I’ll drape these stone ovals across my fragile face across from the crazy catastrophe of the conversation occurring around my consciousness – in my consciousness, cause that’s the residence of my empty pail into which all can discard their stupid say-so’s and I’ll absorb them because I have little else to do and I won’t complain and I won’t restrain myself, I won’t stifle my snide judging resentment because I need to share the poison that resides in the topmost part of my body except for when I’m laying down or doing handstands. These stone ovals allow me to see just how blind I am, just how many things I may never see may never know may never want. I’m sick of seeing the fears of others expressed with air and vocal vibrations escaping their inverse-*******, though I fear I may succumb before too long, join their ranks, if I learn too well to fear all that which I’m around so that I'm too occupied with my surroundings, so occupied that I can’t pay attention to what I’m expelling from behind my teeth and eyes.

My wide eyes behind these thin stone ovals made of nothing but rims and scratches from times when I temporarily forgot how to walk well enough and because I’ve long-since lost my give-a-**** in the cushions of the couch I call carelessness.

Look into two ovals of blue,
Ice caps, the winter's sea, rough, vigerous, cold.
Swimming in snow, through snowflakes, through veins of blue too.
Ice on the surface but water underneath.
Drowning.
Skin white as the snow, struggling.
Waves of warmth leaving her body.
Head towards the sky, towards the air to fill my lungs.
Drenched, heavy blue jeans, weighing me down.
Pull me to peace.
Where two ovals of blue close, and sleep.
Where warmth may be found.
Dreaming of a different set of ovals.
Brown and deep that search for something more.
A hand to reach into my ovals of blue.
That finds me.
That pulls me out softly.
Gentle.
From my battle within this cold.
This desolate despair that makes no good friend.
The ice will melt.
The cold must end.
Blue eyes made of ice.
Awaken again.

Standing, soaked, out in a storm, gusts of wind whipping my hair around wildly
Unruly strands sway with the song of chaos, pulling at my scalp, snapping, lashing at my face
My existence is all reality as this whirlwind tempest frantically thrashes about my flesh
In the complex puzzles and foolish games, a simple madness lives, and therein lies my freedom

My tongue and lips sometimes flap boisterously from their spot on my face
And the noises risen up from my throat, and passed through my mouth are meaningless blubberings
Involuntarily, I grin, tasting the nonsense's unique sweetness, and I swallow
My laughter rings out, a vociferous and untameable sound; humor, the voice of a crazy woman

And I spin! Oh, I spin and spin and spin, savagely, in ellipses, ovals, and circle shapes
I've no shame, and this dance is all mine, so I maniacally fling my arms through the air
And as my body makes its revolutions, a fierce smile curves the shape of my lips, wrinkles the corners of my eyes
Inside my mind, wandering - wondering if there's any real difference between elated insanity and that which I crave...

Most people use words such as eccentric, strange, whimsical, and peculiar for what they cannot understand
So very often I hear these such words being used from those who speak of me
But it is them whom I perceive as being rather off, so habitual and boring, living like routine enslaved, joyless zombies
So unfathomable to me, why most everyone seems to desire nothing beyond a passionless, hollow schedule to, every day, just repeat

Me... I'll race barefoot down a gravel path, through lightning, thunder, and rain, only to feel my hair being twisted and tangled up in the wind
I'll jabber absurdities, laugh like a loon, all while I spin contentedly around and around, until, stupidly dizzy, I crash and fall
Madness pays little mind, stands without worries or concerns, because it believes - it knows, most nothing matters
This is my freedom, freedom that cannot be shared, for what it is, is something that's only freeing for me...

               ~A. D. Smithson   MARCH 2013

Lady, your room is lousy with flowers.
When you kick me out, that's what I'll remember,
Me, sitting here bored as a loepard
In your jungle of wine-bottle lamps,
Velvet pillows the color of blood pudding
And the white china flying fish from Italy.
I forget you, hearing the cut flowers
Sipping their liquids from assorted pots,
Pitchers and Coronation goblets
Like Monday drunkards. The milky berries
Bow down, a local constellation,
Toward their admirers in the tabletop:
Mobs of eyeballs looking up.
Are those petals of leaves you've paried with them ---
Those green-striped ovals of silver tissue?
The red geraniums I know.
Friends, friends. They stink of armpits
And the invovled maladies of autumn,
Musky as a lovebed the morning after.
My nostrils prickle with nostalgia.
Henna hags:cloth of your cloth.
They tow old water thick as fog.

