He thought that he had been evicted like a raucous Irishman, late once again on the rent, his belongings and furniture strewn on the lawn
His cold, deadly stare and ruffled red, said the same, with haughty indignation written all over him
As could be expected with any eviction, belongings strewn to the street, it started to rain; large splattering drops falling from the sky with an audible impact, adding insult to the injury
But he was just a child, set free and off to learn on his own, his perch and roost along with his chair, moved to his new home
He had outgrown the large screen porch, which was such a ridiculous place for an Owl anyway
Wood and glen gone, surrounded by girder and screen, locked into the realm of old peoples coffee and cigarettes
Tucked up into the eaves ignominiously, or sitting on the lamp, grooming flesh from his over large and taloned  feet
He would sit silhouetted by the dim red glow of the bulb, relaxing, until a noise would spin his head and he would become hooded and glaring death
The lamp added a glow to his eyes, which already burned with a raptors fire and he would become the personification of evil to the world of prey
Low and crouched, wings slightly spread; he would become the terrifying story that small warm animals tell their children at night to keep them in line and safe
But now he has been moved outside and all of his familiar belongings with him, or most anyways
Now he perches outside, either on the rough, twisted branches near his roost, or his favorite chair, and contemplates late into the night
But it seems that he prefers the comfort of his living room and he rests on the arm of the chair, quiet and pensive in the still and humid darkness
He stares at me while I smoke; the white plumes drifting like iridescent fog into the moonlight, while I observe him from his former home, illuminated by the dim lamp light
His saffron eyes gleam in the darkness, his dark form robed in that of the raptor, wings held down, with the tips outstretched like fingers
He stares at the lamp, standing like a pedestal against the wall and I wonder to myself
Does he want his ****** lamp moved out there too?

Silence, beautiful voice!
Be hard and still, for thou only troublest the mind,
And within such a joy I cannot rejoice,
a glory I shall not find.

Catch not my breath, o clamorous heart;
for thou art more horrendous than the horrendous,
and thy mourning over this heavy breath is far too hard,
but sounding alternately irresolute and pretentious.
Thou needst not be my ultimate, though doleful, present;
thou art wicked and frail as the serpent;
I shall let thy tongue be a thrall to my eye,
but vex thee greedily 'till thou benevolently saith goodbye.
I shall makest thee angry and giveth in to anger and lie
and let thee search about within my soul, and die.

Ah! Still, I shall listen to thee once more,
But move, I entreat; to the meadow and fall before
Thy feet on the meadow grass and adore
Bring my heart to thy heat but not make it sore
Not thine, which are neither courtly nor kind;
not mine, for thy youth still, makest me sweet and blind.
Oh, if only thou couldst be so sweet,
and thy smile all the worldliness I dreamt,
For it all wouldst no longer be stormy and pale,
or threatened be, to vanish amongst such winds or ghastly gales;
Ah, yon fairness wouldst be fair,
and scented as sweetly as thy hair.

Whom but thee, again, I should meet
Whenst at stormy nights sunset burneth
At the end of the head village street,
Whom I should meet behind the red ferns?
For I believest, in such boundlessness of fate
Fate that worlds cannot deny, and grudge cannot hate.
And, I believest indeed, my darling shall be there,
to touch he, shall my hand so sweet,
He bowest to me and utterest holy amends
To his future lover, but less than meekly hesitant; friend.

What if with his sunny hair
He connivest for me a snare
Who wouldst hath thought locks of gold so fair
Huddled and curved cozily by hands of care
Immersed in silver, tailored in gold
Even darker than toil, but sharper than words
Wouldst throw in my way pranks and deceit
As to his expectations I couldst not meet?
Wouldst he expect me to stand in the snow that couldst bite
and criest for and cursest him, in the middle of furious nights?

