I. The Door

Out of it steps our future, through this door
Enigmas, executioners and rules,
Her Majesty in a bad temper or
A red-nosed Fool who makes a fool of fools.

Great persons eye it in the twilight for
A past it might so carelessly let in,
A widow with a missionary grin,
The foaming inundation at a roar.

We pile our all against it when afraid,
And beat upon its panels when we die:
By happening to be open once, it made

Enormous Alice see a wonderland
That waited for her in the sunshine and,
Simply by being tiny, made her cry.

II. The Preparations

All had been ordered weeks before the start
From the best firms at such work: instruments
To take the measure of all queer events,
And drugs to move the bowels or the heart.

A watch, of course, to watch impatience fly,
Lamps for the dark and shades against the sun;
Foreboding, too, insisted on a gun,
And coloured beads to soothe a savage eye.

In theory they were sound on Expectation,
Had there been situations to be in;
Unluckily they were their situation:

One should not give a poisoner medicine,
A conjurer fine apparatus, nor
A rifle to a melancholic bore.

III. The Crossroads

Two friends who met here and embraced are gone,
Each to his own mistake; one flashes on
To fame and ruin in a rowdy lie,
A village torpor holds the other one,
Some local wrong where it takes time to die:
This empty junction glitters in the sun.

So at all quays and crossroads: who can tell
These places of decision and farewell
To what dishonour all adventure leads,
What parting gift could give that friend protection,
So orientated his vocation needs
The Bad Lands and the sinister direction?

All landscapes and all weathers freeze with fear,
But none have ever thought, the legends say,
The time allowed made it impossible;
For even the most pessimistic set
The limit of their errors at a year.
What friends could there be left then to betray,
What joy take longer to atone for; yet
Who could complete without the extra day
The journey that should take no time at all?

IV. The Traveler

No window in his suburb lights that bedroom where
A little fever heard large afternoons at play:
His meadows multiply; that mill, though, is not there
Which went on grinding at the back of love all day.

Nor all his weeping ways through weary wastes have found
The castle where his Greater Hallows are interned;
For broken bridges halt him, and dark thickets round
Some ruin where an evil heritage was burned.

Could he forget a child's ambition to be old
And institutions where it learned to wash and lie,
He'd tell the truth for which he thinks himself too young,

That everywhere on his horizon, all the sky,
Is now, as always, only waiting to be told
To be his father's house and speak his mother tongue.

V. The City

In villages from which their childhoods came
Seeking Necessity, they had been taught
Necessity by nature is the same
No matter how or by whom it be sought.

The city, though, assumed no such belief,
But welcomed each as if he came alone,
The nature of Necessity like grief
Exactly corresponding to his own.

And offered them so many, every one
Found some temptation fit to govern him,
And settled down to master the whole craft

Of being nobody; sat in the sun
During the lunch-hour round the fountain rim,
And watched the country kids arrive, and laughed.

VI. The First Temptation

Ashamed to be the darling of his grief,
He joined a gang of rowdy stories where
His gift for magic quickly made him chief
Of all these boyish powers of the air;

Who turned his hungers into Roman food,
The town's asymmetry into a park;
All hours took taxis; any solitude
Became his flattered duchess in the dark.

But, if he wished for anything less grand,
The nights came padding after him like wild
Beasts that meant harm, and all the doors cried Thief;

And when Truth had met him and put out her hand,
He clung in panic to his tall belief
And shrank away like an ill-treated child.

VII. The Second Temptation

His library annoyed him with its look
Of calm belief in being really there;
He threw away a rival's boring book,
And clattered panting up the spiral stair.

Swaying upon the parapet he cried:
"O Uncreated Nothing, set me free,
Now let Thy perfect be identified,
Unending passion of the Night, with Thee."

And his long-suffering flesh, that all the time
Had felt the simple cravings of the stone
And hoped to be rewarded for her climb,

Took it to be a promise when he spoke
That now at last she would be left alone,
And plunged into the college quad, and broke.

VIII. The Third Temptation

He watched with all his organs of concern
How princes walk, what wives and children say,
Re-opened old graves in his heart to learn
What laws the dead had died to disobey,

And came reluctantly to his conclusion:
"All the arm-chair philosophies are false;
To love another adds to the confusion;
The song of mercy is the Devil's Waltz."

