I

Out of the little chapel I burst
Into the fresh night-air again.
Five minutes full, I waited first
In the doorway, to escape the rain
That drove in gusts down the common’s centre
At the edge of which the chapel stands,
Before I plucked up heart to enter.
Heaven knows how many sorts of hands
Reached past me, groping for the latch
Of the inner door that hung on catch
More obstinate the more they fumbled,
Till, giving way at last with a scold
Of the crazy hinge, in squeezed or tumbled
One sheep more to the rest in fold,
And left me irresolute, standing sentry
In the sheepfold’s lath-and-plaster entry,
Six feet long by three feet wide,
Partitioned off from the vast inside—
I blocked up half of it at least.
No remedy; the rain kept driving.
They eyed me much as some wild beast,
That congregation, still arriving,
Some of them by the main road, white
A long way past me into the night,
Skirting the common, then diverging;
Not a few suddenly emerging
From the common’s self through the paling-gaps,
—They house in the gravel-pits perhaps,
Where the road stops short with its safeguard border
Of lamps, as tired of such disorder;—
But the most turned in yet more abruptly
From a certain squalid knot of alleys,
Where the town’s bad blood once slept corruptly,
Which now the little chapel rallies
And leads into day again,—its priestliness
Lending itself to hide their beastliness
So cleverly (thanks in part to the mason),
And putting so cheery a whitewashed face on
Those neophytes too much in lack of it,
That, where you cross the common as I did,
And meet the party thus presided,
“Mount Zion” with Love-lane at the back of it,
They front you as little disconcerted
As, bound for the hills, her fate averted,
And her wicked people made to mind him,
Lot might have marched with Gomorrah behind him.

II

Well, from the road, the lanes or the common,
In came the flock: the fat weary woman,
Panting and bewildered, down-clapping
Her umbrella with a mighty report,
Grounded it by me, wry and flapping,
A wreck of whalebones; then, with a snort,
Like a startled horse, at the interloper
(Who humbly knew himself improper,
But could not shrink up small enough)
—Round to the door, and in,—the gruff
Hinge’s invariable scold
Making my very blood run cold.
Prompt in the wake of her, up-pattered
On broken clogs, the many-tattered
Little old-faced peaking sister-turned-mother
Of the sickly babe she tried to smother
Somehow up, with its spotted face,
From the cold, on her breast, the one warm place;
She too must stop, wring the poor ends dry
Of a draggled shawl, and add thereby
Her tribute to the door-mat, sopping
Already from my own clothes’ dropping,
Which yet she seemed to grudge I should stand on:
Then, stooping down to take off her pattens,
She bore them defiantly, in each hand one,
Planted together before her breast
And its babe, as good as a lance in rest.
Close on her heels, the dingy satins
Of a female something past me flitted,
With lips as much too white, as a streak
Lay far too red on each hollow cheek;
And it seemed the very door-hinge pitied
All that was left of a woman once,
Holding at least its tongue for the *****.
Then a tall yellow man, like the Penitent Thief,
With his jaw bound up in a handkerchief,
And eyelids ******* together tight,
Led himself in by some inner light.
And, except from him, from each that entered,
I got the same interrogation—
“What, you the alien, you have ventured
To take with us, the elect, your station?
A carer for none of it, a Gallio!”—
Thus, plain as print, I read the glance
At a common prey, in each countenance
As of huntsman giving his hounds the tallyho.
And, when the door’s cry drowned their wonder,
The draught, it always sent in shutting,
Made the flame of the single tallow candle
In the cracked square lantern I stood under,
Shoot its blue lip at me, rebutting
As it were, the luckless cause of scandal:
I verily fancied the zealous light
(In the chapel’s secret, too!) for spite
Would shudder itself clean off the wick,
With the airs of a Saint John’s Candlestick.
There was no standing it much longer.
“Good folks,” thought I, as resolve grew stronger,
“This way you perform the Grand-Inquisitor
When the weather sends you a chance visitor?
You are the men, and wisdom shall die with you,
And none of the old Seven Churches vie with you!
But still, despite the pretty perfection
To which you carry your trick of exclusiveness,
And, taking God’s word under wise protection,
Correct its tendency to diffusiveness,
And bid one reach it over hot ploughshares,—
Still, as I say, though you’ve found salvation,
If I should choose to cry, as now, ‘Shares!’—
See if the best of you bars me my ration!
I prefer, if you please, for my expounder
Of the laws of the feast, the feast’s own Founder;
Mine’s the same right with your poorest and sickliest,
Supposing I don the marriage vestiment:
So, shut your mouth and open your Testament,
And carve me my portion at your quickliest!”
Accordingly, as a shoemaker’s lad
With wizened face in want of soap,
And wet apron wound round his waist like a rope,
(After stopping outside, for his cough was bad,
To get the fit over, poor gentle creature
And so avoid distrubing the preacher)
—Passed in, I sent my elbow spikewise
At the shutting door, and entered likewise,
Received the hinge’s accustomed greeting,
And crossed the threshold’s magic pentacle,
And found myself in full conventicle,
—To wit, in Zion Chapel Meeting,
On the Christmas-Eve of ‘Forty-nine,
Which, calling its flock to their special clover,
Found all assembled and one sheep over,
Whose lot, as the weather pleased, was mine.

III

I very soon had enough of it.
The hot smell and the human noises,
And my neighbor’s coat, the greasy cuff of it,
Were a pebble-stone that a child’s hand poises,
Compared with the pig-of-lead-like pressure
Of the preaching man’s immense stupidity,
As he poured his doctrine forth, full measure,
To meet his audience’s avidity.
You needed not the wit of the Sibyl
To guess the cause of it all, in a twinkling:
No sooner our friend had got an inkling
Of treasure hid in the Holy Bible,
(Whene’er ‘t was the thought first struck him,
How death, at unawares, might duck him
Deeper than the grave, and quench
The gin-shop’s light in hell’s grim drench)
Than he handled it so, in fine irreverence,
As to hug the book of books to pieces:
And, a patchwork of chapters and texts in severance,
Not improved by the private dog’s-ears and creases,
Having clothed his own soul with, he’d fain see equipt yours,—
So tossed you again your Holy Scriptures.
And you picked them up, in a sense, no doubt:
Nay, had but a single face of my neighbors
Appeared to suspect that the preacher’s labors
Were help which the world could be saved without,
‘T is odds but I might have borne in quiet
A qualm or two at my spiritual diet,
Or (who can tell?) perchance even mustered
Somewhat to urge in behalf of the sermon:
But the flock sat on, divinely flustered,
Sniffing, methought, its dew of Hermon
With such content in every snuffle,
As the devil inside us loves to ruffle.
My old fat woman purred with pleasure,
And thumb round thumb went twirling faster,
While she, to his periods keeping measure,
Maternally devoured the pastor.
The man with the handkerchief untied it,
Showed us a horrible wen inside it,
Gave his eyelids yet another *******,
And rocked himself as the woman was doing.
The shoemaker’s lad, discreetly choking,
Kept down his cough. ‘T was too provoking!
My gorge rose at the nonsense and stuff of it;
So, saying like Eve when she plucked the apple,
“I wanted a taste, and now there’s enough of it,”
I flung out of the little chapel.

