Slow sinks, more lovely ere his race be run,
Along Morea’s hills the setting Sun;
Not, as in northern climes, obscurely bright,
But one unclouded blaze of living light;
O’er the hushed deep the yellow beam he throws,
Gilds the green wave that trembles as it glows;
On old ægina’s rock and Hydra’s isle
The God of gladness sheds his parting smile;
O’er his own regions lingering loves to shine,
Though there his altars are no more divine.
Descending fast, the mountain-shadows kiss
Thy glorious Gulf, unconquered Salamis!
Their azure arches through the long expanse,
More deeply purpled, meet his mellowing glance,
And tenderest tints, along their summits driven,
Mark his gay course, and own the hues of Heaven;
Till, darkly shaded from the land and deep,
Behind his Delphian rock he sinks to sleep.

  On such an eve his palest beam he cast
When, Athens! here thy Wisest looked his last.
How watched thy better sons his farewell ray,
That closed their murdered Sage’s latest day!
Not yet—not yet—Sol pauses on the hill,
The precious hour of parting lingers still;
But sad his light to agonizing eyes,
And dark the mountain’s once delightful dyes;
Gloom o’er the lovely land he seemed to pour,
The land where Phoebus never frowned before;
But ere he sunk below Cithaeron’s head,
The cup of Woe was quaffed—the Spirit fled;
The soul of Him that scorned to fear or fly,
Who lived and died as none can live or die.

  But lo! from high Hymettus to the plain
The Queen of Night asserts her silent reign;
No murky vapour, herald of the storm,
Hides her fair face, or girds her glowing form;
With cornice glimmering as the moonbeams play,
There the white column greets her grateful ray,
And bright around, with quivering beams beset,
Her emblem sparkles o’er the Minaret;
The groves of olive scattered dark and wide,
Where meek Cephisus sheds his scanty tide,
The cypress saddening by the sacred mosque,
The gleaming turret of the gay kiosk,
And sad and sombre ’mid the holy calm,
Near Theseus’ fane, yon solitary palm;
All, tinged with varied hues, arrest the eye;
And dull were his that passed them heedless by.
Again the ægean, heard no more afar,
Lulls his chafed breast from elemental war:
Again his waves in milder tints unfold
Their long expanse of sapphire and of gold,
Mixed with the shades of many a distant isle
That frown, where gentler Ocean deigns to smile.

  As thus, within the walls of Pallas’ fane,
I marked the beauties of the land and main,
Alone, and friendless, on the magic shore,
Whose arts and arms but live in poets’ lore;
Oft as the matchless dome I turned to scan,
Sacred to Gods, but not secure from Man,
The Past returned, the Present seemed to cease,
And Glory knew no clime beyond her Greece!

  Hour rolled along, and Dian’******on high
Had gained the centre of her softest sky;
And yet unwearied still my footsteps trod
O’er the vain shrine of many a vanished God:
But chiefly, Pallas! thine, when Hecate’s glare
Checked by thy columns, fell more sadly fair
O’er the chill marble, where the startling tread
Thrills the lone heart like echoes from the dead.
Long had I mused, and treasured every trace
The wreck of Greece recorded of her race,
When, lo! a giant-form before me strode,
And Pallas hailed me in her own Abode!

  Yes,’twas Minerva’s self; but, ah! how changed,
Since o’er the Dardan field in arms she ranged!
Not such as erst, by her divine command,
Her form appeared from Phidias’ plastic hand:
Gone were the terrors of her awful brow,
Her idle ægis bore no Gorgon now;
Her helm was dinted, and the broken lance
Seemed weak and shaftless e’en to mortal glance;
The Olive Branch, which still she deigned to clasp,
Shrunk from her touch, and withered in her grasp;
And, ah! though still the brightest of the sky,
Celestial tears bedimmed her large blue eye;
Round the rent casque her owlet circled slow,
And mourned his mistress with a shriek of woe!

  “Mortal!”—’twas thus she spake—”that blush of shame
Proclaims thee Briton, once a noble name;
First of the mighty, foremost of the free,
Now honoured ‘less’ by all, and ‘least’ by me:
Chief of thy foes shall Pallas still be found.
Seek’st thou the cause of loathing!—look around.
Lo! here, despite of war and wasting fire,
I saw successive Tyrannies expire;
‘Scaped from the ravage of the Turk and Goth,
Thy country sends a spoiler worse than both.
Survey this vacant, violated fane;
Recount the relics torn that yet remain:
‘These’ Cecrops placed, ‘this’ Pericles adorned,
‘That’ Adrian reared when drooping Science mourned.
What more I owe let Gratitude attest—
Know, Alaric and Elgin did the rest.
That all may learn from whence the plunderer came,
The insulted wall sustains his hated name:
For Elgin’s fame thus grateful Pallas pleads,
Below, his name—above, behold his deeds!
Be ever hailed with equal honour here
The Gothic monarch and the Pictish peer:
Arms gave the first his right, the last had none,
But basely stole what less barbarians won.
So when the Lion quits his fell repast,
Next prowls the Wolf, the filthy Jackal last:
Flesh, limbs, and blood the former make their own,
The last poor brute securely gnaws the bone.
Yet still the Gods are just, and crimes are crossed:
See here what Elgin won, and what he lost!
Another name with his pollutes my shrine:
Behold where Dian’s beams disdain to shine!
Some retribution still might Pallas claim,
When Venus half avenged Minerva’s shame.”

  She ceased awhile, and thus I dared reply,
To soothe the vengeance kindling in her eye:
“Daughter of Jove! in Britain’s injured name,
A true-born Briton may the deed disclaim.
Frown not on England; England owns him not:
Athena, no! thy plunderer was a Scot.
Ask’st thou the difference? From fair Phyles’ towers
Survey Boeotia;—Caledonia’s ours.
And well I know within that ******* land
Hath Wisdom’s goddess never held command;
A barren soil, where Nature’s germs, confined
To stern sterility, can stint the mind;
Whose thistle well betrays the niggard earth,
Emblem of all to whom the Land gives birth;
Each genial influence nurtured to resist;
A land of meanness, sophistry, and mist.
Each breeze from foggy mount and marshy plain
Dilutes with drivel every drizzly brain,
Till, burst at length, each wat’ry head o’erflows,
Foul as their soil, and frigid as their snows:
Then thousand schemes of petulance and pride
Despatch her scheming children far and wide;
Some East, some West, some—everywhere but North!
In quest of lawless gain, they issue forth.
And thus—accursed be the day and year!
She sent a Pict to play the felon here.
Yet Caledonia claims some native worth,
As dull Boeotia gave a Pindar birth;
So may her few, the lettered and the brave,
Bound to no clime, and victors of the grave,
Shake off the sordid dust of such a land,
And shine like children of a happier strand;
As once, of yore, in some obnoxious place,
Ten names (if found) had saved a wretched race.”

  “Mortal!” the blue-eyed maid resumed, “once more
Bear back my mandate to thy native shore.
Though fallen, alas! this vengeance yet is mine,
To turn my counsels far from lands like thine.
Hear then in silence Pallas’ stern behest;
Hear and believe, for Time will tell the rest.

  “First on the head of him who did this deed
My curse shall light,—on him and all his seed:
Without one spark of intellectual fire,
Be all the sons as senseless as the sire:
If one with wit the parent brood disgrace,
Believe him ******* of a brighter race:
Still with his hireling artists let him prate,
And Folly’s praise repay for Wisdom’s hate;
Long of their Patron’s gusto let them tell,
Whose noblest, native gusto is—to sell:
To sell, and make—may shame record the day!—
The State—Receiver of his pilfered prey.
Meantime, the flattering, feeble dotard, West,
Europe’s worst dauber, and poor Britain’s best,
With palsied hand shall turn each model o’er,
And own himself an infant of fourscore.
Be all the Bruisers culled from all St. Giles’,
That Art and Nature may compare their styles;
While brawny brutes in stupid wonder stare,
And marvel at his Lordship’s ’stone shop’ there.
Round the thronged gate shall sauntering coxcombs creep
To lounge and lucubrate, to prate and peep;
While many a languid maid, with longing sigh,
On giant statues casts the curious eye;
The room with transient glance appears to skim,
Yet marks the mighty back and length of limb;
Mourns o’er the difference of now and then;
Exclaims, ‘These Greeks indeed were proper men!’
Draws slight comparisons of ‘these’ with ‘those’,
And envies Laïs all her Attic beaux.
When shall a modern maid have swains like these?
Alas! Sir Harry is no Hercules!
And last of all, amidst the gaping crew,
Some calm spectator, as he takes his view,
In silent indignation mixed with grief,
Admires the plunder, but abhors the thief.
Oh, loathed in life, nor pardoned in the dust,
May Hate pursue his sacrilegious lust!
Linked with the fool that fired the Ephesian dome,
Shall vengeance follow far beyond the tomb,
And Eratostratus and Elgin shine
In many a branding page and burning line;
Alike reserved for aye to stand accursed,
Perchance the second blacker than the first.

  “So let him stand, through ages yet unborn,
Fixed statue on the pedestal of Scorn;
Though not for him alone revenge shall wait,
But fits thy country for her coming fate:
Hers were the deeds that taught her lawless son
To do what oft Britannia’s self had done.
Look to the Baltic—blazing from afar,
Your old Ally yet mourns perfidious war.
Not to such deeds did Pallas lend her aid,
Or break the compact which herself had made;
Far from such counsels, from the faithless field
She fled—but left behind her Gorgon shield;
A fatal gift that turned your friends to stone,
And left lost Albion hated and alone.

“Look to the East, where Ganges’ swarthy race
Shall shake your tyrant empire to its base;
Lo! there Rebellion rears her ghastly head,
And glares the Nemesis of native dead;
Till Indus rolls a deep purpureal flood,
And claims his long arrear of northern blood.
So may ye perish!—Pallas, when she gave
Your free-born rights, forbade ye to enslave.

  “Look on your Spain!—she clasps the hand she hates,
But boldly clasps, and thrusts you from her gates.
Bear witness, bright Barossa! thou canst tell
Whose were the sons that bravely fought and fell.
But Lusitania, kind and dear ally,
Can spare a few to fight, and sometimes fly.
Oh glorious field! by Famine fiercely won,
The Gaul retires for once, and all is done!
But when did Pallas teach, that one retreat
Retrieved three long Olympiads of defeat?

  “Look last at home—ye love not to look there
On the grim smile of comfortless despair:
Your city saddens: loud though Revel howls,
Here Famine faints, and yonder Rapine prowls.
See all alike of more or less bereft;
No misers tremble when there’s nothing left.
‘Blest paper credit;’ who shall dare to sing?
It clogs like lead Corruption’s weary wing.
Yet Pallas pluck’d each Premier by the ear,
Who Gods and men alike disdained to hear;
But one, repentant o’er a bankrupt state,
On Pallas calls,—but calls, alas! too late:
Then raves for’——’; to that Mentor bends,
Though he and Pallas never yet were friends.
Him senates hear, whom never yet they heard,
Contemptuous once, and now no less absurd.
So, once of yore, each reasonable frog,
Swore faith and fealty to his sovereign ‘log.’
Thus hailed your rulers their patrician clod,
As Egypt chose an onion for a God.

  “Now fare ye well! enjoy your little hour;
Go, grasp the shadow of your vanished power;
Gloss o’er the failure of each fondest scheme;
Your strength a name, your bloated wealth a dream.
Gone is that Gold, the marvel of mankind.
And Pirates barter all that’s left behind.
No more the hirelings, purchased near and far,
Crowd to the ranks of mercenary war.
The idle merchant on the useless quay
Droops o’er the bales no bark may bear away;
Or, back returning, sees rejected stores
Rot piecemeal on his own encumbered shores:
The starved mechanic breaks his rusting loom,
And desperate mans him ‘gainst the coming doom.
Then in the Senates of your sinking state
Show me the man whose counsels may have weight.
Vain is each voice where tones could once command;
E’en factions cease to charm a factious land:
Yet jarring sects convulse a sister Isle,
And light with maddening hands the mutual pile.

