Pressesd tenderly,
your carnal flower opens,
its butterfly released,
hovers like a hummingbird
drinking from the bill.

Oh, I too would steal you away
and cage you happily,
to get under your black-fringed skirt; 
to see that pretty dress,
fly off once more,
and see you bare;
burned now forever in my banks,
a first sight,
of dark curls!

As I think of it,
my desire stirs,
but of us
I have already masturbated twice:
jammed,
hips pinned,
sliding over our wet perspiring bellies,
in our jungle heat:
'cause in the firmament of our embrace
- it's hot -
where glued we **** into each other,
stoking flames,
until sleep,
when we disappear from each other.
My mind crowds,
with niggling neurotic inanities;
yours with manic dreams where bed-wetting criminals in cages beg to be freed,
before better spaces overtake.

When I awake,
I am lying next to you,  
Gwen over the horizon of your fertile valley,
a mountain,
white and reposed.
You,
murmuring desire for me.
****!
I can't wait to answer.

It is late,
late morning,
and we are all half asleep.
You have your back to me,
as we lie,
rubbing feet,
stroking hands,
(the oiled bulb at the end of a finger),
your fine shoulders,
(that delicate but persistent bone in your wrist that stretches with pointed elegance);
as quietly inside,  
(warmly enveloped),
my couched *****,  
rocks us:
each diffusing into the other
like the early morning brew.

Lust and love,
closing-in,
which for a good while on edge had been:
the weeks,
days,
hours;
faint promises from afar;
sometimes a little closer,
our shadows in daylight cross,
as one over the other storms;
and once (or twice),
a sleeve brushes,
even better,
hair crackles,
as a speaking lip touches lobe,  
and for a moment,
taking in the other's scent,
a hint sublimely overpowers.

And these,
dearest of fancies,
are just some,
with which to penetrate your mind,
as you have mine:
the energy of my yielding tenderness,
inviting you to complete me,
as I spread for you with desire.

Much later,
those daring looks you have,
the way you walk our stage:
your beautiful elongated face,
those quick-fire arousing eyes,
your sultry self-assuredness,
your pre-possessing self.

I could talk about your couple,
of generosity,
reaching up,
beyond mere comprehension:
of the fact that I like Gwen
(his love gift for you, me);
but actually,
in truth,
I prefer to take this moment to make love to you;
to say how wrapped I am,
folded in your limbs,
in our mingling sweat;
how with your joy,
you touch my desires,
into yours,
so they flow,
run rather:
honeysuckle from your blessed nymphae.

You love my smell,
you say,
and I dream of gathering you in pheromones,
of drugging you,
of intoxicating you,
so once again you will find me,
take me,
have me.
Entice you once more like a creature from its shell:
Come!
where I can ravish you,
all of you,
lay naked to me,
flesh,
sinews,
everything,
your very bones;
those fine elbows,
those knees I would like to ******* over;
wash their smooth surfaces in my come:
from these cliff heights,
rain ***** on the rocks below.

To once more cast aside your socks and get at your toes,
to pour oil on 'em,
to rub and squeeze' em,
while in the moist cavern of your insides,
we ****,
half washed over by our own tide.
And as we do,
I quail,
speaking sweet nothings of appreciation;
from full lips,
your sounds return,
the hypnotic rhythm of your breath:
I engorge and in our labyrinth,
- the maiden and the bull -
we consume ourselves.

There,
Sweet Lentiform,
you did it,
you got me rolling in flesh,
lusting after your intimate parts,
wanting you in bed as I know you must have me:
pulling me on you,
kissing and biting;
my arousal in your palm,
pops,
as you run a curved finger over my nethers.

Lying,
lying,
side-by-side,
lying prone,
lying ******,
never unconsumed,
because,
please,
please  us,
with more;
so rarely,
unfucked even for a pause,
nothing doing more than sleeping and carousing;
our sustenance barely enough to keep us at it,
an occasional comic thrown in.
Oh,
God,
throw the ******* comic at me,
will you?
Beat my ******* flesh with it if you like.
Anything to see you standing in all your pearly naked glory!

And if you can,
keep texting me,
so I can hang on your every word like a ******* puppy!
Beautiful
long-haired,
skin tight,
upright,
wise,
gorgeously wild,
woman ...
Now pull me by my **** into your **** -
where I love it best.

Today I told someone I loved them, and I ment it more than I could ever describe in words.

But there was a niggling thought in the back of my head.

"It's too soon," it whispered.

"You should have waited. It's too soon."

People will judge me. They will think I'm foolish.

But who is anyone else to tell me about how I love someone?

And since when does falling in love have a set rules?

Why should I let society decide that my love isn't real, because they don't belive someone can feel this strongly for somone so soon?

It took me eight months to say it to my X.

And I can honestly say that feeling was like a drop in the ocean, compared to how I feel now.

So yes you can say it's too soon.

Frankly I don't give a ****.

My auspicious and audacious assault augments the annoyance of aged accomplices.

My bodacious broadside of boffolas berates and buffaloes bros beneficently.

A classy crusade Clownishly chiseling and criticizing childishness.

A devilish ******* of dillydallying dullards; devoutly denying dimwits the dulcet dream of defiance.

Excessive, exuberant edification, ebulliently eliminating education-evictees.

A fair-weather frolic in flippancy with furious fools floundering in flawed foppishness.

Gregariously grating glum guys gleefully, growing grander garnishes of gripping gallantry gaily.

Heckling hooligans highlights my heavenly humor.

Irreverently irking irritable, iniquitous idiots in inestimably infuriating and incredible instances.

A jolly, jocular **** joking with jerks.

A kreiger kicking kleptomaniacs in the karyotype. (Cut me some slack, this is 'k', after all.)

A ludicrous, laughing lambaste of lollygagging lunatics, loftily loosing luscious lunacy on lucky losers.

A magnificent masterpiece of malfeasance, a monstrous, malevolent mission of massive misfortune for the minor minors missing no malicious missive.

