sitting hungry in the halls
reading holocaust novels with a morbid fascination

two identical scarves knitted by two identical souls;
both hungry for self-love, god-love and the night
one is rewarded by he who weaves the long, black tapestry of his own destruction; the other destined to sit lonely & forgotten

standing idly, lost in the dance of delusion
& moving wildly intoxicated
seeking love, seeking chase
giving flight to the demons of the age
the technological drug-fix of instantaneous communication

the lobotomy of both mental hemispheres
the horse collar choking struggle to escape clinging home and mother's spinning round & round
turning wheels and daisies
kicked up in the dust of the twilit road
retched from the stomachs of a thousand children lulled to sleep
by the sickly glow of orange floodlight

He wore a purple knitted cap.
He had a carrot nose
This snowman figurine wore skates
with black buttons on his clothes.
His cheeks were daubed a cherry red
His bootless feet looked cold.
His smiling was perpetual
His was a hopeful soul.

Yet now he lay out near the curb
He was destined for the trash
His mistress found a figurine
that had a bit more flash.
He looked back sadly at the house.
The only home he'd known
His colleagues, perched on windowsills
looked out at him alone.

The trash-men came
and grabbed the bags
hydraulics crushed and smashed
One trash man took the figurine
and put it with his stash
The trash man and his little girl
since Spring had lived alone.
It was hard since Emma's mother died
but he tried to make a home.

With no insurance and one salary
his house this year looked bare
Where once they'd had a festive Spruce
now a pitiful fake stood there.
Such decorations as they had
were pilfered from the trash
of folks with little sentiment
and too much spending cash.

In his workshop in the basement
He made the snowman shine
His silver skates were polished
He repainted every line.

Little Emma loved the snowman
When she saw him near the tree
He is no longer called unwanted
since he found a new family.

Longing thread that wrapped in solemn...
Doubtful quietly sad stories...
Don't let motherland shackled...
The trap that has always to miss your figure ....

Listen O my dusk...
I can't stand crave...
I can't stand await....
Painful that's felt by earth...
When you ignoring the longing...

The twilight that i yearn...
I hope you understand....
That your sky is always waiting...

Knitted of wishful want to ****** up the dreams....
But the power...
Unable to grasp a wish..
Boils down to the horizon like twilight...

I saw a gigantic tree.
Uprooted and on its side.
The great roots forming a mane for the snarling ringed face on the stump.
But the fallen beast is taken, it’s husk a Home.
A vibrancy of weevils, ladybugs, frog hoppers, Cockchaffers that’s skittering, scattered like a smashed ant farm.


Around its base were prehistoric ferns,
Curled and scaled like sand lizards’ tales.
Reminiscing the demise of the tyrannosaur.
When dust clouds darkened the sun which warmed their claws.
The skittering skinks, slow worms and other small lizards, who need far less to survive, then feasted upon the monsters’ flesh and found a home in its bone structured palace.

As whale sinks,
Distorted into a globster of its former self,
It hits the sea bed hard in oil-Black darkness.
The hagfish burrow, starved for millennia.
Brutally tearing at the befallen banquet.
Mouths used to scraps choking on steak.
Getting their guts knitted as they squirm over each other to grasp some sashimi.
Dripping saliva as if we’re sweat in the ruckus.

Yeti crab pinch, as do isopods
But get only mucus insulting their jaws.
And they thought they helped to cut up the portions.

Soon all that is left is a skeleton.
Hanging in a museum for future generations to see.

Once again, dust gathers, from bombed out sand.
Erupting in the air as giants hit the ground.
We may soon again see darkness fall.
As the rayiys is skinned.

But no tears are shed.
We all cheer none the less.

A tin cat plays guitar on the fires mantle,
The Eiffel tower is knitted to the wall
And trade paper books are loosely strewn,
Dropped about the french coffee table.
The poet, pearling with snowcapped eyes,
Filtering words on ivory keys he knows
The burled wood piano is not yet playing.

Do I deceive myself
To believe, that
There is more to life
Than past, present and future?
That, intertwined
In the fabric of existence
There are threads
Of a deeper purpose,
Threads that bind
All we know, feel and see
These connections
Span time
To make us all we are
What is knitted in our past
Is woven in our present
To create the cloth
We unfold
Tomorrow

There was a mime who fell in love with a woman,
but he could not tell her, because he was sworn
to the silence of the quiet community, so then

he tried to give her flowers,
to make up for the loss sense of sound.
He could flatter her with smell, all the hours
of the day.