The roses in the Toby jug
Gave up the ghost last night. High time.
Their yellow corsets were ready to split.
You snored, and I heard the petals unlatch,
Tapping and ticking like nervous fingers.
You should have junked them before they died.
Daybreak discovered the bureau lid
Littered with Chinese hands. Now I'm stared at
By chrysanthemums the size
Of Holofernes' head, dipped in the same
Magenta as this fubsy sofa.
In the mirror their doubles back them up.
Listen: your tenant mice
Are rattling the ******* packets. Fine flour
Muffles their bird feet: they whistle for joy.
And you doze on, nose to the wall.
This mizzle fits me like a sad jacket.
How did we make it up to your attic?
You handed me gin in a glass bud vase.
We slept like stones. Lady, what am I doing
With a lung full of dust and a tongue of wood,
Knee-deep in the cold swamped by flowers?

In Japan, there was an ice cold assassin, that rose through the ranks of the Lin Kuei Clan.   Mid snow flurry, he could avoid every flake, and seize the brittle crystal without breaking it.  He could walk on snow without sinking in, japan's cold winter, is when he was unopposed and most ruthless--slaying debtee and their family.  His ice cold ego, came into contact with a shaolin warrior, who was trained to feel the cold, and never run away from it, nor get used to it, but feel the chill everytime without hardening his self.  Sub-Zero was defeated but not killed, and scorned to the Gods during a snowstorm, " I am the better, and was defeated by a lessor, I appeal to the powerful, give me the power of ice, so that no one shall adapt to my soul's chill, give me the power and my clan shall be in service to you."

Then a snow crystal fell, bigger than most, and he clutched it, and looked in his palm, the crystal was in the form of a pentagram.  The wind whispered, " The most cold and still realm of hell will be in your veins, if you partaketh of this crystal."  And the power of ice, that no man could withstand was at his disposal, and he was locked in a contract, that was unbreakable.

He rose to leader of the clan, and changed the color of the assasin uniform to the color of the cold region of hell, and he could not find the shaolin warrior who defeated him, and so slayed his mentor.
One hot day, his soldiers came back defeated, by a pearl diver, who refused to pay tribute to their mafia.  Sub-zero impaled the clan's soldiers who had their uniform in tatters--by raising jagged ice spears from hell.  The ice never thawed, and the men never fully died, but looked up at the high cieling from their bespearment to a mosaic of an icy and lonely realm-- a message to anyone who fails the clan--that you shall be pierced and preserved.  Sub-zero took the rest to pay a visit to the pearl diver who had stained the Clan's uniform with the blood color of disgrace.

The pearl diver, was in the bay diving down to the bottom for pearls.  He felt the water suddenly get cold, and swam upward to the surface, where he came in contact with the surface of the water, frozen over, and he saw the boots walking over the ice.  They were holding heads that leaked onto the clear ice underfoot and as the pearl diver struggled for air underneath, he saw the heads of his family dropped onto the ice.
Then Sub-zero kneeled down, holding his wife's head to the drowning pearl diver, and placed it on the ice, so he shall see the horrid picture as he drowned underneath.  The Clan took leave, from the bay.

The pearl diver did not fear death, but went mad, as he sank downward into oblivion, staring upward, rage took over his once good heart, and he turned away to look into the depths, shouting " Let me born again, so I shall live a life of fire, so that anyone who dares come close, shall be scolded, GOD OF REVENGE, LET ME BE BORN AGAIN."
The pearl diver breathed in the water unblinking, and his heart stopped, but still he lived as he sank reaching the bottom and there was a scorpion at his feet, and the depths spoke, " Let this scorpion sting both your eyes, and command the fire of hell, and be born again, to melt the ice."
He took the scorpion--who glowed hot in the dark depths-- and stung his eyes, his pupils went from his eyes, leaving milk swirls as his ovals of revenge.  " Now let it snip your lips and chin, so that you may breath the painfull sting of fire upon your enemies without singing your own flesh."

The scorpion greedily ate his lips, tongue and chin, giving him a mouth guard of skull.  " Now you are born again Scorpion, arise, and REVENGE."

Scorpion, screamed, no longer a human voice, but demonic, and grabbed the chain from his boat anchor, and climbed. Upon reaching the ice barrier, he touched his hands to it, and burned a hole and emerged forth.  He pulled up the chain with ease into the air from the depths, the metal barb on the end that served as an anchor, was now for impaling hearts and not the sea bottom.  He snapped his arm and the chain coiled around his arm, ready to sail out to impale and bring his enemies up to his eyes, so they can feel the painfull sting of fire up close, and see Scorpions eyes.
He walked to shore, his feet singing and melting Sub-zero's ice as he walked.
His walk was illusive, as a flickering flame, Scorpion could not be percieved directly without mesmerizing, as a fire in total darkness.

