I haven't stayed up this late
since our restless early morning contests
to see who would fall victim to
heavy eyelids and tired thoughts.
I won of course, you most of the time,
but I won on the longest nights (or so I'd like to think)
though my satisfaction was rooted from
something entirely different.
To be honest, I could have cared less about the victor;
I was competitive but I liked when you won -
the shine in your voice and
the glimmer in your smile telling me
how I snored through the night (I didn't)
was much more rewarding.

I haven't stayed up this long
since our late night conversations
turned into early morning slurred sentences
of who could make the most sense
whilst repeating I love you
inaudibly through earphone speakers
and bundled blankets.
And as much as the tiredness
enveloped me in its embrace,
the thought of yours implied through
the telephone waves proved
to be worthwhile, nonetheless.
You were miles beyond my reach,
but you were simple words away.

I haven't stayed up this late
since we fell asleep falling in love
in different beds but with the same desires,
on the same line; on the same page.
And I hate to admit it,
but I still like to think of it that way.

- g.d.

Pennsylvania, 1948-1949

The garden of Nature opens.
The grass at the threshold is green.
And an almond tree begins to bloom.

Sunt mihi Dei Acherontis propitii!
Valeat numen triplex Jehovae!
Ignis, aeris, aquae, terrae spiritus,
Salvete!—says the entering guest.

Ariel lives in the palace of an apple tree,
But will not appear, vibrating like a wasp’s wing,
And Mephistopheles, disguised as an abbot
Of the Dominicans or the Franciscans,
Will not descend from a mulberry bush
Onto a pentagram drawn in the black loam of the path.


But a rhododendron walks among the rocks
Shod in leathery leaves and ringing a pink bell.
A hummingbird, a child’s top in the air,
Hovers in one spot, the beating heart of motion.
Impaled on the nail of a black thorn, a grasshopper
Leaks brown fluid from its twitching snout.
And what can he do, the phantom-in-chief,
As he’s been called, more than a magician,
The Socrates of snails, as he’s been called,
Musician of pears, arbiter of orioles, man?
In sculptures and canvases our individuality
Manages to survive. In Nature it perishes.
Let him accompany the coffin of the woodsman
Pushed from a cliff by a mountain demon,
The he-goat with its jutting curl of horn.
Let him visit the graveyard of the whalers
Who drove spears into the flesh of leviathan
And looked for the secret in guts and blubber.
The thrashing subsided, quieted to waves.
Let him unroll the textbooks of alchemists
Who almost found the cipher, thus the scepter.
Then passed away without hands, eyes, or elixir.


Here there is sun. And whoever, as a child,
Believed he could break the repeatable pattern
Of things, if only he understood the pattern,
Is cast down, rots in the skin of others,
Looks with wonder at the colors of the butterfly,
Inexpressible wonder, formless, hostile to art.


To keep the oars from squeaking in their locks,
He binds them with a handkerchief. The dark
Had rushed east from the Rocky Mountains
And settled in the forests of the continent:
Sky full of embers reflected in a cloud,
Flight of herons, trees above a marsh,
The dry stalks in water, livid, black. My boat
Divides the aerial utopias of the mosquitoes
Which rebuild their glowing castles instantly.
A water lily sinks, fizzing, under the boat’s bow.


Now it is night only. The water is ash-gray.
Play, music, but inaudibly! I wait an hour
In the silence, senses tuned to a ******’s lodge.
Then suddenly, a crease in the water, a beast’s
black moon, rounded, ploughing up quickly
from the pond-dark, from the bubbling methanes.
I am not immaterial and never will be.
My scent in the air, my animal smell,
Spreads, rainbow-like, scares the ******:
A sudden splat.
I remained where I was
In the high, soft coffer of the night’s velvet,
Mastering what had come to my senses:
How the four-toed paws worked, how the hair
Shook off water in the muddy tunnel.
It does not know time, hasn’t heard of death,
Is submitted to me because I know I’ll die.


I remember everything. That wedding in Basel,
A touch to the strings of a viola and fruit
In silver bowls. As was the custom in Savoy,
An overturned cup for three pairs of lips,
And the wine spilled. The flames of the candles
Wavery and frail in a breeze from the Rhine.
Her fingers, bones shining through the skin,
Felt out the hooks and clasps of the silk
And the dress opened like a nutshell,
Fell from the turned graininess of the belly.
A chain for the neck rustled without epoch,
In pits where the arms of various creeds
Mingle with bird cries and the red hair of caesars.