  “’Tis done, ’tis past—since Pallas warns in vain;
The Furies seize her abdicated reign:
Wide o’er the realm they wave their kindling brands,
And wring her vitals with their fiery hands.
But one convulsive struggle still remains,
And Gaul shall weep ere Albion wear her chains,
The bannered pomp of war, the glittering files,
O’er whose gay trappings stern Bellona smiles;
The brazen trump, the spirit-stirring drum,
That bid the foe defiance ere they come;
The hero bounding at his country’s call,
The glorious death that consecrates his fall,
Swell the young heart with visionary charms.
And bid it antedate the joys of arms.
But know, a lesson you may yet be taught,
With death alone are laurels cheaply bought;
Not in the conflict Havoc seeks delight,
His day of mercy is the day of fight.
But when the field is fought, the battle won,
Though drenched with gore, his woes are but begun:
His deeper deeds as yet ye know by name;
The slaughtered peasant and the ravished dame,
The rifled mansion and the foe-reaped field,
Ill suit with souls at home, untaught to yield.
Say with what eye along the distant down
Would flying burghers mark the blazing town?
How view the column of ascending flames
Shake his red shadow o’er the startled Thames?
Nay, frown not, Albion! for the torch was thine
That lit such pyres from Tagus to the Rhine:
Now should they burst on thy devoted coast,
Go, ask thy ***** who deserves them most?
The law of Heaven and Earth is life for life,
And she who raised, in vain regrets, the strife.”

It was the summer of 1954. David Ito was from the only Japanese family we had in our town. I was glad he was my best friend. Actually, he was my only friend. His father moved his family to our small town of Prichard, Illinois when David was only eight years old. That was three years ago.

Only two and a half months apart, I was the older one of our daring duo. I even was a couple inches taller than David was, so that settled it. In spite of being an awkward girl, our differences in age and height made me quite superior at times, although David always snickered at that notion. To me, theses differences were huge and monumental, like the distance of the sun from the moon. To David, that was typical girlish nonsense. He thought it was so like a girl, to try to outdo a boy.  And he should have known. He was the only son of five children, and he was the oldest.

At first, David was not interested in being friends with a girl. But I was Josephine Dunn, Josie they called me, and I was not just any girl. Yet, like David, I did not know if I really liked him enough to be his friend. We started off with this one thing in common.

I knew he was smarter than anybody I ever knew, that is except for my father, a self-taught man. The tomboy that I was, I was not so interested in books and maps, and David was almost obsessed with them. Yet, there was a kindred spirit that ignited us to become close, something coming in between two misfits to make a good match. David was obviously so different from the rest. He came from an entirely different culture, looking so out-of-the-ordinary than the typical face of our Anglo-Saxon, Protestant community, and me, never really fitting in with any group of peers in school, I liked him.

David knew he did not fully fit in. I surely did not fit, either. My brother, Carl, made sure very early on in my life that I was to be aware of one thing. And that one thing was that I did not belong in my family, or really anywhere in life. Mostly, this was because I was not of my father’s first family, but I came after my father’s other children and was the baby, the apple of my father’s eye. But that wasn’t the real reason why Carl hated me.

During World War Two, my father enlisted in the army. He already had two small sons and a daughter to look after, and they already had suffered one major blow in their young lives. They had lost their mother to cancer. Louise Dunn was an important figure in their lives. She was well liked in town and very much missed by her family and friends.
  
Why their father wanted to leave his children behind, possibly fatherless, made no sense to other people. But Jim Dunn came from a proud military family and would not listen to anyone telling him not to fight but rather to stay home with his children. His father fought in the First World War, and three of his great grandfathers fought for the Union Army in the Civil War. It was not like my father to back out of a fight, not one with great principles.  My father was no coward.

Not only did my father leave three small children back home, but a new, young wife. Two years before World War Two ended, he made it back home to his lovely, young wife and family. Back in France, my father was wounded in his right leg. The result of the wound caused my father to forever walk with a limp and the assistance of a cane. It was actually a blessing in disguise what would transpire. He could have easily came home in a pine box. He was thankful, though, that he came away with his life. After recovering for a few months in a French hospital, my father was eager to go home to his family. At least he was able to walk, and to walk away alive.

This lovely, young woman who was waiting for him at home was twenty-year-old Flora Laurent, now Flora Dunn, my mother, and she was eleven years younger than my father. All soldiers were certainly eager to get home to their loved ones. My father was one of thousands who was thrilled to be back on American soil, but his thrill was about to dampen. Once my father laid eyes on his wife again, there was no hiding her highly expanding belly and the overall weight gain showed in her lovely, plump face. She had no excuses for her husband, or any made-up stories to tell him, and there really nothing for her to say to explain why she was in this condition. Simply put, she was lonely.

Most men would have left such a situation, would have gone as far away from it as they possibly could have. Being too ashamed and resentful to stay, they would have washed their hands of her in a heartbeat. Having a cheating wife and an unwanted child on their hands to raise would be too much to bear. Any man, in his right mind, would say that was asking for way too much trouble.  Most men would have divorced someone like my mother, kicked her out, and especially they would hate the child she would be soon be giving birth to, but not my father. He always stood against the grain.

Not only did Jim Dunn forgive his young wife, he took me under his wing like I was his very own. Once I knew he was not my true father, I could never fully fathom why he was not ready to pack me off to an orphanage or dump me off somewhere far away. Why he was so forgiving and accepting made him more than a war hero. It made him my hero. That was why I loved him so much, especially because, soon after I was born, my mother was out of our lives. Perhaps, such a young woman should not be raising three step children and a newborn baby.

My father never mentioned any of the details of my conception, but he simply did his best to love me. He was a tall, very slim and a quiet man by nature. With light brown hair, grey eyes, and a kind face, he looked every bit of the hero I saw him as. He was willing to help anyone in a pinch, and most people who knew him respected him. Nobody in town ever talked about this situation to my father. To begin with, my father was not a talker, and he probably thought if he did talk about it, the pain and shame of it would not go away.

One of my brothers, Nathan, and my sister, Ann, seemed to treat me like a regular sister. Yet, Carl, the oldest child, hated me from the start. As a girl who was six years younger, I never understood why. He was the golden boy, with keen blue eyes and golden, wavy hair, as were Nathan and Ann.  I had long, dark brown hair, which I kept in two braids, with plenty of unsightly brown freckles, and very dark, brown eyes.  Compared to my sister, who was five years older, I never felt like I was a great beauty.

I was pretty young when Carl blurted out to me in anger, “Your mother is a *****!”  I cried a bit, wiped away the tears with my small hands and yelled back, “No, she isn’t!” Of course, I was too young to know what that word meant. When my brother followed that statement up with, “and you are a *******”, I ran straight to my father. I was almost seven years old.

My father scolded Carl pretty badly that day. Carl would not speak to me for months, and that was fine with me. That evening my father sat me upon my knee. “Daddy, what is a *****?” I asked him.

My father gently put his fingers up to my lips to shush me up. He then went into his wallet and showed me a weathered black-and-white photo he had of himself with his arms around my mother. It was in that wallet for some time, and he pulled out the wrinkled thing and placed it in front of me.

My father must have handled that picture a thousand times. Even with all the bad quality, with the wrinkles, I could see a lovely, young lady, with light eyes and dark hair, smiling as she was in the arms of her protector. My father looked proud in the photograph.

He said to me, his expression serious, “whatever Carl or anybody says about your mother, she will always be your mother and I love her for that”. I looked earnestly in his somber, grey eyes. “Why did she go away?” I asked him.

My father thought long and hard about how to answer me. He replied, “I don’t know. She was young and had more dreams in her than this town could hold for her”. He smiled awkwardly and added, “But at least she left me the best gift I could have—you.”  

I would never forget the warmth I felt with my father during that conversation. Certainly, I would never forget Carl’s cruel words, or sometimes the odd glances on the faces of townswomen, like they were studying me, comparing me to how I looked next to my father, or their whispers as the whole family would be out in town for an occasion. It did not happen every day, but this would happen whenever and wherever, when a couple of busybodies would pass me and my father walking down Main Street, or when we went into the ice cream parlor, or when I went with my father to the dime store, and it always made me feel very strange and vaguely sad, like I had no real reason to be sad but was anyway.


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That summer of 1954, I was a bit older, maybe a bit wiser than when Carl first insulted my estranged mother. I was eleven years old, and David was my equal, my sidekick. Feeling less like a kid, I tried not to boss him too much, and he tried not to be too smart in front of me. I held my own, though, had my own intelligence, but my smarts were more like street smarts. After all, I had Carl to deal with.

David seemed destined for something better in life. My life seemed like it would always be the same, like my feet were planted in heavy mud. David and I would talk about the places we would loved go to, but David would mark them on a map and track them out like his plans would really come to fruition. I never liked to dream that big. Sure, I would love to go somewhere exciting, somewhere where I’d never have to see Carl again, or some of the kids at school, but I knew why I had a reason to stay. I respected my father. That is why I did not wish to leave. And David respected his father. That is why he knew he had to leave.

David Ito’s father was a tailor. David’s parents came from Japan, and they hoped for a good life in their new country. Little did they know what would be in store for them. After the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, their lives, with many other Japanese Americans, were soon turned upside down. David was born in an internment camp designed to isolate Japanese people from the nation once Americans declared war on Germany and their allies. David and I were both born in 1943, and since the war ended two years later, David had no memories of the internment camp experience. Even so, David was impacted by it, because the memories haunted his parents.

There was no getting around it. David and I, as different as we were, liked each other. Still, neither he nor I felt any silly kind of puppy love attraction. David had still thought of girls as mushy and silly, and that is why he liked me. I was not mushy or silly, and I could shoot a sling shot better than he did. David loved the sling shot his parents bought him for his last birthday. They allowed him to have it just as long as he never shot it at anyone.

David Ito, being the oldest child in his family, and the only son, allowed him to feel quite special, a very prized boy for just that reason. Mr. Ito worked two jobs to support his family, and Mrs. Ito took in laundry and cooked for the locals who could not cook their own meals. Mrs. Ito was an excellent cook. Whatever they had to give their children, David was first in line to receive it.

The majority of those in my town of Prichard respected Mr. Ito, at least those who did business with him. He was not only able to get good tailoring business in town, but some of the neighboring towns gave him a bit of work, too. When he was not working in the textile factory, Mr. Ito was busy with his measuring tape and sewing machine.  

Even though Mr. Ito gained the respect of the townspeople, he still was not one of us. I am sure he knew it, too. Yet Mr. Ito lived in America most of his life. He was only nine-years-old when his parents came here with their children. Like David, Mr. Ito certainly knew he was Japanese. The mirror told him that every day. But he also knew felt an internal tug-of war that America was his country more than Japan was, even when he was proud of his roots, even though he was once locked up in that camp, and even when some people felt that he did not belong here.

If David was called an unkind name, I felt it insulted, too, for our friendship meant that much to me. How many times I got in trouble for fighting at school! My father would be called into the principal’s office, and I was asked by Mr. Murray to explain why I would act in such an undignified way. “They called David a ***** ***”, I exclaimed. “David is my friend!”

Because David and I were best buddies, we heard lots of jeering remarks. “Josie loves a ***! Josie loves a ***!” some of the children taunted. And Carl, with his meanness, loved to be head of the line to pick on us. He once said to me, “It figures that the only friend you can get is a scrawny ***!”

In spite of my troubles at school, Father greatly admired David and his father, and he thought that David and I were good for each other’s company. Mr. Ito greatly respected my father, in return, not only for his business but because my dad could fix any car with just about any problem. Jim Dunn was not only a brilliant man, in my eyes, but the best mechanic in town. When Mr. Ito needed work done on his car, my father was right there for him. It was an even exchange of paid work and admiration.

Both my father and David’s father felt our relationship was harmless. After all, everyone in David’s family knew and expected that he would marry a nice Japanese girl. There was no question about it. Where he would find one was not too important for a boy of his age. Neither of us experienced puberty yet and, under the watchful eye of my father, we would just be the best of buddies.

David pretended like the remarks said about him never bothered him, but I knew differently. I knew he hated Carl, and we avoided him as much as possible. David was nothing like me in this respect—he was not a fighter. Truly, he did not have a fighting bone in his body, not one that picked up a sword to stab it in the heart of someone else. It was not that David was not brave, for he was, but he knew the ugliness of war without ever even having to go to battle. Nevertheless, he used his intellect to fight off any of the racist remarks made about him or his family. He had to face it—the war had only ended nine years prior and a few of the war veterans in town fought in the Pacific.      

Because of the taunts David had experienced in school, I was not surprised what David’s father had in store for his beloved son.  Mr. Ito could barely afford to send one child to private school, but he was about to send one. David was about to be that child. When David told me that when school resumed he would be going to a boy’s school in Chicago, my heart sank. Why? Why did he have to go? I would never see him again!

