all day long, their banging disturbed me at my work
startling me from my reverie, lost deep in the world
of I Wish I Had A Heart Like Yours, Walt Whitman

the birds, returned early from wherever it is they hide
during the long winter, have come to fling themselves
against the over-sized picture window in my living room,

songbird pitch themselves into my poet's dull daytime
so that i am moved to rise from my desk, to look out,
to seek a bird flying away, or peer down to search for the

tiny body maybe roosting among the stalks of the overgrown
hydrangea, which captured  autumn’s maple leaves, worn
like a Chicago matron's mink to keep the winter chill at bay

and, as the spring surrenders to the warmer days, i mow the
brightly greened grass, innocently cutting row after row,
to turn finally to the narrow strip nearest the picture window,

a mixture of grass, dried leaves and tiny twigs, all mulched
by the power mower, where i discover these dessicated bodies  
exhumed from shallow graves at the base of the newly leafed

hydrangea, their stiff, dry feathers bristly, colored a washed
out grey, tiny feet tightly balled, with all the soft parts missing
and the beaks a startling white, as though bleached, bright against

the dullness of the little corpses which seem to have sunk into
the mosses of the yard, so that they lay preserved below the blade
for the first late-spring chore -- mowing the bird bone garden

i sleep with the bedroom window ajar despite the overnight chill
and dream of the memory of birds, their shapes, their white beaks
and, still, the bird songs wake me in the cool green spring morning

I was given, at my first birthday party,
a gift sublime, a lovely, lush garden
I played among its fonts and flowers,
traded baseball cards with Atlas and Athena,
rolled in high grass with iridescent dragons

Then one fine day through leaflets high,
I spied a fat juicy fig, haloed by Summer sun
The tree was poison, I knew, its sweet fruit
most likely bad as well, but in my arrogance
I climbed the trunk, got tangled in its branches

I lost control, lost something never truly held,
and fell, through viney snarls and vicious thorns
Fell farther than I ever rose, to putrid death,
moldered slime beneath the canopy
of verdant paradise on gentle hillside above

I crawled about in mud and earthen warrens
Slowly, year by year, learned to walk again
But arrogant I remained—had not my
lesson learned, and so I doubled-down,
made mockery of this chance for redemption

All the sweet virgins did I ****, and teach
our children sin, in crystalline waters
I did shat on mulched fields, amber and green,
with cigarette butts and baggies blowing
listless on Autumn winds

When Winter finally came, as winters must,
to **** off weakened souls, and make
the garden ready for new attendants,
I did not learn, I did not take the blame...
It's Him, I cried, I have not power to do this!

But then my youngest daughter sobbed
She watched, sadly, out clouded, grimy windows
and, looking up at my limpid, sullen eyes
crawled into my arms one last, lonely time
to face what I could not...

Behold, the Silent Spring

We'd halloo and then chase down the years,
for each step we took, 
our eyes opened to the changes,
how I hate those mulched  leaves
there’s a certain funereal fatigue inherent,
orange visibility workers  monotonously arrive
stripping those old houses,
but those Removal vans 
that just kills the conversation.

the bundles of mulched cannas  thickens like Autumn's bracken
and the orange hues of the acer
plays hide and seek amongst the glowing skies
solitary magpies forever  speculate caution
as overgrown paths beckons the occasional stranger.
Contre jour light frames my mission
at once I understand the message
a seasonal transformation
pitches the earnestness of renewal.

