Cable Guy treason
Few vigilantes of Batman’s caliber yet to reason
In the Revenant’s wake of fallen timbers of Sunset Strip
Reapers prowl with the tide of Bruno Mars RIP
That he sprawls in survival a hat too generous to tip
Uptown Chelsea in uproar as auditoriums fill with hedged victims of sense and sensibility etched in Gore
Lone Pine Mall stranded by conflagration of bulletproof lore
Clowns dedicate independence while crowns croon ***** repentance
For a forlorn starvation of cities of jackals sailed to sentence
Dripping with a faucet of ghostly haunts
Kapstone Paper in Kansas verging on misery wants  
Yet Bleeding American with French-British hues
The world’s lovelorn starlet yet too swollen to amuse
Stark travesty in fatuous emoluments to Walter White vanity
A current streak unbeaten because of realism in Virtual Insanity
A Joker’s Gamboled revenge skittish in sketchy chalkboards of ossified prestige
Left to the milk carton missing is yet another Abandoned Pools squeeze
The Young Robot scared to Fly-by-Night in the pathway of terminal poignant disease
A punitive prison worthy of the cackles of Dinosaurs besieged by Mr. Freeze
Folksy natatoriums agape with bathhouse squalor
Every hierodule a ******* to the witwanton bottom dollar
For the buggery of a Titanic warning towering ever taller
Stilted Wilts 50 a game warbles without Chinese glowers of Silk Road Silk
An albatross of agrarian hubris is how Ping-Pong Champions were eventually built
Hollywood’s grotto a despairing bravado
Of a masonry skyscraping a surpassed entelechy of a half-known tomorrow
Escape malingering and dare to dream
Listless maneuvers of space a hipster jam of the rollicking heyday of a fortress of a team
That I brandish with pride and retrospective snide
How perjury Underoath is a much better bribe
Air Force pride against Scorched Earth fallow because of a wayward bride
The Spectrum of Casper is galloping in deceitful degrees of a piety too wide
Swayed by Swayze pretended or lazy
The whole world in centration glistens with the fashionable crazy
Electromagnetic Detroit a rumpus for Notorious donnybrooks of a Gretchen cloaked too tight for Avalanche brawls cemented in burgundy and white
Industrial locomotives bulldozing Buffaloes of a Boulder fraternity too leaky to always be right
Scattered on Dawn’s Highway Bleeding crowded by a sing-song peril by design
That deference is reference to rappers glistening in surrealism ripe and prime marveling at the Ace of Military Base’s glaring Sign
Lethal Killers on patrol roaming Earthquake plodded land
Count the number of hairs of vitriol in silicon purebred amicable handfuls of wafting sand
Drifting in Mescaline ends at the periphery of Desert Movies Goldmines for Choosing
The Native American Jabberwocky or Mulder’s Father’s dying musing neither of which is favorable to boozing
The Brown doctor disfavored by armed aristocrats is always alive and rarely unbuttoned when snoozing
Flynn torches bemuse the tattered knight
Presumptuous Arthur is only on the quorum when consentience of accord is proven right by both deed and prescient light
Hardly a sidesplitter for a curveball time
California Love is plastered with rivalries of NorCal grime
Of the greatest Banana Slug Fiction flagrant with Quinntessential clairvoyance of a deceased 60’s crime
A dead queer lollygag belonging to the advice of a Pearl Jam Jeremy’s erasure of snares of beleaguered blasphemous chyme
Nonlinear spurts fielded by stolen bases of paralyzed rebuffs rather curt
A rapper worthy of the stage rarely an actor beyond a churlish vendetta hurt
Yet I dazzle the lingerie of even the most guarded skirt
The kiln of machination is a wedding of guarded betrayals of Monster Mash extortion
Alexisonfire a harbinger to the world’s belabored victory over corrugated striptease contortion
Thursday is a miraculous noise of shattered glass
Inertia knows ventriloquial varnish of shattered bones and tempted blood dripping in crematorium ash
Yet I survive with a Jive walk and a sardonic wagtail flock
Of the best patronage of cognoscenti shockwaves of bonanza stocks stalked like a swarpollock locket invisible to Tik Tok
I’m the best hip-hop in the game beyond the treachery of retreads of psychobabble inane
I strut like magic belonging to the sanitorium of the edgy swank of modest profane
Granite defected is my cement planet infesting the game like Boardwalks on the revived Titanic
