I

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

II

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

III

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

IV

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

V

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

VI

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

VII

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

VIII

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

IX

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

The First Voice

HE trilled a carol fresh and free,
He laughed aloud for very glee:
There came a breeze from off the sea:

It passed athwart the glooming flat -
It fanned his forehead as he sat -
It lightly bore away his hat,

All to the feet of one who stood
Like maid enchanted in a wood,
Frowning as darkly as she could.

With huge umbrella, lank and brown,
Unerringly she pinned it down,
Right through the centre of the crown.

Then, with an aspect cold and grim,
Regardless of its battered rim,
She took it up and gave it him.

A while like one in dreams he stood,
Then faltered forth his gratitude
In words just short of being rude:

For it had lost its shape and shine,
And it had cost him four-and-nine,
And he was going out to dine.

"To dine!" she sneered in acid tone.
"To bend thy being to a bone
Clothed in a radiance not its own!"

The tear-drop trickled to his chin:
There was a meaning in her grin
That made him feel on fire within.

"Term it not 'radiance,'" said he:
"'Tis solid nutriment to me.
Dinner is Dinner: Tea is Tea."

And she "Yea so? Yet wherefore cease?
Let thy scant knowledge find increase.
Say 'Men are Men, and Geese are Geese.'"

He moaned: he knew not what to say.
The thought "That I could get away!"
Strove with the thought "But I must stay.

"To dine!" she shrieked in dragon-wrath.
"To swallow wines all foam and froth!
To simper at a table-cloth!

"Say, can thy noble spirit stoop
To join the gormandising troup
Who find a solace in the soup?

"Canst thou desire or pie or puff?
Thy well-bred manners were enough,
Without such gross material stuff."

"Yet well-bred men," he faintly said,
"Are not willing to be fed:
Nor are they well without the bread."

Her visage scorched him ere she spoke:
"There are," she said, "a kind of folk
Who have no horror of a joke.

"Such wretches live: they take their share
Of common earth and common air:
We come across them here and there:

"We grant them - there is no escape -
A sort of semi-human shape
Suggestive of the man-like Ape."

"In all such theories," said he,
"One fixed exception there must be.
That is, the Present Company."

Baffled, she gave a wolfish bark:
He, aiming blindly in the dark,
With random shaft had pierced the mark.

She felt that her defeat was plain,
Yet madly strove with might and main
To get the upper hand again.

Fixing her eyes upon the beach,
As though unconscious of his speech,
She said "Each gives to more than each."

He could not answer yea or nay:
He faltered "Gifts may pass away."
Yet knew not what he meant to say.

"If that be so," she straight replied,
"Each heart with each doth coincide.
What boots it? For the world is wide."

"The world is but a Thought," said he:
"The vast unfathomable sea
Is but a Notion - unto me."

And darkly fell her answer dread
Upon his unresisting head,
Like half a hundredweight of lead.

"The Good and Great must ever shun
That reckless and abandoned one
Who stoops to perpetrate a pun.

"The man that smokes - that reads the TIMES -
That goes to Christmas Pantomimes -
Is capable of ANY crimes!"

He felt it was his turn to speak,
And, with a shamed and crimson cheek,
Moaned "This is harder than Bezique!"

But when she asked him "Wherefore so?"
He felt his very whiskers glow,
And frankly owned "I do not know."

While, like broad waves of golden grain,
Or sunlit hues on cloistered pane,
His colour came and went again.

Pitying his obvious distress,
Yet with a tinge of bitterness,
She said "The More exceeds the Less."

"A truth of such undoubted weight,"
He urged, "and so extreme in date,
It were superfluous to state."

Roused into sudden passion, she
In tone of cold malignity:
"To others, yea: but not to thee."

But when she saw him quail and quake,
And when he urged "For pity's sake!"
Once more in gentle tones she spake.