But she would not smell them.

He tried painting her a beautiful picture,
to enable her eyes to dance.

But she would not see it.

He even knitted her a scarf for the winter.
Something she could feel,
to show her how he felt when he looked at her;
which was all fuzzy inside.

But she would not accept his feelings,
even though she was cold.
Even though it was her favorite color.

And

Eventually

He gave up.

He had tried SO HARD!
No matter what he did, he could not please her.

And

then

She was walking down the street and she heard it.
Heard soft crying from behind some waylaid old
cardboard boxes.

The mime felt a hand on his shoulder.
He smelt the most beautiful lilac perfume.
He turned and beheld the loveliest of faces,
he felt his cheeks turning red,
mirroring her rosie ones from the cold.

And finally he heard her voice,
so soft like the knitted scarf
he had labored over.

"All I wanted was to hear
you say what what you felt,
to tell me I'm loved."
she whispered.

"My darling,
you are loved."
he spoke aloud.

And
      then
            he
              was
                 free.

That day he shed his black and white stripes;
for he was no longer a prisoner.
He was set free from the confines of silence;
and sang out his melody of love unto her
every day after, until the end of time.

And after knowing you for only a few weeks, we knitted our failures into a heinously tacky quilt. It scratched against our bare skin when we spent the night making love underneath it and kept us warm when we went outside to puff away the day's disappointments. The quilt got bigger everyday because you and I stopped caring about anything that was not each other. You, swallowed up by a sea of shortcomings and I, mummified by a warmth that blinded us from reality, became strangers. Now you are just a patch in the new quilt I am creating from battle wounds. It is thick and vibrant, even more coarse than the last. Underneath it, no one can touch me but myself.

Abbie hailed a yellow top cabbie

Brenda had a sister in-law named Glenda

Cate ran late on her first date

Delly ate seven bowls of lemon jelly

Edwina drove to the town of Catalina

Fran burnt her finger on the very hot frying pan

Gwen had a strong yen to go and see her aunty Jen

Hope bought her husband a towing rope

Isobel fell under the magician's spell

Joann took her mother on a holiday in a caravan

Kylie went to the dentist with her brother Wylie

Lesley liked listening to Elvis Presley

Marcia enjoyed eating a freshly baked focaccia

Nell saw a turtle coming out of his shell

Olga lived at the top end of the river Volga

Primrose had a Pinocchio nose

Queenie knitted a multicolored beanie

Ruth could never tell the whole truth

Stacey loved playing dress ups with her friend Tracey

Tilly behavior was always rather silly

Una bought a house in the suburb of Yagonna

Verity wanted to be a well known celebrity

Winifred never stopped taking about Alfred

Xena was presented with a court subpoena

Yale told her teacher a tall tale

Zealand ventured out into the bushland

A tin cat plays guitar on the fires mantle,
The Eiffel tower is knitted to the wall
And trade paper books are loosely strewn,
Dropped about the french coffee table.
The poet, pearling with snowcapped eyes,
Filtering words on ivory keys he knows
The burled wood piano is not yet playing.

Here lies a continuation of being.
View it as scenery indifferent to the weather channel.
A silent, exponential inverted sunshine euphoria
Warming the deepest letters of the soul:
U and I swaying outside linear cubic conventions corroded-
We sway like flowering Earth Resonance blooming as foreign

[Sensations]
A toe-curling in the chest stretched intimate at the highest hour

[Movement]
An unconditional syncopation of the heart and mind echoing a
Design as Liquid Resonance - I am that which you are.
“I could cry solid tears. Where have I been all these years,” says

You to reflected I rippling

[Perception]
Never spoken, only written as an abstract entity aware of vibrations
Tethered to timeless stories never read, only felt as I and U in

Reflected them, the missing strangers with a need to be found

[Immortalized]
Twisted eyes, encumbered lips, everflowing knitted letters stuttered. Kissed. Growing from itself a rehearsed mantra embroidered pattern discord. Mythical. The murmuration of a serenade’s evil dermis that feigns thick to tooth and claw, but silences to love as the overture.

Wide-eyed, you and I are a nascent reprise of words cloaked in inked pages turning in the billowing wind.
"Read them to me."
So I read in heavy rain.
From Monday to Sunday.