All that he put his hand to prospered so
That soon he was the very King of creatures,
Yet, in an autumn nightmare trembled, for,

Approaching down a ruined corridor,
Strode someone with his own distorted features
Who wept, and grew enormous, and cried Woe.

IX. The Tower

This is an architecture for the old;
Thus heaven was attacked by the afraid,
So once, unconsciously, a ****** made
Her maidenhead conspicuous to a god.

Here on dark nights while worlds of triumph sleep
Lost Love in abstract speculation burns,
And exiled Will to politics returns
In epic verse that makes its traitors weep.

Yet many come to wish their tower a well;
For those who dread to drown, of thirst may die,
Those who see all become invisible:

Here great magicians, caught in their own spell,
Long for a natural climate as they sigh
"Beware of Magic" to the passer-by.

X. The Presumptuous

They noticed that virginity was needed
To trap the unicorn in every case,
But not that, of those virgins who succeeded,
A high percentage had an ugly face.

The hero was as daring as they thought him,
But his peculiar boyhood missed them all;
The angel of a broken leg had taught him
The right precautions to avoid a fall.

So in presumption they set forth alone
On what, for them, was not compulsory,
And stuck half-way to settle in some cave
With desert lions to domesticity,

Or turned aside to be absurdly brave,
And met the ogre and were turned to stone.

XI. The Average

His peasant parents killed themselves with toil
To let their darling leave a stingy soil
For any of those fine professions which
Encourage shallow breathing, and grow rich.

The pressure of their fond ambition made
Their shy and country-loving child afraid
No sensible career was good enough,
Only a hero could deserve such love.

So here he was without maps or supplies,
A hundred miles from any decent town;
The desert glared into his blood-shot eyes,
The silence roared displeasure:
looking down,
He saw the shadow of an Average Man
Attempting the exceptional, and ran.

XII. Vocation

Incredulous, he stared at the amused
Official writing down his name among
Those whose request to suffer was refused.

The pen ceased scratching: though he came too late
To join the martyrs, there was still a place
Among the tempters for a caustic tongue

To test the resolution of the young
With tales of the small failings of the great,
And shame the eager with ironic praise.

Though mirrors might be hateful for a while,
Women and books would teach his middle age
The fencing wit of an informal style,
To keep the silences at bay and cage
His pacing manias in a worldly smile.

XIII. The Useful

The over-logical fell for the witch
Whose argument converted him to stone,
Thieves rapidly absorbed the over-rich,
The over-popular went mad alone,
And kisses brutalised the over-male.

As agents their importance quickly ceased;
Yet, in proportion as they seemed to fail,
Their instrumental value was increased
For one predestined to attain their wish.

By standing stones the blind can feel their way,
Wild dogs compel the cowardly to fight,
Beggars assist the slow to travel light,
And even madmen manage to convey
Unwelcome truths in lonely gibberish.

XIV. The Way

Fresh addenda are published every day
To the encyclopedia of the Way,

Linguistic notes and scientific explanations,
And texts for schools with modernised spelling and illustrations.

Now everyone knows the hero must choose the old horse,
Abstain from liquor and ****** *******,

And look out for a stranded fish to be kind to:
Now everyone thinks he could find, had he a mind to,

The way through the waste to the chapel in the rock
For a vision of the Triple Rainbow or the Astral Clock,

Forgetting his information comes mostly from married men
Who liked fishing and a flutter on the horses now and then.

And how reliable can any truth be that is got
By observing oneself and then just inserting a Not?

XV. The Lucky

Suppose he'd listened to the erudite committee,
He would have only found where not to look;
Suppose his terrier when he whistled had obeyed,
It would not have unearthed the buried city;
Suppose he had dismissed the careless maid,
The cryptogram would not have fluttered from the book.

"It was not I," he cried as, healthy and astounded,
He stepped across a predecessor's skull;
"A nonsense jingle simply came into my head
And left the intellectual Sphinx dumbfounded;
I won the Queen because my hair was red;
The terrible adventure is a little dull."

Hence Failure's torment: "Was I doomed in any case,
Or would I not have failed had I believed in Grace?"

XVI. The Hero

He parried every question that they hurled:
"What did the Emperor tell you?" "Not to push."
"What is the greatest wonder of the world?"
"The bare man Nothing in the Beggar's Bush."

