Here oh postmodern nihilist
the grave awaits
your death
wish:

Life
      a
         struggle

escape it

death
          so tempting

grasp it

             and take its era with you:

Keep it
            away from our church's

                                                     our schools

                                                        ­                 our civics
                                                          ­                          
                                                                ­                          and further culture.

Lo, the children
black as the hell they die in...

Its inordinately subjective unconsciousness;
confused emotionally with its ineptitude of reason.

Blaming its former God,
for their own doing.

Wanting to save that world upon themselves left behind from such a rejection.

Lest they live in a Christ so unjust.
As to not know all men equally,
but to judge them--in their distinction.

Creation
your natural law
emphasizes that which we do not want to come to terms with.
If only we could make us all inter-dependent biological beings of mechanization.

Chain me to genetic determinism and biochemical reactions foremost -- lest my soul affirms inequality:

                                                    ­                              Liberty exulted
                                                         ­                         by the risen Lord:
Supremacy/Autonomy

© S. Wesley Mcgranor

Well, why not me, I reasoned
(No surprise to friends and loved ones,
As I have always considered my time
On this spinning patch of rock
As something of a monument to the value of pragmatism)
But there were still the normal sine-wave vacillation
Between tenuous optimism and odds-driven grim reality,
Fanciful discussions of Chinese herbs and Mexican clinics
And, later still, of time frames and stock transfers,
All the while various folks attired in suits and clinic coats
Debating matters pertaining to the coda of my personal symphony
(Doing so as if yours truly wasn’t even in the room)
Until, deciding my input might be somewhat pertinent, I said
If it’s all the same to you, I would like to go home.

It was, in a sense, like getting back on an old Schwinn
(Fender dented, rubbing on the front tire just the least little bit,
The chain needing oil, grudgingly giving in
To the demands of the crank)
Sitting, unused but inordinately patient, next to the barn,
The whole notion of settling back into a pace you’d forgotten,
Like dialing back a metronome from allegro to andante
Without missing a beat or flubbing a note.
What’s more, there were the sensations you’d never made time for
While under the thumb of daily deadlines and train schedules,
Greeting you like friends you hadn’t seen for twenty years
But started gabbing with as easy as slipping on old jeans:
The scent of the lilacs, overpowering but borderline mystical,
The informal yet precise ballet of the cattails and jewelweed,
The fields of cows that, even though you know it can’t be the case,
Are populated by the same Bessie and Bossie
You taunted and pelted with watermelon as a child
(I have made it a point to proffer my apologies),
The dark, pine-choked hills,
Formidable but accessible, even comforting.
Sometimes, when I am not paying attention,
I catch myself all but tearing up,
And I say to myself, ever so softly,
As not to disturb the squirrels and the wrens,
I had almost forgotten.  Christ forgive me,
I had almost forgotten.


I’d assumed (sometimes, I can be astounded
At the full extent of my own foolishness)
That she would merely take a leave of absence;
She has, after all, an alphabet full of advanced degrees,
A rainmaker’s reputation and the billable hours to match.
Columbia and Harvard Law, after all,
But she grew up down the road just a piece in Ebensburg,
So this is all part and parcel of her as well
Hard coded in the DNA for better or worse, she’ll say,
All the while shaking her head and laughing softly.
Surely you don’t want to stay here, I’ll say,
Boorishly rational in the face of everything
Which would argue to be otherwise,
You’ve read enough Forbes and Fortune;
Altoona is dead, Johnstown is dying,
And she allows that, for a time, coming back
Was the source of some misapprehension on her part,
Until it dawned on her that on those rare occasions
It had occurred to her to glance skyward in mid-town,
She had seen faceless tiles of windows
Sufficient to sheet a Great Pyramid,
An Armageddon’s worth of angels and gargoyles in the cornices,
But she had not, even once, ever seen the stars.

