Fanfare of northwest wind, a bluejay wind
announces autumn, and the equinox
rolls back blue bays to a far afternoon.
Somewhere beyond the Gorge Li Po is gone,
looking for friendship or an old love's sleeve
or writing letters to his children, lost,
and to his children's children, and to us.
What was his light? of lamp or moon or sun?
Say that it changed, for better or for worse,
sifted by leaves, sifted by snow; on mulberry silk
a slant of witch-light; on the pure text
a slant of genius; emptying mind and heart
for winecups and more winecups and more words.
What was his time? Say that it was a change,
but constant as a changing thing may be,
from chicory's moon-dark blue down the taut scale
to chicory's tenderest pink, in a pink field
such as imagination dreams of thought.
But of the heart beneath the winecup moon
the tears that fell beneath the winecup moon
for children lost, lost lovers, and lost friends,
what can we say but that it never ends?
Even for us it never ends, only begins.
Yet to spell down the poem on her page,
margining her phrases, parsing forth
the sevenfold prism of meaning, up the scale
from chicory pink to blue, is to assume
Li Po himself: as he before assumed
the poets and the sages who were his.
Like him, we too have eaten of the word:
with him are somewhere lost beyond the Gorge:
and write, in rain, a letter to lost children,
a letter long as time and brief as love.

II

And yet not love, not only love. Not caritas
or only that. Nor the pink chicory love,
deep as it may be, even to moon-dark blue,
in which the dragon of his meaning flew
for friends or children lost, or even
for the beloved horse, for Li Po's horse:
not these, in the self's circle so embraced:
too near, too dear, for pure assessment: no,
a letter crammed and creviced, crannied full,
storied and stored as the ripe honeycomb
with other faith than this. As of sole pride
and holy loneliness, the intrinsic face
worn by the always changing shape between
end and beginning, birth and death.
How moves that line of daring on the map?
Where was it yesterday, or where this morning
when thunder struck at seven, and in the bay
the meteor made its dive, and shed its wings,
and with them one more Icarus? Where struck
that lightning-stroke which in your sleep you saw
wrinkling across the eyelid? Somewhere else?
But somewhere else is always here and now.
Each moment crawls that lightning on your eyelid:
each moment you must die. It was a tree
that this time died for you: it was a rock
and with it all its local web of love:
a chimney, spilling down historic bricks:
perhaps a skyful of Ben Franklin's kites.
And with them, us. For we must hear and bear
the news from everywhere: the hourly news,
infinitesimal or vast, from everywhere.

III

Sole pride and loneliness: it is the state
the kingdom rather of all things: we hear
news of the heart in weather of the Bear,
slide down the rungs of Cassiopeia's Chair,
still on the nursery floor, the Milky Way;
and, if we question one, must question all.
What is this 'man'? How far from him is 'me'?
Who, in this conch-shell, locked the sound of sea?
We are the tree, yet sit beneath the tree,
among the leaves we are the hidden bird,
we are the singer and are what is heard.
What is this 'world'? Not Li Po's Gorge alone,
and yet, this too might be. 'The wind was high
north of the White King City, by the fields
of whistling barley under cuckoo sky,'
where, as the silkworm drew her silk, Li Po
spun out his thoughts of us. 'Endless as silk'
(he said) 'these poems for lost loves, and us,'
and, 'for the peachtree, blooming in the ditch.'
Here is the divine loneliness in which
we greet, only to doubt, a voice, a word,
the smoke of a sweetfern after frost, a face
touched, and loved, but still unknown, and then
a body, still mysterious in embrace.
Taste lost as touch is lost, only to leave
dust on the doorsill or an ink-stained sleeve:
and yet, for the inadmissible, to grieve.
Of leaf and love, at last, only to doubt:
from world within or world without, kept out.
  
IV

Caucus of robins on an alien shore
as of the **-** birds at Jewel Gate
southward bound and who knows where and never late
or lost in a roar at sea. Rovers of chaos
each one the 'Rover of Chao,' whose slight bones
shall put to shame the swords. We fly with these,
have always flown, and they
stay with us here, stand still and stay,
while, exiled in the Land of Pa, Li Po
still at the Wine Spring stoops to drink the moon.
And northward now, for fall gives way to spring,
from Sandy Hook and Kitty Hawk they wing,
and he remembers, with the pipes and flutes,
drunk with joy, bewildered by the chance
that brought a friend, and friendship, how, in vain,
he strove to speak, 'and in long sentences,' his pain.
Exiled are we. Were exiles born. The 'far away,'
language of desert, language of ocean, language of sky,
as of the unfathomable worlds that lie
between the apple and the eye,
these are the only words we learn to say.
Each morning we devour the unknown. Each day
we find, and take, and spill, or spend, or lose,
a sunflower splendor of which none knows the source.
This cornucopia of air! This very heaven
of simple day! We do not know, can never know,
the alphabet to find us entrance there.
So, in the street, we stand and stare,
to greet a friend, and shake his hand,
yet know him beyond knowledge, like ourselves;
ocean unknowable by unknowable sand.

