Clusters of lights like lilies,
Or like boiling craters in obsidian
The black is inky,
It could swallow me whole,
I'm thankful to be strapped in

The horizon scrolls back as the plane lilts
Like an image in an old slide projector
Suddenly the moon is below me
Icarus should have winged by night
I’d be god if I weren’t strapped in

Clusters of light like lilies
In this lolling pond we skim
Light strung like dew on spider silk
A flattened web to stretch the land
thankful not to be attached

Shimmering grids draw nearer
Enveloped in their seductive shimmer
thankful not to crash

The stink of fish on earthen streets
A hot wind blows from ochre hills
Black faces shine with brilliant teeth
Street market ***** doth cure all ills.
Redness in her plaited hair
Rhythm in her steady tread
A harmony of balance, she carries
Water jars on her head.
A market girl is singing
As she sits among bananas
The drama in her music
Is as dusty as the street,
It fills the air with magic
As it lilts above street chatter
In the atmosphere of Africa
Where new and ancient meet.


The goat boy herds his docile flock
Through camel trains and bales
The steamer tethered at the dock
Announces that she sails
With billowed steam and mournful wail
It echoes through the town
And the planter and his agent
Bargain with a harried frown.
The bleating of the goat herd
And the stench of fish and dung
Is as ordinary as Africa
In the searing mid day sun.


Zanzibar is spices, Zanzibar is Stone.
Club Zanzibar is whiskey on the rocks
Consumed alone
Or shared upon the balcony
In the shadow of a palm
With the turquoise Indian ocean
Reaching out beyond the arm.
Do you see the dhows are sailing?
Do you see the fishing nets?
Do you hear the oarsmen chanting?
Did you see black muscle flex?
Have you watched the dripping sweat
Cascade on alabaster brow?
Have you inhaled the scent of Africa
And allowed it to allow?



Colobus monkeys in the treetops
Narrow lanes in the bazaar
Dull white walls adorn stone buildings
And the rupee is by far
The favorite tenure of the Island
Since the days when slaves were sold
By Arab camel caravaners
Who traded coin for young black gold.
East and west collide in concert
Africa and Asia blend
The Sultan's mix of race and spice
In Zanzibar, beyond lands end.


Marshalg
Mangere Bridge
3rd June 2008

the year is two thousand and fourteen and something isn't right

maybe it's related to the fact that there is no more history on the history channel

and the only thing the discovery channel wants to investigate
is the depth of our bank accounts

the word 'integrity' has become archaic. obsolete. unnecessary, simply, because nobody has any anymore.

whatever happened to learning for the sake of learning?

who was the sick greedy ******* who decided that it was okay to charge money for knowledge?

our youth are being put into ******* for the knowledge necessary to survive in this society

of inequality.

in the 21st century slaves toil away in classroom as well as coal mines.

and those who dare to resist the path of post-modern peonage laid before them are doomed to a life of minimum wage mundanity or constant criminal risk.

there is something to be said about the quality of our reality if we are constantly seeking mind altering substances to escape it.

i too have become a slave. and a large portion of those who read this message have as well.

our souls signed away at the dotted line, sealed within great paper phylacteries adorned with the sinister sigils of Sallie Mae.

the chains of our debt will never let go of us. even upon death our progeny will have to hoist our burdens on their shoulders.

and for those of you who know not of our *******, i bid you welcome, like a Brother greater than I once said:

"welcome to the united snakes, land of the thief, and home of the slave. the grand imperial guard, where the dollar is sacred and power is god."

if your total net worth rests below a cool few million i suggest you stay away.

silly me. silly me, silly me, silly me. after all this country was built on generation after generation of genocide, **** and fraud, codified into the laws we hold so tight and so high, how naive was i to even expect civil discourse and equality from a naturally sinister state?

cloaked in the fog of pure ignorance we the people paradoxically bear the weight of our fraudulent federal government on our backs while simultaneously parasitically depend upon it.

parapets and gaudy domiciles all built with the blood sweat and tears of the disenfranchised. soft music composed of the screams of children dying from predator drone hellfire missiles lilts through the hallways.

news flash: the illuminati and the reptilian overlords are not trying to control your mind.

this is not about pineal gland calcification and third eyes but about the systematic disenfranchisement and subjugation of every man woman and child in this unfortunate nation.

they impose harsh sentences on small time drug crimes and outsource our only sources of economic stability.
left with no upward mobility, we then resort to any means necessary to simply survive.