A worn out segment sliced from the cake of life
Raging candles burned down to nothing, wax
Parting company, blazing wick no longer cares
Hot and fiery, flames deny their existence
Forgetting the meaning of life as they fade away
Burning episode....they’d waited all their lives
For, dissolved, quick and painful, heat searing
Cake sliced open to spill its contents, only
To be munched and mulched into oesophablivion
Short and sweet, guaranteed to be swallowed
With no regard for the time and toil of preparation
Of melting moments, whisking wildly, meeting
New partners, shaking hands magnificently to
Encourage the flavours to follow through...as if
They should know who they are, what they’re for
Is life a cake or a gateau coated in whipped double
Cream?  Next to my lips the cream melts splendidly
A cake connoisseur I’m not, neither do I eat the same
Slice, mundanity slipping away with each mouthful, no
Point in rubbing salt into the wounds, cram in the
Fullness that is living, bloated out with your cake
                                                            ­         .......and eat it!

The world is sometimes dark and not all trees survive.  
I'm not saying this because you don't know this.
I'm saying it because, sometimes, I need reminding that it's not all good.
My tree of happiness is not struggling to grow,
Leaves of fake laughter making it look pretty.
You see, I have a tendency to overanalyze, overdramatize, over-generalize, looking for the good in everyone,
Wishing on stars that all the saplings will live and grow strong.
I guess I should be careful what I wish for.
I have a hard time coming to grips with the reality that life is not
Full of good people and good intentions and good reasons.
I put myself in everyone else's shoes, seeing justifications through
Their eyes, blind and full of dust though they might be.
Because even when elm and oak trees get sick and die, I plant new seeds
And even when I have to squeeze my hips too tightly into  
A child's swing set, I think I can still touch the sky
And even when I see lives cut short by guns, by drugs, by *****, abuse, suicide, gangs, cancer, hopelessness,
I don't really see the evil or the sorrow,
Only what could have been.
Only the Elysian Fields of immortal hopes and goals that now have a chance in somebody else's soul.
And even when my dreams are miscarried through open veins like exposed roots,
I feel joy.
Even when razors can't cut deep enough to remove my immediate tendrils and sprouts of pain,
Even when rivers of red on my legs don't rinse away my earthy, dark confusion,
I am happy. Deep inside,
I hope against hope that nothing will truly destroy my optimism.
Of course, as soon as I get out in the real, concrete, day-to-day, 9-to-5 (actually 8:30-to-3am) world,
I'm going to be crushed.
I'm going to find that seed of darkness and sorrow and pain that starts growing inside everyone.
From the time of our first skinned knee and broken promise, first heartbreak and the first time our dreams didn't come true,
The seed starts to grow.
I know I'll find mine eventually,
I think it's been mulched under  5 feet, 6 inches of forced smiles
And Sundays under that maple tree I could
Never quite climb.
The world is dark sometimes,
And not all trees survive.

Do you remember that tree outside of our first grade classroom?
That tree was enormous
It was the color of a dusty elephant
But with flakey skin
You could pick it off and crunch
In the palm of your hand

It must have been dead
Long before it was ours
Never any bugs
Or mold
or moss

Nothing to stop five-year-olds
From laying in its roots

It grew into a “Y” before it died
Split about seven feet off the ground
Perfect for a first imaginary fort
A manhunt hiding spot or a goal post
For recess super bowls

I can remember it
With us sitting beneath it
At five, at eight, at twelve
Sitting Indian-style
Picking blades of grass
To whistle between our thumbs


They mulched that tree years ago
It’s chopped and spread under the new playground
Keeping kids safe from falls
If only we could have explained
How much it protected when it still stood…

I'm lying on my back
And staring through the trees
When suddenly
I realize!

There is a profound similarity between trees and knees.

For trees provide the life-sustaining oxygen
But are chopped and burned and mulched,
And knees aid in the ease of walking
But are scraped and knocked and bruised

I'm lying on my back
And staring past my knees
When suddenly
I realize!

Life would be nothing, were it but for trees and knees.

