I'm on a train.

One of those red ones with black trimmed windows you can imagine rolling through the suburbs on the way to NYC. Not a subway car but a classier vintage with proper rows of cushioned seats and a lever to pull if there is an emergency. There are sparse shrubberies on one side of the tracks and the ocean on the other. Young trees and bushes stroll by.  A little wind is pushing off the ocean, massaging the car ever so gently back and forth as we move along. A gentle click-clack is on the tips of our ears.

We got on together. I hadn't known you for very long but the connection was stronger than anything I had ever felt or have since. You practically sat on top of me for the first few miles. Couldn't keep your hands off me,  staring in my eyes like you were searching for something lost but you couldn't remember what. The edges of your lips turned upwards permanently as if you were always at the verge of a laugh. You interlaced my fingers with yours and held on like you would be ripped away if your grip loosened for even a second. Slender fingers holding so tightly that they were becoming red.

You were excited to to be riding with me, about where we were going and all the things we would do when we got there. I would see you peer out of the corner of your eye, then lean over to brush your soft cheek against my budding stubble. Kissing and gently biting my lips insatiably. The suns rays coming in at an angle and lighting up your perfect smile and dimple.

I had to remind you we were in public.

I was lost in your blonde curls and the incense of your neck. I had fallen incredibly hard and so fast that my face hurt from smiling and my heart beat with vibrations I had never known. Not even a whiff of anxiety or neurosis. Some of the best memories of my life, as fleeting as they turned out to be.

I yawned and you put your finger in my mouth. I bent over to tie my shoe and you would poke my **** and laugh with your own reflection in the window, like this was the first and best joke of all time. Maybe it was and maybe it is.

The waiter came and informed us that a thing called "the bar car" existed. We both jumped at the idea. I didn't exactly notice at the time, during our excitement, but that's when the train started going faster and everything out the windows began to blur.

The bar car was a wild ride and we took advantage of our lo'cal. All kinds of fine wine, liquors and illicit substances were available. We tried them all. You were beautiful, your laugh infecting everyone around you, I was charming and held a captive audience.   It was a dark, loud and glorious blur. We were the life of the party and it chugged on till dawn.

We woke up in our seats, disheveled and discombobulated. It was dark out already. Did we sleep through the entire day? The train was slowing down, maybe approaching a station. The party was amazing but we were certainly paying the price for the black out. You moved over to the seat across from me to have some more space and lay down. I saw myself in the reflection. My hat, charm and smile from the night before had vanished. I must have left them in the bar car the night before.
      You had changed, beauty uninterrupted but different somehow. I couldn't put my finger on it. Irritated maybe? I invited you to cuddle and battle the hangover together but you ignored me. Like you couldn't hear me or didn't want to. I decided to let you be.

I got up to use the bathroom and thought I would go look for my scattered belongings. Maybe I could find a scrap of leftover dignity while you rested. I inquired to the conductor who directed me to the bartender in the bar car. He hadn't changed a bit, somehow untouched and unaffected by last nights antics that had effected me so dramatically.  Same black suspenders and white pressed shirt with impeccably slicked hair. I asked him what happened and if I had an open tab. While slowly polishing a rocks glass he looked up and made eye contact for a split second before looking away.
He said:  "Oh the bar car takes its toll. In the end we all end up paying one way or another". I still don't know what he meant by that or if he knew.
      I asked him if he found my hat and he said he would check the camera. We walked in to a small back room, while he was reviewing the tape, over his shoulder I noticed a tragedy.

We were drunk. I was going on to a group of new friends on one side of the bar, they were hanging on my words and I was eagerly explaining whatever nonsense they were drooling over. You were in the corner wearing that red dress I love, with your hair up in a tight bun. A few curls had escaped and brushed your high cheekbones, a thin line of pearls dancing delicately across your perfectly symmetrical collar. You were stunning and inebriated, swaying with each bump and motion of the train. A man wearing my hat put his hand on your side to keep you from swaying over and then he left it there.
I took a sharp breath.

It looked like you put your hand on his hand to move it but then it stayed and you both swayed together. As the air left my lungs and the blood drained out of my face I watched your lips touch the strangers. A small piece of my soul slipped away forever. I couldn't watch any further. When I asked the bartender how long it went on he fidgeted for a moment and uncomfortably muttered "quite some time". I never found my hat or the other part of me that left that day.  

The train slowed. I walked to the back, as far away from you as I could get, in utter disbelief. How could you? I thought to myself.
I mourned the loss of the you as I knew you yesterday, quietly and to myself. A tear  escaped my eye and rolled down my now fully formed stubble as I fell in to a random seat in mild shock. There were a few passengers back there so I had to pull together relatively quickly. After gaining some composure I knew it was time to get off. I knew we could never get back to yesterday morning though I would have said or done anything to do so.

