A Poem for Three Voices

Setting:  A Maternity Ward and round about

FIRST VOICE:
I am slow as the world.  I am very patient,
Turning through my time, the suns and stars
Regarding me with attention.
The moon's concern is more personal:
She passes and repasses, luminous as a nurse.
Is she sorry for what will happen?  I do not think so.
She is simply astonished at fertility.

When I walk out, I am a great event.
I do not have to think, or even rehearse.
What happens in me will happen without attention.
The pheasant stands on the hill;
He is arranging his brown feathers.
I cannot help smiling at what it is I know.
Leaves and petals attend me.  I am ready.

SECOND VOICE:
When I first saw it, the small red seep, I did not believe it.
I watched the men walk about me in the office.  They were so flat!
There was something about them like cardboard, and now I had caught it,
That flat, flat, flatness from which ideas, destructions,
Bulldozers, guillotines, white chambers of shrieks proceed,
Endlessly proceed--and the cold angels, the abstractions.
I sat at my desk in my stockings, my high heels,

And the man I work for laughed:  'Have you seen something awful?
You are so white, suddenly.'  And I said nothing.
I saw death in the bare trees, a deprivation.
I could not believe it.  Is it so difficult
For the spirit to conceive a face, a mouth?
The letters proceed from these black keys, and these black keys proceed
From my alphabetical fingers, ordering parts,

Parts, bits, cogs, the shining multiples.
I am dying as I sit.  I lose a dimension.
Trains roar in my ears, departures, departures!
The silver track of time empties into the distance,
The white sky empties of its promise, like a cup.
These are my feet, these mechanical echoes.
Tap, tap, tap, steel pegs.  I am found wanting.

This is a disease I carry home, this is a death.
Again, this is a death.  Is it the air,
The particles of destruction I **** up?  Am I a pulse
That wanes and wanes, facing the cold angel?
Is this my lover then?  This death, this death?
As a child I loved a lichen-bitten name.
Is this the one sin then, this old dead love of death?

THIRD VOICE:
I remember the minute when I knew for sure.
The willows were chilling,
The face in the pool was beautiful, but not mine--
It had a consequential look, like everything else,
And all I could see was dangers:  doves and words,
Stars and showers of gold--conceptions, conceptions!
I remember a white, cold wing

And the great swan, with its terrible look,
Coming at me, like a castle, from the top of the river.
There is a snake in swans.
He glided by; his eye had a black meaning.
I saw the world in it--small, mean and black,
Every little word hooked to every little word, and act to act.
A hot blue day had budded into something.

I wasn't ready.  The white clouds rearing
Aside were dragging me in four directions.
I wasn't ready.
I had no reverence.
I thought I could deny the consequence--
But it was too late for that.  It was too late, and the face
Went on shaping itself with love, as if I was ready.

SECOND VOICE:
It is a world of snow now.  I am not at home.
How white these sheets are.  The faces have no features.
They are bald and impossible, like the faces of my children,
Those little sick ones that elude my arms.
Other children do not touch me:  they are terrible.
They have too many colors, too much life.  They are not quiet,
Quiet, like the little emptinesses I carry.

I have had my chances.  I have tried and tried.
I have stitched life into me like a rare *****,
And walked carefully, precariously, like something rare.
I have tried not to think too hard.  I have tried to be natural.
I have tried to be blind in love, like other women,
Blind in my bed, with my dear blind sweet one,
Not looking, through the thick dark, for the face of another.

I did not look.  But still the face was there,
The face of the unborn one that loved its perfections,
The face of the dead one that could only be perfect
In its easy peace, could only keep holy so.
And then there were other faces.  The faces of nations,
Governments, parliaments, societies,
The faceless faces of important men.

It is these men I mind:
They are so jealous of anything that is not flat!  They are jealous gods
That would have the whole world flat because they are.
I see the Father conversing with the Son.
Such flatness cannot but be holy.
'Let us make a heaven,' they say.
'Let us flatten and launder the grossness from these souls.'

FIRST VOICE:
I am calm.  I am calm.  It is the calm before something awful:
The yellow minute before the wind walks, when the leaves
Turn up their hands, their pallors.  It is so quiet here.
The sheets, the faces, are white and stopped, like clocks.
Voices stand back and flatten.  Their visible hieroglyphs
Flatten to parchment screens to keep the wind off.
They paint such secrets in Arabic, Chinese!

I am dumb and brown.  I am a seed about to break.
The brownness is my dead self, and it is sullen:
It does not wish to be more, or different.
Dusk hoods me in blue now, like a Mary.
O color of distance and forgetfulness!--
When will it be, the second when Time breaks
And eternity engulfs it, and I drown utterly?

I talk to myself, myself only, set apart--
Swabbed and lurid with disinfectants, sacrificial.
Waiting lies heavy on my lids.  It lies like sleep,
Like a big sea.  Far off, far off, I feel the first wave tug
Its cargo of agony toward me, inescapable, tidal.
And I, a shell, echoing on this white beach
Face the voices that overwhelm, the terrible element.

THIRD VOICE:
I am a mountain now, among mountainy women.
The doctors move among us as if our bigness
Frightened the mind.  They smile like fools.
They are to blame for what I am, and they know it.
They hug their flatness like a kind of health.
And what if they found themselves surprised, as I did?
They would go mad with it.

And what if two lives leaked between my thighs?
I have seen the white clean chamber with its instruments.
It is a place of shrieks.  It is not happy.
'This is where you will come when you are ready.'
The night lights are flat red moons.  They are dull with blood.
I am not ready for anything to happen.
I should have murdered this, that murders me.

FIRST VOICE:
There is no miracle more cruel than this.
I am dragged by the horses, the iron hooves.
I last.  I last it out.  I accomplish a work.
Dark tunnel, through which hurtle the visitations,
The visitations, the manifestations, the startled faces.
I am the center of an atrocity.
What pains, what sorrows must I be mothering?

Can such innocence **** and ****?  It milks my life.
The trees wither in the street.  The rain is corrosive.
I taste it on my tongue, and the workable horrors,
The horrors that stand and idle, the slighted godmothers
With their hearts that tick and tick, with their satchels of instruments.
I shall be a wall and a roof, protecting.
I shall be a sky and a hill of good:  O let me be!

