Pigments cascade down the canvas,
Coating the blank white with imagination.
Drip, drip, they fall with grace to embrace
The pocked surface beneath their bodies.
They intermingle, form new forms,
Yet continue to go their own ways,
Unaware of the driving force.

The artist stands off to the side,
Watching his creation swirl.
He created a storm, a beautiful storm.
He folds his arms, his face stoic,
For the pigments express his emotions.

The mirrior is my adversary.
My eyes variance, what others don't see.
To the word I'm adequate, crowning , spotless, and skilled

Every morning I wake up, get ready and cover my lips in red majestic mac

Red lipstick seems to illuminate confidence in the eyes of many,
but to me it is merely a pigmented shield of secrets.
Humorous isn't it?
Every unmarred life, seeks to relive its pigments
Fears, self-doubt, imperfection.

Mirror, mirror, mirror on the wall..
Who's the thinnest of them all...


The sound of battle rumbles
Conscious at wrists ends
Bawling in me

Fat,
Fat,
Fat,

Yours tricks are foul, you tauntful mind
Vision is blurred from reality,
Oh mind how you love to frolic

Your sheer joys leave me unpieced,
The snickering of my mirror,
Damages my frame.

Sorrowing fades my red lipstick
Pigments revealed,
Vulnerable,
Unworthy,
Marred to the bone

Quickly I learned that the mind is the enemy, filled with con

Staring in my mirror and all I see is fat.

Red lipstick always seems to fade by the end of the night.

Poverty
Blurred Pigments of Red and blue
Bring to mind the police
Responding to our crises
Aptly and alert
Though upon arrival
It’s pure brutality…
They oppress and beat
Abuse and misuse
Break our spirits
Lowering us deeper into this
Depression…
No… it’s and economic Recession…
In which inequalities are abound
For the rich stay rich
While the poor fall hungry
And We…
The…
People….
Fall beyond Poverty…
Straight Through The misguided…
Rage of the government…
And Deeper than just a simple
Economic Inequality…

We’ve
Reached
The
Poverty Stricken
Greatest Recession….
Known As
A Secondary Great Depression….

A rose in the high garden that you desire.
A wheel in the pure syntax of steel.
The mountain stripped of impressionist mist.
Greys looking out from the last balustrades.

Modern painters in their black studios,
Sever the square root's sterilized flower.
In the Seine's flood an iceberg of marble
freezes the windows and scatters the ivy.

Man treads the paved streets firmly.
Crystals hide from reflections' magic.
Government has closed the perfume shops.
The machine beats out its binary rhythm.

An absence of forests, screens and brows
Wanders the roof-tiles of ancient houses.
The air polishes its prism on the sea
and the horizon looms like a vast aqueduct.

Marines ignorant of wine and half-light,
decapitate sirens on seas of lead.
Night, black statue of prudence, holds
the moon's round mirror in her hand.

A desire for form and limit conquers us.
Here comes the man who sees with a yellow ruler.
Venus is a white still life
and the butterfly collectors flee.

Cadaqués, the fulcrum of water and hill,
lifts flights of steps and hides seashells.
Wooden flutes pacify the air.
An old god of the woods gives children fruit.

Her fishermen slumber, dreamless, on sand.
On the deep, a rose serves as their compass.
The ****** horizon of wounded hankerchiefs,
unties the vast crystals of fish and moon.

A hard diadem of white brigantines
wreathes bitter brows and hair of sand.
The sirens convince, but fail to beguile,
and appear if we show a glass of fresh water.

Oh Salvador Dalí, of the olive voice!
I don't praise your imperfect adolescent brush
or your pigments that circle those of your age,
I salute your yearning for bounded eternity.

Healthy soul, you live on fresh marble.
You flee the dark wood of improbable forms.
Your fantasy reaches as far as your hands,
and you savor the sea's sonnet at your window.

The world holds dull half-light and disorder,
in the foreground humanity frequents.
But now the stars, concealing landscapes,
mark out the perfect scheme of their courses.