He reached shore, and found a Clan member, he harpooned him with his chain and barb, and brought him close to his face with his chained anchor, and melted the henchman's face with his hot breath.
He stripped him naked with his curved pearl knife, and donned the uniform of the Lin Kuei, ice blue, then the uniform turned yellow from his hot blood underneath, turning the uniform yellow as if it was boiled alive in a ***.  Scorpions' veins serpentined on his forearms, his muscles always a'sweat and full of blood .  The color of his revenge was yellow, mocking the blue Lin Kuei's uniform with the color of cowardice.

He tracked down Sub-Zero to his Clan hall that resembled the cold layer of hell with victims adorning his walls and floors that were pierced by ice sculpture and still a 'quarter alive staring at the cieling.  Sub-Zero felt the slight thaw of his ice, and knew the presence of Scorpion.  

Scorpion flickered from the torches that bedecked the walls, and burnt the guards throats with his hands so they crawled around uselessly.  When a clan member espied the demonic ninja, Scorpion was behind him, breathing on his neck, and the guard fell to the ground in three pieces.

Sub-Zero's throne room, had no torch, no fire, and Scorpion could only enter without his flame illusion through the front tall doors.  
" You have fought your way into my layer, just to realize it is a glacial tomb assassin," saithe Sub-Zero.

" Scorpions demonic voice echoed to him, " YOU HAVE MURDERED DOWN THE PATH OF LIFE, BUT THE PATH WAS THE THROAT OF A DRAGON, AND I AM ITS BELLY, YOUR TOMB OF STINGING ACID."

Scorpion took Sub-Zero's eye from him with his harpoon chain, and beat him mercilessly with kick and punch.  Sub-Zero's summoned ice but it only melted near Scorpions hatred.  But the water from the melt, slowed Scorpion--so it was hand to hand by their opposite powers, negating their satanicly endowed powers.  

But Sub-Zero was the creator of Scorpion, and so had the advantage.  Being beaten, and his face smashed, his nose flattened to his face, exposed rib slats, and his testicles smashed, Sub-Zero feigned mortal injury and non-defence as Scorpion walked up with his milky eyes to do his finishing move.

Sub-Zero's forearm protruded in injury from Scorpions kick before, and formed a sharp dagger, and this dagger sunk in Scorpions brain from beneath his chin.  Sub-Zero won with the treachery he knew best.  But Scorpion's body turned to hell's flames, and melted the layer completely drowning the wounded Sub-Zero, killing him, as Scorpion himself died the second death being extinguished in cold water of the clan layer.



They were sent back to hell, and forced to stand side by side of eachother, as Satan's servants of fire and ice--still donned in the Lin Kuei assassin robe,belt, and face-guard.
All of the magmatic, scolding statalactites dripped behind Scorpion who stood before the entrance to the fiery region of hell.  He stared forward with his scolding white phosphorus eyes.

Behind Sub-Zero, was the still and frozen layer.  He stood next to Scorpion, to the entrance of his own realm, with pupils bordered by ice frozen rivulets.  The proximity to eachother was their hell, and Satan was their master.  Scorpions pyscho hatred heat always attacking Sub-Zero's callous cruel cold, and vice versa, so as they never became adapted to the terms of hell and eternity.

In Benidorm there are melons,
Whole donkey-carts full

Of innumerable melons,
Ovals and *****,

Bright green and thumpable
Laced over with stripes

Of turtle-dark green.
Chooose an egg-shape, a world-shape,

Bowl one homeward to taste
In the whitehot noon :

Cream-smooth honeydews,
Pink-pulped whoppers,

Bump-rinded cantaloupes
With orange cores.

Each wedge wears a studding
Of blanched seeds or black seeds

To strew like confetti
Under the feet of

This market of melon-eating
Fiesta-goers.

The clock was set back,
and now night rots
away the afternoon.
Gray light spills,
slouches, sloughs
into my hair,
my hands, across
all these strangers.

Ovals of alcohol
keep the rain away.
My life is moving
stave by stave.
I used to go to school,
have a social circle,
idle through hobbies,
new days, new days.
What the hell happened?

