A governor it was proclaimed this time,
When all who would come seeking in New Hampshire
Ancestral memories might come together.
And those of the name Stark gathered in Bow,
A rock-strewn town where farming has fallen off,
And sprout-lands flourish where the axe has gone.
Someone had literally run to earth
In an old cellar hole in a by-road
The origin of all the family there.
Thence they were sprung, so numerous a tribe
That now not all the houses left in town
Made shift to shelter them without the help
Of here and there a tent in grove and orchard.
They were at Bow, but that was not enough:
Nothing would do but they must fix a day
To stand together on the crater’s verge
That turned them on the world, and try to fathom
The past and get some strangeness out of it.
But rain spoiled all. The day began uncertain,
With clouds low trailing and moments of rain that misted.
The young folk held some hope out to each other
Till well toward noon when the storm settled down
With a swish in the grass. “What if the others
Are there,” they said. “It isn’t going to rain.”
Only one from a farm not far away
Strolled thither, not expecting he would find
Anyone else, but out of idleness.
One, and one other, yes, for there were two.
The second round the curving hillside road
Was a girl; and she halted some way off
To reconnoitre, and then made up her mind
At least to pass by and see who he was,
And perhaps hear some word about the weather.
This was some Stark she didn’t know. He nodded.
“No fête to-day,” he said.

“It looks that way.”
She swept the heavens, turning on her heel.
“I only idled down.”

“I idled down.”

Provision there had been for just such meeting
Of stranger cousins, in a family tree
Drawn on a sort of passport with the branch
Of the one bearing it done in detail—
Some zealous one’s laborious device.
She made a sudden movement toward her bodice,
As one who clasps her heart. They laughed together.
“Stark?” he inquired. “No matter for the proof.”

“Yes, Stark. And you?”

“I’m Stark.” He drew his passport.

“You know we might not be and still be cousins:
The town is full of Chases, Lowes, and Baileys,
All claiming some priority in Starkness.
My mother was a Lane, yet might have married
Anyone upon earth and still her children
Would have been Starks, and doubtless here to-day.”

“You riddle with your genealogy
Like a Viola. I don’t follow you.”

“I only mean my mother was a Stark
Several times over, and by marrying father
No more than brought us back into the name.”

“One ought not to be thrown into confusion
By a plain statement of relationship,
But I own what you say makes my head spin.
You take my card—you seem so good at such things—
And see if you can reckon our cousinship.
Why not take seats here on the cellar wall
And dangle feet among the raspberry vines?”

“Under the shelter of the family tree.”

“Just so—that ought to be enough protection.”

“Not from the rain. I think it’s going to rain.”

“It’s raining.”

“No, it’s misting; let’s be fair.
Does the rain seem to you to cool the eyes?”

The situation was like this: the road
Bowed outward on the mountain half-way up,
And disappeared and ended not far off.
No one went home that way. The only house
Beyond where they were was a shattered seedpod.
And below roared a brook hidden in trees,
The sound of which was silence for the place.
This he sat listening to till she gave judgment.

“On father’s side, it seems, we’re—let me see——”

“Don’t be too technical.—You have three cards.”

“Four cards, one yours, three mine, one for each branch
Of the Stark family I’m a member of.”

“D’you know a person so related to herself
Is supposed to be mad.”

“I may be mad.”

“You look so, sitting out here in the rain
Studying genealogy with me
You never saw before. What will we come to
With all this pride of ancestry, we Yankees?
I think we’re all mad. Tell me why we’re here
Drawn into town about this cellar hole
Like wild geese on a lake before a storm?
What do we see in such a hole, I wonder.”

“The Indians had a myth of Chicamoztoc,
Which means The Seven Caves that We Came out of.
This is the pit from which we Starks were digged.”

“You must be learned. That’s what you see in it?”

“And what do you see?”

“Yes, what do I see?
First let me look. I see raspberry vines——”

“Oh, if you’re going to use your eyes, just hear
What I see. It’s a little, little boy,
As pale and dim as a match flame in the sun;
He’s groping in the cellar after jam,
He thinks it’s dark and it’s flooded with daylight.”

“He’s nothing. Listen. When I lean like this
I can make out old Grandsir Stark distinctly,—
With his pipe in his mouth and his brown jug—
Bless you, it isn’t Grandsir Stark, it’s Granny,
But the pipe’s there and smoking and the jug.
She’s after cider, the old girl, she’s thirsty;
Here’s hoping she gets her drink and gets out safely.”

“Tell me about her. Does she look like me?”

“She should, shouldn’t she, you’re so many times
Over descended from her. I believe
She does look like you. Stay the way you are.
The nose is just the same, and so’s the chin—
Making allowance, making due allowance.”

“You poor, dear, great, great, great, great Granny!”

“See that you get her greatness right. Don’t stint her.”

“Yes, it’s important, though you think it isn’t.
I won’t be teased. But see how wet I am.”

“Yes, you must go; we can’t stay here for ever.
But wait until I give you a hand up.
A bead of silver water more or less
Strung on your hair won’t hurt your summer looks.
I wanted to try something with the noise
That the brook raises in the empty valley.
We have seen visions—now consult the voices.
Something I must have learned riding in trains
When I was young. I used the roar
To set the voices speaking out of it,
Speaking or singing, and the band-music playing.
Perhaps you have the art of what I mean.
I’ve never listened in among the sounds
That a brook makes in such a wild descent.
It ought to give a purer oracle.”

“It’s as you throw a picture on a screen:
The meaning of it all is out of you;
The voices give you what you wish to hear.”

“Strangely, it’s anything they wish to give.”

“Then I don’t know. It must be strange enough.
I wonder if it’s not your make-believe.
What do you think you’re like to hear to-day?”

“From the sense of our having been together—
But why take time for what I’m like to hear?
I’ll tell you what the voices really say.
You will do very well right where you are
A little longer. I mustn’t feel too hurried,
Or I can’t give myself to hear the voices.”

“Is this some trance you are withdrawing into?”

“You must be very still; you mustn’t talk.”

“I’ll hardly breathe.”

“The voices seem to say——”

“I’m waiting.”

“Don’t! The voices seem to say:
Call her Nausicaa, the unafraid
Of an acquaintance made adventurously.”

“I let you say that—on consideration.”

“I don’t see very well how you can help it.
You want the truth. I speak but by the voices.
You see they know I haven’t had your name,
Though what a name should matter between us——”

“I shall suspect——”

“Be good. The voices say:
Call her Nausicaa, and take a timber
That you shall find lies in the cellar charred
Among the raspberries, and hew and shape it
For a door-sill or other corner piece
In a new cottage on the ancient spot.
The life is not yet all gone out of it.
And come and make your summer dwelling here,
And perhaps she will come, still unafraid,
And sit before you in the open door
With flowers in her lap until they fade,
But not come in across the sacred sill——”

“I wonder where your oracle is tending.
You can see that there’s something wrong with it,
Or it would speak in dialect. Whose voice
Does it purport to speak in? Not old Grandsir’s
Nor Granny’s, surely. Call up one of them.
They have best right to be heard in this place.”

“You seem so partial to our great-grandmother
(Nine times removed. Correct me if I err.)
You will be likely to regard as sacred
Anything she may say. But let me warn you,
Folks in her day were given to plain speaking.
You think you’d best tempt her at such a time?”