"Thought in the mind doth still abide
That is by Intellect supplied,
And within that Idea doth hide:

"And he, that yearns the truth to know,
Still further inwardly may go,
And find Idea from Notion flow:

"And thus the chain, that sages sought,
Is to a glorious circle wrought,
For Notion hath its source in Thought."

So passed they on with even pace:
Yet gradually one might trace
A shadow growing on his face.

The Second Voice

THEY walked beside the wave-worn beach;
Her tongue was very apt to teach,
And now and then he did beseech

She would abate her dulcet tone,
Because the talk was all her own,
And he was dull as any drone.

She urged "No cheese is made of chalk":
And ceaseless flowed her dreary talk,
Tuned to the footfall of a walk.

Her voice was very full and rich,
And, when at length she asked him "Which?"
It mounted to its highest pitch.

He a bewildered answer gave,
Drowned in the sullen moaning wave,
Lost in the echoes of the cave.

He answered her he knew not what:
Like shaft from bow at random shot,
He spoke, but she regarded not.

She waited not for his reply,
But with a downward leaden eye
Went on as if he were not by

Sound argument and grave defence,
Strange questions raised on "Why?" and "Whence?"
And wildly tangled evidence.

When he, with racked and whirling brain,
Feebly implored her to explain,
She simply said it all again.

Wrenched with an agony intense,
He spake, neglecting Sound and Sense,
And careless of all consequence:

"Mind - I believe - is Essence - Ent -
Abstract - that is - an Accident -
Which we - that is to say - I meant - "

When, with quick breath and cheeks all flushed,
At length his speech was somewhat hushed,
She looked at him, and he was crushed.

It needed not her calm reply:
She fixed him with a stony eye,
And he could neither fight nor fly.

While she dissected, word by word,
His speech, half guessed at and half heard,
As might a cat a little bird.

Then, having wholly overthrown
His views, and stripped them to the bone,
Proceeded to unfold her own.

"Shall Man be Man? And shall he miss
Of other thoughts no thought but this,
Harmonious dews of sober bliss?

"What boots it? Shall his fevered eye
Through towering nothingness descry
The grisly phantom hurry by?

"And hear dumb shrieks that fill the air;
See mouths that gape, and eyes that stare
And redden in the dusky glare?

"The meadows breathing amber light,
The darkness toppling from the height,
The feathery train of granite Night?

"Shall he, grown gray among his peers,
Through the thick curtain of his tears
Catch glimpses of his earlier years,

"And hear the sounds he knew of yore,
Old shufflings on the sanded floor,
Old knuckles tapping at the door?

"Yet still before him as he flies
One pallid form shall ever rise,
And, bodying forth in glassy eyes

"The vision of a vanished good,
Low peering through the tangled wood,
Shall freeze the current of his blood."

Still from each fact, with skill uncouth
And savage rapture, like a tooth
She wrenched some slow reluctant truth.

Till, like a silent water-mill,
When summer suns have dried the rill,
She reached a full stop, and was still.

Dead calm succeeded to the fuss,
As when the loaded omnibus
Has reached the railway terminus:

When, for the tumult of the street,
Is heard the engine's stifled beat,
The velvet tread of porters' feet.

With glance that ever sought the ground,
She moved her lips without a sound,
And every now and then she frowned.

He gazed upon the sleeping sea,
And joyed in its tranquillity,
And in that silence dead, but she

To muse a little space did seem,
Then, like the echo of a dream,
Harked back upon her threadbare theme.

Still an attentive ear he lent
But could not fathom what she meant:
She was not deep, nor eloquent.

He marked the ripple on the sand:
The even swaying of her hand
Was all that he could understand.

He saw in dreams a drawing-room,
Where thirteen wretches sat in gloom,
Waiting - he thought he knew for whom:

He saw them drooping here and there,
Each feebly huddled on a chair,
In attitudes of blank despair:

Oysters were not more mute than they,
For all their brains were pumped away,
And they had nothing more to say -

Save one, who groaned "Three hours are gone!"
Who shrieked "We'll wait no longer, John!
Tell them to set the dinner on!"

