She stood up against the wooden bar lit by a stale football field that shined florescent green and highlighted polyester blue like a muse of Van Gogh or Galileo. Her hair ran down the nape of her neck like a ****** waterfall and the light of the bar highlighted her sphinx like eyes as she turned and caught his eye. He stood at a small table away from the main bar with a couple of friends who were telling stories of their old college days and he, half-listening, quickly looked away, faking to scratch his eye, for he knew he had been caught looking at the back of her and she, with her women's intuition of being observed and knowing this, kept looking and he knowing the only way not to show he had been caught was to look away quickly and very obviously; like a bad actor caught dumb and silent, clueless of their next line. They blushed and shared the heat of embarrassment in their cheeks with the sounds of worn dollar bills slapping hard against the smooth wood of the bar, the bar man eyeing it angrily as cigarette smoke surrounded them and slowly drifted up like a lost soul toward the ceiling and the piano man, eyes tight shut played for everyone there when no-one cared to listen, all underneath the dim light of the bar as they strained to look away from one another, trying to find something they could put their focus upon, but, at the same time, wanting very much to look back and have their eyes meet by mistake all over again.

He focused on the design of the bathroom placards that were in the right corner of the tiny bar where you had to turn sideways and touch shoulder's with every soul inside just to get a drink. He feigned interest in the bronze design of the men's bathroom: a tiny boy looking down at his pecker as he ****** a 1/2 inch thick stream into what the man gathered to be a sunflower ***. The boy was thrusting his hips forward, both of his hands on his side, and he showed no smile, no grin of satisfaction or victory, just a stark, blank face, as if he were thinking "I am peeing in this ***. That is all." The women's bathroom sign was of a young girl with the same kind of *** the boy had been ******* in, but it was missing the sunflower and was replaced by the *** of the girl. She stared up into the sky and into the ceiling lights and was dramatically reaching for a butterfly or bird - he couldn't make out which - something with wings and made him think of a basic metaphor that this poor little girl just wants to get off the *** and be free like the birds and butterflies and clouds in the wide blue sky.

She focused on the man's shoes. She looked at the black shine and the pristine black shoe laces, all looking like everything had just been purchased that day. "There is not a single scuff on them and the way this man cuffs his pants only a single turn," she thought to herself, "Tells me he has something of a style on him". Not so run of the mill. Something special. Something of interest.* But then, she was annoyed by the cuff of the pants because she remembered that was what all the schoolboys in her prep school would do when the day was rainy or the boys rode their bikes home from school or they were nerds. The memory immediately turned her off of the man all together, but luckily, she put her gaze back on the jet-black, seemingly un-touched leather that told her success, class, and security.

The man heard a loud Cheer's!" from his table, abruptly bringing him out of his distraction. He was forced to turn and as he did, he made sure not to look up. He kept his eyes on the table and looked for the half-full beer with the worn Budweiser coaster underneath it. He could see from the his top periphery that she was still facing him but she was looking down at something toward the floor. He fumbled with his large hands for his glass and panned his eyes up slightly. The woman, seeing the movement at the table, looked up. She stared back to where she had first caught him looking at her and waited. The man felt her looking at him and in the same instant, saw the faded Budweiser coaster and reached for his beer. He picked the glass up and as the second Cheer! was yelled, he clashed his glass against all the others, all the while keeping his head not toward his friend's faces, but turned in the direction of the bar toward the girl. He smiled at her as he lowered his glass, not taking a drink. His friend slapped him on the back and told him," You gotta' drink after the cheers or its bad luck," and so he did, still staring dumbly at her as he did. She nodded at him with a self-conscious and embarrassed grin, raised her nearly gone low-ball glass of gin and tonic and tipped it toward him and turned around to face the bar.

"I"ll stand here and wait for him to come up to me," she thought, "And if he doesn't the man is a coward and a louse and not worth my time. I have looked twice now and there is some rule in some magazine that I read somewhere, that if you look twice at a man that it is sign, not a coincidence. No, it has a purpose and though I barely know what reason I want this man to look at me other then to get a drink out of him and maybe some conversation, I am certain I have looked twice, maybe even three times. Yes. I have looked at him and I have made my interest known and now I must wait for him to either come or stay with his drunken friends. They look like frat boys cheering like that. They look like drunken, silly frat boys that wouldn't know the first thing about chivalry. Hell, they probably couldn't even spell the ****** word." She laughed under her breath and smiled maliciously to herself and caught her own reflection in the mirror and, for an moment, wanted to quickly look away. Her face did not frighten her, for she was a beautiful woman, not her skin, which was milky white with the faintest and gentlest dash of rouge on each cheek, nor her chocolate colored curls that bounded like boulder's down a hillside. She turned away from a look upon her eye she had not seen or had recognized in a very long time. Her eyes were frightened.

"Frightened?" she wondered.

The man put his beer glass on the table on top of the coaster. The foam rested at the bottom of the cup like the thin layer of ice that blows over a frozen lake, barely there at all passing with the wind. He stared at her back and liked how she leaned on her right hip and put the toe of her left high-heel to the ground, rocking the nose of the shoe back and forth like she was thinking about something playfully frivolous. Behind him, the noise of his friends became a hollow echo, drowned out by the draw of this woman. She swung her left heel back and forth like a pendulum trying to hypnotize him. Someone touched his shoulder but he shrugged the hand away as in this echo chamber he could only hear the music change tracks on the juke box. The song had changed to an old Ottis Redding song and there was nothing else in the world that he wanted to listen to in that moment. As he watched her, leaning into the bar seemingly all alone, no boyfriend or girlfriend in sight, he saw her raise her glass to the barman and knew she had something by the gentle nod of the back of her head. He then saw her point with her left finger and tap the rim of the glass. Her drink was empty. She wanted another drink. He would buy her another drink.

"There is nothing in this world that a man is more responsible for than getting a woman like this a drink," he nodded, thinking to himself and trying to pick up his courage,"One that plays with my heart like a kitten would a spool of yarn, and yet also like a vulture who would peck out the eyes of a dead man in the desert. This is nothing more then that obligation. A rule passed down from man to man, from age to age, where chivalry was not for the base reason to lay with the woman, but to honor them, praise them lightly as the rain from a heavy mist and show them to the pedestal every woman, whether they wish to admit it or not, do wish for, sincerely do at least once in there life." He readjusted his belt and realigned his shirt that had gotten crooked after the celebratory cheer and thought some more,"I'm not going to do that here, this pedestal stuff. This is more like a step toward that pedestal. Yes. A step toward the shrine she wants to trust she deserves and will one day end up on. And this shrine is all cast and painted in the blurry french film noir of dream, is it not? Aren't dreams the only thing we hope to one day come true? How often - when and if they do come true - they can sometimes disappoint and eventually turn sour like a bad orange. I hope she is drinking and that wasn't just a tonic water. If this woman doesn't drink I don't think any of this will be worth anything at all."

She stood there serene and angelic, the hand that held her drink now resting on the base of the bar. Behind the man, he heard the chatter of his friends and the drone of football scores and player updates coming from the ten or more televisions that hung from the ceiling. Someone reached out to touch his shoulder but missed him as he left the table. His name then echoed behind him but soon the sound evaporated as dew does that rests on blades of grass in a summer morning to a summer afternoon. There was only her and her smell that had drifted to his table and shrouded him with the scent of white chocolate and smoke and her delicate, porcelain hand that had held up the drink shyly but not weakly, in passing demand without that demanding quality drunk people can get like at bars sometimes. He approached her, hovered behind her, but she did not turn, and then came up to the bar to lean into. He did not turn to look at her, though he wanted to very badly, but looked down at her low-ball glass with two half-melted ice cubes and a used lime. The smell of gin came from the glass and the man smiled to himself and put his hand up to signal the bartender.

