feb12
3.04
ante
meridiem

We all slept together. Not that it was weird or anything, but mostly for warmth. There was a lack of insulation and that wrecked hell on the furnace. Half the time it wouldn’t even light, or stay lit, long enough to produce anything more than black smoke. Caustic stuff that flooded the house and left stains on the basement ceiling. So we did what any rational group of communal people would do, we bundled up as in an **** fashion and stayed warm. Stayed alive through a winter harsher than any in recent memory.
There were moments when we were at each others’ throats. Usually happened when someone had done too many hits and were just schizin. Trippin’ a  lil too hard for their – or any one else’s – good. They were just living this experience on a separate plane. We were living it in reality, or whatever word can be put to a subjective group conscious.

apr14
2.49
post
meridiem

Im here again, stuck again. Third time’s the charm, eh? That’s a lie if ever there were one. First time was alright, I could cope well enough; second time, I was numb in entirety; third time is as if I am Dante descending further. Descending further. Each ring of Hell a reality, thorn-bushes screaming and bleeding as their twigs are snapped for fodder. Yeah, that bad - and it's my third time.

jun6
3.00
post
meridiem

**** hot, the kind that turns asphalt to wax. Kinda wanna pick up a chunk and chew it, maybe Rant a little. I swear I could drop a match and the entire road system would blaze. It'd melt cars, and I am sure the asphalt would glow for a while. That'd be a sight I bet, something like a snake writhing and turning in attempts to strangle and consume itself. These thoughts, it's the heat.

jan14
4.22
ante
meridiem

I don't know what it is about graveyards and tripping, but there's a weird connection goin on there. I mean, ya know, like all that energy is built up in those hallowed grounds. Hollow ground. And you're all up in the Universe's business tryin' to proposition it with *** for answers to life. Only, I realized, ya know, that like, well, you can't **** the Universe. Be ****'d if It won't ******* without a second thought.


oct13
10.38
ante
meridiem

These are quieter days. The kinda days when I wake up exhausted and want nothing more than a coffee and cigarette. Knowing **** well that my sore throat will hate me after. "Why don't you take a flying **** at a rolling doughnut?" and I continue. Sitting in a cold garage, steam collecting on my eyelids as I try to warm up. The smoke doesn't help. Not a bit. These are quieter days. These are the days of less wandering and more thought. Thought processes. And action, I can not forget about the action. Though, there are times when I have a thought and tell myself to act on it that I find Vonnegut coming outta my mouth. "Why don't you take a flying **** at the mooooooooooooon?" Directed at me, at my own thoughts.

jan7
4.38
ante
meridiem

She was fine for a while. It wasn't but a few hours before her mind turned. Just a simple conversation, and then the next thing I knew she was trying to climb the wall. Mumbles about a tree-house and saving the Amazon. Comments on the proletariat uprising. Ranting to the CIA, they were monitoring everything and her escape from Communism was of particular interest to them. "It's alright." Her eyes met mine. "It's alright, they know I am for the good of the common-wealth. For the good of the People." What light hit her eyes sank into the abyss that were her pupils. Green halos, the color more pronounced as her mind turned furthur.

june 16th
8.40
post
meridiem

We built the fire up to the point where a person might have felt they were at a pow-wow. Could barely stand within five feet of it unless someone had a point of barbecuing their flesh. It was a tiny fire to begin with, and as we went off adventuring we would haul back giant logs. All of it driftwood, that meant it was quite a bit lighter. Meant that the wood was quite a bit dryer and would burn down fast, and that was the whole point.

2 a.m. condolence center
The most helpful place for confounded heart
You may ask for suggestion or place an order
Good evengloom,
How can I help you?

Informations about this stack of hair,
Please, I have sent it to your office
It has lots of broken dreams
And is covered with sharp glasses
It’s amassed by wailing light

Would you like anything else?

When you are done,
Just pack them up for long-haul
Morning departure
In the same flight as the divorced ribbons
On the issue last week

Thank you.

