The scent of the pollen allured her, hanging in the still air of the morning. She would stop in her travel and visit each flower that she found. The precious nectar oozed from deep within the petals and she would thirstily drink at each one.   She would gently land in the scented shade of each blossom and coax the precious nourishment from it. She never gorged, but rather drank from each flower what it was willing to give. Some were full and over ripe and bursting with the honeyed juice. Others had a smaller treasure, but she would drink lovingly of their gift leaving them an offering of pollen as a thanks.     Her small, delicate tongue would gently lick and probe the recesses of the flower hunting the sweetness inside. The pollen on her coat would touch with the very deepest innards of the bloom and enter its very core. Her gift, as she suckled each part, was imparted into the scented womb of the softly petaled blossom.     Each flower awaited her coming and spread wide it’s scented opening for her to enter. Their swollen pistils would be gorged with the potential for life and their gently glistening stamens would tempt her to feed on their sticky juices. The soft buzzing of her wings caressed the delicate parts of the fragrant blooms with a gentle breeze as she drank her sustenance.                She sheltered in the colored shade of petals, hung round her like colored sheets, as she took what each one had to offer.      When she was done she would move on to the next, slowly and deliberately milking the juice of life from each one. Every flower needed her and each one did what it could to tempt her in. Some threw heavy fragrance into the air so she could catch their scent while others bared their large and swollen glands so she could see their abundance.        She traveled from bloom to bloom, sometimes enticed by the shaded shelter, and other times the sight of glistening pollen. But she fed on each one, large and small, and in each one she left her gift. The pollen that she carried would be imparted on each ***** stamen as she fed. The glistening end of the shaft was soft and sticky and waiting for the pollen that would carry on its life.      While she fed each day, there was a gardener who tended to her plants. He took gentle care of them, weeding and pruning and tending to their needs. The flowers that she fed on were his future sustenance and he tended her as well. He would follow her sometimes through his garden and watch as she gently buzzed from plant to plant.        She was used to his watchful eyes as he watched her drink from each bloom. He knew that his crop depended on her and he would peer into the bedding of petals as she caressed the sweetness from each one with her tongue. Her long tongue would probe deep into the recesses of the fragrant flower and find every drop of nectar.         The gardener watched as she carried on the cycle of life for him and would wait for days to see the swollen fruits of her labor burgeoning from his plants. When she left each flower satisfied with their delicious treat, she would fly off to the next, not knowing that a seed would be swelling in the gorged pistil that she just left.        And so it went as the bee buzzed her life away every day. The gardener would be there among his carefully tended crops, watching and waiting as she moved among the flowers. His gaze would follow her as she traveled through the foliage and landed amongst the blooms. Every day he would watch as she coaxed the sweet nectar from each one and left her gift in return.

I ain’t got no intimate, ain’t got no stiletto heels
Ain’t got no Lsd, ain’t got no smack
Ain’t got no partners, ain’t got no drill
Ain’t got no slapstick, ain’t got no hanky—panky
Ain’t got no Lsd, no slot to mount

Ain’t got no castrato, ain’t got no crumpet
Ain’t got no conjoined twins, ain’t got no nuns or eunuchs
Ain’t got no whipcord, ain’t got no adoration
Ain’t got no *******, ain’t got no stimulant
Ain’t got no ******

Ain’t got no oscillation, no shags
No uniform, no parts
No smack, no drill
No partners, no peccadillo
Ain’t got no stimulant

Ain’t got no whipcord, no propagators
No titbits, no intimate
I jabbered, I ain’t got no uniform, no hanky—panky
No peccadillo, ain’t copulated till one is blue in the face to have a funny feeling
And I ain’t got no ******

Oh, but what have I copulated, oh, what have I copulated
Let me tell what I copulated and nobody’s going to enlarge telescopic

I got my ***** on my face
My extra—sensory perceptions, my knobs
My ******, peckers and my *******
I got my stuck—out tongue

I got my tentacle, my proboscis
My *****, my *******
My thingummies, my cockles of the heart and my posterior
I got my *******

I got my thingummies, my talons
My ball and socket joints, my forelegs
My hooves, my pincers and my snorker
Got my crest

I got *****, I’ve inseminated cheerleaders
I’ve got bottomgremlins and hacksawhoodoo
And Mephistophelian juggernauts too like you

I got my *****, my pistil
My ESP, my knobs
My vaginas, my peckers and my *******
I got my stuck-out tongue

I got my tentacle, my proboscis
My ***** and my *******
My *****, my ***** and my posterior
I inseminated my ****** sorbet

I got my thingummies, my talons
My ball and socket joints, my forelegs
My hooves, my pincers and my snorker
Got my crest

I got my *****, I got my slipperiness, my *****
I got *****

The most ****** colors
exist in flowers.
In orange lily
and white crocus petals,
colors that arouse insects
into an ecstasy of pollination.

Have you ever seen a bee
make love to the pistil
and stamen,
or see a bee dance on anthers
as light as it's buzz?

I once saw a field of sun flowers
never take their eyes off the sun
while a weightless hummingbird
kissed each one on the stigma
with eyes fixed on the yellow
of the flower it loved
for just a moment.

While the calmness returns,
the strangers gone,
noise of gunshots,
the cry of the wounded
and dying are no more heard,
our children and women
came out of hiding,
the young men smiling sheepishly
as they survived the onslaught
of the insurgents.
You can see the older women
in small groups scattered all over
selling food and all kinds of stuff.
The stragglers returns,
loitering all over the place,
trying to adjust and blend
into the communities.
Laughter and shouts of joy
is again heard in our land
even the morning songs
of the turtle dove.
The stray dogs are seen
looking for food and handouts.
The women pounding
their yam in mortar
with the pistil are
heard in our backyard
with the noise of
happy children singing
and dancing at the village
square in the moonlight,
while the elders and young
men keep watch.
What a beautiful moment
as peace returns.
With grateful heart we
celebrate this day.
©2018,Emeka Mokeme. All Rights Reserved.

All across your body,
lines written in rainbow thread.