“It rests with us always to cut her off.”

“Well then, it’s Granny speaking: ‘I dunnow!
Mebbe I’m wrong to take it as I do.
There ain’t no names quite like the old ones though,
Nor never will be to my way of thinking.
One mustn’t bear too ******* the new comers,
But there’s a dite too many of them for comfort.
I should feel easier if I could see
More of the salt wherewith they’re to be salted.
Son, you do as you’re told! You take the timber—
It’s as sound as the day when it was cut—
And begin over——’ There, she’d better stop.
You can see what is troubling Granny, though.
But don’t you think we sometimes make too much
Of the old stock? What counts is the ideals,
And those will bear some keeping still about.”

“I can see we are going to be good friends.”

“I like your ‘going to be.’ You said just now
It’s going to rain.”

“I know, and it was raining.
I let you say all that. But I must go now.”

“You let me say it? on consideration?
How shall we say good-bye in such a case?”

“How shall we?”

“Will you leave the way to me?”

“No, I don’t trust your eyes. You’ve said enough.
Now give me your hand up.—Pick me that flower.”

“Where shall we meet again?”

“Nowhere but here
Once more before we meet elsewhere.”

“In rain?”

“It ought to be in rain. Sometime in rain.
In rain to-morrow, shall we, if it rains?
But if we must, in sunshine.” So she went.

Idle time fills the killers mind with

Polluting thoughts of a different kind.

The remnants of a feeling left behind

Reminding him of a love he’ll never find…

There are fleeting patches of light
Within my confused and idled mind
What once was abundant with mercy
Has now presently been confined
I find myself
Picturing the worst within the frame
Yet not wishing to let those wild thoughts
Go about Untamed

Its like a game you play by yourself
When all the lights are out
In the dark without a spark
And no one to call for help
Is this the conflict of a broken promise
Or simply present tense
Am I justified within my suspense
Or should I rather...
Attempt to condense

Even though this makes sense
It could easily be that or the other
Don't get me started on the similarities
Between interactions happening
With she
And my distant mother

I don't wish to smother her
Only desire my peace of mind
I'm determined to soothe the fire
Before leaving everything behind

I don't want to call you a liar
But its where I find myself treading
Like that one event suddenly made a dent
And fissures started spreading
Like every last thing could be a deception
Manifesting what I believe
And I don't think I'll really get to know
Is it you
Or is it me?

