"One is at last killed by what one loves violently."
--Guy De Maupassant

During the nights when I cannot seek the sanctity of
sleep,for it does not come over me until the
deadly light of daybreak;
I listen to the still, small voice
calling out from the cracked, crumbling and
falling
plaster firmament hanging over me--
a proverbial coffin-lid
threatening
to close in over me, nailed tightly
shut
with antique copper spikes
to keep
the good dreams
     out.

I am so often told in tones
echoing sad and
silent
in the O Holy Night,
to write
the elegy of insanity
creeping
     up
from my feet
beneath
these ***** blankets,
seeping,
working its way to my throat
where lies my stifled
cries
that engulf the labored breathing
as my tender, simple
heart
threatens to explode.

Tossing a pillow against the
peeling,
painted wall, I utter
a course *"*******"
to the weathered, unwashed window
by my head
that pounds;
needing the soothing
song-sounds of
whiskey, scotch or
lukewarm beer to revive
my
   sinking,
burning soul as
     i lay me down
     to die,
     i pray to nothing
     and embrace the lies

O, the lies...

I can scarce recall
a time of peace and
bliss,
laying lonely in your arms,
with regret I had to
kiss
your sour lips
perfumed bitter with stale smoke,
***** and other such things like
this...

...this nowhere outside goiing,
going
     gone:
The Wheel of Misfortune,
the agony of armies in
retreat,
the ****** of the mind,
the birth
of Jesus, Muhammad, Krishna
and the plastic
Elvis Presley poking up
off your dusty dull-blue dashboard
like the other man's
***** you left
for mine.

Yes,
on these and every sleepless
forever nights
     I know,
I show that
O, still, small voice
the things
we refuse to see,
and maybe after it's all over
it
will sing myself to sleep.

AHHH....AMI!

"Je cherche le mot..."

Her left foot
had gone

. . .asleep.

The rest of her
still

. . . wide awake.

The net curtains
she noticed idly

needed washing

blew back
in an almost

theatrical( how
dramatic)fashion

& there
stood Death

large as life
( so to speak ).

Death itself
like an old fashioned butler

"Almost a Jeeves!"
she chuckled softly

to her self.

"Madame, if I may
...have a word?"

"Oh, Mr. Death
surely not yet...not yet?"

Death smiled
obsequiously.

"Le Roi, s'amuse. . ."

The unfinished Maupassant
falling from her hand.

Con ciudades y autores frecuentadosVenecia / Guanajuato / Maupassant /
Leningrado / Sousándrade / Berlín /
Cortázar / Bioy Casares / Medellín /
Lisboa / Sartre / Oslo / Valle Inclán / 

Kafka / Managua / Faulkner / Paul Celan /
Ítalo Svevo / Quito / Bergamín /
Buenos Aires / La Habana / Graham Greene /
Copenhague / Quiroga / Thomas Mann /

Onetti / Siena / Shakespeare / Anatole 
France / Saramago / Atenas / Heinrich Böll /
Cádiz / Martí / Gonzalo de Berceo /

París / Vallejo / Alberti / Santa Cruz
de Tenerife / Roma / Marcel Proust /
Pessoa / Baudelaire / Montevideo

“We’re so happy.”

“Only in the picture though.”

Happiness flees
Like water moving underneath the trees
You can’t step in the same river twice
(Maupassant's Pierre et Jean taught me that)
So I just don’t step in at all.

But I do other things
With my feet and
hands.
Other people.
I slide my hand up her
Skirt.
I slide my foot up her
Slacks
She stands up after she
figures it out.
That I’m a miserable ****
Who just wants off
And only sees doubt.

(News, May 2015: Every new home in France must grow food or have solar paneling)

Maupassant and Baudelaire
Say stick it up your derriere
You countries that just won't care
'Cos energy is free as free as thought
In, out, sunshine caught
So take your sticky carbon crap
Your shale, oil, and your frack
And leave them in the ground below
For we are here: the undertow
And we will grow.

AHHH....AMI!

"Je cherche le mot..."

Her left foot
had gone

. . .asleep.

The rest of her
still

. . . wide awake.

The net curtains
she noticed idly

needed washing

blew back
in an almost

theatrical( how
dramatic)fashion

& there
stood Death

large as life
( so to speak ).

Death itself
like an old fashioned butler

"Almost a Jeeves!"
she chuckled softly

to her self.

"Madame, if I may
...have a word?"

"Oh, Mr. Death
surely not yet...not yet?"

Death smiled
obsequiously.

"Le Roi, s'amuse. . ."

The unfinished Maupassant
falling from her hand.