The vision passed: the ghosts were fled:
He saw once more that woman dread:
He heard once more the words she said.

He left her, and he turned aside:
He sat and watched the coming tide
Across the shores so newly dried.

He wondered at the waters clear,
The breeze that whispered in his ear,
The billows heaving far and near,

And why he had so long preferred
To hang upon her every word:
"In truth," he said, "it was absurd."

The Third Voice

NOT long this transport held its place:
Within a little moment's space
Quick tears were raining down his face

His heart stood still, aghast with fear;
A wordless voice, nor far nor near,
He seemed to hear and not to hear.

"Tears kindle not the doubtful spark.
If so, why not? Of this remark
The bearings are profoundly dark."

"Her speech," he said, "hath caused this pain.
Easier I count it to explain
The jargon of the howling main,

"Or, stretched beside some babbling brook,
To con, with inexpressive look,
An unintelligible book."

Low spake the voice within his head,
In words imagined more than said,
Soundless as ghost's intended tread:

"If thou art duller than before,
Why quittedst thou the voice of lore?
Why not endure, expecting more?"

"Rather than that," he groaned aghast,
"I'd writhe in depths of cavern vast,
Some loathly vampire's rich repast."

"'Twere hard," it answered, "themes immense
To coop within the narrow fence
That rings THY scant intelligence."

"Not so," he urged, "nor once alone:
But there was something in her tone
That chilled me to the very bone.

"Her style was anything but clear,
And most unpleasantly severe;
Her epithets were very queer.

"And yet, so grand were her replies,
I could not choose but deem her wise;
I did not dare to criticise;

"Nor did I leave her, till she went
So deep in tangled argument
That all my powers of thought were spent."

A little whisper inly slid,
"Yet truth is truth: you know you did."
A little wink beneath the lid.

And, sickened with excess of dread,
Prone to the dust he bent his head,
And lay like one three-quarters dead

The whisper left him - like a breeze
Lost in the depths of leafy trees -
Left him by no means at his ease.

Once more he weltered in despair,
With hands, through denser-matted hair,
More tightly clenched than then they were.

When, bathed in Dawn of living red,
Majestic frowned the mountain head,
"Tell me my fault," was all he said.

When, at high Noon, the blazing sky
Scorched in his head each haggard eye,
Then keenest rose his weary cry.

And when at Eve the unpitying sun
Smiled grimly on the solemn fun,
"Alack," he sighed, "what HAVE I done?"

But saddest, darkest was the sight,
When the cold grasp of leaden Night
Dashed him to earth, and held him tight.

Tortured, unaided, and alone,
Thunders were silence to his groan,
Bagpipes sweet music to its tone:

"What? Ever thus, in dismal round,
Shall Pain and Mystery profound
Pursue me like a sleepless hound,

"With crimson-dashed and eager jaws,
Me, still in ignorance of the cause,
Unknowing what I broke of laws?"

The whisper to his ear did seem
Like echoed flow of silent stream,
Or shadow of forgotten dream,

The whisper trembling in the wind:
"Her fate with thine was intertwined,"
So spake it in his inner mind:

"Each orbed on each a baleful star:
Each proved the other's blight and bar:
Each unto each were best, most far:

"Yea, each to each was worse than foe:
Thou, a scared dullard, gibbering low,
AND SHE, AN AVALANCHE OF WOE!"