"If this man orders his drink first and walks back to that table with all of his drunken friends, I am giving up men all together," the woman thought to herself," * Tonight and forever! If he can put his hand up and not even turn to look at me, as I was doing, I thought, to be very flirtatious but gentle, then I see no reason at all to keep going with men. They are barbarians that only want to eat, drink, sleep, and fornicate with women that are easy and provide no real challenge at all in their life. If he wants it easy, he can have it as easy as he wants, but not with me. No sir. Not with me ever. Not with me for a night, an hour, a minute, or even a second."

The bartender, a stout slightly overweight man that was a little over forty with streaks of grey in his thin, short-cut hair, looking very much like he should be home reading with a nice cup of tea by his side rather than in the bar serving drinks to stranger's, approached the man and asked him what he would like.

"Two gin and tonics please," the man said, "With a slice of lime and four ice-cubes in each."

"And what kind of gin, sir?"

The man turned to the woman, "What label do you drink?" he asked.

"Pardon me?" she stuttered startled, her eyebrows raised.

"Your drinking gin, aren't you?" He nodded his head toward the woman's empty glass. The tiny lines of transparent lime skin floated on top of the water that had gathered from the melting ice-cubes.

"Yes, I am. I was just about to order."

"I'll get this round and you'll get the next one."

"Any gin is fine."

The man turned to the bartender," Tanqueray, please bartender."

He nodded and went to make the drinks.

"Your very perceptive," the woman said as she turned to face him.

"I try."

"I saw you from across the bar, but was afraid to walk up to your table for fear of getting ambushed by all of your friends. Those are your friends, right?"

"Yes," he nodded as he looked over his shoulder at them, "Old college friends all with old stories of college that, truthfully, bring me little or no joy to even hear."

"Then why come at all?" she asked, "You seem smart enough to know that if you meet up with old anything, you'll be hearing about the old times all night."

"I was forced to come."

"Someone getting divorced?"

"No," he laughed, "The opposite. Married."

"Well, I hope it's not you or this would look very bad if your fiance walked in."

"And why's that?"

She clicked her tongue and turned to look at the shelves stocked with every kind of liquor. The bottles reflected the soft orange glow of the lights that circled the bar and the colors of the television screens. The man continued to look at the woman who had turned her back on him and caught their reflection in a bottle of Jack Daniel's. He waited for a response, but she stood there silent, knowing she was playing with him. Behind him, his friends were growing louder and a tray of shots had found its way to their table. The waitress who had brought the drinks, polite and with a smile, asked them to try and keep it down. They shouted "YES'S and screamed "YEAH'S" with moronic smiles on their faces, their heads nodding up and down like a dog playing fetch. The waitress giggled a thank and walked away shaking her head with disgust when she was out of sight.

"Well," she said,"You did just order two gin and tonics and I think if your fiance walked in with you chatting with me with the same drink in both of our hands, I think she would be a little upset. I know I would be."

"Perhaps we could act like we are old grammar school friends and just happened to run into one another?"

"Well, that would be a lie."

"Yes, that would be a lie."

"Which would mean we were hiding something from said wife."

"And what would that be?"

"That you approached me after I looked at you, perhaps the look from me wasn't flirtatious, maybe I thought you looked familiar, like I had seen you somewhere, and you came up to me and ordered me a drink and started a conversation with me, much like we are doing right now."

"What's wrong with conversation?" The bartender approached them and placed the two drinks in front of the man. The man took out his wallet without losing his gaze on the woman, took out a twenty and slid it toward the bartender. The bartender took the twenty, paused for a moment to see if the man wanted any change, but left when he saw he didn't want any by not moving.

"Conversation can lead to very dangerous things," the woman said playfully and wise.

"Your here by yourself and your not stupid; someone is going to come up to talk to you."

"And your that somebody?"

"I'm sure I'm not the first one tonight."

"Your sweet."

"I try," he said as he slid the drink over to here,"Your drink."

"What should we drink too?" She asked and raised her glass, the light above them reflecting in the ice-cubes and thick glass of the high-ball.

"Conversation," he said proudly and with a smile, "And the danger that it brings."

They clinked their glasses together, their eyes never leaving one another, and they both took a long drink.

"I'm not here with anybody and I'm not expecting anybody tonight either," the woman said.

"What's your name?"

"Why?"

"I want to be able to tell my friends I met a very interesting woman, but they won't believe me if I don't give them a name."

"I'm standing right here, silly. Go and tell them you met the most interesting woman in your entire life, look over at me when they ask you what my name is, then point over to me and I'll wave."

"You'll be here?"

"I'll be here."

"Promise?"

"Go, go, go," she repeated, pushing him back toward his table, "You bought me a drink, didn't you? The least I can do is wave to your drunken college friends."

The man walked back to his table, glancing quickly over his shoulder, trying to hide it, before he reached the table. He arrived to all of them drunk, beer spilt on the table and an ashtray full of punched out cigarettes and ground up cigars. Every one of them were rocking back and forth with each other, their arms sloppily hung around their neighbor's shoulders, their eyes blood shot with their mouth half-cracked open barely breathing in the smoky, beer smelling air. The man struggled to wedge his way into the circle, and when he did, he tried to get the groups attention by screaming an

disclaimer: unedited rambling and overly long and frankly, Scarlet, don't give a **** anymore...

Thus spake and quested
another, younger poet to me,
a far better one than I,
but obligations thus provided,
are serious business,
to those who understand
poetic responsibilities, and
under his own Rules of Order,
an answer,
though long in coming, AR,
must be provided.

Well well well
all is not well,
the faucets offers choices....
chrome hot
chrome cold

there is no such thing as
lukewarm truth in
clear waters that
run run,
yet never
run stilled,
birthed at turned-on conception,
to drain death removal,
another daily poetic miracle,
unappreciated by most,
overly consumed by their
own passage on this Earth

peddler wayfarer,
passing through with truth
poem pots and rattling pans
(nowadays, mostly panned),
a historic factoid,
and not what Amazon delivers...
truth is a genetically modified
bitcoin currency, misunderstood,
prone to sometimes useful,
but never ever, to stick or stain,
for I got excuses and who gives a ****,
yesterday is forgotten instantly

The coldest truths,
the confirmation of same
by mirrored image text sent,
(immediacy a necessity,
for though poor, it is 'real')
the twitter that methodically
A-lists your major crimes
B-lists your petty,
hope-you-didn't miss my
exposé of latest misdemeanors

the hot truths,
only whispered,
merely mint hinted
in a hot cuppa,
the heat itself
a cover up,
for what you do not
wish me to plainly speak
or plainly sell,
is accursed truths,
won't sell, even if free

Can't write about moon and June,
alabaster is a fine word,
but white suits me fine,
don't know the diff
tween dragon flys and lullabies

The way I write is
just the way I think, believe,
from my eyes to paper
there is no misdirection,
just silent labor conception

Poor poor real truth
is out of favor these days,
because there is nothing
no one won't cease or hesitate
to expose himself,
flaunt the anguish,
copy other's jive,
but that is real,
but it is not truth

Had a bad day,
You need to know about it
Right away!

Though I meander and excuse,
there is one state of truth,
I need yet to annotate

Too oft when tapped turned on,
it is rusty water and rusted truths
expelled and this, my stuff, my days,
not in vogue, or a top seller

I love the color rust,
overused in my poems,
but compulsion is not a
conditional, but a must

This then is the form
they spill in these,
my final days here

You might think that rust implies
lack of use,
a non-caring
for his voice,
his well practiced instrument

Au contrarie, amigo!