And what if with his sunny smile
Which he refineth with sweetness all the while
And with such an ostentatious remorse
That makest truthful delight even worse
He stealest my heart and makest me swear
So for any other I ought not to care
And my tears shall again be conceived in between
In the eternal mirror of revelling seasons, unseen
Knowing not what it hath done, or where it hath been
What if seas and clouds turnest just they are, so mean?

And imprisoned up and above
I shall hearest beloved Lord talk of the futility of love
And He shall oftentimes stop and mirthlessly laugh
Ruining the castles and puzzles and stories I dreamt of
If distances are not too far to walk to
I shall darest to cross my sphere and get over you
But sins hath perhaps forbidden my courteous intentions
As their meanness swayest me around with no destination-
ah, look at how their vile, grinning eyes temptest me!
They itchest my veins, they throttlest my knees;
and how uncivilly their ****** teeth hauntest me!
Indeedst, indeedst-they are far more horrendous than these living eyes canst see!

Perhaps his smile and tender tone
Were all that I imagined alone
Now that all spells hath grimly gone
Am I truly left on my own?
Ah, prone, prone is truly my soul
But I am distant here, lonely and cold
I am also strong but this solitude is too bold
I hath always been awake with truth, but this I cannot fold
And hovering dancing leaves are grotesquely thrown
About their echoing chambers opened wide
Until more rueful gravity has grown;
and hilarity fades wholly from my side

Once we came to the bench by the rouge church
And sat for hours by the wooden pillar alone
We sang along with the singing white birds
And those strangely blushing red thorns
'Till we fought everything burdened and curtly torn
As how the moon hurriedly cried 'till it found the morn
'Till suddenly, sweetly my heart beat stronger
And thicker, 'till I almost heard it no longer
But I realised, and fast mused and sighed
'No, it cannot stayest long, it cannot be pride.'

T'en we walked a mile-
Just a mile from the moors,
Circling about to find some exile
Away from noises and banging of doors.
We both pleaded, pleaded to our dear Lord
T'at genuine love our hearts couldst afford
But time grew envious and cut our walk short
As night approached and we suddenly had to resort.

And he too, he too was mad
And frowned and twitched that so made me sad
Endlessly alone he wouldst blame me and more fret
Sending myself down and brimmed with regrets
Like a parrot shuffling about its offspring's dying bed
My eyes grew warm and hurtful and red
Anger betrothed him to its indignant powers
Corrupted his cheers and drank away his laughters
I was furious, I cursed and kicked frantically at fate
How it grossly tainted and strained my tenuous date
For it was tenuous and I struggled to makest it strong;
but fate shamefully ripped it and all the triumph I'd woven, all along.

And losing him was indeedst everything,
nothing distracted me and kept my jostled self going.
I feelest lethargic even in my sleep,
I keepest falling from rocks in my dreams-ah, too leafy and steep!
I dreamest of suburbs that are rich with divine foliage,
I rejoicest in whose tranquil, though transient, merriment.
And as morn retreatest, I shall be again filled with rage,
I refusest to eat and enjoy even a slice of everyday's enjoyment.
I am now wholly conquered by worry; I was torn and lost in my own battlefield,
I hath no more guard that shall lift me upwards and grant me his shield.
Ah, I hath now been turned, to a whole nonentity;
at my wounds people shall turn away, with a foolish laugh and mock sorry.

O, love, and I am now vainly stuck in the night,
The night that refusest to leave my tired sight.
The night that keepest returning the dark
with no more hope of reflective sight,
and no more signs pertinent burning light,
and sick I'th become, of this jealous dread.
But am I really sick now? Utterly sick of this lonesome envy?
Ah, still I better refusest to know. My dreams are bad.
The shapes in there are far too inglorious and mad.
Just like those-ah! Do not let them harm me!
Where are my eyes? My very heart, my own blood,
and perhaps, my thorough sense of humanity?
One second back they were all still with me,
but they are all now ruined phantoms and shapes,
whenever I am fast asleep,
he turnest them out like obedient sheep
and handest them to the unseen to be *****.
He was neither sincere nor tactful,
and believed too heartly in his odious and ill-coloured soul.
Ah, but duly shall I even call this season harmful,
sorrows rule our hands, whilst distaste reign our men.
Disgrace ownest its peaks, within gratuitous handfuls,
men knowest not their lovers, speakest not of us as friends.
Ah, this is a bitter spring indeed, of anger and fear;
With thousands of evil tongues and evil ears,
For lovers are at war with their lovers,
and makest each others' eyes unseeing and blind.
Even God, our lovely God himself, is at war with his heavens,
for whose minds are lost, as real conscience shall never ever find.