Bes



It's high midnight and I'm up to my old tricks again.
Bes came by my apartment last night, ostensibly to see why I've stopped answering everyone's calls but harboring more ulterior motives than a presidential charity event. I let her in, mumbling some vague, ******* excuse about how I'd simply been busy. She stood in my living room, her hands demurely folded in front of her as her eyes swept the scene, a quick appraising glance that took in the leaning towers of paper and rows of empty bottles, the rings under my eyes and the cheeks grizzled with god knows how many days of growth, and when at last they met mine they seemed to ask what exactly it was that I had been busy doing. Her lips said no such thing though, held in check either by innate tact or single-minded purpose. Instead she smiled, that old, slanting smile that was more a twitching of her cheeks than an actual moving of her lips, and asked if I liked her dress. It was the first time that I'd seen her dressed in anything but jeans, and the change was as unexpected as it was becoming. The dress was short, black, simple and elegant in its simplicity. In the expected places it clung to her curves and invited you to do the same, but elsewhere it hung in loose folds, folds so deep that she seemed almost lost in them, and when you did catch a glimpse of her body -the delicate line of her collarbone, the thin ridge of a rib- the force of the contrast struck home with calculated, bewildering power. She looked incredibly fragile yet fraught with danger, like broken glass swaddled in a black flag. I gave her an exaggerated once-over, then said, "Do you really need me to answer that?" She laughed, her voice high and breathy, and dropped me a theatrical curtsy. "What's the occasion?" Her eyes narrowed, and the ghost of a smile twitched its way back onto her face.
"We're going out tonight."
"We are? And why are we doing that?"
"It's ladies' night at Stoa, and that means free drinks."
"Free drinks for you, kiddo. I doubt that I could pass as a lady, even in that ****-hole."
"For me, yes. But if I were to get those free drinks and then decide that I didn't want them, well, what would happen to them? It would be wrong just to waste them, after all. I suppose I should have to give them away, perhaps to a good friend?"
"If you should change your mind." I said flatly.
"Of course. Woman's prerogative, you know."
"Are you trying to bribe me with free liquor?"
"Well, if that isn't enough I could always throw in a 'please'. Limited time offer, though, non-negotiable and nontransferable."
"Unlike the drinks, you mean."
"Rules are like bodies; they aren't meant to be be broken, but sometimes it's fun to see just how far you can stretch them."
"Far be it from me to tell a pretty girl no when she says please."
"Pleeaazzee?" She batted her eyelashes at me, lower lip stuck out in a burlesque pout.
"Okay."
"Put on a fresh shirt and grab your coat, I'll get a cab."
"Yes'm," I said, snapping off a quick salute before about-facing toward my bedroom. She laughed again as she left, the soft chuckles punctuated by the click of her heels on the concrete steps outside. I dressed quickly, taking roughly three minutes to apply fresh deodorant, sniff-test and shrug my way into a shirt with marginally less wrinkles than your average nursing home and grab my keys. I walked out the front door to find Bes ready and waiting for me, having snared a cab with the same brisk efficiency with which she had beguiled me into escorting her. She stood at the curb, toe of one black pump tapping impatiently as the taxi idled next to her, engine panting like some exotic animal brought to heel. The ride there was silent. The cabbie was one of those garrulous specimens of his trade who seem always to have something to offer his customers in addition to the transportation for which they had paid; some tidbit of folksy wisdom, or a sage prediction of the weather, no doubt buttressed with countless examples from the days of yore. He brought out several of these chestnuts for us, but after a few failed gambits even he lapsed into what for him must have passed for a taciturn state, contenting himself with humming along to the radio, albeit loudly. He had sloughed tunelessly through several songs and a commercial break by the time we arrived, and had begun to sing under his breath, apparently unaware that he was doing so. This unwitting serenade had been steadily growing in volume, and he was working himself into a rather heartfelt rendition of Black Velvet as we disembarked.
It was just past eleven, relatively early for a nightclub, but the line was already stretched ten yards from the door. It wound around the side of the building, surprising me in spite of myself. I really hadn't been out in a while, and had forgotten all about waiting outside, that desultory purgatorial period where people shifted restlessly from foot to foot and chain-smoked, anxious for admittance, though in all likelihood less concerned with being able to dance or mingle (which they could have probably done just as well out here) than they were with losing the buzz they had brought with them. Some of the people had clustered into loose groups and those who had looked more sanguine, almost serene, and no doubt there were a few water bottles filled with ***** stashed in their purses and jacket pockets. I started toward the corner, intending to join the rest of the sad-sacks at the back of the line, but Bes grabbed my arm, giving me a slight shake of her head. She walked directly toward the entrance, deftly sidestepping the little pockets of people and putting on a smile of almost predatory brilliance. She sauntered up to the bouncer posted at the door, one of any number of interchangeable drones whose charge is to prevent just such flouting of protocol as she undoubtedly had in mind. She said something to him and he shook his head. She spoke again, raising up on tip-toe and looking directly into his eyes, and when she spread her hands in a comely now-do-you-see gesture he looked around furtively then nodded. She waved a hand at me and he nodded again, though more apprehensively than at first, and the hand pointed in my direction now wiggled its fingers in a come-hither gesture. I walked up and looked a question at her but she merely shook her head again, though this one was accompanied by a slight smile that said nothing and hinted at everything. She took my hand, dragging me forward like a she-wolf dragging a rabbit into her den, and as we passed into the club she favored the sentry with another smile, so warm that I could have sworn I saw him blush.
The interior was dark, cavernous and redolent of a thousand mingled perfumes, a heady, dizzying blend spiced here and there with the dank odor of marijuana. As soon as we were past the bouncer, Bes stopped and pivoted on her toes like a ballerina, spinning so quickly that I almost stumbled into her. She said something to me then, but despite the sudden and shocking proximity of her body to my own her voice was lost in the car crash of voices from the dance floorahead. I cupped a hand to my ear in the commonly understood signal for deafness, and she responded by cocking her head at a questioning angle and forming an elongated y with her thumb and pinky finger, tilting them toward her lips in the universal gesture for drinks. I nodded my assent and she took my hand again, pressing it gently as she threaded her way through the tumult of writhing flesh on the dance floor. We found seats in the corner of the bar, the one place where you could actually sit with your back to the wall instead of the rest of the club, a place that I privately thought of as Paranoiac's Cove. I dug out my pack of Lucky's and set to work on trying to find my lighter as she flitted away, returning moments later with a pair of highball glasses, each filled to the brim with a curiously green concoction that was so bright that it seemed almost as though the glass was filled with liquid neon. She handed me one, her fingers momentarily brushing mine as I accepted it, visions of the cauldron from Macbeth flashing briefly through my mind. That smile twisted its way onto her face again as she offered a silent toast, raising her glass toward me with an oddly solemn gesture. I raised mine in return, noticing the way her eyes sparkled in the shadows, green and impossibly bright, almost lambent, bright like the drink though her eyes were a deeper, truer green, closer to jade than to the grassy color we held in our hands. We touched their rims together, the clink almost inaudible in the howling bedlam of the club. She threw her drink back at a single draught, surprising me into a laugh and I followed suit, barely tasting the liquor as it ran down my throat. What I did taste was a rather poor attempt at artificial apple, cloying and somehow thick, like melted jolly ranchers. It was saccharine sweet yet bitter, a harsh undertone that matched the crisp tang of a real granny smith about as well as the sweetness did, which is to say not at all. Not that this bothered me; alcohol and bitterness have always gone well together for me.
She leaned over to me, fingertips resting lightly on my shoulder, breath tickling confidentially in my ear as she asked, "Dance with me?"
I demurred, not bothering to waste words but simply waiting until she pulled back to look at me and then shaking my head. She didn't lean in again, catching my eyes instead and mouthing the word with an exaggerated care that was almost comical. "Okay." She hesitated momentarily before adding, "Maybe later." She didn't wait for a response, instead sliding off her stool with easy, doe-like grace and disappeared into the throng. I stayed at the bar for some time, an hour perhaps, drinking steadily and watching the growing chagrin of the woman behind it as she realized that I had not intention of tipping her no matter how drunk I got. Bes reappeared periodically, staying long enough to grab each of us a free shot and steal one of my cigarettes before vanishing again. I whiled away the time by counting the necklaces that came bobbing and heaving up to the bar. The vast majority were crucifixes, their forms and sizes as varied as those of their bearers, but there was a smattering of other ikons as well; Celtic knots and stars of david, pentacles and hammers, and once, nestled incongruously in the ample and expertly showcased cleavage of its wearer, a crescent moon and star. The owner of that particular pendant also happened to clutch a drink in one hand, and while it may have been a shirly temple or club soda, the glassy eyes above it and the boneless, disjointed movements that arm described in the air spoke to a more potent brew. I wondered what they meant to the people who wear them, those chains of devotion donned voluntarily. A symbol of their faith, they would probably say, though it's a faith betrayed by virtually every action that they take, and if there's one thing that I've learned about people it's that their vows and promises may be lies, but their betrayals never are. Even a virtuous act, an act of unequivocal good in the face of overwhelming temptation, even that can be a lie. It is concealment, a denial of the temptation, of its reality, of the fact that the desire for what tempts us exists. But in betrayal, in succumbing to temptation, people reveal themselves, for they are true to their desire and desire is the most accurate mirror, the truest reflection of who we are. Most people wear masks to cloud that mirror, false faces that sometimes fool everyone and sometimes fool no-one. But truth always asserts itself and so most people betray; others, causes, even themselves. But even the betrayal of self is also an act of honesty, the final acknowledgement of who we really are.
There was a time, of course, when these signs and symbols of faith were a business of deadly seriousness, when their betrayal would have begotten swift and sure punishment, when the mere display of one's allegiance was both a pledge and a challenge, but no longer. Now they are carried as casually as their wearers carry the name of some obscure fashion designer on their underwear, and given the reverent attention paid to the latter and their blasé hypocrisy regarding the former, one has to wonder which is really more important to them. Yet the symbols persist even when the meaning has been forgotten, and the majority still carry signs of fealty formed from counterfeit gold and beaten nickel, sigils that flash quicksilver in the strobing lights, leading the way like the wooden maidens which adorn the prows of ships. I used to have one of them, you know, a rough loop of rawhide the carried three little trinkets, a bunny a book and a small golden heart. It's gone now, of course, and fittingly so, the heart having fallen after the bunny down the rabbit-hole, and the book remaining unwritten, though I suppose if your reading this, that if these disjointed ramblings ever manage to make it onto the printed page, refugees finally transplanted from the wilted notebooks or the cocktail napkins that I even now sit scribbling madly on, it has been written after all and you're reading it. You poor *******.
I realized my thoughts were drifting, meandering on their own down paths that I have expressly forbidden them to tread, rambling like unsupervised children in an amusement park at sundown. I gathered them up, scolding them, trying to exert some authority in my own mind, telling myself to just take a deep breath and shake it off. I can't though, and for once it's not because I can't quiet the thoughts but because I can't seem to take a breath that is deep enough. I realized that I was panting, well nigh hyperventilating, my breath coming in quick, shallow gasps that seem to crystallize in my longs like spun glass. I take stock of myself, trying to assure myself that I'm not going to have a heart attack or a ******* stroke, noting with some alarm that my hands are shaking and my vision has narrowed into a twisting, undulating tunnel. I closed my eyes and concentrated on breathing, the darkness behind my eyelids streaked with purple and red, and gradually I became aware that those explosions of color are rhythmic, recurrent. They happened not with the pounding of my heart, as I would have expected, but in time with the music, sunbursts of color appearing each time the bass kicked. The panic diminished, replaced by curiosity, and I realized that without the shrill yammering of panic in my ear and the terror of impending death in my mind, the combined sensations are not only pleasant, but oddly familiar. It's then that I realized what happened, belatedly doing the mental arithmetic and realizing that unexpected invitation, the free drinks and the first's oddly bitter taste, the secretive smile with which it was delivered, that it all added up to a single thing. She drugged me, of course, spiked my drink with something and I didn't even notice, naive as a sorority pledge at a keg party, and oh **** was I high. I stayed at the bar, knowing from hard experience that there was no sense in fighting it, and so giving in to it. If you can't put out the fire you might as well feed it, feed it all that you can, because the sooner the fuel runs out the sooner the fire dies. So I stayed there, focusing on my breathing and letting my thoughts spiral out, catching the waves in my head as they rose and fell, finally learning to float on their crests, in some semblance of control. Calmer now, I pulled out my cigarettes and lit one, the process taking an eternity, empires rising and falling in the time between the moment when the spark caught and the flame exploded into life and the one when it reached my lucky. I breathed out a plume of smoke, a pillar of cloud that also seemed to go on forever, and as it cleared there was Bes, materializing out of the smoke like a Cheshire cat.
"Ready to dance?"
I looked at her, unable to speak for a moment, not the drug this time but something entirely, a thing that came surging up from some unsounded depth within me and caught in my throat, because when I looked in her eyes, wide and wet with excitement, her pupils telescoped into pinpricks that told me she was in the grip of the same I saw myself. Because she was looking at me the way I looked