Some muttered: "He is cagey for effect.
A hero owes a duty to his fame.
He looks too like a grocer for respect."
Soon they slipped back into his Christian name.

The only difference that could be seen
From those who'd never risked their lives at all
Was his delight in details and routine:

For he was always glad to mow the grass,
Pour liquids from large bottles into small,
Or look at clouds through bits of coloured glass.

XVII. Adventure

Others had found it prudent to withdraw
Before official pressure was applied,
Embittered robbers outlawed by the Law,
Lepers in terror of the terrified.

But no one else accused these of a crime;
They did not look ill: old friends, overcome,
Stared as they rolled away from talk and time
Like marbles out into the blank and dumb.

The crowd clung all the closer to convention,
Sunshine and horses, for the sane know why
The even numbers should ignore the odd:

The Nameless is what no free people mention;
Successful men know better than to try
To see the face of their Absconded God.

XVIII. The Adventurers

Spinning upon their central thirst like tops,
They went the Negative Way towards the Dry;
By empty caves beneath an empty sky
They emptied out their memories like slops,

Which made a foul marsh as they dried to death,
Where monsters bred who forced them to forget
The lovelies their consent avoided; yet,
Still praising the Absurd with their last breath,

They seeded out into their miracles:
The images of each grotesque temptation
Became some painter's happiest inspiration,

And barren wives and burning virgins came
To drink the pure cold water of their wells,
And wish for beaux and children in their name.

XIX. The Waters

Poet, oracle, and wit
Like unsuccessful anglers by
The ponds of apperception sit,
Baiting with the wrong request
The vectors of their interest,
At nightfall tell the angler's lie.

With time in tempest everywhere,
To rafts of frail assumption cling
The saintly and the insincere;
Enraged phenomena bear down
In overwhelming waves to drown
Both sufferer and suffering.

The waters long to hear our question put
Which would release their longed-for answer, but.

**. The Garden

Within these gates all opening begins:
White shouts and flickers through its green and red,
Where children play at seven earnest sins
And dogs believe their tall conditions dead.

Here adolescence into number breaks
The perfect circle time can draw on stone,
And flesh forgives division as it makes
Another's moment of consent its own.

All journeys die here: wish and weight are lifted:
Where often round some old maid's desolation
Roses have flung their glory like a cloak,

The gaunt and great, the famed for conversation
Blushed in the stare of evening as they spoke
And felt their centre of volition shifted.

1.
There was the tremor of leaves,
a rustle of bayonet grass
parried the multihued calm
of dawn's smeared light.
"This is what we trained for," the captain said.
We hunkered behind stacked bags of sand.

2.
Filigreed shafts of light pierce
the bullet perforated leaf canopy,
bellowed yells punctuate the swirl
and buffet of turbulent air:
“Contact”,  “2 O’Clock”, “Incoming”, “
"Moving”, “Reloading”, “Ammo”.

3.
Fingers twitch, the grit of soil
twisted through their grip;
moon slashed carcasses glint, spent shells,
Earth exhales a vermillion mist,
rising, echoless, in this
a cathedral of leaves.

In a story so old, is a story of love told
as the little folks go nodding their heads.
A tale of a sin, it is has centuries been
the mystery that has, so many, misled.

Amidst the bristling leaves, to which they paid no heed
the lovers, they parried their foes.
In the wisdom of lust; for which one must crave so much,
the lovers, they deafened the shores.

The mighty they came, the mighty they slayed
and time whistled past them to flee.
It was a bruised sky that woke her,
and the weeping earth that cloaked her,
when she fell to knees and roared.

In a story so old, is a story of love told;
when purple mist dawns on us again,
about lovers who met, for those who forget,
that time doesn’t need to know tomorrow.

It seemed that out of battle I escaped
Down some profound dull tunnel, long since scooped
Through granites which titanic wars had groined.


Yet also there encumbered sleepers groaned,
Too fast in thought or death to be bestirred.
Then ,as I probed them, one sprang up, and stared
With piteous recognition in fixed eyes,
Lifting distressful hands, as if to bless.
And by his smile, I knew that sullen hall, -
By his dead smile I knew we stood in Hell.


