I saw an aged Beggar in my walk;
And he was seated, by the highway side,
On a low structure of rude masonry
Built at the foot of a huge hill, that they
Who lead their horses down the steep rough road
May thence remount at ease. The aged Man
Had placed his staff across the broad smooth stone
That overlays the pile; and, from a bag
All white with flour, the dole of village dames,
He drew his scraps and fragments, one by one;
And scanned them with a fixed and serious look
Of idle computation. In the sun,
Upon the second step of that small pile,
Surrounded by those wild, unpeopled hills,
He sat, and ate his food in solitude:
And ever, scattered from his palsied hand,
That, still attempting to prevent the waste,
Was baffled still, the crumbs in little showers
Fell on the ground; and the small mountain birds
Not venturing yet to peck their destined meal,
Approached within the length of half his staff.

Him from my childhood have I known; and then
He was so old, he seems not older now;
He travels on, a solitary Man,
So helpless in appearance, that from him
The sauntering Horseman throws not with a slack
And careless hand his alms upon the ground,
But stops,—that he may safely lodge the coin
Within the old Man’s hat; nor quits him so,
But still, when he has given his horse the rein,
Watches the aged Beggar with a look
Sidelong, and half-reverted. She who tends
The toll-gate, when in summer at her door
She turns her wheel, if on the road she sees
The aged Beggar coming, quits her work,
And lifts the latch for him that he may pass.
The post-boy, when his rattling wheels o’ertake
The aged Beggar in the woody lane,
Shouts to him from behind; and if, thus warned,
The old Man does not change his course, the boy
Turns with less noisy wheels to the roadside,
And passes gently by, without a curse
Upon his lips, or anger at his heart.

He travels on, a solitary Man;
His age has no companion. On the ground
His eyes are turned, and, as he moves along,
They move along the ground; and, evermore,
Instead of common and habitual sight
Of fields, with rural works, of hill and dale,
And the blue sky, one little span of earth
Is all his prospect. Thus, from day to day,
Bow-bent, his eyes forever on the ground,
He plies his weary journey; seeing still,
And seldom knowing that he sees, some straw,
Some scattered leaf, or marks which, in one track,
The nails of cart or chariot-wheel have left
Impressed on the white road,—in the same line,
At distance still the same. Poor Traveller!
His staff trails with him; scarcely do his feet
Disturb the summer dust; he is so still
In look and motion, that the cottage curs,
Ere he has passed the door, will turn away,
Weary of barking at him. Boys and girls,
The vacant and the busy, maids and youths,
And urchins newly breeched—all pass him by:
Him even the slow-paced waggon leaves behind.

But deem not this Man useless.—Statesmen! ye
Who are so restless in your wisdom, ye
Who have a broom still ready in your hands
To rid the world of nuisances; ye proud,
Heart-swoln, while in your pride ye contemplate
Your talents, power, or wisdom, deem him not
A burden of the earth! ’Tis Nature’s law
That none, the meanest of created things,
Of forms created the most vile and brute,
The dullest or most noxious, should exist
Divorced from good—a spirit and pulse of good,
A life and soul, to every mode of being
Inseparably linked. Then be assured
That least of all can aught—that ever owned
The heaven-regarding eye and front sublime
Which man is born to—sink, howe’er depressed,
So low as to be scorned without a sin;
Without offence to God cast out of view;
Like the dry remnant of a garden-flower
Whose seeds are shed, or as an implement
Worn out and worthless. While from door to door,
This old Man creeps, the villagers in him
Behold a record which together binds
Past deeds and offices of charity,
Else unremembered, and so keeps alive
The kindly mood in hearts which lapse of years,
And that half-wisdom half-experience gives,
Make slow to feel, and by sure steps resign
To selfishness and cold oblivious cares,
Among the farms and solitary huts,
Hamlets and thinly-scattered villages,
Where’er the aged Beggar takes his rounds,
The mild necessity of use compels
The acts of love; and habit does the work
Of reason; yet prepares that after-joy
Which reason cherishes. And thus the soul,
By that sweet taste of pleasure unpursued,
Doth find herself insensibly disposed
To virtue and true goodness.