A heart is only
so much weight, wait...why?

Would they dust your body
for the remnants?

What they have found,
is it hesitant?

Engorged like a hibiscus pistil,
covered in pollen
dripping with dew.

This is no request, but an order:
Extend your tongue
til it pulls with a bit of pain from behind your lower teeth,
open up,
and
prepare
to
swallow.

on this rumbling
              stretch of tundra
                  no trees reach up
                     to soothe the sky
                     there is a pulling down
                  of wind tunnel vortex
               like conifers in reverse
          an icy howl
in the bonechill
               of time
Translucent holes,
         perfectly round, are dug
                in glacial archeology
                  and in the sea below
               gelid creatures lurk,
           half-frozen
         in the history of my
                                        soul
Only moss and lichens
grow on the rock,
somehow softening the
rugged textures
of the wild landscapes
that seethe
          just beneath my skin
and there, just
shy of the surface
is a quickening
a subtle pulse of veins
that pumps life
between the gales of
my heart's steppes
flushing out
           the pain
somewhere
deep
      within the private lotus
of my being
folioles unfurl
leafy shapes around
my organs
wrapping them like gifts
          as they undulate in whorls
opening my petals
in renewed consciousness
and deliberation
as a new kind of  
           stamen
                rises
    dusty pollen
powdery
budding ripeness
       bursting up
       and out
   of my deepest
       centered
whirlpool pistil
nectar dripping
in viscous webs,
to be caught upon
the tongue of
a new dawning
My silky outer
wings of vegetation,
slender stalks of
          filaments and anther
have been turned
into hot steel
They protect
    the tender vulnerable
                   when burned
as poison words held up to my
watchful eyes,
                   are properly discerned
I give myself over
to this new power,
my back arched to fully embrace
what is to come,
a universe calling thunder,
the old patterns undone
I am ready
to reveal my all
as the goddess deep within
comes to release my gold
suffusing light through skin
conjured from me
a relentless strength,
ever-growing,
                now tenfold
rising way past
soft-lit stratospheres
and orbiting
               to
                 bold

When CNN monotony breaks my heart,
children wail for candy at cash registers,
and traffic buzz replaces birdsong,
I flee to my garden to water and ****.

Sanctuary explodes in miniature chorales
soprano buds breaking through cellulose cradles
last waters from a thousand wilting blossoms
sing tenor at their organic wake above the loam
and endless pneumatic streams drip from leaf tips
as they always have and will.

A googolplex of minute carbon dramas occurs
melodious ballads echo relentlessly
like Buddha’s kalapas of soil and light
as pistil and stamen call the fat brown bees.

Equally marvelous are my hands'
deft fingers fueled by arterial rivers
lymph and blood on capillaric freeways
with off-ramps for neighborhoods of dividing cells
built into my DNA,
this machine of loving grace.

Even the leather of my gloves
once lived thick on a bull eating grass
that waved on a prairie where the soil  
let the sun in
drank the rain
and that meticulous ensemble
plays still for the wolf and the eagle.

With the last seed sewn
I sit transfixed by the garden gate
knowing every blossom in every random patch
will arise and pass away like the pointless TV news
and I hear the machinery of this impermanence
crackling like spring frost
when sprouts push through
and Gaia’s eternal trumpets ring.

next to prime rib
is a miniature fir
or bush
lumberjacked at
the trunk
you press like a bobblehead
plugging nostrils with green
steam and shake and
nobody wants to spitspoil red meat
and everyone agrees
so you collect veggie trees
arrange them in a forest
and reenact little red riding hood
with a cherry tomato
you bite -

you ******* werewolf
vampire where were you
when the fetus
crowned like a tulip pistil
harnesses by an umbilical noose
and the nurse paused and said
she's dead
and cried
and she cried too
while I waited with her father
her mother
and mine
and three friends
and nine months of this
for that
you ******* ******

not even john hancock
can sign a birth certificate
and a death certificate
in a nightmare
let alone in one night

I

Mets-toi sur ton séant, lève tes yeux, dérange
Ce drap glacé qui fait des plis sur ton front d'ange,
Ouvre tes mains, et prends ce livre : il est à toi.

Ce livre où vit mon âme, espoir, deuil, rêve, effroi,
Ce livre qui contient le spectre de ma vie,
Mes angoisses, mon aube, hélas ! de pleurs suivie,
L'ombre et son ouragan, la rose et son pistil,
Ce livre azuré, triste, orageux, d'où sort-il ?
D'où sort le blême éclair qui déchire la brume ?
Depuis quatre ans, j'habite un tourbillon d'écume ;
Ce livre en a jailli. Dieu dictait, j'écrivais ;
Car je suis paille au vent. Va ! dit l'esprit. Je vais.
Et, quand j'eus terminé ces pages, quand ce livre
Se mit à palpiter, à respirer, à vivre,
Une église des champs, que le lierre verdit,
Dont la tour sonne l'heure à mon néant, m'a dit :
Ton cantique est fini ; donne-le-moi, poëte.
- Je le réclame, a dit la forêt inquiète ;
Et le doux pré fleuri m'a dit : - Donne-le-moi.
La mer, en le voyant frémir, m'a dit : - Pourquoi
Ne pas me le jeter, puisque c'est une voile !
- C'est à moi qu'appartient cet hymne, a dit l'étoile.
- Donne-le-nous, songeur, ont crié les grands vents.
Et les oiseaux m'ont dit : - Vas-tu pas aux vivants
Offrir ce livre, éclos si **** de leurs querelles ?
Laisse-nous l'emporter dans nos nids sur nos ailes ! -
Mais le vent n'aura point mon livre, ô cieux profonds !
Ni la sauvage mer, livrée aux noirs typhons,
Ouvrant et refermant ses flots, âpres embûches ;
Ni la verte forêt qu'emplit un bruit de ruches ;
Ni l'église où le temps fait tourner son compas ;
Le pré ne l'aura pas, l'astre ne l'aura pas,
L'oiseau ne l'aura pas, qu'il soit aigle ou colombe,
Les nids ne l'auront pas ; je le donne à la tombe.