Good evengloom,
2 a.m. condolence center
How can I help you?

I’d like a work of art, please
With streaks of blue blood
In the red paint that was made of dirt
You know, the one dipped into a glass of arsenic
Before the loom gloom september sleep

Just that, nothing else.

Good evengloom,
2 a.m. condolence center
How can I help you?

Show me your face, destroyer
Your half-witted face
Your scavenger scars
Do not hide behind the cords
Putting the mask of a saint

You are a sinner like we are
Grief your godforsaken
Condolence center

Anything else?

Just your half-tilted face,
Destroyer.
And I shall ask no more.

Good evergloom.
2 ante meridiem condolence center
How can I help you?

Shut the stars
And light up middays
We are fed up
Of your condolence center
Thank you

Thank you for your calls
We wish you a very goodnight.
From  your beloved two a.m. condolence center
Good evengloom,
good evergloom.

Only a fence between the Avon Railyard and my haven:
I lived in her for those good years.
Dark grey blue sides and a white skirt kissing the green weeds,
tugging at her ankles tightly.
New hours, beautifully lit by the light of my television,
were dark, bitter like my fatherʼs coffee,
and sweet as the chocolate milk he mixed for me.
Bowed chords in the treble from rails on wheels of metal,
their songs still steal my breath and remake memories.
I swayed, swooning to sounds of our trains, but
only tunes remain—

I have welcomed you back, my love
Welcome back to hell.

I issued a fair warning to the call-man
On the watchtower, I told him
          “Would you believe this if I told you?”
          “You tell him that I am coming for him!”
          “. . . and there will be more than hell to pay. . .”

More than I could have ever dreamed. . .
His blood is my blood
&
My blood is his.
I will drown in it one day.

He walks slowly into the center of my vision.
I smell a false sense of fear,
Was it I or him that reeked of this
Blurred illusion of what we both shook from?
I heard a child’s laughter in the fog (again)
Was it I or him that brought this
Old demon back in?
I saw a trembling hand raise
As the fire blazed in and out
A knife became shape (again)
Was it I or him that first reckoned this
Evil deed of sin?
I felt the blade slide in (again)
Was it I or him that took this
Task, this burden, this dream
And crafted it into our own ****** up reality
The blood was thick on the ground
I taste that old familiar taste
That ironic, irony, iron taste . . . old blood
But again, was it I or him that began
To sink not swim into this
River of blood?

My throat is fully coated in iron
(Steal diamonds and gold)
From that nightmare/dream
And I lie here in my bed and think back
To “where the **** is my coat?’

There was no clock; no watch,
No time as they stood together,
As if time decides to take a break.

The moon was high,
On the dark black sky,
As if the night was the actuall setting for earth time.

Her heart flutters,
Her knees trembles,
As he said "I want to protect you and your fading smile."


-HIY

My father, gone fifty years,
A transplanted German,
Arrived early, in the 1920's,
Fleeing the worldwide depression,
That decided to follow him to America.

Traveling salesman, raconteur,
A busy man who decided he
Found the right girl at age forty,
But by the time I was teen,
He was, then uncommon,
An older man, an older father.

Raised three kids,
Working six days a week.
Unlike the other fathers,
White shirt and tie every day
Even Sunday.

No backyard in the city,
To toss a base or football to his son,
Though he wouldn't, couldn't,
While his son grew,
Grew up worshipping
Three Gods:
Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris, and
The bold, the bald Y.A. Tittle,
Heroic sports figures.

The son who went to Yankee Stadium
For the first time,
There he saw the color
Emerald  Green in the Bronx,
In The House Ruth Built,
Whispered Hallelujah,
There, courtesy of someone else's dad.

Goatee he wore, and on Saturdays,
Wore a black jacket, striped pants
And Homburg hat to the synagogue.
Custom of his Hamburg upbringing.
The only one, the only dad,
Of course, dressed that way.
Proud of his style, his heritage,
Helping me not to fit right in.