I see it's April, 700 years from now & church is in full swing. People are singing their praises for Jesus, due to return any moment now. The apocalypse is nighly {that means nearly} here, if prophesy holds firm. The end-times & the signs are undeniable. There shall be strife, rumor of war, blood on the moon, the mark of the beast, rapture. Jesus will reign over Earthly affairs a thousand years {any 21st century faith-shaking momentum has petered out.}
   Once I'm bunched no better than ****** on a ****-house floor
you won't push so ******* me. If I live to 50, heaven forfend,
twenty-five millionths times a hundred fifty-two scraps of a
pound avoirdupois you'll sigh a pitiable one, a nuance of
a touch reminiscent of primer wife.
   My ultra ****, ulterior & backwise, I love you more than Mexicans love pizza, blacks do whites, America & her justice. It's April, it's Brasil y Colombia, it's me & you: ultra ****, cuntier than average, unreadable, unwilling, unsavory. If I could, I'd sell you for salvage or forage, or at a bulk rate.
   My bulbous nays are more lovely since pregnancy took
over upping milk production. Now I'm less sinful than
grateful, ½ drunk w/power & remembrance, less testy,
less cunty, more rambunctious & flavor-ready.
   As I've imbibed an ant's worth of spirits, I **** widely, consuming life-needy oxygen. It's cardiac time and flop-overs are everyplace. It's telepathy gone ****-ways wrong. Washington used to **** constantly—he almost killed himself several times.
   I could find myself writhing @ the wiener factory, as the floor is well-oiled & my knees are smooth & youthless. It would turn my life into a hot-doggish holiday romp thru sausage land. I could become teachish & instruction-weary. People might as well flock my way as had sheep when Jesus was cracking sassy, agitating Romans, destroying the good will of money-changers. Let us camp upon the hillsides, far removed from **** & partake the lushness of scrubless jungle trim.
   As a man I have feminine needs no wiener-factory tour
can address. I've dated plenty with many a heartrending
scene. Come down, bedded with a woman of divergent
stock, I find myself waxing philosophic. I burn daylight
with niceties, I placate & ween fair blessing.
  One man in Italy can't stop the way things Italian are. He could beseech the embassy until his pizza burns for all the good that'd do.
   I've been hard-pressed before. I've conquered my fears,
made peace with feminine needs, broke down, married
women, begat a child, sold items cheaply from the front yard.
   I could make friends with cops, and give up firemen.
{Kiss my ****, I'm just out of the bath.}
   I swoon under candlelight, by the fireside, smacked around with brass knuckles, throttled w/i an inch of precious lifestyle. Caught unawares, smitten by professional drain, I baffle taunters. Ultra ****: querulous ****; wild whomp; mine-mount...
   As a man I've found myself wobbling on skates.
At times, hurried, later because of not acting now.
   Oh U.C. {ultra ****}, can't you hear me: probing, tunneling, examining w/o license, for no better reason? I'm wide-ruled, I'm college-ruled, I'm 70 sheets @ 10½  x 8, I'm your best friend {you're allowed one: best}. Let's go somewhere, let's stay put, let's stick to your story for a change. I like some things illegal but I don't make a big deal about it.
   A girlfriend likes a nip, as when her bra's forgotten. She
gains nothing but trinkets. She owes her life to good-living
& self-assuredness. You can't dredge her backwaters, it's
easier to tuck. After all, what does it all mean anyway?
   It's wrong to covet the neighbor's wife but equally, it's wrong for her to covet my hairy ***. A neighbor may know no shame. Her mammae displayed keenly, its valley, the roundness & summits. She may stoop to pick up car keys or dance to the mail box, the breeze catching her frilly skirt, rain dampening all that's decent.
   One man can condemn her, another be jailer. I love
thy neighbor as thyself. So far I've got nothing
against her, nay nothing on her either.

Mark’s hands are grooved by ***** handles
grown on trees in the garden. He fastens bundles
and plains the best, saves leftovers for autumn piles.
The forks and tangles become a bonfire
where his children pull on woollen ears, spin red cheeks
with tumbling songs, watch Mark butter tinfoil spuds.

The children sneek off into adulthood and play catch
with a gilt wooden box, the pick of the grain
from the trees in the garden where a new ***** fills in gaping holes.