1561

No Brigadier throughout the Year
So civic as the Jay—
A Neighbor and a Warrior too
With shrill felicity
Pursuing Winds that censure us
A February Day,
The Brother of the Universe
Was never blown away—
The Snow and he are intimate—
I’ve often seem them play
When Heaven looked upon us all
With such severity
I felt apology were due
To an insulted sky
Whose pompous frown was Nutriment
To their Temerity—
The Pillow of this daring Head
Is pungent Evergreens—
His Larder—terse and Militant—
Unknown—refreshing things—
His Character—a Tonic—
His future—a Dispute—
Unfair an Immortality
That leaves this Neighbor out—

525

I think the Hemlock likes to stand
Upon a Marge of Snow—
It suits his own Austerity—
And satisfies an awe

That men, must slake in Wilderness—
And in the Desert—cloy—
An instinct for the ****, the Bald—
Lapland’s—necessity—

The Hemlock’s nature thrives—on cold—
The Gnash of Northern winds
Is sweetest nutriment—to him—
His best Norwegian Wines—

To satin Races—he is nought—
But Children on the Don,
Beneath his Tabernacles, play,
And Dnieper Wrestlers, run.

And they say there's nothing beautiful about bones
But all I see when I feel them appear more and more is pearls
I proudly parade along the pavement with veins and collarbones poking out like a sinful trophy
They are the jewels on my crown
The jewels I had to pick up from the ***** roads I crossed
Instead of making me heavier they let me hover through the sky
I can feel the storm in my head when the last bit of sugar leaves my body
Clouds appear when I stand up
Still looking for my throne I trow the last bit of nutriment aside and there it is. The end of the road shows me the thrown I've been waiting for. I've lost my body, but gained the pride in my head back knowing I can fight my natural desire to eat

A beginning of a text
A begging sloppy test
Living dreams of lost
In sunken messy world

Who will take us there?
The other side of the wall
A place of open hearts
Unstirred and unstitched

The 'Jezebels' stare at us
Peeking, itching the peaks
As we lose they triumph
As we touch "ours", a pull

The exile dwelling tiresome
Sweaty drools, hunger pangs
Spotted blood stains rules
We crawl from the beauty

Where is the bounty Nile?
A plentiful stock of nutriment
Hand in hand, a moonlight dance
Joyous basket to hold and nourish

The 2nd flower 1st world: part 2

She serenades sounds
Eternal ecliptic exquisite
Refined radiant resplendent
Epodic elegiac embodiment
Naturally noticeable nutriment
Ideally idyllic iambic
Toast to this
YOU

If words describe she
Then I will create her meaning
S.E.R.E.N.I.T.Y

hungry for the tons of resources
that lay beneath the
ground
hungry for them and looking
to find what else can be
found

the hunger is never ending
we're consuming more and more
the hunger doesn't abate
as if there's a colossus galore

the world's population
exhausting the
endowment
the world's population
eating every crumb of
nutriment

yet the day will arrive
when our precious resources
aren't readily at hand
they'll be depleted in supply
running down to a level  
that won't service demand

too hungry the population
too hungry the  population

⚡️

I'd never have to understand that we were born into equal sized roadways-
another unwritten rule suspended in the air
amongst the somewhat unnecessary details we'd 'forgotten'
to mention over the past few years.
But that was okay right?
I mean you'd found your direction
and accelerated ahead of me;
thinking you'd see the world differently from there?
Sure, your perspective involved hues that I was blind to but
I'd found this gem within the shadows of all these cars
(Shh! Don't let them know you're catching up!
This highway was ruled by colours,
not words.)
redyellowgreenredyellowgreen
You just couldn't stay within your own lane-
oblivion muddled with reality
blurred my blindspot
so I advise you to swerve out of my way
unless you want to get hit
(accidentally on purpose.)
-
You'd always remark that I could handle the wheel,
ever so sweetly,
but this
is what you implied?
-
I knew it was all too much,
trying to balance everything
(Shh! My plate was too full,
each nutriment colliding with another-
the chocolate syrup painted ice cream
enveloped half my dish,
intruding the space against her wish.)
You always seemed to have the cleanest looking plate,
however you continuously allowed me to spill over
onto the rim of your
pristine porcelain, as if
you enjoyed
watching me overflow,
explode.
You never did anything about it,
never cleaned the dishes,
simply watching as various delicacies drew fantasies
right
in
front
of you.
Though those weren't even
close
to my fantasies.
You dream of candy floss nests and gumdrop buttons
whereas I dream of freshly cut watermelons and berries
(please do the dishes
or leave.)