A noxious, narcissistic niggling of nitwits, niftily nixing the noisome naivete of niggardly nobs.

An offhand, off-color outburst of outlandish observations to outclass the obnoxious overtures of obsequious offal.

A pragmatic prediction of possible platitudes or platypi, a placid parley of pyrotechnic pleasantries provoking Pyrrhic protections by prurient prats.

A quixotic quibble quarreling with a queer quarry.

Ribald ribbing, ruining the robust reality of the repreachful, repugnant, and rapacious with risque ridiculousness.

A silly, slighting slander of sluglike slavishness, succinctly sinking sloppy simpletons sourly.

Tracing the titillating talent of towing tyranny to towering terrors to tactless, togless, terrapins of the times.

The book of moonlight is not written yet
Nor half begun, but, when it is, leave room
For Crispin, ***** in the lunar fire,
Who, in the hubbub of his pilgrimage
Through sweating changes, never could forget
That wakefulness or meditating sleep,
In which the sulky strophes willingly
Bore up, in time, the somnolent, deep songs.
Leave room, therefore, in that unwritten book
For the legendary moonlight that once burned
In Crispin's mind above a continent.
America was always north to him,
A northern west or western north, but north,
And thereby polar, polar-purple, chilled
And lank, rising and slumping from a sea
Of hardy foam, receding flatly, spread
In endless ledges, glittering, submerged
And cold in a boreal mistiness of the moon.
The spring came there in clinking pannicles
Of half-dissolving frost, the summer came,
If ever, whisked and wet, not ripening,
Before the winter's vacancy returned.
The myrtle, if the myrtle ever bloomed,
Was like a glacial pink upon the air.
The green palmettoes in crepuscular ice
Clipped frigidly blue-black meridians,
Morose chiaroscuro, gauntly drawn.

How many poems he denied himself
In his observant progress, lesser things
Than the relentless contact he desired;
How many sea-masks he ignored; what sounds
He shut out from his tempering ear; what thoughts,
Like jades affecting the sequestered bride;
And what descants, he sent to banishment!
Perhaps the Arctic moonlight really gave
The liaison, the blissful liaison,
Between himself and his environment,
Which was, and is, chief motive, first delight,
For him, and not for him alone. It seemed
Elusive, faint, more mist than moon, perverse,
Wrong as a divagation to Peking,
To him that postulated as his theme
The ******, as his theme and hymn and flight,
A passionately niggling nightingale.
Moonlight was an evasion, or, if not,
A minor meeting, facile, delicate.

Thus he conceived his voyaging to be
An up and down between two elements,
A fluctuating between sun and moon,
A sally into gold and crimson forms,
As on this voyage, out of goblinry,
And then retirement like a turning back
And sinking down to the indulgences
That in the moonlight have their habitude.
But let these backward lapses, if they would,
Grind their seductions on him, Crispin knew
It was a flourishing tropic he required
For his refreshment, an abundant zone,
Prickly and obdurate, dense, harmonious
Yet with a harmony not rarefied
Nor fined for the inhibited instruments
Of over-civil stops. And thus he tossed
Between a Carolina of old time,
A little juvenile, an ancient whim,
And the visible, circumspect presentment drawn
From what he saw across his vessel's prow.

He came. The poetic hero without palms
Or jugglery, without regalia.
And as he came he saw that it was spring,
A time abhorrent to the nihilist
Or searcher for the fecund minimum.
The moonlight fiction disappeared. The spring,
Although contending featly in its veils,
Irised in dew and early fragrancies,
Was gemmy marionette to him that sought
A sinewy nakedness. A river bore
The vessel inward. Tilting up his nose,
He inhaled the rancid rosin, burly smells
Of dampened lumber, emanations blown
From warehouse doors, the gustiness of ropes,
Decays of sacks, and all the arrant stinks
That helped him round his rude aesthetic out.
He savored rankness like a sensualist.
He marked the marshy ground around the dock,
The crawling railroad spur, the rotten fence,
Curriculum for the marvellous sophomore.
It purified. It made him see how much
Of what he saw he never saw at all.
He gripped more closely the essential prose
As being, in a world so falsified,
The one integrity for him, the one
Discovery still possible to make,
To which all poems were incident, unless
That prose should wear a poem's guise at last.

Sitting here, thinking about death, about which death to choose, about which passing of time to write about. I am sweating, like, hold your breath or die sweat. It is hot here, but it isn't the temperature that is making my glands leak, it is the memories, it is the death grip that takes my heart when i remember, when i write about life leaving, silence stealing from the night.

Heroine. She's a tuff-tender ***** with soft sleepy skin, the daughter of Morpheus, who takes your breath and holds it inside you. Somniferous, She likes to sit alongside you while you die, she holds your hand and whispers in your ear, allaying fear and slowly she wraps her fingers around your lungs. So tired, of this world, of this life; you think, i'll just close my eyes, nothing new about being on the nod, nothing strange about this tiredness that follows a quick projectile puke in the gutter.
Let sleeping dogs lie.

Writing about Overdosing. It is a strange thing, a quick story, one minute your blinking, nodding, often murmuring, then asleep.

Lucky the dog who runs in a pack.
Lucky the man who walks with strangers by his side.
I don't remember much of what happened before i closed my eyes.

A shot, pin ***** relief, then, quickly/slowly/gone. It is night out, with a dark and steady sky, I am watching the stars through slitted eyes and loving my life, loving my wife; ******, how she makes my heart sing. I am glad to be far from withdrawing, i am happy to be in sin with my lovers, stainless steel turemo picks.
It is my first blast for the night and apparently my last.
There is no warning, no red flag that appears in my minds eye. Just silence and a world fading away. A heartbeat disappearing. Short shallow breath and a small niggling concern that soon will come the time when i am not high then...

I am going. I am gone. I have died.