Frightful abilities were pressured into
responses as the computer children
failed at hitherto reliable performance.
This was a description of the synchronous
effect brought into the shudder with a
catch in the breath of the mother,

and written by frenetic action that
destroyed the logical sequence of requests
presented by the mouse and the typing keys.

As directed through an esoteric process of
recovery, the minds of the device reoriented,
again attaining the ability to perform simple
and repetitive tasks as obliged by designated

prompts.  There was no certainty this was not
related to the telephone connection which
picked thinking out of the air like a television
receiving a network broadcast.  In the same

way, the exhaust pipe rambled as the engine
of the truck idled too rapidly and, then,
stalled.  Everything was restarted.  The vehicle
operated right away.  The computer bumbled
along flashing through scenes and blank screens,
the curser pulsing like a heart beat in the upper
corner.  This had to be worn like a sign of
concentration, meaning that the (citizen, computer)
was being observed, and the sensitive response
would be, literally, automatic, but sometimes
the potentiometer brought, to sight, a gesture
of communication.  It was cute that such clever
trinkets were hiding down in there until the

spirit tapped the muscles of the shoulder blade.
It became apparent this relation depended upon

keys found in ancient aliens such as arcades and
magic books.  A tiny soul was stored in a pocket,
in the telephone; it reached out with its vibration
and launched into the world to grab news with
its operating, search engines.  It had eyes and
could see in the dark.  So, the age was over in
which it could be expected that photographs were
the result of special manners and the courageous
offer of friendly snapshots.  As torches confused

ferocious animals, the excuse depended upon dark
difficulties in the chemical room.  In the garden,
the televised betrayal generated a crossfire of live
video, and, thus, fools were unlucky.  Energy and
conflict had been misguided.  New, public devotion
protected the evolution of tableware or discrete
implements that chimed to be taken into other rooms.
Discourse was enabled and following discursion,
long, private moments carried visitors away.

An idled peace in the forest breathes
Every thought in itself
Whole.
It must be the life spirit, the ministry,
Pole to pole rejoicing.
The thin veil lifted, a school of
Sweeping wings. Let this strange
Hill of nature's suit cradle
Itself.
Let that child rest.

My cottage beads in July's torment.
I dreamed of a fair day
Is why I'm here.
Revolving perspective, will someone
Please hand me a credible vantage point.
The lens to get an even look.

This ancient, contemplating  
Frost moon.
Quiet thought.
Night beats on platters. Heaves
Roving breath.

Dwelling in Innocence
Till birth
Tender eyed, forgotten.
Sweet,
The day will come.

She, today, moves in fabulous array
Of shimmering sparks. Light pale drips
From her shoulders.
Bare wax, the space between myself
And the candle.
Blow away the pride and stand straight to her.
Step in stride. Give her
One to look at.

The sense that life esteems joyfully
Hosting frenzy indeed.
Vast scenes of shipwrecked landscapes.
Ruins whipped by choppy dust.

Heaven's heart treads alone,
Through the ocean's side.
The path of dew is told by the sky.

Lightning takes care of what is left.

The sunken lesson,
Knowing night is close. Shall
We bend through the lilacs weeping?
Laughing?

Someone's taken a serrated blade to
the core of this night
It's moon, shrouded in a widows veil
forms the dimmest of halflight
As the stars all seem to weep its
passing where they fall
And I,
I don't want to sleep with you,
I just want to stay up and talk
As the sounds of the street resound then
fade through this tiny boxroom
The silence filled with comfort as the blue nile
soothe on late night radio

Our view, 
a city landscape towered by the now
idled dockland cranes
Do they dream to escape
to the endless deep blue
like you and I
Or do they cower in the darkness,
longing for morning and
a purpose once more
That dawn jolts as its light reflects
sharply to my eyes from
your stainless blade
But I wake alone, with you lost
to the thoughts and dreams that you are
As the cranes begin to clank
to a meaning they crave,
I cower alone and
accept my fate

A lonely red tugboat anchored at the Hudson River
The Red tugboat in its day would pull some very lavish cruise ships
But here’s a tip
Back in the day, there were stories Sea Captains would say
For starters, the red tugboat having the engine power to pull ships and barches
But as years rolled on, tugboats became a new wave of technology
As you probably gathered, the red tugboat became out of date
Later it gathered dust with no captain nor mate
But things are about to change
A new criteria that will be arranged
The Red tugboat had a new technological engine
This was a reason for the tugboat to feel useful and have fusion
The Red tugboat ropes were thrown over to the deck
It moved from being idled like mothballs
A cruise ship that was travelling from New York Harbor to London, England and the red tugboat was assigned to the call
The tugboat regained its life from being in a stall
But the red tugboat returned with its legacy and it stood tall
A new and improved red tugboat with its sea legs to be proud to be on the Hudson River
All the Red Tugboat needed was a push of confidence
It later became inspiration being the indication
The Red tugboat knows where it belongs
It’s heritage of accomplishments that was so long.

Outside my unseeing windows
Stringed lamp posts
Pierce the deepest night.

Lights still dance
Along the streets,
Reflected in silent pools,
Splashed by gentle roars
Of pavement rubber
Racing the idled road.

Beneath my candid room
The aircon units gargle
Their cold nocturne
Of sleep and thought.

The sidewalk stays mindful --
Witness to murmured kegs
And murdered heels,
Its quiescence reverberates
The gentle parley
Of blaring merchant loons.

The boulevard refuses
To choke in darkness.

My mind will wait until
The clamour of morning
Shatters this weighted gloom.

A March dusk blotted stale
bodies; jet-black water
ran thick with puerile inks
and imparted abandon.

Head shrouded in
cobalt mist, night idled
by a black pane that
rang dull and flat.

Backtracking rooks caught
the vacant eye: threading
a monarchical purple cloak
to hoard the transient days.

Passed, tense
           Under the glass, we shone;
the windows, daring each of us to shatter, was my
           feeling.
But there we idled, I sat up adjusting my lap--
           unmistakably you inched back.
What air, bag, hallowed, spinning!