The flow of time forms pools, gains order,
in the measured forms of age upon age.
And conquered Death, trembling, takes refuge
in the straightended circle of the present moment.

Taking your palette, its wing holds a bullet-hole,
you summon the light that revives the olive-tree.
Broad light of Minverva, builder of scaffolding,
with no room for dream and its inexact flower.

You summon the light that rests on the brow,
not reaching the mouth or the heart of man.
Light feared by the trailing vines of Bacchus,
and the blind force driving the falling water.

You do well to place warning flags
on the dark frontier that shines with night.
As a painter you don't wish your forms softened
by the shifting cotton of unforeseen  clouds.

The fish in its bowl and the bird in its cage.
You refuse to invent them in sea or in air.
You stylize or copy once you have seen,
with your honest eyes, their smal agile bodies.

You love a matter defined and exact,
where the lichen cannot set up its camp.
You love architecture built on the absent,
admitting the banner merely in jest.

The steel compass speaks its short flexible verse.
Now unknown islands deny the sphere.
The straight line speaks of its upward fight
and learned crystals sing their geometry.

Yet the rose too in the garden where you live.
Ever the rose, ever, our north and south!
Calm, intense like an eyeless staute,
blind to the underground struggle it causes.

Pure rose that frees from artifice, sketches,
and opens for us the slight wings of a smile
(Pinned butterfly that muses in flight.)
Rose of pure balance not seeking pain.
Ever the rose!

Oh Salvador Dalí of the olive voice!
I speak of what you and your paintings tell me.
I don't praise your imperfect adolescent brush,
but I sing the firm aim of your arrows.

I sing your sweet battle of Catalan lights,
you love of what might be explained.
I sing your heart astronomical, tender,
a deck of French cards, and never wounded.

I sing longing for statues, sought without rest,
your fear of emotions that wait in the street.
I sing the tiny sea-siren who sings to you
riding a bicycle of corals and conches.

But above all I sing a shared thought
that joins us in the dark and the golden hours.
It is not Art, this light that blinds our eyes.
Rather it is love, friendship, the clashing of swords.

Rather than the picture you patiently trace,
it's the breast of Theresa, she of insomniac skin,
the tight curls of Mathilde the ungrateful,
our friendship a board-game brightly painted.

May the tracks of fingers in blood on gld
stripe the heart of eternal Catalonia.
May stars like fists without falcons shine on you,
while your art and your life burst into flower.

Don't watch the water-clock with membranous wings,
nor the harsh scythe of the allegories.
Forever clothe and bare your brush in the air
before the sea peopled with boats and sailors.

Pigments fall from the sky
They swim in our skin

Some would rank them
By that God
But he gave them all to us
By natural superiority
But that makes for inferiority

Oppression violence abuse hate
Always find outlets through these excuses
*** color religion culture
And those that do nothing
Those that see the wrong and still do nothing
Forge the way for wrongdoers
Moderate the righteously inflamed
And accept the abuse

When rights are stolen
Injustice runs unchecked
All will suffer.

In the end remains just the question
What's next?
When will you be the victim?
When will you act?
When will your sense of justice

Cry out for rightful compensation
For rightful equality and freedom?

When will you scream and fall?
For you and others
With you and others

And right the wrongs
And take up that torch of liberty?

As others before you
That you have mocked
And called impatient rabblerousers
And ridiculed their cause

Now just as noble as yours.

Life’s about the adjectives,
it’s how we know the world.
Nouns, you see, are only names,
with adjectives - life is knurled.

Think about the apple,
just fruit upon the tree,
red ripe skin with tasty pulp,
better lets us see.

Providing us the texture,
of color if you will,
ADJ allows us space,
to give our lines the fill.

Life’s about the adjectives,
spice for the written line,
Verbs, you see, are motion,
and index things like time.  

Think about the race car,
going around the lane,
zipping fast with lightning speed,
better feeds the brain.  