The train had stopped. I went back to my seat and you were sleeping. I took my coat and gathered my things. The conductor looked at me confused as to why I would leave something so magnificent, I assume he had no idea what had transpired.   

I walked to the rear of the car and slid the door open slower than required. I stepped to the stairs and put one foot down on the step and the other on the ground. I stopped, rooted with my hand on the railing, lingering between two very different paths.
     I knew that it was time to get off, I knew this was the sensible thing to do, that I couldn't get past this offense regardless of how I had felt earlier the day before. The whistle screamed from the locomotive. The conductor looked at me and shook his head, I'm not sure if he was trying to tell me to stay or go but a decision had to be made.

The train lurched forward and I watched as the station slip away slowly. I sat in between the cars for a while and watched the ocean and birds. With a heavy heart and shoes I walked back to my seat. You were waiting. Crying. You knew. The bartender had told you. You didn't mean do do it, didn't realize what you were doing and thought it was me. He was wearing my hat and the whole world was blurry and dark.

I believed you. Self anguish mixed with alcohol was dripping from your pores. I knew you didn't mean it and were drunk, but could I ever forgive you or trust you again?

I loved you still.

I caught a glimpse of my reflection, a weaker version of myself looked back. As if an invisible chip in my teeth had developed and my shoulders lowered. The charming, confident man from the bar car the day before had been replaced. Something was off but not enough for anyone else to notice, just enough to know a change has happened.
       The train started to pick up speed again as we distanced ourselves from the station.  I second guessed my decision to stay but I didn't look back.

I found the man with my hat and punished him with a few blows in the dark. He knew he ****** up, apologized and took the beating like a man. I never got the hat back.

The engineer announced that we would be going through a tunnel soon and to turn on our lights and keep our hands in the windows.

It would be dark.  

We stayed away from the bar car for a while but the draw was irresistible. After a few hours we were there again but you never left my side.  Then you did. I was looking for you but you would disappear and not answer me when I called you name. The tunnel went deeper and darker and I didn't know where you were and I suspected you liked it that way. The train began to slow down again as we exited the tunnel.

I finally found you back at our seat, you had moved one row away from me. I asked you to come back, tried to hold your hands but you pulled away with vehemence. When I came back from the bathroom you had moved another row farther.
I knew I was losing you.
I begged you to return but you told me calmly that it was time for you to get off. At some point in the tunnel you had decided that you didn't want to go anymore . Your mind was made. You were going to catch another train at the next station.

When the train stopped I thought for sure you would reconsider but you didn't. Didn't even give it a thought. You just grabbed your coat and hat with one big bag under your arm. You kissed me on the cheek like a french stranger and were off. Going somewhere else on a different train. Just like that.

I rode the rails for quite some time by myself , many people getting on and getting off, passing me by. Every once in a while I would think I saw you at a station or in a **** though the window of another train. I often thought I could smell you but when I breathed deeper it was always gone. A ghost dancing on the edge of my senses.

A young girl in a headband got on the train. She was listening to headphones and dancing to herself as she bobbed along. She sat down in the seat next to me flashing a smile. She had a wedding ring on and I dismissed her immediately.  She didn't move from the seat or stop glancing my way. Eventually she confessed that she wanted to talk. I told her I wasn't interested but she persisted.  I hadn't talked to anyone on the train for quite some time and after some more mild persistence, I gave in.

We had a lot in common. We were both riding alone, desperately wanted attention and were thrilled to receive some.  After a few laughs she slid her hand in to mine and interlaced her fingers. I left it there. It was warm, comforting and wrong. She was married but I had been riding alone so long it felt good to have some company. She stayed and we talked. She was broken and I had a knack for fixing things. After a few hours of dramatic conversation I fell asleep with her head on my shoulder.

When I woke up  the train was flying up the track on the side of a mountain. Trees and rocks were a blur of green and grey. The engineer must be trying to make up for lost time I thought to myself.

The girl was asleep with her head on my lap. I looked down at her hand and the rings were gone. I woke her briefly to ask where they went. She said she didn't need them anymore and had thrown  them out the window.  She could of sold them, I said, but she said she just wanted them gone so she could be mine and fell back to sleep.  All of a sudden I couldn't breath. This train was roaring down the tracks, the once gentle click clack had become a loud hum. Suddenly too loud. This girl in my lap who had just gotten on the train wanted to stay. I considered her for a while as she looked up at me with big blue eyes, shining and wet, like a puppy in the shelter, terrified of rejection and desperate to be adopted.

At the peak of the mountain, just when the train began to even out, you waltzed back in to the car with a champagne flute in one hand and your bag in the other.

I don't know when or where you got back on, must have been a few stations ago when I stopped looking for you. Maybe you were wearing a disguise, who knows what you had been up to while you were gone. I'm not sure how long you were away but it was quite some time. That you had been through something was obvious, a new wrinkle had formed on your brow and you're once confident stride had changed to a cautious stroll. What actually happened out there I don't know.  I never asked and I don't want answers.