IV

There was a lull in the rain, a lull
In the wind too; the moon was risen,
And would have shone out pure and full,
But for the ramparted cloud-prison,
Block on block built up in the West,
For what purpose the wind knows best,
Who changes his mind continually.
And the empty other half of the sky
Seemed in its silence as if it knew
What, any moment, might look through
A chance gap in that fortress massy:—
Through its fissures you got hints
Of the flying moon, by the shifting tints,
Now, a dull lion-color, now, brassy
Burning to yellow, and whitest yellow,
Like furnace-smoke just ere flames bellow,
All a-simmer with intense strain
To let her through,—then blank again,
At the hope of her appearance failing.
Just by the chapel a break in the railing
Shows a narrow path directly across;
‘T is ever dry walking there, on the moss—
Besides, you go gently all the way up-hill.
I stooped under and soon felt better;
My head grew lighter, my limbs more supple,
As I walked on, glad to have slipt the fetter.
My mind was full of the scene I had left,
That placid flock, that pastor vociferant,
—How this outside was pure and different!
The sermon, now—what a mingled weft
Of good and ill! Were either less,
Its fellow had colored the whole distinctly;
But alas for the excellent earnestness,
And the truths, quite true if stated succinctly,
But as surely false, in their quaint presentment,
However to pastor and flock’s contentment!
Say rather, such truths looked false to your eyes,
With his provings and parallels twisted and twined,
Till how could you know them, grown double their size
In the natural fog of the good man’s mind,
Like yonder spots of our roadside lamps,
Haloed about with the common’s damps?
Truth remains true, the fault’s in the prover;
The zeal was good, and the aspiration;
And yet, and yet, yet, fifty times over,
Pharaoh received no demonstration,
By his Baker’s dream of Baskets Three,
Of the doctrine of the Trinity,—
Although, as our preacher thus embellished it,
Apparently his hearers relished it
With so unfeigned a gust—who knows if
They did not prefer our friend to Joseph?
But so it is everywhere, one way with all of them!
These people have really felt, no doubt,
A something, the motion they style the Call of them;
And this is their method of bringing about,
By a mechanism of words and tones,
(So many texts in so many groans)
A sort of reviving and reproducing,
More or less perfectly, (who can tell?)
The mood itself, which strengthens by using;
And how that happens, I understand well.
A tune was born in my head last week,
Out of the thump-thump and shriek-shriek
Of the train, as I came by it, up from Manchester;
And when, next week, I take it back again,
My head will sing to the engine’s clack again,
While it only makes my neighbor’s haunches stir,
—Finding no dormant musical sprout
In him, as in me, to be jolted out.
‘T is the taught already that profits by teaching;
He gets no more from the railway’s preaching
Than, from this preacher who does the rail’s officer, I:
Whom therefore the flock cast a jealous eye on.
Still, why paint over their door “Mount Zion,”
To which all flesh shall come, saith the pro phecy?

V

But wherefore be harsh on a single case?
After how many modes, this Christmas-Eve,
Does the self-same weary thing take place?
The same endeavor to make you believe,
And with much the same effect, no more:
Each method abundantly convincing,
As I say, to those convinced before,
But scarce to be swallowed without wincing
By the not-as-yet-convinced. For me,
I have my own church equally:
And in this church my faith sprang first!
(I said, as I reached the rising ground,
And the wind began again, with a burst
Of rain in my face, and a glad rebound
From the heart beneath, as if, God speeding me,
I entered his church-door, nature leading me)
—In youth I looked to these very skies,
And probing their immensities,
I found God there, his visible power;
Yet felt in my heart, amid all its sense
Of the power, an equal evidence
That his love, there too, was the nobler dower.
For the loving worm within its clod
Were diviner than a loveless god
Amid his worlds, I will dare to say.
You know what I mean: God’s all man’s naught:
But also, God, whose pleasure brought
Man into being, stands away
As it were a handbreadth off, to give
Room for the newly-made to live,
And look at him from a place apart,
And use his gifts of brain and heart,
Given, indeed, but to keep forever.
Who speaks of man, then, must not sever
Man’s very elements from man,
Saying, “But all is God’s”—whose plan
Was to create man and then leave him
Able, his own word saith, to grieve him,
But able to glorify him too,
As a mere machine could never do,
That prayed or praised, all unaware
Of its fitness for aught but praise and prayer,
Made perfect as a thing of course.
Man, therefore, stands on his own stock
Of love and power as a pin-point rock:
And, looking to God who ordained divorce
Of the rock from his boundless continent,
Sees, in his power made evident,
Only excess by a million-fold
O’er the power God gave man in the mould.
For, note: man’s hand, first formed to carry
A few pounds’ weight, when taught to marry
Its strength with an engine’s, lifts a mountain,
—Advancing in power by one degree;
And why count steps through eternity?
But love is the ever-springing fountain:
Man may enlarge or narrow his bed
For the water’s play, but the water-head—
How can he multiply or reduce it?
As easy create it, as cause it to cease;
He may profit by it, or abuse it,
But ‘t is not a thing to bear increase
As power does: be love less or more
In the heart of man, he keeps it shut
Or opes it wide, as he pleases, but
Love’s sum remains what it was before.
So, gazing up, in my youth, at love
As seen through power, ever above
All modes which make it manifest,
My soul brought all to a single test—
That he, the Eternal First and Last,
Who, in his power, had so surpassed
All man conceives of what is might,—
Whose wisdom, too, showed infinite,
—Would prove as infinitely good;
Would never, (my soul understood,)
With power to work all love desires,
Bestow e’en less than man requires;
That he who endlessly was teaching,
Above my spirit’s utmost reaching,
What love can do in the leaf or stone,
(So that to master this alone,
This done in the stone or leaf for me,
I must go on learning endlessly)
Would never need that I, in turn,
Should point him out defect unheeded,
And show that God had yet to learn
What the meanest human creature needed,
—Not life, to wit, for a few short years,
Tracking his way through doubts and fears,
While the stupid earth on which I stay
Suffers no change, but passive adds
Its myriad years to myriads,
Though I, he gave it to, decay,
Seeing death come and choose about me,
And my dearest ones depart without me.
No: love which, on earth, amid all the shows of it,
Has ever been seen the sole good of life in it,
The love, ever growing there, spite of the strife in it,
Shall arise, made perfect, from death’s repose of it.
And I shall behold thee, face to face,
O God, and in thy light retrace
How in all I loved here, still wast thou!
Whom pressing to, then, as I fain would now,
I shall find as able to satiate
The love, thy gift, as my spirit’s wonder
Thou art able to quicken and sublimate,
With this sky of thine, that I now walk under
And glory in thee for, as I gaze
Thus, thus! Oh, let men keep their ways
Of seeking thee in a narrow shrine—
Be this my way! And this is mine!

VI

For lo, what think you? suddenly
The rain and the wind ceased, and the sky
Received at once the full fruition
Of the moon’s consummate apparition.
The black cloud-barricade was riven,
Ruined beneath her feet, and driven
Deep in the West; while, bare and breathless,
North and South and East lay ready
For a glorious thing that, dauntless, deathless,
Sprang across them and stood steady.
‘T was a moon-rainbow, vast and perfect,
From heaven to heaven extending, perfect
As the mother-moon’s self, full in face.
It rose, distinctly at the base
With its seven proper colors chorded,
Which still, in the rising, were compressed,
Until at last they coalesced,
And supreme the spectral creature lorded
In a triumph of whitest white,—
Above which intervened the night.
But above night too, like only the next,
The second of a wondrous sequence,
Reaching in rare and rarer frequence,
Till the heaven of heavens were circumflexed
Another rainbow rose, a mightier,
Fainter, flushier and flightier,—
Rapture dying along its verge.
Oh, whose foot shall I see emerge,
Whose, from the straining topmost dark,
On to the keystone of that are?

VII

This sight was shown me, there and then,—
Me, one out of a world of men,
Singled forth, as the chance might hap
To another if, in a thu

Lorded
The mad writer licked the crystal

To get a sale

This he got oh yes

Bought an atomic

And sent it to Putin

By 1st class post

"And Abraham drew near, and said,
Wilt thou also destroy the righteous with the wicked?"
- Genesis 18:23

I

There are about four thousand people
Here.
They throng in blasted heat like
Little arid wasps.
Gasping summer rain,
Like the opposite of fish.
Of their individual character
I can give no generality.

They are men and women,
They stand on roofs and
Sleep on their words.
They are hot and cold
And they hate and scold.
They are devils and stars
And ***** and priests
And children of priests.
Orators, they are also:
The speakers of the state (which
Is hotter than they could
Ever know); they steal
And reel and impose their
Splitting fingernails deep into
The varnish of the
Wishing well.

They are men and women,
They stand on roofs and
Smother dreams by spitting on the sky.

II

Fox. Come and light my little room
With your brilliant breath. Have you
Come very far? From the eye of the trees?

I should leave this little town if I were you.
It has its ways and leeches from our
Dangling hands. A tongue named Lethe.

Wake early and flee back to your dark,
Summon that green corpus shell that
You came from and follow its outlying root.

You should know the power of the vine.
It crawls in the blinding night and
Strangles what it cannot feed upon.

Oh my little fox, I beg you turn back,
For in familiarity lies strength and nothing
In this wilderness will give you nourishment.

III

He walks in waterways and crunches bone.
He watches moonlight play on open wounds.
He wishes dearly for the ends of weeks.
I heard him live his life without a sound.