Perhaps this is only my own love speaking
Beyond the seventh river. Grit of subjectivity,
Obsession, bar the way to it.
Until a window shutter, dogs in the cold garden,
The whistle of a train, an owl in the firs
Are spared the distortions of memory.
And the grass says: how it was I don’t know.


Splash of a ****** in the American night.
The memory grows larger than my life.
A tin plate, dropped on the irregular red bricks
Of a floor, rattles tinnily forever.
Belinda of the big foot, Julia, Thaïs,
The tufts of their *** shadowed by ribbon.


Peace to the princesses under the tamarisks.
Desert winds beat against their painted eyelids.
Before the body was wrapped in bandelettes,
Before wheat fell asleep in the tomb,
Before stone fell silent, and there was only pity.


Yesterday a snake crossed the road at dusk.
Crushed by a tire, it writhed on the asphalt.
We are both the snake and the wheel.
There are two dimensions. Here is the unattainable
Truth of being, here, at the edge of lasting
and not lasting. Where the parallel lines intersect,
Time lifted above time by time.


Before the butterfly and its color, he, numb,
Formless, feels his fear, he, unattainable.
For what is a butterfly without Julia and Thaïs?
And what is Julia without a butterfly’s down
In her eyes, her hair, the smooth grain of her belly?
The kingdom, you say. We do not belong to it,
And still, in the same instant, we belong.
For how long will a nonsensical Poland
Where poets write of their emotions as if
They had a contract of limited liability
Suffice? I want not poetry, but a new diction,
Because only it might allow us to express
A new tenderness and save us from a law
That is not our law, from necessity
Which is not ours, even if we take its name.


From broken armor, from eyes stricken
By the command of time and taken back
Into the jurisdiction of mold and fermentation,
We draw our hope. Yes, to gather in an image
The furriness of the ******, the smell of rushes,
And the wrinkles of a hand holding a pitcher
From which wine trickles. Why cry out
That a sense of history destroys our substance
If it, precisely, is offered to our powers,
A muse of our gray-haired father, Herodotus,
As our arm and our instrument, though
It is not easy to use it, to strengthen it
So that, like a plumb with a pure gold center,
It will serve again to rescue human beings.


With such reflections I pushed a rowboat,
In the middle of the continent, through tangled stalks,
In my mind an image of the waves of two oceans
And the slow rocking of a guard-ship’s lantern.
Aware that at this moment I—and not only I—
Keep, as in a seed, the unnamed future.
And then a rhythmic appeal composed itself,
Alien to the moth with its whirring of silk:


O City, O Society, O Capital,
We have seen your steaming entrails.
You will no longer be what you have been.
Your songs no longer gratify our hearts.


Steel, cement, lime, law, ordinance,
We have worshipped you too long,
You were for us a goal and a defense,
Ours was your glory and your shame.


And where was the covenant broken?
Was it in the fires of war, the incandescent sky?
Or at twilight, as the towers fly past, when one looked
From the train across a desert of tracks

To a window out past the maneuvering locomotives
Where a girl examines her narrow, moody face
In a mirror and ties a ribbon to her hair
Pierced by the sparks of curling papers?


Those walls of yours are shadows of walls,
And your light disappeared forever.
Not the world's monument anymore, an oeuvre of your own
Stands beneath the sun in an altered space.


From stucco and mirrors, glass and paintings,
Tearing aside curtains of silver and cotton,
Comes man, naked and mortal,
Ready for truth, for speech, for wings.


Lament, Republic! Fall to your knees!
The loudspeaker’s spell is discontinued.
Listen! You can hear the clocks ticking.
Your death approaches by his hand.


An oar over my shoulder, I walked from the woods.
A porcupine scolded from the fork of a tree,
A horned owl, not changed by the century,
Not changed by place or time, looked down.
Bubo maximus, from the work of Linnaeus.


America for me has the pelt of a raccoon,
Its eyes are a raccoon’s black binoculars.
A chipmunk flickers in a litter of dry bark
Where ivy and vines tangle in the red soil
At the roots of an arcade of tulip trees.
America’s wings are the color of a cardinal,
Its beak is half-open and a mockingbird trills
From a leafy bush in the sweat-bath of the air.
Its line is the wavy body of a water moccasin
Crossing a river with a grass-like motion,
A rattlesnake, a rubble of dots and speckles,
Coiling under the bloom of a yucca plant.


America is for me the illustrated version
Of childhood tales about the heart of tanglewood,
Told in the evening to the spinning wheel’s hum.
And a violin, shivvying up a square dance,
Plays the fiddles of Lithuania or Flanders.
My dancing partner’s name is Birute Swenson.
She married a Swede, but was born in Kaunas.
Then from the night window a moth flies in
As big as the joined palms of the hands,
With a hue like the transparency of emeralds.


