He has taken rake and shovel in hand,
Taking advantage of the light,
Rare in these climes this time of year,
Still welcomed, though rendered severe
By the sun's reluctant trudge above the horizon,
The type which, sauntering through a window pane
(Falling upon a crucifix anchored above a cradle
Or some ancient, gilded frame
Containing a photo of some grandparent's wedding day,
Exploding into full undifferentiated diffusion)
May possess a dram of warmth, albeit resigned, nostalgic
A bittersweet reminder of what has gone by
(And in the shade, the air is filled
With the portentous chill of what lies a few months hence)
But there nonetheless as he tends to those final farewells
From the trees bowing to December's inevitability,
The droppings not the *******-esque bursts of October
(Those having been collected and consigned
To the normal corner of the back lot)
But dreary brown-hued things, not welcomed by eye nor heart,
Simply corralled perfunctorily and dismissed.
One could contend that such activity is unnecessary,
The mere vanity of all endeavor,
As the snow will come soon, and steady as well,
Performing the seasonal, cyclical function in its own time,
But he soldiers on nonetheless, a unseen one-act nearly-farce,
Painstakingly raking and bending and scraping
To leave his patch of green uncovered for a little while
Until the locking time comes to seal the earth's secrets once more,
To be revealed to those
Who shall receive the teasing ministrations
Of the fickle, fitful March equinox.

The stars still shone last night, and tasted pretty like my last sonnet;
And I still loved thee; and imagined thee 'fore I retreated to bed.
Ah, but thou know not-thou wert envied by t'at squeaking trivial moon;
It seduced and befriended thee; but took away thy sickly love too soon.
Ah, t'at moon which was burnt by jealousy, and still perhaps is,
Took away thy love-which, if only willing to grow; couldst be dearer than his.
But too thy love, which hath-since the very outset, been mostly repulsive and arduous;
And loving thee was but altogether too customary, and at gullible times, odious.
Ah, but how I was too innocent-far too innocent, was I!
Why didst I stupidly keepeth loving thee-whose soul was but too sore, and intense-with lies?
And at t'is very moment, every purse of stale dejection leapt away from me;
Within t'eir private grounds of madness; but evaporating accusations.
Ah, so t'at thou desired me not-and thus art deserving not of me;
But why didst I resist not still-thy awkwardness, and glittering sensations?
Oh, I feeleth uncivil now-for I should hath been too mad not at the moon;
For taking away thy petty threads, and curdling winds, out of me-too soon.
And for robbing my gusts, and winds, and pale storms of bewitching-yet baffling, affection;
But in fact thrusting me no more, into the realms of death; and t'eir vain alteration.
Ah, thee, so how I couldst once have awaited thee, I never knoweth;
For perhaps I shall be consumed, and consequently greeteth immediate death; within the fatal blushes of tomorrow.
But still-nothing of me shall ever objecteth to t'is tale of blue horror, and chooseth to remain;
And I shall distracteth thee not; and bindeth my path into t'at one of thy feet-all over again.
Once more, I shall be dimmed by my mirthlessness and catastrophes and sorrow;
Yet thankfully I canst becometh glad, for all my due virtues, and philanthropic woes.