          We give gas and speed off collectively, until the light
Source leaps into the dying sun or mutates into red.
          Your mouth, inaudible above the unstifflable drone
of the exodus from the city-- the people rushing out, away
from what sustains them.
          The light, falls into position, bekonning, you coward.
          Passed, tense
          Under the glass, we shone;
and you were the heaving globus--
          nothing, but a tertiary object
          clumsily laden with meaning by
          the tides and orbiting bodies in
          the cooling sunlight.
          With your archaic gleaming
Who would have guessed
          that I would follow you to
         Saturnalia?
Why Cleave, me, useless, tire!

She had been planning it for almost a year. Her skin had felt ***** ever since she felt his touch. She screamed no between tears and pleas for help but no one came and no one stopped him.  She went to the police and anyone she could think that could help her after it happened but she was told it was her fault. That she had been asking for it. That she secretly wanted it and enjoyed it and only got help afterwards out of some guilty conscience on her part. That she was drunk and wearing clothing that revealed too much skin. That it was her fault. Her fault. Her fault. Those words echoed daily in her head, tormenting her insides until she no longer recognized the woman she saw in the mirror every morning.

He was free. Out in the world doing as he pleased. Smiling. Partying. Working. Free.

She remembered carefully peeling off her clothes and putting them in a trash bag that night. She got in the shower and lay in a fetus position, drowning her tears and sobs with the water pouring out of the shower head. It was the last time she cried.

For the first few months she went around to the local haunts she knew she had seen him at before but did not run into him or talk to anyone that knew where he was. She did not know what her intentions were but she knew that she had to find him. To confront him. To resolve the way she felt inside. She was about to give up when one day she saw him walk into the gas station as she was filling up the tank in her car. Her body froze. Her mind raced. She topped off the tank, hung up the pump, and jumped into her car. She idled her engine and watched thru her car's windshield the man buying some beer, cigarettes, a bag of chips; laughing at something the cashier said. He looked the same as he did when she met him but his hair was a little longer and he was clean shaven. She remembered feeling the goatee he wore that night as it roughed against her face as he held her down. She cringed. Her face tightened into a grimace.

She put the car in drive and followed him as he walked out of the station and got into his truck. She maintained a couple car lengths behind him, even allowing other cars to get between her and him but she never lost sight of him. She followed him down the highway, thru neighborhoods, sat outside as he stopped off at three different women's houses; picking each woman up and kissing them as they answered the door and pushed it closed behind him. She followed him home and say outside his house even after he had shut off all the lights.

She did this for months. She watched. She followed. She waited. She learned his schedule and she studied his mannerisms and his movements and the way he carried himself differently around every person he came across. She felt herself coming to know him and know his next move before he made it. She made a plan up in her head.

-----------------------------------

He couldn't complain about a second of his life. His father was wealthy and he grew up privileged, having the best that money could buy, including paying off anybody anytime he came into trouble with any form of authority. He knew he was good looking and knew how to work his charm to get what he wanted from whomever he wanted. He didn't care about anyone but himself tho he told many women that he cared only for them. He always laughed hysterically inside every time he told this lie and they fell for it. His pleasures came first, that was how he lived and he saw no end to it.

He had been ******* his best friends wife when he was at work, telling her that he was a **** and didn't treat her right and that he was getting *** on the side. He wasn't. He knew this. But convinced her otherwise. But he was getting bored with her and felt like moving on. After he was done with his session; as he called them; he told her that her ***** was loose and tired and that he was done ******* a filthy **** like hers. He threatened to tell her husband everything and make her come off as some ***** if she said anything. Claimed that he was just a man taken advantage by a ****. She cried and screamed and threw plates at him and told him to leave and told him to ******* as she collapsed into a mess on the kitchen floor. He smiled and laughed as he walked out of the house, nearly skipping joyfully to his pick-up.

He slid into the drivers seat and pulled out a cigarette from the pack he kept in the glovebox. He lit it and inhaled. He looked into the rear view mirror and saw a pair of icy blue eyes that he had the vague recollection of knowing staring at him. It was the last thing he saw before everything went black.

-----------------------------------

She hid in the rear cab of the truck and waited for him to see her before hitting him in the head with a hammer. Not hard enough to **** him but hard enough to make him blackout. She climbed into the front seat and pushed him aside and drove to an empty storage unit she had purchased under a false name. She parked the truck and dragged his body out of it and into the shed. She clumsily picked him up and propped him to a chair sitting in the center of the unit. She taped him to the chair with duct tape. First taping his hands together behind the backrest, then around his chest until the roll ran out and she grabbed another and taped both his legs to the front legs of the chair. She placed a piece on his face around his mouth, wishing to herself that he still had his goatee so she could rip it off when she removed the tape.

She splashed water on him to wake him up. His eyes burst open in fear and he struggled and mumbled but could not break free. In front of him she had sat a camera up. It focused on him. It was recording.

She stood in the shadows behind the camera with only her face exposed. She could feel him burning his stare into her and searching his memories for her face. She knew he found it when his eyes widened and tears began to form at the corners. He mumbled something thru the tape. She pulled down a black ski-mask over her face and walked into the cameras frame. She peeled away the tape.

He sobbed he was sorry. That he never meant to do it and that he felt bad about it everyday. He told her he had money and would give it all to her if she'd let him go. He begged. He pleaded. She knelt down and looked him in the eyes and whispered in his ear to confess to the camera and she would let him go. He started to scream. She smacked him hard across the face and put another piece of tape across his mouth.

He rocked about in his chair trying to set himself free but soon realized that he could not free himself. He cried some more and looked at the woman who once again stood behind the camera. He stared at her and into her and finally resigned himself to what she asked for. He nodded his head and she walked out from behind the camera and stripped away the tape.

He confessed to ****** her and six other women. He confessed to touching his niece who was only ten years old inappropriately and denying it to her parents when they confronted him, saying she had an active imagination and they should get her help. He admitted to paying off judges and cops and eyewitnesses anytime he found himself in trouble.

He admitted to many things that made her skin crawl. All she wanted was a confession of his assault against her but he kept going on, rambling thru tears and pleas and more tears. Finally he was quiet. She asked if that was all. He stared at her with glossy eyes and shook his head yes. She looked closely at the man in front of her, disgusted to depths she did not know existed. She walked towards him and replaced the tape on his face. He again attempted to struggle to no avail. She walked out of the storage shed and to his pick-up and grabbed the five gallon bucket of gasoline he kept in the back of the bed. She walked back into the shed and closed the door again.

His eyes widened in terror. She confessed to him that she was going to let him go after he admitted what he did but after hearing everything she had decided that she could not. That it made her sick to think about him walking the streets or even rotting in prison. She couldn't trust any system that kept letting him and people like him off. She poured the gasoline on him, even removing the tape and forcing him to swallow some so that it sat heavy in his stomach. She replace the tape for the last time and looked at him. Looked into him. She felt fear leaving her body. She felt pain leaving her body. She felt an overwhelming sense of peace wash over her and she smiled and laughed for what felt like the first time in her life.

She walked out of the camera frame and turned around. He sat in the middle of the room, tape to a chair and covered in gasoline. The camera was recording. She lit a single match and then a book of matches and threw them towards him. She watched as the flames engulfed him slowly at first and he squirmed in his chair and the flames worked their way up his body quicker and quicker and she could hear his muffled screams and see him struggling but still securely bound to the chair. Everything aflame. The camera still recording.