The high school band with a treble clef. The year
Of empty penmanship in which he wrote
A thousand notes and mailed them underground
About which neither parent knew a thing.

Encounters best discovered some years later
Work to redden ears in coffee shops,
Or rather as I’m talking to him now,
With darting speech and halting eyes and all.

Perhaps the atmosphere could lend itself to blame,
The hormones and the collusive ennui.
But little charms the tear ducts quite like saying,
“Why am I this way, do you suppose?”

I haven’t got the heart to make reply
And often pose myself the same question
Before the mirror thinking of my whims,
The muddied roads that led me where they did.

My time has run itself to pieces in
The hope of spreading my horizons, but
Some sand runs faster in the way, some gains
More ground. And mine? This distance is unknown.

I licked the shelves of Hardy, Plath, and Keats.
I lorded over idiots with glee.
I lured the fathoms of my mind to float.
And oh, the things that he must think of me.

IV

The doors know I am coming,
They dart out of my way.
My telekinesis stops there
But I troll forward
And brandish my little iron steed.

****. Adjust my strap
And push the cart onward.
My purse like a little leather
Bundle of swaddling.
I nuzzle it close to my breast.

Frozen foods. Diet says
No carbohydrates, so I adjust
My tastes. In a little town
Like this, they’ll notice if
I don’t.

Magazine aisle. Nothing
But ***-endorsing rags
And godless photo sessions fit
For lining shelves and
little else.

Lord, this vast store!
Give me strength to bet back
To my car. God, look at
That **** at the pharmacy
Asking for birth control.

And I can’t help but
Cluck my tongue at her:
I just tell Ray I have a headache
And turn on my back.
Ha, as if she’s married.

No decency any more.
Men getting married, women too!
God supposedly “Banging” us out of
Star dust. Who are those atheists
To judge my truth?

Checkout. No, self-checkout.
I don’t like that clerk
Staring at me. Receipt.
Probably a ******* anyway.
And for a moment my mind controls the doors and all things.

V

She’s gone a bit insane.
Yesterday in class, she asked
To go to the lavatory
And just went straight home.
(Poor thing, I can’t blame
Her after all that has happened.)

She’s told me about her
Father before. Whether she’ll
End up as warped remains
To be seen. She’s got my sympathy.
(Mother dead at four, brother at
Seven and something else at twelve.)

Senior year is more than
Freedom from Dad, she says.
It’s freedom from myself,
Whatever that means.
(It is her father’s profound wish
That she memorize all of Revelations.)

From the grass, she tells me
That her father explained to her
That non-dairy creamer kills
Ants. She does it with a smile.
(We don’t have to say much more,
Suffice it to say he’s a very loud man.)

She still has an averse reaction
To stories about car crashes.
And I never read her her
Early July horoscope.
(Nightmares are too kind.
Panic sifts through windowpanes.)

Her uncle doesn’t call from
The old hometown, he was
Grabbed from her life and her
Father never says why they moved here.
(Two years her junior, she jokingly
Calls me Grandma because)

She hates her real one. Prom
And graduation. A candle
Ceremony and she’s gone.
Her father left before it was over.
(I’ll miss her, but I made
Her promise not to visit.)

VI

Hot like a miracle breath.
The two seasons: Summer
And February.
We taste the heat
And drive away for the weekend.
Of course the world ends
And the “Welcome to” sign.

Unsurprisingly,
The radio dies as we
Head back to town.
Why should the death of
An intangible surprise me?
Everything else
Dies here.

Pessimism like a mockingbird.
The smoking trees
Ripple like an Ella
Fitzgerald vowel.
Hold your
Miraculous breath
And it still won’t rain.

Our abortion
Welcomes the needle heat
with a  horrifying
Little finger.
That smile,
That smile.
Jesus.

How can it stay so
Hot? No reply,
But I forgot who
Was asking.
The irony of this ****
Town sparks my
Smile.

VII

So where are you from?

        I lived up north
Before I moved down here.
They needed teachers and
I thought “Why not?” Turns
Out this place is a lot
Slower than up where I
Came from. No offense.

(Laughs) None taken.
So what are you teaching?

Senior English. Pretty cool
Subject but I was shocked
How little the kids had been
Exposed to. I hope to remedy
That soon. (Mumbles something)
Any more problems, you know?

The parents have complained?

Oh, just the usual nitpicky
Silliness: “I don’t want my
Christa or Johnny reading
Such-and-such a book.”
After a few years, I’m
Sure the parents will lighten up.
Or, (Laughs) at least I hope.

How are the kids?

Can I actually answer that one?
One or two brights but most
Just seem ready to get out.
They’d better be willing to put
In some actual thought if
They really hope to. (Pause)
It’s not all about sports.

(Laughs) I hope you’re not too
******* the athletes. They do their best.

Well, I certainly hope
They do. I won’t play
Favorites or anything like
That. Hardly fair to the
Others, right? (Laughs,
A pause, tape ends.)

VIII

He can’t breathe.

He’s been running for
Hours.
The trees. The brush.

Wonderful veins blast
Away at their work
To preserve him;
Great fibrous tendons
Work to carry him
Away from the noise.

The murderous streets with
Scoured buildings
And trees inviting the
Convening crowds to lay
Out their burdens, to
String them up and
Ease their hard frustrations.

They have not seen him as yet.
He follows Polaris,
god of the irreverent,
Meager candle for a
Drowning man.

Exposed road; he flags
A car like a madman.
Well, we shan’t go
So far as to call him that.
And has he any bags?
No.
And which way is he going?
North.

Procession. Silence.

The coolish progress
Of a blackish
Summerish
Night.
How many minutes
out of town? and how
many moments in the
rounding cruelty of acting?
The driver smiles in his driver’s
Seat, eyes lit by the green
Display, ears filled suddenly with
Static.

The bruised night
Raises its single, white eye
Like the ponderous pitch
Of a bird.

I suppose he knew from
The second he saw the car:
There was never any sanctuary
In this little cloister.

The towns spreads like
Botulism over both windows.
He stops before the courthouse.
Stops before his jury,
Hanging judges.
And you needn‘t ask yourself
“Who are they?”

I’ll tell you.

They are men and women,
They stand on roofs.

They are boys from California
Who ran like foxes but refused
To run away.

They are musicians who lived
Their lives without a sound.

They are hopeless hags who
Speak in blinding grocery stores
And **** the gossip air.

They are girls with opportunities
Burst like an innocent cell
And violated by the heavy hand
That tucks them deep to sleep.

They are cruel little ******* who
Only wanted something to listen to
While the seasons spun around them.

They are teachers who never learned.
They are hearts that never burned.
They are heads that never cooled.
Not when it’s so hot outside.

They grew uneven like a story
Written in celebration of a meaningless title.
They have every right to be angry,
And yet they level their stones
At one another instead of the
Hell a glass house can become.

They walk so slow the sun
Can stoop and eat them up
Without the briefest guilt.

You'll always be twenty-three.
Always.
And that kills me.
You were older than me.
Now...

******* the futility of it all.
******* ******* it all!
I wish that I could punch a hole
in the world with my words and
find you.
I wish you knew.

I just wanted to tell you..
I just thought you needed to know,
at least once before everything is
broken headlights and crushed
tomorrows.
Blood and pavement and a median.
Crushed glass and a world
standing hollow without you.
I wish you knew.

I think I loved you once.
Think.
Coward.
I need to find you some days.
**** this tired world and it's
arbitrary thefts.

Your name should have a million hits a day.
You should have been...
My god how brilliant you were.
Like a jewel and like a genius.
You should have been forever.

I guess, in a way, you are.

You were a part of my life,
and a much bigger part than I ever would
have had you believe.
Did you know that? Had you figured it out?
Perhaps not.

A year since. Fifty-two weeks.
More in fact.
It was May.
Day after my brother's birthday.

******* it.

You were older than me.
October to my November.
One month that you lorded over me.
One month.

You'll always be twenty-three.
Always.
Forever.
Now...

Some once called him a Grand Old Man,
Others called him a slime,
You couldn’t get a consensus that
Was even, all the time,
For some kow-towed to his money, while
Others fell by his sword,
His life was overall sunny, while
His victims quailed at his word.

