dark leaps when
there is the frothing light
beaming a sizable aureole
on your face
this evening
and its palpable brigade.

dark is having your
inwoven dress free
from swaying
pressed against raucous
facelessness of things
rogue and renegade.

and when i have you
not, shining the light
and its intone,
wind felt like
stabs or
i in attendance
of a crazed vaudeville—
trapeze is the hinge
of the void
afloat, upstream, space-hovering;
a display of love
   and not so much
is shown of the vertigo
trapped in a square,
a face
impinged in the seamlessness
of this fabulation
when you've gone
quickly fading out;
    
     light is my remember,
o, dark my
     forgetling.

A hollow point bullet  , fired , rifled through barrel , targeting steel resolve , fragmenting , striking ten combatants with one fatal shot ! A wood canoe with confident oarsman , fighting thirty foot ocean swells , hurricane winds and storm surge ! Swan dive over Horseshoe Falls , disappearing within the rocks , returned to the surface laughing , emboldened and unharmed ! Pressure cooker explosives , detonated beside large crowds with zero injuries , homicidal schizophrenic empties his magazine in a theater with no casualties ! Random killing in the name of religion with just cause , fundamental rationality ! Convincing people to try compassion , tolerance and moderation ! Forgetful , carefree , unharmed , thankful citizens impinged , ***** by the three percent , courtesy of Wall Street !

Delicate ogres kiss shimmering necks.
One by one they take their turn to dip into the lake of lust.
Brothers bound by their need to feed -
Inhale dark vapors you beasts,
and strangle your throat.
The opposing advertisement differs: For your throats sake smoke.

They gorge on fruitful delights
and devilishly entwine fingers
in an attempt to ensnare innocence back to their lair.
Run rabbit. Run.

The streets enclose around them, and she knows no escape.
Yet these webs are carved into their backs.
They're taking this sacrificial lamb.
To pull the tender meat apart and leave nothing but a mind impinged with woe.

Claudia knows Potslam
fancies her. She knows
he would like to. She
knows other men watch
her pass. Knows they’d like
to touch her ***. Claudia
wants just to be loved.

Wants the kind of love in
those magazines she reads.
Potslam says he loves her
but it’s all cheap talk. His
eyes and mouth say otherwise.

She sees it in his eyes. That
first date as she waited
other men wolf whistled.

Eyed her. If eyes could undress
he’d be **** catching the cold
air standing there. Mother
said men were all the same.

Father misunderstood the
essence of woman. His history
of failures hammered and
impinged on bone and skin.

Claudia sits and lights her smoke.

Potslam talks and relates a joke.

She eyes him. Takes in his pitted
skin. Wants another to love not
**** her. Needs the loving arms
and warm caresses. The gentle
kisses placed on lips or cheek.

She watches Potslam smoke
and exhale. Sees his thick lips
give birth to smoke. His yellowed
fingers hold the cigarette. He
smiles that smile. Shallow as
a puddle. He moves in and out
of shadow. If only love were there
she says inwardly noting him ****.

She feels no love or such no aching
or piercing of her delicate heart.

there are so many of them
  and there is only less
  of me —

gondola in Venice,
  H-bomb
and the knife of Bach;
a steady collision in Q. Ave
as the fizz of the afternoon mirage
settles with the ides,
the torn elephants of
  Chiang Mai
the red blood of Golden Gates
   the froth of the repeated wave
at the lip of the ocean,
  city buoys lacerating
the skyscape

and your coming in here
  ransacking all;
appeasements and
  trivialities — there are so many
of your photographs here
  and only less of me,

looking at all of you
  and weeping it
later. sounds like these sounds
hanging by the edge of the bed
reducing woes to a hair-trigger.

i look outside and there
are women, cat-called by peddlers,
stopped by cabs, inside and outside
  of cars with sometimes lovers
hot legs and all that,
simmering in the highway
glancing at them now
   lamenting them later,
what's a dull boy to do in a dull town
  with clothes dull wielding the
     dull word?

meanwhile, there's so many of you
and there is only very scant of me left.
light voyeurs through the interstices
   of the huddled masses,
panic screeches through the maddened
  streets of Vito Cruz.

   the night is all black and stark
and the heavy behemoth of existence
  prods underneath where
rats, rodents and vermin run
  plodding the highway with sleek varmint
    demeanor. a lady passes by with a
string of fragrance dangling upon
  her shoulder-blades.

what's a dull boy got to do in a dull city
  with a dull heart?

there are so many of them for my
   territorial hands cannot name
and there's only one of me:

     unheroic
        impinged
small
        half-drunk and
half-believing

  that there's something
a dull boy ought to do
   in this dull city
with dull words but it comes
   with an exorbitant outlay.

dog-leashes are expensive,
    moonless hoots through opened
windows hefty with price.
   moon-blooms again and again,
missing all hurt trying to repair
   the ravaged — i look at young
girls, old women, fine and complete
  and this thing of being me
     on the market marked: sun-stifled.

there's so many of them
there's only a sum of me
that's often small and burgeoned
bringing the question
  
what's a dull boy to do in a dull city underneath a dull moon
       within a dull crowd?