Now when Morning, clad in her robe of saffron, had begun to suffuse
light over the earth, Jove called the gods in council on the topmost
crest of serrated Olympus. Then he spoke and all the other gods gave
ear. “Hear me,” said he, “gods and goddesses, that I may speak even as
I am minded. Let none of you neither goddess nor god try to cross
me, but obey me every one of you that I may bring this matter to an
end. If I see anyone acting apart and helping either Trojans or
Danaans, he shall be beaten inordinately ere he come back again to
Olympus; or I will hurl him down into dark Tartarus far into the
deepest pit under the earth, where the gates are iron and the floor
bronze, as far beneath Hades as heaven is high above the earth, that
you may learn how much the mightiest I am among you. Try me and find
out for yourselves. Hangs me a golden chain from heaven, and lay
hold of it all of you, gods and goddesses together—tug as you will,
you will not drag Jove the supreme counsellor from heaven to earth;
but were I to pull at it myself I should draw you up with earth and
sea into the bargain, then would I bind the chain about some
pinnacle of Olympus and leave you all dangling in the mid firmament.
So far am I above all others either of gods or men.”
  They were frightened and all of them of held their peace, for he had
spoken masterfully; but at last Minerva answered, “Father, son of
Saturn, king of kings, we all know that your might is not to be
gainsaid, but we are also sorry for the Danaan warriors, who are
perishing and coming to a bad end. We will, however, since you so
bid us, refrain from actual fighting, but we will make serviceable
suggestions to the Argives that they may not all of them perish in
your displeasure.”
  Jove smiled at her and answered, “Take heart, my child,
Trito-born; I am not really in earnest, and I wish to be kind to you.”
  With this he yoked his fleet horses, with hoofs of bronze and
manes of glittering gold. He girded himself also with gold about the
body, seized his gold whip and took his seat in his chariot. Thereon
he lashed his horses and they flew forward nothing loth midway twixt
earth and starry heaven. After a while he reached many-fountained Ida,
mother of wild beasts, and Gargarus, where are his grove and
fragrant altar. There the father of gods and men stayed his horses,
took them from the chariot, and hid them in a thick cloud; then he
took his seat all glorious upon the topmost crests, looking down
upon the city of Troy and the ships of the Achaeans.
  The Achaeans took their morning meal hastily at the ships, and
afterwards put on their armour. The Trojans on the other hand likewise
armed themselves throughout the city, fewer in numbers but
nevertheless eager perforce to do battle for their wives and children.
All the gates were flung wide open, and horse and foot sallied forth
with the ***** as of a great multitude.
  When they were got together in one place, shield clashed with
shield, and spear with spear, in the conflict of mail-clad men. Mighty
was the din as the bossed shields pressed ******* one another-
death—cry and shout of triumph of slain and slayers, and the earth
ran red with blood.
  Now so long as the day waxed and it was still morning their
weapons beat against one another, and the people fell, but when the
sun had reached mid-heaven, the sire of all balanced his golden
scales, and put two fates of death within them, one for the Trojans
and the other for the Achaeans. He took the balance by the middle, and
when he lifted it up the day of the Achaeans sank; the death-fraught
scale of the Achaeans settled down upon the ground, while that of
the Trojans rose heavenwards. Then he thundered aloud from Ida, and
sent the glare of his lightning upon the Achaeans; when they saw this,
pale fear fell upon them and they were sore afraid.
  Idomeneus dared not stay nor yet Agamemnon, nor did the two
Ajaxes, servants of Mars, hold their ground. Nestor knight of Gerene
alone stood firm, bulwark of the Achaeans, not of his own will, but
one of his horses was disabled. Alexandrus husband of lovely Helen had
hit it with an arrow just on the top of its head where the mane begins
to grow away from the skull, a very deadly place. The horse bounded in
his anguish as the arrow pierced his brain, and his struggles threw
others into confusion. The old man instantly began cutting the
traces with his sword, but Hector’s fleet horses bore down upon him
through the rout with their bold charioteer, even Hector himself,
and the old man would have perished there and then had not Diomed been
quick to mark, and with a loud cry called Ulysses to help him.
  “Ulysses,” he cried, “noble son of Laertes where are you flying
to, with your back turned like a coward? See that you are not struck
with a spear between the shoulders. Stay here and help me to defend
Nestor from this man’s furious onset.”
  Ulysses would not give ear, but sped onward to the ships of the
Achaeans, and the son of Tydeus flinging himself alone into the
thick of the fight took his stand before the horses of the son of
Neleus. “Sir,” said he, “these young warriors are pressing you hard,
your force is spent, and age is heavy upon you, your squire is naught,
and your horses are slow to move. Mount my chariot and see what the
horses of Tros can do—how cleverly they can scud hither and thither
over the plain either in flight or in pursuit. I took them from the
hero Aeneas. Let our squires attend to your own steeds, but let us
drive mine straight at the Trojans, that Hector may learn how
furiously I too can wield my spear.”
  Nestor knight of Gerene hearkened to his words. Thereon the
doughty squires, Sthenelus and kind-hearted Eurymedon, saw to Nestor’s
horses, while the two both mounted Diomed’s chariot. Nestor took the
reins in his hands and lashed the horses on; they were soon close up
with Hector, and the son of Tydeus aimed a spear at him as he was
charging full speed towards them. He missed him, but struck his
charioteer and squire Eniopeus son of noble Thebaeus in the breast
by the ****** while the reins were in his hands, so that he died there
and then, and the horses swerved as he fell headlong from the chariot.
Hector was greatly grieved at the loss of his charioteer, but let
him lie for all his sorrow, while he went in quest of another
driver; nor did his steeds have to go long without one, for he
presently found brave Archeptolemus the son of Iphitus, and made him
get up behind the horses, giving the reins into his hand.
  All had then been lost and no help for it, for they would have
been penned up in Ilius like sheep, had not the sire of gods and men
been quick to mark, and hurled a fiery flaming thunderbolt which
fell just in front of Diomed’s horses with a flare of burning
brimstone. The horses were frightened and tried to back beneath the
car, while the reins dropped from Nestor’s hands. Then he was afraid
and said to Diomed, “Son of Tydeus, turn your horses in flight; see
you not that the hand of Jove is against you? To-day he vouchsafes
victory to Hector; to-morrow, if it so please him, he will again grant
it to ourselves; no man, however brave, may thwart the purpose of
Jove, for he is far stronger than any.”
  Diomed answered, “All that you have said is true; there is a grief
however which pierces me to the very heart, for Hector will talk among
the Trojans and say, ‘The son of Tydeus fled before me to the
ships.’ This is the vaunt he will make, and may earth then swallow
me.”
  “Son of Tydeus,” replied Nestor, “what mean you? Though Hector say
that you are a coward the Trojans and Dardanians will not believe him,
nor yet the wives of the mighty warriors whom you have laid low.”
  So saying he turned the horses back through the thick of the battle,
and with a cry that rent the air the Trojans and Hector rained their
darts after them. Hector shouted to him and said, “Son of Tydeus,
the Danaans have done you honour hitherto as regards your place at
table, the meals they give you, and the filling of your cup with wine.
Henceforth they will despise you, for you are become no better than
a woman. Be off, girl and coward that you are, you shall not scale our
walls through any Hinching upon my part; neither shall you carry off
our wives in your ships, for I shall **** you with my own hand.”
  The son of Tydeus was in two minds whether or no to turn his
horses round again and fight him. Thrice did he doubt, and thrice
did Jove thunder from the heights of. Ida in token to the Trojans that
he would turn the battle in their favour. Hector then shouted to
them and said, “Trojans, Lycians, and Dardanians, lovers of close
fighting, be men, my friends, and fight with might and with main; I
see that Jove is minded to vouchsafe victory and great glory to
myself, while he will deal destruction upon the Danaans. Fools, for
having thought of building this weak and worthless wall. It shall
not stay my fury; my horses will spring lightly over their trench, and
when I am BOOK at their ships forget not to bring me fire that I may
burn them, while I slaughter the Argives who will be all dazed and
bewildered by the smoke.”
  Then he cried to his horses, “Xanthus and Podargus, and you Aethon
and goodly Lampus, pay me for your keep now and for all the
honey-sweet corn with which Andromache daughter of great Eetion has
fed you, and for she has mixed wine and water for you to drink
whenever you would, before doing so even for me who am her own
husband. Haste in pursuit, that we may take the shield of Nestor,
the fame of which ascends to heaven, for it is of solid gold, arm-rods
and all, and that we may strip from the shoulders of Diomed. the
cuirass which Vulcan made him. Could we take these two things, the
Achaeans would set sail in their ships this self-same night.”
  Thus did he vaunt, but Queen Juno made high Olympus quake as she
shook with rage upon her throne. Then said she to the mighty god of
Neptune, “What now, wide ruling lord of the earthquake? Can you find
no compassion in your heart for the dying Danaans, who bring you
many a welcome offering to Helice and to Aegae? Wish them well then.
If all of us who are with the Danaans were to drive the Trojans back
and keep Jove from helping them, he would have to sit there sulking
alone on Ida.”
  King Neptune was greatly troubled and answered, “Juno, rash of
tongue, what are you talking about? We other gods must not set
ourselves against Jove, for he is far stronger than we are.”
  Thus did they converse; but the whole space enclosed by the ditch,
from the ships even to the wall, was filled with horses and
warriors, who were pent up there by Hector son of Priam, now that
the hand of Jove was with him. He would even have set fire to the
ships and burned them, had not Queen Juno put it into the mind of
Agamemnon, to bestir himself and to encourage the Achaeans. To this
end he went round the ships and tents carrying a great purple cloak,
and took his stand by the huge black hull of Ulysses’ ship, which
was middlemost of all; it was from this place that his voice would
carry farthest, on the one hand towards the tents of Ajax son of
Telamon, and on the other towards those of Achilles—for these two
heroes, well assured of their own strength, had valorously drawn up
their ships at the two ends of the line. From this spot then, with a
voice that could be heard afar, he shouted to the Danaans, saying,
“Argives, shame on you cowardly creatures, brave in semblance only;
where are now our vaunts that we should prove victorious—the vaunts
we made so vaingloriously in Lemnos, when we ate the flesh of horned
cattle and filled our mixing-bowls to the brim? You vowed that you
would each of you stand against a hundred or two hundred men, and
now you prove no match even for one—for Hector, who will be ere
long setting our ships in a blaze. Father Jove, did you ever so ruin a
great king and rob him so utterly of his greatness? yet, when to my
sorrow I was coming hither, I never let my ship pass your altars
without offering the fat and thigh-bones of heifers upon every one
of them, so eager was I to sack the city of Troy. Vouchsafe me then
this prayer—suffer us to escape at any rate with our lives, and let
not the Achaeans be so utterly vanquished by the Trojans.”
  Thus did he pray, and father Jove pitying his tears vouchsafed him
that his people should live, not die; forthwith he sent them an eagle,
most unfailingly portentous of all birds, with a young fawn in its
talons; the eagle dropped the fawn by the altar on which the
Achaeans sacrificed to Jove the lord of omens; When, therefore, the
people saw that the bird had come from Jove, they sprang more fiercely
upon the Trojans and fought more boldly.
  There was no man of all the many Danaans who could then boast that
he had driven his horses over the trench and gone forth to fight
sooner than the son of Tydeus; long before any one else could do so he
slew an armed warrior of the Trojans, Agelaus the son of Phradmon.
He had turned his horses in flight, but the spear struck him in the
back midway between his shoulders and went right through his chest,
and his armour rang rattling round him as he fell forward from his
chariot.
  After him came Agamemnon and Menelaus, sons of Atreus, the two
Ajaxes clothed in valour as with a garment, Idomeneus and his
companion in arms Meriones, peer of murderous Mars, and Eurypylus
the brave son of Euaemon. Ninth came Teucer with his bow, and took his
place under cover of the shield of Ajax son of Telamon. When Ajax
lifted his shield Teucer would peer round, and when he had hit any one
in the throng, the man would fall dead; then Teucer would hie back
to Ajax as a child to its mother, and again duck down under his
shield.
  Which of the Trojans did brave Teucer first ****? Orsilochus, and
then Ormenus and Ophelestes, Daetor, Chromius, and godlike
Lycophontes, Amopaon son of Polyaemon, and Melanippus. these in turn
did he lay low upon the earth, and King Agamemnon was glad when he saw
him making havoc of the Trojans with his mighty bow. He went up to him
and said, “Teucer, man after my own heart, son of Telamon, captain
among the host, shoot on, and be at once the saving of the Danaans and
the glory of your father Telamon, who brought you up and took care
of you in his own house when you were a child, ******* though you
were. Cover him with glory though he is far off; I will promise and
I will assuredly perform; if aegis-bearing Jove and Minerva grant me
to sack the city of Ilius, you shall have the next best meed of honour
after my own—a tripod, or two horses with their chariot, or a woman
who shall go up into your bed.”
  And Teucer answered, “Most noble son of Atreus, you need not urge
me; from the moment we began to drive them back to Ilius, I have never
ceased so far as in me lies to look out for men whom I can shoot and
****; I have shot eight barbed shafts, and all of them have been
buried in the flesh of warlike youths, but this mad dog I cannot hit.”
  As he spoke he aimed another arrow straight at Hector, for he was
bent on hitting him; nevertheless he missed him, and the arrow hit
Priam’s brave son Gorgythion in the breast. His mother, fair
Castianeira, lovely as a goddess, had been married from Aesyme, and
now he bowed his head as a garden poppy in full bloom when it is
weighed down by showers in spring—even thus heavy bowed his head
beneath the weight of his helmet.
  Again he aimed at Hector, for he was longing to hit him, and again
his arrow missed, for Apollo turned it aside; but he hit Hector’s
brave charioteer Archeptolemus in the breast, by the ******, as he was
driving furiously into the fight. The horses swerved aside as he
fell headlong from the chariot, and there was no life left in him.
Hector was greatly grieved at the loss of his charioteer, but for
all his sorrow he let him lie where he fell, and bade his brother
Cebriones, who was hard by, take the reins. Cebriones did as he had
said. Hector thereon with a loud cry sprang from his chariot to the
ground, and seizing a great stone made straigh