I shall be wholly pale, and unspeaking all over me-just like someone dead;
And out of my mouth wouldst emergeth just tears-and perhaps little useless, dusty starlings;
I shall hath no more pools or fits or even filths of healthy blood, nor breath;
I shall remembereth not, the enormous fondness, and overpowering passions; for our future little darlings.
For my love used to be chilly, but warm-like t'ose intuitive layers behind the sky;
But thou insisted on keeping silent and uncharmed-a frightfulness of sight; I never knew why.
Now t'at I hath returned everything-and every single terseness to my heart;
I shall no more wanteth thee to pierce me, and breaketh my gathered pride, and toil, apart.
For I am no more of a loving soul, and my whole fate is bottomless and tragic;
I canst only be a lover for thee, whenst I am endorsed; whenst I feeleth poetic.
I shall drowneth myself deep into the very whinings of my misery;
I shall curseth but then lift myself again-into the airs of my own poetry.
For the airs of whom might only be the sources of love I hath,
For t'is real world of thine, containeth nothing for me but wrath;
Ah, and those skies still screameth towards me, for angering whose ****** foliage;
Whenst t'ose lilies and grapes of my soul are but mercifully asleep on my part.
I wanteth to be mad; but not any careless want now I feeleth-of cherishing such rage;
For I believeth not in ferocity; but forgiveness alone-which rudely shineth on me, but easeth my painful heart.
I hath ceased to believe in my own hand; now furnished with discomfort;
But still I hath to fade away, and thus cut t'is supposedly long story short.
I hath been burned by thee, and flown wistfully into thy Hell;
But so wisheth me all goodness; and that I shall surviveth well.
And just now-at t'is very moment of gloom; I entreateth t'at thou returneth to her, and fasteneth yon adored golden ring;
For it bringst thee gladness, which is to me still sadly too dear, everything.

Ah! Look! Look still-at t'ose streaks of blueness-which are still within my poetry on thee;
But I shall removeth them, and blesseth them with deadness; so that thou shalt once more be young, and free.
For what doth thee want from me-aside from unguarded liberty, and unintimate-yet wondrous, freedom?
For thou might as well never thinketh of me during thy escape;
And forever considereth me but an insipid flying parachute-to thy wide stardom;
Which deserveth not one single stare; as thou journeyeth upon whose dutiful circular shape.
And a maidservant; a wretched ale *****-within thy inglorious kingdom;
Which serveth but soft butter and cakes, to her-thy beloved, as she peacefully completeth her poem.
The poem she shall forceth to buy from me-with a few stones of emerald;
To which I shall sternly refuseth-and on which my hands receiveth t'ose climactic bruises.
For she, in her reproof-shall hit me thereof, a t'ousand times; and a harlot me, she shall calleth;
And storm away within t'at frock of endless purpleness; and a staggering laugh on her cheeks.
And I-I shall be thy anonymous poet, whose phrases thou at times acquireth, at nighttime-but never read;
A bedroom bard, in whose poetry thou shalt not findeth pleasures, and to which thou shalt never sit.
A jolly wish thou shalt never, in thy lifetime, cometh anyhow-to comprehend-nor appreciate;
But should I still continueth my futility; for poetry is my only diligent haven, and mate.
In which I shall never be bound to doubteth, much less hesitateth;
For in poetry t'ere only is brilliance; and embrace in its workings of fate.
And sadly, a servant as I am-on her vanity should I needst to forever wait, and flourish;
To whom my importance, either dire profoundness-is no more t'an a tasty evening dish.
And my presence by thee is perhaps something she cannot relish;
I know not how thou couldst fall for a dame-so disregarded and coquettish!
To whom all the world is but hers; and everything else is thus virtual;
So t'at hypocrisy is accepted, as how glory is thus defined as refusal.
But sometimes I cometh to regret thy befallen line of glory, and untoward destiny;
I shall, like ever, upon which remembrance, desireth to save thee, and bringst thee safely, to eternity.
But even t'is thought of thee shall maketh me twitch with burning disgust;
For I hath gradually lost my affection for thee; either any passion t'at canst tumultously last.
And shall I never giveth myself up to any further fatigue-nor let thy future charms drag me away;
For I hath spent my abundant time on thy poetry-and all t'ose useless nights and days;
As thou shalt regard me not-for my whole cautiousness, nor dear perseverance-and patience;
Thou shalt, like ever, stay exuberant, but thinketh me a profound distress-a wild and furious, impediment.
Thou hath denied me but my most exciting-and courteous nights;
And upon which-I shall announce not; any sighs of willingness-to maketh thee again right;
nor to helpeth thee see, and obediently capture, thy very own eager light.