You looked at me and smiled. It was good to see that smile, like sun on my face on a brisk day.  You took a step toward me and then I looked down in my lap at the girl at the same time you did. I looked up. You and your smile were gone.

Everything I had begun to feel for this broken, head banded girl in my lap dried up like a puddle in  the dessert.  I quietly and gently nudged her awake and told her I had to use the bathroom. She put her head down on my coat and fell back into what ever trance she had been in, eyelids gently fluttering, eyes searching beneath them for what I would never give her.

I dashed up the isle and threw open the door, almost shattering the glass. The conductor glared at me and rolled his eyes as I barged past to the space between the cars.

There you were. Standing on the stairs with your head out the opening. The wind was blowing your perfectly formed curls around your head like a blonde explosion of familiarity. I yelled your name and you dove in to me. My senses erupted, my mind went numb as the train was nearing another station and I inhaled your essence greedily.

We moved to another car. I abandoned my coat with the married girl and never looked back. I hope she found what she was looking for. I  never could have been the answer she was so desperately seeking but I know I  helped steer her towards it.

You told me you had encountered some other people out there on the rails and they had reminded you of what we had when we first left the station. I never forgot.  

The train started to rock and get going again. We were back in the bar car and starting to brown out. We had to get off of this train right ******* now. In a desperate moment we looked at each other and put our hands, together, on the emergency brake cord. I looked in your eyes with your hand on top of mine. You kissed me while yanking down on the cord. Time slowed, the breaks squealed and everything exploded throwing luggage, people and the entire contents of the bar car in to a nondiscriminatory chaos . We got up off the ground, ran to the end of the car, dove off the side in to a soft patch of grass and rolled down a small incline. We watched as the conductor sifted through  the mess and interrogated the passengers, trying to ferret out the party responsible for pulling the brake. He spotted us off the side of the tracks and shook his fist while shouting every conceivable obscenity combination.

We laughed, held each other in the grass and kissed deeply.

We watched the train pick up speed and disappear in to the hills as relief spread over me.

You interlaced your fingers in to mine and we both looked out to where the tracks disappeared into the horizon, wondering how far of a walk it was to the next station.

And you left me like a baby flower choking
On dust, and loss of future blooming,
And tremors like Eos's tears
On the stillest vernal pool -
It was as if you stole my life and simply
Went - or put me on my little sailboat
That sang of youth and an hourglass, a
Duet composed in the ***** crystal of purgatory,
Between my insatiably wild stronghold and
The rosy maiden, blushing, full, yet
Dumb, willingly deaf to red flags,
Praying for a partner to make a golden
Lady of the wood and water
And light, so warm and shimmering under
The forest's pine-down cover - what a
Big, hasty mistake, to keep yourself
Hollow and blind to the day's good things, to remain a
Man alone, wistfully misplacing a love
Who showed the loyalty of a crimson kindness, and who
Was always singing bliss and beauty and glowing into your ears,
So stuffed with lies, bitterness, ideals, and
Full like drunken leeches - all this, and the coldness, the stubbornness
Of the oldest mule, to stay isolated from my
Loving eyes, to make time with our sorrowful
Echoes, yours and mine.




*vertical quote from Kurt Vonnegut's *Slaughterhouse-Five

A drab drop drips
Downed casualty
Down casually.

A sulfuric gust cycles
In three fly-by nights.
A gust hoping,
A breeze yearning to dab a wet tear off a moistened spring cheek.
Floating by on a wisp of breath,
Breathed once by the blessed. Now irreparably tainted, then incomprehensible anew:
Treated by the respirations of the perspiring, expending breath on czarist ears, aspiring;
Cured by the tongues of the insatiably dying
And by those primary soothe-ers, invisibly crying.
Alveoli gripping that sine qua non of civilization
Until they must release the once-oxygen into the hills of Kyivan Rus.

A first breath and second
As much as a penultimate and final.
And witness to the chronology that led to such a
Bloodbath-blessed blast
As this.

It's made in me
The way of me
So loving & savory,
What do I speak of?
My dear instinctive bravery
Insatiably
A heart of gold engraved
in thee,
Solemnly a gift from God
given gracefully.



Questioned by many about
my dashing courage
Noble-minded behavior,
Intrepidity
Superman-like favor,
Saving a life with intent
& untapped wit
Comforting to the mind
So very major.


Put my life on the line
for someone in need
Even for animals, treated,
As loved ones indeed
Deference
Urbanity
It sits well as my creed,
So many think of me
as crazy, somewhat insane
For having such a desire
of valiance within my brain,
Why salt my game?


Because I'm so in tact
with life?
The beauty it holds?
Mettle with heartfelt
kindness to my delight?
I can't help it
I must protect & serve,
MINUS THE BADGE
Pains me to see a
damsel in distress
No tender heart deserves.