Forth from the dust and din,
The crush, the heat, the many-spotted glare,
The odour and sense of life and lust aflare,
The wrangle and jangle of unrests,
Let us take horse, Dear Heart, take horse and win--
As from swart August to the green lap of May--
To quietness and the fresh and fragrant *******
Of the still, delicious night, not yet aware
In any of her innumerable nests
Of that first sudden plash of dawn,
Clear, sapphirine, luminous, large,
Which tells that soon the flowing springs of day
In deep and ever deeper eddies drawn
Forward and up, in wider and wider way,
Shall float the sands, and brim the shores,
On this our lith of the World, as round it roars
And spins into the outlook of the Sun
(The Lord's first gift, the Lord's especial charge),
With light, with living light, from marge to marge
Until the course He set and staked be run.

Through street and square, through square and street,
Each with his home-grown quality of dark
And violated silence, loud and fleet,
Waylaid by a merry ghost at every lamp,
The hansom wheels and plunges.  Hark, O, hark,
Sweet, how the old mare's bit and chain
Ring back a rough refrain
Upon the marked and cheerful *****
Of her four shoes!  Here is the Park,
And O, the languid midsummer wafts adust,
The tired midsummer blooms!
O, the mysterious distances, the glooms
Romantic, the august
And solemn shapes!  At night this City of Trees
Turns to a tryst of vague and strange
And monstrous Majesties,
Let loose from some dim underworld to range
These terrene vistas till their twilight sets:
When, dispossessed of wonderfulness, they stand
Beggared and common, plain to all the land
For stooks of leaves!  And lo! the Wizard Hour,
His silent, shining sorcery winged with power!
Still, still the streets, between their carcanets
Of linking gold, are avenues of sleep.
But see how gable ends and parapets
In gradual beauty and significance
Emerge!  And did you hear
That little twitter-and-cheep,
Breaking inordinately loud and clear
On this still, spectral, exquisite atmosphere?
'Tis a first nest at matins!  And behold
A rakehell cat--how furtive and acold!
A spent witch homing from some infamous dance--
Obscene, quick-trotting, see her tip and fade
Through shadowy railings into a pit of shade!
And now! a little wind and shy,
The smell of ships (that earnest of romance),
A sense of space and water, and thereby
A lamplit bridge ouching the troubled sky,
And look, O, look! a tangle of silver gleams
And dusky lights, our River and all his dreams,
His dreams that never save in our deaths can die.