Last night, after I had lain down, I lied.
I sat, saturnine, basking in incandescent rays
Which impinged upon the back of my eyelids
Like the warmth of her smile.
I lay in the miry blankets and in myself,
Allowing the weight of my mind to wisp away
With slender traces of white smoke.
The room dissolved around me with the bar beneath my tongue.
I laughed.
Three years had passed since the last time I was truly happy,
But, still, I laughed. If only for a moment,
I had found a place where quotidian pressures couldn’t follow.
Unfortunately, it was only a moment before a thought occurred:
None of this is real.
Or, perhaps, this was the only part of my life that was real,
That is real.
Maybe the scripted days spent toiling away
Behind the particle-board walls of my cubicle are the dream—
A recurring nightmare.

All bleached. Sweating a spindrift. Senses dumb like a blunt arrowhead.
It is time again when liquor cuts like paper. I have weak means,
weaker skin. Wanting to strip home of stucco. Fails to, is white like clinic.

My measures to fret an end: books unopened, left yellowed. Some old cigarettes
my mother keeps a keen eye on, does not hurl in the trash, permits me
accepted death, the body taking a toll in this house. An empty wine bottle
corked to contain the drone of this animal. Pills I do not understand, only
touch the symmetry like a wife. My own shattered histories throbbing,
operating in the hollow dome of this

   some words when fated, do not reach their fathers. I have
many sons by this. My laugh bends like metal. Celan bellows trust the tearstain.
Body curled to a note impinged by conductions of this electric music. Listening
to myself confess as walls watch my back.

The place she has in my heart is indelible, as if it were tattooed with permanent ink from that of a pen. The terms of endearment used and the way I would always smile just being around her, was my solace. She made my world, that was often viewed as black and white; polychromatic, infused with vibrant colors. Anytime I was with her, there was an aura of tranquility, and she was always there to alleviate any stress. But then, she no longer cared for me, which impinged upon my new-found optimism. As quick as she was to bestow upon me this great source of joyfulness, she was also swift to retract it.
The diversity of colors now vanished, no longer vibrant but instead dull. And I began to understand the concepts of love that viewed it to be evil. But her previous words of affection still reverberated in my head, as a way to haunt me.

all quiet this afternoon, the sky
pulses in its unprepossessing limit

surveyed the intersections with the wane
of tired eyes. in this side of town, yours

the gray-faced pavement, mine the stones left
unturned, pillaged by the children of suspicion,

thrown and must have hurt something,
a bird hurtling in its pace, or a mangled body of a cloud,

wingstalked, stifled to the brim of impinged labor,
  depth of sleep is measured by the weight of dream.

all quiet this afternoon, the naked body
of the sky is blue, spun around in penetrating tone.

quick is the flat motion of the quaintest of feet,
this afternoon in Poblacion, heavily veiled and demurred

the vertical climb of morning past the cranes, the monoliths
screaming broken litanies – strange skies are insipid now

thick with the froth and rekindled petrichor,
you told me you had a view of every inch of world

from the 31st floor and now I circled to cut corners
and fold my love for cold fronts, monsoons, storms.

Please pardon mine assertion
I dared to surmise
familiarity with me,
an avid reader and prolific writer
(mainly to appease personal pleasure)
thus upon embarking upon
reaching out, your curiosity piqued.

Daily onslaught from schoolyard
punkish bullies ace
thus, storybooks provided
haven to experience liberation
cowardice, fearfulness, insecurity
low opinion regarding base
sic selfhood writ large upon,
this then diminutive carapace,
I firmly believe stunted growth
with me hallowed face
non-verbal passive behavior
ideal fodder did grace

for carnivorous, ferocious,
incredulous, and malicious preface
to young adulthood oppressing
quiet soul as if race
sing existence qua
Wounded Knee leg uss see
(possibly trace sub bull
during fertilization,
conception, and accruing
gestation within, what
would become a ways
trill womb did) fetal wretch.