“You will see me in the summer”, he reassured me. He looked at me as I tried to appear brave. I sat cross-legged on the grass and stared straight ahead like I never even heard him. I had a lump in my throat the size of a grapefruit, and my lips felt like they were quivering.

We were both using old pop bottles for target practice. They sat in a row on an old tree stump shining in the evening sun. David was shooting at them with his prized slingshot. I had a makeshift one that I created out of a tree branch and a rubber band.

“You won’t even remember me”, I complained.

“I will to”, he insisted. “I remember everything.”

“Oh, sure you will”, I said sarcastically. “You’ll be super duper smart and I will just be a dummy”. In anger, I rose up my slingshot, and I hit all three bottles, one by one, then I threw the slingshot to the ground. David missed all the shots he took earlier.

David threw his slingshot down, too. “For being a girl, you are pretty smart!” he shouted. “You are too smart for your own good! The reason I like you is because you are better than anyone I ever met in my entire life. Well…not better than my parents, but you are the neatest girl I ever knew in my life!”

For a while, we didn’t talk. We just sat there and let the warm, summer breeze do our talking for us. I pulle

She was like the iron pyrite
The teacher asked them to examine, and describe;
Cold, dense and prickly,
Difficult to love.
Given the right light
And a gentle handling,
Oh, how she'd sparkle,
But in that place, expectations and sensory overload
rendered her lumpen, and resistant.
Removed from her books and her inner world - all she needed -
And placed in a maelstrom,
She was bewildered and forlorn.
Un-cooperative, they called her,
And the teachers loved the other gems instead,
Pretty little nuggets; Ruby, Jasper, Jade.

Two years of discouragement and dislike
And even the tentative sparkles had darkened.
The other gems enjoyed each other
And moved away from her magnetic pull,
sensing difference.
No outright meanness, not yet,
But hints were brewing, whispers had started
And she wandered alone, in the playground,
Talking to the seagulls, and singing to herself.
The teachers only wanted conformity
And called her parents to voice concern
about her lack of friends.
Had they asked her, allowed her to have a say
She would have told them it didn't matter
But they were determined that it did, to them, if not to her,
And her parents were added to the burden of people
Worried and disappointed, watching.
She knew now, she was different, she had always known but never minded,
Now it was a problem. She didn't fit,
Like that scratchy purple uniform, around her chubby waist
Food didn't judge, dislike or condemn.

That life ended, and a new struggle, in a new school, began.
This was harder; the meanness was apparent now,
Difference wasn't tolerated
And someone wandering alone was a target.
She found a place to hide, behind a staircase, with a book,
But they found her, removed her and patrolled her only refuge
Forcing her to submit to the torture.
Every day was a war zone,
So she found another way, and embraced ill-health, stealthily
Spraying deodorant directly into her own face
induced asthma attacks; and not all those  ear infections were real,
She was an accomplished actress.

She got through it, millions do.
She found her own place, her own friends in her own time.
Among Onyx, Jet and Tigers Eye
Her darkness didn't mark her out as different,
And all that fake illness
Was great prep for theatre,
Where she was able to return to her inner world,
And no-one cared if you feigned madness
Or embraced the real thing.
Difference was celebrated,
The whispers now, were that she had a great stage presence,
And a talent to be nurtured,
Not a difference to be despised.

I sit and look out upon all the sorrows of the world, and upon all
    oppression and shame;
I hear secret convulsive sobs from young men, at anguish with
    themselves, remorseful after deeds done;
I see, in low life, the mother misused by her children, dying,
    neglected, gaunt, desperate;
I see the wife misused by her husband—I see the treacherous seducer
    of young women;
I mark the ranklings of jealousy and unrequited love, attempted to be
    hid—I see these sights on the earth;
I see the workings of battle, pestilence, tyranny—I see martyrs and
    prisoners;
I observe a famine at sea—I observe the sailors casting lots who
    shall be ****’d, to preserve the lives of the rest;
I observe the slights and degradations cast by arrogant persons upon
    laborers, the poor, and upon negroes, and the like;
All these—All the meanness and agony without end, I sitting, look out
    upon,
See, hear, and am silent.

1
Flood-Tide below me! I see you face to face!
Clouds of the west—sun there half an hour high—I see you also face
   to face.

Crowds of men and women attired in the usual costumes, how curious
   you are to me!
On the ferry-boats the hundreds and hundreds that cross, returning
   home, are more curious to me than you suppose,
And you that shall cross from shore to shore years hence are more
   to me, and more in my meditations, than you might suppose.

2
The impalpable sustenance of me from all things at all hours of the
   day,
The simple, compact, well-join’d scheme, myself disintegrated, every
   one disintegrated yet part of the scheme,
The similitudes of the past and those of the future,
The glories strung like beads on my smallest sights and hearings, on
   the walk in the street and the passage over the river,
The current rushing so swiftly and swimming with me far away,
The others that are to follow me, the ties between me and them,
The certainty of others, the life, love, sight, hearing of others.

Others will enter the gates of the ferry and cross from shore to
   shore,
Others will watch the run of the flood-tide,
Others will see the shipping of Manhattan north and west, and the
   heights of Brooklyn to the south and east,
Others will see the islands large and small;
Fifty years hence, others will see them as they cross, the sun half
   an hour high,
A hundred years hence, or ever so many hundred years hence, others
   will see them,
Will enjoy the sunset, the pouring-in of the flood-tide, the
   falling-back to the sea of the ebb-tide.

3
It avails not, time nor place—distance avails not,
I am with you, you men and women of a generation, or ever so many
   generations hence,
Just as you feel when you look on the river and sky, so I felt,
Just as any of you is one of a living crowd, I was one of a crowd,
Just as you are refresh’d by the gladness of the river and the
   bright flow, I was refresh’d,
Just as you stand and lean on the rail, yet hurry with the swift
   current, I stood yet was hurried,
Just as you look on the numberless masts of ships and the
   thick-stemm’d pipes of steamboats, I look’d.

I too many and many a time cross’d the river of old,
Watched the Twelfth-month sea-gulls, saw them high in the air
   floating with motionless wings, oscillating their bodies,
Saw how the glistening yellow lit up parts of their bodies and left
   the rest in strong shadow,
Saw the slow-wheeling circles and the gradual edging toward the
   south,
Saw the reflection of the summer sky in the water,
Had my eyes dazzled by the shimmering track of beams,
Look’d at the fine centrifugal spokes of light round the shape of my
   head in the sunlit water,
Look’d on the haze on the hills southward and south-westward,
Look’d on the vapor as it flew in fleeces tinged with violet,
Look’d toward the lower bay to notice the vessels arriving,
Saw their approach, saw aboard those that were near me,
Saw the white sails of schooners and sloops, saw the ships at
   anchor,
The sailors at work in the rigging or out astride the spars,
The round masts, the swinging motion of the hulls, the slender
   serpentine pennants,
The large and small steamers in motion, the pilots in their
   pilothouses,

The white wake left by the passage, the quick tremulous whirl of the
   wheels,
The flags of all nations, the falling of them at sunset,
The scallop-edged waves in the twilight, the ladled cups, the
   frolic-some crests and glistening,
The stretch afar growing dimmer and dimmer, the gray walls of the
   granite storehouses by the docks,
On the river the shadowy group, the big steam-tug closely flank’d on
   each side by the barges, the hay-boat, the belated lighter,
On the neighboring shore the fires from the foundry chimneys burning
   high and glaringly into the night,
Casting their flicker of black contrasted with wild red and yellow
   light over the tops of houses, and down into the clefts of
   streets.

4
These and all else were to me the same as they are to you,
I loved well those cities, loved well the stately and rapid river,
The men and women I saw were all near to me,
Others the same-others who look back on me because I look’d forward
   to them,
(The time will come, though I stop here to-day and to-night.)

5
What is it then between us?
What is the count of the scores or hundreds of years between us?

Whatever it is, it avails not—distance avails not, and place avails
   not,
I too lived, Brooklyn of ample hills was mine,
I too walk’d the streets of Manhattan island, and bathed in the
   waters around it,
I too felt the curious abrupt questionings stir within me,
In the day among crowds of people sometimes they came upon me,
In my walks home late at night or as I lay in my bed they came upon
   me,
I too had been struck from the float forever held in solution,
I too had receiv’d identity by my body,
That I was I knew was of my body, and what I should be I knew I
   should be of my body.

6
It is not upon you alone the dark patches fall,
The dark threw its patches down upon me also,

The best I had done seem’d to me blank and suspicious,
My great thoughts as I supposed them, were they not in reality
   meagre?
Nor is it you alone who know what it is to be evil,
I am he who knew what it was to be evil,
I too knitted the old knot of contrariety,
Blabb’d, blush’d, resented, lied, stole, grudg’d,
Had guile, anger, lust, hot wishes I dared not speak,
Was wayward, vain, greedy, shallow, sly, cowardly, malignant,
The wolf, the snake, the hog, not wanting in me.
The cheating look, the frivolous word, the adulterous wish, not
   wanting,

Refusals, hates, postponements, meanness, laziness, none of these
   wanting,
Was one with the rest, the days and haps of the rest,
Was call’d by my nighest name by clear loud voices of young men as
   they saw me approaching or passing,
Felt their arms on my neck as I stood, or the negligent leaning of
   their flesh against me as I sat,
Saw many I loved in the street or ferry-boat or public assembly, yet
   never told them a word,
Lived the same life with the rest, the same old laughing, gnawing,
   sleeping,
Play’d the part that still looks back on the actor or actress,
The same old role, the role that is what we make it, as great as we
   like,
Or as small as we like, or both great and small.

7
Closer yet I approach you,
What thought you have of me now, I had as much of you—I laid in my
   stores in advance,
I consider’d long and seriously of you before you were born.

Who was to know what should come home to me?
Who knows but I am enjoying this?
Who knows, for all the distance, but I am as good as looking at you
   now, for all you cannot see me?

8
Ah, what can ever be more stately and admirable to me than
   mast-hemm’d Manhattan?
River and sunset and scallop-edg’d waves of flood-tide?
The sea-gulls oscillating their bodies, the hay-boat in the
   twilight, and the belated lighter?

What gods can exceed these that clasp me by the hand, and with
   voices I love call me promptly and loudly by my nighest name as
   approach?
What is more subtle than this which ties me to the woman or man that
   looks in my face?
Which fuses me into you now, and pours my meaning into you?

We understand then do we not?
What I promis’d without mentioning it, have you not accepted?
What the study could not teach—what the preaching could not
   accomplish is accomplish’d, is it not?

9
Flow on, river! flow with the flood-tide, and ebb with the ebb-tide!
Frolic on, crested and scallop-edg’d waves!
Gorgeous clouds of the sunset! drench with your splendor me, or the
   men and women generations after me!
Cross from shore to shore, countless crowds of passengers!
Stand up, tall masts of Mannahatta! stand up, beautiful hills of
   Brooklyn!
Throb, baffled and curious brain! throw out questions and answers!
Suspend here and everywhere, eternal float of solution!
Gaze, loving and thirsting eyes, in the house or street or public
   assembly!
Sound out, voices of young men! loudly and musically call me by my
   nighest name!
Live, old life! play the part that looks back on the actor or
   actress!
Play the old role, the role that is great or small according as one
   makes it!
Consider, you who peruse me, whether I may not in unknown ways be
   looking upon you;
Be firm, rail over the river, to support those who lean idly, yet
   haste with the hasting current;
Fly on, sea-birds! fly sideways, or wheel in large circles high in
   the air;
Receive the summer sky, you water, and faithfully hold it till all
   downcast eyes have time to take it from you!
Diverge, fine spokes of light, from the shape of my head, or any
   one’s head, in the sunlit water!
Come on, ships from the lower bay! pass up or down, white-sail’d
   schooners, sloops, lighters!
Flaunt away, flags of all nations! be duly lower’d at sunset!
Burn high your fires, foundry chimneys! cast black shadows at
   nightfall! cast red and yellow light over the tops of the houses!

Appearances, now or henceforth, indicate what you are,
You necessary film, continue to envelop the soul,
About my body for me, and your body for you, be hung our divinest
   aromas,
Thrive, cities—bring your freight, bring your shows, ample and
   sufficient rivers,
Expand, being than which none else is perhaps more spiritual,
Keep your places, objects than which none else is more lasting.