A power is growing on me, an old tenacity.
I am breaking apart like the world.  There is this blackness,
This ram of blackness.  I fold my hands on a mountain.
The air is thick.  It is thick with this working.
I am used.  I am drummed into use.
My eyes are squeezed by this blackness.
I see nothing.

SECOND VOICE:
I am accused.  I dream of massacres.
I am a garden of black and red agonies.  I drink them,
Hating myself, hating and fearing.  And now the world conceives
Its end and runs toward it, arms held out in love.
It is a love of death that sickens everything.
A dead sun stains the newsprint.  It is red.
I lose life after life.  The dark earth drinks them.

She is the vampire of us all.  So she supports us,
Fattens us, is kind.  Her mouth is red.
I know her.  I know her intimately--
Old winter-face, old barren one, old time bomb.
Men have used her meanly.  She will eat them.
Eat them, eat them, eat them in the end.
The sun is down.  I die.  I make a death.

FIRST VOICE:
Who is he, this blue, furious boy,
Shiny and strange, as if he had hurtled from a star?
He is looking so angrily!
He flew into the room, a shriek at his heel.
The blue color pales.  He is human after all.
A red lotus opens in its bowl of blood;
They are stitching me up with silk, as if I were a material.

What did my fingers do before they held him?
What did my heart do, with its love?
I have never seen a thing so clear.
His lids are like the lilac-flower
And soft as a moth, his breath.
I shall not let go.
There is no guile or warp in him.  May he keep so.

SECOND VOICE:
There is the moon in the high window.  It is over.
How winter fills my soul!  And that chalk light
Laying its scales on the windows, the windows of empty offices,
Empty schoolrooms, empty churches.  O so much emptiness!
There is this cessation.  This terrible cessation of everything.
These bodies mounded around me now, these polar sleepers--
What blue, moony ray ices their dreams?

I feel it enter me, cold, alien, like an instrument.
And that mad, hard face at the end of it, that O-mouth
Open in its gape of perpetual grieving.
It is she that drags the blood-black sea around
Month after month, with its voices of failure.
I am helpless as the sea at the end of her string.
I am restless.  Restless and useless.  I, too, create corpses.

I shall move north.  I shall move into a long blackness.
I see myself as a shadow, neither man nor woman,
Neither a woman, happy to be like a man, nor a man
Blunt and flat enough to feel no lack.  I feel a lack.
I hold my fingers up, ten white pickets.
See, the darkness is leaking from the cracks.
I cannot contain it.  I cannot contain my life.

I shall be a heroine of the peripheral.
I shall not be accused by isolate buttons,
Holes in the heels of socks, the white mute faces
Of unanswered letters, coffined in a letter case.
I shall not be accused, I shall not be accused.
The clock shall not find me wanting, nor these stars
That rivet in place abyss after abyss.

THIRD VOICE:
I see her in my sleep, my red, terrible girl.
She is crying through the glass that separates us.
She is crying, and she is furious.
Her cries are hooks that catch and grate like cats.
It is by these hooks she climbs to my notice.
She is crying at the dark, or at the stars
That at such a distance from us shine and whirl.

I think her little head is carved in wood,
A red, hard wood, eyes shut and mouth wide open.
And from the open mouth issue sharp cries
Scratching at my sleep like arrows,
Scratching at my sleep, and entering my side.
My daughter has no teeth.  Her mouth is wide.
It utters such dark sounds it cannot be good.

FIRST VOICE:
What is it that flings these innocent souls at us?
Look, they are so exhausted, they are all flat out
In their canvas-sided cots, names tied to their wrists,
The little silver trophies they've come so far for.
There are some with thick black hair, there are some bald.
Their skin tints are pink or sallow, brown or red;
They are beginning to remember their differences.

I think they are made of water; they have no expression.
Their features are sleeping, like light on quiet water.
They are the real monks and nuns in their identical garments.
I see them showering like stars on to the world--
On India, Africa, America, these miraculous ones,
These pure, small images.  They smell of milk.
Their footsoles are untouched.  They are walkers of air.

Can nothingness be so prodigal?
Here is my son.
His wide eye is that general, flat blue.
He is turning to me like a little, blind, bright plant.
One cry.  It is the hook I hang on.
And I am a river of milk.
I am a warm hill.

SECOND VOICE:
I am not ugly.  I am even beautiful.
The mirror gives back a woman without deformity.
The nurses give back my clothes, and an identity.
It is usual, they say, for such a thing to happen.
It is usual in my life, and the lives of others.
I am one in five, something like that.  I am not hopeless.
I am beautiful as a statistic.  Here is my lipstick.

I draw on the old mouth.
The red mouth I put by with my identity
A day ago, two days, three days ago.  It was a Friday.
I do not even need a holiday; I can go to work today.
I can love my husband, who will understand.
Who will love me through the blur of my deformity
As if I had lost an eye, a leg, a tongue.

And so I stand, a little sightless.  So I walk
Away on wheels, instead of legs, they serve as well.
And learn to speak with fingers, not a tongue.
The body is resourceful.
The body of a starfish can grow back its arms
And newts are prodigal in legs.  And may I be
As prodigal in what lacks me.

THIRD VOICE:
She is a small island, asleep and peaceful,
And I am a white ship hooting:  Goodbye, goodbye.
The day is blazing.  It is very mournful.
The flowers in this room are red and tropical.
They have lived behind glass all their lives, they have been cared for
        tenderly.
Now they face a winter of white sheets, white faces.
There is very little to go into my suitcase.

There are the clothes of a fat woman I do not know.
There is my comb and brush.  There is an emptiness.
I am so vulnerable suddenly.
I am a wound walking out of hospital.
I am a wound that they are letting go.
I leave my health behind.  I leave someone
Who would adhere to me:  I undo her fingers like bandages:  I go.

SECOND VOICE:
I am myself again.  There are no loose ends.
I am bled white as wax, I have no attachments.
I am flat and virginal, which means nothing has happened,
Nothing that cannot be erased, ripped up and scrapped, begun again.
There little black twigs do not think to bud,
Nor do these dry, dry gutters dream of rain.
This woman who meets me in windows--she is neat.

So neat she is transparent, like a spirit.
how shyly she superimposes her neat self
On the inferno of African oranges, the heel-hung pigs.
She is deferring to reality.
It is I.  It is I--
Tasting the bitterness between my teeth.
The incalculable malice of the everyday.

