I

Out of the little chapel I burst
Into the fresh night-air again.
Five minutes full, I waited first
In the doorway, to escape the rain
That drove in gusts down the common’s centre
At the edge of which the chapel stands,
Before I plucked up heart to enter.
Heaven knows how many sorts of hands
Reached past me, groping for the latch
Of the inner door that hung on catch
More obstinate the more they fumbled,
Till, giving way at last with a scold
Of the crazy hinge, in squeezed or tumbled
One sheep more to the rest in fold,
And left me irresolute, standing sentry
In the sheepfold’s lath-and-plaster entry,
Six feet long by three feet wide,
Partitioned off from the vast inside—
I blocked up half of it at least.
No remedy; the rain kept driving.
They eyed me much as some wild beast,
That congregation, still arriving,
Some of them by the main road, white
A long way past me into the night,
Skirting the common, then diverging;
Not a few suddenly emerging
From the common’s self through the paling-gaps,
—They house in the gravel-pits perhaps,
Where the road stops short with its safeguard border
Of lamps, as tired of such disorder;—
But the most turned in yet more abruptly
From a certain squalid knot of alleys,
Where the town’s bad blood once slept corruptly,
Which now the little chapel rallies
And leads into day again,—its priestliness
Lending itself to hide their beastliness
So cleverly (thanks in part to the mason),
And putting so cheery a whitewashed face on
Those neophytes too much in lack of it,
That, where you cross the common as I did,
And meet the party thus presided,
“Mount Zion” with Love-lane at the back of it,
They front you as little disconcerted
As, bound for the hills, her fate averted,
And her wicked people made to mind him,
Lot might have marched with Gomorrah behind him.

II

Well, from the road, the lanes or the common,
In came the flock: the fat weary woman,
Panting and bewildered, down-clapping
Her umbrella with a mighty report,
Grounded it by me, wry and flapping,
A wreck of whalebones; then, with a snort,
Like a startled horse, at the interloper
(Who humbly knew himself improper,
But could not shrink up small enough)
—Round to the door, and in,—the gruff
Hinge’s invariable scold
Making my very blood run cold.
Prompt in the wake of her, up-pattered
On broken clogs, the many-tattered
Little old-faced peaking sister-turned-mother
Of the sickly babe she tried to smother
Somehow up, with its spotted face,
From the cold, on her breast, the one warm place;
She too must stop, wring the poor ends dry
Of a draggled shawl, and add thereby
Her tribute to the door-mat, sopping
Already from my own clothes’ dropping,
Which yet she seemed to grudge I should stand on:
Then, stooping down to take off her pattens,
She bore them defiantly, in each hand one,
Planted together before her breast
And its babe, as good as a lance in rest.
Close on her heels, the dingy satins
Of a female something past me flitted,
With lips as much too white, as a streak
Lay far too red on each hollow cheek;
And it seemed the very door-hinge pitied
All that was left of a woman once,
Holding at least its tongue for the *****.
Then a tall yellow man, like the Penitent Thief,
With his jaw bound up in a handkerchief,
And eyelids ******* together tight,
Led himself in by some inner light.
And, except from him, from each that entered,
I got the same interrogation—
“What, you the alien, you have ventured
To take with us, the elect, your station?
A carer for none of it, a Gallio!”—
Thus, plain as print, I read the glance
At a common prey, in each countenance
As of huntsman giving his hounds the tallyho.
And, when the door’s cry drowned their wonder,
The draught, it always sent in shutting,
Made the flame of the single tallow candle
In the cracked square lantern I stood under,
Shoot its blue lip at me, rebutting
As it were, the luckless cause of scandal:
I verily fancied the zealous light
(In the chapel’s secret, too!) for spite
Would shudder itself clean off the wick,
With the airs of a Saint John’s Candlestick.
There was no standing it much longer.
“Good folks,” thought I, as resolve grew stronger,
“This way you perform the Grand-Inquisitor
When the weather sends you a chance visitor?
You are the men, and wisdom shall die with you,
And none of the old Seven Churches vie with you!
But still, despite the pretty perfection
To which you carry your trick of exclusiveness,
And, taking God’s word under wise protection,
Correct its tendency to diffusiveness,
And bid one reach it over hot ploughshares,—
Still, as I say, though you’ve found salvation,
If I should choose to cry, as now, ‘Shares!’—
See if the best of you bars me my ration!
I prefer, if you please, for my expounder
Of the laws of the feast, the feast’s own Founder;
Mine’s the same right with your poorest and sickliest,
Supposing I don the marriage vestiment:
So, shut your mouth and open your Testament,
And carve me my portion at your quickliest!”
Accordingly, as a shoemaker’s lad
With wizened face in want of soap,
And wet apron wound round his waist like a rope,
(After stopping outside, for his cough was bad,
To get the fit over, poor gentle creature
And so avoid distrubing the preacher)
—Passed in, I sent my elbow spikewise
At the shutting door, and entered likewise,
Received the hinge’s accustomed greeting,
And crossed the threshold’s magic pentacle,
And found myself in full conventicle,
—To wit, in Zion Chapel Meeting,
On the Christmas-Eve of ‘Forty-nine,
Which, calling its flock to their special clover,
Found all assembled and one sheep over,
Whose lot, as the weather pleased, was mine.