Why not establish a home in the neon heat
Of Nature? Is it not enough, the labor of autumn,
Of winter and spring and withering summer?
You will hear not one word spoken of the court
of Sigismund Augustus on the banks of the Delaware River.
The Dismissal of the Greek Envoys is not needed.
Herodotus will repose on his shelf, uncut.
And the rose only, a ****** symbol,
Symbol of love and superterrestrial beauty,
Will open a chasm deeper than your knowledge.
About it we find a song in a dream:


Inside the rose
Are houses of gold,
black isobars, streams of cold.
Dawn touches her finger to the edge of the Alps
And evening streams down to the bays of the sea.


If anyone dies inside the rose,
They carry him down the purple-red road
In a procession of clocks all wrapped in folds.
They light up the petals of grottoes with torches.
They bury him there where color begins,
At the source of the sighing,
Inside the rose.


Let names of months mean only what they mean.
Let the Aurora’s cannons be heard in none
Of them, or the tread of young rebels marching.
We might, at best, keep some kind of souvenir,
Preserved like a fan in a garret. Why not
Sit down at a rough country table and compose
An ode in the old manner, as in the old times
Chasing a beetle with the nib of our pen?

The morning sun inaudibly arising,
Yo-yo weather, blue skies and rainclouds,
The familiar view of the long awaited landscape, evoking memories of many a week spent here before,
The warm feeling of - ‘home’
Shadows cast by clouds hovering eerily above a ‘witch’s house’, high on a mountain top,
Two hundred foot drops and winding peaks,
Dancing streams and wide lakes, the deepest shade of blue
Pedestrian cows crossing a motorway bridge,
The timelessness of the ever nearing estuary, lying in wait,
Our second home – the tin house with two doors,
Our place of wild strawberries and happiness and peace.
The estuary sand and the shallow-deep waters, as inviting as ever, gleaming as I walk on by,
The delicate beauty of fresh scented flowers, on a fine summer’s day,
Endless winding roads, following the sun trail, leading to a place far away,
Sheep on the beach, curious and shorn as the evening sun fades peacefully and the serein falls,
Evening serenity and the swell of the incoming tide,
The mystery of the island in the distance, far, far away.
Blankets and dreamscapes and tea in brown mugs,
And dinner cooked on an open fire,
The lights shining in Portmerion at night,
The noceur of the night sky, the silver-white orb, dancing gracefully amongst the stars.

Il dio è il miei testimone e guida, Sister Maria, the refectorian, had said, Sister Teresa remembered walking passed the refectory, touching the wall with her fingers. God is my witness and guide, she translated, feeling the rough brick beneath her fingers. She stood; turned to look at the cloister garth. Sunlight played on the grass. Flowers added colour to borders and eyes, she thought, letting go of Maria's words as if they were balloons. Ache in limbs; a slowness in her movements. Age, she muttered inaudibly. The war had taken her cousin's sons in death. Two of them. Peter and Paul. Burma and D-day. Three years or more since. She brought hands together beneath the black serge of her habit. Flesh on flesh. Sister Clare had touched. Not over much, not over much. Papa would lift her high in his arms as a child, she mused, her memory jogged by the sunlight on the flowers. Higher and higher. Poor Papa. The spidery writing unreadable in the end. She sniffed the air. Bell rang from church tower. Sext. She looked at the clock on the cloister-tower wall. Lowered her eyes to the grass. So many greens. Jude had lain with her once or was it more? She mused, turning away from cloister wall and the sight of grass and flowers. Thirty years since he died. Blown to pieces Papa had written. Black ink on white paper sheet. Flesh on flesh; kiss to lip and lip. She paused by church door; allowed younger nuns to pass; so young these days, she thought, bowing, nodding her head. Placing her stiff fingers in the stoup, she made cross from breast to breast. Smell of incense; scent of wood; bodies close; age and time. She walked to her place in the choir stall, bowed to Crucified tabernacled. Kneeled. Closed eyes. Murmured prayer. Heard the rustle of habits; clicking of rosaries; breathing close. Opened eyes. Sister Clare across the way. A nod and a smile, almost indiscernible to others, she thought, returning the same. Mother Abbess tapped wood on wood; chant began; fingers moved; sign of cross; mumbled words. Forty years of prayer and chant; same such of fingered rosaries; hard beds; dark night of soul and such. She sensed Papa lifting her high in thought at least; Mama's touch on cheek and head. Jude's kiss. Embrace of limbs and face. Il dio è il miei testimone e guida, she recalled: God my witness and guide. Closed eyes. Sighed. Sister Clare had cried; had whispered; witness and guide; witness this and guide, she murmured between chant, prayer, and the scent of incense on the air.