FIRST VOICE:
How long can I be a wall, keeping the wind off?
How long can I be
Gentling the sun with the shade of my hand,
Intercepting the blue bolts of a cold moon?
The voices of loneliness, the voices of sorrow
Lap at my back ineluctably.
How shall it soften them, this little lullaby?

How long can I be a wall around my green property?
How long can my hands
Be a bandage to his hurt, and my words
Bright birds in the sky, consoling, consoling?
It is a terrible thing
To be so open:  it is as if my heart
Put on a face and walked into the world.

THIRD VOICE:
Today the colleges are drunk with spring.
My black gown is a little funeral:
It shows I am serious.
The books I carry wedge into my side.
I had an old wound once, but it is healing.
I had a dream of an island, red with cries.
It was a dream, and did not mean a thing.

FIRST VOICE:
Dawn flowers in the great elm outside the house.
The swifts are back.  They are shrieking like paper rockets.
I hear the sound of the hours
Widen and die in the hedgerows.  I hear the moo of cows.
The colors replenish themselves, and the wet
Thatch smokes in the sun.
The narcissi open white faces in the orchard.

I am reassured.  I am reassured.
These are the clear bright colors of the nursery,
The talking ducks, the happy lambs.
I am simple again.  I believe in miracles.
I do not believe in those terrible children
Who injure my sleep with their white eyes, their fingerless hands.
They are not mine.  They do not belong to me.

I shall meditate upon normality.
I shall meditate upon my little son.
He does not walk. &n

~

fowl flock to a gathering,
exactly why? no one knows.
an unkindness of ravens,
a ****** of crows;
a siege of blue heron,
gather geese in a horde;
seem to come in their sadness,
but stay for the show.
see swan sail in wedges,
jay scoff in their scold;
assembly, their strength,
nom de plume from of old.

ask me why do they gather?
could it be they’re unhappy?
might we also feel slighted,
a disservice agreed;
if our strength were declared
our insufficiency?
why do finches and
hummingbirds meet in a charm?
penguins, get to huddle,
and in happiness, those larks?

the cranes come in dances,
in company those parrots;
to parliaments owls,
in wisdom who-hoo-ing;
flamingoes to stand,
for an eagle’s convocation?
no, a nye’s not unpleasant,
for a pheasant you see;
and benign is a bevy,
quail flush neath a tree.

but, ’tis a bit scary,
lurking turkey in gangs,
hawk’s shadowy cast;
and warblers in confusion,
with buzzards in wake;
a wisp full of snipe,
whisp’ring, “good night”;
yet glorious are pelicans,
a squadron in flight;

and nothing so stirring, as
a starling’s constellation,
while an asylum’s
assembly for loons,
and a quarrel of sparrows,
are entirely drowned out,
by a drumming of peckers,
the wood kind, that is!

while sticks and stones,
may break all one’s bones;
those labels and words, do
leave a sting and a hurt;
all human, one race,
can unkindness defer,
diffusing by choosing,
our union assert!
but slinging maligning,
and kicking of dirt,
by abusers and losers,
let's leave for the birds!

~

*post script.

numerous fellow poets far more skilled than i, have posted a variety of well-written pieces using fowl flocking terminology. this is intended to be an assembly of the sometimes-silly, often-absurd and mostly-always-humorous assignments of those flocking terms, used in an imagined treatise about the hurtful labels we humans use to judge one another; labels that vilify, rather than unify.  for would not a battle that hasn’t any "winner" be far better fought hand-in-hand, than hand-to-hand?

terms for flocking fowl in order of use
(a few fowl have two flocking terms, and some flocking terms are claimed by two fowls)

an unkindness (ravens)
a ****** (crows)
a siege (herons)
a horde (geese)
a wedge (swans)
a scold (jays)
a charm (hummingbird, finches)
a huddle (penguins)
a happiness (larks)
a dance (cranes)
a company (parrots)
a parliament (owls)
a stand (flamingos)
a convocation (eagles)
a nye (pheasants)
a bevy (quail)
a flush (also quail)
a cast (hawks)
a gang (turkeys)
a wisp (snipes)
a squadron (pelicans)
a confusion (warblers)
a wake (buzzards)
an asylum (loons)
a constellation (starlings)
a quarrel (sparrows)
a drumming (woodpeckers)

oh yes, there are many more.  i'd love to see your favorite(s) left in the comments.
Steve (:

She—an unrepeated motif—waxes precocious like her ancient self.
Never mind the counterfeit eccentrics,
strange enough to be noticed but not doomed.
Their only burden is imperfection.
She’d die for these people, but they don’t realize omniscience is boring.
In preschool, she learned people are mean for no reason.
There’s no sense in spiting the inevitable,
so she gave away her quarters at bake sale.
Her mother would say, “That money is yours.”
The girl would ask, adjusting her overalls,
“If it’s mine, can’t I decide what to do with it?”
In the future, when repeating this story to a potential motif,
she’d know he’s The One when he’d say,
“What do four-year-olds need to know about capitalism?
Thanks to Walt Disney, they want to conform
and follow their hearts at the same time.”
She’d get off on his grumpy, and then notice his ring.
If he had met her first, would he still have married his wife?
It’s not worth hoping for divorce. He’s built to mate for life.
Instead of turning twenty-six, she’ll choose a chair in purgatory—
trapped between what should be and what is.
As long as she’s sitting, she may as well start smoking.
It’s a fine day for oral fixation.
At least she doesn’t smoke Parliaments like the counterfeit eccentrics.
She’d wonder if in a past life she was a dusty vacuum cleaner,
covered in what she was meant to destroy.
It’s too easy to claim hypocrisy,
too easy to cry genius for discovering what works
when for so long, failure was the only place to go.
She hasn’t been happy since she was thirteen.
The day before her first existential crisis,
her mother said, “Stop being so melodramatic.
You must want to be depressed.” Her response:
“I’m not too young for a mid-life crisis. I just won’t live to see thirty.”
She owes her life to a fear of hell,
knows we all experience hell differently. Hers is a banquet.
The proceeds will go toward ending world hunger.
At the end of the night, the keynote speaker complains
that Alfredo sauce doesn’t reheat well, so the leftovers get thrown out.

i am being aimlessly guided by a decrepit side street.
the smell of who-knows-what hangs in the still like an occupied noose
as i strain to ignore the unpleasant moisture on my brow,
the imperceptible perspiration of emotional exertion.

my heels can decipher the coded cracks in the concrete
and converse with muffled clackings that echo from alleyway walls.
they say, "our coordinates are flawless; this is the path to freedom."
i think, to reach it alone would be more bitter than any confinement.