What miracle is happening in the air,
Charging the very texture of the gray
With something luminous and rare?
The night goes out like an ill-parcelled fire,
And, as one lights a candle, it is day.
The extinguisher, that perks it like a spire
On the little formal church, is not yet green
Across the water:  but the house-tops nigher,
The corner-lines, the chimneys--look how clean,
How new, how naked!  See the batch of boats,
Here at the stairs, washed in the fresh-sprung beam!
And those are barges that were goblin floats,
Black, hag-steered, fraught with devilry and dream!
And in the piles the water frolics clear,
The ripples into loose rings wander and flee,
And we--we can behold that could but hear
The ancient River singing as he goes,
New-mailed in morning, to the ancient Sea.
The gas burns lank and jaded in its glass:
The old Ruffian soon shall yawn himself awake,
And light his pipe, and shoulder his tools, and take
His hobnailed way to work!

Let us too pass--
Pass ere the sun leaps and your shadow shows--
Through these long, blindfold rows
Of casements staring blind to right and left,
Each with his gaze turned inward on some piece
Of life in death's own likeness--Life bereft
Of living looks as by the Great Release--
Pass to an exquisite night's more exquisite close!

Reach upon reach of burial--so they feel,
These colonies of dreams!  And as we steal
Homeward together, but for the buxom breeze,
Fitfully frolicking to heel
With news of dawn-drenched woods and tumbling seas,
We might--thus awed, thus lonely that we are--
Be wandering some dispeopled star,
Some world of memories and unbroken graves,
So broods the abounding Silence near and far:
Till even your footfall craves
Forgiveness of the majesty it braves.

Downton Abbey’s going off the air.
I’m not through yet, it’s just not fair.
Nothing before that show ever had
That kind of class, that degree of flair.
Life without my weekly Downton
Is too sad and inordinately scary.
What will I do without my frequent fix
Of the elegantly snarky Lady Mary?

And will the feckless Mister Barrow
Ever develop a true human soul?
I am sure this handsome actor fellow
Will never again get such a meaty role.
And the Dowager Duchess herself,
She is not someone easily done with.
She is, after all, tradition incarnate,
And under all that, she’s Maggie Smith.

Bates and his Anna filled my heart
With alternating sorrow and great joy
Almost as much as a lady of nobility
Marrying the handsome chauffer boy.
Dresses and hair lengths shortened
And nobility began to get real jobs.
All this was before ****** flared up
And turned starving folks into a mob.
I never missed that we were seeing
The transition from ‘la belle epoque’.
That time was running out for that
In the worlds ever-changing clock.

It was a yesterday we never knew
We of the age of electric equality.
We got to look inside and see it
In all its grandly overdressed reality.
I had begun to recognize artwork, in
Lovely strolls through baronial halls
And huge family meals at table.
I am sorry that it is over for us all.

We’d known him, back in the day
At dear old Millard Fillmore Elementary,
As Three-Desks Tommy, highly imaginative monicker
Deriving from his decidedly unimaginative first name
And the fact that he, indeed, had three desks,
Each of them stuffed chock-full
With uncounted numbers of pencils and erasers,
Any number of homework papers
(Usually A’s and A-pluses,
Though there were the odd B’s and B-minuses as well,
As he was a bright, in fact inordinately bright, child,
But sometimes given to sloppiness and stray pencil marks
And a predilection for not reading the directions completely)
Eerily accurate renditions of dinosaurs,
Wildly inventive stories featuring rainbow-hued dragons,
Noble and voluble talking bovines,
And knights and knaves of every size, shape, and suzerain,
Stories which resided cheek-to-jowl with some bit of uneaten sandwich
Until such time it made its existence
Abundantly clear to the custodial staff.
We’d never stopped to think much about his miniature Maginot Line;
It was what Tommy did and had always done
For as long as we could remember,
Though there were some teachers and an assistant principal or two
Who thought the whole thing was permissive bordering on coddling
(His teacher was a veteran of the wars, and well-insulated by tenure,
But she had grown weary of over-glasses glares and snide asides
When Tommy’s name came up in the staff room,
A death by a thousand cuts and all that),
And one day, while moving one of his desks
To clear space for Simon Says,
It had caught on a sticky spot,
Overturning onto a soon-to-be-fractured toe.
When he came back to school, accompanied by an ungainly cast
And an equally ungainly pair of crutches, his teacher took him aside.
Tommy, she purred, Maybe someone is trying to tell you something.
The other kids all make due with one desk,
And I’m sure you can find a way to as well, don’t you, Tommy?
So Tommy embarked on a great cleansing of his little fiefdom,
Filling several garbage cans with his collected works,
(Math papers and mastodons, bologna and Brobdingnagians)
And afterward he’d kept himself to one standard desk,
Duly filing, returning, and circular-filing his paperwork
As the occasion demanded
(Though one time Murph Dunkirk
Asked Three-Desks if he minded downsizing;
Tommy just shrugged, and said Well, it’s better than a broken foot)
And maybe in his dreams he had a thousand desks,
A thousand tops to fling open,
A thousand repositories for light and legend
Or perhaps he never gave it so much as a second thought,
No way to know now, one supposes,
Though if anything out of the ordinary had come his way,
We would’ve probably heard.

"And he created out of one man every nation of men, to dwell upon the entire surface of the earth, and he decreed the appointed times and set limits of the dwelling of man." (Acts 17: 26) (New World Translation Study Edition)

When I look in the mirror, a doughty warrior, an oracle, an Olympian gazes back at me. The caramel-tinge of my skin tells of the colored pedigree from whence I came. Every ebony-tendril that bursts from my epidermis is as impregnable as the Sacred Lotus.

The history of my Mind's Sky has been tried by the Ancient African Sun of my ancestors. It is my hope, that I have passed the trials decreed by the ordinances of the Moon & Sun. Moreover, the Arbiter of Fates, Jah, dawns upon our fleshly vessel at each twilight, assaying our entities. (Isaiah 60: 19, 20) (New World Translation Study Edition)

So many intrepid souls have compassed me about. The Chalice of my Heart burgeons with esprit d' amour. The meaning of life is ne' er about intellect, is ne' er about achievement, is in part, about creativity; wholly, about Love. (John 13: 34, 35) (New World Translation Study Edition) For this reason, strength cascades upon me every moment as I witness the brilliance, the resilience of my beneficent matriarch, Stacy Amanda Foulke.

In life, I have learned that being a person of color in America is not only a wonderful privilege, but a responsibility. Why? The afflictions brought upon this skin only make it glisten brighter after convalescence. Our people have suffered inordinately so, but this is conducive to cultivating surpassing empathy. Therefore, I believe that history, as begotten through the colored legacy, shall be one of ultimate victory.

If and only if, we unfetter ourselves from the onerous burdens of the past, then Monarchical Wings shall burgeon from our Astral Chrysalis. "For though the tribulation is momentary and light, it works out for us a glory that is of more and more surpassing weight and is everlasting." (1st Corinthians 4: 17) (New World Translation Study Edition) Se' lah.