Aliens headbash the gamut of my spangled manic
Ghost Ridin’ Raiders of the Lost Arc leads to hysterical panic
Indiana laughs at Elway’s squirrel because he bolted Baltimore with a baseball pretense for a sexier girl
When the rigmarole of genius aligns infamy bails out the oyster aphrodisiac of a Heart of the Ocean pearl
Time is a self-referential quisling of a monarchy built of subtle curling
A bored sport dazzling with scintillation in recursive zeal unfurling
A Canada Dry livid stargazer dozes on Oiler comets meteoric as hydroponics
**** quaffs the lazy lollygag rarely hooked on the righteous phonics
But no distaste to the canine game
I am well beyond the distance to the lethargy of NV in shame
Bear Bryant on Rushmore flowing high
Jetsetting across Pink Floyd’s lurid Clear Blue Skies
George trampled by Chauvinist monsters
Zuckerberg and Gates are honkies betting on bonkers loud both in Boston and in Yonkers
100 Billion of counterfeit souls sold to slot machine mannequins quite droll
Someone needs to devour their corner like a Revelations sour-tasting scroll
Tagged to apothecary mountebanks of Trey’s on repeat
A hard-won small Utah town harder than Joe Montana to beat
Bypassed hack of time Luminosity the adultress of 1693 regaled as a freakish feat
Time simpers to Spirit of Grace graven kantikoys in Seattle Graveyards blemished by dancing Creep
The Idioteque squalor of bemused negligence in a flooded Avatar Jurassic Park Jeep
I recall the St. Joseph’s brawl not with Sevendust Animosity or a squawk on short-sighted grating flag hooped with haywire lines snorted on Basketball
The marstions of plenilune filigree are 32 Leaves of RINOs of crestfallen dirges of cacophony deafened by Yachted Wedding Crashers’ squall
The swagger of a Vogue Rose kissed by Shadow Dancing ******* is livid in throes
Of a throwaway stretchgrave of Jackson’s crooning on astounding Mike Bossy Bose
Engraved with Islander epiphany that smokestack chockablocks itch every more Leary in gawsy clothes
I rampage through the filibusters of Jerusalem silt sunken by immigrants in tired tattered kilt
That the only famine known to McDonald’s is the demolition of Fireman of young Wayne Enterprises yet rigged to insuperable caverns hitched to the hilt
Soul Kitchen alphabets on Dewey Decimal design swagger yet with a Lugubrious Monkey-Silent Bob’s Feared Spinosity in Sprites of commercial Lemon-Lime
Of a dauntless Decision among many subdued by Prison that the apish caper gouges 20/20 Vision a cacophony dimpled in recessive alleles of a modern prime
That is also primacy antecedent to yoked Cartel SUV’s perfected in acerbic dungeons Monster Mash corners yet death unfurled in matchbox tinder of Futurama slime
Jet Lagged infancy of Nuclear Duff hustling the Illmatic Annoyance of BiffCO ***** riddles Uncle RICO wed boschveldt of Kansas City seen 21-30 with zeal and repine
The Bizarre Inc. of a lovelorn 96’ robbed Liberace into untimely death the spinsters of Key Auditorium Dine
Hemlock sprees of Socratic whimpers of treason of Piraeus marks the infamy of Brutus lagging with conscience diseased
That the marvel of vengeance is the plaudits of swanky New York Times rustling against dead Nevada Subways and Lusitania rollicking seas
Rage itches as Brock is capsized to Hearts of Oceans littered with Sparrow Murders of Ravens Batty with Belief
Mourning the Twister carnage of A Shining City on a Hill printed by Federal Way disclosure by Armada Music without a receipt
To the dozen graves of Monster Mash London Fog the Undeveloped Story of a balcony of Wayne Packer Million Dollar degrees
Challenged to a Final Revolution of a Fantasy terrorizing the Trafficked hand a Coca Cola seizure God spared for “Canceled” Taco Bell automotive brain freeze
Spinsters with vertigo paralyze on the hopscotch kettle of popcorn for amusement racketing squashed Colombia too many lines yet to appease
And too gaping Walls of Chauvin weaning on freckles of Comfortably Numb disease that Love Story castle is the monarchy of allusion to 19-17
Coffins for 24k Carat foresight by the antiquated architects
attacked for 2001 vengeance on Forsberg’s Spleen
Notorious by scores of tourists in aperture for Native American Casinos blankets on Red Scare forests
Apple’s chocolate-box sergeant prescience on brittle Reed Chorus
Sung by the litany of Ima memorialized by punctual Grace of the sashay of Delphinium fountain pens porous.