III

I very soon had enough of it.
The hot smell and the human noises,
And my neighbor’s coat, the greasy cuff of it,
Were a pebble-stone that a child’s hand poises,
Compared with the pig-of-lead-like pressure
Of the preaching man’s immense stupidity,
As he poured his doctrine forth, full measure,
To meet his audience’s avidity.
You needed not the wit of the Sibyl
To guess the cause of it all, in a twinkling:
No sooner our friend had got an inkling
Of treasure hid in the Holy Bible,
(Whene’er ‘t was the thought first struck him,
How death, at unawares, might duck him
Deeper than the grave, and quench
The gin-shop’s light in hell’s grim drench)
Than he handled it so, in fine irreverence,
As to hug the book of books to pieces:
And, a patchwork of chapters and texts in severance,
Not improved by the private dog’s-ears and creases,
Having clothed his own soul with, he’d fain see equipt yours,—
So tossed you again your Holy Scriptures.
And you picked them up, in a sense, no doubt:
Nay, had but a single face of my neighbors
Appeared to suspect that the preacher’s labors
Were help which the world could be saved without,
‘T is odds but I might have borne in quiet
A qualm or two at my spiritual diet,
Or (who can tell?) perchance even mustered
Somewhat to urge in behalf of the sermon:
But the flock sat on, divinely flustered,
Sniffing, methought, its dew of Hermon
With such content in every snuffle,
As the devil inside us loves to ruffle.
My old fat woman purred with pleasure,
And thumb round thumb went twirling faster,
While she, to his periods keeping measure,
Maternally devoured the pastor.
The man with the handkerchief untied it,
Showed us a horrible wen inside it,
Gave his eyelids yet another *******,
And rocked himself as the woman was doing.
The shoemaker’s lad, discreetly choking,
Kept down his cough. ‘T was too provoking!
My gorge rose at the nonsense and stuff of it;
So, saying like Eve when she plucked the apple,
“I wanted a taste, and now there’s enough of it,”
I flung out of the little chapel.

IV

There was a lull in the rain, a lull
In the wind too; the moon was risen,
And would have shone out pure and full,
But for the ramparted cloud-prison,
Block on block built up in the West,
For what purpose the wind knows best,
Who changes his mind continually.
And the empty other half of the sky
Seemed in its silence as if it knew
What, any moment, might look through
A chance gap in that fortress massy:—
Through its fissures you got hints
Of the flying moon, by the shifting tints,
Now, a dull lion-color, now, brassy
Burning to yellow, and whitest yellow,
Like furnace-smoke just ere flames bellow,
All a-simmer with intense strain
To let her through,—then blank again,
At the hope of her appearance failing.
Just by the chapel a break in the railing
Shows a narrow path directly across;
‘T is ever dry walking there, on the moss—
Besides, you go gently all the way up-hill.
I stooped under and soon felt better;
My head grew lighter, my limbs more supple,
As I walked on, glad to have slipt the fetter.
My mind was full of the scene I had left,
That placid flock, that pastor vociferant,
—How this outside was pure and different!
The sermon, now—what a mingled weft
Of good and ill! Were either less,
Its fellow had colored the whole distinctly;
But alas for the excellent earnestness,
And the truths, quite true if stated succinctly,
But as surely false, in their quaint presentment,
However to pastor and flock’s contentment!
Say rather, such truths looked false to your eyes,
With his provings and parallels twisted and twined,
Till how could you know them, grown double their size
In the natural fog of the good man’s mind,
Like yonder spots of our roadside lamps,
Haloed about with the common’s damps?
Truth remains true, the fault’s in the prover;
The zeal was good, and the aspiration;
And yet, and yet, yet, fifty times over,
Pharaoh received no demonstration,
By his Baker’s dream of Baskets Three,
Of the doctrine of the Trinity,—
Although, as our preacher thus embellished it,
Apparently his hearers relished it
With so unfeigned a gust—who knows if
They did not prefer our friend to Joseph?
But so it is everywhere, one way with all of them!
These people have really felt, no doubt,
A something, the motion they style the Call of them;
And this is their method of bringing about,
By a mechanism of words and tones,
(So many texts in so many groans)
A sort of reviving and reproducing,
More or less perfectly, (who can tell?)
The mood itself, which strengthens by using;
And how that happens, I understand well.
A tune was born in my head last week,
Out of the thump-thump and shriek-shriek
Of the train, as I came by it, up from Manchester;
And when, next week, I take it back again,
My head will sing to the engine’s clack again,
While it only makes my neighbor’s haunches stir,
—Finding no dormant musical sprout
In him, as in me, to be jolted out.
‘T is the taught already that profits by teaching;
He gets no more from the railway’s preaching
Than, from this preacher who does the rail’s officer, I:
Whom therefore the flock cast a jealous eye on.
Still, why paint over their door “Mount Zion,”
To which all flesh shall come, saith the pro phecy?