I know that every situation
is not my problem
Shouldn't concern me some
would say,
Like a man beating his wife
while the kids cry & stray
In daylight even
Never could I look away,
I'm sorry
I feel I must jump in to
save my quarry,
Who knows I may be
in over my head,
But I can care less at times
Must save the prey from the
predator, can't consume of spoiled
bread.


Whether its a car speeding
about to run over a baby
Or a relentless fire in a
building coursing to burn a lady,
With my mind attentive, laced
with uncontested audacity,
Boldness
Courtesy
Reverence
All out strong Tenacity,

I'm here, Im here...


Good guys are yet to be
seen
Daredevils that are truly
serene,
But no matter what
I'm here,
With my mind & Valor
Have no fear
A young soldier
is near,
At your service I'll be
around to help
Take a stand with me
Let me lend a hand for thee
With my beautiful, yet
Ravishing Gallantry....


©Michael P. Smith

From the visions of sparrow vanguards
that fly insatiably onward.
From the tombs of ancient hearts draped
in flowing, moth-eaten fabric.
From the fighter jets stalling somewhere
above solitary and succinct farmlands.
From the bottom of a broken purple
sunset that lies embossed on my brain.
From the silliest half-thought left
unvoiced in the vagrant light of a damp
and desolate lamp lying in a landfill.
From several mouths at once.
From oracles cross-legged in caves.
From the gills of a catfish on a hook.
From mythical forgeries and the perjurer's tongue.
To the subdued hope resting in a
trembling hand gripped round its pen.
To satisfaction that is oneness that
seems to never arrive but is there
all along.
To the peaks of the Himalayas.
To my spidered desk light, shallow with doubt.
To my flustered and torrential page.

A tiger at the zoo.
Violent, impulsive, and insatiably ferocious;
To be feared, surely dangerous?
Aging in captivity, he watches the people walk by; who mostly are thankful at him safely set apart from others.

A woman pauses in front of his predicament, and thinks," What folly is this? For I do not fear the untamed, I will test him and encroach upon his pride."
Her reasoning unclear, she approaches that cage;
Not caring whether for her safety, or his-
To **** into action, something that may or may not be safe.

I watched this from some distance, and thought,
"Will she push too far and his animalistic savagery will overcome, to fatally satiate her curiosity?
Or, will he give it no thought at all and  soon expect  his scheduled pittance of flesh to devour?"
After all, I reasoned, he is still a tiger.
I watched intently. And waited...

For I to cherish soaked in sunbathe dream of freckles on cream and strawberries
For you to see and sigh and fill with warm fizzy pink water too sweet to contemplate 
For you to see and sigh and long for long sleeved sheathed in jealousy spilling out in bright red syrup

For I to paint faces with my utterances fanciful making ugly alluring curious mysterious attractive

I can take my nose to be strength clever seducting wicked men and women to listen to my describes or look upon papyrus sheets

I can make my jaw a naive child stricken with blue veins translucent skin clinging papery like wings to brittle bones under eaves ready to snap

I can write my eyes wide innocent in first time headlights first time frosted firsts filled with empty antecedents of unclasped things and fifty fifty longings

I can make the ugly striking like a stinging snake cruel contemplating lashing smarts or make it sad sorrowful quiet longing new to life love mature but still a child

I can add grace poise to my stretched out neck make it stand tall of pride training because it's ladylike to do so and so I must and say my prayers every night too as I powder over my faintly drawn freckles

Boyish humour uncaring to my generous brows a baseball mitt bubblegum cards and a fetish for goths forever unrecognised as spit flies and at home haircuts compose a flyaway life

Embellish the hollows collarbones and detract the too-broad shoulders make the frailty proud and small shrink it down to fit in a girl big brothers to gentle and lovers to rough pinned wrists that near snap

With my words I reap the benefits of my own mindly kindling I wander through half made times in history and finished times two seconds right now 

I can create myself and so I do my thirst to be is insatiably insatisfied like my attraction to bad grammar and lilts when you talk so I do I become each and every one 

I create myself and it's addicting

Beguiling
Almost consoling
She was drawn
to his florid words
Like an innocent child
Mesmerized
by his antics
He kissed her
Soft hands
and all at once
She has fallen
Chained in his lair

She had a heart
of delicate petals
Disarming beauty
Immaculate
Pristine as the waters of the oceans
Her blood flows in flamboyance

He feeds on her soul
Insatiably
devouring her vitality
He likes to indulge himself
in her
Deliberate death
A precise inclination of his wickedness

Naive and unaware
She deteriorates
Like a dainty fruit
Bruised
with a rotting smell
That pervades
Her core bleeds
In dissolution

And her luster fades
Shriveled hands and face
Who will save her,
bring back her grace?