Where is my love? Ah, perhaps staggering under the woods,
And I, who else, shall be with him,
Gathering woodland lilies,
Prosperously blooming under the trees.
Where is my heart? Ah, it is carried again within him,
as we layest about the green grass on our limbs,
with oiled lamps at our feet,
and tellest stories as our loving eyes lean closer and meet.

Ah, beauty! That is the picture in my mind,
not him, not him, that has sent me blind.
Still the image of him makes me sick,
his image that is as stony and greedy as a brick.

He has no feelings, he has no emotion,
he has no endurance and twists of natural passion.
He has all the strength and virility the world ever wanted,
but his mind remainst cold, his heart his own self once entered.
He is as unjust as a statue,
he knowest not wrong and right, nor false from true.
For whilst I tried to praise his being so comely,
he took all my remarks sedately,
he gazed at me with an arrogant face snarling,
and praised the gentleness of his own darling.

He is unthinking, savage, and unfeeling,
his face a human, his heart a brute.
He might be all the way comely and charming,
too pitiful he is inhuman and acts like a crude.
My fancy was sometimes real overbold,
for whenst I was to coo and hold, he was but to scream and scold.
Scorned, to be scorned by one that I not scorn,
whenst all this passion my shoulder had borne?
It is unfair and ignominiously hateful,
gross and unjust, horrid and spiteful.
A fool I am, to be unvexed with his pride!
And once, during repetitive daylight,
I past him, one day I was crossing his lands,
I did look at him not as a gentleman,
He was laughing at his own tediousness,
I dreaded him for that, but as I came home
later, I cried again, over his picture with madness.

Ah! How couldst I ever forget him,
whenst he is but the one I love?
No matter how strange this may seem,
he was the one I real dreamt of;
I want to love him not in a dream,
I want to touch him in his flesh.
I want to smell that scent of him,
and breathe onto his lap and his chest.
I want to sit in his oak-room,
and tellest him of stories of glad and gloom,
before the ocean-waves afar laid
next to quiet storms, amidst our private delight.
I want to have him selfishly!
Have him laugh endlessly with me,
and all the way love him madly;
with a heart so dearly but greedy.

What, if he fastened himself to this fool dame,
and bask in her infamous joy, and fame
Should I love him so well, if he
gave her heart to a thing so low?
Should I let him again smile at me
If we are bound to see each other tomorrow?
His smile, at times can be full of spite
Yet in spite of spite, he is all but comely and white;
I miss him, I miss him as just how I miss my dream,
He is, though marred, is just as sweet as I remember him,
I insist sorrow coming up to me,
To consolest and hearest here, my deepest plea
And ****** the most painful pain to he and she
And restore then, his innocent self to me.

I hearest no sound from where I am standing
But the rivulets and tiny drops of rain
Are starting to send moonlight to my whining
As I twitch and swirl and whirl about in the rain.
I watch people flock in and out the evening train;
their thoughts hidden, like all the mimicry in a quiet play.
Hearts full of glowing love, and at the same time, of disdain;
all pass by gates and bars and entrances with nothing serious to say.
Ah, perhaps I am the only one too melancholy,
for even at this busy hour think doth I, of such poetry.
Yet melancholy but real, for if I ever be dear to someone else,
then I decide that should I be, to myself, far dearer.
For I believe not tales another creature tells,
they can be lies, they can be unfairer.
Like a nutshell too hard for the very poor shell itself,
I do feel pity for him and his ignorant self.
Unlucky him, for I carest more for every puff of his breath,
no matter how eerie-and she, rejoices over
the bashful lapse, of his death.