He lorded it over his children,
He ruled their kids with ease,
A sullen look from beneath his brow
Would bring them to their knees,
His will was forever changing
As solicitors came and went,
One day he’d offer a mansion,
And another day, a tent.

When he finally died he was stony broke
And they wondered where it went,
He’d always been abstemious
But the money had been spent.
He left all their lives in ruins with
Their expectations gone,
A couple of ramshackle houses were
The only things they won.

There wasn’t the money to bury him
So they left him where he sat,
Up at the head of the table in
His black, beribboned hat,
He glared at them as he’d glared in life
One hand on the table-top,
Where he used to tap with his finger
As if it would never stop.

Tap-tap-tap on the table-top,
Tap-tap-tap it went,
His eyes bored into the back of your head
As if to say - Repent!
And people scurried, this way and that
To divine what the tartar meant,
The grim old man in his black top hat
Who ruled to their detriment.

They left him sat and they locked the door
Didn’t go back for a year,
Til the eldest, saying ‘let’s know for sure,’
Returned with a tinge of fear.
‘He might have stocks in his waistband there
Or shares hid under his shirt,
Or cash stuffed in his beribboned hat -
He treated us all like dirt!’

He ventured into the dining room
Where the grim old man still sat,
His eyes a-glare in the year long gloom
From under the brim of his hat.
But as the eldest approached him there
The finger began to tap,
A steady rap with a note of doom
That would curdle blood to sap.

So Toby dived to the tinder box
And he leapt up with the axe,
His face as pale as a ghostly tale
But determined to attack.
He raised the axe and he let it fall
Severed the finger there,
It skittered across the table top
As the old man fell from his chair.

The stocks were stuffed in the old man’s hat
The shares were stuffed in his sleeve,
And so much cash in his waistband that
They said, you wouldn’t believe.
But still he’s locked in that grey old house
For they found it wouldn’t stop,
That severed finger that skittered there
Still taps on the table-top!

David Lewis Paget

A Story of Scientology and the
Mental Health System Connection


MARILYN

"Her weapons were her crystal eyes... driving every man mad... (dark) as the dark night she was... had what no one else had..."
BANANARAMA "Venus"

Upon first meeting with Marilyn the first thing I was struck by were her eyes. If the eyes are the windows of the soul, hers were the stained glass of Winchester Cathedral. They were absolutely beautiful. Polished obsidion orbs that seemed to have an inner light for all their blackness. The second thing I noticed were her teeth. Strong. Perfectly even, and glistening white. Lastly her height and *figure. Again, I shall use the Winchester Cathedral metaphor... she was positively that... not just a brick house, she was marble! Cantilevered, with flying buttresses everywhere! WOW!

Now, I'm not a lesbian. But if I were, Marilyn would have been in trouble! I was to notice flaws in her looks as time went on. Her thick, shiny raven hair was poorly cut, and her face, while striking, was not all that beautiful. Her features were even and well proportioned, but she was not a classic beauty.  She was of arabic/caucasian liniage. If I were to be perfectly honest with myself, I noticed these imperfections because I was somewhat envious. She was a man-magnet. Ms Pac-Man! I'm not an ugly woman. But I couldn't hold a candle to Marilyn!

As fate would have it, I became her "twin". We were on the buddy system at the beginning of our Sea Org training, and I was paired up with Marilyn. As luck would have it, we hit it off. Even though I felt like a shadow next to her light, I also really liked her. And she liked ME. She never lorded her looks over me. Her brilliant smile could melt the stoniest heart. And we enjoyed the same things. Though she was no artist, she really appreciated art. I actually drew her portrait (which she kept and framed, she told me many years later). We would take long walks around the Hollywood area, and, when time allowed, went to the beach. Santa Monica Pier. She had a droll sense of humor which i could appreciate, and i made her laugh, too. We got along very well.

Our Mission, should we decide to accept it (or NOT), was to write letters to people who had, at one time, been interested in scientology, or the Sea Org (not necessarily in that order). We were told that we to up our "statistics" daily. All jobs were measured statistically. Now, even at THAT age, I knew the Samuel Clemmons quote, "There are lies. **** lies. And statistics." But i thought it prudent not to mention that to anyone.

So, we were to write letters. We worked out a system for staying "upstat". We figured if we wrote LONG letters, and took breaks at first, then wrote shorter letters as time went on we could "beat the system". So we did. We never competed with each other. I was slightly faster than she (I'm a writer, obviously) but she didn't care. I could write. But she could spell. I was never good at that (I HAVE autocorrect on my phone, lol!).

Our I/C (in charge) never really bothered us. We were "upstat". So we joked around and had fun with it. We were allowed to go out and have a little time off occasionally.
I remember going to see the first STAR WARS movie with Marilyn and another dude who was totally smitten with her. She didn't even feign interest, even if he WAS very funny, and good looking in a diminutive way. But he was around her in a holding patern! Like a hummingbird to a honeysuckle! Shaharizade had mesmerized him with her seven veils! But the poor man never got anywhere. So he started to evince interest in me! But got nowhere in that arena either! Poor dude! So, that's how it worked. Marilyn would draw masculine attention. And, eventually, I would be "second pick". Oh, well. I knew better than to "get involved". There was a strict rule about "fratenization". A polite term for ***". THAT was VERBOTEN! It was grounds for RPF, should the partners be unmarried. And since I had NO desire to marry any of them, those dudes were out o luck.

Time went on. FRU  (Flag Recruit Unit) didn't seem so bad! And then there was the lure of my final destination. Flag Land Base... Finally I was ready to take my

...*1,300 mile Greyhound bus!

The United States on many levels is a messy affair. Often this plays towards its strengths - a heterogeneous glob of skin colors, backgrounds, opinions, personalities, and characters over the past 240 years has helped shape a cultural, political and economic haphazard semi-benevolent, oft-belligerent empire not seen on this planet before its creation.

We would be idiotic to think that these past two centuries, and nearly a half, have been without some outstanding contradictions. We could pornagraphicly chart how glorious words from the Declaration of Independence have been ******, again and again, including “all men are created equal” and how people have the right to “throw off such Government[s], and to provide new Guards for their future security” when such governments do not serve the will of the people.

We could start with how a great portion of the founding fathers were slave holders, then we could move onto less touchy subjects like most were rich and all were white (and had penises). Sure, we could write that stuff off - you know - the times, the course of history, blah, blah, blah. And all that is true. America has had its Frederick Douglass, its Martin Luther King, its Sacagawea, and Chief what's-his-name, along with all those famous Latinos and Asians they teach us about in grade school we remember so well.

But then, we turn towards those other two hundred odd years where the United States’ culture and politics hung black men and women from trees like strange fruit or burned them alive atop hateful lumber, committed genocide against Native Americans and buffalos with guns and blankets, while also overtly and covertly murdered and overthrew leaders and regimes in Latin America, Asia and the Middle East for resources, power, and influence. Then there was that whole thing where we herded Japanese people into pig pens before we massacred somewhere around 200,000 of them on some island in the pacific with big bombs we had immigrants create for us. To be fair, they started it.

We could write that stuff off - you know - the times, the course of history, blah, blah, blah. And that’s true.

Lean in a bit more and you’ll smell a bit more sweaty *******. Pull yourself up by your bootstraps kinda stuff.  Just like how the current President started off with nothing but a multimillion dollar loan from his daddy to kick off his economic empire. Just like how anyone can succeed in America as long as you work hard, which is why minorities in this country control a majority of multinational corporations, hold a majority in both the Senate and House of Representatives and why every white kid in America grows up aspiring to be either Black or Latino because their parents say “it's for the best.” Just like how America has the best health care, that’s why America has the lowest infant mortality rate and the healthiest people who never ****** each other with 2nd Amendment guns or commit suicide after killing their families or classmates.

Are you writing this down? I am.

Perhaps we could turn to ourselves (I’ll play the overly judgmental overlord who doesn’t give a **** about your feelings or my own personal hypocrisy) ready? How about the shallow puddle of desire we hold in our hands that we mindlessly scroll through and tap and caress and coddle and cling to like an obsessed sociopath? That thing that connects us but deletes us from the here and now? That thing that traps us into a circle of impersonations of ourselves?

Hold your head just this way, smile just like that, clench the jaw just so, a little less cleavage, a little more flex and tuck, bribe the kid for a smile  and - SELFIE! I am a happy, successful, wealthy, witty, charming, sassy, badass ******* genius party hound, bound for success and glory and please like this post or photo or confession or rant or meaningless comment about my mundane life. I need to stay connected.