-Cancer, Margaret Austin Go

****** distresses
Insatiably

Only you
Can satisfy
The primal
Urges

Which you have
Inflicted
Upon me

Shackled
To the arrest
Of your
Seductive allures

Slave to your
Sensual pleasures
Prisoner to my
Ambitions

To be the
Utmost of your
Sensuous
Pursuits.

Precipice candle-lit
camouflaged burns torn
woken fast in ****** bayonet
frocks insatiably milk churned

I tripped and called out your name
on falling prowling came to mind
through an unknown gate, late
and then I woke dizzy
spokes unfettered but meaning less
than before
while wheeling down hills of never ending
clever proportions swung
towards Home

Precipice candle-flicked
dark on the front
escaping to the black
houses of clutter
where no one lives
and camouflage licks
dashed hopes from the wounds
of all fires ever there
inflicted and spooned

undertow slept
as I dreamed
pistacchio nuts in dry lap
watching a harmless movie
go away Scene
come back in the Act
splinter my porous nut
over a hard stone of sultry solace

Poet daubed the corporal on the wings of carney
Wanderer dilettante soul lusted au wild routes
Counted each the millimiles covered
Upside , unstrained , Unflaggingly.
Yon the valleys , epitome meadows and Hillsides
Beated around the alcoves amok
Ridges passed the marooned trails
Agape the flinged self flew spirited madrigals
Slowly rooted the tints into wilderness
True entity got superimposed to sylvan instincts
The obsolute shadow rigged the shooner
By dimension lengthier the time but shorter by grace
Grazed through and some toxic airs exhaled then pulled
Blinked all the roof to rugs
Remembrance of concrete boxes and intimate sidekicks
Cheap conflict wins to hit the ring
If body wins wanderlust looses thereby path ends
Simultaneous call by consciousness and objection by eternal shadow
Only the body grazed the maps with pointers
Though insatiably leveed
Kept retention the coursing shadow
Yet remained damp , savaged the sylvan traits
Life was near but the abstainer failed
Wilderness abysm rejected the unfortunate physique
There appeared
Scorched canopies along wilted flora
Container flogged the shadow to a stultifying death
Physique deceived self the core truth
Existence thereafter without knowing the chance with eterna
Several followed the imperishable conflict trail
Roll of honour diminished by fourth dimension
Marked victories of featherbrains over pappus chambers
Only few sticked upto xanthic flowers
Raise up , were the victories thristled down?
Many knocked and still keep on knocking incarnations
Fine array of fossilized saturnine inhibitions
Callous attritions over altruism of succinct shadows
Flip sorties pariance spurts
"The stanchion to revet my sky" voiced the shadow

Hell is with us. In our hearts and in our hands.

I don’t know what is in my head, but there are pictures whirling, images dragged up from far away, from places I have never been, and darkness that presses in hungrily to consume the soul of all humanity.
In me there is a foothold. God! In even me a grasping hand able to wield the knife and divide my soul from itself and laugh. To dance around the fire wherein the bones of my victims burn. God, the horror! Flitting shadows, creeping faces, a shuddering crawl because I cannot run.
But of course, if my legs are cut how could I run. There is no hope, but blood and death and horror and laughing faces asking for new dissections.
My body a cocoon of fire around my heart, pulsing out in the open, literally. My chest is torn open, carefully peeled back and my body a spectacle. There is no redemption in this grotesquery. This madness filled with the devils of hell themselves. They gloat over me, reeling drunk upon my destruction and the utter shriveling of the souls who dance around me. I am fighting my own demons not to burst into a million tiny seconds of my life, like shards of glass shatter under too much pressure, a flitting signal in the night like a light snuffed out by wolves. Slavering jowls, moist breath pressed unwilling against cold flesh, and a knife’s blade sliding, gliding through the pathways of my life’s story. Veins emptied of their proper element. Pried open.
"Lay them bear!
Let us see the very soul of you - the inside of those veins. Let us dare to go where no man has ever gone before. To do what no man has ever dared to do. To brave the depths of hell for the satisfaction of knowing that at last we have done something new, something that no one will ever have the bravery, the courage, and dastardly faith to do in a hundred years."
No god was there in that room, only the screaming devils of hell in all the world about us, laughing, laughing at the misery we make for ourselves, the utter torment into which we flee to tear our own souls apart beyond the light of day. There is nothing that we can do to stop them. They are all around us in the night, and in the shadows they are lurking, creeping, whispering. Let them come into your soul, they only want to play a little, gleefully singing the songs of the ******. They are not the ones you have to fear. It is the old devils, the ones who are still insatiably hungry, that you have to worry about. They say they're just here to have fun. But, oh you poor deluded soul, don't you know the fun they call is ******? The messengers they are is death’s own hand, the scythe-wielding master of the times of tombs and all things. By the way, its midnight. Don’t you see the clock? You hear the ticking. They are coming closer, ever closer. Don’t deny it. You know that they are here, it’s true, it’s true. You felt their breath late at night breathing down the back of your neck’s soul.

