The knife of life carves indiscriminately without warning
said the runts of the pumpkin patch now lined in mourning.
A farmer plucked biggest one, cutting vine, as the runts cried
a black harvest, Mama being carted off, as she died.
Sad black crows circle the day and night sky abreast and stressed
as the winds of fate wielded its teeth at the oppressed.
A blur of orange is all the crows saw amongst the quivering patch
as the farmer tiptoed the pasture wide-eyed on getting his ******.
Now at the hour of her death angels play harps of fruition
in wake of the wide-eyed farmer's wayward act of abscission.
Billows of black smoke followed, taking to the ominous  skies
as the incinerator took matters in its own hands as she lies.
Then all that was left were the ashes and whispers of the past,
a eulogy, as her quivering kin sat in the storybook downcast.
Pages cried out, tears filled the chapters of a great pumpkin patch
her roots holding each on the vines with love that's hard to match.
No day came off, of a jack-o-lantern smiling in a window frame
for in this family house cancer snatched mothers life just the same.

Logan Robertson

8/4/2018

Where life permeated through lushest
Colours reaching high, the heavens
Jealousy of such radiance as beautiful
As any sunset ever seen was eyed.

There wrath was swift as clouds of
Rage darkened and a kiss from the
Heavens graced Bark and leaf. All was
Still as ash fell earthwards in onyx tears.

Where elegant shades flowed, wisps of
Extinguished colour blossomed then faded
To oblivions nothingness. The heavens are
Beautiful but hide ominous jealous rage.

Silent— clear cut woods,
Cry was heard before trees fell,
Sound owls made leaving.

i like to look at things that shine

fireworks projected into the sky
and like a shooting star they fall
some wish
i watch
as it splits into an array of colours
a few seconds of beauty
quickly enveloped by the night sky

floating lanterns, so ominous
so pretty and mysterious
dots across the dark horizon
the endless darkness tainted
by blurs of light from a distace
but up close they truly are
an enchanting spectacle

camp fires are surreal
what stories do they hold
it rages and fights
it consumes, magnificent
so powerful and yet
so wise

candles bring out memories
if i stare too long
its rhythmic flame will devour me
the tiny light brings out the biggest shadows
like a trance it pulls me in
blow it out, then i'll be free

neon trapped within traffic lights
the red has immeasurable power
amber hues bring on despair
green commands attention
but in the dead of the night
when not a single soul roams by
driving past the glowing lines
of light upon light
i enter a realm of nostalgia

i see the flash of lightning
it is ferocious
commands respect
but when i watch it
from behind a window pane
with raindrops streaking down
the thunder muted, the dark clouds
they emit the most beautiful violet light
it comes and goes in simply seconds

and how could i forget the stars
always there
but only alive
in the depths of the night
scattered across the sky
they glow like an accessory
desired but unreachable
i stretch my hand out high
a little more and i can touch them.

Sheers of shimmering gloss grace her torso.
And I have broken her bones,
imploring that I love her so.
Blueberry lips belly the cold;
hold her too deep, hold her I'm told.

I.

He says Call me Mr. G.
G for Gore, Greed, that Green.
An atypical stoner
with hair wetter than his mouth.
With more ******* than a pound,
he says, With an understanding of
all the suffering in the global delusion
that is the Earth. Mr. G, his name.

Oily brunette, Mr. G., would smoke
Marlboro Green Blend -- menthol --
and spit shot out between stained lips
after each extracurricular exhale.
The saliva would land, tremendously,
and puddles of Rasta shooting stars
would lay, stretching across concrete galaxy.

Hazel eyes invaded and shamed him,
for he wished to be green, like life,
but only envisioned a contradiction:
death (see nature),
for which he learned to embrace, stoically,
like a shepherd of an endangered breed
meant to die among skewed perspective.

II.

This house could be mistaken
for a cinderblock purgatory;
between color and absence of,
eternal and temporary.

A raptor laughter purged the tension --
he abided by no accommodation of civility.
As smoke followed his hyena howl,
the landline lay suddenly of purpose.

Resin raided the clunky, black buttons;
a voice was whispered like a blue phantom:
*******' cheese, pineapple, pepperoni
-- no, extra ******' cheese, extra pep --
Sure, add some more pep with your driver:
he, she -- honestly, man -- they better have
pep-in-their-******-step-you-feel?

Minutes passed like sentient matchbooks
dropping towards a skeletal fire.
G threw the phone across the room
and, like a disenchanted drunk dance,
his words wobbled over each other,
I ordered a 'za, a pizza for the layman.
About thirty, probably thirty-one
minutes, that is.

Passing me the flower-stitched ****,
I ****** in one, maybe two, three,
blasts that I swore
had some sort of nano-insects
bite and burrow into the holes
of my sponge for a throat.

Wringing my rubbery neck,
watching my words leave my toothy cave,
I found out that G doesn't believe in beer.
Believes in souls but not beer,
believes in green men, not beer.

Alcoholic splash is what we all need,
at times. So I told him the obvious,
I'm going to get a case of
(Insert your ****** choice)
and I'll be back as soon as possible.

G stared at me and made a guttural noise,
Do whatcha please, I'll stay here and
protect us from vampires.
You know, blood-suckas.

Pale stoner vampires.


III.

The leather painted door was wide open
like the legs of ominous spider cave,
but the doors of a car
I had never seen before
were as closed as the lips of a VCR.
There's nothing but silence in these situations --
is this one of those situations? Grassy knoll?

Approaching the mouth of purgatory,
I entered with the hesitancy of a lost dog.
On the plastic covered couch,
two people sat atop the invisible cloud
above the patterned fabric
and above the fingers of time.

Blonde hair sprouted from her scalp,
raining down upon vanilla shoulder blades,
her chest a harbor for two pale, freshly mounds,
with crooked, beige diamonds in the center.

She trembled when G said, Meet Steph
-- can I call you Steph, Steph? --
Meet Steph, the artist formerly known as
Stephanie, holding up her licence,
Vanmeter, of 441 1/2 Locust Ave.

That's creepy, huh, Steph? Locust Ave?
Are you something that lives in the ground,
comes up every several years, making noise?
Has this been years in the making?
Are you bound to make noise in my house?

You know this is a house, right?
Whatsa matter, unfamiliar due to ya
living-in-the-*******-ground
or is it because you share a house,
an apartment, Steph? Is it one of those?
Pizza deliveries ain't paying the bills?

G gets up, I, a coward, approaching him
about to say -- Hold up, brother, he says.
Not another move, pulling his hand from
behind her shaking, confused head,
a silver cannon an extension of his arm.

She's here to **** our blood,
She's here to ****. our. blood.
Whether she means to or not,
I know you don't think you want to, Steph,
I know you don't mean to,
But you're here to
drain-us-like-the-Red-Cross.

I tell G that she isn't,
What have you done, G,
You need to let her go
before this gets worse.
That cliche dialogue.
Because these things always do,
cliche or not.

Brother, you don't understand these things
-- It's impossible for a godless man
to understand the mechanisms
of something bigger, something holy --
but you need to listen, G said, You need to --
she tried to move, quickly,
but G grabbed her by her blonde strands,
pulled her back towards the couch,
She swiped at his eye, drawing blood.

There was a pause, a deathly silence,
by the hair, she was rendered motionless,
Oh, no, he echoed, Love, you shouldn't,
You ought not do those things.
Looking at me, he asked me to listen,
Always remember this wasn't your fault.
Sometimes, you can't be in control

Holstering her neck with his gun hand,
G picked her up, slamming her,
head first,
into the drug covered,
resin sprinkled
coffee table.