Echoes of silence rippling through our veins;
The weight of the evening is shifting
From unseen words, lonely phrases
To midnight's twinkle and altruistic gazes.

You become my buoyant hammock,
With the surrender of sound,
My Maupassant,
But I am not found.

As you enfold me with one leg,
I am your darkroom so bright.
Gentle ticking,
Clockwork through the night.

As we bathe in the muteness of the hour,
I can hear your heart slowly beating
As I listen to our souls' casual meeting.

next to never (a pair of ones)

squeezed between nuh-uh and fugetaboutit,

is that long gone notion in the nation of concepts,

like one true love, the connected lines on each of our

bodies, certifying we are a pair of ones, a strong hand.


there are chores to be done:

reread Guy de Maupassant,

delete two thousand unread emails

cry for my so lost children

let Walt Whitman wash over my body like oil

kick the guy out of bed so he can make us coffee.

a ton of stuff to do, good thing, we got a strong hand,

that pair of ones.

which I am now informed is called a pair of

Aces.

Who Knew?

7:51 Sun Jul 12

“It is the lives we encounter that make life worth living.”
-Guy de Maupassant

The lessons I've learned
some granted, some earned,
befell upon my soul
many in parts, some in whole.

And the paths that I sought
were simply thought.
T’was not my task
to question, but to ask.

With great wisdom to impart,
the sage spoke of his heart.
And how it grew in the sun,
as he watched the river run.

The carpenter’s will
was to hone his skill
by observing his peers
throughout the years.

The healer cured the ill
through holistic means, not a pill.
For the body will never grow
if you treat it, but ignore the soul.

The banker loaned this advice
Spend once, but save twice.    
That to earn your day of leisure,
work comes before pleasure.

The peasant had no riches to give,
materials to offer or home to live.
But she spoke of another time and place
one of honor, love and grace.

The farmer’s hand
was blessed by the land.
Whose gifts were fruits grown
from tiny seeds sown.

With the utmost diligence and care,
I chronicled these affairs.
My notebook, weathered and worn,
frayed about the edges and slightly torn.

In the distance, a faint light
grew closer and became very bright.  
A ringing sound filled my ear,
becoming so loud I could not hear.

The clouds started to twist and bend,
my life had come to an end.
The notebook fell from my hand,
my pen dropped and lodged in the sand.

Then came a gentle whisper in my ear
so soft a voice, yet very clear.
She said “What is important is what you left behind.
For those that never search, never will find!”

THE GREAT HISTORY OF LITTLE THINGS

here
the history of
this broken cup

not thrown away
despite its brokenness
imprisoned in an attic

a wedding present
let fall the very day
of her vows

its history invisible
to all others
seen only by her

and there
a headless rocking horse
tethered with cobwebs

her long lost child
still riding it to
wherever he imagined

his little voice
still playing
in her mind

'...the perfume of the past...'
was it Maupassant said that
she asked herself

a clock telling her
it would forever be
half past nine

the dust
of old forgotten things
making her sneeze

old photographs
from another era
way before her time

and there was
Uncle Albert
was it not

she sat inside
this man's mind
wondering what it was

to have been this man
she had only heard
stories of

peering out through
his faded photograph eyes
at a world that had been lost

she knew oh she knew
that she too
would become a photograph

people wondering
in time
who she had been

and lost in the past
she was unaware
of becoming a future

in which
she no longer
existed

Time stealing
her away
without her knowing

Time stealing
her world
away from her

a grand daughter
calling at the foot of the stairs:
"Grand-mère...grand--mère. . .grand-mère!"

THE GREAT HISTORY OF LITTLE THINGS

here
the history of
this broken cup

not thrown away
despite its brokenness
imprisoned in an attic

a wedding present
let fall the very day
of her vows

its history invisible
to all others
seen only by her

and there
a headless rocking horse
tethered with cobwebs

her long lost child
still riding it to
wherever he imagined

his little voice
still playing
in her mind

'...the perfume of the past...'
was it Maupassant said that
she asked herself

a clock telling her
it would forever be
half past nine

the dust
of old forgotten things
making her sneeze

old photographs
from another era
way before her time

and there was
Uncle Albert
was it not

she sat inside
this man's mind
wondering what it was

to have been this man
she had only heard
stories of

peering out through
his faded photograph eyes
at a world that had been lost

she knew oh she knew
that she too
would become a photograph

people wondering
in time
who she had been

and lost in the past
she was unaware
of becoming a future

in which
she no longer
existed

Time stealing
her away
without her knowing

Time stealing
her world
away from her

a grand daughter
calling at the foot of the stairs
"Grand-mère...grand--mère. . .grand-mère!"