I MEDITATE upon a swallow's flight,
Upon a aged woman and her house,
A sycamore and lime-tree lost in night
Although that western cloud is luminous,
Great works constructed there in nature's spite
For scholars and for poets after us,
Thoughts long knitted into a single thought,
A dance-like glory that those walls begot.
There Hyde before he had beaten into prose
That noble blade the Muses buckled on,
There one that ruffled in a manly pose
For all his timid heart, there that slow man,
That meditative man, John Synge, and those
Impetuous men, Shawe-Taylor and Hugh Lane,
Found pride established in humility,
A scene well Set and excellent company.
They came like swallows and like swallows went,
And yet a woman's powerful character
Could keep a Swallow to its first intent;
And half a dozen in formation there,
That seemed to whirl upon a compass-point,
Found certainty upon the dreaming air,
The intellectual sweetness of those lines
That cut through time or cross it withershins.
Here, traveller, scholar, poet, take your stand
When all those rooms and passages are gone,
When nettles wave upon a shapeless mound
And saplings root among the broken stone,
And dedicate -- eyes bent upon the ground,
Back turned upon the brightness of the sun
And all the sensuality of the shade --
A moment's memory to that laurelled head.
UNDER my window-ledge the waters race,
Otters below and moor-hens on the top,
Run for a mile undimmed in Heaven's face
Then darkening through "dark' Raftery's "cellar' drop,
Run underground, rise in a rocky place
In Coole demesne, and there to finish up
Spread to a lake and drop into a hole.
What's water but the generated soul?
Upon the border of that lake's a wood
Now all dry sticks under a wintry sun,
And in a copse of beeches there I stood,
For Nature's pulled her tragic buskin on
And all the rant's a mirror of my mood:
At sudden thunder of the mounting swan
I turned about and looked where branches break
The glittering reaches of the flooded lake.
Another emblem there! That stormy white
But seems a concentration of the sky;
And, like the soul, it sails into the sight
And in the morning's gone, no man knows why;
And is so lovely that it sets to right
What knowledge or its lack had set awry,
So atrogantly pure, a child might think
It can be murdered with a spot of ink.
Sound of a stick upon the floor, a sound
From somebody that toils from chair to chair;
Beloved books that famous hands have bound,
Old marble heads, old pictures everywhere;
Great rooms where travelled men and children found
Content or joy; a last inheritor
Where none has reigned that lacked a name and fame
Or out of folly into folly came.
A spot whereon the founders lived and died
Seemed once more dear than life; ancestral trees,
Or gardens rich in memory glorified
Marriages, alliances and families,
And every bride's ambition satisfied.
Where fashion or mere fantasy decrees
We shift about -- all that great glory spent --
Like some poor Arab tribesman and his tent.
We were the last romantics -- chose for theme
Traditional sanctity and loveliness;
Whatever's written in what poets name
The book of the people; whatever most can bless
The mind of man or elevate a rhyme;
But all is changed, that high horse riderless,
Though mounted in that saddle Homer rode
Where the swan drifts upon a darkening flood.

At the last, tenderly,
From the walls of the powerful, fortress’d house,
From the clasp of the knitted locks—from the keep of the well-closed doors,
Let me be wafted.

Let me glide noiselessly forth;
With the key of softness unlock the locks—with a whisper
Set ope the doors, O soul!

Tenderly! be not impatient!
(Strong is your hold, O mortal flesh!
Strong is your hold, O love!)

With years of labour,
I knitted my dreams,
Shaped it into an identity.
It has thread of adventure,
Designed with passion.
It was my cover in freezing winters.
It kept me warm and alive.

Now, the thread seems loose,
Design has faded off.
The comfort is lost.
Trying to knit again…
But the desire seems lost.
The chilling winter has come again,
And am freezing to death.

A tin cat plays guitar on the fires mantle,
The Eiffel tower is knitted to the wall
And trade paper books are loosely strewn,
Dropped about the french coffee table.
The poet, pearling with snowcapped eyes,
Filtering words on ivory keys he knows
The burled wood piano is not yet playing.

The wind was swaying the treetops as
I cut across from the church,
The sun had darkened behind the clouds
When I saw the crow on its perch,
Its feathers fluttered, it looked quite grim
As it sat there, quite on its own,
But watching me with a beady eye
From the top of a blank headstone.

I pulled the collar around my ears
And hunched in my overcoat,
The wind was bringing a bitter chill
To whip at my face and throat,
I staggered over and off the path,
Walked over the headstone plot,
And felt a shiver run down my spine
To wonder what time she’d got.