Perfect with gravity
fuji-like mountain
above which hangs heaven
star full and bursting

beside which she sits with a mouth full of flattery
quipping alacrities with ease
'you’re a man with a very smooth shirt’, she says
‘thank you’, he replies almost inaudibly

The breeze brushes an inner thigh with its lycra tongue
she shimmers
like a clear-lake breeze kissed

He grows to become a campfire on her shores
she laps at his embers
reflecting and flickering

He encompasses the perimeter with stealth
Sniffs the wind for fear and for warning

none comes

they bathe naked, ever watchful, for
a shift in the rushes, for the
fish in their sleep,
for the shadows
in the deep
not yet awakened.

MChallis © 2015

It’s like something’s inaudibly whispering
Words floating by on silent wings
Hints that I’m somehow drawing nearer
My worldly lens grows minutely clearer
More in tune with things perhaps
Seeing before seeing
Feeling before touching
Yet still grasping nothing
But Hope
Hope holds on in spite
Reading between the lines
Of a taciturn soliloquized life
Night after lonely night
The romance of unturned thoughts
Silently spiraling
Into the silhouette of a design I can barely see
A puzzle I’m missing all the pieces too
Yet if I shut my eyes
Perhaps I can make out its imprint
Etched into me
Been and always
Wandering aimlessly by design
Following the nonexistent trail
Imperceptible and clearly marked
Faith begetting sanity
I’d swear on
What others would call a reverie
A fantasy
The pining of one
Is my knowledge.
Sitting here, watching the starless skies
The romance of thoughts imprinted
Silently spiraling into a silhouette
Taking form

on the first day of spring
my mother died

she had always loved flowers
and had turned
our interior hallway
into a luscious greenhouse
   father was not always happy
   about the falling leaves

in her later years
when skiing was no longer hers
she hated winters
   their long nights
   their waning sun

she was always longing
   for spring
waiting for the day
the morning sun lit up
the kitchen desk again
in her parents’ house
where she was born
   and had grown old

the night before
I had called and told her
that here in the south
the first flowers were already
   dotting the gardens

she had smiled on the phone
   almost inaudibly
speaking had become difficult

   maybe her last images
   were of colorful spring meadows

today at 7.10 a.m.
my mother died

spring has come

That panting belief of men;
a thirst for that which fills the glass,
beckoning the hand to grab the cup
like the itch moving the mind
to believe in
what?
Whether or not it’s enough we still fill that cup;
with some things,
others put in nothing.
Grab your cup and get drunk, get crazy,
love the world who is a capricious lady saying,
"Have one on me, fill it with everything!"
It’s a prayer without word or plea, the sound of everything ringing inaudibly.
It’s the power of song pursing lips to kiss dreams where we believe.
The canvas of our body, mind and soul
where we draw the ink,
imagine the dream,
and become reality.
The moment when the pen is the same as the beast starving for a feast only fit for men.
The same as the artist holding onto their vision.
The same as the language translating the soul within.
The same as the stars burning away the wick of entropy that ends the same as it begins
insofar as all finite things have their dreams in essence of their being
and yearn for infinity.

The little spider sits
atop a paperback novel with a faded
cover, skitters along when it sees the
shadow of a descending
Chanel lofer and inaudibly
squeals as it is crushed
beneath the polished leather, four-inch
heel.

I'm screaming silently
I'm crying for help inaudibly
I shout but nothing can be heard
Listen close, not a syllable, much less a word
I'm screaming silently
For someone to end my misery
An existence inside of my head
I may as well be as good as dead
I need to be saved, to be heard
But I scream and shout with a smile, not a word

Gang ****. wars. famines.
iPad screen a shield between
news of death
and your life.

around, around, around we
go, tripping over molehills,
ignoring mountains where
diamonds and silver

lay as common as dirt
at the top.
this train is heading in painful
directions, but it would

tickle too much if we stop.
so we don't.
I won't give up my wi-fi
to save every child in a village

I've never even heard of.  
we all say it. inaudibly.
too many of us aboard,
but the water is lovely.

would someone -anyone- please,
please rock
this
boat.