V

But wherefore be harsh on a single case?
After how many modes, this Christmas-Eve,
Does the self-same weary thing take place?
The same endeavor to make you believe,
And with much the same effect, no more:
Each method abundantly convincing,
As I say, to those convinced before,
But scarce to be swallowed without wincing
By the not-as-yet-convinced. For me,
I have my own church equally:
And in this church my faith sprang first!
(I said, as I reached the rising ground,
And the wind began again, with a burst
Of rain in my face, and a glad rebound
From the heart beneath, as if, God speeding me,
I entered his church-door, nature leading me)
—In youth I looked to these very skies,
And probing their immensities,
I found God there, his visible power;
Yet felt in my heart, amid all its sense
Of the power, an equal evidence
That his love, there too, was the nobler dower.
For the loving worm within its clod
Were diviner than a loveless god
Amid his worlds, I will dare to say.
You know what I mean: God’s all man’s naught:
But also, God, whose pleasure brought
Man into being, stands away
As it were a handbreadth off, to give
Room for the newly-made to live,
And look at him from a place apart,
And use his gifts of brain and heart,
Given, indeed, but to keep forever.
Who speaks of man, then, must not sever
Man’s very elements from man,
Saying, “But all is God’s”—whose plan
Was to create man and then leave him
Able, his own word saith, to grieve him,
But able to glorify him too,
As a mere machine could never do,
That prayed or praised, all unaware
Of its fitness for aught but praise and prayer,
Made perfect as a thing of course.
Man, therefore, stands on his own stock
Of love and power as a pin-point rock:
And, looking to God who ordained divorce
Of the rock from his boundless continent,
Sees, in his power made evident,
Only excess by a million-fold
O’er the power God gave man in the mould.
For, note: man’s hand, first formed to carry
A few pounds’ weight, when taught to marry
Its strength with an engine’s, lifts a mountain,
—Advancing in power by one degree;
And why count steps through eternity?
But love is the ever-springing fountain:
Man may enlarge or narrow his bed
For the water’s play, but the water-head—
How can he multiply or reduce it?
As easy create it, as cause it to cease;
He may profit by it, or abuse it,
But ‘t is not a thing to bear increase
As power does: be love less or more
In the heart of man, he keeps it shut
Or opes it wide, as he pleases, but
Love’s sum remains what it was before.
So, gazing up, in my youth, at love
As seen through power, ever above
All modes which make it manifest,
My soul brought all to a single test—
That he, the Eternal First and Last,
Who, in his power, had so surpassed
All man conceives of what is might,—
Whose wisdom, too, showed infinite,
—Would prove as infinitely good;
Would never, (my soul understood,)
With power to work all love desires,
Bestow e’en less than man requires;
That he who endlessly was teaching,
Above my spirit’s utmost reaching,
What love can do in the leaf or stone,
(So that to master this alone,
This done in the stone or leaf for me,
I must go on learning endlessly)
Would never need that I, in turn,
Should point him out defect unheeded,
And show that God had yet to learn
What the meanest human creature needed,
—Not life, to wit, for a few short years,
Tracking his way through doubts and fears,
While the stupid earth on which I stay
Suffers no change, but passive adds
Its myriad years to myriads,
Though I, he gave it to, decay,
Seeing death come and choose about me,
And my dearest ones depart without me.
No: love which, on earth, amid all the shows of it,
Has ever been seen the sole good of life in it,
The love, ever growing there, spite of the strife in it,
Shall arise, made perfect, from death’s repose of it.
And I shall behold thee, face to face,
O God, and in thy light retrace
How in all I loved here, still wast thou!
Whom pressing to, then, as I fain would now,
I shall find as able to satiate
The love, thy gift, as my spirit’s wonder
Thou art able to quicken and sublimate,
With this sky of thine, that I now walk under
And glory in thee for, as I gaze
Thus, thus! Oh, let men keep their ways
Of seeking thee in a narrow shrine—
Be this my way! And this is mine!