'the world is your oyster.' they say. and they conveniently fail to mention the fine print which emphatically states that you may only possess the oyster shucking knife if you are white, male, and upper middle class.

this is not about checking privilege and white guilt. this is about the way that this ****** up world works. about the sinister cogs turning behind the scenes.

and if you dare raise your voice in resistance you'll find yourself staring at cinderblock walls, spools of barbed wire, reinforced steel bars, and armed guards for the rest of your sad life. your enclosed inmate existence making the coffers of the prison-industrial complex even deeper.

some say we should raise our fists instead and fight. and i say to them good luck fight the world's most technologically advanced military in its own home territory. Guerilla warfare and armed millitias stand about as good of a chance and gorillas armed with sticks and stones when the enemy possesses satellites that can see your face from orbit.

and i hope you don't mine being despised by the public of the modern world when you're slapped in the face with that dreadful catch-all term that is 'terrorist'.

but we can't just sit here and let the vines of greed asphyxiate our vitality away.

so herein lies the eternal question that i pose to you:

what are we to do?

An early, gentle breeze billows
the curtains and lilts a rose that blushes
from the memories of last night’s love.

A hush of air teases a white shirt
with a strawberry kiss on the collar,
still draped across the back of the chair
where it was carelessly tossed the night before.

Sweet sunbeams tug linen sheets and smile
warmly and sweetly behind the ears.
Good morning, love.

Safety and silence, slowly breathing
within an embrace in the only moment
that has ever caressed like this.

we are two trees

lilts of speech
and
soft tapping tendrils played on
stringéd instruments
that is our water supply

intense lashéd eye contact
wrapping our long legs and aching arms around
each other's anatomy
that is our sunshine

heavy, breathy sighs
and long, slithering love-making
that is our photosynthesis

grow with me

I am a musician.
I do not write.
I compose.
I can tell you the tempo of my heart
And how it shifts from adagio to allegro
When I see your face.
How the crescendo of your smile
Creates a symphony in my mind.
How the lilts of your voice are melodies
I will never forget.

I am a musician.
I am not a poet.
I cannot compare thee to a summer's day
But what I can do is compare you to a piece of complete harmony
And consonance.
I can tell you the names of the chords you strike through my veins
When you look me in the eyes.
I cannot turn words into poetry or love
But I can sing you love songs until my voice runs dry.

I am a musician.
I cannot write.
I can strum you like a guitar and make you hum.
I can make you sing sweet melodies when I run my fingers down your spine.
I can tell you how cacophonous my life is without you.
I can tell you how the melody in a monophonic composition feels
When you're gone.
I can feel the syncopation when we are in a fight.

I am a musician.
I am not a poet.
I cannot put into words how I feel about you.
But I can sure as hell try
In this word sonata of thoughts.

over the phone you might think me
a kindhearted metro-****** with a deep voice
that lilts and appropriately pitches
to accommodate your ear
and manipulate your conception of me
so that you wont put a frowney face
nested in the message that im leaving
for someone else
above any "i" that might appear

but this vocal spirit only disguises
the less-than-cheeerful demeanor
with which i walk around
when i deftly cut of all communication
with the people that need me to be
something that makes them feel better
not only about my person
but humanity as a whole too

i have a
love hate relationship with phone voice
it often feels like im acting
i wrote and approved a script
where a melancholy person pretends
to be the most pleasant thing
that you have ever known

"yes, HULLLOOO! im looking to leave a message for
....[puke in mouth] heather"
and when that dreadful experience
wains and vanishes
i light another cigarette
slam down a shot glass
and growl
ghrryeeeeaaaaah

me again
***** with tobacco stained fingers
happy [through ingestion]
but still not that person
never phone voice happy

Chanting lilts the woods,
Tranquil ensemble of leaves:
Forest symphony.

Strawberry sun
hot on swaying hips

a shimmer of skin,
sultry beacon of temptation.

Days smear in sweat
and grass stains.

Twilight carries dusty toes
a few steps further.

Legs dangling, lonely
top of rusted tower,

Moon whispering
“come and kiss me”.

Languid laughter lilts
lining ancient constellations

Space(s) [is] filled
By our separation.

Cicadas croon,
Biding elusive slumber,

dawn’s yellow tendrils grasp eyelashes,
rays morph into rivers of light.

Time, the illusion of a tether;
A notion of perpetual motion

Adrift an absent-minded sea,
Hazy, evasive sleep

Our ropes will fray
in wisps and waves of heat.