And when thy idiocy shall bringst thee the most secure-yet most amatory of disgrace, turn to me not;
I hath refused any of thine, and wisheth to, perfunctorily-kisseth thee away from my lot,
I shall writeth no more on thy eloquence-for thou hath not any,
As nothing hath thou shown; nothing but falsehood-hath thou performed, to me.
Thou hath given none of those which is to me but virulent-and vital;
Thou art not eternal like I hath expected-nor thy bitter soul is immortal.
Thou art mortal-and when in thy deft last seconds returneth death;
Thou, in remorse, shalt forever be spurned by thy own deceit, and dizzily-spinning breath,
And after which, there shall indeed be no more seconds of thine-ah, truly no more;
Thou shalt be all gone and ended, just like hath thou once ended mine-one moment before.
All t'at was once unfair shall turneth just, and accordingly, fair;
For God Himself is fair-and only to the honest offereth His chairs;
But the limbs of Heaven shall not be pictured, nor endowed in thee;
To thee shall be opened the gate of fires, as how thou hath impetuously incarnated in me.
No matter how beautiful they might be-still thy bliss shall flawlessly be gone,
Thou shalt be tortured and left to thy own disclosure, and mock discourses-all alone.
For no mortality shall be ensured foreverness-much less undead togetherness;
As how such a tale of thy dull, and perhaps-incomprehensible worldliness.
By t'at time thou shalt hath grown mature, but sadly 'tis all too late;
For thou hath mocked, and chastised away brutally-all the truthful, dearest workings of fate.
And neither shalt thou be able to enjoy-the merriments of even yon most distant poetry;
For unable shalt thou be-to devour any more astonishment; at least those of glory.
And thus the clear songs of my soul shall not be any of thy desired company;
Thy shall liveth and surviveth thy very own abuse; for I shall wisheth not to be with thee;
For as thou said, to life thou, by her being, art the frequented life itself;
Thus thou needst no more soul; nor being bound to another physical self;
And t'is shall be the enjoyment thou hath so indolently, yet factually pursued-in Hell;
I hope thou shalt be safe and free from hunger-and t'at she, after all, shall attendeth to thee well.

And who said t'at joys are forbidden, and adamantly perilous?
For t'ose which are perilous are still the one lamented over earth;
For in t'ose divine delights nothing shall be too stressful, nor by any means-studious;
For virtues are pure, and the walls of our future delights are brighter t'an yon grey hearth;
And be my soul happy, for I hath not been blind; nor hath I misunderstood;
I hath always been useful-by my writing, and my sickened womanhood;
Though I hath never possessed-and perhaps shall never own, any truthful promise, nor marriage bliss;
Still I longeth selfishly to hear stories-of eternal dainty happiness, for the dainty secret peace.
Ah, thee, for after thee-there shall perhaps no being to be written on-in yon garden;
A thought t'at filleth me not with peace, but shaketh my whole entity with a new burden.
Oh, my thee, who hath left me so heartlessly, but the one whom I hath never regarded as my enemy-
The one I hath loved so politely, tenderly, and all the way charmingly.
Ah! Ah! Ah! But why, my love, why didst thou turn t'is pretty love so ugly?
I demandeth not any kind purity, nor any insincere pious beauty,
But couldst thou heareth not t'is heart-which had longed for the one of thine-so subserviently and purely?
For I am certainly the one most passionately-and indeed devotedly-loving thee,
For I am adorable only so long as thou sleepeth, and breatheth, beside me,
For I am admired only by the west winds of thy laugh, and the east winds of thy poetry!
Ah, but why-why hath thou stormed away so mercilessly like t'is;
And leaving me alone to the misery of this world, and my indefinite past tears?
Ah, thee, as how prohibited by the laws of my secret heaven,
Thus I shall painteth thee no more in my poesies, nor any related pattern;
There, in t'is holy dusk's name, shall be spoiled only by the waves of God's upcoming winters,
In the shapes of rain, and its grotesque, ye' tenacious-and horrifying eternal thunders.
And thus t'ese lovesick pains shall be blurred into nothingness-and existeth no more,
But so shall thy image-shall withereth away, and reeketh of death, like never before.
For I shall never be good enough to afford thee any vintage love-not even tragedy,
For in thy minds I am but a piece of disfigured silver; with a heart of unmerited, and immature glory;
Ah, pitiful, pitiful me! For my whole life hath been black and dark with loneliness' solitary ritual,
And so shall it always be-until I catch death about; so grey and white behind t'ose unknown halls.
And shall perhaps no-one, but the earth itself-mourneth over my fading of breath,
They shall cheereth more-upon knowing t'at I am resting eternally now, in the hands of death.
And no more comical beat shall be detected, likewise, within my poet's wise chest;
For everything hath gone to t'eir own abode, to t'eir unbending rest.
But I indeed shall be great-and like an angel, be given a provisionary wing;
By t'is poetry on thee-the last words of mouth I speaketh; the final sonata I singeth.