V

The locust tree spills sequins of pale gold
in spiral nebulae, borne on the Invisible
earthward and deathward, but in change to find
the cycles to new birth, new life. Li Po
allowed his autumn thoughts like these to flow,
and, from the Gorge, sends word of Chouang's dream.
Did Chouang dream he was a butterfly?
Or did the butterfly dream Chouang? If so,
why then all things can change, and change again,
the sea to brook, the brook to sea, and we
from man to butterfly; and back to man.
This 'I,' this moving 'I,' this focal 'I,'
which changes, when it dreams the butterfly,
into the thing it dreams of; liquid eye
in which the thing takes shape, but from within
as well as from without: this liquid 'I':
how many guises, and disguises, this
nimblest of actors takes, how many names
puts on and off, the costumes worn but once,
the player queen, the lover, or the dunce,
hero or poet, father or friend,
suiting the eloquence to the moment's end;
childlike, or *******; the language of the kiss
sensual or simple; and the gestures, too,
as slight as that with which an empire falls,
or a great love's abjured; these feignings, sleights,
savants, or saints, or fly-by-nights,
the novice in her cell, or wearing tights
on the high wire above a hell of lights:
what's true in these, or false? which is the 'I'
of 'I's'? Is it the master of the cadence, who
transforms all things to a hoop of flame, where through
tigers of meaning leap? And are these true,
the language never old and never new,
such as the world wears on its wedding day,
the something borrowed with something chicory blue?
In every part we play, we play ourselves;
even the secret doubt to which we come
beneath the changing shapes of self and thing,
yes, even this, at last, if we should call
and dare to name it, we would find
the only voice that answers is our own.
We are once more defrauded by the mind.

Defrauded? No. It is the alchemy by which we grow.
It is the self becoming word, the word
becoming world. And with each part we play
we add to cosmic Sum and cosmic sum.
Who knows but one day we shall find,
hidden in the prism at the rainbow's foot,
the square root of the eccentric absolute,
and the concentric absolute to come.

VI

The thousand eyes, the Argus 'I's' of love,
of these it was, in verse, that Li Po wove
the magic cloak for his last going forth,
into the Gorge for his adventure north.
What is not seen or said? The cloak of words
loves all, says all, sends back the word
whether from Green Spring, and the yellow bird
'that sings unceasing on the banks of Kiang,'
or 'from the Green Moss Path, that winds and winds,
nine turns for every hundred steps it winds,
up the Sword Parapet on the road to Shuh.'
'Dead pinetrees hang head-foremost from the cliff.
The cataract roars downward. Boulders fall
Splitting the echoes from the mountain wall.
No voice, save when the nameless birds complain,
in stunted trees, female echoing male;
or, in the moonlight, the lost cuckoo's cry,
piercing the traveller's heart. Wayfarer from afar,
why are you here? what brings you here? why here?'

VII

Why here. Nor can we say why here. The peachtree bough
scrapes on the wall at midnight, the west wind
sculptures the wall of fog that slides
seaward, over the Gulf Stream.
                                                       The rat
comes through the wainscot, brings to his larder
the twinned acorn and chestnut burr. Our sleep
lights for a moment into dream, the eyes
turn under eyelids for a scene, a scene,
o and the music, too, of landscape lost.
And yet, not lost. For here savannahs wave
cressets of pampas, and the kingfisher
binds all that gold with blue.
                                                  Why here? why here?
Why does the dream keep only this, just this C?
Yes, as the poem or the music do?

The timelessness of time takes form in rhyme:
the lotus and the locust tree rehearse
a four-form song, the quatrain of the year:
not in the clock's chime only do we hear
the passing of the Now into the past,
the passing into future of the Now:
hut in the alteration of the bough
time becomes visible, becomes audible,
becomes the poem and the music too:
time becomes still, time becomes time, in rhyme.
Thus, in the Court of Aloes, Lady Yang
called the musicians from the Pear Tree Garden,
called for Li Po, in order that the spring,
tree-peony spring, might so be made immortal.
Li Po, brought drunk to court, took up his brush,
but washed his face among the lilies first,
then wrote the song of Lady Flying Swallow:
which Hsuang Sung, the emperor, forthwith played,
moving quick fingers on a flute of jade.
Who will forget that afternoon? Still, still,
the singer holds his phrase, the rising moon
remains unrisen. Even the fountain's falling blade
hangs in the air unbroken, and says: Wait!

VIII

Text into text, text out of text. Pretext
for scholars or for scholiasts. The living word
springs from the dying, as leaves in spring
spring from dead leaves, our birth from death.
And all is text, is holy text. Sheepfold Hill
becomes its name for us, anti yet is still
unnamed, unnamable, a book of trees
before it was a book for men or sheep,
before it was a book for words. Words, words,
for it is scarlet now, and brown, and red,
and yellow where the birches have not shed,
where, in another week, the rocks will show.
And in this marriage of text and thing how can we know
where most the meaning lies? We climb the hill
through bullbriar thicket and the wild rose, climb
past poverty-grass and the sweet-scented bay
scaring the pheasant from his wall, but can we say
that it is only these, through these, we climb,
or through the words, the cadence, and the rhyme?
Chang Hsu, calligrapher of great renown,
needed to put but his three cupfuls down
to tip his brush with lightning. On the scroll,
wreaths of cloud rolled left and right, the sky
opened upon Forever. Which is which?
The poem? Or the peachtree in the ditch?
Or is all one? Yes, all is text, the immortal text,
Sheepfold Hill the poem, the poem Sheepfold Hill,
and we, Li Po, the man who sings, sings as he climbs,
transposing rhymes to rocks and rocks to rhymes.
The man who sings. What is this man who sings?
And finds this dedicated use for breath
for phrase and periphrase of praise between
the twin indignities of birth and death?
Li Yung, the master of the epitaph,
forgetting about meaning, who himself
had added 'meaning' to the book of >things,'
lies who knows where, himself sans epitaph,
his text, too, lost, forever lost ...
                                                         And yet, no,
text lost and poet lost, these only flow
into that other text that knows no year.
The peachtree in the poem is still here.
The song is in the peachtree and the ear.