Let’s drop the phone. I’m still the overlording hypocrite. How about we talk about the polished mirror we strap to our heads by leather, stick, and string and leave dangling before our every step and twinkling eye? We ***** and moan about the drive to work, the long flight, the uppity moronic ******* at the office. On the other side of the mirror a drone strike just killed a mother’s son. Did you vote, do you care? We bemoan the ****** pay and mindless work we’re given in a corporate service driven economy lorded over by overpaid ******. Move the mirror and look in the distance, a dictator just mass murdered his own people. We wallow in self-pity, no one sees our potential, our worth. At the stoplight downtown, hold the gaze of your fellow American asking for a buck - what’s he worth? What’s yours and why?

Okay, how about this? We stroke the ***** and ***** of our own deflated morality by inflating the stupidity of others. Mr. Jones lost his job and slept with a woman not his wife - oh, my. Mrs. Jones chopped off his ****, how unladylike - oh, my. This might be where we avoid the mirror we’ve strapped to our heads by stick and string. I’d never do that, never done anything like it. He deserves what he got and she’s off to the psych ward for sure. Yet, we guzzle down the *** of lurid stories steeped in “other” people's faults. We’re all in the **** video now, and everyone’s acting *****.

Let’s not pretend anymore. Humanity is America and America is messy and often ugly. But there, in the chaos, gleams an oxymoronic hope to do better. To be better. I am as small as my mistakes and shortcomings but as towering as my dreams and ideals. We cannot change or erase our past stupidity, but we can be so much more tomorrow. I want to be an empire of hope, a mountain of kindness, a river of acceptance, a field of peace. A good father to my daughters, a loving partner to my wife. A man that lives.

Let's not write that future off as blah, blah, blah.

With a little tightening round the waist the skinny day comes out to taste the fatness of the light
I am in sight of something great but I'm hungry ,cannot wait
so I make my move too soon
and am swallowed in the craters of a Moon so cold
so very,very old with its yellow hardened crust that would lead me into desperation with gnarled hands and beard and face as red as any rust turned into dust
I would become
the dying of a dying sun
no matter fat or thin or if I wore a belt or braces
the many faces I would see
would only ever face the end of me.

I try to modify this future that only I can see by praying to a God I can't and never did
I wonder if that God is hid among the craters on the Moon and was it that he made his move too soon?
If so,
we'll have much to muse upon as we wonder where our lives have gone
and would he tell me how to live or would he give a eulogy
prepare me for that long journey?

I've come ten million stars through another thousand corner half lit bars where girls would sell me ballerina dreams that danced for me on spotlight screens and how could everything that seemed so real
be whisked away?

The spinning wheel came to a stop and zero popped up on the marker board where rich men ****** their eminence
and all pretence was stripped away.
Any other day the Lords that lorded over us would break up parliaments and owls would hoot and say
Wit and to whom would we deliver it?

A bit of eccentricity electric elementary educationalists get me fired up again as if I ever learned from them old men with old ideas whose only thoughts were to get young men up off their rears and into wars
more ****** who sold a bill of lading to trading partners who shot us down in front room parlours on council housing states of minds.

A kind of beauty in this fractured glass where through osmosis I can pass but not pass away only into some other uneventful day.
I lay my tortures on your brow
you know how to soothe this pain
before I go off scale again and read a riot act to those, where those who have lain their lives in ***** fields and barn houses full of hay
would have me say,
that we should not have to live this way.

In the craters on the Moon
I see that all is all too soon and will always be
another eulogy is read
for the dead undead who do not know
that here is where we are
there's nowhere left to go.

I have lorded over all since the beginning of time.
Everything that ever was; All of creation is mine.
Can you not tell; Can you not see the signs?
Building the human body to withstand the test of time.

I breathed life into the stars; I gave birth to the night.
Upon my whims, I created the days and also the light.
The oceans, the lands, all were built by my hands

To all those that have seen, you have seen me at my best
My thundering abs, my rock hard pecs,
My simply irresistible mortal flesh.

I have choirs of angels singing to me at every meal
Heavenly tunes ringing out in all directions,
At my palace daily is the place to feel,
The love of god, the splendor of my will

I gave you, as man, free will to do as you please.
But an emerging trend has developed, it seems
Lately, I feel unsatisfied answering your needs.
Groveling, bent at the knee
You beg and plead for help from me
To save you from devices of your own making
Constantly breaking your own laws
Constantly taking the lives of those around you

Some may attest, even persuade themselves
That I do not exist; Living simply as a myth.
Hearing & Preaching my arch-rival's tales,
Of Sin & Corruption on massive scales.
Then answer how my work is seen
In the human body, down to the humble bean?

I send you my last regards
A message from on high
In hopes that you aren't ALL retards
Get your world fixed right!

frailty
in beauty, as if that was the way it was supposed to be.
with hollow bones, like sparrows, just a stones throw away
if she was wicker, someone paid a hefty price.
and the bed sheets smelled twice laundered.
thin and devoid of meaning.
such a silly thing,
that moved like wind and breath would sway her
willow tree, that one
bent over in eternal weakness
like a daisy, wilting
but how she lorded over all the thoughts of men like a sovereign

This is the house.
Ruled by hostility
that still believes in slaves.

This is the house,
walls held up by arrogance and
false bravado,
lorded over by a tyrant with
ammunition:
bullets and berating.

This is the house,
cloudy day and night
despair billowing
from the dragon king.

This is the house
that would drive a saint to drink.
that drove a girl to cut.
that will driving the sanity from it's offspring
from walls held up with hate alone

This is the house that * built.

They've defrauded us
Lorded it over us.
A reason for divorce?
but of course
what do we do?
We,
like sheep in a zoo
put more pennies in their pound as they
pound us deeper and deeper
into the ground.

I'd love to be a banker
I wouldn't be a canker
on society,
I'd be generous to a fault
open the vault
become a philanthropist,
miss out on my bonus
give back the onus
to where it belongs.

Pipe dreams it seems
just smoking away
while bankers make hay,
they say,
even as it rains so shall we pour,
money makes money and money makes more.

My money under the mattress
is still worth more
than it would be locked up
in the banks that
we seem to adore.

just write through every thingle bad feeling you'll ever feel in your entire loife. my grandma died but i can write it out and feel better and remember the good times. my lip hurts cuz the dentist burnt it with his tools but i can write it out and realize it looks like a huge coldesore and its fun to bite. my job is a diabetes factory lorded over by monkeys who love the smell of throwing their own poopoo but i can write it out so now its actually a place full of individuals who struggle to express themselves and therefore have to express themselves in the only way they know how, which is by exerting power, and so exerting power in itself becomes something of an art and some people's paintings are like throwing up through a straw onto a spongy canvas. there is that sort of art, that the masses can appreciate and find fun to look at, and then there is the art that goes unnoticed.

I lived on Heavenly Lane
And with me I brought a demon
It lorded over and corrupted
Completely
Why it followed me
I can’t say
But one night
While it was sleeping
I killed it
Or at least I tried
I’m not sure now that it
Well…
It was playing possum
When I awoke
It sat at the food of my bed
Drinking something
And laughing wildly
Sticking on itself
Things made for other people
I smiled
And hugged it
Then it passed out.

Alan had stood at our open door,
Shaking and white with fright,
First he was speaking to Eleanor,
Then had a word with Dwight.
‘What seems the problem,’ I said to him,
(My name, by the way, is Bill),
‘Haven’t you seen it,’ he said to me,
‘It’s moving, McAvanagh’s Hill!’

I went to the door and I looked on out,
The hill seemed to still be in place,
On closer inspection, it seemed to me
It had moved to the south, a trace.
‘It must be a trick of the light,’ I said,
A hill is a hill and can’t move,’
‘But look at McCafferty’s,’ Alan said,
‘It’s settling down in a groove.’

And true, but McCafferty’s roof had moved,
It used to stand up on the height,
The moon would come up just behind his roof
And highlight his house every night.
His house had dropped down the back of the hill
Or the top of the hill was too high,
‘Now isn’t that strange?’ I said in a muse,
And Dwight said, ‘I wonder why?’