My rust is from overuse,
my eyes don't see
what the popular want nor
could I provide it
even if
it was demanded,
which it is not....

Rusted but unvarnished,
undisguised by fancy words
or silent cries, what you read
is what you get
until I find
a more "authentic" voice,
one that satisfies the world
not just me...he sneers....

Feel for me in the summer breeze,
from whence my best stuff
has always been plucked
sent on its way, to you,
in self-same wind,
to kiss your cheeks,
slap you alert

I used to write
on both feet
upstanding,
then Hillel was asked for
the whole truth
while standing
on just one leg

His reply:
"Love they neighbor as you love thyself"

So I switched
and now compose,
in quiet ignorance,
a wrong footed poet,
left only with his what's left,
and to put his left foot truths
first, forward and foremost,
is what he got, and
what I got, you'll get....

But a cautionary note,
drinking riposte rustys,
bad for the body,
but kindly
for your mental
wealth,
if your have the
only other element
most needed,
in your pocket posses,

courage

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Thus spake and quested
another, younger poet to me,
a far better one than I,
but obligations thus provided,
are serious business,
to those who understand
poetic responsibilities, and
under his own Rules of Order,
an answer,
though long in coming, AR,
must be provided.*

Well well well
all is not well,
the faucets offers choices....
chrome hot
chrome cold

there is no such thing as
lukewarm truth in
clear waters that
run run,
yet never
run stilled,
birthed at turned-on conception,
to drain death removal,
another daily poetic miracle,
unappreciated by most,
overly consumed by their
own passage on this Earth

peddler wayfarer,
passing through with truth
poem pots and rattling pans
(nowadays, mostly panned),
a historic factoid,
and not what Amazon delivers...
truth is a genetically modified
bitcoin currency, misunderstood,
prone to sometimes useful,
but never ever, to stick or stain,
for I got excuses and who gives a ****,
yesterday is forgotten instantly

The coldest truths,
the confirmation of same
by mirrored image text sent,
(immediacy a necessity,
for though poor, it is 'real')
the twitter that methodically
A-lists your major crimes
B-lists your petty,
hope-you-didn't miss my
exposé of latest misdemeanors

the hot truths,
only whispered,
merely mint hinted
in a hot cuppa,
the heat itself
a cover up,
for what you do not
wish me to plainly speak
or plainly sell,
is accursed truths,
won't sell, even if free

Can't write about moon and June,
alabaster is a fine word,
but white suits me fine,
don't know the diff
tween dragon flys and lullabies

The way I write is
just the way I think, believe,
from my eyes to paper
there is no misdirection,
just silent labor conception

Poor poor real truth
is out of favor these days,
because there is nothing
no one won't cease or hesitate
to expose himself,
flaunt the anguish,
copy other's jive,
but that is real,
but it is not truth

Had a bad day,
You need to know about it
Right away!

Though I meander and excuse,
there is one state of truth,
I need yet to annotate

Too oft when tapped turned on,
it is rusty water and rusted truths
expelled and this, my stuff, my days,
not in vogue, or a top seller

I love the color rust,
overused in my poems,
but compulsion is not a
conditional, but a must

This then is the form
they spill in these,
my final days here

You might think that rust implies
lack of use,
a non-caring
for his voice,
his well practiced instrument

Au contrarie, amigo!

My rust is from overuse,
my eyes don't see
what the popular want nor
could I provide it
even if
it was demanded,
which it is not....

Rusted but unvarnished,
undisguised by fancy words
or silent cries, what you read
is what you get
until I find
a more "authentic" voice,
one that satisfies the world
not just me...he sneers....

Feel for me in the summer breeze,
from whence my best stuff
has always been plucked
sent on its way, to you,
in self-same wind,
to kiss your cheeks,
slap you alert

I used to write
on both feet
upstanding,
then Hillel was asked for
the whole truth
while standing
on just one leg

His reply:
"Love they neighbor as you love thyself"*

So I switched
and now compose,
in quiet ignorance,
a wrong footed poet,
left only with his what's left,
and to put his left foot truths
first, forward and foremost,
is what he got, and
what I got, you'll get....

But a cautionary note,
drinking riposte rustys,
bad for the body,
but kindly
for your mental
wealth,
if your have the
only other element
most needed,
in your pocket posses,

courage

Across the road
A J-K girl,
Skipped and laughed
On her way to school.
She was strapped
To a big back-pack,
Looking like
A pink pack mule.
Behind her strove
Her drover,
Directing her to quarry
All the stones of learning.

By three o'clock
My minature mule,
A little slower
Trudged from school.
The pack was filled
With rules and tools.
She had panned
The ores of knowledge;
She'll assay them
In days to follow.

Each day my mule
Will turn the grindstone,
Crunching numbers,
Sifting fine poems.
She's mining all the hidden gems
To fill her back-pack
Once again.

One life by flames a Hero made

This just became a lot harder by its very nature I must cloak one identity shine all the light I can on the
Other harder because I was just reminded people find my writing hard to understand brothers at church
Out home can you be more simple use smaller words I could be stupid I’m a high school dropout I don’t
Know any big words well I did use imbecile in the seventh grade that was cool and got a reaction this
Started to be a tribute to a person who was rare although you can surely see glimpses of your dad
Brother or other male members of your family as I said to write you must follow truth strictly no
Deviation but before I could pay and honor the visible one another comes into view from the past with
This twist then he was the dark kight now he is a knight in shining armor the dark knight have him on
The Cross bar of a bicycle both of you have swimming trunks on you pass some tuffs with extra powerful
BB guns while your body shields him he lets off a litany of sailor inspired words directed at them they
Don’t return insults they open fire I have welts and his mother picks three B Bees out of my back did he
Feel any pain he was too busy laughing that was just one time not enough room here to give you the run
Down let’s just say as the only identifier he was a short racer came in first braver than the others but I
saw him in a class picture there is the strange part it touched my heart and then speaking to him on the
Phone my feelings were correct he is a great wonderful person then the stranger yet he so embodies by
Appearance and voice of the one I choose to honor here Stevie Rucker was about eleven that summer I
Met him his mother went to my wife’s church he was bright kind and melted people with his soft and
loving nature quite a contrast to his father a six foot four hard nose FFA inspector we were out at a
Restaurant in the city a foursome in the next room with a booth were using foul language I don’t know
The dim lighting could have been a factor but when this giant shadow fell on them and asks them to stop I
Don’t think they even talked loud after that. But this sweet little boy harbored a dream one day he was
Going to be a fire fighter then as dreams go it was shattered bad eye sight disqualified it was a dream
Worth fighting for so he took action a risky costly eye operation was the answer victory he moved to
Patoka California by now a wife and two toddlers a boy and a girl three boy five they lived in the foot
Hills of the Sierra Nevada mountain range ever where you were in great growth forest of course the
Red Woods get all the glory but take a stroll red clay earth and some of the most gorgeous nature you
Will ever find although the Great Smoky Mountains will give it a run for the money in a later story I will
Tell about them and the gnome mobile and the huge boar black bear that I thought I was going to have
To run to the car pull out my thirty thirty Winchester and start working the lever action to save seventy
Five tourists I put in Jeopardy by getting him out of a deep gully. Well life was good for Steve and his
Family he was living his dream our paths would intersect we stopped at Paso to break the trip in half to
Southern C and Disney land were heard about the fire in Dego it was bad enough that the whole LA
Basin was fogged in for two days the Santa Anna winds finally pushed it out to sea and up the coast I hit
It on the other side of San Louis Obisable in a gorge it was banked in and because of youthful lucky strikes and
Later sleep apnea I couldn’t breathe in the car until I hit the air conditioner well by the time we got
Home to check in at the hotel it was clear home is what Anaheim means in German then there was that
USA Today News paper again I looked and a face was staring at me older and thicker heavey set but I knew the face and then at
The bottom of the picture emotional train wreck a child so giving now as a man had given his life for
Strangers five to six hundred miles south from his home he died trying to save their homes he joined
Many others but these were fresh in my mind the folks who died in the fire storm in Oakland from the
Conflagration that took lives and homes and four lane highways on both sides couldn’t slow it down and
You have as much chance as out running a bullet as you do a fire as twenty five Idaho smoke jumpers
Found out they were racing out of a gorge scrambling to get over the top this natural configuration had
Become a chimney of living flame thirteen died instantly those others rolled over and away on flat
Ground at the top was spared. What could I do I wrapped myself in the only protection I could find he
Died a hero that kept the pain at bay how many times I invoked that statement it worked so well until at
The community center in Patoka where they honored Steve’s sacrifice it was televised Governor Arnold
Schwarzenegger and other state dignitaries his fire house buddies and other fireman from everywhere
Was there and then they panned down to his mother and father his father wasn’t so large anymore and
It was the last time I could use my shield as I looked and watched Pat weeping Uncontrollably over her
Lost son I thought you would like to know of this wonderful person I will close with a thank you in the
Language of the Lakota Sioux as his service had part of it in the native language of his tribe Pilamaya means thank you
Steve you are an inspiration we bow to greatness beyond our understanding