Yet twinkle twinkle did his eyes sparkle,
Such that all the other children loved him,
Better and best.

But I was the son with the unlike,
The father, unlike any others.
Age thirteen, he's asked me this:
Now you are a man, I wish of thee this,
Accompany me to synagogue every day,
As is my custom, and all your father's,
Twenty generations before me.

When he passed, the stories of
His saintly deeds, his help,
How he saved, brought many to
The United States of America,
Including his five sisters and their families.
During, after WWII, became legends,
all the while, trying to make a living.

One time, I was listening to
Rock n' Roll, on the radio,
In the den, study, his home office,
Where
The Stereo,
proudly sat.

Chased me out,
Paperwork to do,
But stopped me first,
Listening to the song.
That happened to be next.

When this old world starts getting me down
And people are just too much for me to face
I climb way up to the top of the stairs
And all my cares just drift right into space

On the roof, the only place I know
Where you just have to wish to make it so
Let me tell you now

When I come home feelin' tired and beat
I go up where the air is fresh and sweet
Up on the roof
I get away from the hustling crowd
And all that rat race noise down in the street
Up on the roof

On the roof, the only place I know
Where you just have to wish to make it so
Let's go up on the roof
Up on the roof

At night the stars put on a show for free
And darling, you can share it all with me
I keep a tellin' you

Right smack dab in the middle of town
I've found a paradise that's trouble proof
Up on the roof
And if this world starts getting you down
There's room enough for two, up on the roof
Up on the roof

Up on the roof
Up on the roof
Oh, come on, baby
Up on the roof
Oh, come on, honey
Up on the roof
Everything is all right
Up on the roof
Say that, "It's alright"
Up on the roof
Oh, we gotta go up on the roof
Up on the roof
The Drifters - Up On The Roof

He listened carefully,
Pronouncing with an austere smile,
"That I like, now go."

Now fifty years later,
Having failed spectacularly as a
Father, family man, having never saved a
Soul or life, I remember the outcast days
Of my growing up years,
With a different kind of father
Than all the kids who
Played catch, had big suburban homes.

I never understood much,
Always struggled to be one
Unsuccessful in fitting in,
In my high school yearbook,
They outed my anomie,
"Either apart or ahead of us,
Nat stands, uniquely individual."

So here is a poem, an apology,
No, more an anthology, an anthem,
Of, and,
To my pop, for resenting, misunderstanding,
How
You were more than unique,
How you were special, in ways
No teenager could see.

I am have written some of this before.
Tender apologies, but when I awoke this
Post Thanksgiving Day, at
6:00 Ante Meridiem,
In not my bed,
In not my city,
Pandora surprised me
Real Good,
With an old song,
Up on the Roof.

These words,
The ones you are reading did not drift,
Nay, they spilled out in shades of
Tearful regretful guilt-filled,
Pooling tears that cannot n'ere erase
Prior youthful errors, grievous sins.

Of course,
They like to surprise you,
At the end of their song,
Twisty surprise ending.

I will say it, not you,
In some ways, not all,
I grew up to be just like him,

And for that,
I will give thanks,
Not just one day, every day,
Until it is among,
My last thoughts passing,
Proceeding me,
Preceding me,
As I depart this globe.

incur a loss
of unpeakable horror
by magnitude alone
dance with one arm tied
and it's off to the races
once more
in what seems like forever
i sheltered the non-believer in me
from holding the spot...
an arthur-ragen type fashion.
the rain drops would applaud the ground
to truly advance
as they always have
subliminally begging
to settle my case
yet there is unease in the voices
almost as if to say:
we finally surrender,
perhaps you have overcome,
but once manifested
the silver will catch our tongue
any days and all days
and days just like today
when suspicions curtail
you will kneel as we prey

the blue ceiling's fallen,

all the livelong day the

dead will try to raise it.

so much like sunlight

from the ground up.

one side of the blade is

dumb to the other, unable

to see straight till the cut.

a window has no such

problem...won't need to

sweat blood.