The rumbling, grumbling started that night
But deep in the earth, underneath,
And Eleanor came in a panic to cry,
‘There’s movement, out there on the heath!’
We ran to the garden, and under the moon
We could see the heath starting to tilt,
As slowly it moved, and then it became
The rising front side of the hill.

Alan ran home and brought back a gun
He said, ‘I feel better with this!’
‘You think you can stop it by firing a gun?’
‘At least with a hill, you can’t miss.
There’s something behind it, something so weird,
A hill can’t just move by itself.’
Then Eleanor suddenly burst into tears,
‘The Devil’s come into the Dell!’

We didn’t get very much sleep that night,
We took it in turns just to watch,
The nearer the movement came up to our door
The more Alan knocked off my Scotch.
We felt the first tilt of the house next day,
Our porch was beginning to rise,
The hill loomed above us, and leaning back,
The house pointed up to the skies.

McCafferty’s house had quite disappeared
As it slid down the other side,
While our house was on the way to the top,
It was really a question of pride.
McCafferty lorded it over us all
As long as his house was on top,
But now he came racing along, was appalled,
‘I order this movement to stop!’

‘I know you’re behind it, you’ve conjured a scheme,
What set this in motion, Bill?’
I shrugged and I mentioned that my hands were clean,
‘It is, after all, just a hill!’
‘My real estate value just fell through the floor,
I’ll sue if you don’t move it back!’
‘Then go for it Buddy, there isn’t a court
That can order a hill… See you Jack.’

We’re sitting in clover, our house at the top
Of what was McAvanagh’s Hill,
For once it had moved, it suddenly stopped
And now it’s the Hill of Bill!
McCafferty sits down the hill in a glade
And he rages at everyone,
While Alan’s deluded, he swears at this stage
That it stopped when it noticed his gun.

David Lewis Paget

if i was the rain,
then he was the storm.
but when life was cold,
you were the warm.

he was cunning and charming.
a boy made of dynamite.
nothing is out of reach
once it is in his sight.

his pull is strong
and he loved me like a firework.
his display was a beauty
and he lorded it over you with a smirk.

but when the last bang sounded,
the show was done.
just like a sparkler,
a million pieces came from one.

a burnt, discarded thing
lying on the ground.
he had his fun.
he didn't need me around.

but you, you found me.
through the ashes
you saw my spark
and my soul, bright in flashes.

he burnt me out.
you made me shine.
you saved me from the debris.
you called me "mine."

I hear whispers in the walls
Chuckles behind the curtain
And now the ghouls have made their calls.

A gnawing doubt, cold and certain
That shadows stole away the light
My heart grows cold, a heavy burden.

This house now stands as a blight
A monument to some great fall
Lorded over by this wicked wight.

Finished in time to show.

No one, any one, me, at least I see,
I said
life is worth the wait,
to be lived this way without a care.
-- forgot one care
that one I got from Eric Burdon,
heavy, when I was fifteen…
"Lord, don't let me be mis understood."

Do friends have liege relations, value-wise?

If you never were lorded over, can you
grip the handle on the phrase,
uttered long ago, many a witness have reported,
Henceforth {Jesus H. Christ apreachin'}
I call you not servants;
for the servant knoweth not
what his lord doeth:
but I have called you friends;
for all things that I have heard of my Father
I have made known unto you.

It is no secret what words may do

this is how I pass my time to you,
use it right as you see fit,

consider life this gift, there's no price

(20 minute poetry)


She
crept through the spyglass and into my eyes where looks passed between us that made us both blush,
no rush, she said
somewhere inside my head and the evening lit up like a firework bursting way up in the sky.

I couldn't die a worse death now if I didn't taste her lips how I have longed for this moment to come.

The sun rose before we had satisfied, what she said was true and to me who has lorded over a continent, if ladies are such as can be islands to me could see that this maybe was indeed the fine lady I had spied through the spyglass so long ago.

Many years at the oasis have caused me to kiss many a more toad and this new road I rise on is the road I set eyes on and with good hope in my heart I go on.

It's a parable,
A take on misfortune and the men who die too soon and a true love that pulls through in the end.

{strange to feel so understood
strange that I am not alone}
{{https://hellopoetry.com/cielnoir/}}

Walking out of sleep, into
-- noonday sun
-- post atmospheric river
-- deep gray-purple days past
editreadyreaderprepresent-tensing

noise directed traffic, trending
psy-sci-psilliness dissing

ontological first thoughts, first
stretch, and last yawn,

seeing some connection from
former time to formations now
serving purposes proposed as ifs.

If duty calls us, and we have ears
discerning us as those called, hearers,

saying nothing, listening -
acknowledging life, itself, is not ours,
not experienced alone, ever, after we

agree to merge ourselves into me,
the leader, left-foot first, marching
ants selecting territory to sift for worth,
ax-el-
what good can I find to do, in response
to differentiation, feel the touch of other,
bump spring gentle
level speed to fills and tunnels

others, advisors, certified professional
advisors of the unfinished, unpolished

ones, you and me, creatures of literal

evanescence, perhaps never appearing,
glimpsed as in a zen riddle, popped
when a country kid asks who
tamed the bull… the ox

yes, I see, says the country kid,
I understand, you think oxen are
natural, that limits your wisdom.
-----------------
But of the tree of the knowledge
of good and evil,
thou shalt not eat of it:
for in the day that thou eatest thereof
thou shalt surely die.

Now, hear this, as a stranger in that garden.

Make up a mind that may as well imagine
having access to this single window lens,
in a fly's eye/

see me see you, sit tight. Bee, alright,
flea'ld be okeh by me, ye'll see,

what ever two or more of my kind agree, we be.
'pon acknowledging

the reality of energy, and us being, small,
upto a point.

We break the wave function and drift, pointless

reasons for the faith we take as granted, we think

we have a full portion, rationally, fair share, we think.

But few are free to find time to take words as power.

We agree we means primary person acting as one,
in the spirit form we form as we read, and write,

and hope to hold
the gentlest wind in our fists, as we expand
as breaths, and breathers, nameless alienated minds,

cohere, at once, each point possible,
once…

------------------


Old Jobe, and me,
we considered the works of God,
we saw all the noise and storming

contenders for worth of your loyal
adherence to a plan from a committee,

a party platform, from which leaders,
may stand and look into tomorrow's

victory over all wrong thinkers, leading
away from the best way for all of us,
we, the part-takers in policies of common
wealth taken from the losers to use

for the betterment of all mankind,
losers included, of course, abort no

unwanted child, let society eat them alive.

------------------

Rush to publish, shush nidicolous muse,
Peace awaits inpatient perfecting grace

- long form war, for goodness sake,
- so simple a child can participate,
- the game of life under standing
- constituted authorities established,
Under God, by God, and you
you,
good citizen had better believe we've
GOT GOD, and the entire dairy industry
on our right side, and our enemies,
on our left side, we are destined
to rule over, as gold over silver,

and plutonium ove' all.
Y'all'd know if I lied.
Some ideas are poison,
some are radioactively poisoning,

as life imitates art, foul miasmatics, sniff.

Uric acid industries, good side hustle,
set pots to **** in behind the pub,
public minds congregate to process,
fermented bread purified water,
into precursors for alchemists.

It was a profitable enterprize.
Vertical integration, however…

even then, there were regulators.

Identity, registered voter,
have you read your party's rules for us.

What must we hold true to trust
the committee of good for us reasoners?

Whereas, conjunctive fact fixer, that said,

It being the fact that; inasmuch as.
While at the same time.
While on the contrary…
------------------
Rushing to  betterment, settling
for plenty good enough, betting

on welfare shared by knowing users
of the tools we used
to build the channels of commerce
and learning used to make living easier

inventing means of exchange, symbolic
worth determinants, worth of cows
after…

blah… no mas.

---------------
measure for measure, reassure me,
nidicolous commiseration,
promi-sorry noted aliegiance
conserved determined formal
arrangement of shared woe and weal
- we authorize these changes, we think.
let us imagine, set an image of our wedom,
we… the ready readers granted all meaningful
words ever read by our massively parallel process

of gaining means to branch out and make shade.

Trees, Bees, Toads, Children

Who do I think we are,
who do you think I am,

what do we agree is true,
what do we do to prove it so?

If it is true, any it, we use it.
If it is not true, we see it so, because

we do not trust those ordained to lead.