II

Autrefois, quand septembre en larmes revenait,
Je partais, je quittais tout ce qui me connaît,
Je m'évadais ; Paris s'effaçait ; rien, personne !
J'allais, je n'étais plus qu'une ombre qui frissonne,
Je fuyais, seul, sans voir, sans penser, sans parler,
Sachant bien que j'irais où je devais aller ;
Hélas ! je n'aurais pu même dire : Je souffre !
Et, comme subissant l'attraction d'un gouffre,
Que le chemin fût beau, pluvieux, froid, mauvais,
J'ignorais, je marchais devant moi, j'arrivais.
Ô souvenirs ! ô forme horrible des collines !
Et, pendant que la mère et la soeur, orphelines,
Pleuraient dans la maison, je cherchais le lieu noir
Avec l'avidité morne du désespoir ;
Puis j'allais au champ triste à côté de l'église ;
Tête nue, à pas lents, les cheveux dans la bise,
L'oeil aux cieux, j'approchais ; l'accablement soutient ;
Les arbres murmuraient : C'est le père qui vient !
Les ronces écartaient leurs branches desséchées ;
Je marchais à travers les humbles croix penchées,
Disant je ne sais quels doux et funèbres mots ;
Et je m'agenouillais au milieu des rameaux
Sur la pierre qu'on voit blanche dans la verdure.
Pourquoi donc dormais-tu d'une façon si dure
Que tu n'entendais pas lorsque je t'appelais ?

Et les pêcheurs passaient en traînant leurs filets,
Et disaient : Qu'est-ce donc que cet homme qui songe ?
Et le jour, et le soir, et l'ombre qui s'allonge,
Et Vénus, qui pour moi jadis étincela,
Tout avait disparu que j'étais encor là.
J'étais là, suppliant celui qui nous exauce ;
J'adorais, je laissais tomber sur cette fosse,
Hélas ! où j'avais vu s'évanouir mes cieux,
Tout mon coeur goutte à goutte en pleurs silencieux ;
J'effeuillais de la sauge et de la clématite ;
Je me la rappelais quand elle était petite,
Quand elle m'apportait des lys et des jasmins,
Ou quand elle prenait ma plume dans ses mains,
Gaie, et riant d'avoir de l'encre à ses doigts roses ;
Je respirais les fleurs sur cette cendre écloses,
Je fixais mon regard sur ces froids gazons verts,
Et par moments, ô Dieu, je voyais, à travers
La pierre du tombeau, comme une lueur d'âme !

Oui, jadis, quand cette heure en deuil qui me réclame
Tintait dans le ciel triste et dans mon coeur saignant,
Rien ne me retenait, et j'allais ; maintenant,
Hélas !... - Ô fleuve ! ô bois ! vallons dont je fus l'hôte,
Elle sait, n'est-ce pas ? que ce n'est pas ma faute
Si, depuis ces quatre ans, pauvre coeur sans flambeau,
Je ne suis pas allé prier sur son tombeau !

III

Ainsi, ce noir chemin que je faisais, ce marbre
Que je contemplais, pâle, adossé contre un arbre,
Ce tombeau sur lequel mes pieds pouvaient marcher,
La nuit, que je voyais lentement approcher,
Ces ifs, ce crépuscule avec ce cimetière,
Ces sanglots, qui du moins tombaient sur cette pierre,
Ô mon Dieu, tout cela, c'était donc du bonheur !

Dis, qu'as-tu fait pendant tout ce temps-là ? - Seigneur,
Qu'a-t-elle fait ? - Vois-tu la vie en vos demeures ?
A quelle horloge d'ombre as-tu compté les heures ?
As-tu sans bruit parfois poussé l'autre endormi ?
Et t'es-tu, m'attendant, réveillée à demi ?
T'es-tu, pâle, accoudée à l'obscure fenêtre
De l'infini, cherchant dans l'ombre à reconnaître
Un passant, à travers le noir cercueil mal joint,
Attentive, écoutant si tu n'entendais point
Quelqu'un marcher vers toi dans l'éternité sombre ?
Et t'es-tu recouchée ainsi qu'un mât qui sombre,
En disant : Qu'est-ce donc ? mon père ne vient pas !
Avez-vous tous les deux parlé de moi tout bas ?

Que de fois j'ai choisi, tout mouillés de rosée,
Des lys dans mon jardin, des lys dans ma pensée !
Que de fois j'ai cueilli de l'aubépine en fleur !
Que de fois j'ai, là-bas, cherché la tour d'Harfleur,
Murmurant : C'est demain que je pars ! et, stupide,
Je calculais le vent et la voile rapide,
Puis ma main s'ouvrait triste, et je disais : Tout fuit !
Et le bouquet tombait, sinistre, dans la nuit !
Oh ! que de fois, sentant qu'elle devait m'attendre,
J'ai pris ce que j'avais dans le coeur de plus tendre
Pour en charger quelqu'un qui passerait par là !

Lazare ouvrit les yeux quand Jésus l'appela ;
Quand je lui parle, hélas ! pourquoi les ferme-t-elle ?
Où serait donc le mal quand de l'ombre mortelle
L'amour violerait deux fois le noir secret,
Et quand, ce qu'un dieu fit, un père le ferait ?

IV

Que ce livre, du moins, obscur message, arrive,
Murmure, à ce silence, et, flot, à cette rive !
Qu'il y tombe, sanglot, soupir, larme d'amour !
Qu'il entre en ce sépulcre où sont entrés un jour
Le baiser, la jeunesse, et l'aube, et la rosée,
Et le rire adoré de la fraîche épousée,
Et la joie, et mon coeur, qui n'est pas ressorti !
Qu'il soit le cri d'espoir qui n'a jamais menti,
Le chant du deuil, la voix du pâle adieu qui pleure,
Le rêve dont on sent l'aile qui nous effleure !
Qu'elle dise : Quelqu'un est là ; j'entends du bruit !
Qu'il soit comme le pas de mon âme en sa nuit !