The strangest thing about dying is not dying. The hardest thing about it all is waking up and realising you were finally gone, you were finally done with the rigmorale, the procedure, of living, of life. You had reached the ultimate goodbye. And now you are back. Still high but not high enough to be faced with the living. Narcan gives your lungs back, it breathes back into you what She stole away. Wanting more then ever to ***** but not wanting to puke on the paramedics lap. Fear of police and reprisal, anxiety soars high on the agenda of the recently revived. A trip the hospital, a free ride, then signing out early, i have shots to blast, a past to wipe out, a life to live or die trying.

I’m sorry for the things I’ve said or stupid stuff I’ve done,
But I truly never wanted to be your one gay son.

I know it can’t be easy to hear those words out loud,
But I know that you still love me and I hope I make you proud.

I couldn’t live a life where all I did was lie,
If I couldn’t be honest I think I’d sooner die.

To understand it fully, I’m still not at that stage,
But to still be in the closet was like being in a cage.

To love another guy, to me it don't make sense,
And so around my heart I built a little fence.
Although as time went on that fence became a wall,
Built of solid concrete standing ten feet tall.
I try to take it down to let a good guy in,
But it always ends in tears I simply cannot win.

Then it starts all over and you think you have found one,
Until he turns around and says that all he wants is fun.

You can’t help who you fall for, it’s not a simple choice,
It comes from deep inside you, this little niggling voice.

So if you are still hiding don’t just live in fear,
For a happy life is worth it, the price of life is too dear.

Those who stand and judge me, will never be my mates,
Laughing at the fact with guys I go on dates

Sure who really cares, we can’t all be the same,
It’s like we have thrown a dice in this life we call a game

So take a big deep breath, it will be ok in the end
Oh hey parents this isn't my college mate, he's actually my boyfriend.

T- Take all his rules and directives on board
H-Heed them well or he'll put you to the sword
E-Edicts he announces mustn't be ignored

S-Stay within the definition of his pit
I-Indent it into your mind's memory fit
T-Test not his patience nor his fab wit
E-Enter good work that will be a great  hit

M-Mad as hell he'll become when he sees a bad post
O-Ousted you'll be if he doesn't like what you boast
N-Niggling him will obtain a certain kind of verbal roast
I-Irking his upright position means you'll be put on toast
T-Travel within the hallowed guidelines he prefers the most
O-Opposing him means debarment at a far flung coast
R-Riling him over his rule's will disappear you as a ghost

Love proves
inadequate at
every turn

****** niggling
over stupid
****

Shed no tears

Ain't like he
crying over
you

In the midweek of twelves months I torched blunts and choked on wet smoke and chamomile tea.
Fretting the niggling giblets of a queasy disrememberance of a sober stroll through your tossed hair salad.
I managed to mangle  the marvelous gross lust of our impending
delirium. i farmed bok choy to annoy our local siege. our muskets were polished with misdeeds.
our demons barked, all coy and ravenous in the sweet diffuse of our useless aplomb.
ginger rockets in our thespian numb. you Dis-Oriental surrogate Mom.
You.... flame folding cranes, like a Japanese cancer
with opposable thumbs.
Unstoppable in the dead wink
of an awkward eye
upon your heaving *******.

You burn regardless.

Sisyphus compelled to roll his boulder,
the poet who attempts to reconcile
what he knows with what he feels,
sensing even in compulsion
his stony effort no match for gravity.
Knowledge transmuted into feeling,
feelings obverted to some new knowledge,
a seismic process that rolls in waves,
peaks of insight, troughs of mental block,
all to foist a new perception upon the world,
squeeze perspective from the driest fruits.

What devilish irony to be admired,
for verse most often misunderstood,
philosopher and virtuoso to a tone-deaf audience.
Camus concluded Sisyphus
was happy with his lot in life,
but a poet continues to paint strange landscapes,
never content with color schemes,
ever niggling for that undiscovered pastel.

It's the smell of a mild summer evening. The grass, an occasional bloom mixed with overheated lawnmower and gasoline undertones. It's simplicity and classic rock love songs; U2's The Sweetest Thing. It is complete satisfaction overall, with a pang of uncertainty niggling at that fact. It's when the windows are rolled down with the wind blowing in your face, buffeting your hair. It's the sun shining through the trees--blinking and flashing like a strobe light. Hurts your eyes. Look away. Headache.
It's hearing beautiful things as if underwater. It's having a great idea but no means When you want to say something, but don't have the words. It's you. It is all of you and thank you.

Chamomile lines
In a cup filled with sorrow
As they swirl, rise and burst your eyes burn on.
Ice-blue, yet warm
As the morning in winter
Feels like I'm breathing dragons and walking through fields of silver.
Spider web catches
The rays of the sun
Rising on the horizon, is it called a horizon because of the rising?
Hawks drop and whirl
It's all so romantic
And it makes me feel sick to my stomach because I'm just a wandering girl...

You're a beast in the den
You're a wolf in the lair
You're the wood for my fire
You're the breeze in my hair

But I never asked for a den
And I wanted the lair for myself
And my fire should be burning with coal not wood.

And the breeze in my hair? Well that's just annoying
The affection you lavish on me feels like cloying
Reproaches from some kind of horrible clown
All lathered and slathered in wet eiderdown
It's leering towards me, its horrible face
Lifts into a smile, an ugly grimace

And I realise suddenly
That my mind is painting grotesque scenes
Over the beauty of the one that I love

But then how do I stop it?
How do I stop it?
How do I stop it?

You make me feel putrid
We laughed when he said that
Yet love lies niggling at my insides like a blister
That I don't want
And yet it's mine
Mine
All mine
And I want to keep it
Forever.