VI

For lo, what think you? suddenly
The rain and the wind ceased, and the sky
Received at once the full fruition
Of the moon’s consummate apparition.
The black cloud-barricade was riven,
Ruined beneath her feet, and driven
Deep in the West; while, bare and breathless,
North and South and East lay ready
For a glorious thing that, dauntless, deathless,
Sprang across them and stood steady.
‘T was a moon-rainbow, vast and perfect,
From heaven to heaven extending, perfect
As the mother-moon’s self, full in face.
It rose, distinctly at the base
With its seven proper colors chorded,
Which still, in the rising, were compressed,
Until at last they coalesced,
And supreme the spectral creature lorded
In a triumph of whitest white,—
Above which intervened the night.
But above night too, like only the next,
The second of a wondrous sequence,
Reaching in rare and rarer frequence,
Till the heaven of heavens were circumflexed
Another rainbow rose, a mightier,
Fainter, flushier and flightier,—
Rapture dying along its verge.
Oh, whose foot shall I see emerge,
Whose, from the straining topmost dark,
On to the keystone of that are?

VII

This sight was shown me, there and then,—
Me, one out of a world of men,
Singled forth, as the chance might hap
To another if, in a thu

Jesus runs in Everglades, Mohammed climbs the roof
The Angels stamp in anger as the Devil stands aloof,
A wandering Pope in la-la land while Jewish hands do writhe
Those apoplectic Muslims glare while Catholics pay the tithe.

Religion, girls, has hit the skids…the game is up on God
With rosaries rotating hard, theologians do nod,
While Mormons rant moronically with frankincense and myrrh
The irreligious bark and howl in Rastafarian fur.

Sectarian’s recant Sanctum’s Shrine the rite of soul is lost
As neophytes are dancing… the High Priest counts the cost,
Theocracy unbalances as Voodoo’s stamp the floor
And the Prophets throw their hands up, fast retreating for the door.

It’s transcendental disbelief that’s nailed it to the Cross
With the Priesthood chasing little boys all credence here is lost.
With sanctity’s monastic plunge the pagans roar and shout
As Shamans scream their incantations…God declares a route!

There is silence in the Temple now, stillness in the pews
As dust lies thick on altars, a nervous clergy holds reviews,
What, once, was good and vibrant here, is now as dead as dust
As the Blood Red Wine evaporates and Holy Bread…to crust.

Marshalg
Feeding the pigeons by the dusty, open door of the very, empty Chapel.
30 November 2013

Oh, my stoic... whatever happened to you?

At 6'4 you could stare down anyone in the room with your stern dark eyes. People might take you for melancholy until you told one joke with your deadpan humor. But you were a little morose, in your own way... is it because you're a Cancer? Or were you searching for something that only your mind could find for you? I never knew. Stoic and enigmatic are **** near the same thing, after all.

You, with your hundred dollar jeans worn after your yuppie yoga classes. You might not have worn Converse sneakers or thick-rimmed glasses (thank God)... but don't think I didn't see those expensive flannel shirts from Nordstrom's in your closet. Is there such thing as a hipster fashionista...fashionisto? I remember you approved of my Lucky brand jeans. They were a gift. Hand-me-downs. I didn't tell you that.

How elegant that you would grab Moroccan mint tea when coffee was no longer your thing. Sure, you'd down so much wine after dinner I'd worry you an alcoholic... but caffeine? Something about not liking dependence, you said. I savored watching you drink tea when we'd work side-by-side in some of the city's independent coffee houses. You wouldn't be caught dead in a Starbucks.