Ce livre, légion tournoyante et sans nombre
D'oiseaux blancs dans l'aurore et d'oiseaux noirs dans l'ombre,
Ce vol de souvenirs fuyant à l'horizon,
Cet essaim que je lâche au seuil de ma prison,
Je vous le confie, air, souffles, nuée, espace !
Que ce fauve océan qui me parle à voix basse,
Lui soit clément, l'épargne et le laisse passer !
Et que le vent ait soin de n'en rien disperser,
Et jusqu'au froid caveau fidèlement apporte
Ce don mystérieux de l'absent à la morte !

Ô Dieu ! puisqu'en effet, dans ces sombres feuillets,
Dans ces strophes qu'au fond de vos cieux je cueillais,
Dans ces chants murmurés comme un épithalame
Pendant que vous tourniez les pages de mon âme,
Puisque j'ai, dans ce livre, enregistré mes jours,
Mes maux, mes deuils, mes cris dans les problèmes sourds,
Mes amours, mes travaux, ma vie heure par heure ;
Puisque vous ne voulez pas encor que je meure,
Et qu'il faut bien pourtant que j'aille lui parler ;
Puisque je sens le vent de l'infini souffler
Sur ce livre qu'emplit l'orage et le mystère ;
Puisque j'ai versé là toutes vos ombres, terre,
Humanité, douleur, dont je suis le passant ;
Puisque de mon esprit, de mon coeur, de mon sang,
J'ai fait l'âcre parfum de ces versets funèbres,
Va-t'en, livre, à l'azur, à travers les ténèbres !
Fuis vers la brume où tout à pas lents est conduit !
Oui, qu'il vole à la fosse, à la tombe, à la nuit,
Comme une feuille d'arbre ou comme une âme d'homme !
Qu'il roule au gouffre où va tout ce que la voix nomme !
Qu'il tombe au plus profond du sépulcre hagard,
A côté d'elle, ô mort ! et que là, le regard,
Près de l'ange qui dort, lumineux et sublime,
Le voie épanoui, sombre fleur de l'abîme !

V

Ô doux commencements d'azur qui me trompiez,
Ô bonheurs ! je vous ai durement expiés !
J'ai le droit aujourd'hui d'être, quand la nuit tombe,
Un de ceux qui se font écouter de la tombe,
Et qui font, en parlant aux morts blêmes et seuls,
Remuer lentement les plis noirs des linceuls,
Et dont la parole, âpre ou tendre, émeut les pierres,
Les grains dans les sillons, les ombres dans les bières,
La vague et la nuée, et devient une voix
De la nature, ainsi que la rumeur des bois.
Car voilà, n'est-ce pas, tombeaux ? bien des années,
Que je marche au milieu des croix infortunées,
Échevelé parmi les ifs et les cyprès,
L'âme au bord de la nuit, et m'approchant tout près,
Et que je vais, courbé sur le cercueil austère,
Questionnant le plomb, les clous, le ver de terre
Qui pour moi sort des yeux de la tête de mort,
Le squelette qui rit, le squelette qui mord,
Les mains aux doigts noueux, les crânes, les poussières,
Et les os des genoux qui savent des prières !

Hélas ! j'ai fouillé tout. J'ai voulu voir le fond.
Pourquoi le mal en nous avec le bien se fond,
J'ai voulu le savoir. J'ai dit : Que faut-il croire ?
J'ai creusé la lumière, et l'aurore, et la gloire,
L'enfant joyeux, la vierge et sa chaste frayeur,
Et l'amour, et la vie, et l'âme, - fossoyeur.

Qu'ai-je appris ? J'ai, pensif , tout saisi sans rien prendre ;
J'ai vu beaucoup de nuit et fait beaucoup de cendre.
Qui sommes-nous ? que veut dire ce mot : Toujours ?
J'ai tout enseveli, songes, espoirs, amours,
Dans la fosse que j'ai creusée en ma poitrine.
Qui donc a la science ? où donc est la doctrine ?
Oh ! que ne suis-je encor le rêveur d'autrefois,
Qui s'égarait dans l'herbe, et les prés, et les bois,
Qui marchait souriant, le soir, quand le ciel brille,
Tenant la main petite et blanche de sa fille,
Et qui, joyeux, laissant luire le firmament,
Laissant l'enfant parler, se sentait lentement
Emplir de cet azur et de cette innocence !

Entre Dieu qui flamboie et l'ange qui l'encense,
J'ai vécu, j'ai lutté, sans crainte, sans remord.
Puis ma porte soudain s'ouvrit devant la mort,
Cette visite brusque et terrible de l'ombre.
Tu passes en laissant le vide et le décombre,
Ô spectre ! tu saisis mon ange et tu frappas.
Un tombeau fut dès lors le but de tous mes pas.

VI

Je ne puis plus reprendre aujourd'hui dans la plaine
Mon sentier d'autrefois qui descend vers la Seine ;
Je ne puis plus aller où j'allais ; je ne puis,
Pareil à la laveuse assise au bord du puits,
Que m'accouder au mur de l'éternel abîme ;
Paris m'est éclipsé par l'énorme Solime ;
La hauteNotre-Dame à présent, qui me luit,
C'est l'ombre ayant deux tours, le silence et la nuit,
Et laissant des clartés trouer ses fatals voiles ;
Et je vois sur mon front un panthéon d'étoiles ;
Si j'appelle Rouen, Villequier, Caudebec,
Toute l'ombre me crie : Horeb, Cédron, Balbeck !
Et, si je pars, m'arrête à la première lieue,
Et me dit: Tourne-toi vers l'immensité bleue !
Et me dit : Les chemins où tu marchais sont clos.
Penche-toi sur les nuits, sur les vents, sur les flots !
A quoi penses-tu donc ? que fais-tu, solitaire ?
Crois-tu donc sous tes pieds avoir encor la terre ?
Où vas-tu de la sorte et machinalement ?
Ô songeur ! penche-toi sur l'être et l'élément !
Écoute la rumeur des âmes dans les ondes !
Contemple, s'il te faut de la cendre, les mondes ;
Cherche au moins la poussière immense, si tu veux
Mêler de la poussière à tes sombres cheveux,
Et regarde, en dehors de ton propre martyre,
Le grand néant, si c'est le néant qui t'attire !
Sois tout à ces soleils où tu remonteras !
Laisse là ton vil coin de terre. Tends les bras,
Ô proscrit de l'azur, vers les astres patries !
Revois-y refleurir tes aurores flétries ;
Deviens le grand oeil fixe ouvert sur le grand tout.
Penche-toi sur l'énigme où l'être se dissout,
Sur tout ce qui naît, vit, marche, s'éteint, succombe,
Sur tout le genre humain et sur toute la tombe !