With a thousand pains that vision's face was grained;
Yet no blood reached there from the upper ground,
And no guns thumped, or down the flues made moan.
'Strange friend,' I said, 'here is no cause to mourn.'
'None,' said that other, 'save the undone years,
The hopelessness. Whatever hope is yours,
Was my life also; I went hunting wild
After the wildest beauty in the world,
Which lies not calm in eyes, or braided hair,
But mocks the steady running of the hour,
And if it grieves, grieves richlier than here.
For by my glee might many men have laughed,
And of my weeping something had been left,
Which must die now. I mean the truth untold,
The pity of war, the pity war distilled.
Now men will go content with what we spoiled,
Or, discontent, boil ******, and be spilled.
They will be swift with swiftness of the tigress.
None will break ranks, though nations trek from progress.
Courage was mine, and I had mystery,
Wisdom was mine, and I had mastery:
To miss the march of this retreating world
Into vain citadels that are not walled.
Then, when much blood had clogged their chariot-wheels,
I would go up and wash them from sweet wells,
Even with truths that lie too deep for taint.
I would have poured my spirit without stint
But not through wounds; not on the cess of war.
Foreheads of men have bled where no wounds were.


I am the enemy you killed, my friend.
I knew you in this dark: for so you frowned
Yesterday through me as you jabbed and killed.
I parried; but my hands were loath and cold.
Let us sleep now...'

I yearn for your voice.
For it is the remedy for this distance.
And this Distance seems to be,
The archenemy of Bliss.

He waits patiently for his chance,
To ambush an unknowing victim.
Yet Bliss walks by our side,
When You and I are hand-in-hand.

He has no conscience.
And he walks with Bliss,
After his victim has fallen.
Yet Bliss, too, is another of his victims.

I yearn for that voice,
To be a shield against Distance.
And You, my sword.
For with you, I can defeat him.

For now, Bliss is nowhere to be found.
So Distance is here with me.
Bow at the ready,
Waiting for me to turn my back.

But I know he is there,
So turn my back, I shall not.
I play your voice over and over,
In my head, and Distance has been parried.

I wait for your return,
So I may take the offensive,
Against this villain,
And destroy him.

For I know when you return,
Bliss will be at your side,
And together,
We shall impale Distance.

Dangerous dragon eyes
burn the stars
and scorch the skies
as the warrior lets
her silver blades fly,

Bronze skin
battle maiden,
******* in chainmail,
spear and shield
on her back
as she tracks
the beasts
who attacked
random villages.

Like a Valkyrie
she walked past me
with death on her breath.
All power and confidence,
she passes on to face this
monster in the darkness.

She moved like
a ballet dancer
rushing in
and striking him
in the place where
his scale skin was thin.
then rolled back
before the dragon’s attack.

Fire and fury
bare skin scorching
forcing her
to retreat
but only for
a solitary
second.

Claws cutting,
tail swinging,
scales scraping,
scratches stinging.

The ground
running
with the blood of
both combatants.

One arm
a ragged mess
of jagged flesh.

One dragon eye
destroyed while
sulphur and smoke
choked the breath
from her parched throat.

Long neck charging
as she parried
in a twirling fashion
letting the dragon’s head pass.

It moved quick
but she was faster
and matched that *******
primal fury.

Short silver
sharp dagger
nested itself
slightly above the neck
as the force of the animals
violent
movement
cut itself
making a long sick ****
as it lunged past fast
and finally fell
in defeat.

By T. A. Beale

I was working my garden on a warms summers day,
When a robin flew by, from across the way,
His wings tipped with silver, black brows over his eyes,
His robins red breast, you might have guessed,
but upon his cheek, a dark mark he could not disguise,
I laughed and I smiled as I cried aloud,
"Tis brave Robin Black-Cheek, a bird most renowned!"
He bowed and sang, “Good day to you sir! My chicks need a feeding!"
I nodded and said, "There's food underground, just follow around while I do
the weeding!"
So we set to work, and into each hole that I dug,
Mr Robin flew, and emerged bearing worms or a fat wriggling bug!
Time after time, with a beak full of grubs he'd return to his nest,
As the day grew long, I could not go on, I lay down my shovel, I needed a
rest!
Mr Black-Cheek hopped on my boot, and danced an impatient jig,
He looked at me and sang, "My chicks are still hungry! Why won't you dig?"
"Rest a while, lets take a moment to speak, tell me how you got that black scar on your
cheek!"