‘cause i left some love in an empty room miles from here—
it’s collecting cobwebs instead of affections
while the idol of unrequited passion burns
and its ashes are faxed to four far corners of a hardhearted world.

i reach a dead end and feel the breath catch in my throat.
there is nothing here but the empty cocoons of the homeless
who have hopefully lifted themselves on dusty wings to a better place
leaving me searching for signs of life in the litter they've left behind.

there is a poster haphazardly taped to the bricks;
no lettering, no information, just the face of a man.
he stares blankly at me from his paper veranda
as if i were a television set, some mundane form of entertainment.

then, unexpectedly, a hole rips through the flyer
to compensate for the boot-clad leg freeing itself from dried pulp
and stepping heavily onto the pavement below.
i stumble back in mixed horror and disbelief as appendages creep lividly from the wall

until the man with the advertised face stands before me.
he pulls a pack of parliaments from his trenchcoat pocket
and wordlessly offers me one as his lighter births infant flame.
soon, the nicotine fog hangs like an opaque grey curtain between us.

then the silence is shattered, with shards of stillness breaking against the asphalt.
"i hope you weren't attempting to be stealthy. i could hear you for miles."
the voice emitted is raspy, the sound of a dull razorblade on the neck of a convict.
i shiver fiercely in response with a zero-kelvin cold.

a frankenstein hand fights through the smoke to grasp my ashen face.
his finger to my lips is a canker sore forming.
"a pretty lil' thing like you shouldn't be caught dead in this mess."
his forked tongue forms the words of nothing i don't already know.

i push him away. "just cut to the chase. we don't need to drag this out.
you know what i came here for, so let's get it over with."
my heart spasms in protest, but i suppress it with clenched fists.
as it dejectedly thuds in my chest, i can taste the bile rising in my throat.

he raises an eyebrow, then sniggers, showing off a yellow shark-toothed grin.
"the princess has a temper! well, you've come a long way for this, sweet cheeks."
he reaches into his coat, pulls out his leather gauntlets blackened with singe.
"say exactly what you need, doll, and your old pal lucifer will handle the rest."

my lungs deflate, punctured by pins and needles of stale air
and the blood dries in my veins like cruel sun blistering the desert.
half of me begs for lockjaw. the other half manipulates the corners of my mouth.
"erase him from my mind. i can't spend my life obsessing."

a glint of guilty pleasure in the devil's red eye seals the deal.
soul extraction's just like getting a tooth pulled, i tell myself regretfully.
it's just another part you don't need, a bland and disposable item.
but it doesn't quell the fear; i'm shaking hard enough to register on a richter scale.

the man in black embraces me, grasping my ribcage in his massive gloved hands.
a flash of doubt sears through me, yet i stand frozen, crucified.
i feel satan's minions pulling at memories like loose strings
and there is chanting in my ears; evolnilr igafognir effuseht eta ivellai sihth tiw.



i come to with dry heaves and a migraine sent from hell itself
to find that i am home in bed with the sheets around my ankles.
i rise and move to the mirror, see the dark circles traced around my eyes,
and dissolve into sobs without knowing why.

I didn't know it then, but
I fell in love with you from the moment
You spun me into that first dance.

'Me and Mrs. Jones' playing softly,
You appeared in the doorway singing along,
Grabbed my hand and pulled me up,
And your eyes sparkled with mischief
As we revolved in time to the music.

I barely knew you,
But my soul recognized its mate
In that single instant.

Fate can be cruel like that,
Bringing us together when it did
While that song was playing,
Like a warning.
Not a song meant to
Fall in love to.

Still, it's much to strong
To let it go, even now,
When I let you go three years ago.

But you're everywhere,
I hear you in songs,
Taste you in someone else's kiss,
Feel you in the shirt I stole,
Smell you in the haze of smokers,
See you on street corners.

I go awhile tuning you out,
Until suddenly you're so present
I go deaf from how loudly your soul calls mine.

Then all at once I am back,
Same place, same time,
Revolving slowly to
Me and Mrs. Jones,
Smelling Parliaments and Bubble Tape.

It's hard  to change any cult
More so the jealous from the occult
Faculty of the melting mold of mind
Zealous of inflicting conflicts of all kind
To the just and graceful among mankind.

Brazenly different from vogue dears
conspires to inspire its rogue peers
To smear even slur on  godly seers.
Constantly configures to figure out,
Anything,  by any means to spy out
The faintest attribute of the virtuous
Contributes to trigger the rash jealous
To fling out and pierce the gall
to gush out to spread and stall
The arteries, nerves to blood-en
the face and the cheeks to redden
Nose and the chin to harden
Ear lobs to burn and burden.

The jealous is well known
Yet the cause is unknown
Why does it vent its ire
Dent and impair the fair 
Engage in freelance
To abuse in parlance
In parliaments of vanity fair

The evil avail many a company
Of gluttons, covetous avaricious
sloth, sensuous pride and many
Engage merely to rage in ferocious
Fire, the fuel of the evil in the savage dark ages
obsessed in rampage and carnage

All celebrations become  aberrations  
Of the essence of celestial  presence
The din dares to dampen the spiritual
Asphyx the specifics in fad rituals

It is difficult to change the cult
of the stinky melting mold
of the evil minds that find
new felony ways to inflict conflicts
To the just and graceful lives
of the peace loving among mankind.

On Tuesdays I dream of moon-soaked swims among bay-big moons
Silver saucered jellyfish that ripple through our hands
Wednesday nights are underground-
Straight whiskey at the Cantab beneath a canopy of Marlboros and Parliaments
(I’m imagining the cigarettes-
I’ve always romanticized death)
I only think of Sunfish on Thursdays,
Just a single sheet and us and the water
And the thought that we are propelled by more
Than the wind and less than physics.
Fridays are midnight walks through Central Square-
That tree on JFK by the metal gate,
The cab I chased after. Your jacket.
I awake early on Saturdays to your blue wall
And freshly made yerba, lectures on nonlinear differentials.
On Sundays we sleep late,
Wrapped in sub-letted sheets
Waiting for your lease to end before Sunday does.
The ground is gone on Mondays, the sidewalk on Sydney street has crumbled
I feel first-trimester-morning-sick
And the sky is dinosaur-ending dark, thick with resentment.