He dropped on top of her,
Looked at me, Remember, okay?
and beat her head with the **** of the gun,
until the cracking of a larger M&M; shell
muffled towards all eardrums,
maybe even hers.

With blood,
that could be mistaken as war paint,
swimming across his jaw and neck,
and sprinkled on his forehead,
G whispered, You are free,
and I was never sure
who he was talking about.

My feet left before I did,
I was suddenly in my car
with only the ignition
and G's voice registering.
I passed car after car,
pastel metal wagon after
metallic matte creation,
not sure if I ever saw him,
not sure if he ever existed,
if I ever existed.

IV.

Sheers of shimmering gloss grace her torso.
And I have broken her bones,
imploring that I love her so.
Blueberry lips belly the cold;
hold her too deep, hold her I'm told.

Waking up in a cavern darkness,
my dreams disintegrate from my eyes,
swirl in my headspace, evaporating to
heaven knows where.

Scattered pitter-patter
drowns midnight Seattle,
killing and washing away
cluttered, modern filth,
******* carnivorous minds
into hungrier gutters.

This is the part
where the screen of my life reveals:
SIX MONTHS LATER,
in yellow, stenciled letters.
But what it wouldn't say is
how I still feel like I'm dipped
in the ink of Ithaca, NY.

If this were the indulgent
autobiography of my life
it wouldn't say that
the distance doesn't matter,
because that'd be a lie;
I feel like I have only escaped myself.

The rain swells, sounding as
thick as blood, swishing around
the veins of the city.

Stephanie dies every night,
disappearing and reappearing
behind secret doors only she can open.

When she comes to me in sleep,
she is baptized in green, head caved,
Forget-Me-Nots sprouting
between fragmented skull
and select spots of brain soil,
the flowers singing jazz
with a different voice, every time.

One time she spoke.
With blueberry lips that belly cold,
she sounds like my mother:
I am so proud of you, she statically says.
You saved me. Remember.

V.

To be continued.

There's two eyes of the Hurricane
both blue
flecked with grey.
Incalculable
forecasting the direction.
Ominous hunch
it is heading
my way.

The stability of shelter
is a lottery
of hope;
defenseless
if caught in its
path.
I'd be squashed
like a paper cup.
At a glance,
she can obliterate you
just like that. (click)

There's a hint of devil in her innocent eyes.
There's a dangerous smirk lurking behind her cute smile.
She looks like a dark angel with tattoos all over her skin.
Casting an ominous shadow all over the beautiful things.

Earth Day, April 22, 2017  "give back to Earth",
as an "offering" for all the planet gives us.**
For Global Earth Day information visit:  http://www.earthday.org/


       Her ominous shadow
             shown a path
   far beyond the miles high
  a majestic mountain stood

   Silently climbing down
         million year old  
      steep canyon walls
               at dawn,
  each step chosen carefully
     coursing with purpose

    Finding a way forward
         was the only way
           to look back up
      river carved ravines
     where higher ground
              once stood

  Instincts drawn downward
       gravity feed towards
         the faint murmurs
       deep echoes tracery
   down sheer basalt cliffs

          Artesian waters'
       resounding gurgles ―
     bubble up to quench
     a lost soul’s incurably
   intrinsic parching thirst;
       to find an unfolding
       metamorphic peace
     in the trove of igneous
     fountain veins of earth

    There’s not need to wait
      on sunrise pathways lit ―
   there is no fear of gravity’s
     downward silent weight  
      nor burden to be borne

Listening beyond dark silence      .
      igneous bedrock roots
     beckon deeper expanse ;
  spirit realms of ancient souls
     whisperer like thunder
        to the soul of man ―

Awakening ruptured lifelines
    deep below earthen crust ,
    creations hidden essence
     eternally remembered
         by the light above ...



April  2017 © harlon rivers ... all rights reserved

Monday Morning
chugs out of the
Harbor of Weekdays
like a leaking
garbage barge
sailing into
ominous seas,
bound for that
remote
but redeeming
rendezvous
with  a beaming
Friday

[pills rattling]
[water running]
[muffled voices on television]
[exhales slowly]
[ominous music]
[breathing unsteadily]
[melancholy orchestral music]
[door opens]
[gunshot echoes]
[demonic orchestral music]

Once upon a midnight clear, while I sat there, drinking beer,
Reading a quaint and curious volume of fictitious lore,
While I stupored, nearly napping, suddenly I heard a trap beat,
Along with such horrible rapping, rapping outside my bedroom door.
“‘Tis a rapper,” I muttered, “rapping outside my bedroom door –
Only this and nothing more.”

Ah, distinctly I remember cooking stew in late November,
And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.
Eagerly I wished the morrow; – that igloo stew filled me with sorrow
From a book I sought to borrow – reprieve from indigestion –
From the rare and radiant pains of self-inflicted indigestion –
My irritation was beyond question.

And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain
Annoyed me – deployed in me anger never felt before;
So that now, for the sake of my blood pressure, I stood repeating,
“‘Tis the pizza delivery man entreating entrance at my bedroom door –
Some pizza delivery man entreating entrance at my bedroom door; –
Bringing pies from the pizza store.”

Presently my soul grew stronger;
Hesitating then no longer,
“Sir,” said I, “or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore;
But the fact is that I cannot tip,
Because of my relationship,
And so this house you may surely skip,
And thus pray stop the tapping,
Tapping on my bedroom door,
And leave me to my beer” –
Here I opened wide the door; –
Crickets there and nothing more.

Deep into the darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, steaming,
Doubting, fuming as no mortal has ever feigned to fume before;
But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token,
And the only words there spoken were curses I won’t restore.
These I grumbled to the void and the echoes did restore.
Merely these, and nothing more.

Back into my bedroom turning, all my soul within me burning,
Soon again I heard a tapping somehow more annoying than before.
“Surely,” said I, “surely there is someone at my window lattice:
Let me see, then, who thereat is and this mystery uncover –
Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery uncover; –
So I may rest and pray recover”

Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and stutter,
In there stomped a baby hippopotamus of the saintly days of yore;
Not the least obeisance made he;
Not a minute stopped or stayed he;
But with mien of lord or lady, climbed above my chamber door –
Climbed upon the trophy case just above my bedroom door –
Climbed, and sent my favorite trophy tumbling to the floor.

Then, this baby hippo beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,
By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore.
“Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou,” I said,
“Art sure no craven,
Ghastly grim and ancient hippo stomping around on the nightly shore –
Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night’s Plutonian shore!”
Quoth the Hippo, “Dumbledore.”

Much I marvelled this ungainly hippo
To hear discourse so plainly,
Though its answer little meaning –
Little relevancy bore;
For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being
Ever yet was blest with seeing a hippo above his bedroom door –
Hippo or beast upon the trophy case above his bedroom door,
With such a name as “Dumbledore.”
But the hippo, sitting lonely on the placid case, spoke only
That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour.
Nothing further then he uttered – not a single syllable stuttered –
Till I scarcely more than muttered, “other friends have come before –
On the morrow he will leave me, as my sanity has done before.”
Then the hippo said, “Dumbledore.”

Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken,
“Doubtless,” said I, “what it utters is its only stock and store,
Caught from some bearded headmaster whom unmerciful Disaster
Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden bore –
Till the dirges of his Hope that melancholy burden bore
Of ‘Dumble – Dumbledore.’”

But the Hippo still beguiling all my fancy to smiling,
Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of hippo, case, and door;
Then upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking
Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous hippo of yore –
What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt
And ominous hippo of yore
Meant in croaking “Dumbledore.”