Anger
Is a powerful
Destructive
Wild
And irrepressible
Beast
Threatening to destroy

Temper
Is a blood-thirsty hound
Leaping
And snapping
Lunging at everything
That reminds it
Of Anger
Threatening to get away

Thoughts
Are little imps
Sly
And cheeky
Manipulative
That populate the little village
In your mind
They create illusions
And images
That pester you
Incessantly

Selfishness
And
Kindness
Are the lion and the unicorn
Fighting over the
Crown
To rule
Your actions
Or Thoughts

Jealousy
Is that sour
Whiny
Voice
Niggling you
At the back of your head
It spreads its propaganda
Through your Thoughts
And they start
To turn
Against each other
Starting a
War

With all these
Monsters
Running through
Your mind
It’s a wonder
At how you can still manage to keep
Your sanity
At times

Or at least
Look like
It

I'm getting this nagging feeling.
I don't know whether it's because in the pit of my stomach, I know you don't approve.
Or if it's the fact that you're not responding, and I'm worrying my fears will be confirmed if I call you.
Or if it's this niggling little thought that wormed its way into my brain, the same one I desperately hate.

You would think I'd learned that this time of year, when I (possibly) gain someone/happiness,
I'm destined (doomed) to lose someone/happiness.
It's happened a little late this year,
Or maybe it just happened a little early last year.
I just want you to talk to me.
I just want to know you're okay.
Normally when you're not, you tell me.
But once again, something's changing, and I can't help but feel happy despite my growing shame.

you stainless steel
stain-maker.
a hate-lump of drums, wicked.
stick it too your browbeat
widget
of precise niggling...
ink links -
to kerosene. and scribe farce
for the disabled.
but wrap it up in
' what's up ? ' .
but
get unstuck
on
other people.

sheepskin
your grey wolf. and -
leap shins and fair maidens.
skip **** that's too
mythic.
reel-in your best
wishes.
for weak wishes
ditch *******

So wish strong;

and
all day long,
you should rob
lightning
and come
wit
it !

be
exactly
the right wrong thing
to catch
fire

most likely.

[ so dig it ]


hide your feather in your cap
where your head
might be.
and your macbeth
has a
happenstance
for a sequel

and a meaning.

be in-betweening
and lost
chapters.

[ be these
things ]

but bring the
laughter.

last about a day
and i got somethin'
fo' ya

still immaculate.


just lean back
a bit.

and that'll be the bit
you're
after.

The day to day is stressful but mundane
Missed trains and niggling headaches
I eat my meal, online chat to friends
I get ready to leave, strip off my clothes and lie under cover
I close my eyes

I look forward to this time of night when I leave earth
This world is so familiar yet something's not right
My house floats on water, the sun isn't round
I can watch a film yet star in it too
I look through a window at the back of my head
this time I'm a boy, then I'm a girl again

Friends from the past meet faces of the future
I find my first love in my old classroom
All 20-somethings still back at school, our old routines
spliced by the dramatic comedy sci-fi romance of the century
this eclectic story goes beyond the walls of genre

I wish I never left this place, the bizarro logic fascinates
I walk old haunts and find new places
some are blurred and some are clear
though surroundings bright there are often themes
blue and yellows or purples and greens
they somehow match the atmosphere, the sadness looks like orange
the yellowness coats my fears

****** encounters come and go, some are romantic some are quite gross
I shock myself, what my mind creates
I'm convinced I need locking up, I'm dangerous
but in the end I realise, the exits only to my right
If I get bored or things get strange, I'm in a fight or mood has changed
more often than not I know I'll be safe

I explore ****** jungles, meet my most beloved creatures
I swim under the sea yet breath, I travel to space on class field trips
Famous people I admire can join me on this quest
the soundtrack dips and dives with each tentative step
there's a start, a build up, ******, and sadly there's always an end

And then I wake up.

The receding horizon,
The fading light of day,
Azure taking a livid hue.
Pokhran's hot, scorching sand,
A lash on our moribund logic.
Death and Life, Life and Death-
Religion and Atheism, Nobel and Booker,
Make us proud and shiver,
Make us happy, rob us of gaiety,
Shoot all our fragile hopes to artistic acme.
Smash all our favourite dreams to smithereens.

The Ganga meanders amidst a maze of
Ripples, crest and trough-
With a dour askance,
With a nonsensical exterior,
At the dead of night,
The hoary-headed ***** rises,
To take stock of pelf,
He keeps in hiding,
Looka yonder, the man with a rice plate in his shack
Stirs out of his lumber, in a jiffy,
Dawns cracks, leaves rustle, breezes whistles,
The nightingale still chirps coo, coo, coo....
Breaking the calm of a nostalgic daybreak.


Love buffoonery, antics of sweet urchin,
Effrontery, betrayal, self-destructive urge,
Blinds love toting niggling details of despair
In it's womb.

A silver of modernism, none can deny,
Gleaning the core of every 'ism' in it's *****
Roads, alleys crisscross, end of tunnel seems dark.
At least, a hairpin bend,
Across the debris of a fresh landslide,
A ray of hope, a shaft of optimism,
A changed universe, a reclaimed Utopia.
Coming true!

-Subhanjan Saha

yes i do love you
but talking to you
creates this ugly niggling tension
in my stomach and my thoughts to get cloudy
and i just become so frustrated
all i want is to be left alone
but then you think something is wrong
something is obviously wrong
but you are never going to be the right person to talk through it with

Vieques

Snakes were here by the grace of God, but
knowing Him, He set them down while He fiddled
with an Egyptian plague, forgetting where He’d left them.

The Navy brought mongooses to eat the snakes
so they could relax and shell the sunrise coast in peace
but mongoose got to eat, as any chicken farmer will tell you.  

Spain sent Church and State astride the horse, but conquistador and cleric
dismounted to take in a sunset from ***** Arenas while the sea breeze
whispered soft and sweet to a restless stallion and his starry eyed mare.  

Ticks in the grass, indifferent to bombs, bitter on mongoose tongue
bloated equestrians each every one, blithe captives of nothing
but the cold blue Atlantic and the turquoise bath of the Caribbean Sea.  

Bored by the endless cycle of creation and destruction, inspired perhaps
to beauty or by niggling guilt, God unveiled the egret, elegant in its simplicity
with a taste for tick and a knack for lazy symbiosis.  