On Tuesdays I dream of moon-soaked swims among bay-big moons
Silver saucered jellyfish that ripple through our hands

a scientist on the radio
says in three decades  
a coastal town will      
be submerged in water.  
i picture seaside resorts
& promenades absorbed
& know the same fate
awaits this city, as sea
hungrily consumes
coast it looks to us,
our bones, our docks
& ports, parliaments
& courts, our isle added
to a pile of things extinct.
a future where children are
driftwood blown ashore
with foreign tongues
& dreams of sea;
reluctantly coming up
for air jealous of all the
creatures that get to
stay down there.

This seems a playful satire on the mighty Saltire
prewritten amidst a highland lowland silence.
In the hand of the wise-to Queen, or St. Andrew,
eternally akin to this 4-piece jigsaw'd island.
The actors publicly casted, professional amateurs,
notably despised an' yet a country's finest.

The setting old an' knew, new an' known, with
a neglected audience primed for mass evasion.
An' piecemeal parliaments, scrolls nor parchments,
have no place in this covert-of-sorts invasion.
For the stage be set with indebted goodwill,
through empty words in empty declarations.

The plot is thickening quick to a household broth,
of misdirection, miseducation an' artificial lie.
That binds the truth as if truth could be told,
of national strength safe in obvious disguise.
Common wealth paid for by the oblivious poor
man's pocket, pulling loose a threadbare tie.

Nae t'shakespeare'd lines, no to broken records,
No to smug derision of the true an' earnest,
Yes to insincerities that make you sober or worse,
that shine up their last of royal seal varnish.
No to sticky-finger-printed brass doorknobs,
of which for Scots to knuckle down an' burnish.

No to pious voices calling to brothers in arms,
leave this pound of flesh in vacuous debate.
Yes to monopolies of endless fields an' wind,
an' guards sat on a wall which have no gate.
Alas freedom remembered, stamped an' framed,
was never a win but loss to sovereign'd hate.

Left to aged members of past an' proven fable,
to cry the Nae's an' Yay's of a borrowed tongue,
to the masses still confused, still right thinking,
of who to believe an' who to defile. Now hung
out to dry the many years of engineered deflation,
left alone with answers still evolving, still young.

A year from now a collusive conclusion made,
to this ending – the poet an' playwrights success.
Devolving the ever-changing, deceptive blurbs,
to inveigh a reasoned No with a passionate Yes.
Leaves me mawkish for my country as it devolves,
An' I the fraternal gambler with only a flighty guess.

Recognise your flesh. Recognise the life you have.
Recognise the absurd use of this bargaining chip.
Social norms which press you heavy, all the time,
be they Catholic, Protestant, Tory, Liberal or hip,
Recognise you can discard them, this very moment,
An' become a leader of this Clydebank anchored ship.

Let no acid be sprayed unless to sting open the eyes
of the blind. Let no more our words become unseen.
Let no more the voices of hatred speak. An' so leave  
conflict where it belongs, for crowing minds to preen,
In the past for histrionics. No more of them an' us.
Step into freedom. Free, as you always have been.

all of our politicians are a pox on society
these self important people are the lowest of the low
governing for themselves is their number one priority
telling porkies is the way their empty rhetoric flows

it's our misfortune to have so many of them in our halls of power
we're paying them a fortune for mishandling government biz
and not a one of them is worth a left of right bower
they should be thrown out of our parliaments and into a tizz

we're heartily sick of the ****** lot of them
and they do so leave us with a feeling of utter contempt
not to forget our coughs spits and heaps of phlegm
we so wish that they were from our taxes exempt

if only we could do without these mongrel lot
our countries would most assuredly be less on the ill side
they have a reputation as bad as a pesky horse fly blot
and we'll be only to happy to toss them all well aside

moaning and whinging wont relieve our constant pain
we've got to take things well and truly into our owns hands
we cannot endure anymore of their burdensome strain
government benches would be better off were they to be rid of these bands

acquiring a pesticide to finish them off is one of my notions
then we can relax knowing that they'll no longer blight us
these thoughts are just me musing on a few suggestions
I'll leave you all to ruminate on this poetic piece thus

Sitting, dying, waiting
Casually ticking my eyes back and forth
At doctors and nurses rushing
Trying to save one more life
Just trying to make it to the end of their shift
When I saw you walk out the elevator
The look on your face told me you could use a lift
Of spirit, of body and mind
And that's when you took out that pack of Parliaments

"You can use a cigarette,"
You said through gritted teeth
I looked, smiled, obliged the notion
"How'd you know?"
As I pulled one from the pack
"This is a hospital, man, everyone here can use a smoke.""
As more doctors and nurses speedily scurried along
Scattering jitters
Bouncing them off the walls
Throughout the white washed waiting area

We looked at each other, smiled
Popped the cigarettes in our mouths
Lit up
And no one said a word
As the smoke drifted, floated and danced
Above the sick and dying

To the boy leaving to California,
I'm gonna miss you, but most of all,
I'll miss the eyebrows that you tried so hard to hide from me.
I saw them anyway.
You'll do the music scene of Idyllwild good.

To the girl who ******* me over,
I don't know why I kept you in my life for so long.
******* ♥.

To my Pastor,
I'm not supposed to ask you for forgiveness because you say that it's not your place to forgive.
I hope that you do.

To my sister,
Yes, I am leaving to San Antonio. No, you may not have my stuff. I'll see you at the concert.

To my Prom-Effect crush,
Sometimes I pull out our pictures, read our old conversations,
I look at the goofy drawings you gave me.
You gave me so much more.
Thank you.

To my dog,
You're dumb, but you're cute.
I'm going to miss cuddling with you at night.
I'm going to miss the comforting nuzzles you gave me when you saw me cry.

To the people I spent my time at Moonbean's with,
Who will I get my indie coffee with now?
What will I do if I can't see your calming faces everyday?

To the homeless man  on Jackson Road,
You were gone for a while.
I'm glad to see you're back.

To my other sister,
It's been more than a year and you're already so big.
I promise to be there for you in any way that I can.

To the mailman,
Yes, that is my parking spot. No, I will not move.

To the cute boy at church,
That's all you'll ever be. I see that now.