Thus I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing
To the hippo whose fiery eyes now burned into my *****’s core;
This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease reclining
On the cushion’s velvet lining that the lamplight gloated o’er,
But whose velvet violet lining with the lamplight gloating o’er,
She shall press, ah, nevermore!

Then methought the air grew denser,
Perfumed from an unseen censer
The television showed my favorite team
Now losing as I glimpsed the score.
“Wretch,” I cried, “thy God hath lent thee –
By these angels he hath sent thee
Respite – respite and nepenthe, from thy
Memories of this score!
Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe and
Forget this evil score!”
Quoth the Hippo, “Dumbledore.”

“Prophet!” said I, “thing of evil! –
Prophet still, if hippo or devil! –
Whether Tempter sent, or whether
Tempest tossed thee here ashore,
Desolate yet all undaunted, on this desert
Land enchanted –
On this home by horror haunted – tell me
Truly, I implore –
Is there – is there pizza in Heaven? – tell
Me – tell me, I implore!”
Quoth the Hippo, “Dumbledore.”

“Prophet!” said I, “thing of evil – prophet
Still, if hippo or devil!
By that Heaven that bends above us – by
That God we both adore –
Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within
The distant Aidenn,
It shall clasp a sainted pizza whom the
Angels did procure –
Clasp a rare and radiant pizza whom the
Angels did procure.”
Quoth the Hippo, “Dumbledore.”

“Be that word our sign in parting, hippo or
Fiend,” I shrieked, upstarting –
“Get thee back into the tempest and the
Night’s Plutonian shore!
Leave no mark of dirt as a token of that lie thy
Soul hath spoken!
Leave my loneliness unbroken! – quit the case
Above my door!
Take thy jaws from out my heart, and take thy
Form from off my door!”
Quoth the Hippo, “Dumbledore.”

And the Hippo, never flitting, still is sitting,
Still is sitting
On the broken case of trophies just above my
Chamber door;
And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon’s
That is dreaming,
And the lamplight o’er him streaming throws
His shadow on the floor;
And my soul from out that shadow that lies
Floating on the floor
May only be lifted by Dumbledore!

Stared at a clock today
   it was broken
it ticked slower and slower
until it's time seemed to be frozen
     Even in it's current state
It would be right twice a day

                                                *  I was reminded of lie I was once told
                                               it had left me broken, bitter
                                                          ­    battered and cold
                                                        But even this lie would've been made true
                                                     if it was left to sit unfixed
                                                                ­   and I let those emotions brew

I stared at the clock, unimpressed
the clock had stopped,
         twelve o'clock it read
but I knew that it was taunting, teasing
   and I believed what it said

                                                        *Th­ere, I stood, alone and naked
                                                           ­    debating with myself if I stood
                                                         broken      and      forsaken    
                               ­                                  or if this was the start of the new
                                                           the beginning of the path less taken
                                                   for whichever I stood to believe, this I knew
                                                            ­where I stood then, that was the catalyst
                                                       and where I will be next can't be presumed
                                                        ­     but for this moment, this second in time
                                                        is the only time it will be my center, my middle
                                                         ­                   my noon

And with a taunting tick, this clock
began to move again
tock, tick; tick, tock
     and without a show of face
I stared in surprise
the clock began to run backward
         began to mock
Turning back time
  seconds, hours
     whispering, shimmering
tempting with the ability to rewind
                                                   time
                                                            ­              
                                                                ­           *   ...and her face began to focus in my thoughts
                                                        ­                                      the ringing in my ears became clear
                                                           ­                        became screaming
                                                       ­                                                    and the pain I had wrought faded
                                                           ­                  and the scars done to me dissipated
                                                                ­                   just for a second, I was watching myself
                                                          ­                                          holding her, touching her, * despising her
                                                           ­                         
                                                                ­                                                           ...and I awake alone
                                                           ­                                     sweating                    ­
                                                                ­                                                                 ­        yearning                
                                                                ­                                            scars burning                   
                                      ­                                                                 ­                                                 stomach turning
           
*And   down   the   hall   the   clock   can   be   heard   with   it's   ominous,   taunting   tick-tock   ticking   into *    
                                                      ­                             *oblivion

I have often turned within my grave to ponder of the reason why
Upon the date of my birth, you took me to your secret hide

Underneath an aspen tree within the deadest of nights
You took to me like a moth to a ball of flickering light

With the devils own smile plastered upon your face and the slightest of hand
You produced a sanguineous jar of hearts and an ominous jar of black sand

You grasped my hands in your work enured and fairly calloused paws
Looked me in the eyes, and told me to forever leave my pale hands raw

"Never soil your untouched hands, your hands and eyes you shall avert'
"Never bruise, nor ever hurt, nor shall they be ever touched by dirt,

"Never touch a rose, nor touch a bee, as danger is an all you see,
"Close your eyes my little darling, and all of life shall be but a dream."

With the trust of a mothers child, I kept my eyes tightly squeezed
Wished upon the star within the midnight sky, wavering in the breeze

Held my hands up to my chest, hoping the fluttering and staggered slips
Not to be seen by your face within the light of moon as from the sun it dines and sips

Of a heart that had only once been given to me and should have forever stayed mine
But the greed inside all mens' hearts want, and reaches out to grasp a young new 'hind'

With another slight of those calloused hands, you took my life for your own pleasure
And stole what was rightfully derived as mine; a beating heart, you took your leisure

A working mind, once a clock, now fully had come to a skidding stop
You took my bones and my teeth and used them as a fertilizing crop

The very worst thing that you did, you took my pride when you took my skin
Shaved off clean with a diamond edged razor and worn as if you were mockeries twin

Burried underneath that beautiful aspen tree, I've been given the time to remold
But my life had been stolen, the soul forced out before the bells had tolled

In the time it had taken for my pieces to remold, I had realised something then and there;
There were always things that were meant to go untold, but the truth is ringing upon the open air

You wanted more than what was offered and had bitten off all you could chew
But if I'd known back then what I know now, I'd know real good men only come in few

Today bears the weight of erstwhile trepidation.
Uncertainties exhumed only to be hung up as ominous flags.
Black as night my widowed heart paraded through the procession.
Garbed in ash encrusted, sequinned frock, hemmed train all tattered in rags.

Herald the face with no features yet obscured behind a chiffon veil.
In hands, a bouquet of black roses, worm-eaten to the stems.
The mourning sun only gave the weakest glow,
feeble attempt to rejuvenate all that is stale;
to imbue the shimmer back into forsaken jewels and dulled gems.

Her entourage kept up with heavy feet; all grim and sullen.
Also faceless... Armed with pitchforks and torches.
Today they will draw much; having thirst for crimson.
Today they witness her death as the black parade marches.

Laying in bed on my back.
My head resting on hands, cushioned.
The dark ceiling with a black asterisk in the middle.
My windows casting shadows of light across my room.
The rain outside silencing me with
shhhhhh
continuous
shhhhhhhhhhhh.
Listening closely I hear the lone pitters and single patters.
The nearly not noticeable rustling of branches.
Tempo of the rain quickening, slowing, quickening-
almost like a heartbeat.
A drip drip of droplets delving into a puddle.
The rushing of a shy, shallow, stream;
Its rare gurgles.
The ominous bass of thunder, deafening.
Natures own orchestra-
For me to fall asleep to.