                                  Some there are
By their good works exalted, lofty minds
And meditative, authors of delight
And happiness, which to the end of time
Will live, and spread, and kindle: even such minds
In childhood, from this solitary Being,
Or from like wanderer, haply have received
(A thing more precious far than all that books
Or the solicitudes of love can do!)
That first mild touch of sympathy and thought,
In which they found their kindred with a world
Where want and sorrow were. The easy man
Who sits at his own door,—and, like the pear
That overhangs his head from the green wall,
Feeds in the sunshine; the robust and young,
The prosperous and unthinking, they who live
Sheltered, and flourish in a little grove
Of their own kindred;—all behold in him
A silent monitor, which on their minds
Must needs impress a transitory thought
Of self-congratulation, to the heart
Of each recalling his peculiar boons,
His charters and exemptions; and, perchance,
Though he to no one give the fortitude
And circumspection needful to preserve
His present blessings, and to husband up
The respite of the season, he, at least,
And ‘t is no ****** service, makes them felt.

Yet further.—Many, I believe, there are
Who live a life of virtuous decency,
Men who can hear the Decalogue and feel
No self-reproach; who of the moral law
Established in the land where they abide
Are strict observers; and not negligent
In acts of love to those with whom they dwell,
Their kindred, and the children of their blood.

Praise be to such, and to their slumbers peace!
But of the poor man ask, the abject poor;
Go, and demand of him, if there be here
In this cold abstinence from evil deeds,
And these inevitable charities,
Wherewith to satisfy the human soul?
No—man is dear to man; the poorest poor
Long for some moments in a weary life
When they can know and feel that they have been,
Themselves, the fathers and the dealers-out
Of some small blessings; have been kind to such
As needed kindness, for this single cause,
That we have all of us one human heart.
—Such pleasure is to one kind Being known,
My neighbour, when with punctual care, each week
Duly as Friday comes, though pressed herself
By her own wants, she from her store of meal
Takes one unsparing handful for the scrip
Of this old Mendicant, and, from her door
Returning with exhilarated heart,
Sits by her fire, and builds her hope in heaven.

Then let him pass, a blessing on his head!
And while in that vast solitude to which
The tide of things has borne him, he appears
To breathe and live but for himself alone,
Unblamed, uninjured, let him bear about
The good which the benignant law of Heaven
Has hung around him: and, while life is his,
Still let him prompt the unlettered villagers
To tender offices and pensive thoughts.
—Then let him pass, a blessing on his head!
And, long as he can wander, let him breathe
The freshness of the valleys; let his blood
Struggle with frosty air and winter snows;
And let the chartered wind that sweeps the heath
Beat his grey locks against his withered face.
Reverence the hope whose vital anxiousness
Gives the last human interest to his heart.
May never HOUSE, misnamed of INDUSTRY,
Make him a captive!—for that pent-up din,
Those life-consuming sounds that clog the air,
Be his the natural silence of old age!
Let him be free of mountain solitudes;
And have around him, whether heard or not,
The pleasant melody of woodland birds.
Few are his pleasures: if his eyes have now
Been doomed so long to settle upon earth
That not without some effort they behold
The countenance of the horizontal sun,
Rising or setting, let the light at least
Find a free entrance to their languid orbs.
And let him, where and when he will, sit down
Beneath the trees, or on a grassy bank
Of highway side, and with the little birds
Share his chance-gathered meal; and, finally,
As in the eye of Nature he has lived,
So in the eye of Nature let him die!

I

Our life is twofold; Sleep hath its own world,
A boundary between the things misnamed
Death and existence: Sleep hath its own world,
And a wide realm of wild reality,
And dreams in their development have breath,
And tears, and tortures, and the touch of joy;
They leave a weight upon our waking thoughts,
They take a weight from off waking toils,
They do divide our being; they become
A portion of ourselves as of our time,
And look like heralds of eternity;
They pass like spirits of the past—they speak
Like sibyls of the future; they have power—
The tyranny of pleasure and of pain;
They make us what we were not—what they will,
And shake us with the vision that’s gone by,
The dread of vanished shadows—Are they so?
Is not the past all shadow?—What are they?
Creations of the mind?—The mind can make
Substances, and people planets of its own
With beings brighter than have been, and give
A breath to forms which can outlive all flesh.
I would recall a vision which I dreamed
Perchance in sleep—for in itself a thought,
A slumbering thought, is capable of years,
And curdles a long life into one hour.