The box throws out branches in a cobwebbed cupboard.
Green hands with grooves droop in summer
then yellow and fall in the middle of autumn.
The bottom of the cupboard mulched with bones
and the children’s cheeks still burn.

The first time in my life, I start turning the lens back into the dreams. Point the telescope a full 180 away from the moon, so the moon can see a **** good closeup of the craters on my face.
I go to sleep
                                         asking for it.

My dearest demons, tear me apart. I am ready to die. I have done everything I could...

And here you come:
                                   traipsing down the stairway to heaven, stepping extra hard
on the creaky ones.

I think it reminds you of the way I used to whine for you.

To you. My dear. MY dear.
                                              Help me God, I whisper into your ear as you     sleep,
                                              Hoping you would wake up in my dreams and save me,
                                              How the hell could a person ever feel so ******* weak.

A bitter branch, that wanted to be a tree trunk. That tried to become enormous.
That only got cut down in the end.

That's how I feel. Not what I am.
Part of the poem, not of the slam.
Separate worlds inside one room.
Wanting to capture the flower in bloom.

Enormous tree, watered regularly by the gardening company hired by the     CEO
of the real-estate company.

The only company I really have in this lonely lake of scheduled sprinklers
are gardeners giving me much more than thanks.

They cut my branches. My unsightly twigs are mulched. I share my tears with them. They take a lunch break. We're going pretty steady.
Day in. Day out. Day in. Day out. Tick tock. Lub Lub. Goodnight. Help-

if you walk on the front lawn
past the library where –
free of charge –
you can take some
if you leave some

if you approach the front
windows she will likely try
to claw the screen
attesting to her
ownership

if you walk up the driveway
and duck under the
grapevines or
poison-ivy – some say –
will tickle your legs

if you look upward
you can barely see the sky
between the
older-than-the-4th-of-July
burr oaks

if you walk past the
once-was back door –
into the backyard –
a forest of ****-trees
shades leftover plants

if you stroll further
the spring bulb-mothers’
dead stalks
cover the leaf-mulched
soil

if you climb up two rotting
steps to the bird feeders
squirrel-ridden –
and treated with suet –
is the cardinal family’s
year-round home

if you like critters and
engage them in dialogue –
natural ambiance –
you will have an annual
prayer rug for a yard

if you let the white pickets
go gray beside the curb –
looking wrinkled –
the shimmer-light of the
street lamp will guard the
paw prints of winter bunnies

© Lewis Bosworth, 2016

This morning the horizon
was shortened with fog
and then it rained.

The trees are mulched in
without low branches
and mathematically
encircle a small stage.

Knee high boulders
are scattered about,
probably serving as seats.
The benches are accents.

If they were anywhere else
I could see moss growing
on these rocks.

Green hill mulched damp brown,
to brooding dry blades, replete—
Gone for metal feet.

I did not conceive for my own glory
An unconditional harvest
Provides soil for love
Unmarked seeds
In full spectrum
Scattered in the wind
As you await the discovery
How will they bloom?
With only nourishment
And a clear path
Pruned of expectation
Mulched with pride
To blossom with their own hue
The farmers hand never raised
Except in awe
Of life
And raw emotion
And not of self
Except to see in their pose
Reaching for me
Their light
Until the day
When they will leave
To adorn another’s gaze
But regardless of their place
They will live
In full approval
Of what they have become
For in themselves
They will know no burden
Of my needs
Other than to love me
As I loved them
And as they weather every storm
And every temptation
And every rejection
They will remain in place
For the farmers field
Has been spread before them
To walk
With his strength
Because they came from him
Not to count his glory
But to count his blessings

Mulched frequencies spearing through me, glistening in the pitching, squealing through my hearing, causing my eyes to see glitches, zilching from scrambled beams, materializing in infants dreams, rearranging the seam lines of the confines planted by parents vacant-ed, by undermining slave ships, of merchants, rubbing their grubby hands together.