You put your face up right next to mine
and scream out a list of rights I don't have:
the right to make tea in the morning
the right to stay up past 9 pm
to carry mouthwash with me
to use my own soap
to hang my coat in my closet
to spend more than eight hours away from home each day
to change plans when away from you without telling you
(no matter how small the change)
to open my windows or back door without permission
to open the back gate at all
to speak when you are not present

I want to write a ******* autobiography someday
and have more than a chapter
and that chapter ain't even here:
If I sit and think about my life,
I have no real memories with you.
The memories that count are the ones spent away from you

Playing on the playground
of the apartments by the mill with two friends
(both of which are now ******* druggies)
or sitting in the back of his aunt's station wagon
when one of em backs into the mailboxes
(at the age of six)

Building forts in the woods at four corners.
Bonfires, frog catching and golf at Anne's.
Wandering trails while camping with them.

Running through the woods with ubie
building forts from old tires, grass clippings and sticks
and playing endless games of fetch with her.
Some days we'd walk the creek back to the fern grove
some days we'd skip rocks by the "waterfall"
and some days we'd slip under the barbed wire to visit the neighbors.

The old **** lab in Carlsborg
which we labeled as "the barn" since it was one-
had plenty of small passageways that we'd play  hide and seek in.
But some days we'd get bored
so we'd go past the church to the rock quarry and climb the hills
or we'd walk the trail as far as we were willing to go
or climb over the abandoned canopy into the neighboring field
and walk over to visit the horses and goats.

Port Angeles was long walks for me,
trails dark and ominous that always led to the park
or roads that always continued on forever,
until I found that one house that I used as an anchor.
Ryland was born there
So was me, not I, but me, the beginning of ME

Then there was Taylor cutoff-
A mile back in the woods
by a junkyard
and a quarter mile from the Dungeness.
I would walk the river most days,
past the farms near the hatchery,
where the power lines always crackled
and the abandoned barns called my name.
some days I'd take the bus to Sequim, others to PA.

Dabob was a trailer that we packed full of memories-
Pulling hoses up long hills to water small trees.
loading up the truck with wood chips for the yard.
rolling boulders into trees with the tractor.
Taking Ryland to the ER for croup.
And fitting three people into a five by ten room to sleep.
not to mention:
bonfires, fireworks, bobcats, mountain lions, 3 cults and *** farmers

This is the ****** though, Edmonds-
city life, and I'm ******* loving it.
I want to write myself a life, father
and I know where to do it
and how
and it ain't here under your oppression.

Three months and the story changes

Stone slabs descended down,
forming a staircase straight to hell.

A sea of screaming miasma suffocated
either side of the winding venture.

The light of the world above no longer
registered as darkness swallowed this place.

It seemed that whether forward or back,
this road was infinite.

Finally, after endless time, the monument
of this suffering came into view.

The blackest Obsidian rose beyond
comprehension and without feature.

Voices wailed and tension bloomed
in ominous agony.

And as it called out, a liquid wave of
familiarity poured in and around me.

The door, once unmarked, split down the seam
as I came within the final stretch.

Understanding drowned my mind,
as I pressed my palm against its surface.

Instantly, with a deafening boom,
it swung open on ethereal hinges.

Walking through, in bewildering clarity,
what was one became two.

Hear the banners, blaring,
In a Castle, sun-bathed white.
Wrapped in the golden sunsets
of both East,
and West.

Come closer, into this Castle's realm
see crops blazing with activity,
what might be prosperity,
or laughing children
and screams of joy, and laughter.

Talk to a farmer girl, of this Castle,
Listen to her tale:
I was wrought from Issac and Portia,
a Nobleman, and a Common-folk.
Together, they brought me,  16 years ago.
From the dusty deserts, that bloom green plants,
I sit lonely on a bench,
and by chance, I had a glance,
of a poor person, but, not a common-*****.
A man he is, and he stands tall,
with black slick hair,
and muscles all.
I looked at him,
and he looked at me,
or so it seems.
The next day,
in the market streets
of Camelot.
We met,
face, to face.
Though it were a dream.
And seemed fair around us,
though that was not what it would seem.
We spoke, in the corridor,
to the church,
and we learned of each others lore
and kept close each others worth.
The Next day, by midnight,
as I slept in my bed,
He was there.
He knocked on my window,
and I invited him in,
with suspicion,
and lusting,
for my anticipations.
And he spoke to me
"I will return, Christine, dearest,
but I must embark, upon a quest,
to the neighboring town of Cornwallis,
to discuss neighboring policies,
and alliances.
By 3 days shall I return,
and should I not,
then my death will you learn
has come.
And so he came,
and so he went,
William his name
who's life not spent
walked gallantly mile after mile
to reclaim his fiance
and raise their child.

Continuing,
upon the walls
of Camelot,
their lies what they
might call a mote,
but it has been torn,
and it might be plagued,
explaining the lack of
crocodiles.

Knocking on the Gates,
of Camelot,
leads to a few strange noises,
one of them, being,
no noises,
as you hear
distant voices,
as if they were sleeping,
and you look up,
"The moon, of course!"
And so you climb the wall,
with a vine you found in the forests nearby.
And you stumble and mingle
with the vine wrapped
around your ankle.

Alas, your free,
You look up for the first time
within the boundaries of the city,
and find,
inscribed houses,
and minor commotions,
and by mere chance,
the sun arrives
though late, he seems,
and later he rises
the brilliance and the blare like a clock
starts the peasants up as flocks.
Love round the village clean and fair
and animals rolling in parks they share.
Where birds sit in pair-trees.
Where dogs chase cats for fun,
Where bees entertain the children free
Where parents admire the creation they've done.
And as you walk these streets
in wonder, and satisfaction,
You find that street
is layered in sparkles
and clouds of snow-white dust
that enhance the atmosphere
of this,
Haven,
so to speak.
Their, in the middle,
bewitches thine eye,
with all fantasies of this Earth,
and all beauties that have worth.
For in the center, lies a fountain,
which speaks 'Heaven' to your heart,
its marble is smooth as doves,
the presence of the fountain,
creates, or so you believe, the dark
mood around,
like a ominous breeze,
that is being blown away,
infinitely stretched,
like a monkey-chain of rubber bands,
the features of this fountain,
excite your mind with wonder,
enough wonder,
that makes your life feel whole,
though man has at least one worth,
should the world fail
and all prove evil,
then at least, they praise this devil.
The shape is but a breath-taker from
what could qualify, as a statue
for to lie in God's Plaza, or something
similar. The water spraying from the Queen,
Gaia, with a lively green vine,
my apologies,
that is pure and uncut emerald
that wraps around her hair,
which is so defined,
that you could give Gaia a new definition,
Perfection.
And from Gaia's hands, holding a vial,
comes out water, seeming longer,
and more endless then the nile.
And should you lean upon this,
architecture, of majesty,
unbearably beautiful,
and unquestionably
promising,
you'd see,
the mirroring,
of Heaven, the Stars,
and all the cold void within this reflection,
that miraculously could ever dare
to try that deception, in say, 4 feet length,
that mimics the unending of space,
time and infinity.
and,
you turning your head,
you see creatures,
though creatures they be,
they, if the fountain represented God,
then these creatures represent his Archangels.
As Swans float gently,
upon the water's tip,
and even Salmon, and other fishes below
are gray, silver, or diamond clear.
And the water their, remains,
untouched,
despite the audiences
of romantic teens,
adorable, and innocent children, laughing and playing in this pool,
and adults sitting by it, enjoying  their mate's company.
Inscribed in Gaia's vial, reads
"The Fountain of Youth".

But these fond memories no longer supply me,
with the passion and love of this Earth,
I once fondly knew,
for all, even the fountain is pillaged,
and two lovers that loved each other were hewed.