A quaint cabin amidst pines
Gently tucked into the backdrop
Of modestly, snow covered mountains.
Echoes of unprompted elk cry’s bonded together
by the ever-present sound of rolling water

Inaudibly peering through the dirt stained window
Of this serenely placed cabin
Feeling a kiss of tender coolness
As your cheek touches glass

A sight of marbled walls
Which glisten with auras of green
As the sun peeked over the mountain
Floor covered in ruggedly thick black tar
while old pink gum disguised the ceiling

a shaky skeleton walked out of a closet,
as if to come and say hello
The sun tucked itself back behind the mountain
as if it suddenly grew tired of rising

Darkness embraced the scene,
then the shaky skeleton flipped a switch
Which caused colors of reds and greens
To re-embrace the terrain

The once green pines, now strangely red
The once blue sky, now strangely green.
Could this really be?

Grabbing the rusty doorknob
To enter the cabin
Turning it twice
To compensate for friction

Inside

A step into the black tar,
Leaving a shoe behind
As the shaky skeleton
Motions a laugh.
I know where I am
As the gum leisurely rains

I'm in my mind

He pulls my hand
and I stumble up the stairs
holding two backpacks, four books
and a lunchbox full of old toy cars,
nearly tripping
but landing instead on the second floor landing.

The blinds covering the window in front of me
split slightly,
just enough
for me to see her smiling eye watching me.

I don't know her name
and she doesn't know mine.
we've never said anything real to each other.
we know nothing about each other
other than that she spends a lot of time there
at her grandparents house,
speaking Portuguese, Spanish and English
and listening to Spanish rap on the balcony
loud enough to hear through the floor
of the apartment I only spend six days in a month
and over the occasional fight between my family.

That's all she knows of me;
my fleeting ghost walking with my brother past their window
thirty or so times a month,
talking
but almost inaudibly, and never to her.
wish i knew her better
than as the eye peeking through the blinds



©Brandon Webb
2012

In between the rise and fall of your chest
I find a place to rest my head
I feel all the insecurities leave me
When you call me beautiful
In your semi-conscious state
I watch you seek me
In your dreams
And call out my name
And if it was possible to love you
More than i already do
In this moment i definitely would
I hold your hand
You pull me in
Without ever seeing me
I feel the irrelevance of the words
I have been molding
To fit the love i have for you
But love lies in these little things
How two lovers seek each other
After a long torturous separation
A couple of ily's and kisses are exchanged
Before your consciousness fades
I know I'll be there with you
Wherever it is your heart sails to
In your dreams
A place far from this world
Of bitterness and hypocrisy
The clock tick-tocks
Time never favored us,
I beg it to stand still
So that i can encapsulate every scar and wrinkle
On your skin
I'm in your bed again
It feels like it had been another life
When we held each other
And bid farewell
I guess
Without you to hold on to
I held on to your memories tighter than before
We decided
The river was too wide
And it was hard to swim
With all of the world clasping with chains at our feet
We finally accepted
The world always wins
But my heart,
though secretly and inaudibly,
Still chants your name
And my mind is too busy playing pretend
To bother itself
With the fuss
Produced by my wailing heart
But now when im laying
In such a close proximity with you
There is no place
I would rather be
But the clock strikes 6
I know it is too early to leave
But it will always be too early
Too soon
I think there is a love
You just can't survive
I know it
Because that love is ours
reluctantly i pull myself away from you
But my heart and soul
Refuses to leave
I threaten them
I say I'll never set my foot in this place again
They reply with a smirk
This is where all your path leads to
We will see you again

on the first day of spring
my mother died

she had always loved flowers
and had turned
our interior hallway
into a luscious greenhouse
   father was not always happy
   about the falling leaves

in her later years
when skiing was no longer hers
she hated winters
   their long nights
   their waning sun

she was always longing
   for spring
waiting for the day
the morning sun lit up
the kitchen desk again
in her parents’ house
where she was born
   and had grown old

the night before
I had called and told her
that here in the south
the first flowers were already
   dotting the gardens

she had smiled on the phone
   almost inaudibly
speaking had become difficult

   maybe her last images
   were of colorful spring meadows

today at 7.10 a.m.
my mother died

spring has come

I know he doesn't know this

but...

tasting him is the best part of being me;
coaxing him to untie me, knowing he wants
to try me, lay beside me

untying red lace as his lips trace; lips
blushing to taste open thighs, inaudibly
I sigh within

salaciously I grin...

lying naked across bare chest; I whisper
suckle right here; he gives in at my behest

but...

his upturned eyes says is that a dare, I say yes,
but, baby! have no fear, I love wet kisses planted
across my rear

and...

he springs to action, to my satisfaction; he kissed
and tasted every moaned reaction; pulsing wet lips
his main attraction, licking me deep

I noticed his throbbing whip ready, eager to dip, but,
I back him up...

baby! please don't stop, I eye his bulge; knowing I'm
ready to indulge, fingertips dance upon his bulge;
I wet each finger sliding them down every vein divulged

he whispers... ah! baby! you're driving me insane;
I play coy, this I enjoy; teasing my boy toy

slowly he unravels...