IX

The winds of doctrine blow both ways at once.
The wetted finger feels the wind each way,
presaging plums from north, and snow from south.
The dust-wind whistles from the eastern sea
to dry the nectarine and parch the mouth.
The west wind from the desert wreathes the rain
too late to fill our wells, but soon enough,
the four-day rain that bears the leaves away.
Song with the wind will change, but is still song
and pierces to the rightness in the wrong
or makes the wrong a rightness, a delight.
Where are the eager guests that yesterday
thronged at the gate? Like leaves, they could not stay,
the winds of doctrine blew their minds away,
and we shall have no loving-cup tonight.
No loving-cup: for not ourselves are here
to entertain us in that outer year,
where, so they say, we see the Greater Earth.
The winds of doctrine blow our minds away,
and we are absent till another birth.

X

Beyond the Sugar Loaf, in the far wood,
under the four-day rain, gunshot is heard
and with the falling leaf the falling bird
flutters her crimson at the huntsman's foot.
Life looks down at death, death looks up at life,
the eyes exchange the secret under rain,
rain all the way from heaven: and all three
know and are known, share and are shared, a silent
moment of union and communion.
Have we come
this way before, and at some other time?
Is it the Wind Wheel Circle we have come?
We know the eye of death, and in it too
the eye of god, that closes as in sleep,
giving its light, giving its life, away:
clouding itself as consciousness from pain,
clouding itself, and then, the shutter shut.
And will this eye of god awake again?
Or is this what he loses, loses once,
but always loses, and forever lost?
It is the always and unredeemable cost
of his invention, his fatigue. The eye
closes, and no other takes its place.
It is the end of god, each time, each time.

Yet, though the leaves must fall, the galaxies
rattle, detach, and fall, each to his own
perplexed and individual death, Lady Yang
gone with the inkberry's vermilion stalk,
the peony face behind a fan of frost,
the blue-moon eyebrow behind a fan of rain,
beyond recall by any alchemist
or incantation from the Book of Change:
unresumable, as, on Sheepfold Hill,
the fir cone of a thousand years ago:
still, in the loving, and the saying so,
as when we name the hill, and, with the name,
bestow an essence, and a meaning, too:
do we endow them with our lives?
They move
into another orbit: into a time
not theirs: and we become the bell to speak
this time: as we become new eyes
with which they see, the voice
in which they find duration, short or long,
the chthonic and hermetic song.
Beyond Sheepfold Hill,
gunshot again, the bird flies forth to meet
predestined death, to look with conscious sight
into the eye of light
the light unflinching that understands and loves.
And Sheepfold Hill accepts them, and is still.

XI

The landscape and the language are the same.
And we ourselves are language and are land,
together grew with Sheepfold Hill, rock, and hand,
and mind, all taking substance in a thought
wrought out of mystery: birdflight and air
predestined from the first to be a pair:
as, in the atom, the living rhyme
invented her divisions, which in time,
and in the terms of time, would make and break
the text, the texture, and then all remake.
This powerful mind that can by thinking take
the order of the world and all remake,
w

I will bring fire to thee.

Euripides.—’Androm’.

‘Eiros’.

Why do you call me Eiros?

‘Charmion’.

So henceforward will you always be called. You must forget,
too, my earthly name, and speak to me as Charmion.

‘Eiros’.

This is indeed no dream!

‘Charmion’.

Dreams are with us no more;—but of these mysteries
anon. I rejoice to see you looking life-like and rational.
The film of the shadow has already passed from off your
eyes. Be of heart, and fear nothing. Your allotted days of
stupor have expired, and to-morrow I will myself induct you
into the full joys and wonders of your novel existence.

‘Eiros’.

True—I feel no stupor—none at all. The wild
sickness and the terrible darkness have left me, and I hear
no longer that mad, rushing, horrible sound, like the “voice
of many waters.” Yet my senses are bewildered, Charmion,
with the keenness of their perception of the new.

‘Charmion’.

A few days will remove all this;—but I fully
understand you, and feel for you. It is now ten earthly
years since I underwent what you undergo—yet the
remembrance of it hangs by me still. You have now suffered
all of pain, however, which you will suffer in Aidenn.

‘Eiros’.

In Aidenn?

‘Charmion’.

In Aidenn.

‘Eiros’.

O God!—pity me, Charmion!—I am overburthened
with the majesty of all things—of the unknown now
known—of the speculative Future merged in the august
and certain Present.

‘Charmion’.

Grapple not now with such thoughts. To-morrow we will speak
of this. Your mind wavers, and its agitation will find
relief in the exercise of simple memories. Look not around,
nor forward—but back. I am burning with anxiety to
hear the details of that stupendous event which threw you
among us. Tell me of it. Let us converse of familiar things,
in the old familiar language of the world which has so
fearfully perished.

‘Eiros’.

Most fearfully, fearfully!—this is indeed no dream.

‘Charmion’.

Dreams are no more. Was I much mourned, my Eiros?

‘Eiros’.

Mourned, Charmion?—oh, deeply. To that last hour of
all there hung a cloud of intense gloom and devout sorrow
over your household.

‘Charmion’.

And that last hour—speak of it. Remember that, beyond
the naked fact of the catastrophe itself, I know nothing.
When, coming out from among mankind, I passed into Night
through the Grave—at that period, if I remember
aright, the calamity which overwhelmed you was utterly
unanticipated. But, indeed, I knew little of the speculative
philosophy of the day.

‘Eiros’.

The individual calamity was, as you say, entirely
unanticipated; but analogous misfortunes had been long a
subject of discussion with astronomers. I need scarce tell
you, my friend, that, even when you left us, men had agreed
to understand those passages in the most holy writings which
speak of the final destruction of all things by fire as
having reference to the orb of the earth alone, But in
regard to the immediate agency of the ruin, speculation had
been at fault from that epoch in astronomical knowledge in
which the comets were divested of the terrors of flame. The
very moderate density of these bodies had been well
established. They had been observed to pass among the
satellites of Jupiter without bringing about any sensible
alteration either in the masses or in the orbits of these
secondary planets. We had long regarded the wanderers as
vapory creations of inconceivable tenuity, and as altogether
incapable of doing injury to our substantial globe, even in
the event of contact. But contact was not in any degree
dreaded; for the elements of all the comets were accurately
known. That among them we should look for the agency
of the threatened fiery destruction had been for many years
considered an inadmissible idea. But wonders and wild
fancies had been of late days strangely rife among mankind;
and, although it was only with a few of the ignorant that
actual apprehension prevailed, upon the announcement by
astronomers of a new comet, yet this announcement was
generally received with I know not what of agitation and
mistrust.