But pride, forgotten,
and beauty marred,
live forever,
in glory
and love.

Following breadcrumbs of hope down a zig zag path
Through the Forest of Destiny
Glimmers of wishful sunlight
Transform the ominous foliage
Painting castles in the sky
My fairytale writing its own chapters                                        
With every twist and turn
Watchful for Wolves
Who threaten to devour my optimism and **** my passion
Evil Queens who show me ripples of ugliness in a mirror
Held too close my face
Searching for the Prince who's kiss will
Awaken me from the nightmare and
Hold my hand as we walk forward
Towards Utopia
Everlasting in this fiction
I'm clinging onto aspirations of a better life
Dreaming in technicolor of
Another new beginning
Sailing in a pea - green boat through the perfect storm of these emotions
With a one way ticket through this looking glass

It's time to write

A Happy Ending!

(C) Pixievic

Peter built a paper boat
To set afloat upon the sea
And visit spots of hidden coast
Where not a ghost of man would be
He painted letters on her bow
Which soon would plough and skip and trot
Between the waves which rose and fell
The letters spelled ‘Forget Me Not’

He bid his love a fond goodbye
The tide was high when he embarked
And drifted from his lonely cove
While weather drove and seagulls larked
His course was set, horizon bound
For solid ground and ****** shore
When darkness fell he made a bed
'Goodnight' he said and nothing more

His fast was broken elegantly
Delicately poached, his eggs
His freshly laundered morning clothes
Were hung in rows on paper pegs
He cut a furrow, straight and true
Across the blue, towards the sun
But in the distance, lightning spat
As thunder rattled, eddies spun

The tempest threw a wall of ice
Like careless dice, they clattered down
The sails dropped amid the squall
The hatches all were battened down
A curse was uttered through the storm
Its evil born on salty spray
With gusting arms of icy wet
It threw Forget Me Not away

He coughed awake, all caked in sand
Upon a strand of desert beach
Forget Me Not had run a-ground
But safely found the water's reach
He walked ashore and found a glade
Within it, made a paper home
And origami wings, he built
To never wilt and ever roam

He felled the tree and smote the ground
A frame, he wound of paper string
His garden flourished all around
Each sight and sound of ever-spring
The flowers jostled in their beds
And turned their heads to follow him
He kept his distance from the blue
In case the view should swallow him

An evil creature stalked the trees
It dined on bees and butterflies
On owls and cats, it liked to sup
To gobble up and gluttonize
With paper sword, he killed the beast
And cooked a feast to celebrate
A rain cloud sought to disagree
But quick was he to remonstrate

He flew his island, shore to shore
And kept a score of fire flies
They hung imprisoned in a glass
The light they cast could hypnotise
With nothing left to see or do
He flew up to the highest spot
And carved into a single tree
Remember me, forget me not

His boat remade and set a-sail
The heavens pale with early dawn
Upon his bed, he sat inert
With paper curtains neatly drawn
His charts uncharted, compass blunt
A currant bun, to satiate
A world of peril out to sea
To skillfully negotiate

Some time to contemplate the past
And backward cast the here and now
The Merfolk sang a siren song
And leapt along beside his bough
They guided him to foreign ports
Where shady sorts in cider soak
The tales they told were sizeable
And risible, the words they spoke

He folded down his paper boat
Into a coat of paper lace
And set the ocean to his back
The open track, he turned to face
The way he took was through a copse
The swaying tops of mighty pines
Leant form and rhythm to his pace
Upon his face were thoughtful lines

To either side, the shadows grew
No more, the blue shone through the boughs
And branch and bracken, driven wide
Were cast aside as careless vows
He chanced upon a quiet nook
A winding brook, it scurried by
It seemed a place where time would bide
While either side it hurried by

So dining sparse on only bread
He laid his head upon the ground
A lullaby the branches sighed
Was far and wide, the only sound
He deftly pitched a paper tent
And in it, spent a weary night
A whisper echoed in his ear
It lingered near, beyond his sight

So many weeks of rambling
Through bramble and through briar patch
And pausing for an hour at best
With feet to rest and breath to catch
The summer season on the wane
With autumn rain, attention pinned
To pounce on unsuspecting shoulder
Ever colder rose the wind

Above the adolescent fruit
Fed by the roots of ancient trees
Gave promise of a juicy crop
But yet to drop, they simply tease
Upon a morning laced with dew
A shadow grew and fell across
The spongy ground rose underfoot
And boulders jutted through the moss

The space between the trunks expanded
Saplings stranded on the scree
And whispers carried on the air
From places where they couldn't be
A sheer cliff now blocked the way
A ***** gray and smothering
Against, there thrived a mess of vines
With jagged spines their covering

He found a cave and ventured in
A desperate grin upon his lips
His chattering of nervous teeth
Was lost beneath the endless drips
Reverberating ceaselessly
Increasing with each fall of foot
A passageway and crooked path
By wrath of ancient water, cut

The arid air was felt to shift
And Peter sniffed a musky trace
The passage opened wide and tall
It sprawled into a massive space
The walls were smooth as beetle hide
But all inside was bathed in black
The flies were putting up a fight
But solid night was biting back

A tower carved from stalactite
In spite of probability
Was looming from the cavern top
And from it dropped futility
A spring of purest liquid gloom
Within, there bloomed an evil thirst
For those who drank a thimble worth
Would tread the earth, forever cursed

The cavern floor was laced with dust
A powdered crust of rotted skin
As Peter neared the central spire
The fire flies grew weak and thin
But all across the distant dark
There lit a spark and sprang a flame
That burst from ancient blackened lamp
To banish damp and shadow shame

A scrabbling amid the murk
As forward, lurked a breaking wave
Of decomposing denizens
The citizens of Evergrave
With sinew bared through rotted hide
The flesh inside was yellowing
From every throat that still remained
There shot a baneful bellowing

They forced him to the tower's tip
From which the drip of night was thrown
Gruesome stairs he climbed in haste
Of interlaced and knotted bone
A dire tunnel led within
The light was thin and shadow thick
A deathly door he tumbled through
And fell into a bloodied slick

Within was rank and heavy air
Like foxes lair where hunters slept
The walls, from living flesh, were stitched
The carpet twitched as Peter stepped
The Zombie Queen sat on her throne
Of flesh and bone of Underlands
She rested on its gory arms
Which raised their palms and held her hands

The creature laughed and cocked her head
A single thread of drool there hung
Between her lips and fear crowned
The single sound which echoes sung
The living walls, they tensed and strained
As terror reigned and ichor dripped
And when the monarch of the dead
Inclined her head, the stitches ripped

She spoke in harsh and bitter tones
As withered crones do curses bloom
The fate of Peter turned to dread
His soul, the dead would soon entomb
A single card he had to play
On such a day, in such a spot
He grinned and bid the rotting queen
‘Your time has been, forget me not’

His folded coat he casted wide
And from inside, a paper storm
Within the flurry, shapes were made
As wings were splayed and talons formed
A paper dragon rustled forth
And in his jaws, the queen he caught
He turned on the assembled dead
Within his head, a single thought

Peter climbed between the wings
Where paper rings he’d fastened there
Gave safety for the coming fight
And all the night, he nestled there
Until the dragon fell asleep
Upon a heap of smitten foes
And Peter robbed the deathly hoard
Each room explored on stealthy toes

He shunned the dark and met the day
And made away for higher ground
Along a path of narrow ledges
Razor edges, upwards wound
A trail, he scaled around the peak
Of Raven’s Beak the mighty mount
Up slopes which claimed so many lives
And widowed wives beyond his count