II

I saw two beings in the hues of youth
Standing upon a hill, a gentle hill,
Green and of mild declivity, the last
As ’twere the cape of a long ridge of such,
Save that there was no sea to lave its base,
But a most living landscape, and the wave
Of woods and corn-fields, and the abodes of men
Scattered at intervals, and wreathing smoke
Arising from such rustic roofs: the hill
Was crowned with a peculiar diadem
Of trees, in circular array, so fixed,
Not by the sport of nature, but of man:
These two, a maiden and a youth, were there
Gazing—the one on all that was beneath
Fair as herself—but the boy gazed on her;
And both were young, and one was beautiful:
And both were young—yet not alike in youth.
As the sweet moon on the horizon’s verge,
The maid was on the eve of womanhood;
The boy had fewer summers, but his heart
Had far outgrown his years, and to his eye
There was but one beloved face on earth,
And that was shining on him; he had looked
Upon it till it could not pass away;
He had no breath, no being, but in hers:
She was his voice; he did not speak to her,
But trembled on her words; she was his sight,
For his eye followed hers, and saw with hers,
Which coloured all his objects;—he had ceased
To live within himself: she was his life,
The ocean to the river of his thoughts,
Which terminated all; upon a tone,
A touch of hers, his blood would ebb and flow,
And his cheek change tempestuously—his heart
Unknowing of its cause of agony.
But she in these fond feelings had no share:
Her sighs were not for him; to her he was
Even as a brother—but no more; ’twas much,
For brotherless she was, save in the name
Her infant friendship had bestowed on him;
Herself the solitary scion left
Of a time-honoured race.—It was a name
Which pleased him, and yet pleased him not—and why?
Time taught him a deep answer—when she loved
Another; even now she loved another,
And on the summit of that hill she stood
Looking afar if yet her lover’s steed
Kept pace with her expectancy, and flew.

III

A change came o’er the spirit of my dream.
There was an ancient mansion, and before
Its walls there was a steed caparisoned:
Within an antique Oratory stood
The Boy of whom I spake;—he was alone,
And pale, and pacing to and fro: anon
He sate him down, and seized a pen, and traced
Words which I could not guess of; then he leaned
His bowed head on his hands and shook, as ’twere
With a convulsion—then rose again,
And with his teeth and quivering hands did tear
What he had written, but he shed no tears.
And he did calm himself, and fix his brow
Into a kind of quiet: as he paused,
The Lady of his love re-entered there;
She was serene and smiling then, and yet
She knew she was by him beloved; she knew—
For quickly comes such knowledge—that his heart
Was darkened with her shadow, and she saw
That he was wretched, but she saw not all.
He rose, and with a cold and gentle grasp
He took her hand; a moment o’er his face
A tablet of unutterable thoughts
Was traced, and then it faded, as it came;
He dropped the hand he held, and with slow steps
Retired, but not as bidding her adieu,
For they did part with mutual smiles; he passed
From out the massy gate of that old Hall,
And mounting on his steed he went his way;
And ne’er repassed that hoary threshold more.

IV

A change came o’er the spirit of my dream.
The Boy was sprung to manhood: in the wilds
Of fiery climes he made himself a home,
And his Soul drank their sunbeams; he was girt
With strange and dusky aspects; he was not
Himself like what he had been; on the sea
And on the shore he was a wanderer;
There was a mass of many images
Crowded like waves upon me, but he was
A part of all; and in the last he lay
Reposing from the noontide sultriness,
Couched among fallen columns, in the shade
Of ruined walls that had survived the names
Of those who reared them; by his sleeping side
Stood camels grazing, and some goodly steeds
Were fastened near a fountain; and a man,
Glad in a flowing garb, did watch the while,
While many of his tribe slumbered around:
And they were canopied by the blue sky,
So cloudless, clear, and purely beautiful,
That God alone was to be seen in heaven.

V

A change came o’er the spirit of my dream.
The Lady of his love was wed with One
Who did not love her better: in her home,
A thousand leagues from his,—her native home,
She dwelt, begirt with growing Infancy,
Daughters and sons of Beauty,—but behold!
Upon her face there was a tint of grief,
The settled shadow of an inward strife,
And an unquiet drooping of the eye,
As if its lid were charged with unshed tears.
What could her grief be?—she had all she loved,
And he who had so loved her was not there
To trouble with bad hopes, or evil wish,
Or ill-repressed affliction, her pure thoughts.
What could her grief be?—she had loved him not,
Nor given him cause to deem himself beloved,
Nor could he be a part of that which preyed
Upon her mind—a spectre of the past.