Tormented by the inhibitions left by static spite,
Basking in the frigid drafts consuming all my might,
Tolerance of discontent is waning as I seek--
Ameliorate all signs of doubt as I strive to critique
Days that lie in pasts that dwell as too close memories.
Reminding me in urgent swells to spurn the life I'm teased.
Duplicity that I have known has bled through cracks to present
Pooling deep upon the floors, reflecting love's lament.
Though it had left, in vapid form, unfairly casting blame
It soon returned, did blessed gift, in noted disarray.
Malcontent, you dissadent, in place of your deception,
God did show me His intent. An angel. An exception.
Cast upon this wretched ground to spread an abstruse joy
Impossible odds stitched a seam that bound her to a boy.
Broken, bruised and battered still, I'd seen in her composure.
I, that boy, had found a way to break free of enclosure.
With velvet hands, she wound a way into my beating heart.
Coils stretched, entwined in labyrinth patterns just to start,
My life's true love soon spun a web to shelter my sad soul.
Escape, it sought. She brought it back, as bells of health did toll.
Inordinately, overmuch! Soon, she was forced to go.
Between our homes is such a space, I prayed it not be so.
Continents though, can't divide a bond as strong as this.
Though fortunes don't quite convalesce as quickly as we wish.
Distance shall create at times unnerving states of grief.
Fear not, my love. Please understand that hope shall cast relief.
Time shall prove, I know, assured, to be a vagrant woe.
Rampant flame of ardor shall cascade it's forceful flow.
Come with me, our hands entwined to drift upon this wave
That carries fortune, hope and promise to our hearts, the brave.
Fighting for each other proves to all we needn't care
For petty thoughts of lack of trust that dwell among despair.
Too far above the crowd we fly to be dragged down by doubt.
Jealousy shall taint us not as we lie near without.
Space reserved exclusively for us, we two, the chosen.
Exemplified mold of a love locked in all ages, frozen.
So though communication shall at times still pull us down to weeping,
Remember, dearest, all I've stated for the love we're keeping.
Escape, it can't. It's locked inside our souls that we now share.
Please revel in it's warming glow if you shall ere despair.

The temptation
to belly-flop
on a raked pile of leaves
long-awaited greetings
foreign
yet a familiar city
semi worn-out platform
it's oh so simple
ordinary
to know you
but it has made me
think back
on every autumn day
i contemplate
the happiness that extended
from nothing more than chance acquaintance
i want to hold
onto that sweet corner
of my mind
you came in fall
does it have to be a scene
of fading greenery
why do those red leaves look weirdly
teary
my disheveled state of mind at the present time
can't afford to be challenged or tested
though i love the autumn
recklessly
including its solemn austerity
mahogany melancholy
all in honor of the pretty lady
i met you
and inordinately liked you
in that old part of the school
you came my way
and it sure was
an autumn day.

Picture yourself  taking the first of many punches
Picture yourself blowing out a few birthday candles
Picture yourself watching a doorknob turn with wide-open eyes
Picture yourself clutching a pillow and weeping
Picture yourself watching a ewe with a broken leg being shot
Picture yourself being guided by old hands who've seen war.
Picture yourself perforating a decaf coffee can
Picture yourself in doubt and guilt
Picture yourself damning a missed chance
Picture yourself gesticulating wildly and arguing about a parking ticket
Picture yourself telling a friend that you love them, and not feeling weird about it.
Picture yourself sipping the greatest cup of coffee you'll ever have
Picture yourself hand-feeding a small animal
Picture yourself shakily trying to appear like you know what you're doing
Picture yourself naked under a full moon
Picture yourself lost in a new city and loving ever minute
Picture yourself walking into a room and hearing everyone drop dead silent
Picture yourself roasting a marshmallow
Picture yourself looking down at a horrible injury that doesn't hurt yet
Picture yourself carrying a heavy load up a staircase
Picture yourself in an empty echoing room
Picture yourself making ceviche
Picture yourself illuminated by the blue lights of a police cruiser
Picture yourself staying cool and detached in front of someone you want to rip the clothes off of and make love to, right that second.
Picture yourself startled by a loud noise
Picture yourself cleaning something inordinately
Picture yourself in a boat on a river....
Picture yourself finding something funny, then feeling bad about it
Picture yourself remaining calm when a step-parent judges your choices
Picture yourself with the trappings of a more successful person
Picture yourself, standing in your best clothes, two hours after graduating college, drinking cheap malt liquor, on the balcony of a cheap apartment, beside the best friend you'll ever know.

Since the man was living the slam
lifestyle, he decided not to write
the slam poem.  His daughter was
discussing the slam conversations.
She was a conversationalist.  The
man considered himself to be her
slam father.  It was all right to be
careful and not get slammed for
work that was inordinately spontaneous.

For Lori*

          I

Especially in days of youth and vigor
I rose, a tower struck of stone or oak
When challenge grew, I found myself the bigger
My enemies would tremble when I spoke

I trod the land afire and oceans parted
None alive could sway me from my course
I roared my song and mountain ranges started
And bowed their heads to this unbidden force.

Swift and bold and heartless, cruel and clever
I needed none to carry me to war
But nothing young still blossoms young for ever
And thus far shall ye travel, and no more.

Horizons yet expand beyond perception
The Universe will e’er exceed my pace
My greatness spawned from my own preconception
Was always but a speck on Nature’s face.

I could not carve a dent on History’s pages
But I could scrawl a message on this stone
The brilliance of the scientists and sages
Shows how flickering and faint the light I’ve shown.
But when you
Continue
To coil ‘round
My sinew
I understand my strength is not my own
Standing straight, I play the Tiger’s part
And I will find my solace in your heart.


          II

I know that I have nothing to regret here
I cannot rue my selfishness and pomp
It’s obvious, though, now, that those I’ve met here
Have made me more than all my snort and stomp

My purpose once to trump my own existence
Now to carry those who’ve shown me grace
Who, through their kindness and their great persistence
Have taught me brand new wonders in this place.

The earth is hard and sometimes unforgiving
Terrors will beset us, every one
The warmth of life is only for the living
And live we must until the day is done.

Time wears down the sturdiest of towers
And dying now (but dying in my boots)
Hate not the relentlessness of hours
That shake the sturdy oak unto its roots.

Immune to howls of ‘but’ and ‘oh if only’s
Hardening, inordinately brave
But how these days have grinded up my bonesies
My hands reach feebly as if from the grave
But often
I’ll soften
And breathe through
The coffin
I’ll live on nought but everything I gave
And ever shall I own the Tiger’s part;
And you will find my wreckage in your heart.


          III

The castles I have stormed and forts I’ve taken
Which fly my flag for now and all their days
Hail me, but in title are mistaken
To say mine is to hallow yours in praise.

Each of us has private ghosts to grapple
Secret depths that everybody delves
But in the quiet of our private chapel
We are made of sterner stuff than just our selves.

A thousand men I’ve known and loved have made me
Your stone is that which sharpened up my spear
On a bed of soft green grass I’ve laid me
That you’ve watered and you’ve weeded for me here.

Together we construct our sacred stories
Hand in hand we shore up each new song
We revel now together in our glories
And a thousand men I can now help make strong.