I do hope you make your amazing Turkish coffee, if only for your next love. Did I say "love?" No... maybe your next tryst. That's more your speed. I still can't taste cardamom without thinking of you.

And oh, your guitar... you'd strum the chords as if you were solving a riddle: quiet, to yourself. Leave the simple "Wonderwall" for neophytes because you could play Django Reinhardt. Unsurprising that a person like you would have a music performance degree from New York University. Every note you played was expensive. And you knew it.

It wasn't just the way you strummed Spanish flamenco while I made us quinoa stuffed squash in your small kitchen. You had to play the cool music before it was cool--nothing so trite as Vampire Weekend or Kings of Leon; only the sweet whispers of Priscilla Ahn for your sensitive ears. I'd desperately try recalling obscure artists from my college days and try to keep up. Album Leaf? Mirah? I got a half smile mentioning Bela Fleck.

Do you remember, how we'd smoke hookah on your soft leather couch? I'd read your book aloud on tantric Buddhism as you'd light the candles. Once the room filled of cinnamon, we'd inhale exotic rose-flavored tobacco and watch documentaries imploring us to free Tibet.

Even your ******* name was exotic; foreign. My mother didn't like it, you know... she worried a man like you would always be patriarchal.

It didn't matter that your days were spent wondering if your law degree was worth it; because you had other dreams. Dreams of foreign service and pro bono nonprofits.

But somewhere in the planning of those dreams, we fell out of touch.

You ended it. I knew you would.

In the worst of my thoughts, I assumed you ended it to find a woman who was everything I'm not, but who I desperately wanted to be. She'd be an international human rights lawyer. A yoga teacher. She'd take yearly trips to hike the Grand Canyon and go on meditation retreats in Bhutan.

2 years later, I've moved on. I won't need 2 glasses of wine to feel comfortable in your presence (as I once did). I've found someone else; we're happily married. He'll never have your enigma, but he lets me in his world. It's not a world of Ghirardelli hot chocolate on winter nights, obscure records and hole-in-the-wall Vietnamese restaurants. But he encompasses everything I needed that you couldn't give: warmth.

I hope you're well, my stoic sophisticate.

avenue sounds are never agreeable, ignore the drift,
ignore the hum,
ignore the suburban neophytes in the city lights (I never did care much for hipsters).
ignore rapid eye movements, the flush red face, ignore the snapshots of you that adorn my semi-sleep state

I stare at my ceiling and see the cobblestone summer streets you once graced, long ago in the eternal occident, I want to ignore but I’m so very boozed, in a blue lucid slumber:::

eyes closed::: my head spins and sleep begins with the tidal delirium of dopamine drips, your legs, your hips, I’m drowning a bit, doused in a sanguine sweat inside a fantasy (**** I’m dreaming of you)

Synaptic friction
she is a pleasant fiction  
flash/sparks segue a dormant memory ,
the two of us riding familiar highways::: she gazes at me with her usual emerald encased ocular torment, those limbal rings cast aspersions at the last vestiges of my will power, until, I’m done, done in by the divinity of her lips:::

There is no end to (your) energy
It even finds me here::: in my dystopian  dream (eternal)
now
an inescapable, myopic curse
(nocturnal):::
the nightmare of not having you near

Awake, I roll over to clutch for the pacifier of your comfort (violent midnight)
I find only a fragrance,
i flail, searching, when those flashbacks fall short
isolated into the banality of bedsheets and pillows pleats

(the retrograde nature of my reality, now readily apparent)



cdh

This is your reality, the brave new world;
i just hang out here:
birthed in the Cradle of Elam,
a mourning son of Baal,
smeared and anointed
with the oil from the
***** fingerprints of
countless scores of
sweaty neophytes;
carried, dropped, dented;
brought forth from eons passed,
updated for the 21st century,
gilded Krylon-gold.

This nebulous gift,
made tangible and
whole by blood,
a form fitting sacrifice,
transmogrified kudzu,
rootless, digging
talons' clutch into
our minds' construct,
seeks strength of
conviction, action.

Our ship is now
veering off course.
i must respond in kind.
i will not be led astray.
i will not have my good
intentions commandeered.
i will hijack your purpose,
screaming mutiny,
holding Occam's Razor-knife
to the throat of your jihads.

i issue a fatwa of peace,
as you once did,
before.

i renounce a kingdom of hate,
as you once did,
before.

i seek charity in effort,
as we once did,
before.

Let us rebuild.
Let us move forward.
***** a new Babel,
forsaking the sword.