Providing us the feeling,
of nature if you will,
ADJ gives the taste,
to writings we distill.  

Verbs contain the action,
and nouns have the heart,
adjectives add the flavor,
for cooks of written art.  

Life’s about the adjectives,
how else could it be,
that words paint the pigments,
in poems for us to see?

i loved to paint using your colour.

i’d go day and night, from one canvas to another, using different shades of you to paint all kinds of pictures.

i never lost any ideas.
i never had to find inspiration.
it all just comes to me whenever i look at you.

one day, i woke up colour blind. and unfortunately, it’s in your colour.

all the paintings, all the sketches, all the canvasses that were of your colour, plastered, hanged, and taped all over my walls doesn’t make sense anymore.

it was all grey. all dull. a colour i know existed but never really tried using before.

i tried searching for your colours in the things you’ve touched. the words you’ve said. i searched everywhere but whenever i do think your colour will come back, my eyes revert to reality.

now you’re just a memory.

your colour will only exist inside my mind.

those shades i loved. the pigments i crave to achieve every time i stroke my brush. it’s all in my head now.

it’s been years now. your colour isn’t as bright as i thought my memory would remind me of.

i paint with a different colour now.

actually, i paint with all the colours now except yours.

all those nights i spent painting, it’s with every colour i come across but yours.

now my wall’s full of colour again. all from different parts of me. colours i never knew existed.

now,

i’m happy. i’m content.

i’m colourful.

Words do not echo.
Words do not cry.
Words do not,
Identify.

Scrambled and stirred,
Frozen and baked.
Pulled when needed,
Eaten to be fed.

Pieced together,
Black or white,
Laugh or fight,
Wrong or right.

A sound is bound by key,
A picture by color pigments,
Emotions chemically,
But words contain,
Everything,
And absolutely,
Nothing.

The same word
Can be
Completely
Different,
Depending who, what, how
When it was read
Or written.

What if every word,
Was positive in meaning?
Harmless,
Could not
Destroy feelings.

Words have no senses.
Words have no bounds.
No touch, sight, taste, or smell.
Words have no sound.

Words have no sound.
Unless read aloud.

One, at least, disappeared everyday
Just a mere glance to believe that they
Wanted help; what did they have suitable for pay?
Continued shouting the words: survival, death and decay

Silent, watchful, motionless like cold solid gnomes
They started separating from their cozy home-sweet-homes
No longer attached to their structured, functional-like combs
Serious, morbid; ordered to stop their free jolly roams

The edge of a definite cliff
The matter of death close
A breeze, a tilt could cause just the right shift
When would be the last dose?


Foliage hardening
Pigments darkening
No angels harkening

Everything was changing thanks to the king with the gold hand
Death touching Mother Nature and all in its way
Deliberately ignoring last moments of the final stand
Life was progressively, slowly eroding away

Afraid of speaking out more, Nature still had no say
“Be gone!” They screamed but help, none had they

Like a November day but all year round
Protested but doubted they had a case not sound
Gold piercing breath and hope being seared
Layers of black leaves and moisture adhered

Foliage hardening
Pigments darkening
No angels harkening

Ignored, but now gone, a sudden sadness fell
A spirit clashed with death for an old story to tell

A legend of life, fruitful and green
Neglected, and now, no hint of such scene


Still no ounce of life, or hope in sight
The world reached its height and lost it in a night


Foliage hardening
Pigments darkening
No angels harkening

A fear of not remembering what used to be
Blossoms and candy-colored trees
Birds chirping and honey-gathering bees
And out on the coasts, blue, swaying luscious seas

Taken for granted, but not enjoyed until over
Everyone was sad, doleful, and sober
Because of what used to be
Now, all that was left, was just one memory

More so,
race is the central
organizing principle in society

© Matthew Harlovic

The clock struck midnight
I was restless and thoughtful as could be
I noticed that I had been tossing and turning to a beat and rhythm that plunged above in the sky
It was a thunder-storm
bang, crash, thump
The sky illuminated in glory
Envy