Mailer daemons choked bravery
absent courage did endear
grievous inner mission
self-starvation parents did fear,
(which evolved via gradations)
omitting first one repast to share
then two, and finally declining
sustenance into a lad opting to die

butta as a licensed practical nurse
(LPN) this then puny guy
became top priority,
and my mother resorted
to whipping high
lee nutritious concoctions
in tandem with
giving me iron injections

upon one or other posterior cheeks
of ma bony derriere no lie,
the sharp pain of the needle
stoically I bore, while my
thoughts adrift upon cerebral raft
of mental weaknesses de nigh
yule lovely bones epitomized
by refusal to eat -

no hands could pry
jaws of death clutched stranglehold
on life without bing shy,
heavily impinged ability
to function, and fatigued
when aye did try
to exert myself even minimally,
and now wonder why....

An accomplice devilishly game
more dishabille coaxing
than any bon mot
inside Kapellmeister Matthew Scott
possessed upper hand.
lack of will power
to expunge did rot
exhausting cerebral dual
nihilistic paradigm plagued
ever since a tot.

Mindset robbed positive growth
development locked with lost weight
indifference affected gamut of other persons
ambition to terminate tender teen
dominated, wrought asunder
aim toward deadly state
impinged witnessing barely squeaking
thru majority grades rate
to fail paid poor dividends reaped
Absent perseverance found pate
never sought academic support,
hence high school diploma hate
to acknowledge, when
no effort made plus spectral
of near invisibility
did NEVER steal a kiss nor date.

Thus an attempt for companionship
(even if limited to online realm
reasonable rhyme I tried to create
also cathartic, holistic, and therapeutic  
courtesy linkedin words
mental anguish I alleviate.

Hope flies out the window fast
Bottom empty no repast,
Moment born of cancers’ child
Status hangs unreconciled
Woe be they who lay it thin
Who stalk these dark nights, plundering.
Woe be they who keep their guard
Abreast, and lo behold, ******
That which causes heart to sing
Despite the hurt imbued within.

Solitary, lonely way
Through this enigmatic day.

When, in truth,  potentials lie
Through yonder, bright magenta sky,
Through reams of iridescent verse
Orated daily, unrehearsed,
Bowls of olives, black, in oil
Turkish loaf, foccascia foil
laughing girls in skimpy skirts
Raucous till he belly hurts….

But futile in this state of woe
As bitter bile now sours the show.

Towering in halls of cloud
Mouthing ,hard, jawbone aloud
Struggling to hold intact
Counterpoints to interact,
Damning inconsistencies,
Weak deniability’s
Betrayal slides In cuts of time
Agonising back teeth grind
Quivering in searing pain
Every good, undone again.

Stalking hard to places thin
Solitude… eviscerating,

Emptiness imbues the light
Shatters soul in shoals of fright,
Delve hopelessly to hopeless ways
Scream as light refracts in waves,
Wallowing to places thin
Wavering to lost within.
Weakness in the cold half light
Shattered prospects drenched in fright,

Rabid eyes withdrawn in face
Incarcerate hot hatred’s trace.

Better now in light of day
Sunshine beaming in to play,
***** count resumes its gain
Flocculant reduces pain
Shame slides in the door ajar
Embarrasment impinged afar.

Amazing how a cup of tea
Resurects the life in me.


M.
14 April 2019

Remembering war
visiting the past
why
all that comes is heartache
the loss of the lives
on both sides
the cost of war
ever at the door
leaving behind
broken families
wives without husbands
children without fathers
for what
political differences
religion
the cost is too high
the freedom of a people
should not be impinged upon
Edwin Star
“war, good God
what is it good for
absolutely nuthin'”
a simple lesson
that we have not yet learned
remembering war
has not made it vanish
war still goes on
our young men continue to die
I hate these wars
I love these young men
they will live again in our hearts
it is they who deserve to be remembered.