Thus thou art wicked, wicked, wicked-and shall forever be wicked;
Thou art human, but at heart inhuman-and blessed indeed, with no charming mortal aura;
Thou wert once enriched indeed-by my blood, but thy soul itself is demented;
And halved by its own wronged purity, thou thus art like a villainous persona;
Thou art still charmed but made unseeing, and chiefly-invisible;
Unfortunately thou loathe scrutiny, and any sort of mad poetry;
Knowing not that poetry is forever harmless, and on the whole-irresistible;
And its tiny soul is on its own forgiving, estimable, and irredeemable.
Ah, thee, whose soul hath but such a great appeal;
But inanely strained by thy greed-which is like a harm, but to thee an infallible, faithful devil.
Thou art forever a son of night, yet a corpse of morn;
For darkness thriveth and conquereth thy soul-and not reality;
Just like her heart which is tainted with tantrum, and scorn;
Unsweet in her glory, and thy being-but strangely too strong to resist-to thee.
Ah, and so t'at from my human realms thou dwelleth immorally too far;
As art thou unjust-for t'is imagination of thine hath left nothing, but a wealth of scars;
I used to recklessly idoliseth thee, and findeth in thy impure soul-the purest idyll;
But still thou listened not; and rejected to understandeth not, what I wouldst inside, feel.
After all, though t'ese disclaimers, and against prayers-hath I designated for thee;
On my virtues-shall I still loyally supplicate; t'at thou be forgiven, and be permitted-to yon veritable, eternity.

A little bag of bones and ***** skin crawls lackadaisically,
Looking every inch like a moving mass of biltong,
With one arm weakly clasped on the protruding belly,
Looks for somewhere to lie,
Some water tank explodes from inside of her,
Writhes in unimaginable agony,
Screams the screams of death,
Spreads her bony legs sickly,
Out comes an object,
Yes, a baby is born,
In extreme poverty,
It cries and cries,
The shallow cries of a newcomer,
It cries the cries of not being well,
It opens its tiny eyes to a new world,
A world extensively pregnant of poverty,
It dies in the weak sickly mother’s arms,
Veins-wrapped boney powerless arms,
The death of a missed call desperately wanted,
Ended before it even started,
In extreme poverty, it dies,
Just like it was born,
It is eaten by starving dogs,
Dogs in extreme poverty,
Perfunctorily torn apart like a rag doll,
As the mother helplessly watches,
Too weak to do anything,
Born and died in poverty.

We were reapers in a past life
I was the cape and you were the scythe
We pulled the wool over their eyes
And made their dreams death in disguise

Wrapped up lilies reaching for shade,
a familiar tragedy,
even they cannot bear the sun's gaze

Wretched.
Reaching for the wool and the knife
In the heaven-less night

Where the shades of confessions danced,
we walked
But, I was not there to get them to talk
The Reverend and the pew
Never did what they were meant to

Tangled lilies reluctantly reaching for shade
Ashamed to accept the slight--decaying hope
and disparate daydreams
Reaching for the cape and the scythe
For the heaven-less sight

Here lies a city
Of flowers-the lilies
In the dark its clarity profoundly makes
A sunlit city dreary

And, we were reapers in our last life
I, your loveless lover,
you with another spouse
Drove me into despair, dragging
the night-sky into our love
made-up of lies

So, we perfunctorily made death
a heaven-less guise
Death, made out of dreams and lies

Be careful, of love's cape and scythe,
If you're to keep your life.