The Malecón sways with rhythms we won’t bring back in our carry-on’s, a drink
down the road from the old United Fruit Company dock, short stroll to sugar house
ruins, unhurried drivers nodding to afro-son, waiting for horses to make their way.

barely it was swaying terrifically in cotton wind of sharp niggling wafers that flummox specially the growling infant sea, this lake, where i am by and satting with my soft particular femme who's metal slithers from her very roundest nostrils glinting rather unobtrusive and stubbornly silver. and jousting by in meager dollops college children blatantly. a basic scent of nonsense huddles on the 2's and 3's (or mayhaps more) they slant upon the dappled lazy soil reticent and uncouthly tread upon with flats little souls. their heads are fat with gullible churning knowledge. they farted from the dusted books. that stately chord of mugging music. that lays in bricks and mortared sighs. on the hillest of tops over looking the cordial bay.

Flow in its intricate beauty, in its parabolic slide through an inexact thought,
Niggling here and there as it soars through the rough appendage of reason.
Flagellating the highs and lows of delight and sorrow,
Titivating the realm of ecstasy to thrill the fluttering eyeballs,
Brushing mounds of ragged hurt to bruise the tender, tender sensitivities.
Then soaring, at once skyward, in a quest for knowing,
Scintillating in a spangle of joyous, YES!
To land, exhausted and deliriously happy
In the knowledge that we two,
My mind and I,
Have won ourselves a freedom.

M.
28 March 2017
On the eve of my 72nd birthday

The receding horizon,
The fading light of day,
Azure taking a livid hue.
Pokhran's hot, scorching sand,
A lash on our moribund logic.
Death and Life, Life and Death-
Religion and Atheism, Nobel and Booker,
Make us proud and shiver,
Make us happy, rob us of gaiety,
Shoot all our fragile hopes to artistic acme.
Smash all our favourite dreams to smithereens.

The Ganga meanders amidst a maze of
Ripples, crest and trough-
With a dour askance,
With a nonsensical exterior,
At the dead of night,
The hoary-headed ***** rises,
To take stock of pelf,
He keeps in hiding,
Looka yonder, the man with a rice plate in his shack
Stirs out of his lumber, in a jiffy,
Dawns cracks, leaves rustle, breezes whistles,
The nightingale still chirps coo, coo, coo....
Breaking the calm of a nostalgic daybreak.

Love buffoonery, antics of sweet urchin,
Effrontery, betrayal, self-destructive urge,
Blinds love toting niggling details of despair
In it's womb.

A silver of modernism, none can deny,
Gleaning the core of every 'ism' in it's *****
Roads, alleys crisscross, end of tunnel seems dark.
At least, a hairpin bend,
Across the debris of a fresh landslide,
A ray of hope, a shaft of optimism,
A changed universe, a reclaimed Utopia.
Coming true!




-Subhanjan Saha

I never quite realized the juncture of its occurring,
but as I got older from seed to stalk to flower I
realised that some thing was off, only ever so slightly.
Nuances of memory were enveloped in my deliberation
of actions that were considered unworthy of what I was
saying or doing but I could never quite glimpse over
the horizon of what felt uneasy till that one day.

It wasn't what I had expected I was walking as I always
did in the woods near my home, I loved nature the aromas
of either summer when everything was vibrant and I would
just slumber under the shade of my favourite tree.
"I used to tell that tree my problems from an early age,
I always envisioned that when I told it of my woes that
when it became winter that each spoken word was a leaf and
when it feel then my mind was free of those burdens.

Ridiculous I know, now I just watch the leafs do there
dance of the falling as I like to call it. Some elegantly waltz
to there beckoning below while others just mosh-pit it
to the floor like bungee jumping with no cork. I wish I felt
that free to just let go of it all. But alas I am me and I cant
change the evolution of myself, I can only channel my energies
in to trying to be better than what my family think and expect
I will undoubtedly be, worthless in there expectations, never.

It occurred that day, I never understood why? but it changed
everything. I was diagnosed with ice-pick migraines if you
have never had them...

"Lets just say it like a full blown migraine in a cluster of seconds
or minutes and the pain is like being shot or my vision of the
pain that expels from my thought,
"Then as soon as it hits like a numbness expels itself on the
area and light headedness not the nicest of experiences specially
when like a earthquake I have aftershocks all day,

This one was intense I stumbled and eyes fastened to each
other and then I was up and about again. that numb feeling
has got a, "Like feeling I had lost some part of me, but after
a while I was back to myself. Entering through the backdoor
I hollered to my parent that I was back, and they came down
stairs smiling and I was uneasy at the show of affection?
"Why the smiles you evicting me or something?
They just laughed and said cant we just smile when we see you.

This was the start of it, every time I had that ****** pain
noticeably cracks were seen. I would be saying about something
and then they'd ask if I was ok, and after my university results
came I was despondent, Scoring a B+ when I needed an A+.
Beside myself I wallowed in negativity, I couldn't be a teacher
of science. Those days in the woods channelled my curiosity to the
makings of the world around me.

But then I had a lingering pain, locking my eyes as if they were
unattainable for my vision to peer through the cracks. But as
always panic wasn't justified and the numbness passed.
I walked into the sitting room slightly groggy of the passing
"Surprise, congratulations our teacher in training.
"What this is cruel, is this a joke,

A+ you were jumping up and down yesterday like you
were on a pogo stick, I thought for a moment lingering on
the subtle change of what had perspired. I'm sorry its been
a lot to take in the last few days.
"I think for Halloween ill  dress up like Einstein,
everyone laughs out loud E=mc2 player........

I cant quite grasp what else had changed, niggling
at me through out the years that past an uneasy
trepidation lingered. But at the back of my mind
it fell as I was with love in my heart, and I was honoured
to have not one but three children. all  luckily had her looks
not mine, I always gave them a kiss on the head goodnight.