Mais mon coeur toujours saigne et du même côté.
C'est en vain que les cieux, les nuits, l'éternité,
Veulent distraire une âme et calmer un atome.
Tout l'éblouissement des lumières du dôme
M'ôte-t-il une larme ? Ah ! l'étendue a beau
Me parler, me montrer l'universel tombeau,
Les soirs sereins, les bois rêveurs, la lune amie ;
J'écoute, et je reviens à la douce endormie.

VII

Des fleurs ! oh ! si j'avais des fleurs ! si je pouvais
Aller semer des lys sur ces deux froids chevets !
Si je pouvais couvrir de fleurs mon ange pâle !
Les fleurs sont l'or, l'azur, l'émeraude, l'opale !
Le cercueil au milieu des fleurs veut se coucher ;
Les fleurs aiment la mort, et Dieu les fait toucher
Par leur racine aux os, par leur parfum aux âmes !
Puisque je ne le puis, aux lieux que nous aimâmes,
Puisque Dieu ne veut pas nous laisser revenir,
Puisqu'il nous fait lâcher ce qu'on croyait tenir,
Puisque le froid destin, dans ma geôle profonde,
Sur la première porte en scelle une seconde,
Et, sur le père triste et sur l'enfant qui dort,
Ferme l'exil après avoir fermé la mort,
Puisqu'il est impossible à présent que je jette
Même un brin de bruyère à sa fosse muette,
C'est bien le moins qu'elle ait mon âme, n'est-ce pas ?
Ô vent noir dont j'entends sur mon plafond le pas !
Tempête, hiver, qui bats ma vitre de ta grêle !
Mers, nuits ! et je l'ai mise en ce livre pour elle !

Prends ce livre ; et dis-toi : Ceci vient du vivant
Que nous avons laissé derrière nous, rêvant.
Prends. Et, quoique de ****, reconnais ma voix, âme !
Oh ! ta cendre est le lit de mon reste de flamme ;
Ta tombe est mon espoir, ma charité, ma foi ;
Ton linceul toujours flotte entre la vie et moi.
Prends ce livre, et fais-en sortir un divin psaume !
Qu'entre tes vagues mains il devienne fantôme !
Qu'il blanchisse, pareil à l'aube qui pâlit,
A mesure que l'oeil de mon ange le lit,
Et qu'il s'évanouisse, et flotte, et disparaisse,
Ainsi qu'un âtre obscur qu'un souffle errant caresse,
Ainsi qu'une lueur qu'on voit passer le soir,
Ainsi qu'un tourbillon de feu de l'encensoir,
Et que, sous ton regard éblouissant et sombre,
Chaque page s'en aille en étoiles dans l'ombre !

VIII

Oh ! quoi que nous fassions et quoi que nous disions,
Soit que notre âme plane au vent des visions,
Soit qu'elle se cramponne à l'argile natale,
Toujours nous arrivons à ta grotte fatale,
Gethsémani ! qu'éclaire une vague lueur !
Ô rocher de l'étrange et funèbre sueur !
Cave où l'esprit combat le destin ! ouverture
Sur les profonds effrois de la sombre nature !
Antre d'où le lion sort rêveur, en voyant
Quelqu'un de plus sinistre et de plus effrayant,
La douleur, entrer, pâle, amère, échevelée !
Ô chute ! asile ! ô seuil de la trouble vallée
D'où nous apercevons nos ans fuyants et courts,
Nos propres pas marqués dans la fange des jours,
L'échelle où le mal pèse et monte, spectre louche,
L'âpre frémissement de la palme farouche,
Les degrés noirs tirant en bas les blancs degrés,
Et les frissons aux fronts des anges effarés !

Toujours nous arrivons à cette solitude,
Et, là, nous nous taisons, sentant la plénitude !

Paix à l'ombre ! Dormez ! dormez ! dormez ! dormez !
Êtres, groupes confus lentement transformés !
Dormez, les champs ! dormez, les fleurs ! dormez, les tombes !
Toits, murs, seuils des maisons, pierres des catacombes,
Feuilles au fond des bois, plumes au fond des nids,
Dormez ! dormez, brins d'herbe, et dormez, infinis !
Calmez-vous, forêt, chêne, érable, frêne, yeuse !
Silence sur la grande horreur religieuse,
Sur l'océan qui lutte et qui ronge son mors,
Et sur l'apaisement insondable des morts !
Paix à l'obscurité muette et redoutée,
Paix au doute effrayant, à l'immense ombre athée,
A toi, nature, cercle et centre, âme et milieu,
Fourmillement de tout, solitude de Dieu !
Ô générations aux brumeuses haleines,
Reposez-vous ! pas noirs qui marchez dans les plaines !
Dormez, vous qui saignez ; dormez, vous qui pleurez !
Douleurs, douleurs, douleurs, fermez vos yeux sacrés !
Tout est religio