// riding shotgun was the sweetest thing
you said we'd done
right before I floored the brake
and more than sugar
went flying out the window. //

In the beginning was God's word
& his Word is his complete intention,
from his meditation he attracted all Ideas that interested Him in his Word
& his very "law of attraction"
was what interested Him,
for his Spirit is his very law of attraction.

For the word of God is God's true character
& the Spirit of God is God's perfect sense.

There's alot of pleasure in the world, but it takes common sense to balance everything to give life
it's true meaning.

The three essential qualities of life are; nutriment & nurishment, decent clothing, hygienic environment.

For the one who was alone & built the universe as an everlasting school of enthusiastic,
only he truly knows loneliness & boredom in its complete measures
of idleness.

clean literature by clearing away all ignorance
for just as Science do not lie,
but takes solvings to be correct
& morality to be balanced
Art also needs sure literate to be pure.
Only then can one discover the good in everything without distortion.

Has not wisdom garnish it's throne,
has not understand adorn it's shrine,
has not peace decorated it's temple,
is not love a bedecked garden home,

Go to the highest heaven
ask for the Literate who is perfect,
go also to the lowest depth of hades search for the true morality,

then you'll find
" Holy Spirit Most-high ".

For by knowledge of holiness
God created everything,
by common sense he enables
all his creature to walk in moral path,

by acknowledgement he has given us perfect reasons to realise "true quality & ugly vanity" thereby taking caution.

God has also enable the experience to give counsel to the young,
so that his little ones may breathe in essence,
with their sight taking pleasure in purity only,
that they might grow in an environment of equity
discerning err easily.

For assuredly I know his Providence is an eternal rain,
& his holiness shall forever reign
gloriously guarding our heart in
moral path.

God gives true brilliance & genius
to rule our conscience,
6sense & insight as an eternal guide to our will,
though test & trials have been placed on everything,
he instilled on everyone loyalty & patience in the days of our discipline that meekness might be found in us if only we are faithful to virtue, in the season when he measure the true value of everything he's made.

You oh God judge our perception perspective while sharing your everlasting offering of pleasentness.

They who covenanted with you
knows for certain
until the torment of your discipline appears along side your glory,
grace, holiness & sacredness,

foolishness & wickedness of err & imbalance will never disappear forever.

For this sake you covered Kush as black smoke,
turned Kemet into thick darkness,
made Ur a burning flames
Hell-às an everlasting fire
& Zion a true & perfect light
while covered in the dust & ashes of Uz.

Your axe is at the root ready to uproot
the tree of error & imbalance,
even the sword from your mouth has withered it already.

Therefore in our covenant we say
Ise & Amin.

in this very moment — wanting for nothing more,
you’ve no idea, nor clue.
this desire you inspire,
this everlasting feeling of comfort passing through my soul, covering every layer of my being.
such gentle envelopment,
infinite bliss within your embrace, and in every moment — i feel your existence.
from the taste of the wind, to the smell of the sun, your presence remains the most potent.
oozing out from beneath and bubbling to the surface,
filling into the limitless sky —
like the earth was formed for you to spread your light,
like i was born to harbor such vibrancy.
enriched by your entirety,
new to this age, but all familiar to me —
beyond these avatars, for you have always been;
the nutriment of my love —
the source of my joy.