C.e.M.
31082016

Bathtubs don’t work for quantum suicide
But every time I take one,
A part of me dies

What was nice under the crescent aglow?
Drunk on stars, or the moon lit show…

Ash of night, cradled what was once mine,
The repertoire of ever-syncing- jawlines.
Puissant is the chalice, its exaltation shined so bright,
Bestowed liberation underneath the chatoyant light,

The open windows left  niveous  fogs-
Breathed -stained –air,  against crystal *****.


Alive and one, under the entire earthly tempo,
Together left her organic imprints of art nouveau.
Beneath the warmth and petrichor ground,
The Lord and Lady commence to be crowned.
...Tree roots sink as veins of gods.
The serpent whispers his mellifluous facade...


The sharp shove of love’s first arrow
Lover’s spit, a seed for cupid’s bucolic furrow.
Scripture of Solomon’s *** temple of doom
All within the nicotine-stained-blue-infrared-bedroom,

Velvet allure, bellies of vigor,
The cold point, the pulled trigger.
Dance of Thelma, ancient cults of non-lovers
Feasting north, under the Horned God’s antlers.
The concoction of the widow’s deviated lust
Skins alive, the excited wolf-mans’ husk…

The gun’s mouth ex hailed bullets of smoke
Piercing hot wounds became tender lilts in up word strokes.
Still, they brought, perforating ice knives through the chest
Catching fades perpetually, just until two came abreast.
The shadow dalliance and hair pulls leave those weary,
The anise flower seeds sanction the suffering query.

What was once so beautiful at night?
Forgotten, as I turned red-haired-heathen in morning’s sight

So I take my hot bath, inure in my offing.
Emollient paean of the porcelain,
...which is my skin
See you, my ethereal being,
In short time spring will be fleeting

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

...you stand surely to shipwreck.
all hands on deck.

accordion three-four lilts amelie
hymn hummed
beneath frenetic waltz of fingers
Rain-bitten and dumb

pirouette recessional to the sea

and such enchanting cobbled waves

how truly quaint rosy tempest in the square

pour down the dirge to murky drain.
throw in the bottle, the maps, the ropes

pirouette recessional to the sea

lastly heave-**
i throw in me.

embers drew to a shaded face, fragmented lips wept;
storms, feral and unabated, loitering in the combe of fires.
the ethereal visions of honey amber lights, faint and narrow;
ebony of my pupils dead, alike of shriveled meadow.

violence thrusted into yellow mouths of daffodils,
like tapestries like yarns of blue saccharine sorrows.
brimming with viscid liquids of blackeries and vains,
like silver mackerels, sleeping out of the abyss, on a train;
like subtle, maladroit shorthands and dewy black inks,
who lilts the fawnish plateaus and quaint alleys.

the depths of my shallow sleeps, glowing under
the burnt foliage, mellifluous sonatas gently play;
strawberries occur under bare walls of throat,
vanish on the morrow, like a dalliance—
so frantic and hollow.

A poem dedicated to all true lovers of Jazz.

TRIBUTE TO JAZZ MUSIC
      BY RAJ NANDY
I can feel its rhythm and beat,
Along with its pulsating pain!
Its music flows freely….
Through my arteries and veins!
Its beats always echoes,
Through the corridors of my mind,
As I get wafted slowly, on the wings
of mystic time!
Its music gets synchronized,
With my heart’s muffled beat,
As I try to keep time, -
With the tapping of my feet!
Each of its pulsating rhythm,
And all its background chimes,
With its syncopated lilts,
Jazz remains harmonized!

The piano players dancing fingers,
Caresses a rhythmic sway,
While the Sax’s deep-throated tenor,
Drives my loneliness away!
When I hear my old Jazz music,
And those golden classic tunes,
I forget I am getting old,
To time I become immune!
For it is then when I begin to feel,  
like the old King Cole;
As this music tingles my mind,
and rejuvenates my soul!
           - Raj Nandy, New Delhi.

I am no...Annie Leibovitz
weilding frames per second
in an angled lens
while you tilt your head back
to laugh at whatever it was
that I said.
It's beautiful.
The sound of your laughter
filling in-between pauses
like music,
so sweet and so dear
but I am no Henry Purcell.
The Fairy-Queen lilts like a bell.
It's all so much like magic
how tragic it is
to have your eyes see mine
and still never know I exist.
I am no Girl With A Pearl Earring
I just find you endearing
how if Sandro had found you
decades ago
You would be Venus
and I would be Picasso.
Both so different yet striking
and maybe you'd know
You are my everything.