He stood atop the pinnacle
Where clinical, the ****** snow
Reflecting in the autumn light
Lent all a white and eerie glow
The frost had chilled his fleshy core
His eyes absorbed the scenery
A distant shoreline tugged his soul
A long unfolding memory

Of home and of his fireside
His future bride would tarry there
The tiny church upon the sand
He’d always planned to marry there
He took his dagger from his sock
Into the rock at just that spot
He carved upon the highest stone
I turn to home, forget me not

The knotted land that lay between
Had never been abode to man
The name it took was infamous
And ominous: The Neverspan
Its valleys tinkered with the eye
A fractured sky shone crookedly
Above a wood of vacant trees
That clawed the breezes hookedly

The setting sun would lead the way
Through lands which lay in wait for him
To bare him forth, a paper horse
To keep a course and gait for him
The blackness trickled from the bark
The  tangled dark enshrouded him
And songs in long forgotten tongues
About him hung and clouded him

He journeyed through the Ebonmire
Though fire failed to kindle there
His breath before him writhed in blight
And turned to fight the rancid air
Through many months of loneliness
And bitterness of solitude
He conquered the abandoned wood
And silent stood in gratitude

He forayed through the hill and plain
As on the wane the winters hold
The grass had shaken off the snow
Its Icy glow had turned to gold
A paper hat he now prepared
For as he fared, the rain endured
His horse was crumpled in the wet
No living vet would see it cured

The seasons tumbled mindlessly
And rivalry removed his haste
A sallow band of Neverbeast
By shadow greased and interlaced
With paper sword, he lay in wait
To penetrate each haggard hide
And when their blood was deftly spilled
A phial he filled for sake of pride

The sun became his only guide
His face belied his weariness
With little left to raise his soul
Above the cold and dreariness
Until the second summer passed
And sunset cast a silhouette
The outline of a tiny church
Was perched beside a maisonette

A flutter leapt about his heart
And wide apart, his eyes were flung
As Peter ran with tired limbs
The heavens dimmed and crickets sung
He reached his open garden gate
His face elated, turned to woe
As through the window he could see
His bride to be would not be so

A gentleman stood at her side
His bride adorned in happiness
And though it burned in Peter’s chest
His wrath would rest in idleness
So with a final fleeting peek
He turned to seek a worthy cause
Before he left he knelt before
His former door and seemed to pause

He fled upon his paper wings
As many things he’d yet to see
A myriad of foreign faces
Distant places he should be
He sailed the sky and sought the sand
His native land he soon forgot
Behind, he left a single note
And on it wrote: Forget me not

Humanity is tainted and now leaking everywhere
In a world where people jump out
airplanes after stacks of money
To a din of sirens blaring,
War drums thrumming
Funny you'll do nothing;
It's a racket designed to create the distraction

To the hidden monsters flying in the night sky
Ever secure, beneath a crux of watchful eyes
Masters of disguise bend your will to their lies
Subconsciously shapeshifting acquiescence in the absence of light

They operate in obscurity
Conglomerates of impunity
Urgency manifests necessity
With a propensity for depravity
Slaves lulled to a fake sense of security with false promise of luxury
Compulsively regurgitating propaganda in delusory quandary
Happy little sheep march willingly to the teeth of the Serpent machine

Ominous omniscience mixes with
Sensations of bodilessness
In a state of godlessness
Whenever my conscious surfaces in this clandestine system
I sell my soul to purchase debt and let repercussions fall upon my children
A paradigm; with no ethics the center is an idol,
and the world had forever idolized the god money, Belial

Imagine
A carnival pageant, with parades of tyrants tirading
and masquerading on the world's stage as lavish savages

With overwhelming power in hand,
I'll bring an end to it all
If you gaze for long into the abyss
It will stare back into your soul

Pay homage to barrages of sacred false knowledge/unacknowledged
It lodges to your consciousness as it takes you hostage
You think you're open-minded but suffer from mental spillage
Then brain begins hemorrhaging like a glitch in the matrix

Global massacre is imminent
Our abandonment's no accident
Caricatures of government act as the Devil's advocates

Insane It's us against them
Zionist Superfriends deciding trends
designing and framing an outline of the endgame just for sh¡ts-n-gigs
Hands reach through the tapestry pulling you in and unrelenting,
Secretly from behind the scenes

Portraits of dishonesty
Stripping you of all life and liberty
Symphonies of screams
systematize in perfect symmetry
Enslaving and slaying humankind -
They've exacted brainwashing
to the science of chemistry
And mold your mind
with the subtlest alchemy

Media blackout;
Credits tapped out
Better act now
before the stock markets
collapse down

What's your plan when **** hits the fan,
will you follow The Man or fail condemned?
Now bow at the feet of the ministry of tyranny,
Head lowered in defeat *preparing for the guillotine

Time sets, it moves and it sings. It cries in silence in hopes to be heard. Darkness settles around our dreams with nothing but good intention. It is only misunderstood as ominous because we can’t see through its shield. Blocking away the unnecessary the darkness fights to actually show us what is important as we lie awake in the depths of our dreams; shielding us from the distractions we all tend to give our focus.

I see you standing there in a doorway reaching out to anything you can get your grasp on, waving, flailing, trying your hardest to not fall in the abyss of the unknown and the too good to be true. I then see all things being projected toward you, hurrying and fleeing to your side to save you now. The darkness begins to envelop my surroundings as far as the eye can see, growing stronger more full of nothing and seeming more ominous. I fight to stead my focus only to you, enhancing my speed of the walk trying to still remain calm through my thundering heart. Everything was shooting toward you, but you wouldn't grab hold… You latched on to me with your eyes and looked as if you would never let go. Regrettably I stopped… Only for a moment, but I stopped. I felt it was a trap, why would you only be waiting for me despite all the wonderful things trying to get hold of you? The Darkness scared me, the darkness threatened me. Not you, your eyes never left me but I couldn't focus on you because of the uncertainty behind the intentions of the darkness.

Again I stopped, but this time I took a step back. The light between
you was getting narrower for the darkness was growing stronger. I could feel my breaths shorten as you continued to reach for me, praying not to fall further. I wanted to get to you, I just wasn't strong enough. It felt like the darkness was growing the closer I came to you. Rather than facing it and you at the end I began to retreat back to what I knew while trying my hardest to not focus on your eyes penetrating my mind, and your hand prying open my heart. I retreated watching the darkness subside, I retreated. I was okay, as I came out of distance of you; I told myself you were okay simply to destroy any chance of guilt. I was almost free until I heard a faint song of something familiar, something I once kept locked in my soul. I began inching toward it searching deliberately for what it could be. Louder it grew, louder and more clear, it began touching my heart, through spots of wet yellow paint, splintered wood, and broken glass I continued on, paying no attention to the darkness continuing to devour my instant surroundings. The sound, the familiar singing in my head seemed to be entreating me to come back. I began to run; I began to run toward it through the last bit of light fighting through the darkness until I felt like I was flying. It was you again… but this time you were trapped behind the things trying to help you.  I heard the faint memory once more, but this time it was coupled by the movement of your lips. Through the deepest reserves of my memory you had come back imploring me to make it to you through the nonsense. Fighting through the fear I came to you and without a hesitant thought or a wasted glance at the surrounding darkness I began bloodying myself pulling away the destruction that kept me from you; the pieces of once good things that kept you from me. Feeling nothing for myself but
solely for you I felt your still outstretched hand graze my fingertip and the blood left with your touch. Understanding that with you I was unstoppable I broke through sacrificing the last piece of me to be once again with you. You free, I fallen, you picked me up, piecing all of me back together. Penetrating my eyes you were the last thing I saw as the darkness encompassed us and immediately ceased to exist.