You have waited, you always wait, you dumb, beautiful ministers,
We receive you with free sense at last, and are insatiate
   henceforward,
Not you any more shall be able to foil us, or withhold yourselves
   from us,
We use you, and do not cast you aside—we plant you permanently
   within us,
We fathom you not—we love you—there is perfection in you also,
You furnish your parts toward eternity,
Great or small, you furnish your parts toward the soul.

Silence, beautiful voice!
Be hard and still, for thou only troublest the mind,
And within such a joy I cannot rejoice,
a glory I shall not find.

Catch not my breath, o clamorous heart;
for thou art more horrendous than the horrendous,
and thy mourning over this heavy breath is far too hard,
but sounding alternately irresolute and pretentious.
Thou needst not be my ultimate, though doleful, present;
thou art wicked and frail as the serpent;
I shall let thy tongue be a thrall to my eye,
but vex thee greedily 'till thou benevolently saith goodbye.
I shall makest thee angry and giveth in to anger and lie
and let thee search about within my soul, and die.

Ah! Still, I shall listen to thee once more,
But move, I entreat; to the meadow and fall before
Thy feet on the meadow grass and adore
Bring my heart to thy heat but not make it sore
Not thine, which are neither courtly nor kind;
not mine, for thy youth still, makest me sweet and blind.
Oh, if only thou couldst be so sweet,
and thy smile all the worldliness I dreamt,
For it all wouldst no longer be stormy and pale,
or threatened be, to vanish amongst such winds or ghastly gales;
Ah, yon fairness wouldst be fair,
and scented as sweetly as thy hair.

Whom but thee, again, I should meet
Whenst at stormy nights sunset burneth
At the end of the head village street,
Whom I should meet behind the red ferns?
For I believest, in such boundlessness of fate
Fate that worlds cannot deny, and grudge cannot hate.
And, I believest indeed, my darling shall be there,
to touch he, shall my hand so sweet,
He bowest to me and utterest holy amends
To his future lover, but less than meekly hesitant; friend.

What if with his sunny hair
He connivest for me a snare
Who wouldst hath thought locks of gold so fair
Huddled and curved cozily by hands of care
Immersed in silver, tailored in gold
Even darker than toil, but sharper than words
Wouldst throw in my way pranks and deceit
As to his expectations I couldst not meet?
Wouldst he expect me to stand in the snow that couldst bite
and criest for and cursest him, in the middle of furious nights?

And what if with his sunny smile
Which he refineth with sweetness all the while
And with such an ostentatious remorse
That makest truthful delight even worse
He stealest my heart and makest me swear
So for any other I ought not to care
And my tears shall again be conceived in between
In the eternal mirror of revelling seasons, unseen
Knowing not what it hath done, or where it hath been
What if seas and clouds turnest just they are, so mean?

And imprisoned up and above
I shall hearest beloved Lord talk of the futility of love
And He shall oftentimes stop and mirthlessly laugh
Ruining the castles and puzzles and stories I dreamt of
If distances are not too far to walk to
I shall darest to cross my sphere and get over you
But sins hath perhaps forbidden my courteous intentions
As their meanness swayest me around with no destination-
ah, look at how their vile, grinning eyes temptest me!
They itchest my veins, they throttlest my knees;
and how uncivilly their ****** teeth hauntest me!
Indeedst, indeedst-they are far more horrendous than these living eyes canst see!

Perhaps his smile and tender tone
Were all that I imagined alone
Now that all spells hath grimly gone
Am I truly left on my own?
Ah, prone, prone is truly my soul
But I am distant here, lonely and cold
I am also strong but this solitude is too bold
I hath always been awake with truth, but this I cannot fold
And hovering dancing leaves are grotesquely thrown
About their echoing chambers opened wide
Until more rueful gravity has grown;
and hilarity fades wholly from my side

Once we came to the bench by the rouge church
And sat for hours by the wooden pillar alone
We sang along with the singing white birds
And those strangely blushing red thorns
'Till we fought everything burdened and curtly torn
As how the moon hurriedly cried 'till it found the morn
'Till suddenly, sweetly my heart beat stronger
And thicker, 'till I almost heard it no longer
But I realised, and fast mused and sighed
'No, it cannot stayest long, it cannot be pride.'

T'en we walked a mile-
Just a mile from the moors,
Circling about to find some exile
Away from noises and banging of doors.
We both pleaded, pleaded to our dear Lord
T'at genuine love our hearts couldst afford
But time grew envious and cut our walk short
As night approached and we suddenly had to resort.

And he too, he too was mad
And frowned and twitched that so made me sad
Endlessly alone he wouldst blame me and more fret
Sending myself down and brimmed with regrets
Like a parrot shuffling about its offspring's dying bed
My eyes grew warm and hurtful and red
Anger betrothed him to its indignant powers
Corrupted his cheers and drank away his laughters
I was furious, I cursed and kicked frantically at fate
How it grossly tainted and strained my tenuous date
For it was tenuous and I struggled to makest it strong;
but fate shamefully ripped it and all the triumph I'd woven, all along.

And losing him was indeedst everything,
nothing distracted me and kept my jostled self going.
I feelest lethargic even in my sleep,
I keepest falling from rocks in my dreams-ah, too leafy and steep!
I dreamest of suburbs that are rich with divine foliage,
I rejoicest in whose tranquil, though transient, merriment.
And as morn retreatest, I shall be again filled with rage,
I refusest to eat and enjoy even a slice of everyday's enjoyment.
I am now wholly conquered by worry; I was torn and lost in my own battlefield,
I hath no more guard that shall lift me upwards and grant me his shield.
Ah, I hath now been turned, to a whole nonentity;
at my wounds people shall turn away, with a foolish laugh and mock sorry.

O, love, and I am now vainly stuck in the night,
The night that refusest to leave my tired sight.
The night that keepest returning the dark
with no more hope of reflective sight,
and no more signs pertinent burning light,
and sick I'th become, of this jealous dread.
But am I really sick now? Utterly sick of this lonesome envy?
Ah, still I better refusest to know. My dreams are bad.
The shapes in there are far too inglorious and mad.
Just like those-ah! Do not let them harm me!
Where are my eyes? My very heart, my own blood,
and perhaps, my thorough sense of humanity?
One second back they were all still with me,
but they are all now ruined phantoms and shapes,
whenever I am fast asleep,
he turnest them out like obedient sheep
and handest them to the unseen to be *****.
He was neither sincere nor tactful,
and believed too heartly in his odious and ill-coloured soul.
Ah, but duly shall I even call this season harmful,
sorrows rule our hands, whilst distaste reign our men.
Disgrace ownest its peaks, within gratuitous handfuls,
men knowest not their lovers, speakest not of us as friends.
Ah, this is a bitter spring indeed, of anger and fear;
With thousands of evil tongues and evil ears,
For lovers are at war with their lovers,
and makest each others' eyes unseeing and blind.
Even God, our lovely God himself, is at war with his heavens,
for whose minds are lost, as real conscience shall never ever find.

Where is my love? Ah, perhaps staggering under the woods,
And I, who else, shall be with him,
Gathering woodland lilies,
Prosperously blooming under the trees.
Where is my heart? Ah, it is carried again within him,
as we layest about the green grass on our limbs,
with oiled lamps at our feet,
and tellest stories as our loving eyes lean closer and meet.

Ah, beauty! That is the picture in my mind,
not him, not him, that has sent me blind.
Still the image of him makes me sick,
his image that is as stony and greedy as a brick.

He has no feelings, he has no emotion,
he has no endurance and twists of natural passion.
He has all the strength and virility the world ever wanted,
but his mind remainst cold, his heart his own self once entered.
He is as unjust as a statue,
he knowest not wrong and right, nor false from true.
For whilst I tried to praise his being so comely,
he took all my remarks sedately,
he gazed at me with an arrogant face snarling,
and praised the gentleness of his own darling.

He is unthinking, savage, and unfeeling,
his face a human, his heart a brute.
He might be all the way comely and charming,
too pitiful he is inhuman and acts like a crude.
My fancy was sometimes real overbold,
for whenst I was to coo and hold, he was but to scream and scold.
Scorned, to be scorned by one that I not scorn,
whenst all this passion my shoulder had borne?
It is unfair and ignominiously hateful,
gross and unjust, horrid and spiteful.
A fool I am, to be unvexed with his pride!
And once, during repetitive daylight,
I past him, one day I was crossing his lands,
I did look at him not as a gentleman,
He was laughing at his own tediousness,
I dreaded him for that, but as I came home
later, I cried again, over his picture with madness.

Ah! How couldst I ever forget him,
whenst he is but the one I love?
No matter how strange this may seem,
he was the one I real dreamt of;
I want to love him not in a dream,
I want to touch him in his flesh.
I want to smell that scent of him,
and breathe onto his lap and his chest.
I want to sit in his oak-room,
and tellest him of stories of glad and gloom,
before the ocean-waves afar laid
next to quiet storms, amidst our private delight.
I want to have him selfishly!
Have him laugh endlessly with me,
and all the way love him madly;
with a heart so dearly but greedy.

What, if he fastened himself to this fool dame,
and bask in her infamous joy, and fame
Should I love him so well, if he
gave her heart to a thing so low?
Should I let him again smile at me
If we are bound to see each other tomorrow?
His smile, at times can be full of spite
Yet in spite of spite, he is all but comely and white;
I miss him, I miss him as just how I miss my dream,
He is, though marred, is just as sweet as I remember him,
I insist sorrow coming up to me,
To consolest and hearest here, my deepest plea
And ****** the most painful pain to he and she
And restore then, his innocent self to me.

I hearest no sound from where I am standing
But the rivulets and tiny drops of rain
Are starting to send moonlight to my whining
As I twitch and swirl and whirl about in the rain.
I watch people flock in and out the evening train;
their thoughts hidden, like all the mimicry in a quiet play.
Hearts full of glowing love, and at the same time, of disdain;
all pass by gates and bars and entrances with nothing serious to say.
Ah, perhaps I am the only one too melancholy,
for even at this busy hour think doth I, of such poetry.
Yet melancholy but real, for if I ever be dear to someone else,
then I decide that should I be, to myself, far dearer.
For I believe not tales another creature tells,
they can be lies, they can be unfairer.
Like a nutshell too hard for the very poor shell itself,
I do feel pity for him and his ignorant self.
Unlucky him, for I carest more for every puff of his breath,
no matter how eerie-and she, rejoices over
the bashful lapse, of his death.

My life hath crept so long on a broken wing
Through cells of madness, horror, and fear;
Fear that is brutal and insidious, though inviting
and lies that eyes cannot see nor ears hear;
My mood hath changed, at least at this time of year
As I'th stayed more about and dwelled mostly here
And my previous grief hath outgrown itself like a butterfly
Too I witnessed as It fluttered and flickered madly,
and at the very last moment, died silently 'midst its own fury;
All weeks long, I hath listened and learned tactfully more
Lessons that I hath never heard of, never before.

But still, hate I this severely clashing world;
too much torpor hath we all borne, and burning, virile hurt.
O down, down with laborious ambition and ******
Kiss this earth's silent layers and fold down our knees
Ah, darling, put down thy passion that makest thee Hell!
To all madness of thine thou should sayest, farewell-
Hesitate not, and leave thy curious, and agile state
Be honest and precise, be courteous and moderate.
Crush and demolish and burn all demonic hate
Thus instead cherish and welcome thy realistic fate.
Entertain thy love; with dozens and dozens of new, novelty!
Brush up thy pride, but leavest away, o, leavest away thy old vanity-
Ah, and profess thy love only to me, for it brings me delight
It returns my hope, and turns all my dissolutions to light.

And tease, tease me, and my frenetic, personal song
Though I but be a wounded thing-with a rancorous cry,
I am wretched and wretched, as thou hath hurt me all along
Sick, sick to the heart of this entire life, am I.
Many one hath preached my poor little heart down,
Neither any merriment is mine, 'mongst this serene county town.
My only friend is my oak-room bible, and its dear God
Who mockest frenetic riches rich at diamonds but poor at heart
With cries that rulest turning minds from each other apart;
and with wealth running away to selfishly savest their spoilt, cruel hearts-
o, how I am lucky-for I am destroyed, but not by my dear Lord;
I am healed and charmed by His generous frank words.