I turn, the way I want to have him; body burns to feel his
prowess, ready to pounce, unload every ounce, in out;
both lips pout; riding him inside out; calling my name
with trembled shouts

expulsions...

implode within the breadth of our being; unleashing
heavenly syllables from our mouth and the best of
being me unfolds into the warmth of him

us untied...

One time when I was on acid
I climbed to the top of a mountain
And mimicked the trees
Danced in the breeze
Colors pulsing from the roots to the leaves
Everything breathes
Has a purpose to be
A choir of soft voices
Whispers inaudibly
The hums are enough to comfort me
They keep me warm on this balcony
Bird's eye witness to the souls of the young
The jovial
The sprung
fighting for fun
They entertain me
But like all pups
still in training
They sleep too long, play too much,
Bite too hard, drink too much
Can I join the club?

The deeper I go
the darker the day,
blue turns to grey turns to black and
it's hard getting back.

I grab onto daylight which for now is the skylight
and the colour returns to my cheeks,
time speaks quietly to me, inaudibly,
I only see the light.

At the zenith, the nadir is clear to me,
each holds itself to a certainty
an effect which though true gets
lost on me,
I only see the light.

The deeper I sink and
the darker I think, I think
I think myself into a
quandary, in
silence the colours come back to me,
like troops on the long march to victory
and time chatters on quite
incessantly.

Suddenly I felt myself slipping.
Grasping frantically at any strand of sanity that could be found.
There was nothing.
I was completely and utterly alone.
The silence rang in my ears.
It whispered inaudibly but somehow I understood.
It was like a warm blanket tightly being wrapped around me.
It felt how it use to feel when you held me.
I miss you, you know?
Maybe that’s what love is.
Insanity.

I see your face in every person I meet
In the street
And I wonder,
“Do you see the same?”
I can still hear you call my name
As I turned to look at you,
You smiled.
There’s still a trace of that smile
Somewhere deep within my memories it lies.
Buried but not forgotten.
How can I forget
When you make me want to remember?
Your smile has always been that trigger.
But it was really the silence.
The silence that spoke a lot of things.
That pulled me closer.
It is what I choose to remember.
You, standing across from me, not saying a single word,
Only smiling.
But right then and there,
You inaudibly uttered a million things in my heart.
And I chose to remember.
Because losing someone doesn’t always mean you have to forget.

In the kingdom of Saturday an angel holds nothing,
encompassed by picture frames.

A human trafficker bites a popped Tylenol,
Eviscerates the nightmares that circle his crown.

An optimist puts their hands up,
Envisions a tableau soothed with moisturizer.

A chieftain offers a beer to an orphaned
Child, lush with vermillion blotches.

A physician shrinks down in front of,
A simmered-out wife, head towards the door.

A gypsy considers being alone,
xenophobia resiliently grips her throat.

A mystified boy points to a girl,
Whispers inaudibly “I miss making her laugh.”

A priest begins an unimaginable service,  
“My prayer is simple, my dear one,

Live for tomorrow, not yesterday.
Open your hands.

When I hear your words through song
I hope I someday can sing

In harmony with your love

But for now I long for silence.

All the pretty girls with their pretty boys too
Holding hands along the beaches of the lake,
Singing together nearly inaudibly,

Of songs about hearts that beat in time.

And it’s while I watch them silently,
From a distance I know quite comfortably
Seeing how they move near effortlessly

That I know it’s time for me to leave.

So home is where I’ll go,
But the only home I know
This home somewhere on the road,

The home I don’t own where I belong.

In those silenced nights, I inaudibly screamed through words.

Baby's breath whispers beneath quiet Willows , morning sun
approaches its bold , westward salutation , inaudibly removing the nighttime cold ...
My cumbersome foolhardy days along the perceivable , well worn footpath of a venerable life scholar ..
Silent , amusing thoughts of intrepid youthful days , life's bitter traffic
upon the minds electric foray into disillusion , avenues of terrific familiarity and knowledge ...

A light cracked the door,
And we heard:
"All rise."
He was experiencing Justice
Behind the glass, in a box.
He scratched and stretched
Skin over his eyes and stubbled face,
Needing a fix for his appearance.
Something was unbalanced
Before me.
Our view was that of figures bending,
Whispering inaudibly,
With ear pieces and muffled mikes,
Suspending us, and time.