Just like any other town, except the middle school is in an old strip mall, selling free education. The bank advertises a “Kalachi Festival” and nothing else, not low interest loans or free checking. The streets are lonely, but then again, it’s Sunday morning and most are at church. Where I’m headed, riding passenger, just for you. I hate riding passenger, but I’ll let you wear the pants today, I’ll stick to my fifties inspired floral skirt and clichéd pink teddy bear sweater. We arrive. Nine-thirty on the dot. Right on time, you say “I told you we wouldn’t be late.” I roll my eyes and breathe deep as I open your car door. We walk across the gravel lot to a low lying building. Church. No loud music or free coffee to hide behind. No large crowds or jumbo screens. Just people. We go into a classroom. Read from the bible. Meet people whose names I promptly forget. But that’s okay, they forget me too.
We finish on the gospel of John. And take a bathroom break, I take a while, not willing to endure the awkwardness that is sure to occur if I exit before you do. I stare at my reflection and regret my eyeliner. I’m glad I wore flats, not heels, and feel a bit overdressed to be honest. I exit, after using hand sanitizer as hand soap, realizing, then proceeding to wash my hands again. You’re talking to an elderly woman, she’s small, fragile. I hug her awkwardly, I’m terrible at meeting people. Another deep breath. Your father comes into view. What if he hates me? What if you realize you’ve made mistake? What if I accidentally say ****? ****. ****. ****. Deep breath out. Shake hands, smile and greet awkwardly, yet again. Meet Pearl and Ruby. The Two Jewels of the church. Meet Leonard. Joke with leonard, Think of my grandfather and how I should call him. Mentally punch myself in the arm. Greet your mom, get told I’m pretty, laugh, not knowing what to do.
I sit next to Alanna and the *** Smoking boyfriend, Scott. Sing. Pray. You do announcements. Everyone takes communion, Myself included. You pray, with such conviction and belief I’m confused. I put on the pious face for the congregation. Look innocent. Observe. Sing again. No instruments, only robust voices, all together. Your hand is in mine for the sermon. Finding it hard to concentrate, I notice the approximate age and décor of the church. Probably mid-late seventies. The Mauve carpet reminds me of my mother. She loved mauve in the 90’s, when it was popular. Exposed beams make it feel more like a chapel. They remind me of my church at home. There’s a choir section, making me realize it could have been another church at some point, you don’t have choirs. The sermon’s finished. Your hand has left red marks on mine, small ovals that you fuss over. We make our way out of the church. The last to leave. Following your parents home.
You lived in the country. In a wooden house that reminds me of my first house in Perry. Covered in dark wood. Your kitchen reminds me of my mother, covered in sunflowers, her favorite. You give me a quick tour.  The art that covers the walls of your home is yours and your siblings. I’m amazed. We clomp down the stairs; “they’re extra steep” you warn. Your mother’s preparing lunch. I contemplate offering to help, but don’t want to look like an *** if she says yes and I mess something up.
We retire to the living room with your father. He asks about my family. My parents, an Engineer and a Marketing Director. He asks about their expectations for me. Asks me if I live in the country, No, I reply, I live on the golf course. His eyebrows raise further. ****. I should have left that out. He thinks I’m wealthy. I’m not, neither are my parents. Mercifully we get called in for lunch. Roast, salad, corn, cantaloupe, potatoes, I love home cooking. You peer pressure me into cheesecake. Your father suggests you take me to the pond. You think twice. Taking in my shoes and skirt. We go anyways. Kiss as soon as we’re out of sight. I wish we could just lie down beneath a tree and sleep. We walk back to the house. Collect groceries and money, Even me. We go to the car. Drive away. You’re tired. So am I, we fight a little on the way back, mostly joking. We fall into bed and sleep away the morning. Which you say went well, I’m still unsure.

Pencil lapsed over paper, strokes struck blank.

Curves raced up and down the stairs, lines longed to curve.
Loops eloped to a wedding
Spirals sprung out,
Dashes dashed,
Crosses squares with circles
Triangles jumped over rectangles
Ovals wove throughout

Dot was left to point out
The empty blank around him

Something so little can hold my life
An orange cylinder, the size of my palm.
A bunch of mini ovals that can make me sleep in no time
A handful of them, going down my throbbing throat, have never made me so calm.

Oh, how I wished I could change my mind
But this sad life of mine is something I can not bare.
Oh, how I wish I could give myself some more time
But this woe is all I am in this air.

And here I lay in tight space filled with water
My arms numbed with red
Finally I’ll be depression’s martyr.

aristotle and plato were convinced that the circle was the heavenliest shape in all of creation. it was eternal. but, see, the ellipse is that much better. the oval is the imperfect circle, the imperfect shape that instead of having one heart has two, the sound of an open mouth as you gasp, the shape of fingerprint bruises.

the earth moves in an ellipse. all of the planets do. as we spin around the sun, you and i are planets. no wonder when i see you from afar, i can't breathe; we're just in space.

you are neptune. you are deep blue and stormy sea clouds that look like sweat and work, but you are mysterious and beautiful and so far away. when you are neptune, i am uranus, being pulled by the way you move.

sometimes i am saturn. i am swollen with the dust and dirt that make up my outsides. when i am saturn, you are jupiter: a friend who is bigger than i am.

we're space stations and metal, too cold to touch until we get hot from the movement of each other. we're satellites and moons and space-time fabric.

aristotle and plato were convinced that the circle was the heavenliest shape in all of creation. i think that they're so wrong. the shape of your hips, your words, your kindness, your taste, your mouth, your body, your creativity, your sweetness all end up tasting like eternity and heaven.

my heart beats in circles sometimes. but, when i look at you, my heart beats like you and i and ovals.