Loosening your clutch from my head to your heart did we then notice it was only you and I. With no sign of the destruction of the struggle from before, we were all that was left. It was just the two of us alone in a vast room filled with all of our dreams to last for an eternity and beyond.

Complications pile up
Ominous snowflakes on a quiet street
Never stopping, the blizzard
Finally lets loose in a storm of chaos
Understanding and logic gone
Suspicious of all those around me
Excluding no one from observation
Desperately trying to resolve the case

The charred scent of paper
Atop the ******* skyscraper
Burns when a life is consumed
In its greenish greedy gown
On it has been proudly sown
A golden triangle. It assumed
Its complete authority over
The human race we chase
Its glinting giggling gorge
Postponing the petty morgue
Adorning chests in a tower
Of wealth, of woe, of war
Some are the jacks in tar
Others the *****, the ace

Hovering over cities
Teasing the daisies.
That thick soot
Flawless is flaying
Slowly peeling
Away layers of our root
We gambol and gamble
Pitiful onions in unions
Hawkers jaywalking
Hunters, judges, humble
Flock of those who can think
Trying to make sense of ions
We can with a gun link
Deaths and collapsing ink.

The bright dollar bill smolders
On Atlas’ sore shoulders
An intricate golden lattice
In lieu of a benighted bodice
It lifts Man on a rusty noose
King on a heap of newspapers
The charred choking scent
Demonic, deliquescent
Atop the ******* skyscrapers.
For a divine raiment
Would the goofy government
Trade your blood and lymph
For a smoke and mirrors nymph?
I choose not, please turn us loose?

We are the scorching enemy
All in all, possessed by the mark
We gloat over the metonymy
Of our radiant success
We are nothing under duress
But pigs left bound to bark
In the mud of our sockets
Buy this diamond necklace
So you can prove, in the race
Of rats, you are the best of piglets
“How much does it cost?’’, asks the poet
But his voice is regarded as a dandling duet
Society sleeps, makes loves, guzzles
A writer too, probably feebly fizzles…


All the while the creased cremated paper
Will keep on swallowing us over and over
This smoke once was the signal of civilization
It is now the ominous gleam of our globalization
Soothing soot it is not, it throttles us all
I foresee it but soon we shall
Fall back into this drowsy land
Demise of those who did not stand
Up behind the legacy of a quill
That is now silent in steel, still
Child, write down your future
Your literature will triumph for sure!
I’d read his lines instead of gulping down
The shiny pill of tomorrow brand new uptown!

January 26, 2016
Guillotière, Lyon
7:17 pm

the wind whispers to you in furious ways,
ominous notes, like a dusty violin
stenciling finality into the air.

the percussion
of foot-soldiers trembles the grass.

  you have grown, my war-child,
  from the days of ****** tea parties
  to a diva guerrilla,
  terrible and well-rehearsed,
  your bulleted libretto close to your chest--

and as trumpets sound in the offing,
the curtain draws back.

AK-47, pizzicato--
gasoline breeds fire, incinerates woodwinds,
the wine of the coloratura soprano
melts into blood.

  witch, *****, daughter of gunpowder,
  bella contralto, your
  deep and tremulous vibrato is a
  grenade,

and as death crashes to a crescendo,
mortality in the tin frequency of cymbals--

the only armistice
is annihilation.

It was not really thee
bards of the ages
who inspired me
but of your wages
I shall purloin lithe lines
to add to the meager confines
of my tailored tale

nineteen
green
inside and out
not knowing when I would be ripe
cramming all the ammo clips I could find
into my fresh jungle fatigues
he
the sage of 2nd platoon
told me of the frightful night
when
in the midst of a hellish firefight
he reached for more clips
and found only the remnants of chips
tasty morsels when first consumed
but then a sign he was doomed
“NO MORE AMMO—****”
he sunk even lower into the carpet of night
but to his ironic delight
“the **** that was shooting at me ran out of ammo too”
after exchanging an infinite stare
both fled into the ebony air
the moral of his twice told fable
grab all the ammo clips you are able

and the sage from 1st platoon said,
one night when our brains were brimming with beer
that a full bladder was also something to fear
for being distracted by the urge to ****
could perhaps be the reason we would miss
“some **** slithering through the black grass,
and that, my friends, could mean your ***”

so their caveats did not fall on deaf ears
although
they were filtered by my too few reckless years
yet, I snatched all the clips I could carry
on my 140 pounds of nineteen
and took not one sip from my canteen

others words bounced around my crowded skull
some were from rapier wit and others were dull
but the ones to which I would listen
were the ones that gave me hope for
another day of light
after the perpetual blind night
in the land of the ******

I had learned to walk without sound
all on my own
and find a place to crouch
where not even the dead
could see me, I would briefly imagine
but they were there
permeating the dank air
with silent dirges to their demise
and me waiting with cracked open eyes
for one to come alive
and yank my young *** into some dark hole

we have always seen things in the dark
while hiding from the devil our sisters said would come
under our blankets with one eye closed and the other agape
he was coming, she would say, to get you
for being….born
sometimes, the chosen, the blessed souls,
would forget he was there
and breath calm air
and walk into the life of nineteen
with a full canteen but
not worried about a full bladder
and missing Jacob’s ladder

but those of us who came to this wicked place
could not blithely put our demons to rest
and they continued their animated fest
in the darkness our eyes could not penetrate
and our spirits could not relegate
to the silent land of the past

there could have been a dozen, live ones,
snaking their way through the grass
close enough to smell my sweat
or perhaps only one
crouched in his own woeful world
miles away through the ****** jungle
but it did not matter
for in my wordless chatter
they were all around
maybe the same ones in my childhood room
coming to thicken the gloom
with another tormented soul
who at nineteen
was afraid to drink from his canteen

I would stop seeing them
at some point
but only for a shallow breath or two
then they would be there again
and I would hear nothing
except the other sages
from those ancient pages
where my eyes followed my fingers in curious delight
far from this lethal foaming night

"Because I could not stop for death, he kindly stopped for me
the carriage held just ourselves and immortality"
"Death be not proud, though some have called thee so"
“I looked in vain for another path for my feet
but they were all too small
except the one labeled ‘Death Street’”

and other less ominous verse would take the chance
to make its way into my riddled trance,
“Nature’s first green is gold,
her hardest hue to hold
her early leaf’s a flower,
but only so an hour
then leaf subsides to leaf
so Eden sank to grief
so dawn goes down to day
nothing gold can stay”

nothing gold, nor green I would recall
and when I would lose the light lull of the verse
I would again begin to traverse
into the blind black depths in front of my eyes
and the devils would tauntingly reappear
and I would again hear
the nothingness we all share
there
in the land of the ******
with a full canteen
and an M-16
at nineteen

As the beautiful leaves
upon high bristled trees
must fall as fall turn winter

we must, as time comes
fall over and die
but we shan't do it alone-

yes... together

for we must die
and while many years shall go by
until we must think of such things

we need not mourn this fate
this ominous end, this opening gate
for just being allowed to die

makes us lucky

for the number of people unborn
the acceptance of existence- torn
shadows any number we could see

more than the grains of sand
in the sahara, and
more than the fishes in the sea

and of those unborn ghosts
are greater poets, better hosts
better scientists, never to put on lab coats

when thinking of the billions  
that could be here replacing the millions
making our existences seem small and meek

against these stupefying odds
you and I, no scourge of the gods
in all our ordinariness

well we...

we are the lucky ones.