-----------
Bring measure, come fair trade with me,
take my offering, think it linked to God,
the spirit entity historical Jesus called Father,

when he asked
forgiveness, as with all our debtors
debts, dissolved as gnosis knots
snot-nose brats can have
for a thank you, missed, to whoever
made truth the way life makes us take

at certain instances where signals merge

at a certain round-about in Montana,
we forget forgiveness generally given,
we take if as granted, as we should.

So… with no evil intended, good happens

for all who know not what
we are doing as we survive our helplessness,

and discern the order of effort and participation,

ruled by lines drawn long ago, proper and right,

my peace, my home place, my self assurance,

good by my own estimation, nothing missing,
nothing broken, all things, at scale working
together to gather the harvest, year after year.

-------------------------

Let us project an image we agree to see, knowing
we are showing what we hope to make you see,

a reason for your efforts to be joined to ours,
for your right to influence the rules we use

to keep enemies enemies and workers working…

---- Republican Evangelical shot across my bow

Quantifiable worth of one
person, weight of one person's wish
to willingly partake in persistent life,

life after all is said and done to come this far,

to have taken communication
from the Babel excuse for our misunderstanding,

to these days of Google Translate,
and Assisting Intelligence Coherency, here we be,

now, or never, as we must be to breathe
and have our being orbiting our normal ordinary star.

On the ball we all live on

some rule, some obey, say they who rule.

Those who rule themselves,
obey or stay beyond the reach
of proper societies, as such,

far from the maddened crowds,

herds of humanity harnessed
for war, for defense of local
wealth in terms of valued
conditions to which we become
accustomed, ordinarily following

the leader, as in the children's
games of emulation, marching
as to war

"With the cross of Jesus
going on before… glory, glory…"

Pied, perhaps, are we, on power.

We publically profess to all the world,
say those voting for Donald J. Trump:

We believe in American exceptionalism.

{eh, except ye believe, and say, I see, and
I agree, to this entity inviting all, except those
who are forbidden by religious ties, from knots

to hold yoke to cart or plow. Free souls,
lost in old bet you regret that nows

sould in spirit to a conception, love your enemy.

Refuse to partake in war, deserve no part
in the victor's loot.

Die in dispair, or let go, lose it all…

See the hand hold
a finger, or a toe.

Watch a babe locate a nose,
or an ear, or recognosticate

a familiar face, smiling.

We think, as common, completed
successful sprouts from random
spurts of natural gumption, urging us

reproduce, take pleasure, participate,

in using up our sources of sustained
existence atop the only gravitating thing
equipped to host us.

Chance, and timing, chaos in orderly

coordination with wind and water,
rare fair weather in early March,

beware the Ides, nay, not this year,

March, she came in like a lion,
dumping a whole winter's withheld snow,

at once, reminding many, we are very small.

Reminding few to thank foresighted good luck,

we chose to build upon actual rocks, solid
state soil free to consist as structure base,

for anything two or more of my kind, agree
to see as possible, seeing as believers do,

we must mean the rooting through the fruit

falling to become soil substance for next year.
be seed settled

Be not deceived, as a command, presupposes
reception, once,

be not deceived, many voices in the wilderness

cry this is the way to become lorded over, follow me.

Waveforms collapse, sometimes.

The principle of superposition
of waves states that
when two or more propagating waves
of the same type are incident
on the same point, the resultant amplitude
at that point is equal
to the vector sum
of the amplitudes
of the individual waves…

Slowslooo slide into home. Tune

to zero beat, co hear silence
unbelievable yet evident to any hearing it

as we exhale, in recognosis, this is that

state of mind,
combined,

we free spirit informants,

conforming ourselves to norms, imagined

before the concept of wave coherence formed
in the mind of man kind,
common access
general available knowing,

when, on earth,
as it must be in heaven, if we imagine happiness
constantly overriding common knowledge,
-stretching our hold on the joy of living
chirality insisting we not let our right hand know,
what our left is imagining in this outreaching way,

Beggar's banquets, ***'s rush, breathe

with first reason sought, breathe out,
breathe in, no idea

not a clue, nothing random, but this bubble
we have our being in,
as a liposome time bubble,
when we pause, to think about it….

--------------
In my seeding mind,
reseeding reason to rationalize,

worth and weight, in ancient terms,
57 something tons of silver's worth,

a single talent of silver, once mentioned,
for scale,

to make a warring spirit acknowledge truth,
bow and pay obeisance, kow-tow,
or bolt
upright, how now

may we intercede,
in the spirit of mere words,
redeemed to base value in moral terms deemed

ethical, under these circumstances,
we are free to think this line of thought bought
dearly with the patience taken

to make it all possible at all, what? me worry?
- you may laugh, but take no anxious thought.

We are most alien of all minds, sacred places,

signaling knowers to know, now, time is as a dream,
only if you maintain consciousness of that fact, as art.

Now, consider life a game.

Your move. My move. We agree, we become

one of these things in the form of Paul's God,
all's supreme being spirit form of Truth's Way

taken, as granted any willing to think, why not
me, the stranger in paradaise, asking whom

do we imagine wise,
as the serpent, while remaining harmless,
of no effect, ill or good, either real, or not.

At our we level, we laugh at me.
I become the first beggar in paradaise.
I think we think we know, we meet
at the mean

and we play the balancing Sisyphean
paen to Science of Light Amplification

you push my buttons, I pull your thread,

we make up a mind, to get past this.

This is Ken Pepiton, as he sat in the sun,
thinking of Van Gogh's ghucking sunhat
self portrait,

and laughing at having dropped my name,
where he left his hat.

Know I will hunt you
Beyond
Where you rest
May your legacy
Wither and wane
Dispossessed
Of the power
You lorded
Unmercifully,
Unrelentingly
Binding
The meaning of free
To conditional terms
And relinquishing rights
So we feel more secure
When all turns to black
Sites

What is the magical essence
That imbues paper plastic metal
And numbers glowing on a screen
With the ability
To manifest our heart's desire

An idea
A story
Respected by all
Lorded over by mages
In crystal spires

Once you know the game
You can rig it in your favor
And believe you are somehow better
For doing so

You matter more
You are entitled to more

But your self worth
Is inflated by emptiness
And in the end
It will all collapse into nothing

If you claim nothing
Then everything is yours

Seven deadly sins,
Seven ways to win,
Seven open gates to hell,
Summon all ye in…

Greed is but a manacle
A shackle of the soul,
A simple, tiny spectacle
Like jewelry out of coal’s,
Just enough to incite
Jealousy bereft of thought,
Void of any respite
Lest it be divinely taught.

Envy’s what I’d wished it be;
I want, what you have got,
Love and health, prosperity,
Fills up that empty spot.
Seething, as I know, not I
Doth have that for myself,
Green is but another eye
Of one more sinful elf.

Pride tells me I'm perfect
Yet I have no benching mark,
I'll feign a type of respect
Insincere, and yet so stark.
Resent; that I am godly
And I am the only one,
Who’ll ever really be me
Every other-one I shun.

Gluttony’s a cancer
Seeping deep inside of thee,
As vacuous an answer
As the tale of bird and bee,
Confuses every sinew
Of my ever wanting will,
Finding as I imbue
Ever more, the less it fills.

Wrath is vitriolic,
Manifesting in a rage,
Hellishly historic
And unable to assuage,
Pangs of utter rancor
Like inside of a McCoy,
Held in, like an anchor
Serving only to annoy.

Sloth is but a bother,
Must I really wake; arise?
Can't I find another,
Simple way, to vitalize?
The lethargy I harbor
Saturating every bone,
Seems to be the arbor
Of another sin I own.

Lust is lorded over
Every other sin before,
Where even Casanova
Can be turned into a *****,
It doesn't seem to matter
Be it avarice or pride,
Even saints can shatter
When they let the sin inside.

Seven angels flew,
Seven demons knew,
Seven tiny ways to turn,
Sins into virtues…

Seven dark and days,
Seven men, and clay,
Seventh, to the second is
Seven other ways...

Charity is giving
Even if we can't afford,
To aid another’s living
For whatever the reward,
Addicted to the feeling
Of a satisfying want,
Happily appealing,
To a virtuous détente!

Kindness isn't easy,
But, surprisingly; it is,
Polarizing envy,
And resulting in a kiss,
Bringing all together,
Every culture, born apart,
Clipping to the tether
And rejoicing in a heart.