At recess we talked of trials and errors,
And recalled the blind man's bluff;
Then someone called us over.

A solemnity plea was set before the judge.
Did he hear:
"Just over the limit...
Machines have a rate of variability..."

He wore no belt or laces,
And probably no socks.
That could make him unbalanced.

"All rise."
Again and again.

I almost fell to my knees,
Pressed and raised my hands
To surrender.

And I was just a witness.

It's on days like this where

I listen to music more then I talk to people
Have headphones
And a lack of conversation at the dinner table

I wonder if I cut out my tongue
And boarded up my mouth
where would the poetry come from?

Would my brain be a constant flicker of words and rhythms
Would I attempt to scream every night
Inaudibly
Where would the poems go?
Would they bleed out of my ears and my nose
Would they make one with my tears
And if they did would I be in a state of constant crying
And bleeding
And dying

But my biggest fear

Is what if the words left completely
What if they no longer poured over me
Baptized me
In a world of hope

Of myself that I have not yet
But know will one day accept

Would you be cleansed
Of me

rivers of hope would flow down your cheeks

How
Would I show love
Without my words?

And when she told me
That she did not agree
Would my body just stay numb
Holding back words-
I mean tears
While she talked about us sinners

On the days I want to take a vow of silence I remember keeping my heartbeat steady as I looked her in the eye and said
It is not our job for judgment
When you preach hate where are you leading them?

Because God is love
And love is love

She would remain unchanged
She would never know the percentage of lgbt+ youth at risk for suicide
Or those who have already tried
Or whose parents have disowned them

So I preach

I preach love and acceptance

Because God is love
And love is love
And my love is my

words

So no
I will not be silent
Because I refuse my niece and nephews to live with a mother so hateful
to grow into a world that is unchanged
Because of people like me

Who once believed silence

*was even an option

Ignition, spark,
a turning key,
sets the writhing
serpent free.
Worlds spin,
words collide;
realities begin
to slide.
Markers
fall away,
lines implode;
unlikely voices
yawn in code.
The palette
melts to a
fluid smear
that  trickles
down a
thirsty ear.
Sounds skew,
scream, resonate
at an inaudibly
alarming rate.
Neither sense
of life nor joys,
only cacophonic noise.
The birds of touch
are flown away,
leaving vacuums
in the day.
The chain-mailed,
twisted, human heart,
tortured from
its fatal start.
Find the answer,
spin the wheel,
stop the madness,
cease to feel.
  - mce

sometimes I wish I wasn’t cursed with this unquenchable thirst for freedom,
I wish I could lye faithful to a moment rather than daydreaming about what it is next my heart and lungs will sink themselves into, without ever really acknowledging their incessant urges for a steady pulse

There are very few moments I’ve held onto and allowed every element to melt into my being,
as if soluble with breathing skin

I wonder which moments are easier to dissolve in,
which burn and which sting
Which submerge you in feeling, in an everlasting ocean of converging electromagnetic fields

And which seem to be happening in another dimension,
one other than of life,
one in which stagnates and inaudibly negates the concept of time,  
as if it passes right through,
these moments, i know all too well
and yet, its as if I don’t really know them at all

Why do you not speak?
I ask the brush.
Your wild body hangs down.
Here, green arrow leaves,
here, a dead tree, surroundings clear,
and, here, five-pointed wild flowers
that are deep purple.

I dare not speak,
it answers,
for here is all I have,
I am here for no one to listen,
to be haphazard against the din.
When fire breaks out,
I am torched,
When the moonrock shines,
I hum inaudibly.
But by the time you have come and gone,
the delicate dance is right and wrong,
strong you are, like the water,
and I weather like rock,
you sing, you suffer.

Clueless about who is who
Fruitless coos
And disappointed too

You have a bucket catalog of don'ts & dos
Revealing truths,
And vibrant cues, of a fake doll

Once in the clouds, you'll eventually float
Unless you sugarcoat,
In an area,
Of the seas and the boats

Your lips should not deny
It's obvious in a blink of an eye
Crack the arms attached to a wall clock

Thy surroundings may whistle
Because you're a crossword and a riddle
Hijacked footprints sizzle

Cloning faces ain't your thing
Cloning personas ain't your thing
Inaudibly ridiculed, yes, I owe you this

Lit lavender candles matter
Saccharine firecrackers don't
I am slowly typing your documentary.
Still halting for a sidehill, plot twist

a girl sits in the
void of her anxiety
she hopes for light
a dream of falsification

she has become
something that she
never was

she is trapped
in the box
of darkness

she is i
i am she
i feel her pain
her agony

i scream
as she screams
i see her
moan death's name

i touch the box
where her face
should have been
i whisper inaudibly


i see her emotionless eyes
murky secrets lie inside
her hands form fist on the glass
all while a smile creeps on her face


i scream
as she smiles
'its only for good'
she breaks the glass

and time freezes

the glass shards
seep in my heart
i scream loudly
im trapped in her fatal heart


i get swallowed
by her deadly smirk
i am overcome
i am only dead

(b.d.s.)

