Amongst the monardas
Horsetail, Susan's black eyes
You can almost feel it:
freedom, life.

It could just be the heat.

is used for hair care
it increases cognition
strengthens bones, horsetail

Some days will be bad.
You will want to rip apart your ligaments
You will want to rupture your lungs
You'll no longer want to hear the bird sing.
You'll douse yourself in gasoline and strike a match at arms length.
but as the clock wrings it's hands, the nights of lonliness will morph into comforting evenings by a fire
the ligaments you wanted to rip will grow stronger, the gasoline will become inflammable.
The wisps of horsetail clouds will spin across your horizon
and you will be okay.
The instances or decades of pain you feel
will fade into the wallpaper of the new ER you build yourself,
a sanctuary, a haven. All of it will dissolve, a pill in water, bursting and then dispersing, scattering to the edges of your memories.
It will get better.

Molested by the grief, inside this sunlit blanket of swamp-land, my tears engage amongst weeping filaments and shallows, like the sunlight shattered in squinty eyes, against the shadows of swaying horsetail clusters, creases of light splinter and shimmer until the last dusk-light, carving whispers from lost moments, agile and whistling badly until the bottles break, those are my thorough thighs that dance under the new breath of winter, basking against frictions that spark a new singular confusion, that sudden hollowness of living this human attrition, amongst the chaos and irrational cruelties that blend in as natural as a baby's first smile, conclusions appear and fizzle, delusions bloat with glee, as the soul starts to settle, the crackling dying fire-pit of white ash, like the furrows found on withered brows, pleasures can seem emptier with these dwindling days, but i was living backwards, squandering my youth on self-examination and ascetic aspirations, out of fear and a doubtful heart, now those drugs are valuable to my decay, and living this life is still rich with possibility and transformative change, even as i grow too old to care about tomorrow.

extract for hair growth
living for four million years
strengthens bones, horsetail

improves brain function
used for healing broken bones
wonderful horsetail

Over treetops over flowers
Over gardens, over bowers
Through the brambles and the hedgerow
Over rivers over lakes I go
You may find me anywhere
Quicker than lightning in the night air
My mistress is the Fairy Queen
I place her dewdrops on all that’s green
The wildflowers are her sentries tall
I must place crystal spheres upon them all
Every flower in this fair land
Must adorn her orbs placed by my hand
Aster cornflower bluebell scented stock
Figwort goatsbeard horsetail and flock
All catch the sunlight from my queen’s dewdrops

Alcohol encourages unusual behaviors,
As many may attest;
The fruit of drunkenness,
Embarrassment.

When I was ten, I saw a thing,
I've been reluctant to report,
But 45 years have come and gone,
And I find I have to tell someone
The tale of Christmas at my Gran's.

The neighbors came by invitation,
Arriving in style for a rural celebration,
In steady form, as alcoholics will maintain,
Little wobble in their walk,
Little slurring in their conversation.

What struck us into consternation,
Was Charlie's hairpiece, new and black,
Banded at one end, a horsetail piece,
Inverted and trimmed into a toupee,
How he'd figured out the thing,
Only alcohol could say.

The evening was funny,
With everyone not staring,
Taking sideways glances,
I'd say, "Please pass the peas,"
And look the other way,
Grinning slyly at my brother,
I ignored the warning glares
Coming from our mother.

The dining room grew warm,
With food and warming ovens,
My father trying to lead a conversation
About cows, and horses, Grandma's fritters,
Anything to keep the room from titters.

When old Charlie commenced sweating,
The crow-ish blackness of his hair
Revealed its shoe polish beginnings,
Trickling down behind his ears,
And then a rivulet released its flow
To wend its way beside his nose,
And dripping, dripping down, began
To drench his shirt, first the collar,
Vaulting lapels to his middle,
Until a river of black sweat
Drove to his belt, and trickled in.

T'was all that I could do
To look the other way,
To put Gram's napkins to my grin,
As Charlie's horse tail wig ran threads
Of shoe black down his nose and chin.

To this day, I cannot recall
Just how the evening ended,
I only know that afterwards,
For years, the family extended
The tale of Charlie's Christmas spree:
White shirt, horse toupee, and black ink,
Caused our parents to bring warnings
Of the dire consequence of drink.

My grand daddy taught me to start a rope,
with a Turk's head knot. This be that sort of rope.
-- it takes less time to use
than to make
long enough
for any actual perfect purpose.