The crow had uttered a single ‘caw’
From the depths of its blue-black beak,
Then spread its wings like an avatar
And lashed a **** in my cheek,
I stumbled off, I could feel the blood
As it ran, from under my eye,
And hurried home, though I flung a stone
At the crow as it flew on by.

But Rachel stood at the window as
I came in the gate, at last,
She saw the blood, and she put her hand
On up to her mouth, aghast.
I told her it was a minor cut
A thorn on a rose that waved,
She shuddered, flooded her eyes with tears,
Said, ‘Someone walked on my grave!’

‘Someone walked on my grave,’ she said
‘Not even an hour ago…’
My mind went back to the headstone, and
The evil glare of the crow.
‘You’re overwrought, you should sit and rest,
Get warm, for the room is dank,’
But all I could see in my mind just then
Was a headstone that was blank.

I’d taken her from a cruel home
For her parents both were dead,
She’d been brought up by a grandmother
Who was violent, sick she said.
She’d threatened me when we went away
That she’d not be long my bride,
And Rachel never felt safe with me
‘Til her grandmother had died.

I managed to catch the warden when
I saw him, late in the week,
‘Why is that headstone blank?’ I said,
‘Whose is the grave you keep?’
‘There’s no-one buried under that stone,
It was raised for a future soul,
A woman came in the driving rain
And paid for that grave with gold.’

‘But surely you have a name for her
In the graveyard book; you’d know.’
He knitted his brow, and thought aloud:
‘I think that her name was Crow!
She dressed in black, in a mourning gown
With a cloak that looked like wings,
Then vanished, as she had first appeared
When I turned to ask her things.’

I passed the stone on the way back home,
And I stared, my mouth ajar,
For someone had cut a letter there
In the face of the stone, an ‘R’,
I thought of Rachel, hurried on home
But was late, too late I know,
For flying past as I reached the gate
Was the dread form of the crow.

It crashed straight into the window where
My Rachel stood and stared,
Dressed in black, in a mourning gown
It was just as I had feared.
The window smashed as the crow had crashed
With shards of glass all round,
The crow embedded in Rachel’s throat
As she choked her last on the ground.

She lay with both of her arms outstretched
Like a pair of wings in black,
The bird ripped open her jugular,
She wouldn’t be coming back.
I knew she’d hated her grandmother,
She remembered every blow,
But didn’t think she’d be coming back
Though her maiden name was ‘Crow!’

David Lewis Paget

they borrow your white knitted sweater without asking
claim its theirs
hand it back eventually
now with blue stains
that won't come off

call you up
while out with their dog
ask what you're up to
cut you off halfway through your reply
turnes out they only wanted to know if you were available
to watch the dog

mention you gained weight
when in your bikini
(no, you did not ask)

but
when you lay in your sofa
contemplating that
hideous feeling below your chest

you receive a text  
asking if you are being kind to
yourself
as you should

tell your mum
when you're not around
how they appreciat how you always cared about people
and that they knew
you were gonna make it

and when you're home
they make you laugh
so hard
you accidentally
*** a little

sure
it annoys you
when you wash the sweater again
that the stains still won't come off

but
it doesn't really matter
does it  
you were kind of tired of that shirt anyway

I have a lot of them pretty clothes;
Short,long or medium skirts.
Shabby,decent or just mere blouses.
Short,long or medium dresses.
But none can compare to my favorite little black dress.

Its neither too short,nor too long.
And I cannot even classify it to be medium.
Its entire length is knitted in black
As it has stitched in white,
A belt that covers the waist.
Its not a very big belt though,
Too little actually.
But I love my favorite little black dress.

It is not because I can wear it to any occasion that I love it;
I can wear it to dinner,
And yet be comfortable enough to select even my favorite musozya to be my meal.
I can dance for the whole night when in it.
I can meet even the scariest of inlaws in it,
And shake the hands of the most respectable people while having its belt clenching my waist.
My favorite little black dress.
I just love it

And it is not because I got my first kiss in it.
Nor is it because I had just taken it off,
When my lover devoured my flesh and took my innocence with him that night.
Leaving my decency to cling only to my skin,
As if it is on my favorite little black dress.

I kicked a ball in it,
As the boys whaled 'goale! Goale! Goale'
Thinking that since I had a dress for a garment,
Then the goal,I would surely miss.
And yet I didn't.
In my favorite little black dress.