To my cousin Monica on my mother's side,
You're going through a lot right now.
I know you are.
Remember that you've been through this before.
Maybe it's not easier the second time around,
but at least it's familiar.

To my other cousins, Jessica and Gaby,
I expect great things from you both, each in your own way.

To my "father",
It's still been years since I last saw you.
It's still been years since you last called.

To the five people with a bracelet that reads "Bestie",
You are some of the most amazing and breathtaking people I've ever met.
You are the ones I am scared of losing.
I pray that I don't.

To the lady at the post office, Michelle,
We never really interacted much.
Thank you for that.

To my 12th grade biology teacher,
Santi, your work is a pain in the *** and I didn't learn a **** thing.
I already miss seeing you first thing in the morning.

To my 12th grade English teacher,
YOU ABSOLUTELY ******.
I CAN'T BELIEVE I WASTED AN ENTIRE YEAR IN YOUR CLASS.

To my better, whiter half,
You are still my soulmate,
You are still my person.
I will never forgive myself for being a horrible friend to you when you needed it the most.

To my brother,
For the love of Jesus, please don't ever change.
I'll see you soon.
Clean your room.

To my dad,
It's got a nice ring to it, doesn't it?

To my stray cat,
I honestly don't know how you've survived this long.

To the bookshelves in my closet,
I now you're already full and I haven't read 60% of the books there,
but where can I place these 7 new books?

To my orchestra teachers,
You taught me so much more than music.
I will make you all proud of me one day.

To the girl who went a little ****** this past year,
Have you found your peace?
How about a lie to tell yourself everyday?

To the Parliaments in my room,
I bought you the night I started crying myself to sleep because of him.
I have yet to stop crying.
I think I'll keep you for a while longer.

To my momma,
I won't let anything stop me.
You'll soon have a third diploma to frame.

To the kids who skipped school and smoked,
I changed the wording.
I am one of those kids.

To the University of Texas at San Antonio,
I'm allowing for you to take me from everything that I love.
I pray that you're worth it.

To the boy that I lo-...
It'll be a long time before I'm able to finish that line again.
I hope you're the same person when I do.

Walking through the regiments of
old red,cold,dead
tenements
giving compliments
to the planners who put spanners in the works
of parliaments.

The ghosts of raggy arsed kids still play football on the grass,
not caring a rats *** for the 'no ball games' sign and
lining up for 'nitty Nora' the bug explorer,
lice ain't nice even in the afterlife.

With a little tightening round the waist the skinny day comes out to taste the fatness of the light
I am in sight of something great but I'm hungry ,cannot wait
so I make my move too soon
and am swallowed in the craters of a Moon so cold
so very,very old with its yellow hardened crust that would lead me into desperation with gnarled hands and beard and face as red as any rust turned into dust
I would become
the dying of a dying sun
no matter fat or thin or if I wore a belt or braces
the many faces I would see
would only ever face the end of me.

I try to modify this future that only I can see by praying to a God I can't and never did
I wonder if that God is hid among the craters on the Moon and was it that he made his move too soon?
If so,
we'll have much to muse upon as we wonder where our lives have gone
and would he tell me how to live or would he give a eulogy
prepare me for that long journey?

I've come ten million stars through another thousand corner half lit bars where girls would sell me ballerina dreams that danced for me on spotlight screens and how could everything that seemed so real
be whisked away?

The spinning wheel came to a stop and zero popped up on the marker board where rich men ****** their eminence
and all pretence was stripped away.
Any other day the Lords that lorded over us would break up parliaments and owls would hoot and say
Wit and to whom would we deliver it?

A bit of eccentricity electric elementary educationalists get me fired up again as if I ever learned from them old men with old ideas whose only thoughts were to get young men up off their rears and into wars
more ****** who sold a bill of lading to trading partners who shot us down in front room parlours on council housing states of minds.

A kind of beauty in this fractured glass where through osmosis I can pass but not pass away only into some other uneventful day.
I lay my tortures on your brow
you know how to soothe this pain
before I go off scale again and read a riot act to those, where those who have lain their lives in ***** fields and barn houses full of hay
would have me say,
that we should not have to live this way.

In the craters on the Moon
I see that all is all too soon and will always be
another eulogy is read
for the dead undead who do not know
that here is where we are
there's nowhere left to go.

i'm always ashamed because i'm doing live editing, and because of live editing, i can never really appreciate my work, as if it was stored in a cabinet drawer, unseen and unread by a curious passer-by, this live editing fuels a feeling of shame... but it also fuels: iftaḥ yā simsim (open sesame)!*

the success of u.s.e.
(united states of europe
homogenised
into a monochromatic
use of the english tongue)
will be built upon the
failures u.s.a.
and the failure to feel
guilt for Hiroshima & Nagasaki
like the implemented
guilt the Germans are fed
with Auschwitz...
we have a cold war to stage
the actor's stage fright in
raising up a hand and a cold
hearted democratic ink blotch
of the testifying index finger
that meddled in the shuffling-chess
affairs of electors and parliaments;
it's not that relative things matter
(only einstein could have pulled that off
somehow giving us ripples
of vacuum when space and time collided
without poetic agreement about
fluctuated nostalgia of expression),
we're all abhorrent of moral relativism,
but not taking blame for
the two neutron bombs makes
me a bit sceptical about where this
train is going: it's hardly Zion,
but certainly the fenced in Israel.

Remember when you were a kid
And you would spend the summers at Mama and Papa's?
When ---- was pushing you onto the bed
And you farted in her face?

Remember even further back to Christmas at Uncle ----'s old house
When you headbutted *----
Remember when what was *----'s was yours
And what was yours was *----'s, sometimes?
And *---- always had the cooler toys,
So you'd come out on top anyway

Remember when you visited the Philippines
And all you wanted was to spend time with Lolo
So you did?
You had the farmhands catch a chicken and **** it so that you could cook it.
Then you'd hang out with them and play pool to look cool.
You took a cigarette from a pack of what you now know were Parliaments.
Remember walking down Cochin
And telling Lolo to stop smoking?
He's tell you that it was okay because he was old.
Well now he's still old
And with cancer.
And now you smoke and refuse to stop.

Remember when you promised to stop hurting ----?
But no matter what, you'd end up in her room at night.
You'd call yourself a monster
Make yourself sick
But nothing changed, not until you got caught.