My life hath crept so long on a broken wing
Through cells of madness, horror, and fear;
Fear that is brutal and insidious, though inviting
and lies that eyes cannot see nor ears hear;
My mood hath changed, at least at this time of year
As I'th stayed more about and dwelled mostly here
And my previous grief hath outgrown itself like a butterfly
Too I witnessed as It fluttered and flickered madly,
and at the very last moment, died silently 'midst its own fury;
All weeks long, I hath listened and learned tactfully more
Lessons that I hath never heard of, never before.

But still, hate I this severely clashing world;
too much torpor hath we all borne, and burning, virile hurt.
O down, down with laborious ambition and ******
Kiss this earth's silent layers and fold down our knees
Ah, darling, put down thy passion that makest thee Hell!
To all madness of thine thou should sayest, farewell-
Hesitate not, and leave thy curious, and agile state
Be honest and precise, be courteous and moderate.
Crush and demolish and burn all demonic hate
Thus instead cherish and welcome thy realistic fate.
Entertain thy love; with dozens and dozens of new, novelty!
Brush up thy pride, but leavest away, o, leavest away thy old vanity-
Ah, and profess thy love only to me, for it brings me delight
It returns my hope, and turns all my dissolutions to light.

And tease, tease me, and my frenetic, personal song
Though I but be a wounded thing-with a rancorous cry,
I am wretched and wretched, as thou hath hurt me all along
Sick, sick to the heart of this entire life, am I.
Many one hath preached my poor little heart down,
Neither any merriment is mine, 'mongst this serene county town.
My only friend is my oak-room bible, and its dear God
Who mockest frenetic riches rich at diamonds but poor at heart
With cries that rulest turning minds from each other apart;
and with wealth running away to selfishly savest their spoilt, cruel hearts-
o, how I am lucky-for I am destroyed, but not by my dear Lord;
I am healed and charmed by His generous frank words.

All seemest like a vague dream, but still a dear insight
For he, above all, taught me to see which one was right
I still miss him, and dearly hope that he canst somehow be my future poem
And together we shall fliest towards joy and escapest such unblessed doom;
His musical mouth is indeedst my song,
a song that I'th been singing intimately with, all along!
For this then shall I shall continue my pursuit,
with a grateful heart and so a considerate wit,
for I am sure now-that he is mine, and only mine,
and duly certain of these promising, though long, signs;
But now I feel my heart grow easier;
as it now embraces days in ways lovelier;
for I hath now awakened again, to a better mind,
so that everything is now to me just fine;
Still he bears all my love and intuitive goodwill,
yet how to waken my love, God knowest better still.

Discombobulated and flabbergasted, flummoxed indeed?  No such bemused and befuddled?  I am not perplexed on the prognosis to prospectus.  They’re incongruous, I’m incredulous, it’s catawampus.  Reconnaissance reconnoiter,  rectilinear reciprocal rectitude.  Radix repartee: Down here at the bizarre bazaar we all believe in the blasphemous farcical fugue-ness, estranged ensemble orchestrations and all.  Some of us are even into the various assorted forms of related stranger weirdness.  We’ll be having none of this putrid quasi queasy.  Corrupt costume counselor siren skeptic.  None of you ignominiously pusillanimous incorrigibles who aren’t brave enough to love are required.

Thirst

Yes I know what it means to thirst I hiked across the mountains to a friend’s distant ranch one possible reason I didn’t just go down the road was when returning by jeep from the same ranch I ran into literally thousands of these little guys they were following a mating call I guess to the ladies they really looked fine but for me it was a little hair raising no pun intended as they say since they were hairy themselves if little fuzzy caterpillars come to mind I only wished that was the case I was going about thirty and they were crunching and flying up behind the jeep as I drove through their intended love fest. I suppose if the jeep had shuttered or died as the one did in the San Antonio River as the driver crossed the slab in the river while the water was rising and drowned out the carburetor and was carried so ignominiously down river. I don’t know maybe a thousand Tarantulas could carry a guy off that was why I was going across the mountain and they had the road to themselves.