To my dear son, Boaz in distant Idaho,

Saturday nite, the whole of New Zealand waited in apprehension for the All Blacks rugy team to play the resurgent Wallabys @ Fortress Eden Park.

The previous week at Suncorp Stadium in Sydney, in driving rain, the All Blacks muddled through a painfull draw with the Wallabys, 12 points each with no tries.
The Wallabys had fancied their chances and had wanted an emphatic win on home soil.
Both teams took that score as a loss and the gauntlet was thrown for the second match…..

A brilliant evening, clear and fine , 50,000 people crushed in to Eden Park and you could feel the apprehension, the rest of the country sat in front of their TV willing the team on.
The Haka was given a brutal rendition, you could feel the determination, the passion emanating….the Ozzies glared their defiance back…it was all on!

10 minutes into a titanic struggle with the score three all Captain Ritchie McCaw had a brain fade and was yellow carded off for ten minutes by the French referee.
The crowd roared…then murmured their worry  like you’ve never heard before.

The Ozzies mustered a huge scrum which the All Blacks countered with one man down…. The counter ****** pushed the Australian scrum back 15 ft.
Every man in New Zealand was on his feet roaring, you could feel the spirit of nationalism soaring….the moment was a watershed.
The All Blacks counterattacked showing a brilliance in attack and defence we have not seen for years… and from that moment on the game was won.

Final score 51:20 The Bledisloe Cup was ours.

As the match finished the TV camera panned across the solidly black clad crowd…. I have never, ever in my life, seen so many, simultaneous, sets of white teeth grinning!

The trip home to Australia would have been… a very subdued affair.

Thought I should share this marvellous moment with you Boaz.

Luv Dad.

"io sol uno."
-Dante, Purgatorio

There I was,
the comic-tragic star of my own motion-picture,
bold beneath the springtime Italian sun hung high
--a heavenly fixture,
illuminating the gold-leaf enframed frescoes in
kaleidoscopes of colours,
baking dry the pigeon droppings upon the flagstones
they smothered,
where I, in all my self-serving recreation,
posed proudly in a costume of my own creation,
an operatic villain clad in a billowy blouse of black,
the Campanile Tower like a sentinel behind my back,
as movie cameras panned and zoomed,
paparazzi photographers capturing me
and freezing me,
in all my wicked, medieval glory,
floating and gloating in the dank aroma of the Venetian seas,
"I'm the shining star!
--Look at me, look at me!"*
-the super-special star I always knew I'd be,
a painted parody,
a harlequin of displaced passions
for all to laugh at and see,
before slipping silently
into the ornate basilica,
dim and dark as night,
thanking Mother Mary (for nothing) as I sparked
a votive candle's light,
not really sure or caring
where my life would lead,
just as long as the Azure Queen
shed Her Grace on me,
     me,
             me,

...until I fell
and fell
to the mockery of a home
I made in Hell,
hard and forever and fast,
the only fool left alone in my solo cast,
adrift with no direction,
****** and lost,
me and my frivolous theatre,
squandered an an extravagant cost.

___
"io sol uno" means, "I, myself, alone."

This poem is a true-life story.

__
See the Piazza San Marco, Venice, Italy:
http://www.carfree.com/design/pix/sqlg110venice_piazza-san-marco.jpg

I am in a bad state, physically and emotionally (mostly emotionally) and this is mostly a self healing type of thing. Bear with me. A lot of swearing and some mild crying were involved.

1. For starters, I'd like to say that I am sorry for the current state that we're in. Our friendship has slipped through my fingers faster than any liquid could and left me numb and confused and sort of hung over. I never meant to cause you anger towards me in any way but I guess sometimes these things are meant to happen and there isn't anything we can do about it.
2. I kind of miss your small hands and the way they were always outstretched, ready to catch every drop of disappointment and wonder the world had to give. They were always cold too; maybe from all the icy truths they held. I liked the way you moved them when you couldn't figure out the exact words to say, as if they were your cue cards you couldn't quite read.
3. I don't know if we'll ever speak again or if you will look me in the eye when you walk past me, if you even think of me when you see me. I don't know if you still consider me a mistake or the nights we spent together a mistake the way chopping off my hair with Crayola scissors when I was four was a mistake.
5. When this is over, remember that you are not any less loved: you are still the girl who has looked fear in the face every day and fated, “I do not belong to you.”
6. You taught me that everyone leaves. This is no longer something I can romanticize, I’m not capable of turning this pain into poetry anymore. It’s just sadness. It’s just hurt. It’s just hard.
7. In fifty years when I sit down to write a poem about us, (and I will), I will word the way this situation
panned out, pinpoint perfectly why you are letting go, I will have just enough knowledge to write a funny sarcastic quip about how sorry you should be for losing me, but today I am desperate for some explanations, and the present does not seem comical or ironic— it is Cinderella’s lost slipper sad, a future slipping away because you are scared of the clock chiming midnight, and although in hindsight I will laugh at myself, at you, at this, I will tell my children things like, “Wasn’t I silly?” and they will nod, and tuck my cautionary tales under their skin as little life reminders. Although in 50 years I will call you 5 decades too late, say I'm sorry that I never seemed to say “I love you” at the right time, ask how the years have been, and wonder of all the things that could have been if I'd had the right words. I cannot see the future, and all I am is filled with uncertainty rusting my heart and tainting my hope the way rain rusts metal in the spring, wishing that if nothing else, at least someday I will be able to understand.
8. The past three days have been a rollercoaster of emotions, from the highest elation, to the lowest depression. I hope you're happy, I really do. If nothing else, I hope you think of me and the times we shared and smile a little bit. I hope your wildest dreams come true and I hope you realize you are full of bountiful potential spilling out from every bit of you, even your aura. I hope I'm on your *List of Things That Keep Me Up at Night but in a good way. I hope you actually read Things Fall Apart and make literary connections between the characters in that book and our friendship. I don't even know what I'm saying. I hope you find the words I never could. I hope you wake up one morning and say "I'm going to change the world," because you can. I hope you dance in the rain and not care if your hair gets wet. I hope you get yourself figured out.