The thunder roared and crashed in the middle of the night and the trees helplessly yearned for serenity
Ironic
It was calm earlier that day
Imagine
The breeze was right where it should have been and the sun was warmer than a hot skillet on a stove top
Peace
The sky was fostered in a pacific blue
And the clouds resembled dreams
Love
I remember it was 1:05 pm to be exact and I was feeling blissful
I decided to ride my bike through a quaint old town, two miles west of my house
Adventure
I stopped and stared at this little old man painting in the park
He was painting a tree, with pink, red, purple and gray
Odd
I couldn't help, but noticed how he was enticed by his surroundings
Interesting
I continued to bike away
It was now 2:45pm and I was feeling a bit famished
To the right of me stayed a cunning unforgettable coffee shop
I insisted to go in
Hesitation
Something about that coffee shop struck me that day, just like the little old man painting his introspection in the park
The room reeked in comfort and patience
Something I did not understand
Silence
Contemplatively, I bought a cup of coffee--black, I also companied that coffee with a blue berry scone--my favorite
I sat by the window to admire the sunlight and how the warmth cherished my skin
I sipped my coffee--startled
I noticed something peculiar about this coffee shop and this day
Instantly, I was left with an uneasy and unsettled feeling
Thoughtful
My black coffee was much more bitter than usual
It is as if the taste could not go down my throat
Something was wrong, I felt it
As I looked around the room everyone else was enjoying their cup of coffee
They also seemed to lack any hesitation
The tone in their voices create a harmonic rhythm in conversation
I noticed that every time they took a sip of their coffee they found it sweet, rather than bitter
I turned my head and looked out the window for a moment
Suddenly, I noticed that the sky was diminishing in its tints of blue
Wonder
I looked down at my watch
It was 3:35pm, I had to get home
I paid my bill and scurried onto my bike
Remember
The sky was calm throughout the entirety of the day
It was lovely and ideal--until it wasn't

No one expected a storm
No one expected disaster
But somehow, I did

I laid in bed that night waiting in anticipation
Waiting for my world to collide
Thunder and lighting seemed to have fought its way through the sky
Time
There wasn't enough
Concurrently, I felt bitter-- just like my cup of coffee in that cunning old shop
Ambiguity
I was left without answers
I was left without sugar and cream
creek, scratch, thump
The tree branch slid against the slide of my house
I noticed it all
It's starting
All the anticipation and anxiety I felt throughout the day was finally coming to its end or maybe to its start
The sky started to illuminate an illusion of sunlight
It was 11:30 pm and the day it almost to its end
I laid in bed thinking
I thought about my day and everything that it was missing
I notice it all
The little old man in the park painted a tree with a usual set of pigments, he defined ordinary, while sat alone comforted by the mere work of his creativity
The people in the coffee shop arrayed and encompassed patience, harmony and happiness
I was struck by discomfort because I unware of all those wonderful things
I knew all about the thunder and how it was provoked in the sky
I understood the lighting and its wish to shine
I thought of the beat and tempo that they would together make
Sometimes it was bitter, but sometimes it was sweet
I understood thunder and lighting
I understood why they danced viciously in the sky  
Finally, the clock struck midnight and it was now tomorrow
Fear
The storm was coming to its peak
The thunder fought its way with the lighting just as viciously written words floated on a piece of paper
The lighting struck back with ferocious and willful ambition
Relentless
The lighting held its ground, but didn't give up its hope
BANG
Memories
It was 1:05 am
The storm had reached its end
The thunder and lighting seemed to have parted their ways
Their fight was tortious
Nobody won, rather they both lost
It was 1:25 am
The rain had finally stopped
The trees have found their peace
It was 1:42 am
As I laid in bed, I thought about my day
I just want the storm to stop
Just like the the thunder and lightening, the little old man in the park and the people in that cunning old coffee shop, all have found their comfort and patience
The thunder and lightening have similarly found it in their bitter sweet good bye
It was wonderful
I noticed that as much as they fought throughout that darling midnight blue sky, they were attracted to their rhythm—A rhythm that was worth saving
The sweetness was found in their beat as they danced throughout the night
The thunder and lighting created a bittersweet combination
Just like the coffee I wish I would of had
A natural disaster that was intended to create a craze in the sky
The thunder wanted to be sweet, as did the lighting
Two peas in two different pods
Their negativity created the sweet appreciation of warm sunlight
I notice it all
The sun was the sweet
The day was calm
The thunder and lightening both knew it all too well
That night, the reminder of it anyways, I laid in bed and I knew that someday the storm would go away
It was 2:25 am and I finally shut my eyes