The scent of the pollen allured her, hanging in the still air of the morning. She would stop in her travel and visit each flower that she found. The precious nectar oozed from deep within the petals and she would thirstily drink at each one. She would gently land in the scented shade of each blossom and coax the precious nourishment from it. She never gorged, but rather drank from each flower what it was willing to give. Some were full and over ripe and bursting with the honeyed juice. Others had a smaller treasure, but she would drink lovingly of their gift leaving them an offering of pollen as a thanks. Her small, delicate tongue would gently lick and probe the recesses of the flower hunting the sweetness inside. The pollen on her coat would touch with the very deepest innards of the bloom and enter its very core. Her gift, as she suckled each part, was imparted into the scented womb of the softly petaled blossom. Each flower awaited her coming and spread wide it’s scented opening for her to enter. Their swollen pistils would be gorged with the potential for life and their gently glistening stamens would tempt her to feed on their sticky juices. The soft buzzing of her wings caressed the delicate parts of the fragrant blooms with a gentle breeze as she drank her sustenance. She sheltered in the colored shade of petals, hung round her like colored sheets, as she took what each one had to offer. When she was done she would move on to the next, slowly and deliberately milking the juice of life from each one. Every flower needed her and each one did what it could to tempt her in. Some threw heavy fragrance into the air so she could catch their scent while others bared their large and swollen glands so she could see their abundance. She traveled from bloom to bloom, sometimes enticed by the shaded shelter, and other times the sight of glistening pollen. But she fed on each one, large and small, and in each one she left her gift. The pollen that she carried would be imparted on each ***** stamen as she fed. The glistening end of the shaft was soft and sticky and waiting for the pollen that would carry on its life. While she fed each day, there was a gardener who tended to her plants. He took gentle care of them, weeding and pruning and tending to their needs. The flowers that she fed on were his future sustenance and he tended her as well. He would follow her sometimes through his garden and watch as she gently buzzed from plant to plant. She was used to his watchful eyes as he watched her drink from each bloom. He knew that his crop depended on her and he would peer into the bedding of petals as she caressed the sweetness from each one with her tongue. Her long tongue would probe deep into the recesses of the fragrant flower and find every drop of nectar. The gardener watched as she carried on the cycle of life for him and would wait for days to see the swollen fruits of her labor burgeoning from his plants. When she left each flower satisfied with their delicious treat, she would fly off to the next, not knowing that a seed would be swelling in the gorged pistil that she just left. And so it went as the bee buzzed her life away every day. The gardener would be there among his carefully tended crops, watching and waiting as she moved among the flowers. His gaze would follow her as she traveled through the foliage and landed amongst the blooms. Every day he would watch as she coaxed the sweet nectar from each one and left her gift in return.

I. the breathing of human nature

her poetry weaves a chimera
through ontario maples,
ghostlike songs intoned in late november breath:
*i don't really want to be a pretty girl... *

whispers of woodsmoke fall from sky
(sky, pink as cochineal, pink as avarice
sky, blue as bruises, as jazz, as tropical waters)
she steps from the fog and ash into the beckoning trees,
seduced by leaves,
an autumn saturnalia of honey, flame, amber,
nectar, pistil, anther.

she is cupola and chalice,
budding fuchsia and iron cherry--
but she writes and breathes
as if something more than a woman
who knows all the names for the ocean
stirs and struts inside her.

II. the statue and sobriquet

piano wires melt into statues,
heat steals rusty bottle caps
and bends them eerily into muses.
butterflies perch astutely on their shoulders,
violet, violent, a mosaic of shredded lilies and shellac,
paris in flames, flowering tea-houses,
the mariana trench, a thicket of morning glory.

nature sculpted this metaphysical tribute to her
for all that she has done, for all that her bent fingernails
and snow-covered lips have given
to inspire solstice and equinox--

in the night-songs of the crickets,
crystal bells and rustic chirps,
she was lauded.


III. declaration

she feels the songs in her eyelashes
and writes of wine and palest bone,
fragments of bashful moon,

roots her fingernails into the tarnished canadian willows
and finds her way through magnolia clouds and sea-spray sky;
after all, she can soar.

A new flower only blossoms with water
and rigorous concentration.
Good intentions just aren't enough these days.

You're in bloom,
your pistil rises and grabs the sun
like a new promotion.

Mine lies on the top shelf of my closet.
And sharp mahogany corners
don't bring me closer to any answers.

My kindred, my barren love
some meaningless God,
voided by logic and chemicals-
I have been told to plant my roots
within their soil.

They have been told to reach for me
just outside of arms length.

Absence doesn't make use weary-
it reveals to us the vast pastures
within mahogany boxes-
it manifests the bittersweet drought
I have swallowed like a jagged pill.

I watch you bloom in violent meadows.
I concentrate by daydreaming.
This way,
when blood fills all the small spaces,
the guilt won't **** the minerals
from vibrant, naïve roots.

my palms can grasp the calm rocks adjacent
to you. they are sturdy granite; they have ancestors
too like you and me. This fiery ball of earth cooled and created
these rocks. my sturdy world was built from an inferno of lava cooling. i wait
for humanity to cool, too -end its wars.  For our continents to melt together and create not just subduction zones, where granite
and granodiorite cool deep down in the crust,
but a world culture where we are encouraged
to live without exploiting
the earth and each other. Grateful
because this grip on this life is temporal
oh how more soothing its breezes becomes
when you are aware and can feel it  
hear the heart of life buzzing off with the pulsing
bee and drop onto the pistil
of a flower. This world is no more than pollen.
The wind carries this mighty dust and harvest starts
not just in the fields but in our fertile hearts

a little raw beautiful you are the way.


                                            and ,ti evol I


the mouth that soft(that cruel) of teeth
and lips
is like it. thorn'd

and prim and

ringed in pinkness
of petals parting

on a pistil between.


such smoothness that rushes,
such skinness that prickles exactly
at the right arch
of its rising hips.

to meet with the riding
heartness of my surging taste:

blood and just
that tiny tang
of left behind from.




                                               (can i begin?)'(




and to fold you;
into my hands–as fists–
that unfold–inside you.

Well mercy mercy me
merci
pour le vine
c'est tres.....dry
however you look a little more lovely now
call it alcohol inhancement or stupidity or lack of judgement
just call me
and tell me about yer day
what are you wearing?
Sweatpants? Hot.
He one time said he likes to write
I took that to mean "We're soulmates"
but apparently it just meant he was *****
but so was I
it worked out,
a mutualistic relationship
he collected my pollen and tickled my pistil until nectar oozed,
licked my petals
picked my leaves, it was a fun spring
then summer came and dried up all of the birds
they didn't fly away home
ever they just sat in trees and watched the clouds go by
lazy birds lost their drive to destroy
so they relaxed and hoped for a tomorrow
maybe a next week who knows
give it some time and all is good
all is well and swell and fan-tastic
and many people are stoners.