Hell is with us. In our hearts and in our hands.

Evil will always invite us to a feast of retaliation—that seductive chance to pay an offender back with more evil, disguised under the pretense of protecting what is rightfully ours and of defending our dignity. Reciprocated malice is what it craves most of us, as it thrives on infecting us with its slimy, slithery, leprous self. It seeks voraciously, insatiably to ensnare, enslave and devour us, for it's a hideously monstrous creature sent from deepest caverns of hell. Its predatory intent is to extinguish our light with its darkness, and if we open the door to it (even a crack) it will reach around with long, lecherous fingers to grab us by the throat and choke the life out of us with such force and speed that we won't even see it coming.

But goodness has an invitation of its own, an invitation both to us and to our offender, an invitation to drive out the infection of evil and illuminate the darkness. It invites us, when offended, into the precarious but glorious adventure of turning the other cheek. But first we must understand clearly that this turning of the cheek should never be mistaken for turning a blind eye to continual sin. It is NOT ignoring the hurt or diminishing the harm done to us so that we might spare ourselves the dreaded inconvenience of rocking the boat and disrupting our own greater interests, nor is it foolishly submitting to evil's unhindered presence around us and control over us while cowering in the face of it. It is not attempting to self-righteously shrug off that which feels to us like a serrated knife twisting in our belly or burying, beneath the layers of an ever toughening heart, the fallout from an ongoing betrayal which mocks all that is decent and sacred. It is not weakly accommodating habitual, sinful behavior in the name of peacemaking, giving up the good fight of faith in order to give in and just live with it while our soul suffocates in the meantime. It is not saying that it doesn't matter, that it's okay or no big deal. To do so (and I have surely done them all) is to deny the powerful truth of the gospel, the truth of the serious and highly offensive nature of all sin, the truth that God absolutely hates it, is greatly angered by it, calls it what it is and that He desires (and has made provision through Jesus Christ) to set sinners free from it, not simply overlook it and leave them entangled in it.

So we too ought to have a righteous anger toward the destructive nature of sin, both in ourselves and in others, seeing it as God sees it and calling it what He calls it by humbly speaking the truth in love and pointing them to Christ. And once we have removed (or are willingly, honestly engaged in the process of removing) the obvious plank(s) from our own eye (including a crouching fear of uncomfortable but necessary confrontation), we are supposed to do what we can (whenever and however the Holy Spirit leads us...that part is most essential) to help others (with mercy, meekness and wisdom from God) remove the speck from theirs. We are called to 'restore gently' (Galatians 6:1) and '****** others from the fire and save them' (Jude 23) as the Lord enables us by His sovereign and saving grace to do it, to enter fully into His kingdom work in this dark world and into the risky business of loving even our worst enemies. It is our high privilege and duty as followers of Jesus Christ and those who bear His name on this earth to participate with Him in His work of redemption. He alone can save and deliver from sin, but we are called to be some of the instruments He providentially uses in the process.

Turning the other cheek (as Jesus taught it, commanded it and lived it out) is a shrewd, deliberate and Spirit-led extending of extravagant grace and unselfish blessing to our offender, along with a daringly tactical invitation to him to show his true colors and his true intentions, whatever they may be. Exactly how this looks and plays out will vary greatly depending on the unique circumstance or relationship, and we must always rely fully on the Lord (on His word and through communion with Him in prayer, His perfect example and His prompting) to give us wisdom and creativity in carrying out our part with humility and discernment, never forgetting that we too are in want of much deliverance from our own sins and besetting habits and therefore in desperate need of others to graciously do the same for us.

We must ask and believe God for His step-by-step direction in all of these things and be willing to follow Him no matter what it might cost us, even if the price is the seemingly unbearable discovery that our offender does not and will not love us—a possibility which may feel worse to us than death. The paralyzing fear of such a devastating revelation can easily become one of our greatest stumbling blocks to giving truly wise and beneficial gifts to those who hurt us, especially if they are among those from whom we desire a particular intimacy and acceptance.

Are we willing to face even more rejection? Are we willing to set aside our own 'need' to be loved by them in order to courageously, unconditionally love them as Jesus loves them and as He loves us—with a yearning for deliverance from sin and restoration to intimacy with God that requires the laying down of oneself for the sake of the other, the spending of oneself on behalf of the spiritually captive, naked, hungry and oppressed? And if not for their sake, are we willing to do it for the sake of our own intimacy with Christ and our own soul's hunger? Are we willing to rest completely in and rely only on His perfect and never-ending love to fill us so full that it cannot help but spill over to them? Are we willing to trust that He is enough for us in all things and at all times through all situations?