THE GREAT HISTORY OF LITTLE THINGS

here
the history of
this broken cup

not thrown away
despite its brokenness
imprisoned in an attic

a wedding present
let fall the very day
of her vows

its history invisible
to all others
seen only by her

and there
a headless rocking horse
tethered with cobwebs

her long lost child
still riding it to
wherever he imagined

his little voice
still playing
in her mind

'...the perfume of the past...'
was it Maupassant said that
she asked herself

a clock telling her
it would forever be
half past nine

the dust
of old forgotten things
making her sneeze

old photographs
from another era
way before her time

and there was
Uncle Albert
was it not

she sat inside
this man's mind
wondering what it was

to have been this man
she had only heard
stories of

peering out through
his faded photograph eyes
at a world that had been lost

she knew oh she knew
that she too
would become a photograph

people wondering
in time
who she had been

and lost in the past
she was unaware
of becoming a future

in which
she no longer
existed

Time stealing
her away
without her knowing

Time stealing
her world
away from her

a grand daughter
calling at the foot of the stairs
"Grand-mère...grand--mère. . .grand-mère!"

AHHH....AMI!

"Je cherche le mot..."

Her left foot
had gone

. . .asleep.

The rest of her
still

. . . wide awake.

The net curtains
she noticed idly

needed washing

blew back
in an almost

theatrical( how
dramatic)fashion

& there
stood Death

large as life
( so to speak ).

Death itself
like an old fashioned butler

"Almost a Jeeves!"
she chuckled softly

to her self.

"Madame, if I may
...have a word?"

"Oh, Mr. Death
surely not yet...not yet?"

Death smiled
obsequiously.

"Le Roi, s'amuse. . ."

The unfinished Maupassant
falling from her hand.

EVEN NOW, NOW, VERY NOW...

here your laughter
fastened to the air
with a little twistof memory

Time
spell stopped
as it were

your laughter
pinned to this
particular place

this
little scrap of sky
and field

that to an unobservant  eye
would mean nothing
...nothing at all

but see,your laughter
unfurls its flag of self
snapping in the stiff wind

of what's
lost is
lost

this
simple second
alive for ever

I pick it as
I would a flower
untouched

by either
time or
death

*

The title is from Othello...


“Our memory is a more perfect world than the universe: it gives back life to those who no longer exist.”

Guy de Maupassant

THE GREAT HISTORY OF LITTLE THINGS

here
the history of
this broken cup

not thrown away
despite its brokenness
imprisoned in an attic

a wedding present
let fall the very day
of her vows

its history invisible
to all others
seen only by her

and there
a headless rocking horse
tethered with cobwebs

her long lost child
still riding it to
wherever he imagined

his little voice
still playing
in her mind

'...the perfume of the past...'
was it Maupassant said that
she asked herself

a clock telling her
it would forever be
half past nine

the dust
of old forgotten things
making her sneeze

old photographs
from another era
way before her time

and there was
Uncle Albert
was it not

she sat inside
this man's mind
wondering what it was

to have been this man
she had only heard
stories of

peering out through
his faded photograph eyes
at a world that had been lost

she knew oh she knew
that she too
would become a photograph

people wondering
in time
who she had been

and lost in the past
she was unaware
of becoming a future

in which
she no longer
existed

Time stealing
her away
without her knowing

Time stealing
her world
away from her

a grand daughter
calling at the foot of the stairs
"Grand-mère...grand--mère. . .grand-mère!"

THE GREAT HISTORY OF LITTLE THINGS

here
the history of
this broken cup

not thrown away
despite its brokenness
imprisoned in an attic

a wedding present
let fall the very day
of her vows

its history invisible
to all others
seen only by her

and there
a headless rocking horse
tethered with cobwebs

her long lost child
still riding it to
wherever he imagined

his little voice
still playing
in her mind

'...the perfume of the past...'
was it Maupassant said that
she asked herself

a clock telling her
it would forever be
half past nine

the dust
of old forgotten things
making her sneeze

old photographs
from another era
way before her time

and there was
Uncle Albert
was it not

she sat inside
this man's mind
wondering what it was

to have been this man
she had only heard
stories of

peering out through
his faded photograph eyes
at a world that had been lost

she knew oh she knew
that she too
would become a photograph

people wondering
in time
who she had been

and lost in the past
she was unaware
of becoming a future

in which
she no longer
existed

Time stealing
her away
without her knowing

Time stealing
her world
away from her

a grand daughter
calling at the foot of the stairs:
"Grand-mère...grand--mère. . .grand-mère!"