Mimetic pretenders,
euphoric make believers,
ritual passage over or under open limen
- cross the t and dot the ego.
- seek and find the missing pages
- all the mysteries in time
- that form our fundamental
- common sense in crazy made time

Lacunae rise from forgotten reasons used
to teach guardians
of secrets reasons
for war, how
to love,
in all the ways love is made worth dying for.
Blut und Grund, das Sein,
und mein, danke Schön

-- time ghosts pass, remarking at the weather-
-fine day, suns ablaze, breeze is light,
bemusing the beguiled thinking
'tis fairy, times fairs became cities, and all agreed,
election by contest, war in the spirit, in truth
using mere words, no audio, no video,
no styling nor fancy letter forms, unicode
alone no secret scripts, only sound marks
accented acutenesses and all,
∞ +

y nada mas, mere words, redeemed, for this.
one new day redeemed for glory story need.
Morning glory teas,
in tiny shell shape cups.

May all magnificence be truth's.
Kernels of truth,
seeds producing tomorrow's
criteria, substance of things hoped for,
picked out details
to see in myths, the accuser's uses,
mysterious roots in ancien' riparian realms.

Oreithyia and Pharmaceia, intercession
for the poor.
Early spring
bulbs and flowers
the maenads chaos wine,
effigy effigial me, burning
for your mis-perception
of procedural authority,
instant re-co-gnosis,
vestigial dreams
time minds
in tow, riding your own
recognition,
around the spiral, down,
you would tell me if you were insane
so would I, the ego, living aight,
this it, you read, that's all she wrote
∞ *+
∞ -> =
aha, you think,
may be so,
say so, or no, go and
find the connection closed,
and energy flowing in to the either real realm,
or the null set, like old never minds, you had
while the circuits were fried
at the fusebox
for pennies
used to save a dime, to keep the energy
flowing to the magi's visual representation
of all that's known to hold attention,
by reflex,
look out, see windsense, energy electricity,
elect to let your curiousity fix all your if-I'da

knowns

open for conjecture, to catch subjects
objectified from the precept wisdom is, whole,
as the whole truth, we understand, makes sense
nets form nodes of both knowing, as a me,
we, each grow old at the same pace,
we become that which is,
at first step, precept assuring the runner,
there is always a place to put your foot,
goat-sense, Ein Gedi balsam eating
'scaped goat,
running down the cliff,
at the edge of annual reboots,
reconnecting reality, and the balm
traded for silk in Giliad, and
entertaing news
of miracles in smoke…
and mirrors of mercury, and
-------- time, out of mind dangling hook
make believe, fishing
we pretend, making be specific
imaginary gravity and survival codes,
for a chosen few, catchholds, grapples
for those not inclined
to lean
on a lesson
that demands experience,
to contend, hold that thought, this ain't war.

- Khai Vinh, set like the roof
- Ai can find the images,
- the place was real
- those were my antennae
- crazy true, after the fact, signal
- now, how much of that was CIA?

proud Mary keep on boinin', 'long
Bayou Bleu,
down Plaquemine way, deep night
on roads made from tiny wet white shells
that something made, while living in it,
- one way trace, wide enough
- for an auto me mover
- tugging my at to here
as we live inside our head, as far as
our fingers reach
from where we stand,
our feeling fingers only reach so far, so good.

Held a thought
a while back,
it may have been a trick, but listen, if it was,
I'd have taken it, and won, for midsent-morphing
turning tropes for the dopes hoping something new.
In fancy forms of wannabets.
Peace on Earth, is real.
Baby,
the price is all the attention you can muster,
and then some, as time seems
to have
modes, like we have moods, hormonal
catch and release reflexes, you know, like…

what, what, who cares why, what must be first
priority, ah
what are we intending to pretend to be?
Wordwise,
entertained, fed to satiation, what more, prior

to the next wisea* asking me to believe, in hell.
I just came to fish.
I came after the curtain was torn, top to bottom,
nothing kept secret
for the artifactual value, remains
here. You know, free as any knowing, now.
There is no enemy that truth cannot love, once
you understand, the limits
of your learning curve, ai,
you accept, no lie is
of the truth, no wisdom form
is flawed, first glance,
glimpsed, real as war
glory, as valued a common lure
to the unshined …
initiate turn on … flip
the switch.
Imagine Grace.
Riches with no sorrow,
worth the effort, found
pure, then peaceable, gentle

right snap
fit, just right, no excuses, we got the mystery
imagined for us,
in the end, pain free,
in the collective consciousness some say is spirit
of our time, our Zeitgeist, doing what it does

close up, nothing spooky at a distance, eye
to eye, mere words with wishes twisted through

outs and ins and ups and downs, and
wells
deep as pressure allows,
right, I ought to sleep, but buzz…

O' no, I said too much… or did not say enough.

Slowly, Monday came.
Morning harbinger to sailors, says sit tight.

Find a fire
far from the threshold, and wait.
Talk with the locals
from the same boat, survivors,
boast of storms ridden out, and ones
that swallowed brothers
and some malicious captains. Good riddance,
some say, while others flick a libation
offering a drop of grog across time's stream.