But then I got a feeling within that I wasn't really thinking
straight, and I knew then. It was to late it was like a tsunami
cresting over my mind and I realized it was one of them.......
Before I could fight it, I know I couldn't stop it.
Then the pain faded I didn't see anything different and
sighed with relief maybe it was just a headache? no worries then.

I walked in the house I could smell her cooking, god I loved
her cooking, she was like a Picasso in the kitchen and my
mouth watered at what creativity had been created.
"Hi baby, Matthew, Sarah, where is your sister?
perplexed looks fell over their faces.

"Who Daddy!

"Maddie, your little sister,

Sarah spoke asking the obvious thought of who is Maddie,
I was getting agitated at the thought they would be playing
a game when I hadn't seen there sister.
"Baby where is Maddie, "is she a friend of the little ones,
I thought by her voice that she was humouring me, and as I
looked around every photo was vacant of her beautiful features.

My mind went it to overdrive, it couldn't, wouldn't be that
cruel... I had turned white and became dizzy, I don't feel so
g.......... I threw up in the kitchen bin as tears of realization
swept over my like a rock slide. I was vacant and untethered
at this point and voices were a blur. "Baby you ok, I heard
her through the haze of confusion. "Do you remember what
I told you about what used to happen to me? confusion in
her eyes answered my fears that more than one thing had changed.

Hand were over my eyes as I didn't want the children to see me
like this. Were they even mine? of course they were, how could
I have even thought that for a moment.. "I'm sorry baby,
Then the inevitable conspired on me, and I felt my mind succumbing
to that crest of pain, I lost my balance as I was already leaning and
as I blinked I was the table edge greeting me then darkness enveloped
my conciseness. I heard voices in this sea of confusing moments.


Awakening in a hospital bed I blinked as if It felt that I was erratically
becoming conscious then being swept into the void of silence.
"Baby I love you please wake up,
Her voice was like a choir of classic music gracing my mind.
I awoke suddenly, her smile greeted me. My head that was a pretty
hard head you have, two days you been lazing in bed, she smiled
I think mostly because I had greeted her with a groggy smile.

Sarah was there holding, no more like squeezing the blood
from my hand, but I didn't mind even though the pins and
needles were not a delightful pain to wake up too.
Where is your brother? "Brother daddy, I knew that look
and my wife just nodded, in a panicked look. I was exhausted
even though knowing what had accrued and tears fell like
glass shards cutting on my features as I was dragged to slumber.

I awoke to see my wife, holding my hand gently, in panic I
asked where is Sarah? She is with my mother, why did you
ask about Matthew, you know he was still born, and the pain
this causes us both. I'm sorry my baby I was confused.
I uncontrollably cried, the dam of emotions had broken through
and in a matter of hours I had lost two of my children those
memories were still and forever chiselled in my thoughts...

After my release I went to see a therapist as I became solace
in my grief that my wife couldn't comprehend to her it had
happened years ago. But in my eyes I had lost there breath
on my face as they kissed me on the cheek goodnight.
Now I only have the most recent memories and not even
pictures of them to console my heart  with.

I had spoken in detail, of what had happened and
with vacant expressions he just looked and smiled.
I knew what was next either prescriptions to dull my
mind of these imagining that he perceived I has had
or the worst case I would be greeted with that inevitable
white coat and padded thoughts drugged to my eyes *****.

I left feeling lighter in myself even though he gave me enough
meds to sedate a horse, a really, really big horse. I walked home
thinking how would I cope knowing the memories that were
bleeding out of consciousness. I had to do everything to not
crack like a glass snowflake falling from the blue skies.
I smiled as I walked through the door seeing her run towards me.

My arms were open to have my only other reason for living
embrace me, I knew it would eventually happen, but not as
I had only grasped her in my momentary needing. Then it
took me, eyes were saturated in nothing and when I came
to my grasp was empty my palms only hugging the floor.
Nothing has ever changed this much and dread encompassed me.

My home or was it, neither a picture or flower graced the
surrounding of my once warm home, I walked into the
living room, I couldn't smell the perfume she wore.
"Baby, where are you? no answer maybe she was out..
Then i stared at the fire place a jar, then a smaller one sat
neatly next to it, a shudder cam over me like death whispered.

I walked over, but it was as if my feet were dredging through
tar. I couldn't look up, I wanted to but knew what would
greet me. I was shaking like a leaf in a hurricane, and then
all was silence. I read the wording, and tears streamed from
eyes like words screaming into vacant nothingness.
It was my wife's ashes and my 8 month old daughter,
so long had past since there passing but to me it was now.

I sat there just gazing blankly at these precious vessels
she didn't even, i didn't even have a chance to say goodbye
to then either of them. All of them gone, why me, I needed
surrender to the fact that I was no longer within a world
that cared. I held it in my hand it was cold, I knew what
had to be done, I couldn't do this crap anymore.

I wondered what would  hurt the most in the mouth or
to the temple? My frustration at life had climaxed to this
inevitable junction. I didn't know whether to cry or
laugh, I just thought of there images the love of my
life, my three little jumping beans. I smiled momentarily
then normality intruded and I pulled the trigger, then oblivion.

Can you comprehend the time of life and death, it eternal
yet finite. I felt the pain for a moment and all was nothing,
but I awoke in a unknown location. Confused and even more
perplexed at the thought of was I alive or dead? then I happened
upon a slim looking bloke,
"Hello this is going to be a funny question,
"Where am I? and what day is this?

"Are you high mate? "No just a little disoriented stag party,
The date was at least a week from my happening, I needed at
least twenty migraine tablets and a *****, but then again would
this just happen again. I wondered till my feet hurt, I slept at a
homeless shelter. Luckily they had pity on my sorry looking
****. In the morning I phoned to no answer discontinued it played.

It took a few days to get back to my house, and I looked through
the  window my outcry was instant and also more vocal than I
had anticipated. She say me and instead of joy there was horror in
here loving eyes and then she passed out but I was behind a window
and she feel with no arms to catch her she crumpled like paper that
bleed crimson then she was still. I kicked in the door s the children
were screaming.