Round about she goes
spinning circles, oblongs, ovals, and eggs.
Sure as the bite the cold wind blows
The circles must be spun

Lying in bed
a picture of dreamy isolation and tranquility
but without a doubt within her head
the circles must be spun

Her breath is steady
But her mind racing with today, tomorrow, occasionally yesterday
Why can’t I just sleep already!
The circles must be spun

Her patience runs thin
An awakened mind does little for a slowed body
Nails digging into skin
The circles must be spun

Red lines focus the mind
Pulling it away from the insistent circles
But short lived is relief of this kind
The circles must be spun

Other remedies have their ways
Turning the circles into two points connected
But tonight there shall be no such daze
The circles must be spun

So round about she must turn
Allowing the circles to turn, grow, and consume
Slowly they become cause for concern
The circles must be spun

To her never ending surprise
the spinning has slowed and the world blurred
The faithless sun begins to rise
The circles have be spun

GLUTTONY


Go ahead and gorge yourself upon gallons of gaudy garments,
Gaining more weight got by galling garish goods I guess won’t
Ground

Let loose to the luscious luxuries of lackluster lemon and
Lots of lulling bedtime letters that will surely let at bay the
Ladies

Unravel your unctuous mind and unwrap the unstoppable urge
That undeniably lives under unruly layers of
Unproductive

Together bring the talk of taking another tackle to your taciturn tally,
Taller the score and take down the tormenting tickling
Tack

Over and over in obscure ovals until objective becomes apparent
Only leaving orbs of former obliqueness’ obliging to
Object

Never again nourish the need to negate the null to nonsense,
Leave behind the knots of then and live the neat of
Now

Yesterday was yellow in yielding to yearning and
Today is your yet to the question of no or
Yes











GREED



Gradualy every great thing grounded in your gaudy life will grain,
Falling from grander to
Greed

Run away you realize will render you ridiculously reeled
Be the regal recall of natures
Ranting

Even then elude the everlasting elasticity of your sins
Only to elect your own faults and
edict

Evermore entrapped in the entity of your greed which eels
Its way through your
Etiquettes

****** to depths of hell’s dungeons you will go down
If you never fix your
Deeds.







WRATH



Wound so tightly your will won’t save you when the
Day weans of light to
Wear

Repent all you require if you really must, no reprise
Will be your
Reward

Again and again you’ve all but alleged all of your agitations
And now do you
Abject

Too many you take to the top and through to the terrible
Tale of
Tartaras

How do you have your hallowed hot-headed hate now
Had by all you
hocked







SLOTH



Silently slithering fangs strike and pierce into your supple skin
The serpent of Hades himself forcing you to succumb to
your sloth

Legs let leave your longing to linger standing
The lull of the luscious leisure of laziness
Calling you

Over and over you omit the need to oblige
Object the obscurities and overcompensate the
obligation

Though it takes away tell of your toes, stunning your talk
Teathering you to a tree and leaving you to the
terrors

However hollow the halo, the hearth of hasty hearts, may be,
you cannot halt it before is has you in its hold
sleep








LUST


Linger in line a little longer until your litenous lust
lessens to lethargic
larceny

Undone and unset you undermind your unity
and uncite all uncertainty, understand to this
ulcer

Slung across a slat singing sultry in your stipple,
you slew to sound off your
sanity

Taught thoughtless logic tenderly apply topical treatment
to tape together the tatters, tonight a temporary
Tylenol








ENVY



Eject and exact illusions of elected goals eluding your reason
So eject them for
Ever

Never return, never negate the negligence of this nuisance,
Need it
Not

Vanquish your venomous vicarious visions so vivid
I assure you not very
Vivid

Yearn no more and yearn by years how yellow
Can yell the
Yetti








PRIDE



Perniciously palpable pigs of pride that so prate way their progress,
Putting all but prosperity in their own
Propensity

Ridiculously cold rendering the most righteous of realist,
Even relenting to the racketeering of a
Rider

I too see an iota of insolence in intemperate impostors
Of what internal instances tell us is
Intimidating

Down the street dally a day and discover how detrimental
Such a disease dilutes the delineation of our past
Delegation