This Flower blooms and shines with every brush of sun rays
This Flower sprouted amidst three trees and the three trees fed the Flower with good shade
This flower grew up to imitate the trees
This flower developed the bark of the trees.

This Flower's peduncle is firmly fixed to the ground
Don't be carried away by the colourful petals of this Flower
for this Flower has a bittersweet nectar
This Flower has a stubborn core
This Flower looks fragile but it has a strong receptacle
This Flower looks beautiful but it's got thorns on its stem;
so be careful when you feel tempted to pluck it
But I say it is the Flower you'd probably never pluck.

This Flower has a pistil but doesn't have a stamen, so it is imperfect
But this Flower is a delight
Its fragrance is soothing to the nostrils
and its beauty is everlasting to the eyes
This Flower is ethereal.

Le brouillard est froid, la bruyère est grise ;
Les troupeaux de boeufs vont aux abreuvoirs ;
La lune, sortant des nuages noirs,
Semble une clarté qui vient par surprise.

Je ne sais plus quand, je ne sais plus où,
Maître Yvon soufflait dans son biniou.

Le voyageur marche et la lande est brune ;
Une ombre est derrière, une ombre est devant ;
Blancheur au couchant, lueur au levant ;
Ici crépuscule, et là clair de lune.

Je ne sais plus quand, je ne sais plus où,
Maître Yvon soufflait dans son biniou.

La sorcière assise allonge sa lippe ;
L'araignée accroche au toit son filet ;
Le lutin reluit dans le feu follet
Comme un pistil d'or dans une tulipe.

Je ne sais plus quand, je ne sais plus où,
Maître Yvon soufflait dans son biniou.

On voit sur la mer des chasse-marées ;
Le naufrage guette un mât frissonnant ;
Le vent dit : demain ! l'eau dit : maintenant !
Les voix qu'on entend sont désespérées.

Je ne sais plus quand, je ne sais plus où,
Maître Yvon soufflait dans son biniou.

Le coche qui va d'Avranche à Fougère
Fait claquer son fouet comme un vif éclair ;
Voici le moment où flottent dans l'air
Tous ces bruits confus que l'ombre exagère.

Je ne sais plus quand, je ne sais plus où,
Maître Yvon soufflait dans son biniou.

Dans les bois profonds brillent des flambées ;
Un vieux cimetière est sur un sommet ;
Où Dieu trouve-t-il tout ce noir qu'il met
Dans les coeurs brisés et les nuits tombées ?

Je ne sais plus quand, je ne sais plus où,
Maître Yvon soufflait dans son biniou.

Des flaques d'argent tremblent sur les sables ;
L'orfraie est au bord des talus crayeux ;
Le pâtre, à travers le vent, suit des yeux
Le vol monstrueux et vague des diables.

Je ne sais plus quand, je ne sais plus où,
Maître Yvon soufflait dans son biniou.

Un panache gris sort des cheminées ;
Le bûcheron passe avec son fardeau ;
On entend, parmi le bruit des cours d'eau,
Des frémissements de branches traînées.

Je ne sais plus quand, je ne sais plus où,
Maître Yvon soufflait dans son biniou.

La faim fait rêver les grands loups moroses ;
La rivière court, le nuage fuit ;
Derrière la vitre où la lampe luit,
Les petits enfants ont des têtes roses.

Je ne sais plus quand, je ne sais plus où,
Maître Yvon soufflait dans son biniou.

it is not the tier of enmeshed leaves
nor the zither of green. none is their duty
to discover the lunar hook of moon.
   — the old bamboo is the mistral
danseuse tonight.

whatever the etcetera
of it, whatever the birds demand from it.
a sling of breath is far-flung into the sky
announcing merriment before the child
beheads the tulip,
      before the creature chokes the pistil,
        before the light enters slow-churn
           of synthesis.
  
  hearing the giggling of bush in
  the mire of wind, heaving in all kinds
  of sleep, the children, the weather,
    together; synapses drunk in translation
  and we feel no longer the secret
    of a guerrilla behind the foliage.

  it is only the heraldry of the world
  when the morning unclips its wing,
  as monsoons continue their bushwhack
  amongst petty citations.
          past oceans gleaming and
    away from hills dreaming —  by the
river, dead of heart, riveting silence
    of land, past the battered bridge in Marilao tracing deathlier waters,
  
         all gone in recall, something
i scour to find only pining away from
scarcity of remember. it is never their
    duty to bring back its image
  to dance with me again.

This has a photo of a California Black Lizard
official name, sunning on a rock, but that's
in the modern novel medium, blog form.
mmmmaybe, baby, we do
grow old, past sixty-four and even more,
unbridled tongues, held silent, lo' monks,

listen, quiet, now, then, to now, then to when
listen to the Osprey fly over our valley to Yuma,

to the Chocolate Mountains, beyond the river,
the only river, running down the great crevice,
due to erosion from John Bunyan's Pauline ax,

a rift right across the heart of the land,
opened up the first Bright Angel Trail,
for there was no other way across the canyon.

And we had people, before, on that other side,

that happened, all around the globe, that hap,
the earth was struck, and struck another,
time and lost all its religion,
it was announct, we all sang along,
and some force pushed the edge of the sun,
in a single most malignant EMP burst relig-i-used
to beat al bound synenergy rationally, as knowledge
and life, root and branch, time and chance missed call
first shall be last, roll on, roll on down time orchard

lessons learned in lines of trees, you can imagine,
while alone, just be used to being in the sense we yoosta
call peace, or bliss, blah good blah, being right inside.
- breathing easy, not sleepy, no place to be.
When outside is just too hot or too cold.

Chaos reigns for days, and weeks and years, and
we can imagine, my kind, human kind, earth stock one.