Everythings better burned, in smoke steeps spiraling as far as the eye can see, swallowing fluffy smotherings of blue skies disguised as storm clouds, shrouding the loud, and obnoxious crowds of clowns squeezing noses while folding balloon roses, before exposing notions of permanence and relevance to pin you to their settlement of fools.

Happy, sad or just cool, i want simply nothing, but a blank face in my place of power, where the spent can cower in nothingness, blissfully lifting us above the smog, in godless pause before the blast of evolution, passed in through the degradation of chromosomes through polluted wombs to mossing tombs on bleeding wounds that never healed.

Sealed in a shield of yieldless peeling of my world for a gift so great, the stake is felt across the world in a ripple of love that whirls into the winds of life, and twirls into the sky, igniting a sight so great that everyone dies, as we rise again for the first time, in blue sunlight so bright that we absorb the light, and emanate it in the night, shining in fightless insight, of a universe that flys through a forest of unknowns.

Hi my boo,
I really do love you,
My love was built for only us too,

My love adorns your neck like a gold braided charm,
keeping you warm,
When you hold it no harm........can come

Like half a studded masquerade mask,
but sweet like spices from an Alabaster flask,
encasing your natural beauty like a cast.......from "Friends".

My mind is your home,
Your love does Olympic backflips in my heart where it roams,
I Cheshire under its dome...... still soaked by the rain of your kisses.

Yes when I kiss you goodbye each countdown restarts,
I'm nuclear when apart,
But a placebo beside you, resting in a Cinnamon Guava ****.

I melt and then crust, melt and un-rust,
Responding to your every touch, like a rose mulched,
Your love is my crutch.

She thinks,
she thinks she could quite like you,
she wonders,
she wonders if offers ever genuine,
are  they worth playing with?

In her life,
genuine is non-existent,
she may even grow to love you,
now,
those roses thorns are all stripped bare,
the once decadent silver foliage,
repatriated to the garden,
to be mulched into dreams of what may come,
compost for the compos mentis,
should the lady of the day be lucky?
she was right to doubt,
so right!
(C) Livvi

Past week, on the night of Tiw
an uneasy candle-flame wavered
censored by hushed air kisses
casting doubt upon an ode;
scribing the blessed years of youth.

This pine scented disturbance
no doubt - an Autumnal message;
that rear weathered doors
failed in the tempered change
curiously bidding, further venture.

Patio' marbles were shrouded
creeping with expired foliage
leaves tainted old hickory
near devoid of all famed ochre,
merciless to breaths of the fall.

That sombre mulched pattering
was alike wistful wondering;
of delicate and shadowy footfalls
from condemned, exiled seraphs
strung by moonlight rays.

The flavescent master glistened,
whilst duelling a clouded force;
enclosing in vaporous march
smearing pebble trailings,
the skirmish roused nostalgia.

For eerie quivers - of familiarity
wrought from the despondency,
as if epitaphed notions of old
were recited by alto whistling,
each note rekindling a memoriam.

An exhale of soulful proportions
sent adrift an essence;
a smouldering encirclement
of exhumed - solemnly recalls
taken from seasonal chapters of yore.

Those hearted ashes of distant times
cavorted - as sterling embers
with a phantasmic replica
of an adoration long gone,
duetting on pockets of melancholy.

Then beauty settled into a sepulchre,
caressed by grieving wreath petals
saddened by silken veil,
awaiting the fateful - dust and sand;
the remnants of embodied divination.

Revived dolor swelled from within
tiding from old, emotive cicatrices
buried deep and then deeper
until from this panoramic taunt
does this churned anguish vein.

A corrosive, timely hiss from Carpo
brushed the illusions past
as once - to a maidens' mortality;
a premature cremation of dreams
lingering the bitterness of decay.