VI

A change came o’er the spirit of my dream.
The Wanderer was returned.—I saw him stand
Before an altar—with a gentle bride;
Her face was fair, but was not that which made
The Starlight of his Boyhood;—as he stood
Even at the altar, o’er his brow there came
The selfsame aspect and the quivering shock
That in the antique Oratory shook
His ***** in its solitude; and then—
As in that hour—a moment o’er his face
The tablet of unutterable thoughts
Was traced—and then it faded as it came,
And he stood calm and quiet, and he spoke
The fitting vows, but heard not his own words,
And all things reeled around him; he could see
Not that which was, nor that which should have been—
But the old mansion, and the accustomed hall,
And the remembered chambers, and the place,
The day, the hour, the sunshine, and the shade,
All things pertaining to that place and hour,
And her who was his destiny, came back
And ****** themselves between him and the light;
What business had they there at such a time?

VII

A change came o’er the spirit of my dream.
The Lady of his love;—Oh! she was changed,
As by the sickness of the soul; her mind
Had wandered from its dwelling, and her eyes,
They had not their own lustre, but the look
Which is not of the earth; she was become
The queen of a fantastic realm; her thoughts
Were combinations of disjointed things;
And forms impalpable and unperceived
Of others’ sight familiar were to hers.
And this the world calls frenzy; but the wise
Have a far deeper madness, and the glance
Of melancholy is a fearful gift;
What is it but the telescope of truth?
Which strips the distance of its fantasies,
And brings life near in utter nakedness,
Making the cold reality too real!

VIII

A change came o’er the spirit of my dream.
The Wanderer was alone as heretofore,
The beings which surrounded him were gone,
Or were at war with him; he was a mark
For blight and desolation, compassed round
With Hatred and Contention; Pain was mixed
In all which was served up to him, until,
Like to the Pontic monarch of old days,
He fed on poisons, and they had no power,
But were a kind of nutriment; he lived
Through that which had been death to many men,
And made him friends of mountains; with the stars
And the quick Spirit of the Universe
He held his dialogues: and they did teach
To him the magic of their mysteries;
To him the book of Night was opened wide,
And voices from the deep abyss revealed
A marvel and a secret.—Be it so.

IX

My dream is past; it had no further change.
It was of a strange order, that the doom
Of these two creatures should be thus traced out
Almost like a reality—the one
To end in madness—both in misery.

At the ending of the world
there is a great unraveling
that celestial bow, wound into heartsong
and maestrate the caring music of things--
with these passions of the mind,
God seeking to unravel himself in the ever-fleeing
moment of philosophy, a Persephonic instance
in the archetype of love, psychotic and misnamed,
strait-jacketed in sin and given nothing but sweet
momentary decay

all the powerful souls connect sexually with the cosmos--
payed off, bastardized with a cigarette between their whispered lips
we hold no wealth but the ever-shifting dollar of life.

Fat Jack, fondly Catholic with angel smiles-- holds a rock of God in his hand, rocking softly
in god's busted gut-belly
spread like butter amongst the stars, asking all the same questions of Nirvana--
The last rumble of a skin-tight drumskin wrapped within a screaming symphonic twang of remnant souls--
Walking the notochord of corporeal form
the fantastic drone of rotorcraft, taunting the angelic lads and their brigadier God, singing psalms of limerence
Charlie Parker, musical sadness
Jack-man gladness
Don't forget them in the moment of monastic incantations

High-risen pyramidicals
Euclidian pitter-patter against the gusts and rains
in familiar, repetitive shapes the droplets of ichor
elucidate the frowns of downtown humanity
the locked door at the edge of the room, the air evacuated in fear,
seeking safety in the favorite belfry of an ancient wailing abbey
the dusty oil-towns of century ago
Imbibes the modern-day Maricopa plain
folk digging for dino-rock and black gold, selling dreams to downtrodden lost boys
the mistakes of RV park families

Farmland road
in Louisiana brew
the atmosphere, keeping personal thoughts trapped
a high-pressure zone
the ever-wandering
churning winds of eventual hurricane
the sequence that tickles Fibonacci's fancies and
calls us to dream--
a great Babel of God's consistent scattering heart.

in this great combustible chamber, loud obnoxious gaseous veils
in a low sigh our precipitate souls
smog on the failed shackles of stale blood
dripping this oil on the lips
holding friendly smiles
hiding sickening grins
callous, angry, the honey-chalice sought be not by man or God
alike;