"Sometimes, late at night, sleep comes not to the weary.
Some rooms will not stay silent.
Some houses stalk their inhabitants with ghastly intent…"
**************
My travels in Eastern Europe had brought me to a strange place, located in the dominion of Romania. I sojourned to a destination about 13 miles to the North of the city of Timisoara, where I found the sprawling expanse of an ancient castle, once used by Stephen the Great of Moldavia (1457 – 1504). It was literary pursuits that lead me to such out-of-the-way stops, as I conducted my research. By day, this gilded station offered many fascinating discoveries: a grand library filled with treasured tomes of old; an enchanting, if moribund, Ball Room where opulence once found its true expression and extravagant masquerades took place; I saw mesmerizing chandeliers and an impressive sitting room, within the Great Hall, which was home to a majestic hearth.
On the day of which the events recounted here unfolded, the hearth was enlivened by a roaring fire the caretakers built for the guests. The blazing timbers provided much needed warmth on that sodden, wispy, late-autumn day. I admired the armory and the regal Coats-of-Arms. I skulked with trepidation within the bleak and forbidding dungeons. As I explored the many rooms and passageways, it occurred to me that this was a space mysteriously ensouled with medieval history and told of a former glory, long since passed. I felt caught up in the enigmatic atmosphere as I gave in to rhapsodic ruminations of what life must have been like, in those distant times. Yet, I also encountered something more…something which disturbed my revelry, by degrees, as the day progressed.
As I opened my imagination to a divining altered by the antiquarian surroundings, I began to detect a more malevolent, yet unseen, presence. Illusive whispers wafted toward me from a distance; my trammeled vision seemed to perceive phantasmal shapes with the similitude of persons, lurking. There appeared unexpected movement, but when I looked there was nothing. It was as if the shadows in the rooms and hall ways were reaching out to me, almost clawing at my clothes. Something otherworldly was trying to convey to me that I was not alone, even as I conducted a solitary route. The startling sensations seized my lucid mind in fits; a wrinkle in reality reared up but quickly dissipated, causing me to question my reason. Had I heard someone speaking? Was someone crouching yonder, just beyond my field of sight? What made my skin crawl and the hairs stand? It was these transient but peculiar incidents that I carried with me into the evening.
The night had come, with full moon looming high. After a delicious meal, I took my evening Brandy with a book, in the reading room. I read of the history of the castle which expounded upon both the marvelous and the disturbing of its 800-year existence. The Medieval world in Romania was indeed a ****** time (i.e., in wars against the Ottoman Empire) and the castle dungeon "apparatus" were utilized to dark effect, over the centuries. I had felt a very “close” and unnerving atmosphere in that part of the castle; a palpable sadness hung in the air...and I felt there was also a latent anger that lingered. I could only imagine the tortures that were carried out there. I turned in about 10:30, with the day’s events, the rigors of my travels and the thoughts of history preoccupying my thoughts. After a while of restlessness, I drifted off, as a boat upon a mild bucolic lake. The peace, however, would be violently upended. At the late hour of 3:00am, I awoke with a start and sat up, sharply, in my bed. The cause of my upset was this: I thought I heard a voice in my room where no other voice should have been! Worse still, this voice seemed cloaked in villainy; it was harsh, guttural and brutish. It cackled and threatened from the black corners! In my panicked state, I believed that someone or something sinister was watching me! I struggled to discover a source, as I blinked furiously, looking this way and that! My sight was, in turns, elucidated and bewitched by the ethereal countenance of a moonlight-enticed obscurity. For a time, I felt utterly enslaved by the oppressive persuasion of this sudden horror, as I trembled in the semi-darkness of my esoteric enclosure. “Who is there?!” I called, into a deadening silence. My ears filled with the sound of my heart beating and belabored breathing. During those enthralled minutes, I became aware of the various occasional creaks, groans and pops that tend to emanate from old buildings in the quiet hours of nightfall. There was a drone of wind gusts outside, as well, that impinged upon my hearing. When, after a quarter of an hour had lapsed, I heard no further nefarious sounds, I began to calm myself. I decided that I may have been dreaming or mistaken a natural sound from the old castle for something unexplainable. I laid my head back down but kept a weather ear out for any odd disturbance. My restfulness began to flow, slowly, back to my soul. My heart steadied, my breathing became measured and drawn out, I thought of more pleasant things… Quiet returned to my mind. Sleep cajoled and invited me back to a relaxed state of suspended consciousness. Deeper I slipped into the lake of these languid hours…
That is when the unexplainable returned: the naked horror of the moment! The twisted evil of that VOICE in my ears! A savage FACE next to my burning skull! Boney, hairy claws on my gasping throat! A reviled breath most acidic and repellant forced its way into my fleeting, aghast sentience! I recoiled from that side of the bed and leaped away, towards the door, in the dark. I crashed to the cold floor as sweat poured from my shrieking face. I clamored upwards, clutching the handle, swinging the door open, and I stumbled out into the hall way! The scream of undiluted shock echoed through the ancient building.

All the sound I heard was white. All the light I saw was red. All the world I knew was black fear!

Storybooks provided a safe haven
to escape daily onslaught from school
yard punkish bullies. Cowardice, fear
full ness, insecurity…. writ large
upon this then diminutive carapace
(more a car ap than an ace), which I
firmly believe suffered stunted growth.