She pressed stop a few moments after she saw his head fall forward and his body stopped moving. She watched the flames a few more moments eat away at the man that ate away at her. She took the video out of the recorder and put it in a plastic case and sat it outside of the storage shed. She closed the door and walked off into the distance, smiling and enjoying her life and the fresh air.

i used to spend a long time with you and thinking about you.
i would write and sing yarns and threads of your life.
we busied ourselves for hours, days, away from
just about whatever it was that kept me sad.
it seems like a lot of years have passed
and even though we're still so close
it seems more and more like i,
just can't spare the effort to.
i love you and always will
don't think that changes
but i can't write letters
or play pretend with,
all my secret friends
i just feel tired yet,
not forgotten or
alone or lost or
is there a way,
an expression
of how wiser
but without
motivation
i feel now?

maybe just
fully lucid
and aware
the clarity
of a mind
only idle
that life
my life
wasn't
worth
much
at all.
how
sad.

and that it wasn't worth the fatigue it took to get here. but what can i do? i am at a dead-end, there is nowhere to go. if i write a longer line, i break the trend. the trend wasn't even very good to begin with. i think a few of those lines are too long for the pattern. i spent some minutes trying to resolve them but i wasn't satisfied.

in truth, though it often takes that idled age to realize, past the self-conscious judgement and harsh, masochistic self-critique
the point is not to be unique or force anything.
it's to express the heart,
because that's not something anyone gets to do very often, especially not to strangers.

if i've gone long past being frightened of death or spiders, i'd expect some words to not spur my anxiety so much.

anxiety is just that; fear of my, your own unreasonable expectations
not the fear of being ridiculed, or the complex fear of success;
not even a fear of being hated, or forgotten and never remembered
it's the fear of never being known to even be forgotten
that awful dreadful horror of not being noticed at all.
not becoming stronger as an individual, but less.
and it can be fatal.

Stepping forward, I curl my toes over the edge.
Gazing down, I breathe in the expanse that lay before me.
Limitless – almost frightening because there is no end.

I feel it calling deep within my being.
I hear it in my blood.
The peak of my inhale.
The void of my exhale.
It lives.  It breathes.  It bleeds.

In my dream, I lean farther forward and fall.
The rushing wind encompassing my body
With a million tiny fingers holding me tight.
I feel safe in this embrace and close my eyes.
Oh, what a lover the wind is…

Awake, I recoil at the limitless expanse before me.
It's too big, too large for words and thus too much to take.
I am so tiny compared to this world of worlds out there;
It will consume me, no questions asked.
Better to thrive in a limited existence
then to perish among greatness never attained.

So around I go, placing my back to the eager wind
and the edge of imminent destruction
And into the warmth that now lay before me.
Ah, my familiar friend, your rays soothe my soul
as my mother's soft hands did so long ago.
If only you could sing me to sleep,
into a dream of sweet possibilities.


I could soar through that rushing wind
with my arms outstretched as wide as my smile
surrendering to the invisible currents of afar.
I could reach peaks so incredibly vast
where even the clouds bowed below
and the warmth of mother sun is so strong
that I would never again go hungry for song.

Instead I lay stranded in this purgatorial wasteland
Afraid of what's right and discontent with what's left.
Which would be fine if what's right here and right now
was even near to the perfection I crave.

Ha, perfection, what a sweetly packaged lie
Served on a platter plated with gold, made from mold
And crafted with tears from countless, unfounded but treacherous fears
driving even the insane to redefine the limits of insanity, it's crazy
how something that does not exist can drive us so mad.

You know what's also crazy?
Standing here with my arms outstretched as wide
as my mesmerized, sunburned and dehydrated eyes.
What does this stagnation prove?
What do I gain from this over exposure of familiar muck
besides a cancerous vocabulary and an ill-fated mind?

No, this warmth is best felt on the move.
Running, jumping, dancing through trees
and high-fiving leaves with my face
focused fiercely forward towards
that limitless expanse
I so fervently feared before.

Well, these idled hands
have had enough twiddling thumbs for this lifetime.
They were made, instead, to soar beyond
the greatest and most distant horizon ever seen.
It is time I set aside this melancholic diatribe
and rise from these two dimensional sewers.
I do not thrive on a sheet of paper
constricted to one direction or the other
void of the peripheral magnitude that actual life affords.
I am a 3D, no 4D, no Unlimited-D Being
And I will settle for NO leash.

So around I go, placing my back to
this victim-clad paradigm of "I can't" and "they won't"
(I've should enough on myself for one day)
and into the rushing wind that now lay before me once again.
A smile creeps upon my face as I realize the
Eager wind that was once my foe is not taunting me
But cheering me on, promising the secret of everlasting flight.

With the warmth caressing my now sun-kissed back,
I step forward and curl my toes over the edge.
Gazing out, in all directions at once,
I breathe in the unlimited expanse unfolding before me,
Outstretch my arms even wider than my smile,

And I Fall.


- BPW

We kissed before we knew each other
in a ***** garage and a drunken haze
and I only brought it up when I wanted to do it again.

I don’t know if you remember the day
       I sat in the sun,
and you lay with your head in my lap.
It was the first time I played with your hair,
and I was maybe a little in love.

We would be a disaster
self-conscious and cynical
meets all you need is love,
opposites exploding, but
our fights would be quiet
passive aggressive like nothing else in our lives.


Still I almost kissed you at 5 am.
As we drove, we saw the sun halo the back of a mountain,
                                    but I almost kissed you in front of the airport,
air congested as engines idled on the curbside.
We hugged and I spun you
and letting go did not seem like an option
did not seem like a choice I would ever make
if I wasn’t forced

                                 Let’s be our own catastrophe.

You’re the first girl I ever wrote a poem about.
The days you asked what was wrong
were days I most wanted you to kiss me.
I want you to stop playing at quiet oblivion
and realize I’m just using your tattoo as an alibi
so I can press my skin into yours.

A hundred-forty west-bound miles of
Montana Highway 200 see a summer
Traveler somewhere between
Grass Range and Jordan,
Deep in grass and antelope.

Waterless miles of meandering
Dry creek beds and barbwire alleyways
Herd the occasional car or truck
Down narrow asphalt chutes of road.

Speed limit signs stamped "70 mph"
Stand mortified and silent at Speed
Demons hurtling westward to Great Falls,
Round Up, or Flowing Wells, or east to
Jordan, Circle, Richey, Lambert, and Sidney.

Extreme heat and cold on the open plain
Demand courtesies of the West;
Travelers always stop to
Help the stranded.

So it was I came at speed to Sand Springs,
A sultry July day, heading to Billings,
Sad to be leaving my lover and my bairns.

A long way off, I saw her car,
Hood up and steam rising.
I shifted down and idled to a stop.
"Can I help you?"

An older woman,
Crow, I think, looked out,
A bit confused at first
Until her eyes cleared.

"I need a ride," she said,
And so began our adventure.

I made room in the truck
And turned around to find
The ranch where she cooked.

Ten miles back, we left the road
To take a trail that wound back
Into hills, dry with early heat.
"About five miles in," she said.