All seemest like a vague dream, but still a dear insight
For he, above all, taught me to see which one was right
I still miss him, and dearly hope that he canst somehow be my future poem
And together we shall fliest towards joy and escapest such unblessed doom;
His musical mouth is indeedst my song,
a song that I'th been singing intimately with, all along!
For this then shall I shall continue my pursuit,
with a grateful heart and so a considerate wit,
for I am sure now-that he is mine, and only mine,
and duly certain of these promising, though long, signs;
But now I feel my heart grow easier;
as it now embraces days in ways lovelier;
for I hath now awakened again, to a better mind,
so that everything is now to me just fine;
Still he bears all my love and intuitive goodwill,
yet how to waken my love, God knowest better still.

**** Your tyrarny!

I am passed

trying to understand

what your intentions are,

were,

or

what they would have ever become

with me.
Why did you

choose me

to torment?
What is it about me

that makes you want to

hurt me,

insult me,

belittle me,

and run ruff shot over me, when I am

and have been

the ONLY person who

has ever stood by you

no matter what.

Even so, you treat me like

a piece of trash

that you would just as well wipe your *** with.
You have disrespected me,

my home,

my heart,

and my dreams

of ever

having any kind of life with you.

I have been tormented by you

until

I really just want to be

rid of you and

and anything to do with you,

any memory

of you ever having been in my life!
Your pure unadulterated filthy meanness is

so obnoxious

and heartbreaking, that I frankly,

want nothing more to do with you

ever

anymore!
I just want to be far Away from you!
I pity you!
I really do.
I wish you well,

but I know now

you will never have any kind of  life with me,

Simply because you never wanted that

or me.

So.

it is time

to pick up the pieces of my life

move on

with what I have left of the material things,

and build myself a new life,

with the help of my spiritual belief,

and the faith I have in my own self worth.

you have left me with nothing

but hurtfelt memories

and the realization

that you

never meant to do anything

but hurt and betray my kindness

and to test my faith in what could be.

Now

all I feel is  disgust at my own stupidity,

not to mention

my repeated self destructive actions

and simple hard hardheadedness

when it came to making things work with you.-

-You never cared enough to even try

so

I am

as of right now,

gone, gone, and gone,

out of your reach!
Your mean insults and ignorant gestures

can no longer hurt me, as ..

I don’t care

what

you do

or

say

anymore!

The morning mists still haunt the stony street;
The northern summer air is shrill and cold;
And lo, the Hospital, grey, quiet, old,
Where Life and Death like friendly chafferers meet.
Thro' the loud spaciousness and draughty gloom
A small, strange child--so aged yet so young!--
Her little arm besplinted and beslung,
Precedes me gravely to the waiting-room.
I limp behind, my confidence all gone.
The grey-haired soldier-porter waves me on,
And on I crawl, and still my spirits fail:
A tragic meanness seems so to environ
These corridors and stairs of stone and iron,
Cold, naked, clean--half-workhouse and half-jail.

'Tis about time I said goodbye;
to thyself-t'at is but full of deceit, and lies.
Ah, just yesterday, rainbows wert snared by thy eyes;
but soon t'eir soul flickered like a flame, and died.

Ah, thee, th' son of night, and th' beauty of day;
My love for thee was, indeed, more t'an what poems canst say.
Oh, but why didst thou, with a smile so sweet,
flirt with me, as last Monday we w'rt fated t' meet?
My love, thou should'a stayed behind;
if thou wanted me not; with all t'ose secrets
thy so dearly kept and cherished, in thy mind.
I am now th' one to blame;
I am like one infinite morning, whose innocence
led me to believe in th' foreign falsehood of fame.
Ah, as how my heart jumped about like a selfish swan
Whenst thy lips silenced mine; oh, all wert just a good sign!
But how couldst thou stomp away and leave me alone?
Thou bask now, in my seedless cries, raw tears, and scorn;
Thou art cruel, cruel, cruel! Oh-thou filled me with disgust!
Thou art like disdain, and its mean garden;
Yes, thou art a semblance of whose ungratefulness!
Ungrateful and smeared with greedy terror;
Sending sane souls and spines about running with tremor;
And in which t'ere are neither flowers, nor hills, nor mountains
Everything is glaring; everything is burnt-
and under a nightless sky, a pitiful; yet irregular sky,
With rage thou shalt destruct my lavender;
thou art now an enemy, but yesterday a fake lover!
Ah, canst I believe it not-how I first came to love thee,
whenst thou wert just but a soulless entity!
Oh, how stupid I was-yes, too credulous and insipid;
for falling for a mask so infamous, and putrid.
I am now turning away-hopefully I am still late not,
and towards a better lover my whole conscience canst afford.

Ah, thee, but at today's moonless dawn
I sprang from sleep whenst I rigidly dreamed of thee;
I had hoped t'at thy shadow would never show
But kept it venturing to stay t'ere and haunt me.
How I would mock things t'at are stubborn;
t'ese hath I vowed, so deeply and heartily-
ever since I first was born.
Thou art a wicked, wicked witch;
thou treated me like litter;
like I was but a gouty piece of filth.
Thou art bright not, like th' river,
but th' sinned soil and clawed greenness under;
thou art not th' glow thou used to be,
ah, neither art thou th' angel t'at spoke and joked with me.
Thou art mean, mean, mean;
thou art a mean man and creature altogether;
Thou wert once part of my breath;
but now even thinking of thee
shalt goodly fill me with dread, and images
of erotically defeated triumph;
and flavourless, ye' anonymous, death.
But even if thou wert to die, I would grieve not;
for thou art not worthy of any more of my tears;
instead I would raise my hands and sweetly thank our dear Lord;
for returning my pride; and destroying my wounded fears.

Thou shalt from now on-liveth in my mind not,
and in which, in t'is most dignified, though absurd, conscience-
I sweareth t'at thee canst no more rejoice;
for I prefer stopping our unfinished story short;
and I detest now, every bit of thy flesh,
much less th' delusive meanness of thy voice.
Thou art to me but a bad dream,
and thy presence is even less meaningless
t'an a lad's pleading ghost;
Thou art trapped in stillness, as thou may seem,
ah, and may thy sins lead thee only, in th' years
to come, to thy worst.
Thou art worthy not of t'is grand earth!
In a marred graveyard should thy now dwellest,
'fore ruining thyself more, and makest all thy sins 'ven worse.
Ah, thou who art not a being of neither th' West nor East;
as even in God's mind, thou should be th' least,
I dread thee as how His Majesty spurns a fiend;
thou art neither my lover, nor playmate, nor any friend.

I hope by t'is poem th' world shalt see;
how notorious and vicious thou hath been
to one sinless me.
I am just a writer, with t'is poem in my hand-
but despite-I am just a woman, a fragile, and sometimes
infantile; lover and friend.
A lover, to a man worthy of my love;
a loyal friend, to all fellows-thoughtful and honest;
With whom my poetic soul shalt live;
and with whose courage,
t'is loving breath shalt ever thrive, in my left years-
and ever continue to joke, gather, and laugh.

I miss thee, I hath to admit
I want to witness again thy stunning smile so sweet
And how th' sun always kindly, and generously, touchest thy dark hair
Then shalt thou breakest into endless jokes and childish wit
'Fore rising a tender smile, as we greet each other by th' circular stairs.

I bet thou art still remarkable and stupendous as usual
Thou whom I'th known since last grey fall
By th' ponderous sleeping lake; in th' midst of a burly night;
Thou stared through me with a pair of unfathomable eyes;
as though thou couldst makest everything in my heart-better and right;
and yon, yon colourlessness of th' night, shinest so beautifully as butterflies.
Thou wert, indeedst, not th' paleness I had dreamed,
thou wert not bleak, thou wert not mean.
Thou still shined brightly though chilled and dimmed,
thou wert damp, but sunny-just like th' nearby shuffling trances
to which I had never been.
At times thou canst seem lazy, ah-but thou'rt indeedst not!
As just I do, thou liveth thy life from dot to dot,
thou leapest from time to time in my story,
thou, though far away, somehow always seem near,
and be sitting here idly with me and my poetry.
Thou might be close not to my ears,
but I canst listenest to thee; as thou eat and pray,
and as thou waketh, to every single inevitable day.
T'is life, which canst somehow be bitter,
shalt at times corruptest thy happiness and thy laughter;
wringing thee into false devotion and meanness,
but be sure, my love, t'at I shalt be thy cure;
I shalt be thy unhealed passion and all-new tenderness.
I shalt be thy first salvation, honesty and satiation;
I shalt be a scarf t'at giveth thee warmth, and thy hated mediation;
hated and dejected by t'is dreadful world, my love,
t'is world which knowest not t'at love is everything above.
And I shalt be thy heaven, and holiness,
and thy greenest grass when it is too dark,
as t'is world hurts and drivest away from frankness;
and within its grim sacrifice, lettest go of its single spark.
Ah, thee, thy innocence is just like my own soul,
but it is what makest thee divine as gold;
thou art ever pure, and incessantly pure,
and thy jokes and ventures and preachings flawless and true.
And in t'is weary life-which is sometimes faultless but unsure,
thou always makest me feel honoured;
makest me feel brand new.

Ah, Kozarev, thou art my immortal twin star,
and thy lips my sophisticated fragrant moon;
thou art my umbrella in yon idyllic heaven afar,
fade away not, but thou drifted away too soon!
My love, but sketchest again our undying night,
t'is time with a new ***** of light,
and giveth me comfort within which,
and flinch no more, for I shalt not flinch.
Thy genuinity is my nature,
thy childishness is my cure;
for t'ere are no more lips as naive as thine,
though t'ey oftentimes seemest spotless,
and t'eir toughness, seemest fine.

Ah, Kozzie, only fate t'at shalt makest out paths eventually align;
fate who hath sent me sweet prophecies, and a truthful bold sign.
Let me be thy grace, and thy sole, immortal lady;
let me be such craze, so t'at thou shalt always be with me.
I shalt be thy doll, and thy very own addict;
I shalt nursest, and cherishest thee every day of the week.
And joy, and its miraculous delight shalt be ours alone,
fallen fast asleep by night, and renewed by upcoming morns.
Together shalt we teasest every passing minute and hour;
and treatest all 'em nicely, just like how we deemeth t'at laugh, of ours.
And when nightfall greetest, sleep, my love, sleep;
thy red, innocent cheeks shalt I kiss; thy greatest dreams shalt I keep.

Kozarev, and fliest me again to th' melancholy Sofia,
wherein our peace shalt dwellest, and be cheered and alive.
But let me first fetch my old, talkative umbrella;
for Sofia shalt be full of rain; but one t'at makest it safe, and thrive.
Ah, Sofia, our little haven like yon nearby oak chatroom,
old as it is, but still-tenderer t'an t'is ever lonely gloom;
I bet Sofia is still warmer t'an t'is fraudulent war of my heart,
though it is, of now, far and sat by a land wholly apart.
Oh, Sofia, in which our love shalt be adequate, but still-inadequate,
for our love is more benign, ye' at times-more capricious t'an fate.
And it is raw, but ripe, like a mature cherry;
it hath neither tears, nor hate, nor brave worry!
Ah, my love; but again fly me, fly me, t'ere-
for cannot I waitest to live my life with thee;
and so promise t'at I shalt not bend, nor go else anywhere,
so long as thou shalt stayest, and liveth thy future years with me.

Oh, and I shalt forsaketh thee no more;
and disdaineth thee no more-thou art my sonata!
My delight liest in hearing thy sonnets be told;
thou sitting by me 'fore moonlight, down on th' starlit piazza!
Ah, Kozarev, please no longer makest my heart sore-
I am sick to death, I detestest t'is grief to th' core;
Burnest my heart's cries, and indulgest me in thy arms,
I shalt brimmest in thy glory; and gratefully lost, in thy charms.

As th' world turnest so weak and rough,
we shalt be th' sole ones to fall in love;
but our idyll is one t'is envious world cannot gather;
as it growest bleaker, as it turnest worse.
But Kozarev, having thee by my side shalt be enough;
and my days shalt be no more sad, nor tough;
Thou art th' candle, t'at lightest up th' life within me,
thou art th' candy, t'at livenest up all my poetry.