That night when I danced with him,
I wore it.
I could tell my father too,
Appreciated how lovely it made me look on this day,
As he led me to the dance floor,
And yet;
I wasn't even the bride.
My favorite little black dress.

The clouds curl over mountains cold and blue
and rains hiss whispers back to thunder's speak;
so all is mist and green and gray of hue
and in this land a child would wonder seek.
Cowichan coat warms her in its magic
with knitted forms of mystic dancing deer.
That she's alone might seem all too tragic,
but in her mind all that she dreams is here.
She holds an abalone , pearlescent grey
And wonders at the colours caught inside.
She lifts it inside out up to the day
and wishes every heartfelt dream applied.
The abalone then vanished all aglow
and in its place appeared the bright rainbow.

There were raised voices. Ingrid heard them. Her father's booming voice over her mother's screech. She stirred in her small bed. Pulled the blankets over her shoulder. Sheltered by the thick ex army coat of her father's on top of the blankets she snuggled down trying to shut out the sounds. It was Saturday, no school. She hated school, hated the tormenting kids, the lessons, the teacher bellowing at her. Only Benedict talked kindly to her, only he made her laugh, took her on adventures round and about, the bomb sites, the cinema, the swimming pool in Bedlam Park. The voices got louder, there was a sound of glass smashing. Silence followed, her mother's screeching began again, her father's booming voices trying to drown her out. Ingrid pulled the blankets tighter around her. She daren't go out along the passage until it was over. Even though she needed to ***, she held it in, thought of other things. Her wire framed glasses lay on the bedside cabinet her mother had bought at a junk shop. The thick lens were smeary, the wire frame slightly bent where her father's hand had clipped them when he slapped her about the head for talking out of turn. There was a small cut on her nose where the glasses had caught. A radio began to play, the voices had stopped. A door slammed. Her father had gone out. She poked her head out of the blankets. Music filtered through into her room from the radio. She got out of bed and stood on the wooden floor boards. Her clothes: dress, cardigan, underwear and socks were laid neatly on a chair where she'd folded them the night before. She opened the door of her bedroom and ventured down the passage to the toilet and shut the door and put the bolt across and sat down. The music played on. Her mother began to sing. She had weak voice, kind of like a child's. Ingrid played with her fingers. Pretended to knit, as her mother had unsuccessfully tried to show her, with imagined knitting needles. As she sat she felt the bruise on her left buttock. Her father's beating of a day or so ago. She knitted faster, fingers racing. She stopped dropped a stitch as her mother called it. She left the toilet and went to wash in the kitchen sink. She wished they had a bathroom like her cousin did. Her parent's bath was in the kitchen with a table that was let down when not in use. She washed in the cold water, her hands and face and neck. Dried on the towel behind the door. Her mother came in carrying a cup and saucer. She set it down on the draining board and looked at Ingrid. Get yourself some breakfast and then get dressed, if your father catches you in that state, he won't half have a go, her mother said. Ingrid went into the living room and got a bowl from the glass fronted cupboard and a spoon from the drawer and poured herself some cereals and added milk from a jug on the table and sat to eat. Her mother brought in a mug of tea for her and put it on the table and went off to the bedroom to make the bed. The music from the radio played on from the living room window she could see the streets below, the grass area beneath with the two bomb shelters left over from the War where she and other sat or climbed or played around. Over the street was the coal wharf where coal lorries and horse drawn wagons loaded up with sacks of coal. She ate her cereals. A train went across the railway bridge over the way;puffs of smoke rose in the air. Below boys played on the grass. One of the boys had offered her 6d to see her underwear, but she had refused. He shrugged his shoulders and said your loss and wandered off. 6d would have bought her sweets, a drink of pop, but she had her pride. She finished her breakfast and sipped her tea. Warm and sweet. She let her tongue swim in the tea. Benedict said he would buy her some chips after the morning film matinée at the cinema. Her mother said she would give her 9d for the cinema, but not to tell her father. As if she would, she mused, watching a horse drawn wagon leave the coal wharf. She drank the tea and took mug, spoon and bowl into the kitchen  and washed them up and left them on the draining board. She went to her bedroom and took off her nightdress. The mirror on the old dressing table showed a thin pale looking nine year old girl with short cut brown hair and squinting brown eyes. She only saw a blur. She put on her glasses and peered at herself. No wonder the boys laughed at her and the girls avoided her. Only Benedict was friendly to her. He said she was pretty. She couldn't see it, the prettiness. She turned. Over her thin shoulder she saw the bruises on her buttocks. Fading. Bluey greeny yellowish. She walked to get her clothes off the chair and began to dress. She wished she had a cleaner dress, she'd worn that one for nearly a week. The cardigan had holes and there were buttons missing. She did up what buttons there were and brushed her hair with the hairbrush her gran had given her. It had stiff bristles and a large wooden handle. She stood in front of the mirror and peered at herself. She put the 9d her mother had given her in her pocket. Ready or not Benedict would be there soon. He knocked his own special knock. Once her father answered and glared at Benedict and asked what he wanted. Benedict said, to see the prettiest girl in the world. Her father glared harder, Benedict simply smiled. How did he do that? How did he do that to her father? There was a tensive wait, her father glaring and Benedict looking passive. Then her father called her to the door and said, this here boy asked for the prettiest girl in the world; he must have got the wrong address. Ingrid went red and looked at Benedict. No, right address and girl, Benedict said,looking by her father's brawny arm at her. How she managed not to wet herself she didn't know. Her father just walked back indoors and left them to talk on the balcony without any more words and she never got a beating afterwards, either. Now she waited for that special knock. That rat-rat and rat-rat. She smiled at her reflection. Prettiest girl. Ugliest more like. Rat-rat and rat-rat. He was there. He'd come. She could hear his voice. She took one last look at herself in the mirror, wet fingered she dabbed at her hair. Time to go, time to get out of there. Her knight in jeans and jumper had come on a white horse to take her away; imaginary of course.