The elements of the strange orb were immediately calculated,
and it was at once conceded by all observers that its path,
at perihelion would bring it into very close proximity with
the earth. There were two or three astronomers of secondary
note who resolutely maintained that a contact was
inevitable. I cannot very well express to you the effect of
this intelligence upon the people. For a few short days they
would not believe an assertion which their intellect, so
long employed among worldly considerations, could not in any
manner grasp. But the truth of a vitally important fact soon
makes its way into the understanding of even the most
stolid. Finally, all men saw that astronomical knowledge
lies not, and they awaited the comet. Its approach was not
at first seemingly rapid, nor was its appearance of very
unusual character. It was of a dull red, and had little
perceptible train. For seven or eight days we saw no
material increase in its apparent diameter, and but a
partial alteration in its color. Meantime, the ordinary
affairs of men were discarded, and all interest absorbed in
a growing discussion instituted by the philosophic in
respect to the cometary nature. Even the grossly ignorant
aroused their sluggish capacities to such considerations.
The learned now gave their intellect—their
soul—to no such points as the allaying of fear, or to
the sustenance of loved theory. They sought—they
panted for right views. They groaned for perfected
knowledge. Truth arose in the purity of her strength
and exceeding majesty, and the wise bowed down and adored.

That material injury to our globe or to its inhabitants
would result from the apprehended contact was an opinion
which hourly lost ground among the wise; and the wise were
now freely permitted to rule the reason and the fancy of the
crowd. It was demonstrated that the density of the comet’s
nucleus was far less than that of our rarest gas; and
the harmless passage of a similar visitor among the
satellites of Jupiter was a point strongly insisted upon,
and which served greatly to allay terror. Theologists, with
an earnestness fear-enkindled, dwelt upon the biblical
prophecies, and expounded them to the people with a
directness and simplicity of which no previous instance had
been known. That the final destruction of the earth must be
brought about by the agency of fire, was urged with a spirit
that enforced everywhere conviction; and that the comets
were of no fiery nature (as all men now knew) was a truth
which relieved all, in a great measure, from the
apprehension of the great calamity foretold. It is
noticeable that the popular prejudices and ****** errors in
regard to pestilences and wars—errors which were wont
to prevail upon every appearance of a comet—were now
altogether unknown, as if by some sudden convulsive exertion
reason had at once hurled superstition from her throne. The
feeblest intellect had derived vigor from excessive
interest.

What minor evils might arise from the contact were points of
elaborate question. The learned spoke of slight geological
disturbances, of probable alterations in climate, and
consequently in vegetation; of possible magnetic and
electric influences. Many held that no visible or
perceptible effect would in any manner be produced. While
such discussions were going on, their subject gradually
approached, growing larger in apparent diameter, and of a
more brilliant lustre. Mankind grew paler as it came. All
human operations were suspended.

There was an epoch in the course of the general sentiment
when the comet had attained, at length, a size surpassing
that of any previously recorded visitation. The people now,
dismissing any lingering hope that the astronomers were
wrong, experienced all the certainty of evil. The chimerical
aspect of their terror was gone. The hearts of the stoutest
of our race beat violently within their bosoms. A very few
days suffered, however, to merge even such feelings in
sentiments more unendurable. We could no longer apply to the
strange orb any accustomed thoughts. Its
historical attributes had disappeared. It oppressed us
with a hideous novelty of emotion. We saw it not as
an astronomical phenomenon in the heavens, but as an incubus
upon our hearts and a shadow upon our brains. It had taken,
with unconceivable rapidity, the character of a gigantic
mantle of rare flame, extending from horizon to horizon.

Yet a day, and men breathed with greater freedom. It was
clear that we were already within the influence of the
comet; yet we lived. We even felt an unusual elasticity of
frame and vivacity of mind. The exceeding tenuity of the
object of our dread was apparent; for all heavenly objects
were plainly visible through it. Meantime, our vegetation
had perceptibly altered; and we gained faith, from this
predicted circumstance, in the foresight of the wise. A wild
luxuriance of foliage, utterly unknown before, burst out
upon every vegetable thing.

Yet another day—and the evil was not altogether upon
us. It was now evident that its nucleus would first reach
us. A wild change had come over all men; and the first sense
of pain was the wild signal for general lamentation
and horror. The first sense of pain lay in a rigorous
construction of the breast and lungs, and an insufferable
dryness of the skin. It could not be denied that our
atmosphere was radically affected; the conformation of this
atmosphere and the possible modifications to which it might
be subjected, were now the topics of discussion. The result
of investigation sent an electric thrill of the intensest
terror through the universal heart of man.

It had been long known that the air which encircled us was a
compound of oxygen and nitrogen gases, in the proportion of
twenty-one measures of oxygen and seventy-nine of nitrogen
in every one hundred of the atmosphere. Oxygen, which was
the principle of combustion, and the vehicle of heat, was
absolutely necessary to the support of animal life, and was
the most powerful and energetic agent in nature. Nitrogen,
on the contrary, was incapable of supporting either animal
life or flame. An unnatural excess of oxygen would result,
it had been ascertained, in just such an elevation of the
animal spirits as we had latterly experienced. It was the
pursuit, the extension of the idea, which had engendered
awe. What would be the result of a total extraction of
the nitrogen? A combustion irresistible, all-devouring,
omni-prevalent, immediate;—the entire fulfilment, in
all their minute and terrible details, of the fiery and
horror-inspiring denunciations of the prophecies of the Holy
Book.