Each of us, a thousand rush to battle,
Defeated still at times, and yet we try;
And cower not at that unholy rattle
As lightning tears its strip across the sky.
But under
The thunder
We still weep
And wonder
At the storms that we can weather, you and I,
And together play the Tiger’s part,
And I will find my refuge in your heart.

At one.forty-five, anti meridiem
I blink, half-sit-half-lie and squirm
in a cartel of intricate inquiry.

He must be hurting inordinately
to wish me death and calamity.

Who and where is he?
How and why does he?

Simple five-word questions
seeking conclusive resolutions
for well over a millennium.

Frazzled and woefully sapped
from this anarchic, chaotic task
I turn for the promising refuge
of my orderly book-rack.

❋

Over and over again,
I read the masterly treatise
and really try to take it as a guide.

❋

The book has foresight.

It says there is no death

which my friend has wittingly wished me
in his anguished wrath.

Life is eternal, infinite.

Only the spirit changes over
to some other wardrobe
or maybe transitions
to another dimension
purgatory or paradise.

❋

We never really die and likewise
the loved and the not so loved
also survive.

❋

But life often defies explanations
not to mention all expert expositions.

I feel sadly feeble and disillusioned
to see

an orphan having the nose
hard against the grindstone

a spouse lonely and forlorn
fighting it out all alone

a disconsolate father
devastated by the departure
of a youthful son......
or a blooming daughter.

a dashing soldier
who somberly carries the cadaver
....the cold inert clay of a dead comrade

a pining sibling.........
a friend irredeemably lost.........
the poor dead without
and ****** with the ***......
a zealot who lost the plot
or martyrs who bravely fought.....

❉

The book says they are all here
and we still find them nowhere
at least not as companions
in our worldly sojourn.

The author exhorts -
those who are gone still see us
feel us.

And I smile wryly, a little ruefully
at the still living, stranded passengers
in one too many crowded lanes
on this gross, physical plane
devoid of all succor even from a ghost

slippery yet subtle.

If only there was a real life Whoopi †
we all would be as lucky as the demure Demi
and Patrick Swayze would do the reel drill
in real time indubitably.

Alas!!!
celluloid existence is pure imagination
.....just neat fiction.

And the impeccable book.....
though elegant
seems utterly untrue.

❋

I therefore can not take heart
from the prophesied fact
that the dead are not really dead

not ever, or at least not yet....

Yes, they may be right beside
but unless we cross over to the other side
or they someday decide to travel back in time

the living will always be somewhat dead somewhere
and the dead will always be somewhat alive somewhere

accidentally meeting.....
sometimes......

from across the great divide
in a nebulous twilight

but mostly waiting, waiting....
for the wait to end

and to be terminally united
either fully alive
or completely dead.


† Reference made to the 1990 film 'Ghost'. More information at:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost(1990film)

I love you.
it hurts, and I love you anyway.
somehow, I loved you before I knew you.
you are my poison, and you are my antidote.
I love you inordinately, irrevocably, impossibly.

Who am i
I am a mote of sand
Shifting through
The winding dunes
Of time
I am a scratched leaf
Swaying under the
Whims of wind
Through the vast
Unending brows
Of forests
In this planet
I am a tiny
Drop of rain
Melding with the
Arterial waterways
Thus
I am an infinitesimal
Speck of life
Amid the infinite circle
Of an inordinately
diverse life
But how am i
I am alive
I can breathe
I can percieve
By myself
Independently
And this is the
Sole reason
Why i should aim
To be contented
With how
I exist
Isn't it

In and out of thriving and chance into the heart's light I took a glance
And above the blood that drips from the sword there is a place to make amends
First we self-reflect and see the prospect of inspecting all that has left us infected
And the wisdom is that we were ignorant as we deflected what's best in us
So every minute begins to carry so much weight

And so we seek to get to the best of our potential
So we find some meaning and purpose and we're not existential
From effectiveness we reach a level of being positively influential
And that's when we stop competing and start completing our Earth assignments
We always fall back in time when we break the promises we have made to ourselves

So for everyone who has beared with you and endured your imperfections, forgiven your mistakes
Be thankful for Grace
I am thankful for the opportunity to be poetic
Whether I have been eccentric or inordinately enigmatic

Thanks for listening and thanks for reading
For everyone who has been patient to understand the overall cosmic vision
Thanks for harmony, thanks for Grace
And for finally giving an ear to where and when I have been speaking
As souls awake. Let there be love and so Divine beings can return to their divine nature. Let grace be the spirit and love the heartbeat... More than  words can say, thank you (consciousness) for the day. We are a race.

i woke the bear.

‘ i am inordinately tired now, and you have been away all night. that is not an accusation ,it is an observation.’

yes. is there anything i can do?



‘yes, let me sleep a long time. i wish to be private a while.



yes. yet this is not the season for hibernation.

‘no,  i do not follow the rules, nor crowds, my way is different. i shall still talk to you

in your head, so you will not miss me’



thank you, i know.



the sun came out.



sbm.

On seeing the Hawkin news some hours ago: Be the first to read/react to my reaction.  Not about jazz, not about yoga, but about recognition.


         Outside Time: Hawkin March 14, 2018

No obit this,

But chance to memorize, memorialize,

Tattoo the size of genius,

How it comes to earth in time

Then goes god-only-knows how/where –

Knowing only: not ****** here.

Yet ‘there’, by definition place,

Perhaps is space;

Maybe a ‘where somewhere’ in space -

A guess both uniformed and obvious.



Mister Hawkin, master Hawkin

Freed from chair and ALS,

Cells and intellect’s fine processes;

Mammoth efforts of all kinds

To feed the body,

Read the mind(s)

Of universes.



To record this day inordinately mixed

With sadness, pride, heroics -

That a man second to none

Has been an Einstein all his own;

Whose works we’ll clone (to yet go farther)

For ‘by works you shall be known.’’

God blessed the non-believer Hawkin.

Outside Time 3.14.2018 The Processes: Creative, Thinking, Meditative II; Revelations Big & Small; Nature Of & In Reality; Circling Round Reality; Arlene Corwin

Chasing tattoos, dreadlocks and bling,
These ones don't know a thing!
They take life at the pull!
Of a trigger meant to protect all!

Dregs of the force, idiotic,
Drunken, high on narcotic,
Dressing inordinately, oozing,
Dreadfully unamusing,

They create a ****** mess,
Harbingers of sadness,
Candidates of the hottest parts of hell,
Deserving, one and all, the same horror they constantly sell.

December first nineteen fifty nine and
December first two thousand twenty three
represents sixty six orbitz
one prized Earthling
named Amélie Beth Harris-McGeehan
completed round the sun.

About half her life linkedin
with spousal enrichment,
(while hunkered down livingsocial
in Woodbury, New Jersey),
hence the hyphenated married name.

Though said endearing eldest sister
approximately thirteen plus months my senior,
ofttimes during mein kampf,
she displayed maternal (motherly) mien.