You are ambushed
the very second you awaken
by a rabid animal trapped inside your skull.

It drags its claws across your brain stem,
races down your chest, past your heart
to your stomach where it begins
gnawing on the fleshy parts.

Every muscle contracts, holding tightly
to what you know you should let go of.

You turn on your side, trying to hide,
knowing wherever you turn it will follow.

You plead--What have I done?
I didn't ask for this.
I swear, whatever it is, I am innocent.

You take deep breaths:
rising, falling...
rising, falling....

One of you begins to calm down,
you can't tell which. You take this
opportunity to let go just a little
and the animal scurries up to your chest,
holding your heart hostage.

You focus on your breathing again:
rising, falling...
rising, falling....

Once the palpitations stop
you muster the courage to take a peek,
to look the beast in the eyes.

It's OK, you say. *It's OK.
I'm not going to hurt you.
I promise.

Mostly, it sickens me that
our notes sent back and forth are
measurably more pleasant than conversation
We share in person.

I bet that paper lotus is gone.

Interchanged sentence fragments
both homeopathic and calculated by lamplight.

I bet that bookmark is still in the same place.

Even comparing you to Ivan would be a stretch,
Who are we kidding.
Dmitri.
But that’s still not the name I call you ante meridiem.

I bet Freud was right, but I never called myself a boy.  

A . Eb.  Six steps.  
Slonimsky dedicated so many pages to you.

I guess I will distill the Ocean
for salt.    

I can’t say any of this to you,
the most honest I’ll ever be
is in a poem I hope you’ll never read.

remembering sweating together
the summer without cooler air.
we ****'d, project'd insanity,
then dispersed - true summer time
girl. trying to rise, and
  - it's so hot in here
in the middle of the night, at three
ante meridiem. and
  - it's so hot in here
as i drag'd an ice-cool'd rag from
neck down back. and
  - it's so hot in here
as the single open window vent'd
our steam. and no one remembers
hiding between the negatives. no one
remembers their own foot placement.
and i long for the discomfit of that
oven-apartment, talking with her. and
  - just chillin' and drinkin'
have become her life. thirteen on thir-
teen and
  - i'm so tired
in the sense of a Kesey character. to lose
everyone when no one was there.
  - what the ****?
    why is this life not over yet?
and being over this, over the readiness
to die. conquer'd once, realizing the
true deception at its reemergence.

She has the strangest
case of
nyctophobia. The Night
sends her into a hurried
hurried mess, eager to
greet again the sun

Stay with me for the night!
Be my lover for the night!

and you consider
and you surrender

because you have a fear of
The Sun. Ante Meridiem.
so give in!
        fear controls your body
and she controls your fear

How cold was the night when Belle learned to love a horrid beast?
How bright was the evening when Wendy chose to never leave?
How silent was the dark when Aurora was sound asleep?
How selfish was the midnight when Cinderella’s shoe fell off her feet?

Now, those are magics and princesses made up of fiction and fantasies;
We are blood and flesh made up of atoms and reality
Who are forced to believe someday we'll be as lucky
To have our own kind of sweet tell-a-tale stories.

But how cold was the night when you waited for someone to come back?
How bright was the evening when you wished upon a shooting star on the sky?
How silent was the dark with your sobs and tears that were left to cry?
How selfish was midnight when you realize no one's returning as you look at the clock?

It all happens after AM
when the night was cold
while the evening was bright
the dark was silent
and the midnight was selfish.

— 𝙘𝙗.𝙘𝙧𝙚𝙙

He entered our window
On his chariot, gold
Crashing the balloons
Left by a Sunday celebration,
My nephew’s 1st birthday
Last Sunday, yes, last Sunday
When all of us orbited
The sun
On an evening
Until 10:30, post meridiem.