Saint Patrick's Day, or
Feast of Saint Patrick
Lá Fhéile Pádraig
invoke even non Irish to proclaim
Éirinn go Brách
translated as "Ireland Forever."

Juiced tin he nuff tame afore
thee 2021 Saint Patrick's Day,
(hens this faux written accent
donned to sail hub berate won big todo
fur those peep pull o' Eire rush deuce cent)

aye pretend, and thence make oop
duff fallow wing vary minor event
harkening back e'er sins this generic gent,
hooped tubby imp poet hint wannabe,
(who hapt tubby absent

without leave from Brogue kin home
since a lil whippersnapper, and accident
boot tappin), when me note holler than
garden variety leprechaun, advertisement
tuff hind miss elf, no major ailment -

good red ants tomb ma late mum,
which fair re: creatures, no argument
booth us, iz moar rare than
finding far leaf clover,
and eek will coz fur astonishment

eef hoodlum (caw zing
bedlam) sought atonement
Yukon bull heave or no,
how life on the lamb
as a Dublin street urchin met belligerent

scruffy geezers old looking and bent
till kind ole soul named C. Clement
took yaws truly as apprenticed
Baron without complaint,
though kept ma lidded concealment

secret til search abandoned confident
gnome hissing pipsqueak,
would be sorely missed
giving fresh start with help to coinvent
patois, and be comb real estate magnet

ne'er no wing want oof
basic needs - yea content
in due time making pile
moan hee tall as Taj Mahal
kicking back during Lent

gerrymandering convalescent
old age spinning yarns
for modest copayment
total tubular tales with
nary a Harris Boss Tweed stitch of truth!

Since adopting the guise
of Norwegian bachelor farmer,
I may as well fabricate genetic stock
lock, and barrel linkedin to Celtic legend.

Sentimentalism invariably swelled me *****
regarding how grown former bonny lad,
essentially mutely surfed, finagled, and coursed
one existential nihilistic wave after another
nearly getting drowned in the process

Any non American English
exotic pronunciations in general
and dialects predicated
with United Kingdom in particular
held me spellbound.

Debate ensues that the term brogue comes
from Irish word barróg, meaning
"a hold (on the tongue),"
thus "accent" or "speech impediment."

An alternative etymology suggested
that brogue means 'impediment,'
and that it came from barróg
which is homophonous
with bróg in Munster Irish.

Saint Patrick's Day, or
Feast of Saint Patrick
Lá Fhéile Pádraig
invoke even non Irish to proclaim
Éirinn go Brách
translated as "Ireland Forever."

Juiced tin he nuff tame afore
thee 2023 Saint Patrick's Day,
(hens this faux written accent
donned to sail hub berate won big todo
fur those peep pull o' Eire rush deuce cent)

aye pretend, and thence make oop
duff fallow wing vary minor event
harkening back e'er sins this generic gent,
hooped tubby imp poet hint wannabe,
(who hapt tubby absent

without leave from Brogue kin home
since a lil whippersnapper, and accident
boot tappin), when me note holler than
garden variety leprechaun, advertisement
tuff hind miss elf, no major ailment -

good red ants tomb ma late mum,
which fair re: creatures, no argument
booth us, iz moar rare than
finding far leaf clover,
and eek will coz fur astonishment

eef hoodlum (caw zing
bedlam) sought atonement
Yukon bull heave or no,
how life on the lamb
as a Dublin street urchin met belligerent

scruffy geezers old looking and bent
till kind ole soul named C. Clement
took yaws truly as apprenticed
Baron without complaint,
though kept ma lidded concealment

secret til search abandoned confident
gnome hissing pipsqueak,
would be sorely missed
giving fresh start with help to coinvent
patois, and be comb real estate magnet

ne'er no wing want oof
basic needs - yea content
in due time making pile
moan hee tall as Taj Mahal
kicking back during Lent

gerrymandering convalescent
old age spinning yarns
for modest copayment
total tubular tales with
nary a Harris Boss Tweed stitch of truth.

Countdown to homelessness –
mars this earthlinked sole Harris - son
panhandler would would register
pyrrhic victory won.

10…9…8…3..2..1…
Found me linkedin at the end of my wits
mein kampf and hard times
playing on big screen at the Ritz
vamoose oft times motivations quits
for -- no money iz the pits
without any rich Uncle (Sam) in my orbitz
to ease worse case scenario than bing covered
head to toe with nits
if...offered residence among...
hive feel stung as beelzebub doth buzzfeed,

after being espied,
targeted in the crosshairs
of excellent marksman -
credo, ethos, and holistic lifestyle - a mitts
fa this contemplative, furtive,
and intuitive chap lits
of luminous joie de vivre
will emanate like bland kits
and biting the bullet
no less tasty than true grits,
the latter touted by Euell Gibbons
of bias, discrimination, fuhgeddaboudit
suddenly resplendent with blinding blitz
warp and whoop of bits.

Medium of spoken or written word
avast milieu this wordsmith doth assay,
the aim of said missive constitutes
avoiding living in cardboard box or bidet
house zing debacle looms approximately
soffit teen eaves from this day
if scant success, this atypical, ideal
and zeal - lot might post himself on eBay
or mebbe get swooped up
by 10,000 cannibals and turned into a fillet
which mish mashed matted mush
will resemble fifty shades of gray.