We found the place,
Resting in a scrap heap
Of old vehicles and broken corrals,
Middle of nowhere,
But she was home
And opened up the door.

She asked me to wait a bit,
So I sat, wondering what was next,
While she walked in through her door.

In a minute she returned
Her offering in her hand.
"Thank you," she murmured.

Nodding, I took the gift,
Shifted into reverse,
Left her there.


The braid of sweet grass,
An unburned prayer,
Rode on my dash
All summer long....

Dawn breaks like an egg on the highway,
Light spilling through the trees to rest on the blue
bruised half-moons beneath her eyes. She keeps
her foot against the pedal, one hand in the fold
of her jacket pocket. Her cell phone buzzes, her gut
twists, and his voice echoes: “a house, a yard, maybe a dog”

The phone cracks against the side door, falling by dog-
-eared roadmaps. Drowning the call with the roar of the highway,
she wants for inner concrete: decisively gutting
the crust of the earth in a permanent band. But as the sky swallows more blue,
sun exposes the worry-soaked fold
lines where her fingers met her knuckles, empty of the ring he kept

hidden for three months in a bran cereal box. He knew she kept
to a breakfast of day-old Chinese food instead, doggedly
digging in matte white boxes. His laughter lines peeked over the centerfold
of the Sunday newspaper, as she surfaced from digital superhighways
with the next crossword line: scrawled in bleeding ink by her blue
tinged fingers. She supposed that morning he finally found the guts.

His words fell smooth, easy on the first swallow but her gut
anguished at their weight, her insides better kept
to the easy promises, the favor-making, secret-keeping, dog-
walking kind she could shrug to. The something old, new, borrowed, blue
demanded will, boxed and taped and wrapped in the folds
of white tissue paper. She hit the highway

6 hours ago, the ring in her jacket pocket, jumping with NY State Highway
55 as it bent toward a familiar exit. Memories: her mother gutting
duck with chicken bone scissors. The clean press of folded
bed linens, aired out in the oak-thick yards of Poughkeep-
-sie. Her car idled outside the colonial, the shutters still blue.
A black lab lay sleeping on the steps: “a house, a yard, maybe a dog”

Her phone shuddered on the floor and the dog
barked. She set her bald tires rolling again to the highway,
her thoughts still of the egg-yolk kitchen against her father’s dirt-caked boots, his blue
collar sensibilities, and the contented swell of his gut.
He was of similar flex and shrug as she, but never went a day without keeping
a family photo tucked into his front pocket fold.

Her folded fingers unfurled in her own pocket, slow, like growing Kentucky bluegrass.
Playing with the ring, she felt in her gut a warm peace—a house, a yard, a dog—
She worked the band round the knuckle-crease as tires spun, down the highway and out Poughkeepsie.

This morning, I woke up in Cornwall, with no idea how I got there.
I couldn't see the sea from the window, but I could hear the birds.
Strangers knew my name, my secrets, my songs.
And I found I knew theirs.
The streets were familiar, but they weren't the streets I grew up on.
I never grazed knees on those pavements,
Or idled home from school past those street signs.
It was a place removed from childhood,
With eyes I shouldn't know so intimately,
With no idea how they became so sure in my mind,
When they shouldn't even exist.

And here I lay.
          My fingers were concealed beneath the sand, intertwined with an imaginary hand I had fashioned in my mind, along with seashells and starfish alike that had secluded themselves from the airy surface. Subdued tidal waves loomed nearer as they brushed my arm, aroused goosebumps on my bare skin, and receded in silence. This was the handiwork of Serenity: she visited my mind when it no longer desired exertion and instead yearned for a peaceful slumber. Her placid disposition induced tranquility... the calm before the storm, the beauty in simplicity. Her presence invigorated me and instilled in me a sense of renewal, even in the infinitesimal amount of time we idled away together.

        When she left, so did her pleasant ambiance. Not long after, her counterpart Worry arrived, along with his ominous clouds that spilled gloominess. Granted, he did not wish to occupy the forefront of my thoughts; rather, he lurked in the background, jarring my nerves and vexing me when given the opportunity. He reeked of doubt and insecurity; yet while I resented his existence, he imposed on me a sense of reality and purpose, constantly reminding me of my tasks and ambitions. With him I would sprint onward on an obscure path, and he would constantly challenge me with obstacles, which gave me the incentive to surpass him, placing us in perpetual competition.

         Rarely did he bring his companion, Fury, with him - yet when he did, the impending storm burst and the ground erupted in blazing flames, inducing a fiery inferno. Fury obliterated everything in her path in a brash manner, acting without reason and seething with fury. She roared with the tenacity of a thousand volcanoes and spewed fountains of scorching lava. Her outbursts generally occurred after her prolonged confinement, yet when they ended she was chained again, and grudgingly retreated back into hibernation.

          After Serenity arrived once more and mended the damage inflicted by Fury, my most treasured visitor appeared: Bliss. Her vivacity and exuberance were unparalleled, and she radiated a glow that blossomed over everything in its path. From the scorched ground bloomed a meadow of mellow wildflowers, an efflorescence of her joy. Overhead, clouds parted and the azure sky reunited with the shimmering water until the horizon was a mysterious blur, calling me to the unknown.

your arms are etched
with red and black
they're the story of summer that I look back
on

have i forgotten the sound of the waves
the soft of the cushion
the games that we played

we learned different strategy
and sing different tunes
my only regret is
that i missed the moons

which marked all the hours
of the days that we spent;
we didn't know curses
we didn't pay rent

the days idled wildy
the nights sauntered on,
your arms tell the story
of the summer that's gone

An Inmate who escaped from prison
A reason forming Treason
The Inmate killed and robbed an innocent man
He was sentenced to 30 Years
But now the Inmate has a penalty of arrears
The Inmate escaped from Sing Sing Correctional Prison in Ossining, New York
The Inmate escaped from the prison during the night
Announcement was made but has the entire community in fright
Helicopters searched throughout the night using spotlights
But no trace of the Inmate in sight
Now the Inmate needs a getaway ride in order to hide
There was an idled Greyhound Bus parked in the parking lot
The Inmate felt the Greyhound Bus would be his plot
But I am sure once the Inmate is caught he will received a tightened knot
However, I didn’t tell you, the Inmate was a Former Tractor Trailer Truck Driver so driving a Greyhound Bus would be a piece of cake
Perhaps give or take
So the Inmate started the bus and headed for the thruway
But Greyhound already knew where the bus was since they have a tracking device that is connected to the Company’s Command Communications Center
So the authorities are on alert
The Greyhound bus of course was stolen
The Inmate has no idea that Greyhound Bus 4902 is on record and is all over the airwaves
Helicopters were able to pick up the trace what the Inmate didn’t realize
What a surprise?
So the New York State Patrol was apprehending
Suddenly so abrupt, the Inmate pulled the Greyhound bus off Exit 17 on the New York Thruway
Now you could imagine, the New York Patrol is now going to be mean
As the Greyhound bus moving side too side on the Thruway, the bus had a slight lean
Now the Inmate only has one chance, he can either continue or give up and come clean
So he continued
But moments later, the Inmate was caught
Now Greyhound’s slogan was always, “Go Greyhound and Leave the Driving to us”
But the Inmate may have changed those words to “Go Drive and Leave the Driving to anyone”
A hounding confess
No it was a test
I guess the Inmate would have said it best.