"Its ok babies daddy is here,

"It cant be we buried you a week ago?
"Mummy said you had a seizure, that you had feel asleep
and never woke up again, now mummy isn't moving,

"I felt her pulse her blood soaking the surrounding areas, she
was already going cold,

Without warning that godforsaken pain eclipsed my eyes, and
then I was alone and where I saw her in life then death was
erased from the surrounding. My poor children had lost me
and her in a week. but I had shifted and they were probably
inconsolable at that point, I cried for hours till I couldn't weep
another tear and then I realized I had to look up myself for
if that was at that point I ended myself had I doomed my others.

I looked up my name, bless she hadn't changed the code,
if my thoughts were true I had caused a fluctuation that
extended beyond my misguided but needed actions.
I penned in my name and where I had just imagined
the thought of what if's. It was as I had feared I was dead
again this was a worrying turn of events.

My obituary was a before, I, he had suffered a aneurysm
on the date that I had ended my life, but it was just another
action of my grief. How many lives were concluded, but
my thought shifted to the noise at the front door. The key
was edging towards the door  opening. I didn't know
what to do as I knew the repercussions of seeing myself.

I just hid in the closet, I saw her face as she entered and I
had to keep my emotions in check. I was only thinking,
"Don't open the door don't open the door, she walked
up the stairs and I took to the front door, creaking as it
opened. I really need to oil this when this chaos doesn't
interrupt my existence anymore, "Who's there, echoes from
upstairs and I exit with my bank card. ill only use a bit.

The cashpoint was in front of me I had borrowed a hoodie
from a neighbours washing line, I didn't like them anyway
so no lose there then. I only took a few hundred to keep me
going in food, I was homeless for months as I couldn't really
get a home or a job as I was dead and buried. Visiting ones
own grave is a very peculiar feeling nice head stone though.

Thoughts flurried through out my waking days to what I
would do as this wasn't really what I had planned with my
life. The thought of wanting to move on seemed to fit
my predicament, as  neither a headache or migraine of
any sort.. Lucky me.. I was awoken by a voice, not one I
recognized and as stumbled to my feet dazed but awake.

"It is you?

I had no time for these games of twenty questions and told
then to politely "jog on, but they just stood there and I
thought I was incoherent. I put my glasses on and looked
again? my brother well his brother! "why did you run,
"From the grave bro, you were dead I saw you with my
own to eyes. I just looked as a tear escaped my ***** exterior
and a crocked line of cleanliness dripped off my face to the
floor below, and the only words I could muster was "I'm sorry,

You see I never had a brother, I was a lonely child, cradled under
that tree wishing my troubled days away always wishing that
when the leafs fell so would my troubles. Yet there he was, it
was nice to see I had a sibling. He was hugging me like I he
was holding me above water fearful to let me go encase I
drowned out into this nest of unkempt persons and he held on tightly.
I just stared and there was a momentary silence in-between the noise.

"How could you leave her like that she was your wife,
"She would have understood man.

I saw where this was going, thinking I had a break down, some
how faked my death. Laughable really I couldn't escape it but I
was really good at delivering it to myself in others ways...
Let me explain, "How the hell am I going to explain this rationally,
my thought speaking out in my mind, seconds seemed cemented
in place. "I will tell you, but not here, and as I began to walk away
I just thought of his face the moment I tell him, I so going to the
padded room when he hears my explanation.

But i didn't have time i was accosted by two rather large gentlemen,
"What the hell? let go off me, that was a far as I got as I felt that
flaming burning sensation in my neck. Darkness ensued then a blurry
light, everywhere was white, had it snowed? was that a dream?
No I was in a padded cell my wife and brother looking on, sadness
painted on eyes as if they were looking at some sick animal about to
be put out of its misery. "Its not me, I shouted to no avail as the eye piece closed and I was alone with my fluffy white clouds wow what
ever they had given me it was awesome..

So many years had past i hadn't told a soul of my misfortune, till
that moment when i felt my heart stutter like an engine... then the
pain came and i was neither here or there but freeze framed in two
instances, the now and the moment before i pulled the trigger...
my eyes were open in death but closed with the gun so I reached
out and took it, and I left a note, a brief scribbling,

To many leafs have fallen and the troubles they just became a
pile of problems building rotting upon the other, this isn't the
truth but a leaf that shall never fall....

"Whisper in her ear every night, for a whisper is louder than
and word.....

And with that I opened my eyes and I had shifted once again
and the gun luckily was in that other place.  I looked down at
the piece of crumpled paper and a

D
eath is a gray lady; waiting and.
       she is whitely quiet but always niggling the
bones in our frameless panes. pale cheeks stained
onyx rivers or. ash skirt fluttering in no breeze. felt
   but heard whispering in our.

dEath is a solid nothing. or green stems bent withering
petals dry under and stiff. blooming never more ever more.
a manure tree odoring better than.

                  death is a noise unheard blaring
                     but death isn't your delicate plush
                 perfectly imperfect perfection. in my cleft
                           stunningly dim. death is. waiting and.
                  a silent riot of colourless gardens frozen
                                infinite decay. a notion so sweetly bitter.

death is a gray lady!so cometo my sheets and spread
        your legs and salty tears and feathers gently or.
                             peacefully scream deAth in the rapture
                 of
          my
                     palms           and.

from where's bloods coming going

           (hearts to hands)

flowing clearly imagined
into letters crisp
and words immutable
they (blushing
and sundered) enamor
warmly gushing
rills and rivers consuming
the mind sharpest
and soul firmest set planted
roots down
into niggling deepness
they blossom
(those words febrile
and haught)
in my body's heart
(and i pluck
seeds from their small strong
buds blooming
and i plant them in your body's heart)