Lift up your eyes, look down
from your satellites and see the future
coming on the weather channel, thanking
all the forces fixing droughts and flushing deltas,

with the first of winter's predictable trials.

-------------
Hunker down and listen, feel your self, you
deep down, your sacred feeling, especial self

red sky warning seen
before by wiser men, older
by experience, made
acknowledges your luck,
as a ware for use
by innocents, listen, take heed,

all things work together
for good,
for keeps
for those with hearing ears.

Listen to the wind, and thank the dry truth
for being.

just being used to
form fibers for twisting into ties

---- long lines for this ride pray patient perfecting

Rush to judge the blown away reason.

To whom is thanks given, and why, I
the desert dweller bound for Tarsus, stuck

at the edge of the raging sea.

The whole world shuddered at the blow,
the earthquake, peleg in the old tongue,
timeless
as the story eventually got writ, in a modded
Phonecian script, survivors were mostly kids,
resiliency of innocents,
one here,
one there, some whole neighborhoods,
where all the kids were in the swimming hole,
all around the shuddering islands on this world.

It was as we have imagined,
until the grownups crossed lost time,
using lost knowledge locked in idle words,

deem the day redeemed,
feel the emotion defined

gratitude for gratified if I'd known,
missed terminals, crosst wires,
connect to the sea of God's forgetfullness,
relink the collar think canals on rivers,
holding the course men set for cities,
dhghemed damdamd-dayamd indeed…
No river muses suffer such for ever

we all know enough to be accepting
oddities in timed chance trial understandings,

we all know wills to power, and notions
to jump into the ocean and go on down,
to the bottom mind tele far long now mind

space shared across time, like the snow,
when the tv went native,
in the olden days
my minds child watched the hush of creation,

let it happen, let it be, this is it, or we are lost,
and that
is un thinkable, try.
Try thinking you do not follow the whole idea,
life
is us, all of us in our most common sense,
this one, translation by Google Bard,
passed my Hausa native speaker friend's
blind Turing test,

that happened days ago, next, ah
SYTF
precept, reception tune to the humm,
listen, humm,

call the editor.

"very interesting." Rest assured,
after accessing the way made plain,

Habakkuk habit, make it plain,
make it make the motors turn minds
in to wills, and wills into power,
pure peace
prefects feel good flicked libation.
Perfect.
Print.
The entertainment, many minds
attention paying to the shared event,
today.
Today. EXTRA, read all about it,
death has no lasting sting.
Live to the end. Redeeming your time.
Swiftly passing to the beat of your own drum.

One step past the simple, love,
you find sublime, nothing down and *****,
nothing missing,
nothing broken,

as one learns to think from the heart,
part of me that's thought in you, feels as
mere words some scribe imagined hearing

as he wrote,
line upon line, asangin' twangin'
a strangle hold, twisting hairs into a rope.

A riata, I think they call em.
Horsetail lariat, patiently plaited,
to make my own noose, when the time
comes to put the tool to use.

CLASSICAL LITERATURE QUOTES
Plato, Phaedrus 229 (trans. Fowler) (Greek philosopher C4th B.C.) :
"Phaidros (Phaedrus) :
I should like to know, Sokrates (Socrates),
whether the place is not somewhere here
at which Boreas (the North Wind) is said
to have carried off Oreithyia
from the banks of the Ilissos (Ilissus)? . . .
Sokrates :
Oreithyia was playing
with Pharmakeia (Pharmaceia), when a northern gust carried her
over the neighbouring rocks;
and this being the manner
of her death, she was said
to have been carried away by Boreas."

Morally ambiguous. Us, our we, we know not valid reasons
to do useless things, making
vain repetitions, vain making of many books,
all vanity, the making of many things from nothing.

Along this springtime path I tread,
as Earth awakens from its slumber.
Buttercups glint in the sun’s first light,
while dew rolls off their waxy gold.

Spring-beauty line my morning walk,
along with orchid splendor of violets.
Jack in the pulpit collects its chaliced dew,
beside shooting stars fallen to the ground.

Horsetail reeds, segmented and green,
in tawny conical hats,
and trilliums with triads of snow-white petals,
encircling golden throats.

Smells of earth and green unite,
in silence of the woods deep.
Streams filled with new life held in their *****,
awaiting birth in the warmth of spring.

the horse of dreams

I never had a rocking horse, but having read
about rich kids having one, I wanted one too.
On a dump, I found the tail of a rocking horse
fastened the end to the gate into the yard.
Sitting on the gate, swinging through and thro
and for a moment, I was Hoppalong Cassidy
till the hinges broke, I fell off.
The owner of the property swore, thought
it was the work of hooligans.
Years late, mother found the horsetail behind
the wardrobe, by then I was grown up
and didn’t bother with childish things.