Remember me? The one who idled by, patient
Waiting for you, as I grew ancient
Still, I held no anger or despair
As I know the treatment was good judgment and fair

I supposed I never knew I would get to that point
Where I scared you off, scattered
Leaving you bruised, beaten and battered
Never physically
But the mind's skin is more delicate than we know
And sad for us, not something we can show

Do you remember me, though?
I still feel the same, despite it all
My longing for you has never dwindled
Your absence caused me to feel swindled
My adoration knew no bounds
Especially when you were nowhere to be found

Please say you remember me
Truly as I am, not as the Monster
within, we all have a monster
so I'm sorry you had to see mine
And I promised I'd keep her chained up,
taut line

Forget me now, as you surely have
I don't even have to ask
I know where your mind is
Long gone, detached from me
Though we once shared sleep every night
I see that you had to take flight
To protect yourself from your biggest fear
The love I had to give you, it got too near
And scared you away,
So I ask only that
While you may forget me
And the smile on my face as we kissed
Please remember the love I had for you
It never left, it never will
It will remember you as surely as you will forget me.

I go into a paper store. I'm becoming enamored with notebooks. I buy them and stab at my decrepit brain sometimes. Sometimes I doodle, for mental health reasons. I would like to publish a short book of my brain and my doodles someday.

I try to make small talk, if I had a therapist I imagine she would tell me to do things like that in order to overcome my anxiety, but i don't have a therapist, so I operate on strict protocol of making small talk with at least two people a week. I'm afraid if I didn't I might forget how to, I've forgotten how to before, and I didn't speak to anyone in a way that made me feel anything for a very long time.

It can be scary because when you go back to talking the words don't come out the way other people's do, and you begin to wonder if you were ever a person as well, or just versed in the movements and sounds it makes, from imitation and delusioning oneself into believing one is a real breathing person too.

Cats sometimes think they're dogs, and dogs sometimes also believe themselves cats. Not mistake themselves for, believe themselves into being whatever it is they believe they are. If it were just a mistake we wouldn't be so sensitive about it. It's the fact that we really truly believed we were the same as everyone else before we were in introduced to the belief that they had held unbeknownst to us, that we are different.

I say hello to the clerk. He is young and attractive with a pleasingly soft colored brownish hair and beard. He seems smart, quick, and grumpy. He seems like someone who always understands what is going on exactly. Or in his way. Sometimes i am unsure how much i should believe sure people.

I busy myself pretending to look at notebooks and paper but finding nothing I can afford to buy. I stare through the color coordinated envelopes and they ooze together and i realize i have no reason to be here, this store didn't have any nice pens or notebooks.

I idled to not seem oddly abrupt in my exit and heard a song i very much liked, playing on the speakers above.

I love this song. I said.

Yeah, she's great. He said, not looking up. I walked around the stand of paper, pretending to inspect it.

I was hearing her in a lot of different songs and thought she was different than what you usually hear, she doesn't just write what people want to hear. this album is one of my favorites.

Yeah, it's really good. He looked at me as if the air between us was asking me out loud what i wanted him to say.

I pretended to fix a stack of colored papers. Well, i like your music, have a nice day, thanks.

Bye. I walked out and didn't stop to think about it. If i think about it i recoil physically and that looks odd in public. I put my anxiety to the back, in a neat box labeled, a guy at a paper store.

I am sitting in my car an hour later. My meter hasn't run out yet so im determined to stay until it does. I throw a dead lighter i was keeping out my window onto the side walk. I realize this is littering but i figure in a city this big someone will pick it up and i don't move to get it. Sometimes i have moments where i realize i don't need things. I liked it though. But it's just another thing. Meaningless.

I stare down at my notebook and hear someone stop outside my car and i look over. The guy with the nice colored brown hair from the paper store is on the sidewalk next to me. I almost jump. He is bending over to pick up the lighter. I am holding my breath as if it will make me temporarily invisible but i am very visible. Somehow he still seems not to see me.

He holds a black backpack strap with one hand and examines the lighter with the other. He tries lighting it and gets the lifeless sparks, but decides to take it anyways and puts it securely in his pocket. He continues to walk.

My demeanor is thy mistake
For thou wither down my spine,
and colour the world for thy sake
Where ye sit idled among mine,

The girdled pillar rests on his skin
and stares at me with his eyes,
The marble floor leaks my sins
for ages fly hence with the bise,

Cupid pierces thou with an arrow
Yet I smile with my grin teeth out,
It’s something thou cannot borrow
For I get hugged by a deadly gout,

The time is now begone
And mistresses art now drawn

The loud shatter of silence
dissipated into space
into time being and now
Consumed by your eyes
or just your lingering presence
/ s i l e n c e /
There's just something about you
that leaves me oh so blue
(blue as the desolate ocean;
  blue as the tranquil skies)
Idled soul like the hands of vanity
Now wrinkled with so much profanity
The stars aligned with your eyes
glimmering with doubt and lust
And still, still, my love
my question remains.

*Why disturb my quiet?

i don't want to be your girl
your grandmother's porcelain
for i breathe the same air
you breathe

drink from the same sink
shaking hands
with your obscenities
your fingers feel like late june.

and it didn't
matter
that we'd never find our places
forever laced inbetween each other's thoughts.

i listen
while she dreams
tell her please
"make me feel something."

carry your mind on the small
of my back
and too often
we do not show
what knots behind our ribs
but
when my fingers trace you
they feel more than skin
more than bone

you,
you touching my knees
under ripping jeans
you can push on my
neck
eyelids
and thighs
let your honey drip down my lap
but, please
make me feel something
underneath freckled skin
and idled away in your late june bones
please
why don’t i feel something?

chat,chat
like the act of cat
when rat is chased

chat, chat
mock every heart
trying to be so kind
and let him feeling with hard
that is the most human act

chat ,chat
mock yourself
say i am the Jinn
know everything
but you don't gain
the knowing of the end

chat,chat
the back of the girls moved
the eyes of men becom wolves
the devil tried to act as angel in move
and they thought they did the right do

chat, chat
the wine was poured
the mind was idled
the hearts wanted one thing
the devil flew and might bring
the angels to see the fault of that one
who surely was challenged and chosen
by the God

chat chat
when the angels was brought
the kind spirit attended
the devil spreads the fault
some of men and women escaped
and others might fell into the hell
they obeyed their demand
and forgot thier God

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                       Robin Hood and Jacques Derrida

As the first stars came out above the leaves
Of Merry Sherwood, the lads in peaceful repose
Put away their after-supper mending of gear
And idled over their ale of October brewing

Then Robin Hood spoke to Allan-a-Dale:

Don’t sing to us of Neo-Post-Colonial White Supremacist Patriarchal People-of-Color Matriarchal LGBTQTY Non-Binary Feminist Chomskian Existentialist (existentialist – how quaint) Hegelian Post-Structuralist Logocentric Sausurian Psychoanalytical Post-Modern Marxist Jungian New Critical Cognitive Scientific Neo-Anarchic Canon-Repudiationist Neo-Informalist Catarrhic De-Constructionism.

Sing to us
                                                       a story.