If sleep is the cousin of death then all of your dreams must reside on your breath
But death is as constant as the rain
So Like a lions mane wear your dead dreams sewn together proudly like a grass skirt in a luau in Maui

I see, and i know that no one is perfect but was jeopardizing our entire way of life worth it? I know i just discussed dreams earlier on in this piece but please allow me to indulge and talk about this elephant in the room.

Why is it that you thought that a man who is of African descent and a woman would lead us to our doom?
See, like Kennedy a lot of us had dreams of going to the moon and making a difference in the world more impactful than taking off the rest of the day at high noon,
Soon he'll be in office and i can't change that but let's face facts
We stood by and allowed your ignorance an audience we built your hate filled echo chamber that is certain parts of the information superhighway internet

O-******? Classless? Slime? January 20th the end of an error?

We all saw the comments on all the news pages and while those despicable words enraged us we know free speech is a part of what made this country
We have to take the good with the bad but, i do have one request.

Don't expect me to give him a chance as he panned and pranced all over the people who built this country off of our ancestors backs...
Don't expect me to not take him to task lyrically because maybe it'll be all that i have.

He. Is not. A president.

So like i said, sleep is the cousin of death.
But wake up friends...wake up for the mistakes we have to correct...

Dear Newborn,

Hi, hello.
Welcome.

I hope you’re enjoying your stay here on planet Earth.

I’m sure the drive in was a little difficult, a little painful,
perhaps a little ****** (or a lot ******),
like moving from the darkest cavern to the brightest….
well, place. Area. Location.

I can’t think of anything superbly bright right now.
Oh, oh, I know.

It’s like living your whole life floating
at the far reaches of outer space and then
catapulting directly into the sun.

Great analogy.

Regardless, welcome.

I said I hope you enjoy your stay,
the key word being hope, because, well,
you may not enjoy it.

In fact, it’s guaranteed that there are parts of life
that will be near-torturous,
that will make you wish you had never been brought
into this world.

But with that also comes moments of happiness
unlike anything you will ever experience, 
intense joy that makes you feel as though
you’re weightless once again,
floating out in space with no restraints,
no boundaries, just peace.

The good will be great,
and the bad will be horrible,
and sometimes the good will be good
and the bad will be just bad,
it all depends on the day.

A word of advice: treasure the time you have.

You won’t understand why this is important until you're older,
but do it anyway.

Life fades just as quickly as it is brought to fruition,
and there are people on this Earth you will want to treasure
like they are the finest gold ever to be panned out of any river.

There will be moments like this, too,
moments you wish would never fade,
and they will fade,
but never let them escape your memory,
and seek to make more of those moments every day,
even when happiness seems like an impossible dream.

Life is the most difficult journey you will ever go on,
but has the possibility of being the most rewarding, as well.

Allow the pain to be felt just as vibrantly as the happiness.

Never stifle your emotions.
Never limit others.
Never forget where you came from.
Never stop dreaming,
But never allow yourself to be tied down by those dreams, either.

Be free,
do what makes you happy,
be compassionate,
travel,
drink and make merry
(once you're legally allowed to, mind you),
and just be.

Exist to the great capacity you possibly can,
and die knowing you lived

Wishing you the greatest of luck,
A young dreamer

Dead crocs and rabbits
being worn and stepped on
as rugs and carpets
and furry trench coats

Panned, sluiced, and
now shiny gold toilets
All thanks, to your
10-year old laborer

Fancy Ferrari cars
Lavishing clothes
and mind-blowing ***
What else could you wish for

with that stone heart of yours?

We rang in the new year
On a mattress thrown on your
Living room floor
With the ball drop
On a desktop computer screen

The sound was lagging
Behind the images
And we were laughing
At how we always end up
Stuck in the past

You threw your arms around me
And let your kisses land
Carelessly wherever
They fell

And I outlined your jaw bone
With my pointer finger,
Threading it through
Your beard
And looking into your
Lazy eyes

You counted the times I said
"Like okay" at the beginning of a story
And by 5 AM , you announced
We'd reached a healthy twenty

You kept apologizing
For the way your dog
Was relentlessly
Licking my neck
But honestly
Even with her slobber
And yours
Dripping over my collar bones

And even with the night air
Tingling on my thighs,
Just a little too thick,
Just a little too warm,

Even with my straightened hair
Curling at its ends

And your brother's girlfriend's
Faint moaning sounds from behind
A locked door

There was nothing I'd rather be doing
Than watching your eyes expand and contract
To the rhythm of your stories
Before the blue light of television
Overlapping moon lit window sills
And dark spaces

You are the yellow light love,
Symbolism with a pulse,
Saying "it's officially 2017"
With a begging grin
And an undercurrent of
Gentle laughter,
Standing for change
And growth
And warmth
And simplicity

You are transparent
And in the palms of your hands
I see the year panned out
In blue veins
And freckles

And it is kind hearted
And it is forgiving
And it is kissing my forehead
And letting me breathe

I know this is going to
Be a good one

On yonder strand
In bridled land
A motley band
With vigor fanned
Across hill, lowland
With self righteous brand
Seeking brigand contraband
From each licentious hand
To forthrightly remand
Every highway spanned
Tolls, tribute to demand
Each pilfering cleric did reprimand
Then every bloated collection was panned
Every royal vestige scanned
Gratuitous coffers to expand

Attrition

It's a cold, raining day in February. My name is Henri Arbour. The year is 1916, and I wake to find myself drowning in my trench along Western France. I escape my damp dwellings with a soaked, freezing coat and a pack of cigarettes. I pray they were on a high enough shelf that they're dry enough to escape my tremors. Counting on my luck, they weren't. But you could look at my luck either way; I was lucky enough to not catch a bullet yet during my year in Hell, but luck would probably have me catch trench foot. To me, that would be worse than getting shot to death. But today, luck was more or less on my side, as I found but one smoke that would light. Lucky me. Beliveau, my only friend left of the group of old pals that accompanied me to this horrid swamp of mud, blood, and decay, soon came to greet me with his dead expression. He was the only person who wanted to be here less than me, ******* was he scared. Whenever some'd go over the top, he'd be in the corner ******* himself. Can't  blame him. The roar of those machine guns goes quite appropriately well the harrowing slaughter they cause. Jesus, listen to me, that must've been the most depressing thing I’ve ever heard, and yet, I can't help but laugh a little. A bit psychotic, huh? But that's what this ******* war'll do to ya, make ya cynical as Hell. With all this digression, I missed what Beliveau had just said. Funny how the mind tends to wander more out here. “What?”, I asked, slightly uninterested. “I said a new shipment of rations just came in.” Instantly a glow came to my face. Heh, so deprived that I get this excited at the mere thought of not having to **** some disgusting rodent just to get some food in my stomach tonight. Pretty sad, huh? I wouldn't know, not anymore. I was especially happy because the last shipment that was supposed to come a month ago had been fire bombed on the way. Tonight, we'll rejoice on this small personal victory. If only we could drink away our sorrows as well, but that'll be another day. One when this ****** strife is just a distant memory that we're all trying to suppress...

- - -

It's now late March. I've been slowly losing sanity this past month, partially due to sleep deprivation, partially due to the things I've seen, the two being closely related. All month long our trench has been getting bombed, just shell upon never-ending shelling that just seems to go on and on through the never. Two weeks ago, I saved Beliveau, but at a mental cost. I noticed him talking with some other guys and saw him laugh. I called him over and asked how he seemed so relaxed. “I really don't know, I just-”, before he could finish there came a burst of light from where the others were standing. The blast hit us pretty bad. The images, though, those were visions of pure Hell on earth. What I saw in that seemingly insignificant instance in time, I can't-I-I won't ever-. For all this time my body had been raw, but now my mind was following in suit. My body is slowly becoming a shell, housing dark, black emptiness.