Let our forks be on roads,
and not on our tongues;
a forging of union,
as we'd once begun:

My sisters, my brothers,
my family,
as one.

Peace may not find you and your
Resolve will crumble in your hands, seen by
Observers who will shake their heads while
Fear will come in with each breath and
Easy stuff becomes hard because of
Selfish attributes that have your name on them, playing
Silly word games when work needs to be done where
Idiots need not apply and
Objections will fall on deaf ears
Neophytes BEWARE and
Aware that
Losses are not counted in the win column.

Misunderstanding purposely
Is a poor choice, unwise
Seeing your education
Combined with your
Obvious position of leadership
Neglecting the human cost while
Dutifully embracing rules
Undercutting human values
Cynically pointing one ring- finger in any direction to
Tyranny.


©DWE062013

by: William A. Marshall

at the age of five we are sent off
into unknown structures with flinty rooms
with kids with bad breath who smell
like their dog
and like to clown and chuck things.
we eventually lose our patent uniqueness,
within the system, its rules, and policies
that are designed to govern
and strip us plain.
the system itself could care less,
“don’t think just memorize the information kid.”
our uniqueness wilts
with each passing packet of school pictures,
clothing and status become essential
for neophytes  
the offices stink
like after shave and cheap perfume in first period
each one gets a taste of honey
then the knife.
they look at their job like some kind of victory,
and their marriage
and their kids,
their lousy vinyl sided house
with the manicured lawn
like a victory to their family,
and to the world.
no one cares,
not the homeless guy in the street
not the neighbors with their friendly act,
or the precinct chairwoman asking you
if you voted as she reads your name
from her covert list,
all the victories lose their sweetness
and eventually you are stealing a few grapes
like a **** starving addict
at the supermarket
with your sore knee and shaded goggles
the victories are no longer important
and you limp to your vehicle
pushing your rusty cart,
full of soup and ***** by yourself
not remembering where you parked
the same way you came into this joint,
helpless and irritable as hell
needing something
or someone
to help you find
your identity that was taken
long ago by society,
it’s the order of things.

Today is a significant moment
Ever occurred to your dedicated career
Reaping all the rewards of commitment
Every deserving professional like you
Setting as a role model for the neophytes
In exemplifying capabilities and kindheartedness
Towards accomplishing  the mission and vision
As what SPMC  has envisioned for excellent service.

Rest assured that we shall all be vigilant
Ensuring to perform our work with proficiency
Being well-trained medical technologist like you
Until the day when our time to retire will come
Leaving a legacy of excellent service to SPMC
Dedication, competence and innate compassion
All identical virtues to best merit that you have shown
Describe your personality that is worthy to emulate.

CORTÉS
            Trailblazing pioneers, God’s harbingers:
            The shining daylight of the Renaissance
            Now swiftly dissipates the blindfold gloom
            Of this benighted, dark, and iron age.
            And as this dawn of culture greets the globe,
            Our own Castile, of all the hosts of Europe,
            Emerges as its greatest modern power.
            If we receive the bounty of these lands,
            So must we bear our duty to convert,
            And shall redeem these hell-bound debutantes.
            Coincidence?- That as the graceless Moors
            Were drubbed and shunted from our Christian sands,
            And in the very year our spiring cross
            Eclipsed that toenail paring of a moon-
            That new horizons opened in the west?
            Do you not feel, my fresh adventurers,
            That you are precious to the Lord, and chosen?
            Strike sail!                                                          E­xit.
              
ALVARADO                  You heard the captain. Up and at ‘em.
            You porters, lash the tents to tame these winds.
            The horsemen will untwine the provender.             Exit Garrido.

SANDOVAL
            The women must find tinder, turf, and fuel.
            The sun is down. We race against the dusk.           Exit María.

ESCUDERO
            These heavy, gathering clouds have opened up,
            And threaten to bestow unwanted gifts.

DÍAZ
            It is the cyclone season out at sea.

SANDOVAL
            Such scuddy weather bodes a sudden turn.

ALVARADO
            Let’s hustle then to fumble up a camp,
            And save our “oo-” and “ahh”ing for the dawn.
                                                           ­                           Exit all but Olmedo.
OLMEDO
            Thus shall the ardent lights of Europe come,
            And pour upon these newfound neophytes.
            But will they be enlightening Catholic lamps,
            Or a consuming fire to destroy them?                     *Exit.

Europeans, deep culture,
Americans, neophytes, ape—
Picking up the scraps.