Charlie Parker, playing the world's instrumentation
a track to follow
faded as the ancient road roaming
Rome's wet snail trail
blinking and shimmering into existence
a dewlit morning
the conglomerate rock is a cradle for human discomfort
admitted and hidden
to be a better hold than the hands of the earth
in these cornmeal roads,
digging out sugars from her *****
and sipping on the liquor of life in classic fermentation

to hold the road in your hands, the world on your lips
to tell the catacombs of love you would be her hostess,
seeking answers in the bones of ancient souls and refining
in deep sighs,
loving the things we cannot be.

Each day I drive the Belt to work
with a million other slobs.
We pilot cars a decade old.
We're lucky, we have jobs.
Being stuck in traffic is no fun
so my eyes search for distraction.
Your bumper- stickered Civic
offers motorists didaction.
You've no shortage of opinions,
you're a child of hope and change.
gay women for abortion rights?
forgive me, that seems strange.
You're all for education ,
and it seems you're down on God
Your promotion of vasectomy
strikes me as rather odd.
We creep along at walking speed
in the misnamed morning rush
I smile at one old sign that reads:
"Lesbians against Bush"
I change lanes and creep up beside
this most amusing creature.
Shock and awe is what I felt-
She is our children's teacher!

between poems,
an old curmudgeon,
am me-he,
thorny gray stubbled face
available for
knife sharpening and
tongue lashing

cranky and cantankerous,
bad tempered,
ill mannered, me-he,
until they slip me a
paper aspirin

place before me a clean sheet
Presto Chango,
the ole man displaced,
(the boy who remembers to forget,)
in his heart~place, installed,
though the
briar and the thorn
never from his visage depart,
just briefly, Red Sea parted

kiss me surprised,
stumbling about in the
wee of the rambunctious hours,
stubbing me eyes upon
a poetess, a kindred soul
who claims my pointy moniker that
earned I,
only after years
of indentured servitude,
Briar Thornly,
so unnaturally misnamed,
yet she of but,
few and the tenderest years
rights me up
with young words

her poems sweet treats, sweet eats,
departing me delightfully unfairly from
my grumpy good graces,
look below if you dare risking,
a hazardous glancing upon her works,
if you like to, grrrrr, smile

Déjà vu
Oh to write or not to write.
My mind says I don't have a choice.
Love has made a home in my heart.
I suffer not being able to
open the door to my inspiration.
I toss a paper ball into the trash.
Chapters of my life turn into dust.
I bury those words in my mind.
Words that I used to think
were wrapped up in true meaning.
A break could **** my block but
my pencil spins out of control.
I'll conquer all of those lost attempts.
Piano's and violins phase in and out.
Wheels of creativity turning in caution.
The clock sounds gong,gong,gone.
Inspiration died at the start of a vacation.
On the page there was the suicide of passion.
The ghost of my muse will soon reappear.
My emotions need to break free from
the shelter of my imagination.
I"ll write till the dawn of poetry.^


read her poetry till dawn
or face my thorny faced
muse,
and perhaps now you understand,
at last comprehend,

**a rose by any other name
would smell as sweet as a
thorn

I had a friend, a botanist by training,
A florist by design, who purchased
Two & a half relatively fertile,
Well-water irrigated acres in
Southern California.
(That’s about a hectare for you
Metric freaks.)
The land, Katie Scarlett:
Moreno Valley, Incorporated,
Part of the hilariously misnamed
“INLAND EMPIRE,” to wit:
Riverside and San Bernardino,
The latter county already this year’s
****** Capital of North America.
Last year’s too and the year before that.
ZAP! I am neuro-linguistically
(Thank you, Noam!)
Pre-coded to check the numbers:
The IRAs and bank accounts;
The living trusts; the Gary U.S. bonds.
My safe-deposit box, and right on time,
With a puff of smoke, a drum & cymbal smash,
The Confiscatory Duke appears.
The Duke-Duke-Duke of Earl,
The eternal, the infernal—
Internal Revenue Service:
THE I.R.S. hurdy-gurdy 1040 Man--in this
Case Men--stiffs in dark overcoats & fedoras,
Official 1040 Men, thank you very much,
With a tip of their green eyeshades,
Polite debt-collecting blokes,
No “Break-a yah face” guidos,
Just subtle government lawyers
Garnishing what’s left of your future.
Whoever came up with: “In this world,
Nothing can be said to be certain,
Except death and taxes.”
(Probably Benny C-Note
Go Fly a Kite himself,
Benjamin Franklin, one of
The so-called Founding Fathers—
Need I remind you all, who gave
Alexander Hamilton--an out-of-wedlock
West Indies *******--- Poor Richard’s blessing
To create the U.S. Department of the Treasury,
Which oversees the Revenue Bureau.)
Yeah, Death & Taxes--
Benny sure hit the nail’s head.