"Very well. But I warn you now, 'tis not a tale for the meek!”
I was guarding my garden when a rogue robin rival reproached me and said,
"I shall end your life, then take your wife, she will thank me when you're
dead!"
I swooped down to meet him, I perched on the fence,
I puffed my red breast and angrily sang, “Let battle commence!”
The scoundrel soared up, beak shining like steel in the sunlight, and he sliced my cheek!
Staggered and stunned I spun round, but soon I steadied, stood straight and showed by beak!
“T'was but a slight!” I swung at him, and continued the fight!
We ****** and we pecked, we riposte and we parried,
“Leave while you can! Too long have you tarried!”
We flew and we dashed, and in mid-air we clashed,
In a flurry of feathers we fought, a final fell blow and the foul fiend was fallen,
I sang with glee; for he was forced to flee!
I returned to my tree, now no one would dare challenge me!

He bowed again once his tale was told,
“Now dig me more grubs, afore this day grows old!”
I gladly obliged, for I'd made a new friend,
and we worked all day, until the end.


© Thomas A. Beale
2015

He must have looked like an easy mark,
the old man and his dog.
He walked with a cane
with his dog on a chain
on a deserted stretch of road.

There were three of them
they were young black men
as their car pulled up behind
They viewed that man as an ATM
and set out to rob him blind.

As he faced his foe
with his dog at his side
he parried with his blackthone stick
When one tried to grab the cane from the man
it ripped his hands to shreds right quick.

The faithful dog lept to the fray
and his teeth sank into beef.
He warmed to his task
as he bloodied the calf
of the somewhat tasty thief.

The third crook had a knife
and he tried for the life
of the little old grey haired man
but the cane ,like a club,
gave his kidney tough love
and the thief said
"its high time we ran ."

They fled from the scene
in their crack limousine
and my Dad and his dog
cheered their flight
Though he was quite out of breath
and his coat had been ripped
all in all it had been a good night.

My Dad and his dog
have long since passed on.
It's been thirty years now
since that night
but his old  blackthorne cane
in my homestead remains
ever ready in case of a fight.

We speak the explicit language of damage
Whether it's through anguish or famine
It only takes a little while to examine
Until we learn the language well
And eventually become fluent
To create this worldwide hell
Where the warfare is incongruent

We speak this language for many reasons
We speak this language through every season
The dialect varies from country to country
But all that really matters is who's hunting
The end result is the same
For damage done before
We inflict retributive pain
To even the damage score

Damage lowers our health
Damage increases their wealth
Damage puts us on the shelf
Until we damage ourself

The damage is done
So we must run
But at some point we turn around
Planting our feet into the ground
Becoming the damage cause
Doing what we've learned
We attribute this to our flaws
Not caring who gets burned

There is a damage sandwich
Within our damaged land's width
We're caught between being imposed on
And becoming oppressors
You're either forced to keep your clothes on
Or become an undresser
Perceptions of greater and lesser
Further complicate the scenario
We receive them through our stereo
To look down on those of other barrios
All of that damage can be parried though
If we work as a team
Better yet a species
To live in a utopian dream
Instead of our feces

In a field of flowers, the marigolds
waved to say hello on behalf of the
wind.  It was not, at that time,
well understood, that the wind had
cosmic drifts of stars, like blossoming
marigolds, to be parried with steel
and resolve.  The numbers added up
to amounts obscured and contradicted.
This interminable universe swirled in
spirals set by the hysterical gardener.
The telephone operator was calm.

Dispatched to seek out the “traitors” of High,
Michael, Archangel of the sky,
With God’s wrath in heavy tow,
Would bring about our kind to woe,
He tortured Angels and Devils alike,
Until he came to Azrael’s Scythe,
One of the most glorious battles,
Michael and Azrael had no previous quarrels,
They slashed, parried, savaged and fought,
Until such a time as a season wrought
The Snow and sadness of Death and Decay,
Azrael’s strength was abound this day,
And as the Scythe found Michael’s neck,
Michael lowered his sword, all vexed,
Afraid of his Father for his apparent failure,
Azrael began to speak of the Savior,
Who one day would save the good of Earth,
Although Angels do not share this birth,
Michael then decided to stay and in moral,
Like Azrael, protecting all of the mortals,
He chose to leave Heaven for Earth in time,
Until Gabriel was to come collecting his fine.
And in this decision, Michael hid himself from God,
So that The Father believing Michael was lost,
Wept in His glorious stead,
Thinking that His Archangel was dead,
He spoke unto the remaining Six,
He spoke and then they were convinced,
The Parents of Nephilim had struck Michael down,
It was then, Gabriel swore, he would see his brother found.