Red Cup Red Cup, colorless backdrop
Just filled with water as its poured with the last drop.
Red Cup, Red Cup all packed with water
But the Red cup gets picked up and cracks at the bottom.
Red Cup, Red Cup, but black and white all around
The man holds it up and a drop falls to the ground.
That drop that drop, like a slow motion  flood
Is thrown to the ground with an ominous thud.
Red cup, Red Cup, now past its peak fullness
As the man sheds a tear for his entire life’s dullness.

Time’s ominous perpetual precipice looms,
Darkly beckoning with gilded motives.
The student’s curse worming insidiously throughout the best intentions
The enemy’s ticking fingers foreshadow their fate,
But like blinded deer, we frolic obliviously,
Blissfully remiss in our duty as the forgiven.
Twilight nears, but we are still frozen in the sun.

It's been a while since you've seen my eccentric style before your eyes
I've been inactive for a bit but a few events made me realize
Why I'm here, to do what I love most and never lose hope on my dream
So I think I'll share my mysterious fear with such inspired minds and blow off some steam
I'm not the best with words and social awkwardness is my domain
I may look like a social butterfly but that's because people believe I'm always sane
I'm a gamer by heart and a poet nature
I rap a bit, have an inner Squidward and I'd think there's nothing greater
But to be honest that's why I think I'll never be great enough
I put on act, pretending I'm not bothered but at the end of the day I'm the only person I can't bluff
My poker face is strong, but I can see right through it
I look at my eyes only to see that they look flushed
I can't keep my hands straight knowing I'm not suited, I feel crushed
I watch my dreams slip away, I try to hold em' but it's almost not my call
So I fold my hands and drop my head in shame even though the blind is small
See my mysterious fear is that'll I'll never be good enough at anything
I try to play my best, write my best, perform my best but I keep spiraling
I peek at my best then I peak before success, just when I wanted more not less
I go all out, I brawl out, then descend because ***** Diana's giving me stress
Sometimes I don't know if I'm confident in my ability
I'm barely sure if this is where I'm meant to be
I underrate myself, that's the only reason I'm sold short
When things get too drastic I turn into Usopp, ready to abort
The mission because my intuition tells me that I'll never be great
This is my fate, I want to see what the future holds but I'll have to wait
Actions speak louder than words that's why now is the best time to work on my faith
I can't waste a single second not while my mental's in good shape
The weather is a bit cloudy and I live with this Ominous Winds, but tonight I escape
I put my trust in you my Lord, I promise this opportunity won't go to waste

The great Green Mountains,
up where the tallest evergreens grow,
stretching,
upward an outward,
toward the heavens,
a perimeter of boundaries,
where white iridescent angels,
can drift,

Touching the clouds,
in winds of change coming,
gathered together sheltering storms,
alongside barren maples
and birches,
with shriveled others aging,
gracefully,
bowing down to winter's bone,
and ready for Spring's solstice.

When,
in surging solar winds,
upward of,
a million miles an hour,
40 hours after leaving their sun,
raining in an big bright ariel shower,
emphasizing their greatness,
in an eerie tranquility,
behind a diffused hazy luster,
a distant soft moon light,
in a beautiful Glory Shining.

Silvery satin ribbons,
and celadon green bends,
as colors wait pensive to create
in messages it then sends,
a heavenly landscape,
for their part in the prism ballet,
these arial acrobats,
yearn to touch tips on sturdy cutouts,
of tall old aging trees,

Dancing into ever-changing,
multifaceted soft,
an inspiring hues,
an shifting in the breeze
they move above,
in a mystical rhythm,
a dark and mysterious,
black smoke rises
in between rays,
in the opaque darkest hour,
for the creation of,
a spiritual backdrop,
mysterious feeling power
in the magnificent,
Magnetic Midnight.

The darker the sky,
the brighter the light,
for an otherworldly setting,
as colors merge and ignite
while they mix the palate again,
I am lost in silent reverie,
for the forces that dance there in that blackness,

Awe-inspiring,
breathtakingly beautiful,
alien,
frightening,
imparting comforting wisdom,
it is everything an so exciting,
and healing to your soul,
like a hauntingly familiar sound,
of
music to your ears.

moving like in an immensely,
active native conga,
while flitting eiree,
ghosts of glaciers perform,
when fueled folklore beckon,
swirling magic colors
in a perfect moving storm
these beauties from frozen skies,
spraying snow & tossing sparks,
as their created stars,
saturate the deep,
as their tears are shed,
in big butterfly kisses,

playfully floating,
in lovely little fine wisps,
of cirrus smudges of pure refractions,
bending in rarified veils of light,
into a seamless,
shimmering skyscape.

A hiding crystal clear,
deep Alice blue sky,
now fading,
as colors are now blending,
from azure into darkest denim,
then turning periwinkle,
stretching out,
into auroral archways,
dusted in a tangerine glow
in transitioning brushstrokes,
gently cover impressionistic sketches,
evolving into luminism,
on an endless open canvas.

As I paint the words,
where I sit there quietly,
respectfully awaiting answers,
as clouds and moonlight smear,
into watercolor scenery,
using up each angel tear
an intimate engagement occurs,
the passion of nature,
is sublime,
just perfectly,
these synchronized sky swimmers ,
becoming one

As a stormy sun is forcing,
red light dancers,
holding torches,
colliding and becoming excited,
edging themselves,
these powerful ominous portents,
becoming the framework.

Around a fantastic fluorescent show,
the cast wearing blushing pink,
and wild viola purples,
tinged in chartreuse green,
basking in beauty,
where hope lies,
in these colors I've never ever seen, since,
transcending skies of tomorrow,
into an age old masterpiece,
waiting patiently for this,
spiritual journey,
to begin,
with an eager & beautiful,
dawn coming.

Where the North winds,
send a brilliant light show,
of atomic wonders,
in watery pirouettes,
of shaped effects,
& teardrops sacrificed,
swirl in spirits of harmony,
completely memorizing,
I am transfixed,
an astonishing feat,
of brilliant pigments,
smudged into,
the mysterious lightness,
my drifters heart wanders,
melded into atmospheric colors,
we can only wish to see in this lifetime.

Where life seeds now
glide,
on the giving winds,
and Eagles and hawks can,
applaud this much beauty way up there.

This place,
a heavenly firmament,
where all the sacred souls come to die,
  where all the very, very, wise end up,
where they all spend their eternal lives,
young and old alike,
eventually they all retire here,
bringing us hope or warnings,
a chance at redemption,
striking hot iron in a glow,
metallic bits,
stars form,
restless,

Sighing, awaiting,
  a gifted chance to share with us,
along with all the parished,
souls and spirits,
playfully transforming,
from native garb,
mocassin covered feet,
change into favorite animals,
stomping on the colorful floor,
a great bear,
a wolf,
a beluga whale,
a soaring raptor,
not wanting for anything,
walking in Native American circles,
to the sounds of long silent drums,
morphing & shape shifting,

Again,
and again,
and again,
where rain shadows dance,
in ancient skies,
celestial bodies are illuminated,
reflecting the fire circles,
from where distant oceans shore,
take me there...ancestors
take me there once more,

As night slowly declines,
as daylight seeps through cracks,
bleeding into tomorrow,
to fly again to share what they must,
they pray and worship their God,
and they trust..

And Aurora Borealis is her name.

Cherie Nolan © 2016