Back during mine boyhood
dark shadows along the edge of night
(emanating from outer limits
of the twilight zone)
spooked me to flinch
as did appearance
of the boogeyman induce affright
only exacerbated my delicate mental health
punctuated psyche of mine
with disequilibrium ******-social blight
above named sibling a protector I cite
twilled me in the valley

of love and delight,
an emotional refuge rescued sought
deliverance from anguish
loving succor proffered
peace upon mine body, mind, and soul,
she did immediately expedite
warming cockles of me heart
analogous to affecting, creating,
forging, jumpstarting, offering, and ushering
ideal paradise island temperature
if measured by degrees balmy fahrenheit
pointing, revealing, shining,

and training a guiding-light
unafraid to defend diminutive
docile, inordinately meek brother,
when threatened courtesy bullies
that significantly towered over mine
below average stature height
a measly little skinny, yet zany
(when within comfort of home) lad
naively oblivious to our mother,
when her first born daughter dynamic,
especially smoldering contention
kindled figurative tinder, which squabble

escalated in intensity
sparking vehement feud to ignite
loosing volatile verbal exchange
triggering The Emergency Alert System
to issue warning
lest clear and present danger
(at 324 Level Road)
recorded in history books
licking, overshadowing, rivaling,
and undermining revolution
kickstarted and hashtagged as Jacobite.

THINGS MY FATHER TOLD ME (poem 1)

When I was a toddler, Dad called me "Captain" and literally gave me marching orders as his lay on his bed (in his own bedroom) reading books on how to make money and biographies of famous men. "Hut! two, three, four! Hut! two, three, four!" I began marching to his orders at an early age.

When I was five, I overheard him talking about me with his father-in-law. Something about sending me away to school back East when I got older. It scared the hell out of me.

When I was old enough and began playing Little League baseball, once (I mean only one time), he took me to Topeka's largest park and spent a while throwing pitches to me that I tried to hit.

When I began playing junior-high football, once (I mean only one time), he and I threw passes to each other in our big front yard.

Sometime in my 8th-grade year, he and Mom drove me to Kanasas City to take some kind of test. A couple of weeks later, he called me aside and showed me only the last sentence, which asked "Who's pushing this boy?" Dad looked at me, as if I could answer this question. I had no idea what all this was about and said nothing. The two of us stood in silence for several moments.

In my last year of junior high (9th grade), I was elected by my fellow teammates co-captain of the football team, elected co-captain by my fellow teammates of the basketball team, got virtually straight A's, and was elected by the whole school president of the student. Dad never spoke a word to me about any of this, let alone congratulate me, even possibly have given me a gentlemanly hug.

What he did do during those years was to write, without my permission,  in chalk on my blackboard that was in my bedroom the following poem:

"Sitting still and fishing
makes no person great.
The good Lord sends the fishing,
but you must dig the bait!"

That poem stayed on my blackboard for eight years. I was too scared unconconsciously to erase it.

In my sophomore year at Topeka High, I was elected by over 800 fellow classmates to become president of our class, a high honor I revere to this day. Dad said nothing to me, but he did have me apply to Andover and I was admitted for my junior year.

The years I spent at Andover were the worst of my life emotionally and socially. Though I probably received the best secondary education in the world, it was at an extremely corrosive cost. During the annual graduation ritual on the Old Lawn, I made a silent and solemn oath to myself:  Never again would I ever set foot on the Andover campus. I have kept that oath to this day. I surived Andover;  others didn't.

I chose to matriculate to Columbia instead of Yale. Four more years at Yale would have been like spending four more years at Andover, anathema to me.

Columbia was liberating. Its traditional undergraduate liberal arts
program called the "Core" made one learned for life. Exploring and living in New York City for four years made all undergraduates "Citizens of the World," even if one decided to reside somewhere else after graduating as I did. I now live in Boulder, CO. As an alumnus, I was one of twenty-five from more than 40,000 chosen to serve three two-year terms (1990-1996) on the Board of Directors of the Columbia College Alumni Association.

While Dad had wanted me to get a JD, then a MBA, then make millions on Wall Street, I have spent my entire adult life as a poet and a human-rights advocate. And too belatedly, I erased that poem from my blackboard.


MOM'S WISH FOR A DIVORCE THAT NEVER CAME (poem 2)

Mom spent her early years on the famous Tod Ranch located in the lush green Flint Hills, a mere 18 miles west of Topeka, one of best places in the world to raise cattle. But at an inordinately early age, she was sent to an Episopalian boarding school for girls in Topeka. By the age Mom turned 14, being so depressd, she furtively began  to start smoking cigarettes and contiunued  until she died.

Several decades before her death, a doctor said "Antoinette, if you don't stop smoking now, those cigarettes will **** you.  Mom's reply was, "I don't care. I love my cigarettes. They are my friends. They give me pleasure and never judge me. I can start up a converstion whenever I wish."

Dad had an eye for good-looking women,  began dating her, and then married her.  I found out about this, and many other things, from my social worker at Menninger's when I was in treatment there.

When I was about 4 1/2, Dad came home much earlier than usual, walked upstairs, and opened the bedroom door, only to find his wife in bed with aother man. That moment blew Dad out of the Milky Way, and emotionally, he never returned. As the social
worker was telling me this, I came to realize why I felt as a young boy what I would describe as a cloud of emotional radiation that
hung over all of us. The social worker had told me that Dad and Mom's father said that if Mom tried to get a divorce, they would make legally sure that Mom would never be able to see any of her children (I have two sisters) again. So that's why they had separate bedrooms, I thought, and that's why Mom spent the rest of her life watching alone TV shows all evening and read detective stories until 3 a.m. Maggie, the black woman who worked for us, became my surrogate mother. She fed me grits and poached eggs every morning, washed all my clothes, spanked me when I need a spanking, and gave me a big hug when I needed love.

Getting into theapy in my early 20s was the best education I ever received. It both saved my life and continued to enlighten me.

Copyright 2020 Tod Howard Hawks

As I write this poem, billions around the world are getting
terribly sick from this pandemic. As I think on this gross,
unforgiving wave of sickness and potential death possibly to
billions of others, strangely and paradoxicallly, my mind
turns to LOVE. LOVE, it strikes me, is possibly the most
underused, and underappreciated most positively powerful
force not only on Earth, but also in the Cosmos. For as long as
**** sapiens have roamed this Earth, it seems to me that the vast
emerging, expanding, elvolving beings that eventually became
what we now call human beings were inordinately, but under-
standably, preoccupied with their own survival, and not so much
with the well-being of all others. I think, somehow, we human
beings missed that critical mark, and consequently took the wrong
fork in the road of humankind's journey into the future that took us
toward the most unfortunate destination we could have consciously
chosen, which we did, rather than consciously choosing the most
fortunate destination, which we did not. We would up chooing "We
versus Them" instead of "We Are All One." The good news is that it is
not too late to have this everlasting epiphany, the culmination of which
is LOVE, and the ramifications of which will not fail to touch all of
us. If we come to love Earth, we shall ineluctably come to love every
single part, every single particle, of Earth, and all living creations upon
it:  human beings, animals, plants, the air, the oceans, the raindrops--everything--because LOVE encompasses everthing in the Cosmos.