However complicated the situation may be, offering the other cheek is meant to be a sacrificially loving and boldly open invitation for our offender to make a clear and definite choice between repentance or continued and greater evil. It gives him the freedom, the responsibility and the obvious opportunity to decide exactly what he will do with our 'other cheek.' Will he 'kiss' it with genuine kindness this time (as a pledge toward true restoration) or strike us once again? The choice and responsibility are his alone, but either way it will eventually expose him for what he really is and his intentions for what they actually are and, perhaps, by the mercy of God bring him to see his need and desire for true reconciliation and healing. Our part is simply to hunger for him to hunger after God and to do what we can to cunningly provoke such an appetite.

But even if that never happens, even if he chooses to remain in captivity to sin, evil will no longer have a safe place to hide in the shadows. And once it is out in the open we can look it fully in the face with our dignity intact and without backing down or shrinking from our call to always be the aroma of Christ, and we can overcome it with the power of good through the strength of Jesus and the praise of His name (even when the situation and the Spirit dictate that it is wisest to keep our mouth shut and 'not cast our pearls...'). And because of Christ's satisfying love and all-sufficient grace, we can do it again and again and again, not with reluctance and resentment but with overwhelming compassion and unexplainable peace flooding our soul, even in the midst of earth-shattering pain. We can defeat evil by our very refusal to give into it or become part of it and by our determination to rest in the Lord and His promise to defend us in His perfect time and in His perfect way. And that is the heart's ultimate 'vengeance' against evil, for surely it cries out resoundingly for it.

So rather than taking our desired revenge on the evildoer (our offender), we can take it straight out upon the evil one (the devil), upon our real enemy and on his evil schemes. One of the weapons which the Lord has given us to carry out this precise form of tactical warfare is forgiveness, and we must learn to use it regularly, skillfully and lavishly without giving way to fearful intimidation or self-serving cowardice. 'And who is equal to such a task?' Only the Spirit of Christ living in us! We are utterly dependent on Him to do it in and through us and, unless we yield to His grace and power, it will be an impossible undertaking.

Dear wounded and hurting ones, we have been issued distinct invitations to two mutually exclusive feasts, and it is time now for us to choose which one we will be attending. There is much at stake in our decision, and so we must journey to the foot of the cross to make it...

Grat, smat, tack.
my windows are black.
and the raven (that raven)
comes insatiably back
and the windows and caskets
and smallish ash-baskets
(you'd better believe that they know what their task is)
are holding the pieces, the embers, the sound
and hollowing portions we make in the ground
are the sickly embrace;
a dismembering hug
of a small, ****-backed hobo
without heart or a lung.
and his eye-hollows burn
for to end Adam’s race
and so often I wonder
How the fleetest of foot
can’t find the footing
to escape.

have you ever wondered
"what if I died tomorrow"
the earth would still twirl
and seven billion of her people
would never stop to cry.

They didn't even know

that you were alive.

but that's fine.

The natural attribute of my inquiring intuition

Coerced me to tread passionately in the wake

Of this provocatively, entertaining creature

To analyze the abstract desires of her mind



She peeks just up over her lovely shoulder

Capturing the dazzling quality of my image

From the corner of her harlequin green eyes

As she licks her lips insatiably with hunger



Ultimately this woman approached me fearlessly

Exuding the very spark of unmistakable attraction

She then began stroking her fingers through my hair

Caressing my face with her assuaging touch of heaven



Softly rubbing my chest while whispering risque enigmas of pleasure

Oh, how I could feel the air of her pacifying breath blowing in my ear

While her alluring cave of magic chafed against my yearning serpent

Not one word was spoken for she could sense my crave to fornicate

(2 PM)

I've been insatiably numb for a while.
it's hard to admit that,
being this codependent
is like being on trial.

Vulnerability is not my forte
and breaking your heart wasn't
the Right way
to tell you,

(2 AM)

that I've been listening to your voicemails
from when we were Seventeen
with nothing but Dreams.
now all we have is a few
Conversations that never happened.

'I miss you'
I miss you more

'I love you'
I always will

If you feel broken, imagine pouring the poison.

Poet daubed the corporal on the wings of carney
Wanderer dilettante soul lusted wild routes
Counted each the millimiles covered
Upside , unstrained , Unflaggingly.
Yon the valleys , epitome meadows and Hillsides
Beated around the alcoves amok
Ridges passed the marooned trails
Agape the flinged self flew spirited madrigals
Slowly rooted the tints into wilderness
True entity got superimposed to sylvan instincts
The obsolute shadow rigged the shooner
By dimension lengthier the time but shorter by grace
Grazed through and some toxic airs exhaled then pulled
Blinked all the roof to rugs
Remembrance of concrete boxes and intimate sidekicks
Cheap conflict wins to hit the ring
If body wins, wanderlust looses thereby path ends
Simultaneous call by consciousness and objection by eternal shadow
Only the body grazed the maps with pointers
Though insatiably leveed
Kept retention the coursing shadow
Yet remained damp , savaged the sylvan traits
Life was near but the abstainer failed
Wilderness abysm rejected the unfortunate physique
There appeared
Scorched canopies along wilted flora
Container flogged the shadow to a stultifying death
Physique deceived self the core truth
Existence thereafter without knowing the chance with eterna
Several followed the imperishable conflict trail
Roll of honour diminished by fourth dimension
Marked victories of featherbrains over pappus chambers
Only few sticked upto xanthic flowers
Raise up , were the victories thristled down?
Many knocked and still keep on knocking incarnations
Fine array of fossilized saturnine inhibitions
Callous attritions over altruism of succinct shadow
Flip sorties pariance spurts
"The stanchion to revet my sky" voiced the shadow