Green is the color
of envy
I have been told

How many green eyed girls tire
of being
the temptress?
never are we the
Innocent
or the Sweet

We are too dark to be blue
and too light to be chocolate brown
and too decided in our pigments to be hazel
Is green the color of envy
because we envy what is green?

I didn't think so
I too like to talk to you

pigments of life
load yourself
upon this brush
so it can run
meticulous strokes
upon endless miles
of gesso duck

Why do poets and photographers love fleeting things?
Angled shafts of sunlight piercing a mass
of clouds. A rainbow flashing from dragonfly wings.
Water drops beading like shards of glass.

The fluttering shape of a sycamore’s shade.
The sun sinking into its reflection
In a purple bay.  Smoke’s shadow. The rayed
Curve of a finger reaching for perfection.

Whatever churns, bursts, rocks, flies,
Foams, flickers, roils, evades
In pigments of impermanent dyes
We try to fix before it fades

Once I mourned the endless dying  
Of here and now, the present always past
Elegized each moment, sighing
Beauty is loss and can never last.

But now I think I had it wrong.  In fact
(I learned this from an artist’s eye)
Fleeting beauty reappears faster than we react,
At the speed of a daydream flashing by.

All around, light coalesces into form,
Form explodes into light,
And we live lavishly inside this storm
If we can learn to see it right.

Beauty multiplies, tapering, swelling:
Reshaping, reforming, now familiar, now strange.
This gaudy blur in which we’re dwelling
Is the permanence of change.

Is this another pigment of my imagination ? All except the tie dyed t-shirts which
reside in the halls of my resignation . If God wanted to talk to me he would have said ,"Thomas !" And I would have replied , "What !"
To which God , after a considerable pause , would have said ,"Nevermind."

Should lanterns shine, the holy face,
Caught in an octagon of unaccustomed light,
Would wither up, an any boy of love
Look twice before he fell from grace.
The features in their private dark
Are formed of flesh, but let the false day come
And from her lips the faded pigments fall,
The mummy cloths expose an ancient breast.

I have been told to reason by the heart,
But heart, like head, leads helplessly;
I have been told to reason by the pulse,
And, when it quickens, alter the actions' pace
Till field and roof lie level and the same
So fast I move defying time, the quiet gentleman
Whose beard wags in Egyptian wind.

I have heard may years of telling,
And many years should see some change.

The ball I threw while playing in the park
Has not yet reached the ground.

She stunned me when I first saw her looks
Never seen like her even in books

An angel who dropped from the sky
To say to me "Sam! Hi!"

She instantly got my full attention
And I at once shown no pretention

She lives now in the corridors of my mind
You won't find a lady so gentle and kind

Now I miss her as I miss the air when I stop breathing
She lives in me, so God help me her seeing

Sam Burton (C)


Today is Friday, Oct. 10, the 289th day of 2014 with 82 to follow.

The moon is waxing. Morning stars are Jupiter, Uranus and Venus. Evening stars are Mars, Mercury, Neptune and Saturn.



Quotes for the day:



"Correction does much, but encouragement does more."



Johann Wolfgang von Goethe



"The first requisite for success is the ability to apply your physical and mental energies to one problem incessantly without growing weary."