Non-verbal passive behavior (asper
yours truly) ideal fodder for carnivorous,
ferocious, inxs, et cetera kickstarter ma
lice oppressing quiet soul uber wounded
bent knee (possibly quirk during gestation
sparked profound difficulty assimilating,
comprehending, and gifting spent with
in womb) wretch.

Mailer daemons choked bravery. Absent
courage endeared grievous kinetic mission.
Onset of self starvation (which evolved
via gradations) omitting first one then two,
and finally declining sustenance into a lad
opting to die.

As a licensed practical nurse (LPN)
my foregone mother resorted to whip
(while playing Devo) nutritious concoctions
in tandem with giving me iron injections
upon one or other cheeks of ma bony tucks.

A figurative boat loaded raft of mental
weaknesses epitomized by refusal to take
food (death held in check by late mate
of father), without question unequivocally,
maximally and heavily impinged on ability
to function.

An accomplice devilishly game inside Kapell
meister Matthew Scott appeared to possess
upper hand. Will power to expunge an ever-
exhausting cerebral dual.

This oppressive nihilistic, quixotic tragic turn
of psychological events (courtesy of Anorexia
Nervosa) plagued mindset kept healthy positive
growth development locked up.

Indifference affects a gamut of personal facets.
Ambition to terminate tender teen torturous
troubles dominated, and wrought asunder,
an imprimatur etched into present day
consciousness.

Though barely squeaking thru a dozen grades
poor dividends reaped. Such absence of per
severance found me undeserving of a high
school diploma.Upon graduation (no popinjay
pompous circumstance felt), uncertainty prevailed
asthma ah...ah...ah...chew zen objective.

Thus, this scrivener (who attempts to capture
those ever elusive sentiments of yore) expended
precious time and money flitting (hither and yon –
to and fro) one university after another.

Now aye make light of the matter and tell those,
who inquire about my college days “I spent time
in many institutions…of higher learning”.

Cumulative result from difficulty coping
with changes (albeit of self or circumstances)
left inability to be master of my domain. Fools
rushed in where angels feared to tread.

Attitude, credo, and ethos (or devoid of said
positive qualities plus generosity, integrity
and time management) set very unsound stage
for failure performance  as sought after employee.

Avast abundance of life forms
doth snapchat and buzzfeed
a motley fool of indiscriminate creed
resembled yours truly freed
from those scrambling greed
dully sending hotmail google
eyed hungrily ogling indeed
six months later post March 23rd
every herbaceous and woody plant
gets brittle and goes to seed.

Autumnal hint faintly tinges air
finding this mortal
bewitched by blare
ring refulgent radiance,
which quiets viz cheer
ring, harkening murmuring analogous,
when Holiday carolers
happily, gingerly, and
festively doth declare
punctuating ethereal medium
melodic equilibrium gently, ineluctably,
and lightly dust flirtatiously
kibitz, palpate, and tickle ear
projecting medicinal kissing effusion
across world wide web
primal beat linkedin within

uber tinder shutterfly lyft
razzmatazz nature
made renaissance faire,
which brilliant mid
eve ville theme
finds me shielding sensitive sight
against blinding, glomming, and limning
eye optic cull glare,

thus hands cupped
visor like impinged
whatsapp blinking instagram
reduced vision bolsters hear
ring to increase decibel
(home on the) range
prodigious symphonic production
issuing verdant pastoral themes

billow and flow across terra firma
hallowed ground made sanctimonious
immaculate mother earth conception
synchronized in symphony with terrestrial
fauna and flora, which life forms abound,
via natural laboratory called Mother Earth,
especially at unseasonably
thermally, searingly scorching dawn
make offal spring tide, where multitudinous
existence strain to avoid extinction
carving out figurative zoological niche
in kaleidoscope of palm olive colors

and funereal sounds galore
idyllic melodic musical sounds compete
against backdrop clanging din
artist palette of rainbow blended spectral views,
sickeningly sabotaged, smeared, and sullied
which unforgiving, twining,
and strangulating manifestations
vaporize, undermine, and traumatize
therapeutic potential restorative
natural environment damaged
ability becalm ming terrestrial sepsis

no longer assuage auditory and
visual sense pleasures respectively
serve as psychic balm against global threat
of life, liberty and happiness triage psalm
rampant forming diabolical deliberate deeds
bred deeply rooted soiled hatred
kudzu resistance asphyxiates human camaraderie
democratic state attacked with no qualm

malicious terroristic plots splatter
(Jackson ******* like) methodical map
blueprint leaves catastrophic trail of red
dire prognostications
constitute doomsday scenario
no rocket scientist mentality requisite
grave misfortune writ large for all life.