Why need I paint, Charmion, the now disenchained frenzy of
mankind? That tenuity in the comet which had previously
inspired us with hope, was now the source of the bitterness
of despair. In its impalpable gaseous character we clearly
perceived the consummation of Fate. Meantime a day again
passed—bearing away with it the last shadow of Hope.
We gasped in the rapid modification of the air. The red
blood bounded tumultuously through its strict channels. A
furious delirium possessed all men; and with arms rigidly
outstretched towards the threatening heavens, they trembled
and shrieked aloud. But the nucleus of the destroyer was now
upon us;—even here in Aidenn I shudder while I speak.
Let me be brief—brief as the ruin that overwhelmed.
For a moment there was a wild lurid light alone, visiting
and penetrating all things. Then—let us bow down,
Charmion, before the excessive majesty of the great
God!—then, there came a shouting and pervading sound,
as if from the mouth itself of HIM; while the whole
incumbent mass of ether in which we existed, burst at once
into a species of intense flame, for whose surpassing
brilliancy and all-fervid heat even the angels in the high
Heaven of pure knowledge have no name. Thus ended all.

Burlesque fatuous is the implication of your emotional daily pretentiousness. I am seldom, otherwise a psychopath, able
to own fraternity which I can't
discernment or jester because there is an art to love and ******
And it's a conventional edit to your own dullness. I am vivid,
Debris to impersonation.
I am absent but identical
to thin air. I am a Prometheus
Arabian night in Lysistrata premise.
My words may remind you of the day I held your eyes in infinite cluster. Perhaps my love isn't enough for you to understand. For example, the glassed vain is paralysis iridium illicitness which is svelte to inadmissible synthesis. The cloud let are torsion, assail with cypress and impossible solariums; and the propane was a sensation of disjointed loveliness.
Every time I go for a walk, mosquitoes understand my lonely talks because they sip my blood at a quarter past ten but these glazed roads scrutinized my wrist, escorted vernal preposterous blue/purple relentless ghostly cheekbones.
Thought I could festive the blaze among the cedar bridge road
but take a pause and look at my skin and thighbones,
Preterists to flowered unless I smile and tell you
"This is heartbreak"*

*Unable to keep up with your facetiousness, personality failed me temporarily. Mind melting in a moment of dissonance,
This cognitive refrain refracts the 'I' that oscillates accordingly.
One's morphology, tuned to its own metric of change.
Hypnos whispers and sleep beckons, taunting insomnia (which makes a mockery of all humans) but Morpheus has no time for anything less than grandiose archetypes.
Last night I may have dreamt or drunk some foolish things, told people the truth untruthfully, let slip more than I should have.
What a pity, secrecy. They say
information wants to be free.
Who lingers in the details?
Past memories are liberated only by the present. I stand here in the downpour, soaking it all in.
Compassion, god is in the rain.
My fulgurite heart resting on the palm of a deity, at a tilt, slowly it's sliding off; when it fell I gasped.
The reflection of wide eyes in each of its atria, emotion flowing through these venae cavae, those
dilated eyes shimmered before it shattered, gleaming with passion. Us, in the blink of an I.

2am Friends

winter has set the boundage, bars of chill, escape-urge killers,
self-imprisoned by our ruthless timidity, that both comforts yet,
worse violates our truthful, unwanted inadmissible-neediness by
purging the touches and the knowing kindage, this then,
this preface, your reminding of-as-of-yet untouched,
half-invitational, half-regret, half-cursed, whole red need for
2am friends
to fill the void that poems can n’ere fill

1/1/18

Well It Seems Nowadays...    

THAT..." Black Lives Matter "..... ?
Well I'd Say THE HUMAN Factor...  
Is What We SHOULD RECAPTURE... !!!!!!!!  
IN FACT What I Mean Is... "Capture"... !!!  

Because My Lifes' Chapters...  
HAVEN'T SEEN Too Much Data...    
That Humans In Their Manner...  
Are Living By... That Standard...    

There's NO Doubting THAT... !!!  
When It Comes To ATTACKS...  
That Are Made Against Blacks...  

Humanity LACKS...  
What It Is To RETRACT...  
And.... RECOGNISE....  
That Di-vi-s-ive Vibes    
Are... TAKING Lives... !!!!!  
And DIVI-D-ING Tribes... !!!!!  

You See SUBJECT MATTER...  
I DEAL IN.... HAMPERS....  
Those Who Hanker...  
To Work With FAKE DATA...  

FAKE Like.... TANNERS....  
Standing By Standards...  
Doubled Up And Captured  
By Their...  Actions... !!!  

STICKING To Factions...  
Thought Waves FRACTURED... !!!  
BELIEVE ME Sadness...  
Forms Their MADNESS...  

Anger Now S C A T T E R E D ...  
TATTERED And SPLATTERED...  
Like Matter That's SHATTERED... !!!!!!  

You See... Subjects I Factor...  
In Thoughts That I Capture...  
Within My Lyrical...  
Are Criminally Cynical... !!!  
According To Political...  
Subjects INADMISSIBLE... !!!

In Verse of Mine EMPIRICAL...  
Because of THEM I'm CRITICAL.... !!!!!

Via Subject Matter That Simplifies Data...
They Use To Confuse Through NEW AGE Tools... !!!      

Where Matter Is Subject...  
To MUCH That INFECTS...  
Todays' Internet Heads...    

From Online ***...  
To Conspiracy Threads...  

And OF COURSE A WHOLE SET...    
of... " TERRORIST Trends "... !!!!!  