*Sui Caedere translated from Latin, "of oneself ****"
" Suicide in a Sunlit City."

He’d been able, after some gentle persistence,
To wheedle his way into the place
(He’d been vaguely recognized by the caretaker,
A certain affable familiarity his stock in trade, after all)
And he had been decidedly deliberate in his search for the shoes,
Though he’d been quite certain where he’d left them,
Simply hoping to drink this all in just one more time
But though the rooms were ostensibly unchanged
(He'd noted the odd knick-knack and piece of bric-a-brac
Had been secreted out, to be preserved or pawned)
They held no fascination for him now,
Simply concoctions of hardwood flooring,
Decorative wall coverings, staid pieces of furniture
(Indeed, the paterfamilias of this whole mélange
Increasingly beyond his recall-- he could hearken back
To a certain hail-fellow-well-met in his demeanor,
And he'd had an affecting smile,
But he was unable to conjure any further details
From the recesses of his memory)
And with nothing else to moor him to these silent rooms,
He'd slipped on the ostensible reasons he'd come in the first place
(Their uppers maintaining their whiteness
Through any number of bleachings,
The soles worn to a near smoothness)
And, nodding perfunctorily to the mansion's steward,
He slipped away, heading to some other party
Carrying on in more or less perpetuity,
The battered bottoms of his shoes
Leaving just the faintest marks as he crossed the dunes,
Soon to be buffed away altogether by the breeze.

Heartbeat limps
into my ears as I perfunctorily
greet your memory.
The slate of recollection wiped
clean
by a year-long flood.
Good.
Passersby on the street - your
memory and me.

Heartbeat finally caught
up to steady-drum-wit.

I'm glad, I am glad now -
you exist
only as a breath-steam image
on my glasses.

I got a new pair this year
so I could see more clearly.

There is no longer any excuse.
In fact, there hasn’t been for a
very long time.

We have seen bloodshed
on soil around the world.  
Over one million lives,
in the name of
freedom,
democracy,
capitalism,
& I can’t quite recall the others
at the moment.

We have connected
through time and space.
We heard and we watched
Bell & Lindbergh
Ford & Armstrong
Gates & Jobs
transform the very fabric of our realities,
uncovering expanding realms
of possibility.

We have healed and protected
our fragile bodies.
Decades ago,
Mr. Salk became part of evening
prayers.
We began having less babies,  
and we marveled for 112 days
at the beating of the first
artificial heart.
Wondering or not
whether new bionic inclinations
had affected our humanity.

We have evolved
collective creeds
through unexpected revolutionaries
and in spite of dragging feet.
While AFL & CIO
became household names,
Ms. Anthony and Dr. King
made us cry
and shake
and question
our very foundations.

And yet,
after 165 years of change,
I say, with a heavy heart,
and millions of people,
and billions of dollars,
and a dream,
that the 1850’s schoolhouse
has been only
feebly & perfunctorily
remodeled.

From their graves,
Mr. Mann & Mr. Dewey ask,
“What will it take?”

Lately I've been thinking
About all the hairpin
Turns I've gone around
Too quickly
And almost eaten
My own ***
Straight into
A tree

And mostly
I've been thinking
About all the
Ships I've sunk
With tiny
Needle.     point
Holes
Thousands
Of perforated
Perfunctorily placed
Sailor sabotage

All of those ships
resting at the bottom
Of my halfway conscious
Self
Because I'm afraid
Of being the barnacle
Brained woman
That I am
Clinging to the bellies
Of the sinking
Ships I've carefully
Cast into
The depths

And lately I've
Been wondering
Why I've never been so
Lucky as to
Hit one of
Those needle poked turns
As fast as I could