Heels harder than steel
Sharper still
In his heart
Smooth arks
Curves looping
Strong desires
Cutting loose
Weak restraints
Through frail defenses
His achilles heel
A separate entity
Embodied in the shape
Of a fallen angel
Insatiably inviting
The arrows of Apollo
Choosing carefully
Her Paris-es

If I?
Were ignoring,
then what am I?
Seeing, being or not!!
My actions reflect clearly
the stomping vote cast with feats
trodden in not ignoring you and your's truly
or being okay with that. I don't believe you are or would be either
if our treatment of one another mete with our true knowing and longings.
So clouded then is our vision upon ourselves then cast upon the other sadly. I can't really say
I know where that is at. Climbing mountains together in need then casting the other down. Is there a point made in defending oneself to false accusations but to fuel momentum of the insatiably most needy. Or do
you prefer a simple warm heart and hands for touch in reaching!!! I don't know why you say goodbye, B+H
I say hello!!!     LOOK O                                                                ­                                                                 ­ S E  E
                                          U                 ­                                                                 ­                                    S      L
                    ­                           T                                                                ­                                                       L
                                                               ­                                                                 ­                                            O
                   ­                                                                 ­                                                                 ­                            W
                                                               ­                                                                 ­                                             E
                                                               ­                                                                 ­                                             E
                                                               ­                                                                 ­                                             P
                                                               ­                                                                 ­                                             S

the dew of some mornings is a thing which is not unlike the kind nuisance of my lady's graceless feeble miraculous fingers. who are not unlike the starting end of day where **** and silent and hulking quiet tremble viscous muscles
of pure unlight, teeming with wondrous gleaming follicles, pimpling the
evenings tummy lapped with luna's rapid fortunate tongue. the chittering
globs of arms waxing ferocious. in climbing steeply valleys feet middle in
strange streams. the common streams. the unerring crooked and corpulent streams. in there, between between, 1and1 (you and i) our ventricles beat
insatiably voluminous leaves. from trees of amorous fruit bearing fronds
slapping silence(whileWeBeneathThemIntoEachOthersMe'sDepositSlushyViteWeWe­remore than god's unfound children returning into the cherished cherry red
steaming glue of our very and very clanGlorious howls repeatedly again angain andgain and gain: an earth wholly more to the liking of "which is not unlike us")
                            1
                          !    I:,.

Sanity wanes
and I do not know
what it is I honestly need
to avoid hours like this

That familiar static
rings insatiably in my ear
and the lights turn on

I walk the wrong hall
afraid and tired
to push myself through sounds and sights
that blind and deafen
and can't be handled
by a person as weak as I

And I am aware
consciously
to all the truth I spill

Does hate feel better here?
I used to not hate
let alone literally feel

THE LONGER I STAY, THE LONGER I'M LIKELY TO STAY HERE

Love.
Love is.
Evermore.
Love is always.
Undeniably,
Indefatigably,
Indescribably,
Insatiably,
For­ever.
Always.
Is.

Love.
Love lasts.
Tirelessly.
Love is always.
Unconquerably,
Indeterminately,
Imperviously,
Inscrutably­,
Immortal.
Always.
Lasts.

Love.
Love lives.
Timelessly.
Love is always.
Interminably,
Interconnectedly,
Independently,
Incredibly­,
Infinite.
Always.
Lives.

Books are indeed work insatiably
For those who think hourly;
Hours are not fit in humorously
In the timeframe of honoree
Of books as they work icily
In the warm world’s ivory.
Books really slog matchlessly
For those who value immensely.
Hence friends! Value the ministry
Who control the Money’s mockery.
Books are indeed work insatiably
For those who think hourly.

SITTING, staring patiently
debating taking silent leave
to heave my bones toward reprieve
and shake off all that's shaking me.
SITTING, staring patiently
I see the demon's point in me.
I see it shine, I see it weep,
and see it when I go to sleep,
LAYING, waiting patiently.
Horribly, these foggy dreams
do less to please
than psyche needs.
I feel a presence gazing me.
LYING, waiting anxiously.
Now here it is debasingly
teasing me insatiably,
promising my every need:
LYING, hiding everything.
What do we call this foul disease?
This object overtaking me?
A spoon and needle ****** me.
LOSING, hiding everything.