Remember the first time you hit someone?
You got him in the stomach, like the ******* coward you are.
Look even further back , you pounced on that same kid, pinning him to the ground

Remember, in high school,  you got into your fist real fight?
Some ******* was throwing ***** in the locker room,
Hit a **** ******-bag,
And blamed you.
The **** took the ball and hit you.
Remember seeing red and losing control?

Do you remember? I do.
I remember because I am you.
I am the selfish, violent, ***-crazed machine of a man you have become.
I am the monster that glares back when you look into a mirror.
I am every vice embedded in ever fiber of your being.
I am you, remember?

we did not ask for change but still it came
with waving banner and in angry shout
for then our people showed not calm nor tame
but like a flood after long years of drought
that was the moment when the word was rage
that marked the turning of the ancient page
when cities smouldered and when fields were burned
governors fled and parliaments adjourned
in such a time the truth must come in play
the sacred hour of those who once were spurned
who come from darkness into proper day

no one expects the world will stay the same
nor that the light will once again go out
now that all eyes have seen its cheery flame
and minds have been resolved from fear and doubt
by understanding of the proper wage
now to be gained and nothing will assuage
the incensed feelings of the hearts that turned
truly to freedom as the wild waves churned
on the bright shore and we saw the array
of those once vanished who had now returned
who come from darkness into proper day

the story now is not a silly game
nor is it simply nonsense that we spout
about the ending of all hate and shame
now that the old injustice is thrown out
and a new order walks upon the stage
when ordinary folk may shape the age
a better land may some day be discerned
where each achieves the honest pay they earned
and plain respect when their dark hair turns grey
both simple things as far as we're concerned
who come from darkness into proper day

prince we apologise you were interned
your titles stripped and your petitions spurned
your words ignored and servants gone away
but we are with some other things concerned
who come from darkness into proper day

I am a soldier of fortune
but my fortune is not ruin
or even gold
it's life that I hold
in my hands
as a soldier of God
I stand before you
to reveal man's duplicity
of our so called democracy's
the elected officials
yet the only thing official
is there are so many issues
with man-made governments
so many wars
and so much poverty
another lost cause
for all to see.

I have no allegiance to parliaments
and presidents
or the flags they fly
***** rags soaked in the blood of those who've died
and the tears of families left behind who cry
my only loyalty is to God and his theocracy
to expose mankind's hypocrisy
how nation rise up against nation
and man against man
for God is our only salvation
how do you not understand?
I do not need a sword and a shield
as Gods word is more powerful then anything you could wield
It has the ability to change minds
and to save lives
the ability to expose true intentions
and dispose of Satan's inventions.

Satan's sinister ploy
to cause havoc and destroy
the lives of many
that follow his worldly governments
enticed by riches of plenty
for his entertainment
like puppets on a string
they do no thinking
just further sinking
into depravity
lets pray its over soon
that God ends their blasphemy
and brings them to ruin
so I no longer have to be
a Soldier of Fortune.

Yellow and brown.
Stained from years of over consumption.
Coffee or Chai? And periods of chain smoking.

I'm not a smoker. Can't remember the last time I purchased stoges
Last week?
Those weren't for me. Those were Parliaments. And Marlboro Lights.
I smoke Menthols.

*Can I *** one?

wasn’t those mommies who read story books in laps
and crooks of her *****. She shook those needle painted hooks
until said bled a velvet red and ran off alone to hide inside
the white ruffled canopy bed. She was cumbersome as the long mink

coat; she’d tote on a five-foot one frame of the mentally
insane. Little Dolly she’d call the tiny tot. Now sit and look pretty, don’t spoil your dress or I’ll beat you silly! Daddy had friends inside
his head that kept him entertained.  But when he got angry with them

there was hell to pay. And he took it out on the two with garish
words and hyperbole that could fill the vortex of dolly’s soul. Between the cries and begs mommy got exasperated and wiped the floor up
with dolly’s head like a mop. She must have got brain damaged when

she pitched her skull like a baseball through the glass window. It shattered into a hundred pieces. Boy, did she beat the bejesus out of Dolly!  She had welts the size of thick cigars and her behind was
on fire as a wood-burning stove and hung off her side like a overcooked

marshmallow.   Mommy dearest smoked those Parliaments one after the other. And between each puff of swirling grit she’d cuss out loudly and hurl her spit. Gawd, if only she’d choke on it! The orange bee-hive hair she wore looked like a hornet’s nest. Stung a thousand times young, and a thousand more since they rolled her corpse out the door.

.



A petticoat Government

of candyfloss pirates

waxing exultant

and careless in diction

with heavy brogue accent

its speaking displeases

assaulting the ear.

All of our politicians are a blight on our society
These self important people do possess a lack luster glow
Governing for themselves is their number one priority
Telling porkies is the way that their rhetoric doth flow

It is our misfortune to have so many of them in our halls of power
We're paying them a fortune for mismanaging government biz
Not a one of these pollies are worth a left or right bower
They should be thrown out of our parliaments and into a tizz

We're heartily sick of the whole lot of them
As they do so leave us with a feeling of contempt
Not to forget our coughs indigestion or phlegm
We so wish they were from our taxes exempt

If only we could do without this undesirable lot
Our countries would most assuredly be less on the ill side
They have a reputation as bad as a staining ink spot
And we'd be only too happy to toss them all well aside

Moaning and whinging will not relieve the constant bane
We've got to take things into our own hands
We cannot endure anymore of their burdensome strain
Government benches would be better off being rid of these bands

Acquiring a repellent to spray on them is one of my notions
Then we can relax knowing that they'll no more blight us
These thoughts are just me musing on a few suggestions
I'll leave you all to ruminate on this poetic piece thus

You smoke parliaments to warm up
The way you inhale and exhale
The smoke curls around your lips like music
Somehow you can make even the worst things look beautiful
You hold the cigarette between your fingertips
And talk to the hipsters around you  
All so much alike, but all so different
You try to exhale your problems
Along with the smoke
I look at you and wish it was me you crave
My breath going in and out of your lungs
My fingers that you hold so carefully between yours

Human beings.....
In a race to change
The very definition of humanity,
Only to get baptized in insanity.

Politicians.....
Rhapsody of the Parliaments and Government,
To bring a system of popularity,
Full of hate and inequality.