Strong music lilts over foggy hills
A bird flies overhead, it's tune being shrill
And with these words my heart seems to fill;
"This is your home. Your ancient home."

A tall, mighty castle rises over the moors
And a strong ocean's waves on the rocks are torn
Somehow, I know here my heart was born;
"This is your home. Your ancient home."

Strong Celtic music floats over the trees
A dancing in my heart just wants to be free
I whisper as I look at the tossing seas;
"This is my home. My ancient home."

When gunmetal streets begin to fade into jazz
My soul walks cool, unafraid into jazz

There are dissonant holes in the sky tonight
The world seems at once to cascade into jazz

The old district buzzing with ambition’s jam
Each dancer's alchemy turns suede into jazz

And the city lights stiff with rigor mortis
Revived into blues, then swayed into jazz

Windows begin flooding unassuming streets
First timid, the passersby wade into jazz

Some to their ankles, unconvinced of the rhyme
Others shun inhibition and parade into jazz

Their excitement displaced by a mellow groove
Miles Davis lilts above, casting shade into jazz

You gently pushed me
into a wall
with your frame on mine again.
A wall –
Painted so long ago you –
could no longer smell the volatile compounds
Acutely confined - my frame
between yours and its.

Palm frond muted light spilled
into imposing window
from New Orleans street lamp
Diffracted in dappled condensate orb.

Condensation drapes into pearls - collapsing
on themselves, and dropped
in unison
with – our - shifts.

Uneven wooden floor panels echo
our obsequious rhythm
of physical appreciation, settled
into their granular responsibility.

Your pulse
embodied in your palms and hips
lilts in soft gasps
as I drape my forearm over your shoulder –
sliding body forward - I dip
into the crook of your neck
finding your pulse on my nose.

I prop my chin into
your
Collar bone crook
glancing into
your deepening eyes,
and press my lips into the
grooves of your neck
as you arch - into
the delicate moment before reciprocation.

I do not wonder what it would be like if walls could talk;
I would love to see them show impressions
of those that have touched their surface –
revealed in smears of paint.

And feel
racing pulses echoed
within those who pressed
into these corridors --
listening to secrets of one another’s bodies.

Grind deeper,
the wall will record our pulse tonight,
and perhaps –
our next encounter
will entail
our bodies
in paint
telling stories we could never capture
in our eyes locked into one another.

Autumn clovers leave
The dirt it stays behind
Steelheads turn up the arms
I don't wanna stay, I see no thing but pride
That man he drowned. He loses everything.

Pinnacle ladies cry, they move up the yawn.
I shake the bed, until tomorrow's grieving.

It shucks our graves in two, splits the pupil's
Fearless cast. I can't run away, I can't make Friday.

The needle takes too long, the blood doesn't leave a trace. The opening is long to go, but
We wallow with it.

Each funeral is a thousand alms
They call to each other's arms.
They won't go astray, even if
You leave them.

Sorrow is my brother's lot
It takes up the head, and leaves us sideways-
Another whim lilts in two. The bridle makes the saw, that breaks down every god. It brands the flock, I don't look at anything.

This day grief makes it hard to go
Another man is bent.
My crooked spine, he shakes in torment.
Up upon the piste, broke down onto the knees
Nothing's there, but I can't look away.
Keep me to yourself
Like a secret you don't know
If I could just find a way
To live another day.

Your voice isn't like a song
Or a prayer.
It's more like a secret.
I am selfish and don't want to share it.
I wan't to catch it in a jar with fresh air and the scent of pine trees
A bottle to mix it with carbonated bubbles
An envelope filled with letters never written.
I want you shrunken down and curled up in the curved shell of my ear.
Whisper, scream, sing, laugh, mutter.
I have a seven-track mind and I'd like you to narrate them all for me.
Read me your homework, your favourite book, your shopping lists, the ingredients of your shampoo.
The breaths and lilts and stutters
Keep it raw and new and open
And I'm honoured.
Share the secret with me.

A poem can be a statement,
A poem can be a song.
It can be a piece of music,
Playing all night long.

First we have to go up,
Then we must go down.
Then we have to go all around
To find this ****** town.

Poetry is music,
Singing us a song.
Any way you choose it,
Bing, bang, ****.