But I digress . . .
My friend Louie, the Botanist
Plants two & a half acres,
A hectare of flowers,
Broadcasting, strewing
Like alfalfa grass, many thousand
Bird of Paradise seeds,
Sal’s bird—if you catch my drift—
The Bird of Paradise,
Strange plant, N’est-ce-pas?
Looks like a punk rock
Woody the Woodpecker,
Day-Glo orange plumage,
A strangulation collar,
A ring around the collar of
****** blue hickeys, those freaky rings,
A veritable Sprezzatura!
Louie’s field of simple joy:
Mother Earth at her best.

The sun shone that day. It ought not have. I walked with angels as the earth woke around me and I knew peace; a shadow, disembodied as it were, should have darkened my gaze, none appeared. No siren from God to one of his own, only a summons delivered with the grace of Revelations, thunder without the requisite fanfare. My heart warmed when it should have stopped and I would have held that moment had I known, but instead I drew breath to let the world in and threads of gold blew between the young leaves. The sky was cast in sapphires, misnamed without relation to flame; it would have been more appropriate. The truth in my veins would have run as snow melt had I known, in truth, not truth at all. Thunder preceded cause, ill fated, and I should have flinched in unknown terror like some soldier might when charging down a once familiar hill and one who is brave yet untried shall find a disquieting serenity amidst the gore that bathes the ground and, in a moment, his face. That young veteran loses himself that day and shall seek that stillness for the days that remain to him. A futile venture. It is only to be found in the recesses of the mind; that place reserved for reflection and shame, it is in that calm he holds himself in question and a voice, not unlike his own, whispers a choice that was always there and with it a euphoric ecstasy rises like bile. It is in every man to let go of the lockstep of life, but to open your eyes in the following moments is to face a world unlike that in which you closed them. That new world is the cost of the decision and it shall flood in as the gates lift and the sky shall be cast in sapphires.

Truths twisted for the conveniece of others
all assumed trusts abondoned
much invested, non respected much love given but nothing back
when will they see how horrible they are
when will they see what they have done
they know not of any other who has ever done what they have
making up stories in their heads
and saying it so much to themselves and others that they believe its true
phone calls of deception, testimonies of lies
framed, defamed and misnamed
one little voice believes
even in the face of all so knowledgeable
one lttle voice knows the truth
thank you little voice

I feel my heart buckling under pressure I beg it to bear
I screamed quietly last night and my brain snapped in half
How strong, how prideful, how immortal I was
How conceited, how terribly much I thought of myself in the past.

Allow me to state that I am weak. Allow me to say that I am done.
When night falls I tremble with fear of something on the horizon
I feel my own body rip itself to shreds in some effort to save me
I truly wish I had savored my irresponsibility now that it's hard won.

Home. Only a year ago I cursed it. How conceited, how idiotic.
Your children will curse you to hell and regret when youth passes.
The mind I prided myself on having has deteriorated, I cannot think.
The sentences meld into unintelligible paragraphs of thoughts as slow as molasses.

I would sleep for an eternity if given the chance but my sweet, foolish, pride...
I would find peace and revel in it if not for the guilt of the method.
I futilely push away thoughts that constrict and wrap around me.
I must be stronger, do more, cannot bear to forgive myself should I do as I please.

Others have done what I am choosing to do and succeeded; my failure won't be justified
I must stand tall until my back breaks, I must smile until my lips quake
I must try harder until my body bleeds, I must give more until there's nothing left of me.
And if I fail, at least I know I jumped, even if I was far too late.

My dreams no longer consist of impossibilities that I will drag into being.
When I sleep, I am plagued by the sight of my own death in a multitude of ways.
When I wake, I miss the simplicity of the horror of the same dreams I ran from.
All the thoughts I used to have now only come after careful contemplation over many days.