Thomas A. Edison



POETRY

Israfel





Edgar Allan Poe



In Heaven a spirit doth dwell
"Whose heart-strings are a lute";
None sing so wildly well
As the angel Israfel,
And the giddy stars (so legends tell),
Ceasing their hymns, attend the spell
Of his voice, all mute.

Tottering above
In her highest noon,
The enamored moon
Blushes with love,
While, to listen, the red levin
(With the rapid Pleiads, even,
Which were seven,)
Pauses in Heaven.

And they say (the starry choir
And the other listening things)
That Israfeli's fire
Is owing to that lyre
By which he sits and sings -
The trembling living wire
Of those unusual strings.

But the skies that angel trod,
Where deep thoughts are a duty -
Where Love's a grown-up God -
Where the Houri glances are
Imbued with all the beauty
Which we worship in a star.

Therefore thou art not wrong,
Israfeli, who despisest
An unimpassioned song;
To thee the laurels belong,
Best bard, because the wisest!
Merrily live, and long!

The ecstasies above
With thy burning measures suit -
Thy grief, thy joy, thy hate, thy love,
With the fervor of thy lute -
Well may the stars be mute!

Yes, Heaven is thine; but this
Is a world of sweets and sours;
Our flowers are merely - flowers,
And the shadow of thy perfect bliss
Is the sunshine of ours.

If I could dwell
Where Israfel
Hath dwelt, and he where I,
He might not sing so wildly well
A mortal melody,
While a bolder note than this might swell
From my lyre within the sky.



BEAUTY AND HEALTH TIP

Strengthen your nails



Before you go to bed every night, use a nail-strengthening cream on your nails (and under, if they're long). This also keeps them hydrated, which is essential for healthy nails.



Trivia

Where did the name “Revlon: come from?



Nail polish distributors Charles Revson and his brother Joseph, along with nail polish supplier Charles Lachman, who contributed the "L" in the Revlon name, gave birth to the Revlon cosmetics company in 1932. Starting with just one nail product a nail enamel unlike any before it the three men pooled their paltry resources and developed a unique manufacturing process. Using pigments instead of dyes, Revlon was able to offer to women rich-looking, opaque nail enamel in a wide variety of shades never before available. In only six years, the company became a multimillion dollar organization, launching one of the most recognized cosmetics names in the world.



How many atoms are there in the universe?



Astronomers believe that the universe contains one atom for every 88 gallons of space.



How do animals influence the weather?



Living creatures create tiny weather systems called microclimates in their nests and burrows. For instance, bees fan their wings at the hive entrance during hot weather. This makes a cooling draft blow through the hive.

VOCABULARY



Splenetic

adjective



:


marked by bad temper, malevolence, or spite



Examples:



I know David was in a bad mood all day, but the splenetic tone of his reply to Brenda’s question was not necessary.



"If he were 10 or 15 years younger (or at least looked like he was), [Charlie] Sheen would be perfect as the splenetic, screed-spouting anti-hero of John Osborne’s 'Look Back in Anger.'" — From an article by Ben Brantley on the New York Times Arts Beat blog, May 26, 2011



Did you know?



In early Western physiology, a person's physical qualities and mental disposition were believed to be determined by the proportion of four ****** humors: blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile. The last of these was believed to be secreted by the spleen, causing feelings of disposition ranging from intense sadness (melancholia) to irascibility. This now-discredited association explains how the use of "splenetic" (deriving from the Late Latin "spleneticus" and the Latin "splen," meaning "spleen") came to mean both "bad-tempered" and "given to melancholy" as well as "of or relating to the spleen." In later years, the "melancholy" sense fell out of use, but the sense pertaining to ill humor or malevolence remains with us today.





Courtesy of Merriam-Webster, Inc.



JOKES



Female Comebacks



Man: Haven't I seen you someplace before?
Woman: Yes, that's why I don't go there anymore.

Man: Is this seat empty?
Woman: Yes, and this one will be if you sit down.

Man: Your place or mine?
Woman: Both. You go to yours, and I'll go to mine.