- - -

It's mid April now and sleep has become a distant dream. The shelling stopped, but my mind has been becoming consistently unhinged. I can't stop thinking about the incident from a month and a half ago. It's now quite evident that I'm quickly losing control of my psyche. I can't escape these images no matter how hard I try and I'm losing my grip on reality. I can't even remember my own name. What was it? Henri Ar-Ar, or was it- no, no, I have no idea now. Exhaustion is taking over full force now. I can't tell if I'm just falling asleep or dying, can't tell the difference anymore, but all I know is that it's comforting. If I just close my eyes maybe I'll wake up in the morning, or maybe I'll let go and just slip away. In the morning I woke to a loud bang and then nothing. My eyes were to blurry to see anything and scent seemed to be my only sense still in able use. It was hotter than usual, which caused everything to have an even worse rotting smell. Suddenly my hearing returned. I began to hear voices in German. A soldier started to poke me with the **** of his gun to see if I was still alive. In a panic, I grabbed my rifle and began stabbing wildly with my bayonet, still unable to see quite clearly. I was still alive, so I-”H-Henri...” Oh God, b-but, no! It had all been a dream. When I opened my eyes, I saw blood dripping down the barrel of my gun, and as I panned up, I realized what I'd just done. Beliveau was dead.

- - -

It's been three days. Beliveau was still dead. Last night my comrades decided to exile me over just shooting me in my twisted head, on account of being a traitor. It was worse than death, cause now I'd live with the guilt for the short five minutes left in my life. It was something I never imagined happening when I came into this war, but was quickly turning into a horrifying nightmare. In the morning, they sent me packing into No Man's Land with just a revolver and six rounds. I leave now, lost to this dying world around me. “Beliveau... I'm sorry. Sorry all of our friends died, sorry you witnessed so much before-before... sorry.” This ******* war has taken everything from me. My body's battered, my name is gone, my mind is obliterated, and I'm in oblivion. I can't-I can't-I, “ping”, gone. “Ahh!...”, Heavy Breathing. I wake to the sound of a train running over tracks. I'm unrelieved. It's mid April, 1916. My name is Henri Arbour. My personal Hell begins.

An illness, it plagues me
It causes great misery
My screams go unheard
I hope Death comes to claim me

You're such a good friend
I know you will help me
Come to my house,
And help set me free

The Demon came one night
And to me, it spoke;
"Come make a pact with me,
And your pain I'll turn to smoke"

You're such a good friend
I know you will help me
Come to my house,
And help set me free

You walked into my house
So generous and kind
Of how innocent you were,
So innocently blind

You're such a good friend
I know you will help me
Come to my house,
And help set me free

The transformation completes
Oh how good it feels
To be free of pain and suffering
The bell of liberty peals

You're such a good friend
I know you will help me
Come to my house,
And help set me free

A day is not long,
I must start acting
If I want to stay,
You must be dying.

You're such a good friend
I know you will help me
Come to my house,
And help set me free

Alas, you have struggled,
Valiantly played.
But you cannot win me,
The pact gives me aid.

You're such a good friend
I know you will help me
Come to my house,
And help set me free

Give it back?
This body, I will keep
They say "finders keepers"
Leaving the losers to weep.

You're such a good friend
I know you will help me
Come to my house,
And help set me free

For a day, I said.
For a day, you'll stay.
But not if you die,
Not if you, I slay.

You're such a good friend
I know you will help me
Come to my house,
And help set me free

This is the final leg,
Your power abates.
For all the love I've missed,
Ahead, it awaits.

You're such a good friend
I know you will help me
Come to my house,
And help set me free

Goodbye, my dear friend
You've helped me a bunch
Your body stays with me
And with mine you leave

You're such a good friend
I know you will help me
Come to my house,
And help set me free

The Demon behind
He waved his hand
Laughed, and left
When the camera panned.

ready?

do you wanna go together? come, lets hold hands.

no?

alright.

all that matters is that you do it, okay?

.. are you sure you don’t wanna do it together?

alright..  !

each of your feet slapped flat and hard against the white dusty cliff until your skinny frame shot itself into the sky. we were half naked and suspended above an unfamiliar lake somewhere in texas. well, now it was just me. night was rolling in slow as all hell. the habitual hit from the one hitter didn’t soothe my nervousness. to be straightforward, tossing my body into the abyss is not my thing. i like the ground. i like the stability. planes make me cry. roller-coasters make me cringe. i like to just sit and watch the sky roll over the lake, not risk being harmed by one of its unseen watery perils..

an oval of water burst upward from where you carved into the lake- the explosive hiss of unhappy water yanking me from my brain. sheepishly i gazed over the edge to see what became of you. it appeared you had survived- treading water with one eye locked in an accidental wink, peering up at me. you smiled big and echoed gentle encouragements into the cove below in a soft-spoken southern accent. the hair on your head matted itself to your forehead in strangely stylish curls. “1,2,3, **** it! ”. you kept spitting out deliveries of lake water between wide toothy grins.

minutes were passing and i had hardly moved. talking to myself anxiously, trying still to remain some degree of coolcalmandcomposed while facing these subconscious shadows publicly. i felt sickened by the symbolism of my inner demons confronting me with such an unoriginal yet classic scene. your smile was fading gradually due to your legs growing tired, even though you didn’t let on.

fear, my constant constriction. my choke up. my backout. my way out. but this time i knew the only way out was through. my feet betrayed my brain and ****** me forward and up and off.

i had toyed with some ideas about what form i’d take prior to jumping, but none of them panned out. i claimed an awkward and ungraceful pencil dive and held my nose prematurely. the fall was eternal. the seconds were looping. i could hear everything for a long time. your holler bounced off the walls of the cave. my body heaved into the oblivion of the luke warm lake.

when i emerged i was concerned with my makeup. a tell tale sign i need to work on my priorities.  you were there with me, once i smeared the uninvited water from my eyes, grinning and congratulating me. i felt silly getting praise for something so seemingly simple as letting go..

you held me near in the dark choppy water as we clung to the cove walls of the cliff. color flood my face. maybe adrenaline feels a lot like love.

i finally felt close to you.

i wanted to stay down there a little longer. where there were no distractions. no phones no cigarettes no coughing no traffic talk no sleep no *** no drugs no radio. we couldn’t hide from each other. i wanted to stay and swim and look into you, unabashedly wet and ****** and well-intentioned. graze pale loving bodies beneath the green hue of the lake. but you grinned, cleared your throat and talked to yourself about your footing as we sought a way to scale the rocks back up.

i’m sure i could have said something.
told you how i felt.

but that fear thing..

On our bikes, day after day
Wheeling along the West Country Way
From Georgian Bath, that Jane Austen knew
To Glastonbury Tor, our challenge still new

Where are we now, is it this way or that?
Another cool stretch on a railway track
No one fell off, no one got hurt
Except now and then by a few cross words

And so over Exmoor, our longest day yet
It was football, not cider in our Somerset
Sea views and fresh air in Westward **!
We could have stayed longer but on we go

The hills are getting longer, tall hedges either side
Our legs are getting stronger now we've found our stride

The Eden project was on our route
So we had to stop and see
The scene was complete in a bio-dome
With David Attenborough filming for tv

Past holes in the ground where they dug the clay
Along old canals our journey panned out
Then over a beer at the end of the day
Out came the map for the mileage count

On through the ancient landscape we go
Past the odd castle or stately home
Past sheltered coves and beaches of sand
And on to the end  -Lands End-
Where we ran out of land

Tinkerbell fell
from the Christmas tree
opened her wings to
flutter
femininely and touched
down very close to me.