The Fiery Red Head

It is time to pay honor to one who doesn’t know it is do I begin from this point as all of us in a sense we
Are doing the same thing for me it is writing my way out yours is different but before I go I will have my
Say I realize I gave all my attention to her mother and father now it is time to shine the light on her
Reveal her inner and outward glory and beauty to do this and to make sense I have to lay a little ground
Work on how we met and ultimately what it meant as brief as possible I had a Simi normal life until I
Was five and my family left church you need paints from hell to paint the rest of my parents life we
Banged and stumbled along and then at twelve they divorced and all of a sudden my dad and I weren’t
A family in the eyes of those we rented from so they kicked us out and we ended up in a mine shack no
Sheet rock on the walls no ceiling no bathroom no heat after about a month the family had a meeting I
Was delivered from hell to heaven I went from sleeping under ten blankets to a sheet and light blanket at
His sister’s house what luxury then my mother bribed me by buying me a television to live with her folks
That where Judy comes in she lived down the street I already knew her because her brother and I was
Best friends but my move put me into a place ruled by two laws Willie’s law and Judy’s law I learned in
School supposedly the wave came about when you met someone long ago it was showing you had no
Weapon and that you were friendly well with Judy there was a different wave you instinctively put your
Hand behind you back feeling to see if anything would impede your escape put it this way you didn’t
Want to whirl around and run head first in to something and then fall back in her arms you heart could
Stop no problem she would scream and it would start in a hurry when you’re young your naturally stupid
Or one time I was told ignorant that means you just haven’t been taught yet anyway it sounds better but
First to show innocent stupid she and her sister Barb were pretty they sing about California girls Illinois
Isn’t full of woofers this isn’t a kennel well I was in the living room and barb goes back to her bedroom
She is back there about an hour she went back there just like always but as fate would have it I was
Moving across the floor and she walks out God she looked like she stepped out of a glamour magazine I
Didn’t know it but I was doing a Gomer impression not the aw shucks degum but I found out my mouth
Had fallen open barb looked at me and laughed and said what’s the matter I was dumbstruck Max
Factor and Barb hit a homerun that day that was good stupid but I followed my uncle in a sense he left
Home at thirteen and worked and lived with the local bootlegger I was basically on my own at fourteen I
Had to make decisions and find my way not always making the smartest moves that’s where Judy comes
In God made her with a sense of justice and what Washington doesn’t have the guts to take action she
Was never mean just for meanness sake but *****-up don’t worry I don’t know the avenging angel but I
Knew his helper people cry God is distant he is close at hand he puts people in your life so you don’t end
Up like my fiend Melvin we would listen to our dad’s story of the antics they pulled when they were
Younger this farmer the next day would try to top them he stole something from the store when the
Manager was looking at him and then chased him of the store each act of defiance made him more
Reckless worse than that it made him meaner I finally cut him loose I heard about him he walked into a
Liquor store pulled out a gun the store owner shot first he died on the operating table I had many helps
Getting to adult hood gentle souls were positioned along the way and tough ones when needed like Rex
Perry’s mom Roxanna she was a red head to but her rule was quiet and powerful midst storms for sure
But I took notice and I never forgot and there was tom’s mother another red head Elsie pretty and sweet
A true charmer I’m bring these folks up to Judy’s mind a little thrill for her special day Friday one
Last addition her neighbor Sara because of this special memory I don’t think Judy saw this I will share it
Now we were out at the end of Sara’s house snow was already falling but all of a sudden and I truly think
That if Heaven ever did disintegrate this would be the first evidence of it the flakes became big as silver
Dollars the sky filled with them they floated so softly and slow you were pulled skyward and you were
Allowed to float down with them a wonderland was forming before our eyes I said I would never forget
And I never have another precious memory from childhood and a great street just right for Christmas
Greeting and a happy birthday for a special friend thanks Jude making my life great have a great
birthday

The gaunt brown walls
Look infinite in their decent meanness.
There is nothing of home in the noisy kettle,
The fulsome fire.

The atmosphere
Suggests the trail of a ghostly druggist.
Dressings and lint on the long, lean table--
Whom are they for?

The patients yawn,
Or lie as in training for shroud and coffin.
A nurse in the corridor scolds and wrangles.
It's grim and strange.

Far footfalls clank.
The bad burn waits with his head unbandaged.
My neighbour chokes in the clutch of chloral . . .
O, a gruesome world!

I must have been raised wrong,
I believe in being generous.
I think people should be loved;
That meanness can be onerous.
I have seen what evil does
And I want no more of that.
I don’t think that selfishness
Will really feed the captain’s cat.

I have watched back biters
And gossips and thieves
Bring themselves all unawares
To the point where everyone grieves.
I have witnessed liars who get
Tripped up on their own tales;
Regular folks and politicians
Get the air taken from their sails.

I know well that our elderly
Have already done their job
So it’s fine with me if they just
Sit around and act like slobs.
They took care of us when we
Were the indolent folks kids are
So, they are entitled to rest,
More than we are, by far.

I was raised to let people be
If they had some philosophy
That did not match mine
Or even the vast majority.
Someone thinks a different way
That’s fine if it hurts no one.
Not everybody thinks the same
Carnival rides are that much fun.

I saw for myself that people
Were individual in so many ways.
Different in how they dressed
And what they had to say.
Some liked sports TV
And many preferred the soaps.
All of that is fine with me
So, why call each other dopes?

Is there something wrong with me
That I don’t go along with the crowd?
That I don’t enjoy the fights,
The sports fans shouting out loud?
Am I silly for not slowing down
When I pass a wreck on the highway?
Well, if I am, then that is fine.
I will go on doing things my way.

Got a message from my half
Mrs. Hypochondriac
Moody right, moody right
Tell your CC
Let everyone know
Beatnik ****, beatnik ****
Listen to that beaten sound
Keeps me running, keeps the engines hummin'
Listen to that beating sound
Tic Tac Tic Tac
Got a lookout for King Me
Watch your Q's and watch your P's
Dot your eyes and cross your tease
You're gonna see what you still won't believe
Birth your rumors of immortality
Pound them 'til I can't help but agree
But when the truth slays the light
Don't blame me
King Me King Me King Me King Me
I'm the King, I'm the King, I'm the King, I'm the King
Keep your filthy black stained hands off of my crown
Take up your own bleeding cross and ride it to town
I'm the King
Too good for my own good and don't give a fu ck
Hatching plans to freak out the Man
Got a meanness in me that I don't understand
A lie for a dollar, a life for a dime
There's a well, a deep, deep well I fell
Into once
Where in the tumbling I found
The true hidden meaning of falling down
The treasure at the bottom wasn't worth the minute
It took to get there
King Mad, King Mad, King Mad, King Mad
These songs for a King
King You and King Me
King Kong's a Ding ****
Monkey Tales
Banana on a stick
Dipped in black chocolate
Rancid and arcane
Read in, read in
The main character wears a black tunic
His queen is the one with the brain
Better half, better half she tells him
It's best you stay quiet you'll give it away
You've done enough damage for one other day
What's done is done
Nothing but another bridge to burn
Another corner to turn
She says
You understand it less than I
And your understanding is void and dry
Quiet now, my loveless love
My misunderstood drug
My salt melted slug
Quiet now, before people believe
In the nonsense you write, the ******* they read

Dorset! whose early steps with mine have stray’d,
Exploring every path of Ida’s glade;
Whom, still, affection taught me to defend,
And made me less a tyrant than a friend,
Though the harsh custom of our youthful band
Bade thee obey, and gave me to command;
Thee, on whose head a few short years will shower
The gift of riches, and the pride of power;
E’en now a name illustrious is thine own,
Renown’d in rank, not far beneath the throne.
Yet, Dorset, let not this ****** thy soul
To shun fair science, or evade controul;
Though passive tutors, fearful to dispraise
The titled child, whose future breath may raise,
View ducal errors with indulgent eyes,
And wink at faults they tremble to chastise.
When youthful parasites, who bend the knee
To wealth, their golden idol, not to thee,—
And even in simple boyhood’s opening dawn
Some slaves are found to flatter and to fawn,—
When these declare, “that pomp alone should wait
On one by birth predestin’d to be great;
That books were only meant for drudging fools,
That gallant spirits scorn the common rules;”
Believe them not,—they point the path to shame,
And seek to blast the honours of thy name:
Turn to the few in Ida’s early throng,
Whose souls disdain not to condemn the wrong;
Or if, amidst the comrades of thy youth,
None dare to raise the sterner voice of truth,
Ask thine own heart—’twill bid thee, boy, forbear!
For well I know that virtue lingers there.

Yes! I have mark’d thee many a passing day,
But now new scenes invite me far away;
Yes! I have mark’d within that generous mind
A soul, if well matur’d, to bless mankind;
Ah! though myself, by nature haughty, wild,
Whom Indiscretion hail’d her favourite child;
Though every error stamps me for her own,
And dooms my fall, I fain would fall alone;
Though my proud heart no precept, now, can tame,
I love the virtues which I cannot claim.

’Tis not enough, with other sons of power,
To gleam the lambent meteor of an hour;
To swell some peerage page in feeble pride,
With long-drawn names that grace no page beside;
Then share with titled crowds the common lot—
In life just gaz’d at, in the grave forgot;
While nought divides thee from the ****** dead,
Except the dull cold stone that hides thy head,
The mouldering ’scutcheon, or the Herald’s roll,
That well-emblazon’d but neglected scroll,
Where Lords, unhonour’d, in the tomb may find
One spot, to leave a worthless name behind.
There sleep, unnotic’d as the gloomy vaults
That veil their dust, their follies, and their faults,
A race, with old armorial lists o’erspread,
In records destin’d never to be read.
Fain would I view thee, with prophetic eyes,
Exalted more among the good and wise;
A glorious and a long career pursue,
As first in Rank, the first in Talent too:
Spurn every vice, each little meanness shun;
Not Fortune’s minion, but her noblest son.
  Turn to the annals of a former day;
Bright are the deeds thine earlier Sires display;
One, though a courtier, lived a man of worth,
And call’d, proud boast! the British drama forth.
Another view! not less renown’d for Wit;
Alike for courts, and camps, or senates fit;
Bold in the field, and favour’d by the Nine;
In every splendid part ordain’d to shine;
Far, far distinguished from the glittering throng,
The pride of Princes, and the boast of Song.
Such were thy Fathers; thus preserve their name,
Not heir to titles only, but to Fame.
The hour draws nigh, a few brief days will close,
To me, this little scene of joys and woes;
Each knell of Time now warns me to resign
Shades where Hope, Peace, and Friendship all were mine:
Hope, that could vary like the rainbow’s hue,
And gild their pinions, as the moments flew;
Peace, that reflection never frown’d away,
By dreams of ill to cloud some future day;
Friendship, whose truth let Childhood only tell;
Alas! they love not long, who love so well.

To these adieu! nor let me linger o’er
Scenes hail’d, as exiles hail their native shore,
Receding slowly, through the dark-blue deep,
Beheld by eyes that mourn, yet cannot weep.

  Dorset, farewell! I will not ask one part
Of sad remembrance in so young a heart;
The coming morrow from thy youthful mind
Will sweep my name, nor leave a trace behind.
And, yet, perhaps, in some maturer year,
Since chance has thrown us in the self-same sphere,
Since the same senate, nay, the same debate,
May one day claim our suffrage for the state,
We hence may meet, and pass each other by
With faint regard, or cold and distant eye.
For me, in future, neither friend nor foe,
A stranger to thyself, thy weal or woe—
With thee no more again I hope to trace
The recollection of our early race;
No more, as once, in social hours rejoice,
Or hear, unless in crowds, thy well-known voice;
Still, if the wishes of a heart untaught
To veil those feelings, which, perchance, it ought,
If these,—but let me cease the lengthen’d strain,—
Oh! if these wishes are not breath’d in vain,
The Guardian Seraph who directs thy fate
Will leave thee glorious, as he found thee great.

The Guest House

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and attend them all!
Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
clean of all its furniture,
still, treat each guest honourably.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice.
greet them at the door laughing and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes.
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.


-- Jelaluddin Rumi, translation by Coleman Barks

In a heady perfumed night…

Spanish guitars strung out a snare,

Soldiers crowed the border town

to see the Gypsy fair

Gypsy wagons, colorful and garish

circled the camp fires near the barracks.

Gypsies wandered freely their mongrel dogs did howl.

Gypsy’s drinking ***, stealing and making dog stew.

Some claimed they put in magic herbs to

boil a man’s skin raw.

Others said the opposite, it came out as a draw.

The violet dusky sky seemed to fall into the sea.

Bonfires burned and ravished the evening gaiety.

Sweat was running just waiting to see her.

She’d leave them broke and *** soaked;

but they cared not in their desire.