Europeans, deep culture,
Americans, neophytes, ape—
Picking up the scraps.

born of blast furnace heat
swirling and shimmering
skies rained blood

earth sodden
enriched with grief
it seeps to transition

passage via roots
of long dead trees
leaching through depths

shredding and stripping
the substance of life
constituents left behind

now neophytes release
into the next phase
in the evolution of tears

@journeyofdays

The world has not gone unnoticed.
She has shown herself to me, seductively,
A burlesque of sunrises and rains,
A flash of open highway, the kick and spin
Of caves beneath the ocean and deserted plains,
I have heard her ****** ballads and her sea-shanties
Have seen the plunge of her falcon
and the depth of the infinite sky
I am certain I caught a glimpse of her *******
And a wink of her mischievous eye.

She has shown me power and life, inescapable.
She has opened her arms to give me all.
And for my part, I drank it all, insatiable.
Left to right, and north to south
I took it all in, through my eyes
And through my mouth, and absorbed through my skin.

She has molted glorious hide for glorious hide
Moment by moment, for time immemorial
And I am but a baby nursing:
I am swollen to the point of bursting.

Something else was in the air
I was captivated by a marching band,
By the pungent smell of a metaphor,
And with a cigarette in my left hand
Finally I could not contain any more;
Either tripped up, or lifted on the radio buzz
I became a song--without physical form
Radiating, reverberating through the buildings
Or the trees, or wherever I was.

It comes down to this, this transformation:
It is a trick I learned from the masters, oh,
And the neophytes of each generation
In a place deep down below
That I hollowed out, swallowed, and took part by part
All the stories, all the music that had been played
As they were gathered
Here into the ear of my heart.

And I was made.

A song has a shape, but not a limitation
I could travel whole from room to room
Join with others in a convocation
Earth myself with a mighty boom
Gleam imperious, a holy crown
High as a satellite, or soft as cotton

I cannot be tied down
Nor forgotten
Not when I am a song.

There was a time, either before now, or later
I cannot recall;
When the world was wreathed in gloom.
Dark night came and conquered all.
For every joy, two curses came.
Misfortunes stagger against our weight
But redouble and resume
To quench our dull and sputtering flame.
The car won’t start, we missed the bus;
The bills, unpaid, grow beards.
No one comes to rescue us.

This house groaned, old and aware
That its days were not long.
It lay upon me like Atlas,
Foretold its collapse,
Crumbled and mumbled
As I grieved and retrieved all the scraps.

But when it grew too great
Even for my sturdy form to bear
I became a song--weightless,
Unbreakable, and carried along
By heaven knows what
Into heaven knows where.

Another Sunday morning
Crouched in the beam of headlights
Steam coming off coffee and breath
Fumbling to pin race bib to pants

A romance
Of sorts; this dance I’m addicted to
Those magic numbers: 5k, 13.1, and
The boss lady: 26.2 (I’m coming after you)
But why? Friends ask
You’re crazy they say on posts
Of me on each early Sunday

I say nothing back, but heart the comment
I can’t explain what the rhythmic pound; the sound
of New Balanced footstrike does
For the broken part of me
How the week’s aggression
That needs suppressing is sweated out
And gathered up in Nike’s moisture-wicking fabric

How weaving through the crowd of neophytes
Wearing today’s race shirt, alternately
Sprinting then walking

And the kids, eager, then over it
The moms reclaiming a body that sheltered
The now-strollered baby
The geriatrics, shoes well-used
Nimble limbs, not brittle but abused
From pounding pavement years before this

This environment, atmosphere
Big race crowds or small informal
Stopwatch race; doesn’t matter
Just involved; a part of this kinship
Unspoken club affiliation; in passing
Not a wave, but nod
A head bob of appreciation
For another’s association;
Obsession with times, miles,
Post-race selfie smiles
Because I know there will come a day
That my body will betray
My runner’s soul.

But for now I stand at the start
Ready for race gun and one more mile

John Nigthingale the poet
A modern prolific writer I met
who inspired me to be expressive
of my innate sentiments not elusive.

John owns the the CCPoets.com
and the latest PoetsPoetryPoems.com
both are well-participated with best bards
who indulge with professional high regards.

John loves poetry and poems
welcomes all regardless of themes
as long as it give lessons to humanity
innate sentiments express with quality.

John reads all posted compositions
of neophytes or expert expressions
his remarks portray true sentiments
succinct thoughts not mere comments.