Bureaucrats....
Mobilize the art of duality,
Impress the subordinates with cruelty,
Pave a way to ambiguity,

Media.....
Refines the art of deception
Brainwashing the public view,
Discourages insightful review.


Intellectuals....
Racing the horses of wishes
Full of illogical ideals,
Manipulates as treasure steals.

Teachers...
Busy projecting arcane results,
Doubtful about own native cultures,
Relishing the limelight like vultures.

Administrators.....
Passionate to be remembered, Names on streets and buildings,
Boards and Committee starlings.

Social works....
Administer the theoretical concepts,
Bridge the recognised social rifts,
Actuality is subjugation and wanton theft.
©Perveiz Ali

from Beautiful Losers.

God is alive. Magic is afoot.
God is alive. Magic is afoot.
God is afoot. Magic is alive. Alive is afoot.
Magic never died.
God never sickened.
Many poor men lied. Many sick men lied.
Magic never weakened. Magic never hid. Magic always ruled.
God is afoot. God never died.
God was ruler though his funeral lengthened.
Though his mourners thickened Magic never fled.
Though his shrouds were hoisted the naked God did live.
Though his words were twisted the naked Magic thrived.
Though his death was published round and round the world the heart did not believe.
Many hurt men wondered. Many struck men bled.
Magic never faltered. Magic always led.
Many stones were rolled but God would not lie down.
Many wild men lied. Many fat men listened.
Though they offered stones Magic still was fed.
Though they locked their coffers God was always served.
Magic is afoot. God rules.
Alive is afoot. Alive is in command.
Many weak men hungered. Many strong men thrived.
Though they boasted solitude God was at their side.
Nor the dreamer in his cell, nor the captain on the hill.
Magic is alive.
Though his death was pardoned round and round the world the heart would not believe.
Though laws were carved in marble they could not shelter men.
Though altars built in parliaments they could not order men.
Police arrested Magic and Magic went with them for Magic loves the hungry.
But Magic would not tarry.
It moves from arm to arm.
It would not stay with them.
Magic is afoot. It cannot come to harm.
It rests in an empty palm.
It spawns in an empty mind.
But Magic is no instrument.
Magic is the end.
Many men drove Magic but Magic stayed behind.
Many strong men lied.
They only passed through Magic and out the other side.
Many weak men lied.
They came to God in secret and though they left him nourished they would not tell who healed.
Though mountains danced before them they said that God was dead.
Though his shrouds were hoisted the naked God did live.
This I mean to whisper to my mind.
This I mean to laugh with in my mind.
This I mean my mind to serve till service is but Magic moving through the world, and mind itself is Magic coursing through the flesh, and flesh itself is Magic dancing on a clock, and time itself the Magic Length of God.

Release for peace, you
have to let go and melt
like the snow melts, have
you ever felt so free?

In the space of a minute where
every second's a mile,
it's getting harder and harder to
smile at the antics when politics
are the tricks that Parliaments
play on you, but
you have to release to
find peace,
you have to let go.

When the day stretches out
like a big rubber band and
is ready to snap back and bite
at the hand that feeds it,
do you need it?
release for the peace that
will free you.

Poets pray at the altar of their bed
for a chance to have one of their verses go viral.
If I snore during my prayers,
I've been spending my free time
trying to write you a letter.
You may read it like a voicemail,
and that's fine because I'm still a millennial.

For ex: I bought you this carton of Parliaments,
with the money I earned from changing diapers
at a daycare. We don't have to talk about the future,
because all that does is make me beg for a beer.

I caught feelings for you and you knew that.
because this rain pours from clouds high
in a white sky. It looks like a half-cut marble.
Jay told me to listen to his audio cassette tape,
and now I'm going to wait for you on this balcony.
Don't worry it's a story-high,
and I'm scared of blood.
Worse, I fear being mortal
in a world without you.

When we met, we were happy.
Days passed in blue skies and Marb Lights,
And hollow nights filled with conversation
That could easily fill novels
Both fantasy, and reality.
I can't think of a moment when your fingers weren't interlocked with mine,
A contract of our closeness
More binding than black print.
You were in love with me once,
With every part down to my skeleton,
With my spine that shivered even though your eyes were forever warm
And the dark spaces that my father left in the caverns of my heart
Where your words sparked passionate fires.

Then something shifted.
And I watched with trembling hands
As your eyes turned grey and cold in an echo of the sky.
All at once the gaps started forming,
The unwelcome emptiness creeping into our love
Where cracks turned to chasms
And split first our conversations, then our hands.
You looked at me differently.
I noticed but never spoke,
Not even when I smelled her perfume hanging on your clothes
And I realized that everything you said
Was slowly choking my heart in ash.

Now you’re smoking Parliaments
They’re her brand and they seem to hang softer from your lips,
As you talk with a fluent sort of excitement
Never tainted by the silence
That haunted us like ghosts in the night.
We haven’t held hands in a while
But I still remember how they felt,
Almost as steady and warm as the pen I now grip for security
While you’re out somewhere gripping her.
And I’m happy for you,
Almost unbelieveably so
But I still find myself longing for the warm glow
You used to cast inside of me,
And wonder if you’ll ever come back
To stoke the fire.

The wind is whistling,
out of tune I might add,
mistaking it for the kettle
I got out of
bad
or should that be bed?
shaking my head to dislodge the sleep
my eyes start revolving
the sugar turns blue and
it's me in the cup
wondering why I'm
dissolving.


Ridiculous is four steps to the right
I've been there
was there
sharing a night with the lamp
tightening up with the cramp
and have you noticed
anything odd?

if the door when ajar is not a door
where did it go?
how will you know where to exit or
enter?

When the day breaks
who covers up the cracks?

He
who cements commandments
to medicaments
and buries parliaments
in liniments
knows about the life in tenements
how to
fight from the battlements
He who
gives the final sacraments
on Sunday in the first aid tents

who is He anyway that separates the night
and makes the day pay ransom?

A handsome man I'll wager.

My ****** up latitude
"Please remove all chains and filters
While I chain smoke parliaments
You know
The cigarettes with recessed .....
I forgot the rest"

And I forgot to rest
When I have a chance
Because I seldom ever have a choice
Not in this matter
That doesn't matter
And has no chance or choice to change

My ****** up latitude
Allows me to say whatever
When
And I destroy a day
And then go my merry way
Singing songs

Some people call it freedom
I call it my disease
I want too much
To ever need