Even if one ever eludes the elasticizes of this eccentric extortionist
Eventually another will emit it upon to you again
entirely

Cosmic serpent
Flies in circles
Orbits earths
Visits vessels
Stings and wrestles

Prowls the plain
The desert arrangements
Faces fire no fear
Takes one look at the spider

Sees through the fire
Undresses the only envy
The necessity plenty
Of spiraling ascent

To meaning manifest
A plunge into the nest of the fortune cookie prophecies

Fate pulled from a hat
In the terraforming visions of the seven breasted harpy speech devours itself
The visioneer’s ouroboros precludes ovals of assimilation clinging tight to the exoteric
The vessel rejects the half digested
An ammonia laden upheaval

Dispelling folderol with blinding reverence
Inviting tragedy with nostalgic foresight
Wet nightmares
Logic abandons the visioneer ****** into the opposite of static

I saw a sticker on a car coming home from work this afternoon.
One of those "international ovals" that used to indicate a foreign country
like France, Switzerland or, if you believe the TV commercials,
Detroit.

Now they stand for everything from the local swim team
to the driver's favorite species of dog
although pinning it on the driver might be unfair
probably better to say the owner.

The sticker I saw today, and it was a sticker not a magnet,
it was stuck on the window,
was OLF and it made me miss mom more than yesterday,
Mother's Day, did.

OLF stands for Our Lady of Fatima, the local Catholic Church
and it was adorning an SUV of appropriate size and sticker price for these parts.
Mom always called Fatima, Saint Olaf's because everyone around here calls it OLF
so it wasn't her fault.

Every time I, or my wife, politely corrected her she'd reply,
"I know" and then promptly call it Olaf's ten minutes later.
So today waiting for the green light on the way home
a little sadness as St. Olaf's SUV reminded me of mom.

and
I laughed.

I have been bright, hovering for weeks with the edges of ovals I so narrowly believed to be bicycle wheels,
discovering good friends in places right under the windowsill, freshening up the roses
in the pots I'd forgotten about on the back porch.

and there's you, a dream perhaps,
a sliver of pecan pie left over from the holidays but increasingly fresh
I'd like to twinge the tremors in your body that make you hum
and satiate pulsing bodies in flat, parallel lines of desire and decisiveness
I'd like to be the twisting ivy on the brimming edges of tentative youth,
to scale your walls and snuggle in the safety of wonderment and lack of knowing,
any better.

I'd like to make the bluebirds sing with throats of slim-cut rubies,
to have contentment and a battle born, hand held, period of time in which
I can enjoy a piece of dessert, well deserved

warm weathers with a warmer heart:
i stretched out my arms
and embraced her with all i am.
this girl threw an ocean of words,
of images, of emotions, and even of silence at me
over a mango shake, kimchi fishcake,
and a pair of hot matcha lattes.
she challenged me to a doodle dare
when i told her i don't draw humanity,
as much as i wanted to draw her right there on the spot.
let's draw those people on that side of the cafe
ah, a people-watching activity!
just our kind of hobby that immerses us within society
while being in our own little world!
i noticed she draws people first
then the background according to the proportions of the persons;
yes, a people-watcher observing another people-watcher
unlike me who starts off with the walls and furniture of the space.
she drew the ovals for body proportions;
her pencil marks done gently, focused and magnified,
much like how she holds herself up.
thus we were satisfied with unfinished sketches
and incomplete acapella song covers;
and it definitely was a finished day–
complete with her presence,
photographs taken with cameras and our memory's eyes,
inside jokes about boys and talks about life outside.
the sun is getting lower
as the hour hand is getting higher.

Time continues but we paused.
So I'm up for another round with you, Lou.

i am your woman in
ruby red silk sari with
gold thread-
i bear the mark of a
married woman high
on my forehead

for you i cook aromatic
spiced lamb-tender as
the light over morning
calcutta
yellow rice soft as a
painter's yellow ochre
on drying pallate

for hours i have watched
over slow rising flat bread
each  ****** of the heel
of my hand forming warm
dough into flat ovals

i bathe in the essence of
warm sandalwood and
the fruit smoke of incense

tonight i give to you the
secrets of womanflesh and
take you to me david
under white gauzy canopy
as the garden peacock
prims it's silken feathers
under the shadow of the
sundial-

tonight i am your temple
and the gods smile softly
with pleasure.            
                       ana christy

(1)ones laughing like a dog with 2 22's
who're like 3: a whorish slightly giggling mess
3 prods the carpet by footed semblance of leather
assembling her flesh in the left corner of a lazy
rectangle cinema cube. 1nes still cackling throat
******* cords vibrating stupidly on every face              with the 2 maybe 23's

mouthhanding and eyefucking with his fat grunt syllabary. 3's uncomfortable
atthe sycophantic panting of her 23's atthis masculine discharge
wetting the silence a pulsing ***** of tongue barking *****           .     as an usher ushers fleetly our
moist intellects to the quiet little. the quiet little notch. of waiting excited
screaming visuals a screen crucified blathering.