I wrestle with myself
tonight

I fight with my darker half,
my bleaker thoughts,
my niggling doubts

he throws punches,
jabs at my ribs,
socks my eyes,
kicks in my knees

sometimes he hits me too hard,
in too soft a place, and I snap

I erupt

my rage boils over

I barrel back at him,
fists and feet blazing,
my arms stretching out
and then back but never
ringing true to flesh or
bone or anything

there is no way to fight
him because he is right

he’s a master at turning this
all against me

he knows what I know
(how hopeless this life
thing is) and he reminds
me each time I fail and
each time I am just weak
enough to believe him

he loves it when I try
to prove him wrong

(because I never can)

I wrestle with myself
today

I fight against the certainty
that death is the end

that darker half,
those bleaker thoughts,
my purposeless existence
and each constant
reminder

I wrestle with him
each day

he grabs my collar,
shakes me about,
spits in my face, and
calls me a coward

he laughs and
waits for me to burst
into that perfect
inferno

but I don’t, most days,
certainly, not tonight

he’s not getting to me
tonight

so I get up,
wipe his filth off my face,
shrug my shoulders
and leave

he smirks, knowing another show-down
is only a bad day or bad moment away

Could you see this?
Or could you not
The empty clouds above
Veiling blood and bargains
Like a parody
Akin to mundane ghosts
Hey you gamine
This is no place to cry
***** along with me
Through the whistling woods of irony
Look at
The open windows here
The sky lights in your eyes
Against the shadows and silhouettes
We are all nothing
But street urchins on this land
For we were condemned
While we were asleep
Deep into the lights and oceans of
The superior rule, love
Sing along you little one
For this day of spring
Shan’t be the same
You and I will break bread
You and I shall be friends
You and I shall ride together
The giant wheel
For the people to know
May be just once
You are at the acme
In a niggling time frame
You touch the ground
For he, who is from heaven
Is for heaven!
For all who is gold
Will eventually grow old
For all who live
Shall fall one day
I will be here with you
I will be around
And I will mellow down
With the infinite skies
and a canopy of rains….

today
is not
going to be
a good
day

that little tingle,
that tiny nudge,
that niggling pain
in the back of
my mind

it’s doubt

it’s fear

it’s just
enough
to knock me
over the
edge

I will plummet

down into the pits
of my depressive
self where I will
die and be reborn
and die again

nothing will happen

time will not stop
but my eyes will
only see visions of
hell

today,
may be
****

it may be
terrible,
and horrific
and leave me begging
for death

or maybe
not

maybe,
I’ll rise above

maybe,
I’ll be happy
despite the
doubts

maybe,
maybe
I will.

My broken heart is in pieces
Got a missing piece too
It’s beyond repair,
It turned black
Had so much love which felt green
Now the glass is shattering
Everything turning blue and black

Reminiscing the good times that felt fatal
Remembering the memories of him
Oh so unstable
Had a niggling feeling
Couldn’t catch the onset becoming
Possessed with demon blood
I hate that I’m ugly beyond repair
My heart sings the songs of the fallen
I hate that it’s breaking up
Whatever was befallen

I can’t run or hide away from this feeling,
It’s the last of humanity dealing
I can’t finish the crossed line
I’m becoming the demon that which I am dealing.
Rescue me no man coming
I’m unbecoming the version that cried to god
But no one came nor they stayed
It was a one man job.

Help me there is no resolution
I have been and un-been
Feeling gratuitous from the moment the flesh erased to the glass skin.
I will go down and under
Lost in the sea of monster
If this is the end, let me be
An uncaring **** stirrer.

I am the ****** and damaged warrior
Mighty presence on an arid plain
Waste-land empty and scorch-scarred parched
Looking to the dazzling dawn
Of another baking, aching, dry day
Of another dying, desert year.

They watched bold marching
Fearful tramping
To each pitiful skirmish
And every blood-hungry moment
Of all the days and nights.

They watched corded muscles
Spasm and seize
With each call to stretch and pull
And drag the weary-worn
To fight again.

Let no man call with shrill-shriek of the owl
Across the night-filled silence
Let no-one ever whisper in the dark, dearth
Across the shadowed chasm

I am alone within a purple shade
Night-cloaked in cunning strange
I am the time-deadened, weary watchman
Locked in a forever-circle of despair

Manacled with lead, banded with steel
Tight twisted and knotted by a skein of silk
Woven tightly by the softest hand
Strengthened by certainty and pure calm
There is no escape to unearth

But death
Is skirting the edge of existence
Picking at the loose threads
Teasing and niggling the fraying filaments
Laddering and snagging
And pulling, pulling out beyond time
The winding-sheet, the sack-cloth shroud
The only closing choice.


© M.L.Emmett

We sit in the still
and through tiny buffeted windows
watch the stubborn shore arrest the fierce sea.

An old clock tocks as slow as winters
as we recall the beach of crowded summers

The cold wind whispers along the scurrying dunes
to throw the sand in abstract arcs
against the ice blue sky

In large coats, billowed scarves
and stout boots
we trudge against the bickering wind
blustering in its niggling argument
far into the sea.

I never thought our steps
could be this close
as we huddle and cower
against the wind

and in a tiny distance
the gale rips up our prints
as if no foot had ever trod.

Yet behind our watering eyes
We know that once two footsteps touched
Our shoes kissed
in the wild wet and wintry night

There will be warmth
in the accordion blessed bar
with pipe smoke leering to the rafters
and yellow light from candled glasses
casting tall shadows
of the shawled women
waiting for the long lost sailors’ return.

Shall I be a sailor then
to board the narrow boat of your body
in all the crash and yaw
the swell and deep
the thunder and breech
the pounding and clamour
until in the safe soundings
in the harbours of morning
we drift like flotsam
on the shoreline of sheets.

And driving home on a damp Sunday
will we marvel at the twisting rain
and how the tiny ship of our footsteps
survives the howling gales
and the all wild wide oceans of our watery ways

Barbiturate sunshine afternoons
obscure the niggling work pile
and with fat heat, cool anger,
opening evenings to virtuous
leaf based dinners
only slightly ruined
by too much beer and ice cream