Man: So, what do you do for a living?
Woman: I'm a female impersonator.

Man: Hey baby, what's your sign?
Woman: Do not enter.

Man: How do you like your eggs in the morning?
Woman: Unfertilized.

Man: If I could see you naked, I'd die happy.
Woman: If I saw you naked, I'd probably die laughing.

Man: Your body is like a temple.
Woman: Sorry, there are no services today.

Man: I would go to the end of the world for you.
Woman: But would you stay there?





Seminars for MEN




(Prepared and Presented by Females)

1. Combatting stupidity

2. You too can do housework

3. ***: Learn when to keep your mouth shut

4. How to fill an ice tray

5. We do not want ****** underthings for Christmas: give us money

6. Understanding the female response to your coming in drunk at 4am

7. Wonderful laundry techniques (formerly titled, "Don't wash my silks")

8. Parenting: It doesn't end with conception

9. Get a life; learn to cook

10. How not to act like a ******* when you're obviously wrong

11. Spelling: Even you can get it right

12. Understanding your financial incompetence

13. You: The weaker ***

14. Reasons to give flowers

15. How to stay awake in public

16. Why it is unacceptable to relieve yourself anywhere but the bathroom

17. Garbage: Getting it to the curb

! 18. You can fall asleep without it if you really try

19. The morning dilemma if IT is awake: Take a shower

20. I'll wear it if I **** well please

21. How to put the toilet lid down (formerly titled "No, it's not a bidet")

22. "The weekend" and "sports" are not synonyms

23. Give me a break: Why we know your excuses are bull

24. How to go shopping with your mate and not get lost

25. The remote control: Overcoming your dependency

26. Romanticism: Ideas other than ***

27. Helpful postural hints for couch potatoes

28. Mothers-in-law: They are people too

29. Male bonding: Leaving your friends at home

30. You too can be a designated driver

31. Seeing the true you (formerly titled, "You don't look like Mel Gibson when naked")

32. Changing your underwear: It really works

33. The attainable goal: removing "****" from your! vocabulary

34. Fluffing the blankets after flatula! ting is not necessary

35. Techniques for calling home before you leave work





The Bacon Tree



There are two guys who have been lost in the desert for weeks, and they're at death's door. As they stumble on, hoping for salvation in the form of an oasis or something similar, they suddenly spy, through the heat haze, a tree off in the distance.

As they get closer, they can see that the tree is draped with rasher upon rasher of bacon. There's smoked bacon, crispy bacon, life-giving juicy nearly-raw bacon, all sorts. "Oh my, Pepe" says the first bloke. "It's a bacon tree!!! We're saved!!!" "You're right!" says Pepe.

So Pepe goes on ahead and runs up to the tree salivating at the prospect of food. But as he gets to within five feet of the tree, there's the sound of machine gun fire, and he is shot down in a hail of bullets. His friend quickly drops down on the sand, and calls across to the dying Pepe.

"Pepe! Pepe! What on earth happened?"...

With his dying breath Pepe calls out...

"Ugh, run, run!... it's not a Bacon Tre! e...

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...it's a Ham Bush"





HAVE A SUPER NICE FRIDAY and a GORGEOUS WEEKEND!

it feels like the blood inside my veins is moving like quick dry cement does ten hours after it's poured
simultaneously a storm brews in them
similar to how mom once brewed soup that tasted of distanced family and bile
bile which still resides in a clump at the back of my throat from the last time i said your name
you are he-who-shall-not-be-named since saying your name is as dangerous as saying Voldemort’s
monochromatic colour schemes make up my world, each day either tinted or shaded
usually shaded because I was told that dark colours are slimming and that thought never left my mind
rain smudges all of the pigments together and even my glasses can't correct my vision
i love rain but my rainbows are always brown-black
like those karate belts you had when you lived
or how she used to mix all of her playdoh together
i used to believe that she created the world that way
god i wish i was right.

standing straight at pond's edge, cattails—
brown corn dogs on ***** blonde stalks
several with cream colored bursting guts
hang below sky waiting on sail
there, a red-wing black bird clings
as Cirque du Soleil actor's acrobatic feat
trilling its own musical accompaniment

other cattails tilt triangle shapes
reflected side, angle, side complexion
over water's bottomless mirror
colored autumn, by shore's tree leaves,
mallard ducks, and brooding clouds
while black headed chickadees splash out
ripples of Impressionist pigments weave

-cec

I stood pretty as a picture
In the full-length mirror.
Eyelines painted black
And traced like a cat
‘Round the pools and pigments
Of my icy blues.