Words above and below
written June thirtieth,
two thousand seventeen indicates,
when rental lease
will find our psyches fillet
so this buster brown
(actually Eastern European Semitic caucasian)
hooped to stave then
turning fifty plus eighteen shades of gray
weigh past time of life

to gather rose buds – boot hay
touted as AARP candidate
my inner child doth inlay,
I approach outer limits
per twilight zone of this blue jay
youthful looking married male -
with doe eyed wife does not buck,
donnybrook and neigh
against mortality reckons,
a safe and secure domicile

important basic needs
(codified by Abraham Maslow) – okay
this LVIII year young chap
haint expect tin tubby be housed
in courtly Highland manor,
yet anxiety sans poverty will play
a cruel hoax ruse trick finding me
to jump off a bridge –
with pier - sing quay
King Crimson ready

to bring cessation of existence –
when nada stinging ray
of salvation pleasantly doth sashay
and bring relief before
unwelcome ominous killer fate
inches closer incrementally from today
this father of deux darling
then near grown daughters
might fare better brexit - ting America
high tailing dreams to Uruguay.

Nary a snowball chance in hell
this alter kaker will nab employment
since receiving social security
emotional disability for countless years
(viz anxiety, dysthymia,
obsessive compulsive disorder, and prone
to become emotionally panicky
and paralyzed in social situations)
relies on medications,
which palliative doth alleviate, calm, and endow
relief (from debilitating, harrowing,
and lacerating quality of being alive.

LIST OF PRESCRIPTION MEDICATIONS THEN TAKEN:

1. Clonazepam 0.5 MG Tablets;
(generic - Klonopin); (1 tablet 3x daily).
2. Floxetine Hcl 40 MG CAPS; (Generic - Prozac).
3. Prazosin 1 MG capsule - 1 capsule nightly.
4. Quetiapine Fumarate; (generic - Seroquel) -
50 MG; (2 tablets 2x daily).
5. not a misprint – a higher dosage,
this pop pops prior to bedtime.
Quetiapine Fumarate; (Generic - Seroquel);
100 MG; (1 tablet at bedtime).

Sought an affordable place
against the sands of time
thyself and spouse race
already envisioning an outlook
that doth harken to trace
living non social on bleak street -
forever reaching for salvation
like Samuel Coleridge Taylor,
his rime of the ancient mariner
or John Keats lovers for’ ever glazed
asper ode on a Grecian (formula) vase.

Mine status begs turing
vibrant with near blinding light
could inform this bloke
if any long term living accommodations
ever available, or perhaps
if no can do versus tae kwon do might
be privy to share information about
any eco-friendly community
to forestall any unpleasant plight
specifically being pitched out
on the streets  with thee spouse
onto the bleak cobblestone streets
of the urban jungle, where right
iz determined by spittle and spite
and valuables must be clutched tight.

OCCUPATION:
I receive social security disability
for re: max him mum,
long and fostered, during the latter half
of the Fox and Roach pelted per
pesky pointedly nineteen hundred
and fifty nine
ever since my conception in utero -
likened to a luke warm Caldwell,
and the entire century 21.

STATE: protracted, anxiety
COUNTRY: United States

Saint Patrick's Day, or
Feast of Saint Patrick
Lá Fhéile Pádraig
invoke even non Irish to proclaim
Éirinn go Brách
translated as "Ireland Forever."

Though semitic thru and thru
yours truly (me) dons guise of being Irish
trumpeting hoople linked with
the folklore and culture of Emerald Isle
juiced tin he nuff tame afore
thee 2024 Saint Patrick's Day,
(hens this faux written accent
donned to sail hub berate won big todo
fur those peep pull
o' Eire rush deuce cent)

aye pretend, and thence make oop
duff fallow wing vary minor event
harkening back e'er sins this generic gent,
hooped tubby imp poet hint wannabe,
(who hapt tubby absent
without leave from Brogue kin home
since a lil whippersnapper, and accident
boot tappin), when me note holler than
garden variety leprechaun, advertisement
tuff hind miss elf, no major ailment -

good red ants tomb ma late mum,
which fair re: creatures, no argument
booth us, iz moar rare than
finding far leaf clover,
and eek will coz fur astonishment
eef hoodlum (caw zing
bedlam) sought atonement
Yukon bull heave or no,
how life on the lamb
as a Dublin street urchin met belligerent

scruffy geezers old looking and bent
till kind ole soul named C. Clement
took yaws truly as apprenticed
Baron without complaint,
though kept ma lidded concealment
secret til search abandoned confident
gnome hissing pipsqueak,
would be sorely missed
giving fresh start with help to coinvent
patois, and be comb real estate magnet

ne'er no wing want oof
basic needs - yea content
in due time making pile
moan hee tall as Taj Mahal
kicking back during Lent
gerrymandering convalescent
old age spinning yarns
for modest copayment
total tubular tales with
nary a Harris Boss Tweed
stitch of truth.