There once was a boy with bones of obsidian and onyx eyes.
He held me as if all that was beneath my
thickly woven sweater sleeves was my
hollow crystal skeleton.
He held me up to the light like
seaglass he discovered on the beach
and let the sunset filter through me.
One night the onyx in his eyes was sparkling with glints of ruby
and what he didn't know when he
wrapped his hand around my neck and squeezed too tight,
reached into my chest and stole an artery from my rose quartz heart
and an amethyst knuckle from my ring finger,
was that beneath my rose-gold toenails
were leaden feet.
I kicked him swiftly in the groin and ran.
Then came a boy with sapphire eyes.
When he touched me, I felt polished and clean.
He was the first boy I let
take off my knitted sweater.
He stroked the smooth surface of my bones
and when he shattered them,
he would help me repair them.
Between the cracks of my translucent skeleton
are slivers of the shiniest sapphire
you've ever seen.

A candy striped knitted blanket covers were frail thighs,
resting underneath her hands that have baked bread, dug earth and planted tulips.
Hands that have stroked the head of a new born baby, still glistening and ******.
Hands that have crawled out thirties Jewish ghettos.
I reached out to touch them and she turned to me and said,
'Even my wrinkles have wrinkles'

.
A tin cat plays guitar on the fires mantle,
The Eiffel tower is knitted to the wall
And trade paper books are loosely strewn,
Dropped about the french coffee table.
The poet, pearling with snowcapped eyes,
Filtering words on ivory keys he knows
The burled wood piano is not yet playing.

Where buses still elapse with Time
Down straight Dame Street
The Trees are satellites that allow Children to look up
and let the pavement breath.

Earthen Columns that gate the Boombox Clubhouse tint
Flanked by the Yeoman Guards of Hollister
but forget to pay the same compliment
outside of American Apparel
Where Teenagers dream out fantasies
of lamp-lit, flash-shot
worship-worthy objectification
in a converted loft in the real New York
Their headphones spring streams of bright optimism
as they cradle knitted knee-high socks.

Take the curve round Trinity College
and laugh past the rumours
that it may soon float on Dow Jones
and dodge past the charity advertisers
Strutting over campbags of sleeping homeless
to Lemon Cafe for an overpriced Mocha
Which regardless deflates the sheen-covered hollowness
of green-comfy Starbucks

and learn the subtleties of speaking lightly
to dark-jaceketed Blonde girls
Whose eyes seem to sparkle "Yes, we have sipped
on Veuve Clicquot at reserved tables on Graduation nights
at Cafe En Seine"
-"Where Oscar Wilde might have drank"
- "..Had he been alive."