Humility is nascent,
And it lies in every man,
Siblingly adjacent,
Vying for an upper hand,
Finding fallibility,
Is central to us all,
Strength, is the ability
To overcome the gall.

Temperance is chemo,
For a gluttonous habit,
Mostly incognito,
Underwhelming and rabid.
Curbing every impulse,
That we have, to satiate,
Sitting out the very waltz
Meant to ameliorate.

Patience is the lifting
Of an anchor weighing down,
Set a-sail, and drifting,
So the anger doesn't drown,
An unresigned behaviour
Like a stoic tolerance,
Pleasing all, in favour
Of another second chance.

Diligence is known by
A resounding scrutiny,
Even in my own eye
It compels the slovenly,
Who’ll revive the luster,
Of an eon once before,
And tentatively muster
Absolution’s very core.

Chastity’s a virtue
Maybe antiquated now,
Purity's own purview
Seems unwilling to allow
An amalgamation
Of one's body and of heart,
Hereto the formation
Of a marital restart.

Seven ways to lose,
Seven secret clues,
Seven simple sacraments,
Seldom do they chose…

Once the mighty played the field
floating high above all men
vices seized to be absolved

the past had culture that defiled
assaults dismissed by ego’s boon
permission gave to monsters’ birth

power flexed for pleasure's sake
taken when the giving balked
rights discarded for delight’s harm

to take control was the goal
lorded over the smaller ones
wanting all and then some more

present day has now arrived
with tender wounds aching still
calling out the miscreants

authority tastes the bitter edge
justice in the public eye
the clay feet are now revealed

command cuts itself to heal
the fiends seen in mirror’s face
altars splashed with sacrificed

the mighty fall by gravity
no longer able to stand upright
when the sins have true weight.

© 2017. Sean Green. All Rights Reserved. 20171114.

Once the mighty played the field
floating high above all men
vices seized to be absolved

the past had culture that defiled
assaults dismissed by ego’s boon
permission gave to monsters’ birth

power flexed for pleasure's sake
taken when the giving balked
rights discarded for delight’s harm

to take control was the goal
lorded over the smaller ones
wanting all and then some more

present day has now arrived
with tender wounds aching still
calling out the miscreants

authority tastes the bitter edge
justice in the public eye
the clay feet are now revealed

command cuts itself to heal
the fiends seen in mirror’s face
altars splashed with sacrificed

the mighty fall by gravity
no longer able to stand upright
when the sins have true weight.

© 2017. Sean Green. All Rights Reserved. 20171114.

overlaid with façade of fiction = Mein Kampf

in summer re:
typed out during winter of my discontent,
when yours truly no spring chicken
stirred ruse to expatiate poetically
regarding following rhyming reason,
hence mine lovely bones
into graveyard will shortly fall.

No need for yours truly to dig deep,
(albeit bonafide figuratively)
by Dickens thru mine Uriah Heep,
a gnarled mass creep
ping, comprising, encompassing, glomming
abysmal existence strewn with hard times,

such that I wanna leap
out this metaphorical bleak house,
a black hole in the wall swallowing
i.e. disallowing any peep
ordinarily yawping, proliferating, flirting...
now fumfering lamely issued by keep
ping low profile super tramping cheap

trickster, our mutual friend
Matthew Scott Harris,
harkens back quite a few winters ago,
where lack of functioning heating unit
(think male ***** if ye will)
upended, rendered, discombobulated...
scrappy body electric hominid
to experience quality sleep.

Principal reason I write
to balance and aright
gratitude regarding unexpected tidy largesse
constituting special trust fund
(thank you dad -
spirit of Boyce Brandon Harris),
where eyes suddenly got bright,
and bushy tail wagged
incessantly day and night,
a sensible palliative temporarily
eased penury plight,
which cash equivalent,

equals countless denominations
characterized, granted, lorded...
Benjamins, Clevelands, McKinley's
plus dime a dozen legal tender
currency memorializing other presidents
blessedly alleviated quite
helpful thwarting necessity to fight
off bill collectors brandishing
armstrong lance compelling me
to summon black knight
in shining armor lodged within white
castle amidst prickly bishop

obviously one prone easily to excite
amusing little lord Fauntleroy
groomed as heir to throne,
enthusiasm since his birth did ignite
(Aesop pose) storybook life,
where fanciful elation did take flight
buzzfeeding, droning, fancifully feasting
on par with... I twist Oliver (all over)
courtesy Mister Bumble bee in flight
sweet nectar amidst lilies of the field
analogous to stripling Adam - fine lad
eve vent chilly seeking delight.

Ah to gather rosebuds while ye may
tis futile wishful thinking,
now at mine three
score plus three orbitz round sun,
which libido far out at bay
prurient predilections once
spawned time wracked to lay
waste vestal ****** such as... Little Dorrit,
now... raging hormones stagnant clay
hardened, atrophied, eutrophied,
jackknifed limp bizkit

impossible mission to kickstart
long bereft testy tickle
yar ****** quizzical,
slack jawed, and sullen at
deserted abandoned cobwebbed quay
ignored do not enter, keep out,
private property signals desiccated,
no place for Peter to take holiday
barring ingress to ply skin flute
amidst hollerin hootenanny,
perhaps convincingly explaining
welcoming Voldemort without delay.

Love was lost in the rush
to assuage the emperor's lust
the passion for certitude
that power would forever rule

lorded over with threats of ruin
for all those who would review
the wrongs committed by the king
fealty valued above all things

otherwise the gentle hearts
would recognize the siren's call
to sacrifice their very souls
on the alter of mad Cole

sequestered in the tower's heights
far above the wrong and right
there was a chance before the fall
now the land will love now more.

© 2020. Sean Green. All Rights Reserved. 20200204.

Saint Vincent dePaul Food Pantry
at Saint Mary's Parish
in Spring Mount blessed,
graced, and praised
courtesy grateful recipient,
he who crafts these words.

Acknowledgement forthcoming today
June 11th, 2022
Matthew Scott Harris
expresses gratitude concerning largesse
regarding quite a few bags
of comestibles, and toiletries.

I feel an effusion of blessedness
viz being fêted, lorded over
and treated like some
dignified churchly father,
for our countless food
and household supplies
(such as various gift cards)
not just today,
but countless occasions
receiving edible goods,
and sundry other items
to stock the cupboards.

I frequently experience
profound social anxiety
(mitigated courtesy prescription medications),
and ofttimes feel like taking flight,
as adrenaline courses (née rushes)
and rattles these lovely bones of mine,
particularly when yours truly
finds himself within madding crowd.

One hapless generic garden variety guy
(me, an aging baby boomer
formerly many scores earth orbitz ago,
a long haired pencil necked geek)
plagued with panic attacks since... birth
experienced accursed
lifetime psychological providence,
where profound anxiety prevailed.

Impossible mission to describe
how fast paced life in general
generates utter confusion
analogous to floundering trout
besieges mine mental redoubt
emotional helter skelter all about
as if mine entire body electric

forced, kickstarted, subjugated..
to perform (yes folks) hokey pokey (ha)
mental gears and cogs
snapping, crackling, popping
inside tumbler like noggin
purportedly linkedin hashtagged
with said mild personality disorder
punctuated with debilitating panic attacks,
hence qualification to receive
social security disability.

Onset of emotional paralysis
stops me dead in my figurative track
metaphorically wishing me to skuttle
back into hermetically sealed manhole
invisible among interleaved bract
where safe and sound
within mine secret cubby hole
also known as apartment b44
at Highland Manor in Schwenksville.

While listening to natural soundtrack,
within the outer limits of twilight zone
usually variation upon binaural beats,
soothing relaxation by
Peder B. Helland,
an enjoyable youtube melody,
I imagine playing knick knack paddywhack...
as well as really idling away leisure time
occupied with other favorite pastimes
such as: playing solitaire, scrabble,
reading - qua crack
binding of newly purchased books,

(usually at Liberty Thrift Store,
and/or Worthwhile)
spends his time reading,
playing Solitaire
crafting poems, occasionally
testing my chess skills
pitted against computer, backgammon,
as well as solve crossword puzzles
meditate (on the gift
of a watermelon pickle)
to self hypnotize snapchatting,
kickstarting, buzzfeeding biofeedback.