the 1's ungiddy prance detonates by the skinnyjeaned legs pumping fetid motion. in company of long femininity. and the ovals of 3
grate swift bile at they're lump. and they swallow inthedarkness
his moronic spit. and puke  .    .                                        .

specifically:very:yes the gray grows
speaking slowly rainy bones
disheveled drooping vertebrae
c
ambered lovely death .a wrist bangled stupid colour's

      finely pounded grains galloping fleet ovals
the apt pupil dodders and the sky is a *****
why today?rain

She lay in the bath, half asleep or half awake she wasn't sure, but the warm water floated gently around her infinitely. And just like the memories in her mind the water lapped aimlessly at nonexistent edges, spilling over, as if wandering off the edge of the world.  
She moved her hand carelessly to tuck an escaped strand of hair behind one ear as the water hugged the creases and crevasses of her body, all contained in a white bowl of serenity with the only disruption in her mind. She starred absentmindedly into the reflection in the water, a distorted and watery version of her blue eyes and curly hair, although somewhere inside her she knew she was beginning to feel more like her reflection every day. Her tear stained eyes stared back at her, the makeup smudges making her look skillfully tired and worn as though an artist himself had hand crafted her very face and in the process aged her 5 years. Inside she lulled away, wanting to melt into the water and never care about anything more than was necessary. The soft, happy, carefree side temporarily locked away, with a combination that even she did not yet know. Instead an emotional whirlwind of feelings, angry and powerful tunneled out, amplified by so much as a word or a thought. It was these moments that almost took her by surprise, as if it was someone else pushing these people out, in an attempt to avoid explaining. This was accompanied by feeling as though the world had given her everything to live for and everything to lose in one breath. Her ragged breathing had eventually softened to an emotional sigh of trembling lips as she reimbursed herself with more hot water. Feeling it burn on her leg she watched pink ovals appear,  stinging with regrets and pain, a constant wishing to go back and re do and apologies and pause and rewind and forward.
With a click of her heel she snapped the plug away, maybe in some attempt to also drain herself of her tribulations that had almost enveloped her entire bath. Watching the water disappear quickly, she was entranced at the waters escape, loving how eager it was to run away from her. And with this she felt relief, as though she could finally breathe.

If I left the earth today, what would they say?

A few would cry.
Dry your eyes
Live on and dream for me
Carry my soul in your hearts
Make sure, that I never fade away.

Take me to a place
Where angels place seeds into the cores of pears;
Gently intertwining the juicy fibers
Into nearly perfect ovals.

Go to sleep
Don’t wake up; Don’t blink!
Rest your eyes and sleep

Sleep with me
I promise, I will always rest on your shoulder

Droplets of sweat flattened on our foreheads under the weight of a mid-August sun—flattened into ovals of sticky sodium, catching specks of stray dirt swept into the air from the passing semi’s and transport trucks, whipping the wind into torrents of chalky highway dust.

Pressed high against the skies curved plain, we used our thumbs to browse the passing cars like pages of an anthology enclosed by a narrow spine of asphalt.

But when one pulled onto the shoulder and we approached the passenger side window, we too were ****** with the expectation and appeal of a library—mutually eager in the labour of conversation for the currency of experience.

For a moment, as the prairie receded in the side mirrors, our car became the baseline of a frantic cardiogram, crowded by the landscape of rising granite walls and low-hanging canyons, and the space between our separate lives closed like parallel lines drawn by gravity to a magnetic core.

We pushed our destination west, as far as it would go, safe on the heels of expectation. In motion the passing towns crackled like neurotransmitters firing signals over axons of black asphalt. But each time the car slowed to release us, one more they faded into a rancid stasis, that, once more, we aimed only to depart.

In moments such as these
My skin aches with recollection
Of how it was when passions ran high
And silence was filled with devious, knowing eyes

In moments such as these
My mind strains to find a masterpiece
Anything that will gather your attention
From the mundane distractions its lost within

In moments such as these
My questions begin in endless ovals
Pushing adrenaline and anxiety as I wonder,
"Is this really what I'm resigning my youth to?"

In moment such as these
I lie in silence searching for a revival
But now the quiet crushes me
And any eye contact is dull, disappointed, and droopy

I am in fourth grade--ten years old,
first period, first kiss, first full shave
from armpit to ankle.