Then speculate on the best Festivals and whose
Films and Books are over-hyped and under-appreciated
and the after-College Gossip on who broke-up or stayed together
or who hooked up even though they shouldn't have
or regretted it

and who's doing a paid internship and who's moving abroad

and afterwards charmingly tease their superficial attitudes
as meanwhile they secretly take photos
to upload on Instagram
and later you'll fake-admonish them
for how they did this behind your back
while you were staring into the lake
in St. Stephen's Green.

When the moon no longer glazed the water
and had receded its contrast to the farthest grass
and you decide to take the last bus home.

Throughout
Caution Glints The Vowels
and Brands them too.

Drop of a hate
Top hat;
Knitted cap;
Russian hat:
Pink *****;
Skulled bandanna -
Red; grey stitches;
Wool yarn -
Head itches;
Black slouching,
Sides pouting,
Hair sticking out,
Color picking: in;
Bear face;
Crochet lace;
leather paper boy;
Pirate toys;
**** mask,
Hold the wax;
Zebra print,
Purple ink;
Furried hood,
"understood;"
Thrift store cat,
Drop of a hat
I am yours:
There will be more.

A tin cat plays guitar on the fires mantle,
The Eiffel tower is knitted to the wall
And trade paper books are loosely strewn,
Dropped about the french coffee table.
The poet, pearling with snowcapped eyes,
Filtering words on ivory keys he knows
The burled wood piano is not yet playing.

In the calm still moonlit night
      she silently wove a silken tapestry -
          spinnerets spewing slender strands
      light as air but strong as Kevlar.

A silvery armature spanned the trail
    clinging to trunks and branches.
          Rappelling down from its pinnacle,
      she fixed radii to her deadly wheel.

Spiraling in from the outer ring
      she knitted her way to the center
          to await the tell-tale shudder
    of a fly or moth flown into her snare.

She took no note of the hiker
      paused alone on the trail -
          transfixed by the dew laden spiral
    shimmering in the rose-glow sun.

It mattered not to the spider
      that a man would find her work pleasing
          and it mattered not to the man
    that the web was not woven for art.

I stitched each of them on to me, knitted
It tight on my flesh. I bleed for a moment
But it was just another etched on my flesh.

Each perforation was another that joined my flesh,
Entwined on my soul I made their hair in to fine
Cotton and each was given a place upon my being.

"Eye,
      "Neddle,
                    "Backstitch­,
                                     "Scissor,
                                                   "Seam,

A honour of their offering was felt as I seeped on
Their twine. Pain was a lust that was sort but
Never harvested and my culling was full.

Flesh was just moment of time aging ever moment
Decaying since birth. Their hair lived longer than
What was but food for thought now no more.

My limbs like a puppet on stings, but I am their keeper
Of life on me, in me they live on. I stich their memory
So many colours do  I weave on to myself.

Blonde,
             Brown,
                         Chestnut,
                                     Ginger

But the ones that are lucky that never grace my being,
They are those of least crowns on their scalp.
I am one of such no hair on myself. But weaves I
Sculpt upon myself, they live on even though bodies rest.


I have many stitches on my flesh of weavings not my own,
But their essence will always be here as long as I live on.
Seeing those moments which will be etched on myself,
I will weave all into the picture etched on my skin.

*"A stitch in time ebbs your existence your soul to mine,

He was the only one that made the yarn trees blossom,
From silken leafs to flowers grown. Then as petals tumbled
Yarn cascaded upon branches and hung. So rich in colour
Were these pieces that they glided upon gentle breezes.

So many colours flowed and creation was gathered each
Picked delicately as not to fray to keep whole. Some of wax
Were covered while others were light like a feather and felt
like air when sewn. All was plucked till blossom fell once more.

He had knitted the cows from birth they were but a yarn
Now they had grown extra stitching with each passing year,
To help them expand and grow. Upon fibered grass they did feed.
Each one was of a different fibre for milking  purest silk.

Everyday the cows would be milked, and white silk did flow
Into buckets collected and off to be designed maybe into
An elegant swan, A dove, butterfly of white did fly upon its
Creation wings so light its beauty fluttered and flowed.

But Farmer stich had other animals, others to create the
Things needed for twine is fine, but to knit we must have
Buttons to hold. And with that they were fed on pellets
Of plastic proteins and quality was a must.

Every day they laid many a egg. Farmer Stitch would
Hold them to the light to see if they had a flurry of
Buttons inside each one different when cracked open.
Some with one hole, two holes, three, rare was a four.