Just before the clock struck ten a wagon

door swung free.

A garter ed stocking leg emerged and men forgot

to ***.

The guitars began and then the drums until

the lady was among the wild eyed bunch.

Her colorful skirts, taffeta swished. bracelets graced

her slender arms, luscious breast heaved into sight;

men thought they would go blind.

And from her ears hung gold earrings dangling seven sparkling

moons. Her black eyes glistened as she made her snake like moves.

Her feet were bare and a golden scarf wound round her raven hair.

Slowly, She began her dance. to the ,melody of stars. The faster her body moved

her hips swung loose gyrating like in grooves.

Out of the shadows a dark figure appeared. No one noticed; her body was their

cheer. No one saw him pull out a knife and walk towards the girl.

Her torso grew more snake like with every ***** move.

His suit was black with silver studs.His boots were to the knee. A cigar hung out the side

of his mouth.  His meanness was plain to see. At last the girl saw him. She whirled away towards

her wagon; a ****** threw himself before the stranger. To late, He kicked the little man and

then began his wager. His voice was like a fog horn, smoked poured from out his nose.

Rosanna .grabbed the wagon door. He reached and pulled her close. A golden object dropped

in the dirt, no one picked it up. He twisted the girl till her breast were glued to his chest.

“next time you rob me. you gypsy *****, be sure what you take.” he tore the other earring off

and flesh came along as well. He shoved her to the ground and kicked her in the belly.

“Try to pass off a dead brat now, to hell with you and many.” He threw the other earring down on

her blood soaked blouse. He strode passed the dazed men and leaped upon his horse.

The girl  lay very still. No one moved till he was gone. Then they rushed to Rosanna

and saw her final blush. When he had been holding her he stuck his knife in her breast. She was dead

in the red dirt  and *** soaked breaths.

A legend grew from this incident, Rosanna of the seven moons. Folks said she was with child. They said

she was a ruse. After the terror filled moment her body disappeared. All that was left was a golden earring

that turned out to be fools gold. The strangest thing that had happened ,all the men had been robbed, Their

love for Rosanna blotted out the loss. No one cared about the money. All they wanted was to see Rosanna

dance before their lust was lost.

Many years later, a stranger passing through, said he’d found a golden earring with seven large moons.



Read more: http://authspot.com/poetry/rosanna-and-the-seven-moons/#ixzz0tUwFn8hz

an old lady lived in the neighborhood
spewing spite from her window calling out
I'm sure she would tell you her life was good
atop the world she would tell you no doubt
her meanness revealed the hatred within
her blatant name calling would never end
pointing her finger at everyone's sin
secretly wishing that she had a friend
even her family wasn't too keen
her two young nieces would visit with care
she chased them away creating a scene
they considered her home a witches lair

she lived by herself, was buried alone
in an grave unmarked, without a tombstone

I am the thunder that shakes your world
The terror lusting in your eyes
Simple gesture of impending pleasures
Intamently scratching out your eyes
Your meanness puts me off
But attractions turns me on
I hate to say, I’d like you
If your cloths weren’t on
Constructing my own tower
To keep you far away
But my hips sway in just that way
And broad shoulders lean in closer
What a titillating game…
I promise not to play
To bad you’re such a jack ***
You only know how to grab ***
I’m a gental honest lover
With passion under covers
I bet you have never known
That silky golden tone
Of soft lips whispering
I love you
Too bad you’re such a jack ***

(This is by no means an attempt at poetry. It is, instead, a piece of satire.)

Making Adultery Great  Again
Make America Groan Aloud
Making Americans Greedy *******
Male American Grandiosity Association
Many Americans Grabbing *****
Mediocrity Actually Grows Annually
Men Acting Grossly Asinine
Masculinity And Grossness Amalgamated

Meanness And Greed Acceptability
Megalomaniacs Abrogating Government Accountability
Mostly ******* Getting Aggressive
Masking All Government Aggression
Miserable Atrocious GOP *****
Mad Animals Getting Angry
Making America Grow Antisocial.
Misanthropic Association Gutting America

Mistaking Accuracy, Growing Artless
Misery Accompanies GOP Analyses.
Misquoting Anybody Gains Approval.
Misspelling Anything Good Anytime.
Magic Ain’t Gonna Appear
Maybe All GOP Avoid
Meanness And Gouging Anytime
Money And Greed Always

Most cringe at the fringes of reality, mind-splitting dualities

tear apart what's known, but its a start to grow, a seeker, a

keeper of secrets you have grown to be, yearning to be free by

learning what has to be, but you dare not to care, to show the

divine glow, hiding by gliding behind the shadows, and now

twisted wits slit your mental capacity fastening locks that

casually create apathy, now callously you afflict, lifting veils

that trick, gifting secrets by sifting through weakness,

designating your self a genius, resignating your true gist with

lists of accomplishments that compliment your ego, letting go of

your whole creating a hole that needlessly creates your

deviousness of pure meanness that's created quite an inconvenience

to a once great friendship.

Orange orange everywhere
Orange orange in the air
I’m given an orange despair
By a man with orange hair
I see through his orange glare
To see nothing really there

A man became president
Promising to evict residents
His stupidity self evident
When he says nothing relevant
About all the topical elements
He just talks for the hell of it

He’s unfit to lead
Because he’s equipped with greed
And an unwillingness to read
Gaining success from his family tree
He lives the American dream
By making others scream
To indulge his team
And his bigotry

All it took for his courtship
Was a culture of celebrity worship
And idiots buying his horseshit
Of acting remorseless

The gullible are impressed
With how well he is dressed
So they think he’s the best
Putting him in a wing that is west
Because he has a lot of money
But without any capability
You better start running
Money let’s him **** willingly

He takes advantage of the stupid and racist
By pointing at people with brown faces
Saying they’re here to replace us
Like they’re working for Asus
And not mowing his lawn
He said they will **** us
To manipulate his pawns

He’s a megalomaniac
Who thinks he’s a brainiac
But it’s a brain he lacks
To understand the impact
Of his negative attacks
Still he thinks he’s a genius
Which justifies his meanness
So his cruelty is seamless
While he claims to redeem us

This is our most vulnerable hour
With a president compromised by foreign powers
Building ivory towers
By turning minorities sour
There’s a litany of reasons
Why he calls them heathens
But it all revolves around freedoms
Being stripped from those who need them

His constituents have their heads in the sand
So they blindly give in to his demands
Going after whoever he’s ******
In the name of this land
Other kinds are banned

You can tell the bad guys have won
When they start separating mothers from sons
At the end of a gun
So there’s nowhere to run
Away from the oppression
Of our downward descension
As he does nothing to lessen
The root of our depression

His concentration camps
Give a **** slant
To his lofty plans
Until no one can stand
Without a weapon
Because of his deception
Which was his intention
To win the election
He promised detention
Of the boogeyman mentioned

The red, white and blue
Adopts an orange hue
When the foreign lose
From the fascist bruise
Of an orange noose

All I wanted was to see a smile, to hear a word that didn’t hurt,
I’d go to sleep at night thinking about how different it could be,
How happy I’d be if I could only go through the world unafraid,
And in my vision I would have a friend who listened and who cared.

Every morning it’s the same.  I wake up knowing that they are waiting,
Putting on my clothes I try to make it so I’m invisible, a ghost—
That way no one will notice me walking down the hall,
No one will call me names and trip me, my books spilling on the floor.

Every day I have to live in this hell that others call life, waiting,
Knowing that each classroom brings its own special torture,
That each bell calls me to yet another soul lashing,
Another stinging name they’ve invented for me to keep the wound raw.

I did nothing except not knowing how to act or what to say or how to belong,
And so they took my shyness and used it to make sure I’d pay for my disdain,
Making me the target for all their own pain and anger, the crucible of their cruelty,
Each day spent inventing some new way to make me bleed tears.
That old singer is right—there is a meanness in this world.

They took from me everything I was, everything I wanted to be,
Finally, they managed to take away my reason for staying alive
So I went home and locked myself in the bedroom, made sure the rope was tight. . .
And put an end to the unendurable pain of belonging nowhere, with no one, ever.

the gazer, he is called.
he calmly watches the world around him.
he analyzes threats and joys.
he sees clouds, sun, planets, and people.
but this one stops him.
this thing.
it stops him. and it stops his heart.
this one, different thing...

first a description:
he is nothing miraculous
funny, because i love him
that, in itself is not a miracle.
for love is easy. it's blind and cruel.
but this...this feeling
whatever it is....it is unworldly.
this one, different thing...

here's the poem, here's some lines,
i'll try to make sense, i'll try to rhyme.
here is a special few verses
for the special man who nurses
not mine, but our weary souls.
this one, different thing...

-begin-

his past is as dark as his hair,
heart as light as his eyes are fair.
he is smart, but no genius
he is strong, with no meanness

he has a name which gives him no favors,
his voice is a sound that never quavers.
his family, a gem
not of glass or stone,
but one of him,
one of home.

to be polished and cleaned,
shined til it gleamed
scratches run deep
as it's surface will weep

but family, none-the-less
a gem, but i digress.
this is for him, not them.

he is taller than i,
he sees but is blind
but when i come to mind,
i open his eyes.

in a flash i arose, i shot through his sky
i lit up his world with my light and my try
i'm a once-in-a-lifetime
i'm a half-witted rhyme
i'm a comet, you see
flying alone and flying free.

but this flight was different.
every pass 'round the sun, i grow weaker.
my tail shortens, my ice is spent.
my voice becomes meeker.

as i shot by above the earth's sky
i spied with my little eye,
a man.

i've seen many men.
i've seen planets.
i've seen rocks.
i've seen just about anything a comet can see.

but this man. he stopped. and he looked.
right at me. right through me. right through me.
i may have been wrong, i may have mistook,
but when i saw him, i saw me, i saw we.

i'm not the only comet he's seen
but i am the brightest.
the time he's spent on earth
with rocks so mean,
they make diamonds look weak
(like the ones on her hand)

but i am the brightest.
i'm the cleanest, i'm the rightest.
that's why we froze in time.

but for a moment,
a fleeting, shining, bursting moment in time.
he made me want to stay.
he made me want to lay
on earth.
with him.
forever.

but this is not the way of comets.
we come and we go
we shine and we glow
but we never stop.
we never halt.
we never drop.
we don't show fault.

but this man, he stopped me.
my orbit slowed
my heart showed
i stared and i lingered
i grasped for his fingers.

he dragged me down to the hell on earth
we danced and we sang and giggled with mirth.
this man and i, had this thing.
this one, special thing.

but, as the way of comets, i desired to leave
i wanted to fly, i wanted to believe
that i had a choice, i had a say
in my present and my future day.

not true, not true, not true at all
this man made me stumble, this man made me fall.
he held me down and stole my flight
i begged and i pleaded to only his delight.

i am no longer a comet, bright and flashing
i am a rock with an icy core
but a heart still dashing
evermore, evermore.

he took my sky, my light, and space
but i had my heart, just enough to save face.
i still love him to this day
i love him and i will stay.

he melted my outer layer while freezing my soul
but i am still me and i will recover in time
his wedding ring lies on the counter in a bowl
and i'm here waiting to make him mine.

september can't come a day too soon
he's cheated, he's lied his way to the moon.
but he's here now, today, this moment in time.
he's honest, he's changing, and soon he'll be mine.

i trust and i believe with every fiber of my being
that we were meant to be, just the time will be fleeting.
wrong time, wrong place
there's nothing we can do to change the ways of fate.

this is how it will be.
he will walk away and i will be free.
i can wander, i can fight, i can die.
he will live, he will work, he will lie.

some things change and others do not
i accept him as he is and love him with all i've got.
there is that one special person that you never forget
he is mine in this lifetime as she was his, which i regret.

i wish it was me. i wish he could see.
i wish i was there. i wish life was fair.
but years separate our bodies and we
will never be one even if we did so care.

wrong time, wrong place
we were never meant to be.
but i will love him and he will love me.
soon we'll separate just to save face.

time will pass and nature will weather our core
our minds will be lost and our souls set free
maybe then we can truly be. you and i, him and me.
evermore, evermore.