Copyright 2020 Tod Howard Hawks

October seventeenth
nineteen hundred sixty one
and October seventeenth
two thousand twenty four
represents, signals,
and traces sixty three orbitz
completed round the sun.
by one cherished,
(despite lapse of calling,
emailing, or texting),
nevertheless loved,
and prized Earthling
named Shari Todd Harris-Dunning.

More'n half (almost two thirds)
regarding aforementioned existence
of said sibling, whose life linkedin
with spousal enrichment dream academy,
while hunkered temporarily down -
until she and her significant other
embark on another globe trotting stint
livingsocial, in Bend, Oregon,
otherwise known as GADSHILL Farm,
hence the hyphenated married name.

Though said endearing youngest sister
approximately forty five plus months my junior,
ofttimes during earlier mein kampf,
she displayed quasi
maternal (motherly) mien.

Even back during mine boyhood
dark shadows stirred
along the edge of night
(emanating from outer limits
of the twilight zone),
which spooked me to flinch
as did appearance
of the boogeyman induce affright
only exacerbated my delicate mental health
which emotionally punctuated precariousness
within psyche of mine

with disequilibrium ******-social blight
above named sibling
a bonafide unflagging
prairie home fine companion
who made killer powder milk biscuits
even as kids (living in Lake Wobegone)
as children, she more so analogous
to being my Bobbsey Twin, I cite
twilled me in the valley
of love and delight,
with her divine guidance,

an emotional refuge rescued
sought deliverance from anguish
loving succor proffered
peace upon mine body, mind, and soul,
she did immediately expedite
warming cockles of me heart
analogous to affecting, creating,
forging, jumpstarting, offering, and ushering
ideal paradise island temperature
if measured by degrees
balmy fahrenheit 451 (ha)

pointing, revealing, shining,
and training a guiding-light
unafraid to defend diminutive
docile, inordinately meek brother,
when threatened courtesy bullies
that significantly towered over me
below average stature in height
a measly little skinny,
long haired pencil neck geek,
yet zany as Corbin
(very private joke) Bill Thurman's cat,

(when within comfort of home) lad
naively oblivious rebukes
delivered courtesy our mother,
when her second born daughter
a fiercely academic and dynamic student
ever since she set foot in the classroom,
or summoning forth indomitable courage
particularly when she got diagnosed
score of years ago being in the throes
of thalassemia anemia minor,
nevertheless honorably accepted

fallout from infrequent -
at most a small number
of memorable bouts of mischievousness
such as after smoldering marshmallows
damaging the brand new toaster oven
sparked, and kindled outburst
from mommy dearest
figurative tinder, which squabble
escalated in intensity
sparking vehement feud to ignite
loosing volatile verbal exchange

triggering (hyperbole on the way)
The Emergency Alert System
to issue warning
lest clear and present danger
(at 324 Level Road)
recorded in history books
licking flames, overshadowing, rivaling,
and undermining revolution
analogous to spelunker donning jacklight
before trumpeting unexpected goldmine.

unabashedly dole out unadulterated
indirect flattery to a porcelain moon goddess.

I found myself figuratively
falling head over heels
inexplicably, cuz courtesy the website
Prose | A virtual community
of readers and writers,
an attractively enchanting female participant 
unwittingly, unsuspectingly and unknowingly
triggered the writer
of these words to become beguiled
and emblazon the sentence
mein kampf and hard times
(ambiguous coded message)
to further an electronic exchange
of mutually assured emotional construction
inadvertently, inextricably, and inordinately
bending, forging, and nudging our lives to coincide
with a mutually profound realm
of hidden cerebrally ******* treasure,
not unlike an archeologist
accidentally stumbling upon a rare discovery
of unknown persons
(recording stone age arousal
of fondling buttucks of babe in the woods),
who trod across the terra firma
across the lunar landscape
when **** sapiens
merely consisted of
scattered and vulnerable tribes
analogous to any other animal
seeking basic instinct
for ultimate procreation of race
likened to the Gibbs brothers
titled song Stayin' Alive
courtesy survival of the fittest.

Hopefully herewith
a genuine amorous proposition
as the modus operandi
to reciprocate thru cyberspace
will at the least provoke a mild chuckle,
whereby I can envision upturned smile on her face
imagining definite essence of beauty to interlace
slender fingers, while I best dismiss rash fantasy
of any substantial tactile expressions of affection
simply predicated upon infatuation
grown from approximately
a half dozen positive acknowledgements
expressing pleasure at reading my postings, 
whence immediate and uncontrollable lust
burst forth like a giant fountainhead
a minor inconvenience Atlas shrugged
toward a lovely specimen of the fairer ***,
which faux pas will most likely
seal fate against further discourse,
nevertheless sentiments spill forth unbridled
blindingly, and sheepishly guiding me toward 
a veritable stranger, though if these eyes
chanced to be blessed
with even a single cursory glance,
no doubt she would look -
obvious dissimilar constituting a generic gal
cuz espied genuine
incorporeal karmic manifestation
would immediately exhibit
the epitome of elegance and good taste
though already penultimate
consummation of actual ******* doth outpace
rhyme or reason, and logical positivism
dictating ditching broadcasting assiduous fantasy,
plus such juvenile premature ejaculations
(unsuitable to a casual
boyish looking sexagenarian),
who like a fool rushes off,
where angels fear to tread
expressing amorousness,
cuz downplaying the necessity
of erecting respectable
initial trusting platonic friendship
and preliminary stages of casual familiarity
reinforcing initial intuition
nullified thru the Internet,
which mecca for social media platforms
dispenses with conventional established paradigm,
and promulgates instant gratification
blindsiding rational behavior
aptly crafted with the storied novel
by the late writer Tom Wolfe
when he coined the phrase
"Old rotten Gotham
sinking/slinking into the behavioral sink"
a metaphorical phrase
that describes the city of Gotham
(from Batman comics)
as being in a state of extreme
social decay and decline,
where overpopulation, stress,
and lack of resources leading to widespread
societal breakdown and dysfunctional behavior,
much like the concept of a "behavioral sink"
observed in animal studies
where overcrowding causes
erratic and destructive behaviors.

My humblest apology for scattershot thoughts,
cuz I quickly dashed off the above
cuz the missus wants time on our only laptop,
a MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2015).

The urge to vanish from the face of earth!
The urge to leave everything behind and never return
Has become Inordinately profound.
I haven’t been myself for days
And yet
Nobody notices the woeful aura around me!
The pitch black that has taken over me.
My dejected face
Eyes filled with sorrow
Mirthless smiles  
and
Shammed laughter!
A con artist disguised as myself!

Alas
A.H