I was surprised as surprised as could be to find Tinkerbell swearing and not just at me

Christmas and trees while pleasing to me
had the opposite effect on the fallen faerie.

I feel as though life is like a levetating elevator
You're trapped in a confined space unable to control the direction
You can only use the control panel provided
Without the panned you have nothing
Just a confined space
A space in which you are trapped in
unable to stop it's levitation
It'll take you up as far as it can
To a world you may not measure up to
To a place where only kings can rule and where the empty will fall

Full cart
Forgotten wallet
Poetic justice
Minimal profit

Nothing purchased
Nothing gained
Small wonder
I remain sane

I’ve grown up in grocery stores
Admiring their hearty stock
In my story, the constant lore
Is stable silence followed by rock

So loud, and yet so quiet
Mind spinning, logic ignored
Emotions twirling, guiding, lying,
What is my hungry heart for?

Amongst shoppers, I am a dreamer
Amongst haves, I am have not.
The silent soldiers fighting a war
Against the accumulating ***

Obsessive comes close to scratching
What my mind is like when nervous
I want what I want, so I’m asking
And asking has thus far, been worthless

If only love that eludes my grasp
Were but a loaded shopping cart
I’d run to my apartment and run back
My happiness, some cold pop tarts.

Alas, the vitality I seek,
The stimulant that’s most stimulating
It makes me dumb, it makes me weak,
And requires calculated manipulating

Of which I am not capable,
Or at least, strongly averted from.
To myself, I remaiin faithful
Even though I am so dumb.

Muster up a little patience,
Muscle up, shut up, be a man.
Mysterious mature, that’s the cadence
That’s the gold standard panned.

I glimpse it, from time to time
Across the colored movie screen.
These men succeed and I often fail,
But what does my own failure mean?

Is it me? Or is it them?
Or am I close, but not quite there?
Will my fatigue be what makes me
Depressed enough to seem like I don’t care

So my annoyingness, gone, in thin air?
So my emotional longings will be bare?
So into eyes I could finally stare
And not always ask, what’s in there?

What do you see, looking at me?
I never know, until I’ve chosen
To let my selfish heart unleash
Until it’s finally cracked wide open

Until you see me as I’ve chosen
To see myself, full of erosion
Wasted space, a dreadful ocean
Of empty thoughts and rugged lotion.

Talking so much, never saying.
Giving so much, never reaping.
Sleeping so much, never dreaming.
Running so much, never leaving.

Chasing so much, only finding
What I’ve found is not astounding
My horrible mind, abandoning reality
Leaving everyone once they’ve found me.

Refusing life rafts while I’m drowning,
Breathing in water, heart is pounding,
Self inflicted, always counting,
Choosing pain, refusing mouthpiece.

Loving so much, never caring.
Caring so much, never sharing.
Sharing so much, never connecting.
Making connections, shortly empty.

Meditating so much, never praying.
Laying so much, making me lazy.
Letting my emotions control me so much,
I’m selfish, never learning, never changing, crazy.

I firmly believe that everything happens for an implicit and explicit reason.

For example, I am attending community college because I decided to.

I am also attending community college because I was meant to begin my collegiate endeavors there. It wasn't my first choice, but since deciding to do so it has panned out to be the best choice for me in so many different ways.

So, everything occurs for implicit and explicit reasons. Events occur, decisions are made because we made them so, but it was also supposed to be that way. I suppose this is my confirmation in my faith of fate, a preordained future of sorts. I believe that everything happens for a reason, good or bad, so we can grown and learn; if things were different though, everything else would be too. The smallest of details alter the larger picture.

With that said, I've realized the course of events sometimes ****. A lot. Sometimes you lose people, you lose faith, you lose your footing, you just lose in total and it hurts a lot. But you have to lose sometimes, no matter how much it *****. The hard times are as important as the good; both have integral lessons in them, and only experience will unlock the knowledge you need to move on and tread new paths cautiously, with more knowledge, bravery and with more ease.

Losing is inevitable; we are like trees in that year in, year out, we grow a little more and let go of the heavy leaves stopping us from doing just that.

Sometimes you're the tree, in need of losing some of those weighty leaves. Sometimes you're the leaves, the weight upon someone else's tree. I'm sad to say I was a leaf, but I'm not sad that I went through being a leaf. I've learned, through being a leaf, that I can hurt people with my words and actions. I learned that I can be really selfish, usually at the expense of others. I learned I'm condescending, I say one thing but do another. I don't always practice what I preach, I talk about love then demonstrate indifference.

I was meant to be a leaf and it's because my actions made me so; I took advantage of him until he realized that I was doing so. I was meant to be a leaf because it taught me and him a vast lesson that people will let you down, people will leave, people will ruin you, people will love you in the most twisted ways, people will confuse you, people will use you, people will not keep promises, people won't always explain, people will **** up and make you lose faith in everyone else.

I was meant to be a leaf, as horrible as that is, to teach all of that to him and I was a terrific teacher to a horrible lesson. Everything happens for a reason; explicitly, I don't have the privilege of being in his life because I was horrible. Implicitly, I wasn't meant to be there for long anyway, because I was toxic and confusing. The small spurts of happiness and enjoyment I provided never fully compensated for the pain, anger, heart break and damage I'd leave behind.

So, I cope with that everything happens for a reason. Someday there will be someone to repair him and fix his faith and help him realize why we didn't work. Someone else out there will be a 180 from me and she'll actually do a good job in loving him. Everything happens for a reason, and that's about the only way I can somehow come to terms with what I've done.

"In Modern Drama we turn a critical eye
   into the conditions of real life and morality." --- Arlen Rambush


           Modern Drama 101

Her life had become an Ibsen scenario,
cloaked, as it was, in furtive AOL chat rooms,
seeking the romance no longer orbed in marriage,
rather to be panned from the internet wellspring.

It wasn't so much inconstancy, as it was whimsy;
more a channeling of Deneuve, than profiling Gabler.
And she found they flocked to her,
pigeons to be shooed away, should they get too close.

Soul of the house, everything to husband and family,
yet, it was in cyber tryst where she flourished,
that informed the powerful intellect at intervals
with mother and a carte blanche ingénue.

It's possible she sought to reform them,
tear them down --- or no --- it was conquest.
It was not she that needed men,
it was she that absorbed them in hedonistic pleasure.

There’s something about the post-punk silence of nighttime that makes me doubt my soul. That makes me define things in terms of what they follow instead of what they are. Someday, I hope my life will be as interesting as a rock-and-roll portrayal of history. Something to be envied. Something to be admired for its brilliant art direction and cinematography, but panned for its lackluster script. In simpler terms, something boring but pretty. But I’ll only be in it for the costumes. And the one critic who will understand and say, “Her story is strange. At night she levitates above her bed. She’s over the age of sixteen, but she’s still not a witch yet. Kudos for not succumbing to clichés.”