He is the poet to emulate
good for others to simulate
he is building a better legacy
modern archive of best poetry.

Psyche wracked with agony
impossible mission to extricate lovely bones
they wanna remain permanently abed.

I chiefly function to amass knowledge
courtesy assiduously, habitually,
and judiciously reading
an eclectic assortment of written material.

Yours truly woke
with ambition, disposition,
inclination, and predilection
to glean from an assortment
of books esoteric learning
since... birth, but particularly
when experiencing emerging adulthood
about two score years ago.

Feeble attempt crafting poetry
whereat gobbledygook doth trot -
oven chilly cooked confusion eliciting
faint thanks a lot
unbeknownst this tasteless,
senseless, rhymeless... lettered
Rorschach test tease I jot
interpretation, viz hitting
analogously like amorphous melted ingot
watch yourself...

d's lines iz still smok'n HOT,
now I puzzle regarding how
to extricate mess elf,
cuz aye got myself
into try'n to strut and trumpet
hightailing (courtesy Google)
searching information superhighways
one can cyber surf to Hong Kong,
(a coastal city and major port
in Southern China,

bordering Guangdong Province
through the city of Shenzhen
to the north and the South China Sea
to the east, south, and west)
an entrepôt, (which goods brought
for import and export,
and for collection and distribution)
yea, that autonomous enclave
the region inhabited since
the Old Stone Age,

later becoming part
of the Chinese Empire
with loose incorporation
into the Qin dynasty
initially starting out
as a farming fishing village
and salt production site,
it became an important free port
governed by Chief Executive,
who serves as premier of the Region

and head of government
of Hong Kong
beholden to The Basic Law
which designates a system of governance
led by a Chief Executive
and an Executive Council,
under principles of separation of powers,
with a two-tiered system
of semi-representative government
and an independent judiciary.

Anyway... when zombie like,
and hyper aware
about mein kampf,
and lxv roaming years
exhibiting conscious state
(although that might be debatable),
I try to dead reckon eyes
purposefulness astride oblate spheroid
nsync with other gals and guys
either one, t'other or all
mask cue lated in disguise

impossible mission to triangulate
Euclid say logic defies
to comprehend gibberish,
no matter how much you scrutinize
his highness, qua shape
shifting imperfect square stumps
any tree mend us great mind to analyze
me skewering, marinating, gunning... decries
abiding any logical positivism
queries best addressed to Lord of the Flies
since nary handy dandy blues clues,

I opted out thus...
******* provided to synthesize
random words helter skelter
strewn to symbolize
absent any rhyme or reason
courtesy handy matted figurative
trapezoid doth employ
no paradigm to exercise
leaving comprehension after mine demise
so go ahead chastise
cuz I already know,
never will said poetry win apprize.

Initially, an attempt
sought regarding Das scribe,
yours truly donning
checkerboarded rawhide
collared, cuffed oversize raiment, pride
and prejudice obscured
courtesy hand-me-downs
couture also decking out
alley oop trapeze artist bride
of Frankenstein grooming in attendance
with her bonafide
circus motley crew, a veritable
monster mish mashup
happenstance didst decide
unlike traditional feted newlyweds
swingers airborne did only abide.

The law of gravity aerial
pas de deux bodies airborne
aloft pledging their respective troths sworn
fleeting suspended animation while shorn
infinitesimally of Earth's pull
only expert can playfully scorn
accomplishment courtesy no greenhorne
neophytes in utero umbilical cord,
taking root as metaphorical acorn,
thus unbridled and groomed skill inborn
burst out the womb like heated popcorn
snapped up since birth well worn
genes Ringling Brothers and
Barnum & Bailey circus practiced morn
till night stunts became second nature
encore performance
no matter bodies outworn.

Curtain Call now doth close
unrehearsed poetic gambit,
cuz yours truly tuckered out I suppose
ready to take his doze
zee dough into dreamland, expose
zing oft times confused
with dark shadows of outer limits
of twilight zone,
where me lovely bones froze
where sudden night mare arose
gripping courtesy rigor mortis head to toes
daunting wordsmith champion
manifestation of daily woes.

Suddenly me clutched
by melancholic despair
somnambulantly where
countless tomb morrows *****
scarcely undifferentiated
from yesterday's care
wracking psyche with wrath plus fear
at accursed purposelessness near
faux sing myself regarding pas
city to emulate good cheer
whereat time and tide
wait for no man/woman.