The teacher pulls me aside--all smiles
and maternal excitement.
She tells me that my test scores put me
in the 98th percentile.

I **** my head, recalling the soft-lead, the
guarded pencil sharpener at the front of the room,
and the bullseye ovals that tested my mind,
my palm sweat, my straining eyes.

I am in fourth grade--ten years old,
first violent fight with my mother, first homosexual
fantasy, first dressing room meltdown.

The pediatrician pulls me aside--half austerity, half pity.
He tells me that I need three HPV shots, and by the way,
my weight puts me
in the 98th percentile.

My eyes sink back into my face, and the flood doesn’t come
until I am home, curled into my mother’s breast,
wondering how to divide my head into
Focused Student and Focused Starver.

I am in fourth grade--ten years old,
times tables and long division and calories
in an apple and calories burned in a playground brawl.

I learn to count my success in numbers and my failures
in grams, pounds, inches, threats
of fat camp, images of thick yellow fat
sandwiched between my organs.

I am in fourth grade--ten years old,
98th percentile and chewing and spitting and growing
and pinching the body that I cannot call my own--
and numbing the brain that matches the magnitude of my fullness.

I am a split-girl, a shame reservoir spilling
over and out and coating my paper with fractions and plans
of calculated disappearance.

I am in fourth grade--ten years old,
and the teacher’s clock doesn’t stop, and the and the doctor’s scale doesn’t pause
to make room for my magnitude.

The puckered skin is healing
it will stain my skin
like the other two
reminders of the shame I felt
the pain inside
and the war that was going on in my head
The puckered skin is healing
raw skin showing
pink in colour
soft to the touch
The puckered skin reopens
spilling its content
emptying my mind
startling clarity
The puckered skin reminds me
of days where I felt the world was against me
of days where my heart and mind were too full
filling me with a fire I could not extinguish
The puckered skin will heal
The puckered skin will heal
The puckered skin will heal
and once again
my heart will spill
ovals of puckered sin
ovals of puckered skin

and we’re back there again,
moved some seats around,
why change something
not broken I said.
Your eyes,
topaz ovals watch me
as I take off my hat,
a treat for a change
from that shop
on the high street.
Conversation,
a roll of sticky tape,
the novel,
your very first
with chapters, a title
and a pretty front cover
is moribund, liquid words
that don’t mean what they did
six weeks ago.
I tell you I write
but the pendulum wobbles
between A* and a C,
if nothing much happens
there’s nothing much to say.
The coffee bites my tongue,
flames zip along my bottom lip
like the strike of a match
as you talk
about these names
with no faces
in your life, bubbles
on the scene.
I know before long
they will pop and be gone
but keep quiet
for I am one of them,
floating around longer than most.
The water
still hasn’t boiled for us yet,
it probably never will,
what I have to say
stays stored in my head
sealed up as Christmas knickknacks,
DO NOT OPEN
in black marker
on the side.
You’ll read, you’ll see,
you’ll no doubt laugh,
once a pen pecks my page
what has started
must end.
You kick me back awake
under the table,
I must have half a book
already.

She tiptoed through the city playing 'Hot Sticks' on her snare drum
Her fire-engine-red bright-as-****-mother-*******-snare-drum
Midnight street lights jumped off the chrome tube lugs harder then her four sixteenth notes
Never had realized how good the acoustics were here on 47th
Not so much an echo
A reverb
The lights on behind every curtain
Children pressing oils stains into the windows leaving little ovals of fog from their nostrils
Old ladies in the middle of dialing 911
The telephone wire shoes tap dancing her rhythm on the sky
pop ta-pop-pap-op pop pop-pap-pap-pap-ta-pap-pat
Tip toeing
Like she was yelling the whole world the biggest secret she could think of just wanted to make sure she didn't wake her parents in the next room
I can't remember what she wore

A dress, I guess
Whatever
She kissed my cheek and bit my shoulder
Tip toed away
Blue high heels...****** eye-shadow blue high heels
I yelled at her, "Why are you tip toeing, you've already woken the whole neighborhood?"
Without a thought
Without a pause
Without missing a beat she yelled back,
"If I am going to wake them all up anyway it ought to be with my song, not my step"
I sat down and heard the stem of a flower snap beneath me

The drumming was gone, all the lights were off
There were no footprints to follow
My shoulder dry
My cheek a tingle
I had woken them with my step
Had no song to put them back to sleep with that night
Tried to whisper a lullaby
Instead pulled the trumpet from my pocket
Blew 'Taps' the whole way home
A string of cop cars, and yelling ladies with their curlers in behind me
Stage lights and groupies
And from somewhere in the fog my desperate attempt to wake them all up became a duet to play them back to sleep.