I am unsure of who I am. I feel, sometimes, that I am merely watching a play.
That I am just a spectator to a caricature of myself, crudely pretending to be me.
And I would believe in that wholeheartedly if I was unaware of life's inane ways.

If things truly do get better, I wonder if they will do so in time to save me.

How conceited, how foolish, how narcissistic, how self-important, how desperate, how crazed, how terribly, terribly deluded I've grown to be.
How idiotic, this new view of myself and life that I've misnamed maturity.

My god told me
To **** those who are different.
My god told me
That genocide is efficient.
"Go into their land
And **** every living creature."
I saw it on TV just last week
In a Technicolor double feature.

My god told me
Gay people are abomination
My god told me
To hold back children’s rations.
Rip babies out of parent’s arms
Because they are terrorists
Pay no attention to the heartache
That’s just how my god’s law is.

My god told me
It matters about the color of skin
People can be born inhuman
Depending on the country you’re in.
It’s not as bad to be a dark person
If you stay in dark people lands,
But here in the good old USA they
Only deserve to be migrant hands.

My god told me
What’s sin for other people to do
Is not a sin for me to commit
The criminal things done by you.
My god told me
It’s just fine to cheat on my wife.
As long as I go to church weekly,
I will have a wonderful, godly life.

My god told me
Other people have to wrong idea
About who is god and who is not
And who will burn with the devil
In some place below, where it’s hot.
My god told me
To worship no god but him, it’s true.
Well, I worship Jesus, his misnamed son
So, I’m going to heaven, aren’t you?

The Congressional wag GOPs
Spend most of their time on their knees
Their favorite repast
Is the kissing of ***
Just like the ****** in DC.

Republicans surrendered their shame
They just call it by some other name.
They see their sad schism
As patriotism
And point to Obama to blame.

The Senator from Old Virginia
Just loves shoving it in ya.
At every election
Bigots bow to his *******
And let that Old Turtle come skin ya.

Republicans are making it clear
As we come to the end of this year
Their regime is a mess
But they couldn’t care less
They ***** us with no trace of fear.

The guy now on top is a fake
GOP worked overtime to make.
The cheating and lies
Support the unwise
And hide all the money they take.

Our leadership now is misnamed.
Ignoring the people is their game.
They go golf a few rounds
And throw us to the hounds
Then set the Constitution aflame.