As the pining sky orb retreated
so too - this observer with mourn
stuttering farewells to the nameless
then returned to the forgiving study
to immerse again - in better times.

These dry bones
once fit together strong
while time flowed one way:
on

That current held surprise
that knocked joints off guard
and a lied about collapse
occurred

Their ham fist could grip limbs
and clunk them together
in a fruitless pulse,
for what?

The trunk and branch
of what’s to come
must be reseeded
mulched and nurtured,
maintained root to crown
in different growth
or the same clown gardeners
will bring us down

I have this thought…

Our lives like leaves in autumn
From high branches falling
A thousand shades are waving
Through spectral light
Then a scent, of earth
A cold nose and the sight
Of a warm glow

Four floors up
The old flat we brought our son to
The balcony where the parakeets visit
The tall beech and the rolling park beyond
The dense solitude of the estate all around
Pushing its edges into the earthy common
Its woods and mulched graveyards

And I am walking there
With no thoughts of future
Kicking through undergrowth

Through copse then open ground
The contrast deepening
The strangers thinning
I turn back for warmth

Four floors up, I find you sleeping
Four floors up, and I am falling

Taken broken sewn back together,
Ripped and torn and burned out forever,
My heart is mulched by your sharp tongue,
My eyes bleed from your distance,
I humbly stoop to pick up the pieces of my old shattered heart,
I hold them close so that they don't come apart,
I try to piece together this hole in my chest,
Yet all i'm really doing is waiting, for death...

beard, ashen grey, swept by the winds
of years and centuries, aeons gone by,
misunderstood, forever chagrined
by the earth and the men and the sea and the sky

on staff he leans, weighed down by sins
of the heart and the mind and the hand and the hip
wild hair and locks bellowed by winds,
white shredded sails on wreck'd mast of ship

he'd put down his scythe, his sickle and reaper
bought a break as death's doorkeeper
but the hubris of world dictator
bade him grasp the detonator

soon swarms of poppies blood-red
scarlet and pink as tired sunset
angry as the blood of maidens
blushing as illicit bedspread

scattered as myriad bloodshot eyes,
of mothers mourning as child dies,
as gore spurting in the skies
as brothers shot amid war-cries

ploughed the fields with hearts that bled
plagued burnt hills as barrows of dead
mutilated, youth-abated,
limbs of lives amputated

the squeal of babe, the cry of lamb,
crushed as raspberries in a jam
mulched the fields in pants o' breath
****** by masters of their death

for death now trampled underfoot
the innocent boys, girls and babies
turned their skin to gunpowder soot
ravaged their limbs with famine 'n tabes

ash and hail, desolation,
earth reeling from stagnation
sent death pleading for abation
from the lord of creation

but 'twas nowhere to be seen
not in the heavens with his queen
nor in the throne-room overseeing
for he is forever the elusive being

now hiding from celestial choir
now living in eternal fire
now head burning in funeral pyre
at one with souls as they transpire

as the madness and the envy
mad desire, lust and frenzy,
continue, continue, unabated
till all consumes, as is fated.

broken, bent, o'er his staff,
bent over countries in bloodbath,
o'er the bodies rent in half,
o'er waste of human wrath

over the greed that never ends
never pays dividends
devours 'n divides family 'n friends,
itself consumes, in the end.

Locked inside a summer dream that never ends
I am a breathing tree, a pushing flower, a seedling
Hemmed in by a sun that shines and never spends,
I am a rose in a garden, filled with mystical healing

Enfolded in the hour I am a sunny season of joy
laughing, giggling, scintillating, playing with the wind
Concealed with beauty that never ends nor deploys
I am June, July and August, rushing in without rescind

Immersed in the scent of sweet mulched fruits
I am an apple in the orchard of crimson cherry red
****** in heat I dip into pacific waters find my route
I am all the things you can imagine in your head

Locked inside a summer dream that never ends,  
I am hemmed by a sun that shines and never spends .