"Single Candle Burning"

    

    A single candle burning shines enough
    To dim the darkness of the world we hold
    So precious called the i the self the ego
    State which craves in ******* ignorance a
    Pattern form or shape perceived existent
    In some pleasured realm of moments ******-
    Physical that once did gaily manifest
    Upon the stage of here and now but now
    Has past beyond this life to memories
    That change the conscious aggregate for ill
    Or good a function rightly virtuous
    But when we grasp and grasp and ask of such
    To yield a spectral nutriment we sow
    Wild seeds of discontent that drops the present
    Sphere of thought to Stygian depths and aspects
    Cruel which can be humbly lifted for
    A single candle burning shines enough

without yours truly experiencing urge to defecate

Neither bloating nor constipation
arose, but one nondescript anguished
logophile anticipated intestinal blockage,
hence prophesying worse case scenario

I (predicated in direction for an adult)
ingested three Dulcolax tablets
and subsequently this joker
found himself riddled
with debilitating diarrhea dilemma
that afflicted me hours on end
today April 11th, 2022.

Severe **** travails
immediately brought forth
****** recollections regarding
my offal bout with shigella
circa approximately July fourth holiday
nineteen hundred and eighty seven
which ranked as worst pain in the ****.

Two women (Ziona and Susan –
surnames unknown),
plus your truly, which trio
befriended each other
from Thursday night contra dance.

Aforementioned women
minimally identified
via first name basis
(since their sir nom de plume
unknown at this juncture),
and yours truly linkedin,
via above said social venue.

This piece of information mentioned
since that innocuous site
(Summit Presbyterian Church
at Green and Westview Streets
within Mount Airy, Pennsylvania)
essentially served as
figurative starting point
per following true anecdote.

Though about thirty five years ago,
my memory easily jogged,
asper unforeseen brush with death.

Innocence and naïveté twin factors,
tangentially contributed to agonizing ordeal.

Ask me what I ate for breakfast
this morning, and ye will receive
a blank stare!

Turn back the hands of time,
well nigh eighty percent
since existence sans mein kampf.

Every summer informal conclave
regarding congregation of hippies
(most of whom found me
looking conservative – fully attired)
decide upon a locale communicated
thru the grapevine.

The Rainbow Family Gathering
(vast majority opting to shuck clothes)
that summer held in Cheoah National Forest
just outside Robbinsville
western North Carolina,
and the farthest south
clandestine group congregated.

Among the estimated 12, 700 attendees
(one of whom included yours truly),
more than fifty percent
of the sprawling masses
contracted the near fatal
outbreak of shigellosis.

Sanitation in the expansive campsite
ranked as poor to non-existent.

This absence of proper hygiene
provided opportunities
thru contaminated food,
water and person
to person contact.

Widespread transmission
of the very opportunistic disease
caused by Shigella sonnei,
resistant to ampicillin,
tetracycline, and trimethoprim
sulfamethoxazole;
the rapacious organism
categorized as colicin type 9,
and contained a 90-kilobase plasmid,
not found in non-contagious related strains.

Misery loves company,
and this epidemic plagued
the infected with unrelenting diarrhea
and general lower
gastrointestinal debilitation.

Unsure how this then
late twenty something singular male
managed to weather
the microbial onslaught,
which rendered me prone
to a doubled over spate
of being lobbed and hamstrung
hammering the lower gastrointestinal tract,
and incessant severe loss of nutriment
vis a vis thru ****** a steady state
quintessentially unable to nourish
an already slim body.

Upon relieving chronic purging
from the sphincter muscle,
the sensation to expel
countless times thereafter
explained (not recommended diet)
the rapid loss of weight.

Whence returning home
at that time 724 Level Road,
Collegeville, Pennsylvania, 19426,
this ghostly appearance of mine
immediately alarmed, discerned,
and gauged family members
to schedule me for
immediate medical intervention.

After being examined,
(what little flesh remained
of what resembled
a Holocaust Concentration camp victim),
the physician could offer
no pharmacological remedy.

As the days of my life passed
under bedside and medical watch
of mother, who worked
as a licensed practical nurse,
yet could do little or nothing
to halt her own demise courtesy
metastatic carcinoma viz
ovarian/uterine cancer
approximately seventeen years ago
early May 2020.