Stream of consciousness
leftover chili on the stove top
the shadow self is fiddling with a tangled yo-yo
hoping to use the string to trip you up
at 5 ante meridiem
when you are most vulnerable and susceptible
and you thrash in your covers
maybe the next position will be more comfortable
the mental gymnastics are in town
except instead of balance beams
you'll see crooked frowns
and slimy clowns
and then the sun wakes up
from its desperate napping
that golden tongue is dripping and lapping
the blue sky which encourages happening
and the shadow self
can't wait
to trip you up

O time, I heard thou art a great thief who the law cannot strike at, and art often unkind
For thou steals that which is most precious to men, and thy history precede mankind

Thou are ruthless to those who ignore thee, and a companion to all who cherish thee
To the fool, art thou slow to pass when his life consist of pain and sorrow.
But swift and fast, when happiness comes and there's hope for tomorrow
He is wise in heart, and mighty in wisdom, who hath hardened himself against folly to follow thee

Thy mystery befuddles even the sharpest of minds, and remain inconspicuous in obscurantism
It is as high as the BLUE sky;what canst men do?Mysterious as the WHITE cloud;what canst we know?
On the vast BROWN earth hath men raised up kingdoms.But with thy passing, most of it becomes ruins and ASH.
Thou giveth WINE it quality and taste, for with more of thee it only gets better
I want to know how GOLD still the only valuable currency in of thy existence and all of mankind use it as a symbol of wealth

Canst men by searching find out time? Canst men find out thy mystery unto perfection?
Ye know the incipient of all, but none knows your beginning, which avers circumspection
Canst that which unsavoury be eaten without salt? Or is there hope for a plant without light?
Even when presume dead and hath stopped ticking, twice a day art thou still right.

An orchestrator of that which is great and of nearly all that is undetected in this great planet
As I assay to commune with thee, wilt thou be grieved?Or for all thy deliciousness consider me a gannet
Teach me thy secrets, cause me to understand wherein wise men in history have erred
Remove not the trusty in my speech, and take not away my understanding as I age.

Remember, I beseech thee, that I am just a lad.And I acknowledge, in all of existence thou art not perverse.
Teach me to be just in judgement as a lover of wisdom, for in all of life, a philosopher I traverse.
For thou hath made thyself known to mankind, that thou wait for no man
Behold, O time;for I am in distress:my bowels are troubled;help me to know all of thee as I can

In thee I seek not the usage of seconds, minutes, hours and days;That I leave for minds so puerile
Reveal unto  me the mystery of media nox, media nocte, gallicinium, conticinium, lucem and diluculum; I pray
And of ad meridiem, meridies, de meridie, suprema, vespera, crepusculum, luminibus accensis, concubium, intempesta, ad mediam noctem
Raise me far higher, even amongst my equals.And guide  my steps that my works are not later treated servile

I believe thou art the One true living God.For thou can't been seen, felt, nor heard, but laudable is thy existence.
'Time' is just another name wherein thy mystery cannot be decipher, even in  persistence.
Thou knowest the beginning of creation and thou art the beginning and end of all things created,
Which only further enhance the saying: "it is in thee we move and have our being."

In acknowledging thee, canst my people and I say "time is on  our side"? or better still "God with us"?
My name is Emmanuel, be thou forever with me.And preserve my name forever in thy actuality
Thou art the salient feature of all in existence.I take my leave now, because the time is 7:14

At one.forty-five, anti meridiem
I blink, half-sit-half-lie and squirm
in a cartel of intricate inquiry.

He must be hurting inordinately
to wish me death and calamity.

Who and where is he?
How and why does he?

Simple five-word questions
seeking conclusive resolutions
for well over a millennium.

Frazzled and woefully sapped
from this anarchic, chaotic task
I turn for the promising refuge
of my orderly book-rack.

❋

Over and over again,
I read the masterly treatise
and really try to take it as a guide.

❋

The book has foresight.

It says there is no death

which my friend has wittingly wished me
in his anguished wrath.