Assonant sounds assemble,
Alliteration lilts our lyres.
Raps and rhymes are pulsing,
Kindling all those fires.

An orchestra is playing
On this very page.
Letters and words are strumming:
It’s a Golden Age.

Choirs of Angels Singing,
Guitars with a twang.
Ear that piano playing,
This may or may not scan.

If a pawn’s the soul of chess,
As Philidor did say,
Then letters and the sounds they show
Are what brighten the poet’s day.

So get those letters running,
All along the page.
Those sounds are our chess pieces,
Ready to engage.

Paul Butters

The mountain swells from the ground
like a tsunami
She lilts up it's slopes as
a deer streaks past,
I stop to watch but immediately
my love calls me
"Higher," she beckons

The trees thin out
in the asthmatic air
from here the earth blooms
forever to the lip
of the sky, where
the wind whispers Fate
I stop to listen
"Higher," she beckons

The air turns to ice
I can just see her face through the howling snow
giant boulders emerge from the storm
monolithic faces
their eye's alight with Prometheus
and from their mouths
I hear Pandora's consequence,
but there is no time
"Higher," croons my angel
and disappears in the flurry

"Higher," her disembodied voice echoes
but I'm at the summit
The wind whips my face
the Moai groan at my feet
Pandora murmurs away

"Higher, higher, higher,"
chants my love
But I am at the summit
the valley looming below like a dare

Fate screams Her secrets,
begging my ear
but she urges me on
"Higher, higher, higher!"
so I jump

There is a song inside my heart,
Waiting to be sung...
Between my lips and your breath
The words slip; your eyes reading them...

You answered me, through the flicker of your eyes
Million letters rushing to unite,
A silent smile, the words flood inside my mind
I looked, my eyes sighing with sweet
Benign...

Between my lips and your breath,
A thousand violins sung wild and spread,
The lilts dancing under the summer sky,
Our love wild; a throe of unshed rain...

i could say a lot of words
but they'd never mean as much as your three do to me
a lot of syllables strung together
with pretty punctuation
like the golden flecks embedded in your eyes
and rhythmic lilts and twirls
like the way we sway together to no music
i could list the reasons
why i stay up too late to talk to you
why i think in terms of 'we' not 'me'
why i would give up a million words for your three
or why i find myself smiling at the mere stupidity i succumbed to
but you know the answer
you know why without need for any words
you know why without need for those three

Cold so cold
Even in the bloom of mid summer
I feel your lips full of need want and desire
Our bodies are as one.
The nightingale lilts its song
And the clematis soothes the moonlight
With it fragrant brambles.
Yet even With this tranquility.
Such completeness like a full moon
Something cold and unspeakable
Pierces my heart.

Sunday's somewhere in the teal dawn
wandering on a lukewarm breeze.
Monday pens weary travelogues
with fugal prose of frozen seas.

Tuesday holds a gilded halo
of sunlit cirrus atop the knoll.
Wednesday gathers ornate words
and begets infinity upon a scroll.

Pale gleams flutter
upon a lap of willowing streams
and in a dream, the sun melts
as the moon sets at the end of my bed.

Island marooned, mana consumed,
and with ancient runes, a song is stitched
as love is woven in the white of wool threads.

Thursday hums a quiet tune
and lilts over the azure morn.
Friday trods the afternoon
through blossom and thorn.

Saturday nestles in cool dusk;
a shroud of purple-painted skies.
We'll blot a scarlet streak of stars
and crown the night with your hazel eyes.

That moment when his speech lilts to a stop
and his irises darken
-just slightly-

and we stare...
breaking that sacred silence
is so hard....

But he can't stare at me like I want to stare at him.
I'm not worthy of that lavish attention.

"You have the most beautiful hazel eyes!"

My eyes are dark brown.

Whose little dog
to wag a finger
at today?

-Bone swallowed,
slid and stuck in
the wrong pipe-

What is enough
to feel better?
an equal distribution
of humors throughout
ones constitution

Scales tipped
by the lilts of
a pointer

Light pours in through vaulted beams,
golden sun streams on darkened oak,
whilst soles echo on the mosaic floor.

A chorus rises, and flies amongst the eaves
where starlings coo and spiders nest.

A stained-glass tear rolls down Mary's breast,
hot candlewax pools like the spent love of a *****.

Castrato lilts fill the heady air,
winter chill banished by glinting lamplight
that catches in the eyes of sinners,
a memory of some distant hymn once heard before.