My hair smoulders with gloss of youth.
A fire left untamed
With scorched red wine lips
Oh! Such rare delight,
To embrace my image
And not decorate

It with scorn.

I imagine pupils pouring
Over me. Men turned
Boys upon my wake.
Skirt hitched demurely,
Landing with subtlety
Above my opaqued knees.

I comb the heaving, damp dancefloor.
Search out for Beta-***.
The kind to pin me
With softened kisses.
To love for the night and
Then like fireworks

Perish by day.

The music though, it takes me with
Skill. Oh! It knows the sweat
That clings upon me.
The rhythm takes me
Beyond the tooth and nail,
The attempt and fail

Of every boy to come before.
Sweet ***! How it lifts me
And the mere presence
Of youth is enough.
I go home alone in
Absent knowledge of

The plight of women.

You stop me in the streets. You say
“Where have you been tonight,
Where are you going.”
But - not a question.
For, you dictate answers,
Scurry my body

With your eyes, soon hands.

You tower me, masculine height.
Oh! Such dizzying peaks
For my giddy mind.
I say “I must leave”
You say “Where” once more. I
Wonder, do questions

Ever line your lips? Catcalls and
Footfalls now so long gone.
We are alone and
We both know the case.
Your vast darkened hands clutch
At my belt buckle,

Draw me in.

Reeled, I kick up in death throes,
Mouth open but soundless,
Lungs devoid of air.
Laid out on the block,
I’m your catch of the day,
Your squalor by night.

Regardless how much give out,
How little I fight, we’re
Both in the knowledge
I am your’s tonight.
Your lips, they steal my neck.
Paralyse me, not

With softness
But with fright.

I stand pretty as a picture,
No look in the mirror.
A reflection of
Shame and submission.
Pools and pigments devoid
Of life. Emptied lungs

And icy blues.

I watched the sun end your life.
I watched it peak through the windows, evaporating every sin left.
Hands, Mouth, Knees.
I watched the senseless life of carbon shift its bones to glue on clothes.
I watched it pour himself into the vacancy of a littered room.
I watched him tremble as the sight of you.

I watched as he started to hate who he wasn't.
I watched as the world swallowed whole.
Hands, Mouth, Knees.
I watched the bitter wind find the skin he had left.
I watched the trees vine together and burst in his arms.
I watched the bath fill with all he had to give.

I watched time fold backwards, filling him up again.
I watched him lie awake hating the way it feels.
Your hands, His mouth, Your needs.
I watched him paint itself into your perfect vision.
I watched him finish as soon as you left unspoken.
I watched his life faint when a name was never given.

I claw deep
at my skin
until my fingers reach
my flesh
and scatter the pigments
that was the epidermis;
hoping I would
born anew.

True colors have been reflected
like glossy panels of deceit;
A palette of mixed aggressive tones
to paint a hue of hate;
****** images depicted,
displaying a forgotten world
of an imagination still sputtering on
A heart scarred for disbelieving the
truth with each stroke;
Empathetic swirls of long repressed
feelings, staccato marks the untraceable
A blend of emotions that leaves my gut
reeling, like pigments of color circling
a water-filled bowl

A nature scene memorialized
        in brushstrokes and pigments of color.

A painting to be hung on a wall
        and admired from across the room
There’s no longer a need to visit
        a habitat that is gone too soon.

While urbanization continues
       placing wildness behind the dollar.