Life is eternal, infinite.

Only the spirit changes over
to some other wardrobe
or maybe transitions
to another dimension
purgatory or paradise.

❋

We never really die and likewise
the loved and the not so loved
also survive.

❋

But life often defies explanations
not to mention all expert expositions.

I feel sadly feeble and disillusioned
to see

an orphan having the nose
hard against the grindstone

a spouse lonely and forlorn
fighting it out all alone

a disconsolate father
devastated by the departure
of a youthful son......
or a blooming daughter.

a dashing soldier
who somberly carries the cadaver
....the cold inert clay of a dead comrade

a pining sibling.........
a friend irredeemably lost.........
the poor dead without
and ****** with the ***......
a zealot who lost the plot
or martyrs who bravely fought.....

❉

The book says they are all here
and we still find them nowhere
at least not as companions
in our worldly sojourn.

The author exhorts -
those who are gone still see us
feel us.

And I smile wryly, a little ruefully
at the still living, stranded passengers
in one too many crowded lanes
on this gross, physical plane
devoid of all succor even from a ghost

slippery yet subtle.

If only there was a real life Whoopi †
we all would be as lucky as the demure Demi
and Patrick Swayze would do the reel drill
in real time indubitably.

Alas!!!
celluloid existence is pure imagination
.....just neat fiction.

And the impeccable book.....
though elegant
seems utterly untrue.

❋

I therefore can not take heart
from the prophesied fact
that the dead are not really dead

not ever, or at least not yet....

Yes, they may be right beside
but unless we cross over to the other side
or they someday decide to travel back in time

the living will always be somewhat dead somewhere
and the dead will always be somewhat alive somewhere

accidentally meeting.....
sometimes......

from across the great divide
in a nebulous twilight

but mostly waiting, waiting....
for the wait to end

and to be terminally united
either fully alive
or completely dead.


† Reference made to the 1990 film 'Ghost'. More information at:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost(1990film)

One nineteenth century muddy long step up from street level there's a resting chair. The hollow sound of heels on plank could wake an old dog, dreaming of fields and brook trout, just enough to raise its head in recognition and smell its groundhog day. The lazy bell inside the entrance is quiet still, unlike the pattern etched glass chimes hung in breeze's timber that moves the billowing sheets of clouds pinned to a rotating sky.

A locked, bone white door, side window pane view, with a clock's jovial yellow face staring, tells, "Open at nine ante meridiem." Skinny pillars, remanent of ancient Greek palms buttress the wooden canopy and hanging sign advertising, "Barbershop", written in Old English script and painted red on white candy-cane pole. A drop of red lists beyond its circling ribbon illusion, as though the barber's razor had nicked the white neck of the cylinder's turn.

Peering  through a window of yesterday's photographs spoke rust and gears of farm equipment, reabsorbed in time, back-hoed into this earth's grinding gears, twirling in slow motion through a cosmic expanse so vast that only sleep can douse. A bird's cheep-cheep, brings home the tree's leaves and sway of grass while underfoot a Terra firma. Reclined now, behind old growth stands the ready scissors' clip-clip of the cut and trim; back lit by a Super-Nova lamp.

≈ cec

Expedition of life starts at dawn.
Trainers come genetically,
custom and society fill the gap,
we start a journey,
the route is misty.

I started for the Kanchenjunga
Half of the track was well lit road
rest was chosen weather-wise.
While I was in the last camp,
the peak was conquered by fast runners.

It took several years to start new expedition,
light came from 'post meridiem'
air changed a lot,
it was another peak in the same Himalayas.
Now the hazards are known, I strive.

5th June, 2017.

vibrancy emits amongst the echoes of the night
as slumber casts itself on most these hours, absent light
while some lack productivity, with efforts turned to ruin
my product of activities proves grand by starry lumen
ideas are born, regrets are mourned, and midnight snacks consumed
to moonlit ante meridiem: my fondness, ever true.