Now Police Have Been Left...    
FEELING Bullets Instead...  
of... Dishing Out DEATH... !!!

Whose Matter Will Be Left...  
To FACE Bullets of LEAD... !?!  

Or Bombs That NOW Defend... ?  
By Blowing OFF Peoples' Heads... !?!  

Something Like ALL These Rappers...  
Who CLAIM That They Are GANGSTERS...  

AND ****** Like Gun Clappers...    
Well Now Its CLEAR They're ACTORS... !!!!!
Whose Chatter Runs... FAKE Data...  

Their Lyrics Deal In... DEATH...  

" Bringing The Pain " ... Like ****'... !!!!!  
But NOT TO... RACIST Feds'... !!?!!  

So MUCH Like... " Them "...  
Things That They STRESS... !!!!  
In Their... " Poems "...  
Are In Need of YES.....  

... Auto CORRECT... !!!!!!  

For LIES They Tell...  
About How They FLEX... !?!

While Blacks With SENSE...  
Face THREATS From Them... ?!?!?  
For... Dealing In TRUTH...  
Instead of Tools...  
Just To Get Some Street CRED'... ?!?  

So Like Bernie Mac' Said...  
TOO MANY Black Youths...  
Are Becoming NEW FOOLS... !!!

They Just FOLLOW The Trends...  
To Get Themselves AHEAD...    

YES... Subjects I SELECT...  
May UPSET CERTAIN Heads... ?  

But NOT Quite Like... !!!  
The LOSS of A Friend...  
OVER... IGNORANCE Bred...  
From A DIFFERENCE of Opinion... ?  
Religion or Dominion...

Or The Skin That People Live In... !?!?!  

This Piece Has Got Me...    
........ " THINKING ".........  

That Things Are NOW...  
...... So SICKENING...... !!!  

That People REALLY NEED...  
Some Form of UPLIFTMENT'... !!!

Well YES That's TRUE... !!!  
But FACING The Truth...  
Has To Be The FIRST MOVE... !!!!  

But THAT With PROOF... !!!    

NOT Media News...  
With Views AskeW...  

Cos' I'm TELLING You... !!!  
They're Making Moves...  
...... AGENDA Fuelled......  

To Confuse And Sep-a-rat-e....  
Through Religion And RACE... !!!  

It's CLEAR There Are Scales...  
That NEED TO BE BALANCED... !!!

And Leaders Whose Actions...  
NOW NEED TO BE CHALLENGED... !!!!!  

So Let Me END This Chapter...    
By Simply Saying... THIS...  

REMEMBER There Are FACTORS...  
Beyond Feelings That... "Capture"...  
Your ANGER Into RAPTURE...    
That's MADDER Than The HATTER... !!!!!  

And FEEDS Like VELOCIRAPTORS... !!!!!  

So DON'T Deny The Crimes You See... !!!  
Because of PRIDE Or A COMPLEX That...  
You CHOOSE To.................. "hide"...................  

Take The Time To TRY...  
To... OPEN UP Your Mind....  
To TRUTH, Falsehoods And LIES...  

And DELVE INTO The DATA...  
Where The ONLY FACTOR...  
That REALLY Matters....  

Is The QUALITY of...  

It's....  

....... " Subject Matter "......

Take the tear soaked dirt from around your knees
And mark your face to prepare for war
Because the battle for your life
is about to charge you like never before.

You will stand face to face with the darkest of demons
as they screech in your ears that you’re worth is zero
Your feelings are inadmissible and
No one loves you enough to be your hero.

These evil belligerents will be the effects of
the most damaging kind of rejection
the most destructive criticism of your reflection
the most vile act of a man’s unwanted *******

Yet your future is proof that
even with a trembling body and labored breath
even with a soul draped with trauma
you are more fierce than the call for death.

You will make it through every battle
You will end the raging war within
You will experience the sweetest kind of love
and you will rediscover an authentic grin.

Just because you made it through
doesn’t mean all fights are over
But, you will think back to this time
and know how to allow your strength to takeover.

You can do hard things.

My stomach flips
When I think of you.
My head spins,
my hands shake and
my legs palpitate at the
thought of losing you.
I enter my own world
of the blues where the
monody is being played.
I see the Dybbuk with it's
venomous blood thirsty beasts
dancing to the lugubrious ditty
It's a place of hatred and detestation
where love doesn't exist.
A place that's perfect for your
Stygian soul
As soon as I look into the Dybbuk's
red boiling eyes the memories sneak
out of my eyes and roll down my cheeks
The pain I feel is unbearable and inadmissible
And all I can think of is a way to escape
from this love prison.
But oh, I realized a little too late
that you're the king of the sinners
and you turned and twisted my heart
and I'm just another victim of your favourite crime...

plot out distances between freckles
and count the amount of hairs;
in a beauteous analysis
a cold witnessing
of)a featured lifeless gaze
projected onto windows
refracted in time with the pounding
from lost soulless ghouls
in a dank puddled basement
as we stare through keyholes

the length of life waits to rescind
to wash up on the shoreline
anew, once refreshed
with Angina on

wading in cyclic waves
in deposits of reveries
stale orangeade sonatas
and dull area tirades


the purpose
economized

every axiom
americanized

and as your atoms become depersonalized
tension is materialized, in ornate ivory
shattered brass instruments rusted by
novels written to god
in a
fractured light
and range

cramped in a curtailed distance
a brickwall deadend universe
gnashing with frustration
****** yawns of futility

closed viaducts
and vacant lots
deafened eyes, grey
glimmering in retort
to their own expression


blind sight was squandered by the snapback, of all the
strings of the orchestra as they were simultaneously snipped
by sharp prying eyes, listening to the mixing of paint
to smell the music, its arms limp, vivid
wishing to pull you back (in hindsight)
with dreaded, deadened incantations
a dithyrambic liturgy to the drunken thoughtless night
of slurred litanies and unappeasable, irascible deities
lonely and immaculate, all-powerless and deft
in irksome quarrels and arguments
glossed over by the fine print of another
exalting the vainglorious self-inscribed paragons
and revelling every inadmissible mistake

gazing past to a solo star
dumbstruck and dead
from an evaluation
and dehydration

dying to know
forget it.