First I miss calculated I thought after going past the San Antonio mission across the San Antonio river up the mountain that I would find water at the building that stood on the top nothing but an old abandoned corrugated shed. I had no intention of going back the hour or more getting to the top then the five or so miles and mountains aren’t smooth clear across up and down in the baking sun in that arid semi desert country when I finally looked from the top of the mountain down on the long road that led back to the ranch I was hot and dehydrated maybe those tarantulas were over rated I don’t think so well any way look a pond right next to the lane looks can be deceiving I finally crashed and banged my way down to the pond oh great dog days of summer **** to bad move over **** I buried my face in it and drank **** and a whole bunch of moss that was right under the water and it was hot I wasn’t complaining.

By now you know my interest isn’t in natural thirst I seriously doubt that any one is thirsty naturally speaking but we all are in a dry and thirsty land without spiritual water. It shows by the unhappiness expressed by so many they don’t get it the soul is not craving water of this world it is seeking the one who met the woman at the well so many women deride the bible when it speaks about man being the head nowhere is there more consideration giving to women than in the pages of holy writ to this woman he came see the water glistening as it spills from the clay jar inviting yes but multiply it a thousand times when he said if you drink of that water you will thirst again the water I offer will satisfy your deepest longings it is the highway that ends in joy forever more would you be foolish and take trinkets from a stranger when you are with the very fount that all things proceed from and have their being I promise you a river of living water that will never cease a spring that has started its over flowing this very day in your presence waters that are pure and will quench all thirst drink with abandonment he stands before you his words haven’t chaged.

Growing Hazelnuts in the Pacific Northwest
(a conversation between two coastal poets)


we periodic update each other by
email or poetry...writers choice

~~~
my turn but
not an easy poem to commence,
for its eminent domain fraught
with relative comparisons favoring one side,
emphasizing the differences that life prefers to offer
a magnetic choice,
attract or repel

a language conundrum
an iron-strong irony that the poem's ending,
its commencement, its ceremonial completion,
far easier for me to forecast before the real work initiated
<•>
commanded  by you to write of me and mine,
with detailed, careful accuracy
as if it were a poem!

So Why Not a Poem Then?**

my hasty notes emailed upon my current status
you dislike for they are both brief and oblique,
poorly scripted, yet generous
with typological confusion, writing in this genre of
self-evaluation always is concluded by me as:

devolving into either boring, pompous or delusional aggrandizement or the final infinity-indignity of
mealy mouth whining

so an updated poem will be writ,
the happenings of my life have not changed greatly,
the struggle to earn daily bread that supports a familial universe, grows more difficult as demand for buggy whips drops even more ferociously with the onset of miracle
self-driving cars

your son fights fires, commands the earned allegiance of men who fight that which threatens the survival of others life and limb, mine, fights for the his daily bread which is only equivalent in its mind numbing insidious mental exhaustion

I make no judgements or place any emphasis erroneous

the California fire, your sons volunteered absence,
leaves living holes in your family to be filled,
and the burden shifts with the Oregon wind, northward,
upon your old-er tired-er shoulders,
a somewhat similar etching on my body
carved in Eastern Standard Time worry lines

reading between the lines of your concerns,
read of all the plans in process,
feel the cares and concerns that  lself-sacrifice impose,
among them the 75 acres of hazelnuts harvest ready
that need his missing hands to do the harvesting work

which makes my daily shifting of financial instruments
seem very, very, petite bourgeoisie

I have studied in some detail the minutiae of hazelnut harvesting methodologies which makes me into another
east coast expert poet - confident in his opinions validity,
tho devoid of any hands-on experience and would not recognize a hazelnut from the ones (nuts) floating in my head

well, here must also admit into evidence that every potted plant or tree I ever purchased in the Flower District (West 30's) died. ignominiously. that a delicious word deserved of being spoken aloud for the
accuracy of its sounds

as predicted ending this poem, far, far easier than the writing

we cross pollinate each others lives; selfishly think, nay,
convinced, each, I am the possessor of the better half of the deal, for me the loving of your ordinary of soil and ash,
*** wee football, the honest labor of building things
is getting an honors degree in sharing

though,
though worrying about our children
seems to be deemed a bi-coastal commonality

perhaps the Yankees will win tonite, (nope)
perhaps the Giants will upend the Seahawks tomorrow, (nah)
items of passing interest that will soon pass,
for your real serious worries are
combulated confabulated and combusted with mine,
what is yours - now mine shared

this intersection happens when two poets from opposite ends of these united states cross pollinate via manly hugs,
75 acres of friendship that need harvesting,
and the earned respect of insight into our singular
psyche so rich-earth deserved

with manly hugs and respect

your friend the n-man
Oct 20-22, 2017