They will soon be down

To one, but he still will be
For a little while    still will be stopping

The flakes in the air with a look,
Surrounding himself with the silence
Of whitening snarls. Let him eat
The last red meal of the condemned

To extinction, tearing the guts

From an elk. Yet that is not enough
For me. I would have him eat

The heart, and from it, have an idea
Stream into his gnarling head
That he no longer has a thing
To lose, and so can walk

Out into the open, in the full

Pale of the sub-Arctic sun
Where a single spruce tree is dying

Higher and higher. Let him climb it
With all his meanness and strength.
Lord, we have come to the end
Of this kind of vision of heaven,

As the sky breaks open

Its fans around him and shimmers
And into its northern gates he rises

Snarling    complete    in the joy of a weasel
With an elk’s horned heart in his stomach
Looking straight into the eternal
Blue, where he hauls his kind. I would have it all

My way: at the top of that tree I place

The New World’s last eagle
Hunched in mangy feathers    giving

Up on the theory of flight.
Dear God of the wildness of poetry, let them mate
To the death in the rotten branches,
Let the tree sway and burst into flame

And mingle them, crackling with feathers,

In crownfire. Let something come
Of it    something gigantic    legendary

Rise beyond reason over hills
Of ice    screaming    that it cannot die,
That it has come back, this time
On wings, and will spare no earthly thing:

That it will hover, made purely of northern

Lights, at dusk    and fall
On men building roads: will perch

On the moose’s horn like a falcon
Riding into battle    into holy war against
Screaming railroad crews: will pull
Whole traplines like fibres from the snow

In the long-jawed night of fur trappers.

But, small, filthy, unwinged,
You will soon be crouching

Alone, with maybe some dim racial notion
Of being the last, but none of how much
Your unnoticed going will mean:
How much the timid poem needs

The mindless explosion of your rage,

The glutton’s internal fire    the elk’s
Heart in the belly, sprouting wings,

The pact of the “blind swallowing
Thing,” with himself, to eat
The world, and not to be driven off it
Until it is gone, even if it takes

Forever. I take you as you are

And make of you what I will,
Skunk-bear, carcajoy, bloodthirsty

Non-survivor.
                        Lord, let me die    but not die
Out.

I hated him, that slimy, stupid, putrid drunk. His ***** brown hair was crusted with the stink of old hairspray. Half-closed eyes ran red. His body flabby, with frequent bouts of flatulence. I watched him drink himself dumb, slobbering in his stupidity, succoring on his self-entitled rage. Anger and depression made him into a slurring mongrel. Contempt turned him into a raving lunatic. Many nights he held court with the mirror, glaring fiercely as if his reflection was an opponent to be destroyed.

That said, He did have some good qualities. Little lights that glowed in certain special moments. I saw them more times than I could count. Many times he would give his last dollar to a stranger in need.  There were quite a few times he picked up strangers and gave them a ride. When winter came he would shovel the driveways and sidewalks of the elderly for free.

Still, this list was not enough to satiate my rage. Perhaps part of my disdain came from the ill words of others. Meanness wearing the guise of kind criticism stirred my fury further. The resentment I bore him was too great. Thus, after another night of his drunken behavior, after another bout of self-indulgent whining and threats of suicide. I slit his throat.

Blood bubbled from his neck as he struggled to remain standing. Red liquid rained down enveloping his throat then partially covering his chest. Then a thin string of red lights exploded from the wound. Each line jerking the neck in a different direction as it sought its connection. The thud of these lines hitting the walls and sticking solidly echoed in the living room.

He screamed with a rage. The kind that I had never heard before. The bubbling blood choked him into silence as it began to thicken.  More crimson liquid oozed out and down the writhing figure. He was struggling so hard, which I found so amusing. Flakes of coagulated blood chipped off and settled on the puke colored carpet. The sharp strands of red vibrated and tightened as if they were trying to cease his agitated struggles.

After an hour of this strange horror show the blood stopped flowing, he stopped moving, and all that seemed to be left was a massive black, brown, and dark red cocoon. In the distance music played, songs of love, community, and social justice reverberated through the dingy house.

After several days the cocoon started to shiver and glow. Flecks of the clotted blood crumbled and fell to the floor, this time at an alarming rate. After another day the cocoon cracked and began disintegrating even faster.

It took another three or four hours till a figure emerged. Then he was back. The object of my disgust returned. However, he had changed. His eyes were no long weary or drunk red. His hair was smooth and silky, though still brown, it lacked that old stinky quality. His body had shrunk and hardened. I think I saw a small cotton tail, But the most striking change was the calmness.

When he spoke, poetry flowed from his lips. His new demeanor sang more of compassion then anger. Something had changed. Something was new. Old bitterness had almost completely faded. The anguish had been replaced with a hopeful grin.

As I stared into the mirror I knew I would never see that dark fool again. There was no more self-loathing only honest introspection.

Does magic pixie dust spring from Jimi's eyes
as we roll in microdot dreams,
shades lost,
counting blades of grass
as they wave to us
when heaven sighs
watching smart pebbles line
in formation like magic
marching to a psychedelic Sousa band
we can't quite hear
but know must be playing somewhere
'cause they, the pea stones,
keep amazing time -
'till meanness finds us on the ground
afraid the Sun has grown too hot
though we know it would not
play at night.

What is love, and what is love not?
That my heart I hath left not;
In anguish, still doth I think of thee,
To hold thee still like I didst once.

What is pain, and what is pain not?
That love is but keen to tell me not;
To consume a raging fire, with a chilly kiss,
To redeem such sunny sins in a loving bliss.

What is blue, and what is blue not?
That I writ not about blue this morning;
The flattered sun hath turned me ill,
I know not how to chill, nor feel.

What is hate, and what is hate not?
To what I see, and what I see not
All must hath been a writhing story
In the genial lies of hungry beauty.

What is a poet, and what is she not?
To what the worlds touch, nor touch not;
All is tales in her lavish charity,
One that most hearts shan't tell.

What is hatred, and what is its enemy?
To what I hear, and what I hear not;
Thou, my love, I saw thee in the forsaken winds
Too full and ecstatic in the realm of meanness.

I'd dream again of the young teal stars
With good and evil in their innocent hearts;
But who else present is to read my tale,
I hath far more words to writ and tell.

I'd think again of the corrupted moon
Roam around the seal of its disrupted circle
I'd catch the culprit behind our pale love
Restore the unmerited view, until all dies.

I hath a longing for a turquoise season
Whose rains hath been but dark and blue
There is no word for t'is reason
Why I loathe 'em all and miss you.

What are tears and what are tears not;
Those that are false and false not,
Those with ugly chords within their hearts
Those with imbecile likes and lively truth.

What are tears and what are tears not;
Tears that stay and stay not,
Tears that can see, but never make haste
Tears that live on and stay chaste.

What are scars and what are scars not;
They who bear contempt to heal,
They who judge, and listen not to us
They who neither leave nor say goodbye.

What are bruises and what are bruises not;
That we are all known for our wounds
Not for our dreams nor real misery
That injuries oft' linger in the bleeding hearts.

I'd dream again of molested shadows;
Those who know hell but not heaven,
Those who hath been heirs of tomorrow
Those who are not told nor seen.

I'd come again in the long run;
In a spectre low, childish and brown,
I hath lent my words and sick arrows to the night
That thou shalt not see me by my dripping light.

I'd have the skies distort my melodies;
With such disgrace they hath buried in me
That my youth shall become sallow and pass away
That it hath been here never, nor today.

I'd have the joys too hard to bequeath;
That they shalt die by the roses' prickly thorns,
I would miss you by the moon and again
I hath failed to love, to make love right for me.

I'd have the delight too riveting for us;
That of the night it hath but no art to absorb,
That no joy shalt be perfect to last,
That all that is mortal shalt have no hope.

I'd have my desires killed, and made to die;
That I could soon begin quivering again,
When time grew wild, I'd give up and lie
I'd perch on white dew and await death's rain.

I'd have my hunger halted, and await to fast;
For winter is not until the pouring rain
And part of my flesh hath the sun passed
A pleasing eerieness to all, and common man.

And in such haste no-one shalt but halt me;
Nor take my good that I ought to do,
I'd sink into my art and feel at peace,
I'd shrink into glass, I'd shrink in thee.

And in such a mess no-one shalt but settle me;
Nor take my bearings that I ought to mend,
For all is drawings, paints that are mortal
Paints that could die, nor see their blackened tomorrow.

All hath splintered and gone to waste;
But I shalt be awake and ripped chaste,
I shalt have the remnants of my chastity in me,
They shalt tower over me, but I cannot see.

All hath turned giddy, but they love not;
That such precious wails hath waned in time,
That another note hath failed to rhyme,
That our roles shalt ne'er be the same.

All hath smiled wide, but they see not;
For all hath lied with cheeks too random
That eyes cannot see and pick with wisdom,
The handsome prince hath sinned and shriveled away.

All hath been strong, but they ***** in dark;
For they are not to read, nor feel the light,
For art hath blinded who are not right,
For art is for those who forgive.

All hath been charmed, but yet they forget;
For art is for those who bear knowledge,
For art is for those who hath their hearts pledged,
For art is for those who are tame.

All hath been brave, but they care not;
None is too tough to embrace the fail,
None is grace nor hope in their tales,
None is too see an artist's amber kiss.

All hath been white, but still they blind;
For their contours are made of heat,
And rust that hath not been forgiven,
All that are empty, and void of wintry wit.

All is a shade, and thou sought me not;
Thou art the sun so that thou seest not,
Nor the flustered ice that lifts my eyes,
Thou hath burnt me, faltered me in lies.

All is a shadow, and thou a nightmare;
All is too bleak that it seems absurd.
Thou hath turned anew from fair,
Thou hath unleashed the darkest fate.

All is widowed, but thou love me not;
Thou hath loved me not to thy avail,
I hath been left about, and wailed,
Thou left yesterday, but now I cry not.

All is sunrays, and I cannot touch;
For all hath gone to the leveled past,
Thou hesitated in a say that lasts,
I want thou not to haunt me.

All is a promise, and a promise falters;
Thou were brief, but could stay longer,
I saw hindrance in thy cheeks and voice
That art came not onto our stories.

All is a blur, and I shan't see you;
For art is for those who are true,
For those whose souls shan't bear prejudice,
For those who delight in a fair bliss.

All is mortal, and thou art not art;
Thou art not the art I believe,
Nor the poetry I breathe to live,
Nor the love I keep in my heart.

All is lethal, and thou art not my tale;
Thou art not the words I write,
Nor the sandalwood candlelight,
Nor the tales I hath to tell.

All is faithless, and art is enough;
Thou art not the faith I hold on to,
Nor hath thy broken love been true,
Nor the one my art wants to love.

Is life a course
or a curse,
a path
or a pathology?
Is living a blessing
or a lessening,
a miracle
or a mirage?
Is it a kiss
or a miss,
a tender touch
or simply a come-on?
The opposite of love
is not hate,
but uncaring,
simply not feeling.
Are all illnesses
psychosomatic,
a disguised, silent way
that we take out
our unconscious anger
against ourselves?
Love both clarifies
and resolves these ambiguities,
seeking always the better
over the worse.
Life can mean love,
but too often
means meanness.

TOD HOWARD HAWKS

Does the poet live his own words
Measures up to what his verses promise
Strives for the heights his thoughts reach
Plays the part his writings reflect
Goes to any length to be good
Rids himself of all meanness
Is generous kind faithful trustworthy in his personal life
A lover a friend an aide a benefactor,
Or at the end of the day
Just a preacher
Who never is as tall as his sermons
But remains a run-o-mill guy
Who endowed with poetic skill
Spins in self-deceit webs of lies!

Does a poet ever endeavor
To become a poetry in motion?

I am not a mad man
Indeed, I’m not a man
I am the Fisher King
An enigmatic fraction
Of your frantic imagination
I come and go as I please
Mixing serene silence
With immaculate impotence
Who will help me
The King and his kinsmen
The King and his people
A barren madman
In a barren world
Living on hope alone
Hope and make-belief

Yet behind the façade
Of a harmless hermit
Lies greatness and goodness
And the promise of purity
The meaning of life
And the riddance of meanness
The secret of bliss
Without ignorance
The purest pleasure
For both body and soul
For the King and his kinsmen
The King and his people
The barren madman
Changing the barren world
Into a painting-like paradise

So forget about reason
And the rules they imply
And embrace the essence
Of my delusional ravings
Look out for the invisible
Listen to silent whispers
And expose hidden meanings
I’ll be here for a while
Resting on the riverside
For I am not a mad man
I am not a man
I am not mad
I am the Fisher King
A barren beacon
In a dark, dark world