I grasped the sword
charged ahead at full speed
I don't know who will win
my opponent or me
we both trained for years
shared classes, friends even food
now our elders decided that our fates
shall lie within an age old contest,
out in the forest, we staged a duel.
I heard kunai hit the trunk behind me,
I instinctively turned around
dodged, parried, struck back as he aimed
to cut me to the ground
I struck back with two quick slices
aimed directly at the head,
we fought like dogs starved for days
like the moon struggling against the sunrise
I was grievously injured, but he couldn't win the fight.
I removed his head from his body
in one swift, fluid stroke


and then I awoke...
fighting my own brother
a nightmare that had been plaguing me for days, weeks on end.
why is it I keep on thinking, that maybe just maybe, it has roots in my past loves end?

The only poet I saw from any close
never married his muse

wrote poems for her
offered her rose
but when she asked to tie the knot
found an excuse!

love's road ends in marriage
when he told her this
with on her forehead a gentle kiss
she got a shock

the poet cleverly averted wedlock!

they had a prolonged affair
each day he gave her a new name
each day she inspired a new poem
each time she proposed marriage
umpteenth time he would repeat the adage

love's road ends in marriage.

thus nailed with wisdom and parried
on the tenth year she married

and soon the poet forgot his coined adage.

He wedded a woman half his age!

You’ll smell of whiskey, I just know it.
Sweaty, just a tad
Briskly you walk towards me
with purpose, all your thoughts exposed
you’ll not be able to stop yourself
afraid of a girl
and I’ll like that
a slight step backward, taken… and then

Itll be like a dance
nervous, twitching
until
shoulders brush
backs of hands touch
and then the magnet eyes
the tendon glue of you
and me
crackles clean
first footsteps after a midnight snow
spun sugar
glances parried
returned
dry lips licked
panting

all right before a voice quietly floats out

Hello.

No going back now.

We’ve met.  It’s personal.

Jed charged forth with a mighty roar
Karadain was first to fight
Thunder ripped and skies they tore
The clash of swords was an awesome sight

Karadain, he moved with grace
Jedediah stood his ground
Every slash and ****** a waste
Parried with a ringing sound

Jed's claymore soon made it's mark
Silence played a simple song
He ****** it through Karadain's heart
To take a life was never wrong

Solotris bowed his head in shame
Friend or not he didn't care
Life was gone as soon it came
It seemed the fight was hardly fair

Drawing faith in many spades
Solotris began to march
Courage was what courage made
He raised his sword in a deadly arch

Night's chill parried by
Tea or tobacco leaves
Slick gradient of a sky
Until housing cuts rough
Disguising true horizons
And their warmth of whatever within

Flanked by twelve houses
Built by twice the hubris
As to be within speaking distance
Of this village of backyards
Yet communicate
In the alien language
Of light switches.

Bedrooms are fireflies
In an open field of brick flora
Backdropping the safety of
All of our bad habits
Struggling as we like
We share in the disconnect of
Our wrought ice age
Marked by the jingling of keys.

Stones hinged
In jagged mystery
Behind whispered veils
And torrid grays.

A damp earth hinting
The bashful sun
bides it’s peak.

Morning is a majesty
parried
By chaotic wakes.

Hark!
The stolen kingdom!

All is Regicide;
the car
the train
the lovers quarrel

Over coffee-
A public execution.

Mysteries remain

The sun bides less
Unabashed-
Fading
with the grays.

We’ll try again
tomorrow.

Within my hand I held it strong
Notwithstanding its weight prolonged
The burden carried, the weight parried
I wish I had but just some clarity

It was precious, precarious, and persuasive
My yearning for it was but invasive
Like the ring its presence grasped my mind
Was it really the type to be kind

Many have sought and called it mine
But only for a mere instance in time
Joyous contempt filled the others
Who were not blessed by Olympus’s mothers

Intangible yet it could still be held
Was it the fire which had really meld
The fortitude of its past successors
The pain incurred by its predecessors

If it’s Ares who carries, it’s very scary
Bide, the burden is deeply buried
Through thoughtful triumph will prevail
The victor who holds the true avail

by Mike V.