We peeled back the faces of clocks to find the gears were still like the evening, and time crept in so quaintly through our pores like a southern gentleman joining us for dinner. Sporting a shabby suit stitched together from the sheets of our youth and some questionable fabric that lay in our futures, he approached us with a sneer hung upon his obsidian face. He was well versed in the ancient rhetoric of fear and regret. A musician of sorts, he plucked at our veins with fingers that were twisted and stiff like branches of decaying oak. He rattled our bones in time with the clock, the pendulum, of which, still rocked steadily too and fro despite its stationary innards. The sound swelled within us, pounding against the eardrums as to drown out the quiet of the world beyond ourselves. In the next measures the scenes of existence, which we had strung together and thrown upon the screen, panned out, leaving nothing but we fools and time. He sat there strumming in the dark, as he certainly would have for ages, never aging and playing out his tunes until we all permanently became a work within his composition of sheet music. Surely we would be the songs that history would never touch again, the scores and old hymns that fell so short of being timeless, and sat superior a row of white keys, anxious to be played. We sat listening to the soundtrack of ourselves passing, the maestro -our old friend time- never tiring. And we would have remained, had it not been for the arrival of our next guest. He was a stranger, well, rather someone we had not met before, for he was not particularly strange. He came to each of us differently, so i cannot convey his features in a sentence, nor a thousand words, nor a volume of works, but he was beautiful. From his lips resonated such a sweet sound that, for a few moments , stifled the discord. We seized this small window and made for the mirrors, thanking the visitor in our haste. We gazed on ourselves within the deep pools of self realization that lay before us for both a lifetime and only a moment. We peeled back our faces to find that the contours of our flesh were absent beneath. The lines fell around our feet, and we danced atop them like children, for, in truth, we were. We were young and old, fact and fiction. With eyes like glass, reflecting promise and fortune, we looked to our old friend time, whose tattered garments had fallen around him. In his place, was a rustic, wooden record player spitting out the same tune we listened to for ,what seemed, a century. We gave the noise an audience, and it rested softly now on our ears.

Tap tap tap and ye shall find.
I sieved and panned for nuggets that shine,
Searching for those elusive lines
That transgress space and transgress time
Or soothe and calm like favourite wine
Or send a shiver down the spine

I chanced upon a wealthy seam
I tapped and from it gushed and teemed

A geyser of emotion
A tide of wisdom
A planet of experience

Hello Poetry, how do you do?
I'm very pleased to meet with you.

This movie was panned
The critics all spat
Each write-up was canned
(It shows where we’re at)

They trash all that’s good
To bolster their cred
They fancy their food
Which they have been fed

But here’s food for thought
Go ask a true fan
Did it skip as it ought
The heart of a man

For mine felt a thrill
As I took it in
Yet poured from their quill
The critics’ great sin

As he sat the trash can back down gingerly
He sighed Well, it’s a long story.
We were drinking beer in my backyard at four in the morning
On one of those sticky September nights
Where sleep was more rumor than reality,
And, as I noted the time on the clock for the umpteenth time,
I heard a song outside my window;
Not some drunken caterwauling of “Danny Boy”
As rendered by some stray tabby in a Dublin alley;
This was…singing, like you’d hear on a CD
Or, perhaps, Live From The Met,
And at first I thought some poor sot with an artistic streak
Had pulled off the main road to sleep it off,
But the singing was punctuated
With the clatter of can-lids and the occasional grunt,
Until I understood that baritone and trash barrel
Were part and parcel of the same man.  

As I handed him a second bottle,
He recounted how his lifelong dream of riches, glory,
And a glorious career on the world’s great stages
Came to a sudden halt after a Manhattan debut
(I sang my *** off that night, he recounted)
Was met with mild praise, the odd bit of outright scorn
And a healthy dose of apathy.  
I ‘spose, he said between sips, I could have done all right
Givin’ lessons, singin’ bit parts here and there.
You’re on the road a lot, but the money ain’t bad,
But one day, just before an audition for a supporting role
In a regional production of Carmen
Up in Binghamton ******* New York,
He simply left the theatre, got into his car,
And drove some sixteen hours
Until he hit town here, and then he stayed.
But, I countered, why not go back?
The years of lessons and Julliard,
All for celebrating our refuse and squalor
With roadkill requiems, arias for rats?  
Well, some days it’s a hard way to make a living,
He said, stroking his chin thoughtfully,
But it does give me a venue to sing,
And, to date, I ain’t been panned by no **** cat.

Addendum to title:
Boyhood Digs in Collegeville, Pennsylvania 19426

Oft times forced exposure therapy spelled rustling quiet
Pyrrhic punitive onslaughts noisome moody linkedin kicks
jarring inxs harbored grievances foo fighting essence
denoting cannibalized august boy aghast to confront reality
returning home meant compromising autonomy
acceptable collateral casting leftist strides rite
constituting timid steps circumscribing childhoods’ end,
comprising reluctant trudge treading toward adolescence
where wold wide webbed magic ride
rode ruff shod o’er carped hooked
synthetic threads re: fibrous veld
whence extolled impressive footprints
measured triangular wedges rung duff feet
expediently dragged churlish badinage afoot
stretching across Scottish tartan
Harris Tweed unwelcome matt despite frustrated parents
whose vitriol unleashed tough-love,
smacked regularly quasi planned
threatened ultimatums venomous viz witches
yawping against my brand
falling out of good graces,
though hatching escape merely fanned
actions hightail me to bedroom, a secure space,
not exceptionally grand
yet despite rapacious and relentless rage
against the sole son, who hand
did lee managed inciting wrath
of me papa and late mama,
this parcel of land, now entombs nostalgia
namely 324 level road, Collegeville,
Penna, 19426 make believe pal Joey and this creator
passively succumbed to withstand
invisible jetblue lobbing onslaught of slingshot barbs,
wharf fear to rely on self way past primetime,
which solo endeavor didst demand
absent belief, confidence and faith in innate survival skills,
hence countless admonitions recurred
razed quest qua pursed lips
those who begat their only male heir,
provoking predictable panned
da moan he hum in tandem
with concomitant wickedness akin to eland
caught in cross hairs getting pistol-whipped
with many barking explicit derogatory gerund formed
expletives, that did not dislodge this immobile body electric
defying logic, now in retrospect clueless why I suffered to withstand
incessant verbal, venal, and n’er vampire weakened blows
inexplicable, how this soulful, ruminating,
and tortured walking wounded blithely weathered turpitude  
though devoid of sense and sensibility, how no man iz an island
though at times incontinent, where jocund this bard for’er opened
Pandora’s box, but hindsight softened cleft pride and prejudice
whereat bulldozed site of once grand “Glen Elm” tears me up inside
fading memories refreshed, via priceless gift
from beloved younger sister
unwittingly mitigated hammer blows of pain to confront the void,
whence away from obliterated complex edifice grief felt ******!

Once the depression becomes routine,
Happiness never really feels comfortable again.
It comes around
now and then,
like an old friend.
You laugh and drink
and reminisce about all the plans you had that never panned out.
All the hope you invested,
in the jobs, the relationships, the dreams and goals.
And you laugh at how foolish you once were for ever having such ideas.
But the laughter dies out
And your smile fades
And you know in the back of your mind
that soon, your happiness will be gone again,
and you can never quite forgive it for leaving.
You cant blame it,
All you ever did was hold it back.
Maybe somebody else could make better use of it.
And the depression,
Well the depression is no Stranger.

Spooked
Driving along on my scooter seeing the familiar
landscape there was a time disturbance
the landscape was the same but the trees small
and there were fewer ploughed fields.
mystical shadows and a murmur of voices sounded
as an echo and I felt spooked.

I stopped and waited perhaps I had a funny turn
slowly the warp panned out and I was back at
my own time, yet I sensed an unease I should not
come back to this place that had layers of old time
that had yet to melt into the clarity of a white water
that has no story to tell.

so soon, so far
where are we going?
so good, so far
always leave me hanging

so sure, so soon
why are we leaving?
so far, so soon
always end up laughing

so you just laugh away
catch up with you another day.