"I can't do this anymore."
She said as she dropped
the razor from her hand.
The cuts on her hand were
as deep as her love for him was.
She sat there weeping all night
thinking of how she could reverse
the time and heal her wounds.
The night was as troglodytic
as her heart.
She clenched her fist tight as she
heard it whisper in her ears.
A very familiar voice but not
palatable to hear.
A voice that sounds like an elegy.
Her world spun at the speed of light
when it said it's stuck to her.
Her hands started trembling as
it was latched onto her.
Nails so long and eyes so red
she couldn't stop the horrendous
voices in her head.
As soon as the firebolt struck
the ground the wolves started
bawling, the fiendish and
diabolical sky started mourning.
All she wanted at that
time was to be free of that
unendurable and inadmissible
pain but the depression which
came in the form of Mephistopheles
did not let her empty her vessel.
As the long abominable and
atrocious night passed she was
found lying on the floor breathing
but not alive.
She was completely shattered and
broken into tiny bits but
with every tiny bit she still
loved him.
That was the night she realized
what it was like to
live with depression.

She sat next to me,
a soulless body.
She hid her face
behind the darkness.
She stretched her
hand and showed
me her scars.
She pulled her
heart out and
kept it right in
front of me.
A heart that
was black
and poisoned by
the dart of phony
love.
I looked into her
agonising eyes,
where the spark
no longer existed
She touched me
by her flaccid
fingers.
My world which
was colourful
became a caliginous
place to live in.
As soon as she
touched me, my
heart started throbbing
And my eyes started bleeding.
I could feel her unendurable
pain .
She had just come out
of a fiendish storm and
was afraid of falling again.
But yet she fell again
for a prince who
came on a white horse.
His tranquilizing words
healed her cuts but
little did she know he was
just another mephistopheles
who came to ruin her.
She thought he would never
hurt her but his actions made
deeper cuts .
She had passed her inadmissible
pain to me which ******
the soul out of my body
leaving an empty mind
and a shattered heart.
The chain had just
Started and I realized that
I was the first one who was
targeted.

It was exactly the moment in which I awoke
and saw you, then, concealed by a dream:
none could behold you; nobody saw you
but I.  I felt the wicked shame which came
as sleep's veil fell, slipped yonder, was gone;
and your face only confronted mine,
seizing the heart from mind's eye, reminding the conscience,
forcing the inadmissible.  It was exactly that moment--
the moment in which I saw the veil removed,
and was helpless to stop or reverse that unveiling--
that I became awash with a long-suffering guilt,
because I knew then that I loved you.

I was born different
Different in a sense,
Not acceptable to society
Inadmissible to my parents,
Above all I am a human being!

You treated me like a dog
Left me in a trash can,
Hurt my soul
Physically abused me,
You cursed my existence

They call me from bad names
Say I was designed to be,
A *** worker ; An entertainer
You tear apart my clothes,
Body shamed me!

I'm not an object
Stop bullying me,
Yes, I'm trans! I ain't like you
But I can sure you;
I'm a better person than you!

plot out distances between freckles
and count the amount of hairs;
in a beauteous analysis
a cold witnessing
of)a featured lifeless gaze
projected onto windows
refracted in time with the pounding
from lost soulless ghouls
in a dank puddled basement
as we stare through keyholes

the length of life waits to rescind
to wash up on the shoreline
anew, once refreshed
with Angina on

wading in cyclic waves
in deposits of reveries
stale orangeade sonatas
and dull area tirades


the purpose
economized

every axiom
americanized

and as your atoms become depersonalized
tension is materialized, in ornate ivory
shattered brass instruments rusted by
novels written to god
in a
fractured light
and range

cramped in a curtailed distance
a brickwall deadend universe
gnashing with frustration
****** yawns of futility

closed viaducts
and vacant lots
deafened eyes, grey
glimmering in retort
to their own expression


blind sight was squandered by the snapback, of all the
strings of the orchestra as they were simultaneously snipped
by sharp prying eyes, listening to the mixing of paint
to smell the music, its arms limp, vivid
wishing to pull you back (in hindsight)
with dreaded, deadened incantations
a dithyrambic liturgy to the drunken thoughtless night
of slurred litanies and unappeasable, irascible deities
lonely and immaculate, all-powerless and deft
in irksome quarrels and arguments
glossed over by the fine print of another
exalting the vainglorious self-inscribed paragons
and revelling every inadmissible mistake

gazing past to a solo star
dumbstruck and dead
from an evaluation
and dehydration

dying to know
forget it.