I always try to remember the good stuff
but it’s hard
to block out and forget the cold

it was cold and rainy that day
hop skipping
and jumping

to keep up with you
on bridges
over canals

through alleyways
and bicycles
oh how we parried

to dodge the bicycles
and how I’ve tarried
so long

to think about and make sense
of what
it all meant

but like I said
I just try to remember
the good stuff


Whit Howland © 2019

The basement sported the requisite folding metal chairs,
Each of indeterminate age and reliability,
One wall featuring a poster of a standard-issue Jesus,
Implacably serene, ministering to a flock
Of equally generic and cherubic children.
An ancient coffee table, suitably gouged and graffitied,
Sat off to one side,
Encumbered with ashtrays,
Styrofoam cups of varying degrees of emptiness,
And the remains of a bundt cake
(Store-bought, the evening’s dessert designee
Not up to the challenge of having her baking skills
Being yet one more thing held up to the light for judgment.)
The tales were standard issue bottle-done-me-wrong-song fare:
Jobs lost, marriages torn asunder, children estranged,
Plaintive tunes sung by the usual suspects
(The weak-chinned with haunted faces, the closeted gays,
The intense silent types still in the full bloom of denial.)
There was, this particular evening, an extra folding chair
Sitting unused off to the right,
Normally occupied by a compact, muscular sort
Who, when not furiously scribbling notations
In an ancient stenographer’s notebook,
(This habit earned several looks-that-would ****
From some of the long-term habitués of these meetings,
Who felt he was making some speakers a bit reticent,
Considerably reducing the sessions’ entertainment value)
Observed the proceedings intensely with ****** expressions
Alternating between schoolboy grins and bailiff-stern frowns.

Some weeks prior to leaving the group, his demeanor changed;
The notebook left at home, the sine waves of emotional extremes
Exchanged for an easygoing, almost beatific smile,
He’d sit with hands behind head, leaning backward in his chair
(The rubber tips of the chair legs making a soft tap, tap, tap
As they lifted and settled back onto the floor),
Letting the weekly affairs roll on
As if they didn’t concern him in the least.
His sponsor had been, understandably, somewhat taken aback
By this sudden sea-change in attitude,
And was further nonplussed by the response
To the polite inquiry as to this change in heart.
I’ve discovered to the secret, the sponsor was informed,
All of it, every last **** thing that’s said every **** week
All due to sadness--and I know that all I need to do
Is not to cause it for anyone else, and not feel it myself.
I’ll never need to drink again, he said with a smile
That would not have been out of place among the angels,
And he turned and walked away,
Never to attend a meeting again.

He may have been right
(For whom among us could say for sure he was wrong?)
But, as it turned out,
Sadness was not the type of adversary
Which was of a mind to come out and fight like a man;
It lurked in dark corners, and was apt to come at you
From all directions and at all hours,
Nor was it averse to enlisting loved ones and total strangers
In the furthering of its cause.  
He’d parried and ****** at these shadowy antagonists
(Though his exertions and exhortations were,
Often as not, directed at nothing more than thin air)
With increasing frustration
And diminishing certainty as to his beliefs,
And at some point he supposed that his effective weaponry
Was reduced to a sturdy chair, strong rope, and solid roof beam
(The landlady found him just a bit too late,
His toes rhythmically drumming against the apartment door.)

The long evening of sighs and serenity came to a close,
Goodbyes and small talk wrapping up in short order,
And the participants walked up the stairs from the basement
(One or two members nodding, perhaps in reverence,
Possibly in whimsy to the picture of the Son on their way out)
And a few of them made mention
As to how much darker the evenings seemed
Now that fall was slipping away toward winter,
And how nice it would be if the parking lot was better lit.

I am a  swallow,
furnished on a  nest
capturing the essence from  my flight,
diligently following a hidden path.
Pretending Buddha's hand is a hallow truth,
parried by the wind
this old world will not  change because,
you're a fledging
tears like the fallen rain
along with the passing cumulus