Farmer stitch was a man of sewn words, he would fasten
His thoughts into ideas. When yarn had flowed upon
The breeze, and eggs did buttons fall from. Many a thing
Would be made, and now this yarn is over till again sewn.

some information cannot be found – you can only originate it. facts are often recycled in attempt to clear a logjam that has prevented us from finding ourselves. when i look at the billions of directions my life could have taken, you have to admit we're a very tough bunch, because, who else would have tagged along at this point? we're a recipe for disaster, but that's alright, because we already racked everything. we're bottlenecked. we're deadlocked in ourselves, and there's no way out.

strength cannot be given – it is only self-acquired. we can think of ourselves as vessels of change, but it won't be gifted to you. it has to be done by yourself. it's a real grabber. and once we take it to heart, it works.

axiology—the study of judgments. choice is so vital in postmodern culture, there's a whole branch of study attributed to it. should i take this opportunity, or should i decline it for another? should i rear success with my horns, or wait ecstatically for it to poke me? should i recline, take an easy ride, or work for it? – no matter which outcome, you're still going down the drain because you haven't established the most important part (yet).

i am struggling to understand economics, as well as applied mathematics. wall street certainly does not hang easy for me, but there is more to discuss than stocks and bonds. society has put us in stocks and keeps us in ******* – that’s wall street for you! there are still certain mysteries, such as you cannot put a negative number inside a radical. and all parabolas will have a reflecting twin, no matter how you look at it.

i fell asleep to a black and white movie, and it was still playing when i awoke. however it was in colour. i rubbed my eyes and sat there dazed until i concluded i was dreaming in colour. i woke up again and it was over. now i think that i watch the same movie, but colourized in my dreams, and that i can dream reality, while that reality is a dream within itself.

much reflection has been cast upon theoretical and unchallenged interest in scholars, for example. some presume we can only perceive one – ten-thousands of the universe but of course this can never be proven along with life's destiny and life's purpose, and indubitably, life's meaning. much dark and invisible matter perhaps comprise the rest, but the threads of an unroped cosmos are far from being knitted. can you prove your eternal existence by way of religiosity or science? Jesus rose on the third day and so did the interstellar medium situated in the midheaven. i sleep with a book of philosophy under my pillow, and i'm not in the least ashamed. Alexander the Great slept with a copy of the Iliad, and Mary Shelley, her late husband’s heart. at least philosophy doesn’t stain.

total uproar soars through the galaxy when i begin to think. the terror strikes, and i cower discrediting the truth. my trine is Jupiter, Saturn, and the sun. i’m an Aries, like the one of Judea. constant virtue is what i can believe but i speak in the revolutionary sense. i can enhance my life as long as i am able to try. there is always room to improve a man and i attest to that.

a literary device isn't useful at all until applied in context. an ambition isn't fully good until it is launched. Newton was right, after all. a body is motion will stay in motion until acted upon by an outside force. you are an artist as long as you keep your creative process going until somebody threatens you. then you hide. you establish a force field, which protects you, and you trudge on, because all that matters is your art, in the end. it's everything.

think... Ω-style. one day lofty things won't take pleasure looking at you, because you’ll be confronting them head-first. machtprobe, a german word for showdown. like the one you'll be taking with yourself if you don't buckle down and unravel your weaknesses.

this morning i woke up and stared at myself in the mirror. i was depressed at the condition of my life and my position in the world. my reflection stared back and held up its ******* at me, saying "what are you going to do about it?" not knowing how to answer, i fumbled around possible responses, but it kept going, "it's not that simple, isn't it? life can be tricky when you've got no motivation. it leaves you in a rut until one morning you wake up, depressed about the condition of your life and your position in the world and your mirror's reflection holds up that *******, insuring you're completely aware of the awaiting consequences." it finally shut up and i stood there contemplating its message. "how bad do you want this?" were its last words i heard before i knew that 'initiative' was the one i would soon fall in love with and meet at the chapel to wed.

"either you take it all the way, or you're gonna go astray." it's either one or another, a choice that we have to make. and i don't my reflection to pose a threat to my self-esteem again, so i'm gonna take it all the way...because really. how bad do i want this?

i don't want to have a shoot out with myself again. so when you ask, i'll just tell you algol sent me.

I've worked so hard
to blend into the woodwork
I knitted myself
an invisibility cloak
and I wear it
everywhere I go

because if they can't
see me
then they can't hurt me

one of these days
when my nightmares
stop killing me

maybe I will begin
to reappear again