Variations on OK: “I'm ok... as in just okay :)“

ah, me making the global rounds,
with the poem interns in tow, observing poet patients,
me, the anti-troll meme, asking the lonely legions,
“what’s up, just checking in,”

responsa included the nuanced range of variations
of the simplest terms,

Variations on OK: “I'm ok... as in just okay :)“

the normal curve of emotional disturbances, falling mists,
category 5 storms and verbal cover-up girl makeup all represented by
OK

this, then, the OK stuff of human poetry, the plain, the innocuous, inadmissible guiltily non-confessions that are the infectious complexity of heartache, humongous jealousy of those surficially
just innocently happy, those who fear of failing,
longing for what was and can not be true once more,
so with not-even-a-serious-word a reminder of our masks when meeting Quo Vadis,
the replies come in summarizing shades of:

OK: “I'm ok... as in just okay :)“

a perfectly good response, shadings and gradations
that shout volumes deserving of interpretations, talmudical exegesis,
across continental contestation,^^^meaning obviously that the contra-opposite is likely what’s meant,
all indirect giving access when delving into their abyss,
as in the rock n’ roll verse states,

“just dropped in to see what condition your condition is in”^

okay.

yes, it’s true okay is better than not okay,
which is better than the catch all meaningless of the
OK....the one, that dribbles off into air hanging, silent albatross

but the insertion of the modifier

just

makes the meaning of the fully, half born, sentence summation diagrammable except
OK
is not valid in life size, grownup version game  of Scrabble(d) hearts

this is how I spend my everyday vacation days
exploring everything human

the graze of a hand, the longest slow journey of a singlet tear,
a child’s shrieking glee, the nightmares gasps
when they woke the awoken,
the intelligible whimpering vocabulary of the new born innocent,
the spackled, patching of the speckled cracking of the
semi-autonomous, wish-it-wasn’t human,
my, busted-heart

so when two lovers continental shelves do not meet,
but graze each other, altering the landscape of emotions,
OK, just, okay is
sedimentary weak but perfect

you are the interloper ghost,
who now asks “how ya doing,”
the famous just “checking in,”
and
in the sliding spaces where mountain ranges get created,^^^

the O in Okay is a black hole disguised

I'm ok... as in just okay :)”

though this is a Buffalo Springfield “ain’t exactly clear”
you accept and understand for aching hearts are the
specialty of the maison

and that is all I have to say on the matter.

OK?
<>

3:21am Monday September 30 ~ 10:38pm Friday October 4, 2019

Born from the cosmos since the beginning of time.
A tale of two souls eternally intertwined.
Destined to come together and then unwind.
The endless tale of all humankind.

It could be seen as some kind of joke.
A type of love completely bespoke.
To settle for less would be inadmissible.
To put into words would be inexplicable.

Passing back and forth, each others magnetic north.
Lost in the aesthetic, everything else feels synthetic.
Locked in orbit, bound by physics.
Trying as we might to finally unite the spirits.

Countless lives have come to pass.
Just how many more, until we might last?
Break out of this cycle for our own survival.
A tale of two souls, in an endless cosmic dance.

On the right side of his highness
popcorn and soda
a code book and the road to
salvation.

Falling forever in love it was never like this.

Intuition tells me that superstition is just that
I throw salt over my shoulder anyway.

Moments go by and I see them in the eye
of the storm and she makes men
crumble,
I stumble over myself at times, but
that's permissible
although
inadmissible in evidence

I lost the war but every battle scar reminds me
that the fight was worth it all
and I fall for her all over again.

I found my faith on the chopping block in this abattoir* of unanswered prayers and twisted beliefs.  One moment of indecision taking me to these crossroads and down a path I don’t dare to follow.  Yet, have no choice but to take.  It’s crazy where desperation leads...somewhere between salvation and another hell station, lacking the “S” standing for any amount of security or any sense of solutions.  I find myself lost.

And there may be no valleys, but I am surrounded by all these shadows of death.  My innocence has been crucified, a sacrifice to some far away claim of something better…better than this.  Yet, there doesn’t seem to be any happy endings in sight and no hint of helping hands guiding the way through the turmoil of these trials.  God, or whoever may be listening, why have you forsaken me?  Or is my blasphemy the orchestrator of my damnation?  Do my sins author the ending of this book?  If so, turn then my *** around and help me elude the epilogue* to this hellish nightmare.  Because you see, there are no footprints in the sand, only bloodstains from where I crawled on hands and knees and clawed at any kernel of truth I could surmise in the sands of fate and in the time between cigarettes or every chaser following now forgotten shots.  Those spirits are a poison that burrow into my faith and a rot at the edges of my sanity.  I need a doctor.

So wrap my soul in the Hippocratic Oath, because you look less like the surgeon of my destiny and more like the butcher tearing me to pieces.  Facts that I refuse to face, you’re cleaving away at any fat that you deem inadmissible.  And who is innocent in your eyes…?

Or am I the judge?

If shadows had a face, they’d be the one staring back at me in the mirror.  My inadequacies could fill books and Freud would need a lifetime to decipher what’s wrong.  Is that what they mean when they say “throw the book at you”?

Is this my trial by fire?

Is the monster in the darkness one of my creation?

God…I need a miracle when I crash...

Rock bottom comes with some scars, but with realization as well.  It’s that final moment of surrender, and then you are there.  And maybe I’ve been wrong all along.  Salvation was never meant to be easy and faith always spelt the truth.  Fighting All I Thought Habitual.  It’s eerie how your Word has a ring to it when ears finally open to listen.  It rolls off the tongue with a sweeter taste than any curse.  And hindsight is truly twenty-twenty or maybe you’ve just lit the way, or maybe…I’m just starting to see.  It seems like those fingerprints look a lot like yours.  And the bloodstains are a sacrifice you offered to maintain innocence I thought stolen.   I was never really lost, just bad at reading the road signs.  You ask where my faith is.  It was never gone.  Just misplaced.  And there was never a straight and narrow, only the arrows He continues to use to guide me.


A/N:
Abattoir – Slaughterhouse
Epilogue – Ending chapter which sums up the tale and ties loose ends.
Habitual – Doing, practicing or acting by force of habit.  Inherent in an individual.

What she said in every syllable
Was integral
Was in principal the pinnacle
Of her love inadmissible
Words as medicinal
As the immaculate miracle
Pontifical and spiritual

Her rabid heart foams a heartfelt discourse through a speechless mouth  

What she said to me
What she said to me
What she said to me
What she said
What she said

Her word is the pleasure principal