I AM THE WEDGE

O blackguard or fellow. Arise!
Nay.
Bridge that light that bridges all.
Nay! Peace…
What peace!
In sleep’s blue rictus, borne naked, supine—I am…roused.
Opine!
I exhort ye:  know thy fine.
Be bold or benign, be ****** or divine.
But know thy fine.
Exhort? Harbinger:  we are One!
Ye are cloven! And these be your bridges:
Worms.
Sss!
Maggots.
Sss!
Bigots, charlatans, sycophants, thieves…
Ignominious leeches all!
Ssssss! Ssssss! Ssssss!
Yes, yes, yes—ye art ethos without sinew,
Eloquence without spine, witting captives of World’s design.
Ye are carnal, mundane:  ye are sane, sane, sane—
Sane beyond redemption, sane beyond profane!
Prithee peep, prostrate. Now behold:  ye are Mine.
O piercer of nights!
I am he.
O dasher of dreams!
I am he.
Truther! Augur!
I am, I am.
I am all ye allege.
Be still!
Nay. I am the wedge.
And ye shall labor and love with accountability!
Ye who menace the frail shall burn.
Sss!
Ye who lie with same shall burn.
Sssss!
Ye thick, arrogant, groping,
Proliferating plumes of flesh…
All conformists shall burn! And burn and burn
And burn afresh. Within thine own World, where Virtue rots—
Miscarried, misnamed, unrealized, unborn—Nay!
Do not cosset possessions, nor flatter the beast!
They are myth, they are illusion. They are soulless.
It is not death…it is soullessness I scorn.
O be caring. O be kind.
That one egg might bind, all sons must bleed.
Womb and grave lie equidistant.
******, madness, sorrow, sickness, are seed.
And I am fecund.
O Life!
Hypocrites.
Ah Love!
Hypocrites!
Peace! Peace!
Hypocrites all! Blind as cadavers are ye,
Running in lockstep, sniffing thy self-serving,
Snuffling peers’ rears; disdaining the night,
Succumbing to light. And I? I?
I am Neutral. I am Gray.
Then name thy vein.
I am he who severs One; soldier’s specter, specter’s son.
Of faith and compassion mine fibers art wrung.
Ye living die a thousand deaths, yet remain in arrears.
Let thy live corpses lie a low while longer.
Sweet coma, black drug—
Beware thy Pale Master’s tongue!
Blasphemer! Vigilante!
Vengeance is poetry. Vigilance is mine.
I am he who doth sunder, to center from edge.
Thou art…Comeuppance!
I am the wedge.
And this blade ye ride be thine own design!
O Sunlight save us!
Save? To cling to the light, heaping woe upon woe,
Forever hurtling downward, smashed outright, yet still crawling?
Broken beggars bleeding, drowning heartless, gutless…
To, on dying’s cue, lift thy shattered fingers in brine
And be born anew?
Assassin, then!
Thy logic is *******. Have the greatness to be mute,
Suffering seaward, to that brave expanse where all salts art borne.
But we—
Unwitting? Never be!
The same tide shall return for ye:
Aweigh, forlorn, into the ravening
Tempest torn; a million billion testaments—
Defrauder!
Am I? Consider the beast:  electric pastors preaching,
Merchants plump, in line, beseeching.
Still ye puppets slumber, too rife to number,
Too fay to vie; strutting for thy hollow “Maker’s” eye.
Whirling, jumping, twirling, pumping;
******* random shapes and shadows,
Prancing in tandem, dancing solely to die.
Nay. I am the wedge, both hawk and dove;
Neither This nor That, neither Either nor Each.
Descending, I rise, thy facade to breach,
Mine soul well-bled of light’s lovely lies.
To the vortex, then! From one whose essence
Waives assimilation.
No grace! No peace shall ye posers reap!
Lash thine ears, thine eyes—Run, lemmings! Leap!
Preen thy prettified husks, let Inspiration go!
Or rip out thy roots and…Grow!
Sacrilege! Make public thy shame!
Shame? Shame? Ah…Ash, conceive us!
Brief spirit cede, sweet Flame relieve us,
Sunlight leave us lie.
May ye ****** and ye wicked
Fall to thy knees and cry.
Through gates of naught I lead ye,
Bleak day, bright night, precede ye.
Butcher!
There is black! And there is white!
Between extremes lies only gray.
Nay!
Said stain bleeds left and right:  less black, less white,
On that stage too deep to fathom,
One dapple distant, one ripple wide.
Outrageous!
’Twixt solace and horror,’tween torment and balm,
There ye will find me, in rages of calm.
The wise man hath his discipline, the lunatic his ledge.
And I? I am he who doth sever, I am he who doth cleave.
I am the wedge.




(Sorry about the missing italics and indents. I don't run this site.)

Copyright 2019
contact Ron Sanders at:

ronsandersartofprose(at)yahoo(dot)com

I cannot do this anymore—
this labor of unraveling myself
only to be misnamed, misunderstood.
I was linked to him, yes—
a tether fraying in the dark,
his absence a wound,
his indifference a quiet violence.
What was I, if not the ghost
he left behind to haunt the living?

The side effects are sharp-edged,
a prescription for forgetting
that forgets nothing.
This is not healing.
This is not cure.
Take me back to the before-time,
to when you cared enough
to name my anguish aloud,
to call it what it was.
Now, I am the sum of your silence,
a woman folded into herself,
trapped in the space
between betrayal and breath.

But still, I stand—
because someone must.
I forgive myself
for believing in your promises,
for letting you map my body
as a battlefield,
for holding your hands
even as they burned.

Darling, don’t go—
but don’t stay.
Disappear so completely
that your memory loses its teeth.
Leave me to the emptiness,
to the choices stolen by your indifference.

My guardian angel comes not with wings
but with hands—
earth-stained and firm,
building me back, bone by bone.
They know the language of endurance,
how to feed hope to the starving,
how to offer a second chance
without demand.

Here is the truth:
I am no longer yours to define.
Here is the reckoning:
I reclaim my name,
write it on the earth with every step,
become a body of love
that bends but does not break.

Dr Samuel Johnson : "Revenge is an act of passion , vengence of justice ; injuries are reavenged , crimes are avenged ."

Retributive justice is often misnamed as vengence . For some it signifies an excitememt of angry passions in order to gratify a vindictive spirit which in supposition believes it has been harmed by evil intent . Vengence is actually the simple act of justice giving all their due .