I couldn't help but wonder how the day began.
Did he spend precious moments on his knees,
Searching for the toothpaste cap.
Perhaps behind the toilet.
Meanwhile, the wife was going on about her job interview
While changing the baby, when, from down the hall, she hears,
Aha!
I'm sure he looked out the bathroom window and cursed
The snow-packed driveway needing shoveling
Before leaving for the forty minute commute.
His older girl was talking about her weird gymnastics coach,
And he rubbed his cheeks after shaving.
He hardly noticed the clink of coffee brought to rest on the baby-blue  sink.
He was glad he clipped his nose hairs, but paid no heed to the softness of his facecloth.
He poured a re-fill after shoveling, kissed his wife perfunctorily,
And poked the kids.
When I saw the crushed metal at the crossroads,
I wondered if his day began like mine.

81

To Morrissey: I’m not mad

(I saw you
once
strolling up the Venice boardwalk
at sundown
You had the biggest biggest smile
On your face
Which even at that time seemed
Out of character
I had in my hand
What i had come for
The six white athletic socks for 10 dollars pack sold on tables under nylon tarps
And as we both walked up the boardwalk
I thought to myself
What do you have to smile about?)

It is my wish that when you
Revisit this earth again
In your next incarnation
And adventure
That you return not
as an overripe spire of blooms
but as a
Small piece of iceberg lettuce leaf
Too young
too immature
to reach the others alongside you
Your curl a little anemic and so very very delicate.
Just a bitter yellowish bud.

Or you could be the stalk of Iceberg
that’s chopped away
And perfunctorily discarded
pretending to be cabbage in a cole slaw that nobody wants

At the end of the day
The staff may try to hurl you into the dumpster behind the Greek Diner or Chinese
But you won’t make it

You will slip out of the ******* bags
And fall onto the gravel drive
In the spitzing rain.
Growing more
Translucent
Inspected by rats and old hungry pigeons
And maybe a lost snail

And even they will walk away
This won’t be like Wembley at all

As the sun rises the trash men come
But you’re stuck on your back
or twisted on your side
appearing smaller than you are
are overlooked
Bags are tossed into the truck
yet you remain
Waiting

Later that morning
The hose comes out to wash away debris
That would be you
And you reluctantly perhaps
and bit painfully
peel most of yourself away and flow down
the sidewalk with all the leaves
and cigarette butts
and orange peels
To the gutter
And then into the sewer
And then before you’re even aware
The River
Where a fishes’s mouth quickly opens and scoops you in
and just as quickly
Spits you out again
(Your little bits)
To float slowly
Since you’re so light
Transparent
Really ephemeral now!
Your very last traces.

You float down to the bottom
To this other side of the clear blue sky
and dissolve gradually
Not gracefully
into a chilling primordial smear
of muck and sludge.

Here may you find Stillness.
Here may you find Rest.

The scrawny, slump-shouldered kid in the sweatshirt
grabbed as many Double AA batteries as he could hug
into the waiting ***** of his faded, ratty hoodie
from the display rack at the pharmacy down the block.

He made a run for it, slipping out the sliding doors,
into the starless night splashed across that inky empyrean.
It wasn’t necessary at all, he got out of there scot-free.
No one noticed any pilfering until they did the nightly inventory.

But his world was small, and he went back the next day for a juice.
The manager who was being interviewed perfunctorily by a cop
recognized him from his review of the security footage.
The kid got caught unawares, was arrested on the spot.

When he bonded out, he had to repay his brother the surety
so he headed to the other corporate pharmacy across the street
and grabbed armfuls of cartons of cigarettes he knew he could sell
on the corner, for he had no other means of repayment.

He had no job, no car, no degree, no nothing, nada, nada, nada.
His blinkered world was circumscribed, limited,  hemmed in,
circled by how far he could walk, trudge in a blizzard.
He made it out the whooshing door, again faced flashing lights.

In that moment, as the booked him back in county lockup
behind the thick slab of plexiglass, the guard smirked,
“haven’t I seen you here before, just like a day ago?”
He then knew it was all hopeless, oh so hopeless, an endless cycle.