~~~

Bro,tell me please
To your heart's content
Enjoying a French kiss
In squeezing out
The nectar of their lady-hood
Not remiss,
Are the lasses
A cigarette
For a while you keep
By your chest
To burn them to ashes
And ignominiously
Squash them down
Under your heels?

Drowned in pills
Her morbid gaze and soulless eyes would send me chills
A relationship empty but a foundation of thrills

Her beauty piercing as to be posey
I just delighted she chose me
Her slightest whim I’d mosey
Or she'd batter, bruise, and expose me

Why me I wondered at times
As her white powders sniffed in reverent lines
Too petrified to ask
Her actions ignominiously grasped

So I left
My feelings undealt
as I wept
With all of my friends gleaming
But I didn't know what to believe in

Poem
that reaches all through
some, to me, mysterious mechanism
of slain hope

of lying
snot raging

lack

of sense
of

spars e letters
singing

horror at

crossing

at heads down

romance dies
ignominiously

some fool
believing

and this pity is not
to that fool

instead to you
who needs the fool




Copyright@2019 Dennis Willis

Impossible mission, nevertheless
I take figurative aim
to craft poem without
experiencing wrathful blame
avoiding explicitly, ignominiously, specifically...
referencing mine heterosexual counterpart
that infamous she,

whom did ruthlessly claim
yours truly as her husband
snatching mine happy
go lucky bachelorhood
two dozen plus decades ago
(revered singular status
belonging to me),

one latitudinally and longitudinally
i.e. height and weight challenged dame
during earlier years of our marriage
prone to prematurely ******* and exclaim
expletive laced epithets toward me
once burnt twice shy,
courtesy unidentified heartbreaker

nonetheless pledged
her troth and did coldly frame
wedded covenant predicted
on mutual (of Omaha)
perk hens pact regarding fidelity
abiding rules linkedin
with matrimonial adult game.

Henceforth any future
reasonable rhyme I crochet
with words must not mention
name of spouse lest she flay
these lovely bones
and verbally inveigh
husband hoot hook literary leeway
time gone by to broadcast blithely,
albeit electronically
which liberty not okay
the missus pointedly did relay.

No idea why personal details
(about myself) shared with zeal
(hoop fully to curry spicy reciprocity)
yours truly not exceptionally discriminatory,
when rusty cogs turn with much friction 
barnacle encrusted cerebral
spongy bobbing square wheel
likened to (nails scraping
across chalkboard) -
which action evokes screeching squeal

an artifact of yesteryear school days
seen courtesy thirty five millimeter
black and white silent newsreel
portraying parochial
(baby boomer) kids
analogous to well trained dogs did heel
good luck heading toward
principal office filing lament better off
seeking devil (who wears Prada
or the latest couture) to appeal.