"If we could apply ourselves half as much to progress
as we apply to working around obstacles we construct,
we wouldn't need to worry about resources;
for we are biological and thus infinite,
should we prove worthy
in a sustainable environment.

WHY IS THAT SO HARD?"






After a moment or two, the stars inaudibly echoed that "that's what the Gods call: 'being Human.' If only you knew how it aches to be!"

That in itself just blew my ******' mind.

In the fragments of my dream-state, I saw a past I didn't wish to uncover.

My old home-street.
It was the summer of a childhood memory, and the air was temperate-- like lukewarm water, suspended and perfect, almost vacuous-- without breeze or gust, as if strung up in some test-tube of a world.

The suburban houses lined the path, it felt the dawning age of autumn-- that though the trees were green, I could feel them ready to release themselves. to fall and die-- but not yet.

In the front lawns of these houses, exotic vehicles-- Ferraris, Lamborghinis, Maseratis-- an Italian road show strange and deeply uncouth.

With bright fantastic colors of cherry red and enamel white and neon green and twilight blue and midday yellow and magenta-- they portrayed as monuments, movable statues, and like a hometown get-together the families of the houses stood next to them, proud...waiting. For something.

I walked past, the spectral calls of my childhood friends and neighbors following and whispering inaudibly behind me-- a muffled shadow of voice that I yearned to understand, but could not. They laughed and spoke of illusory things, and within their voices dictated golden, pleasant memory, and a creeping sense of melancholy.

I could see my house at the end of the street. As we walked, it was as if a million summers came and went-- fathers pruned their oak trees, waxed their automobiles, pantomimed cooking and eating and drinking and mirth-- while the sunless sky glowed soft and infantile, a cloudless blanket.

Deep in my consciousness, I felt dread to return home. There was something off-- and as the dream world strips you of your familiarity, of your defenses and rationale, the raw beating flesh of fear spasms.

We reached the house, the procession of childhood friends all but dissipated. The old oak tree in the front lawn had been removed, the soft scent of lavender replaced with the vibrant colors of red rose and lanky yellow tulips that stood in piqued attention, long leaves of perfect green-- a new garden for a new soul.

An unfamiliar girl/woman-- perhaps the new owner of my lost home-- opened the garage, guided me inside.

Inside there was a McClaren, grey and yellow and unbelievably beautiful-- but dark and covered in dust. The garage was always dusty. How interesting that she would leave her prize hidden from the festivities...

She opened the door, in I walked.

In dreams often what we understand of geography and place shifts radically-- so that we may encounter a more unfamiliar world, to recognize it as distinct from waking memory. Perhaps so that we do not get lost-- to give us a way out, a logical incongruity to feed ourselves-- to convince ourselves that this world is imaginary, that it is irrational and inexplicable.

Yet when I entered my home, it was as if I had never left. The television cabinet, the floral couches, the wrought-iron fence through the kitchen door-- all of a sudden I was home again. For all the times I wondered, imagined the new family that took my childhood home--it was okay. It was safe. it was respected.

In the living room, the new family was unpacking posters. Old cartoons and comic characters next to the Christmas fireplace. Upstairs I heard muffled conversation-- bouncing off the vaulted front atrium to my ears, they were in the rumpus room-- the room I had so often called my own-- where I lost myself in books and games and puzzles and dreams. I wanted desperately to see it, yet I felt a slight unease-- I did not wish to push further than I would be let.

The woman guided me to the family room table, where we would so often have our family dinners-- and I would hide myself underneath the legs of unknown relatives, playing with the dog or tracing my finger along the exposed, unfinished wood of the underbelly-- and these memories flooded my dream-- a daydream within a dream-- calling with it a deluge of melancholic nostalgia-- a sort of hypnogogic recollection.

I could feel the stinging ache of these memories. I could hear myself weeping against the chair leg, looking out the french doors into the garden full of roses and grass and lilies and tulips-- familiar yet alien, alive and dead, lost and found. The ache was painful, yet when I suddenly awoke I found myself overcome with a sort of exhausted pleasure-- the kind of feeling one gets after crying for a long time, crying into the end of one's breath-- at the end of a long period of pain, or a resolutive tantrum.