We the deme, the interbreeding productive kind,
we who beat the dis-easing raging fever from eating
foul putrid rotting corpses, as would dogs, any dogs,
naturally,
we have such knowledge, said to be wild boys,
raised by wolves or Comanches… Grandma,
she did not know her people,
but she knew her place,
and made it perfect,
just right, she and her little dog, and relics
from a life that matched Saul Bellow's on earth,
though she was never widely read, she did leave
a greater legacy in terms of proper child minding.

Yep, minding is mighty
otherwise than rearin' n'raisin' hardgeenevahnegated
she said it, and she served such chicken at the
same table where we all ate, we was sorta colored
because my grandaddy fixed cars for folks mr leon
the jew who owned the Loma Vista in the Green Book,
befriended on collect calls, and sent Pop Boyett, said he
t' tow ya in, he'll send his boy Jim,
'be there drectly, jest don't fret none.
sit tight. Sundowns a ways yet.

yeah, I am white proud that my grand daddy was friends,
with ******* and injuns and jews, his customer's
including Charlie Lum, Mary's daddy, who used grandpa's

knack with stunted fruit trees, to bring peace and calm
into the environment, with a quarter acre lot back yard.

Living earth is in me, I ate my first mud pie, and liked
the laugh it got from whoever washed my mouth out.

I watched an uncle get his washed with soap, thus
learning how loudly to utter curses when being proven
beguiled by a will so sharp and thorny, nothing sweet
shall ever stick,
honey chile, tar baby, chocolate kisses, all a mud pie
made me remember, at a whim, in my dementing whiling
away

nothing needed doing more than not dragging grease
from the shop, past Grandma's back porch,
where the squeezed water tub always was soapy
enough to expose a little boy to sudden stripping
and brush scrubbing,

while she laughed,
and made them all laugh, as long as that junk yard
was apayin' the electric/


-- Coming in from a tinctured cuppaKuerig
Settled mind alligning old stitches in a tapestry,
not much sense can be made of Bayeux resolution

stitched in time to serve in tutorial classes
open to the masses, for your undivided attention

in silence, for the space of about a half an hour there.

Columbian, it says on the plastic waste,
mea culpa, mea maxima,
we suffer such silly easy living made much too easy,
I light the bowl with a focused rim jet quartering,
too easy to use the flower, to ask smoke a favor,

as to result
in a bounce back,
as the elanvital of my mountain pushes west winds
back into themselves
to form the ribs
of huge cloud forms that reform so
true to pattern proof, exhalent
of this wind
reflection off the ridges we live on,
vitalized by a DNA centric view
of stress or pressure, squeezing bests
from times as worst as worsts were then,

Vital tipping point that lets a spirit slip into the story.

Structure and content cata and ana, as we leave
that which our fruits produce, a cache of all we be

come and see, I said, okeh.
Proof by Synthesis/ Venter link, blink
-Craig Venter… GI imagine, we all can Google It,
in another window,
and find it not mystical in terms of who imagined this.
You realize whoever it was, it is yet done
dramatically as next years
stories, lightsped mind gluons
from last years tragedy we all can find,
sympathy puddles, lost allusions
to chances being once this line
was written
for no single pair of eyes, not mine, ours,
de-cartooned Madiera wine revival fly,
wise minding times retwining U to I,
leading down old fissures where
suddenlies occurred and we all recall, as if
some things in life after television are with us
-to this instant and
until we die, and leave our mystery religion lying ever after.
Twinkling a little,
winking
done did done, artificial art intuited involuntarily

Accidents, where by we live, U rhea re minding us,
there is something wishing to use us, as yousta be,
- so fine
thank you for your service, Turing and Von Neuman
The general and logical theory of automata…

"much less well understood" loop the tape,
loop it once,
and again, become the digital life Wolfram made,
flat land as real as Wildersmith ever projected it

Up against the wall, we pass through it all
and so on and so forth,
fighting phrases to fit the codescript initial intention,

in the immature tabernacle state,
a thousand atoms should be plenty,

make life from that, and all the scattered dust
of heavy metal stars that burned too fast
to eat up all the lithium.
- this is the bottom
A funda-lowest level, fundamental, puts us sensing
tips of our own tail, verily modeling
Ouroboros
in the womb as drawn to our imaginations with
Look Whose Talking Now! WOW
Haeckel and Jeckle, and L. Ron-ron didoo ronrun
Dianetics really gave Travolta therapist recollections
needed to over come the scorn
spewn on Urban Cowboy,
outside Texas and New York City.

We can tame the bucking machine, with no pistil.
No bull, boys and girls, we made sugar in Trinidad,
using the pistil of a bull to instill the will to learn
to live,
and let it be known, life abhors evil, it fails to hate,
that which has no use and piles as potential piles
of all we knew we needed to encode to become
XML, then the shifting database schema, Dinesh
D'Sousa, the metadata scraper with an MIT MBA.
Not the pundit.
He fed me this character trait, mind in order,
meets older orderly mind in mortal chaos, coping.

Feel his way past the message messenger collision,
caused in no insignificant way by poetry, and poets,
enthralled with taming textual dragons, lizard brain,

quick wits
to wot not with, per haps, haps as chance are us,
being lucky because we feel lucky,

monstors speak often one with another,
see the bull lizards crawl all over each other.

Smell that, mofa, smellmemo nofa fame fa fa fa me
lizard pheremone, so subtle after while.

Layin' out on the terrace, up above some granite
splashes from the wave that left the coastal range,

rising up from here, see it there, on googled earth,
take away the clouds and spin that globe,
like you are one of those named winds,
names you heard they called the wind; Mariah, and
Santa'na; Chinook and Roclydon and twisters
too many to name. Bringing dust to the Amazon,
to feed the hungry jungle, woken at the touch of waste
being made to feed once needless services, after,
the great lizard brains lost their minds in one fell swoop,
so they say,
they who strike the suckers, just below the root,
fine staffs are made from suckers broken off before blossom.

Orchard watches, as a young man, planless, saved, for sure,
but no assignment save this so-called fight of faith, for sure,

some people can be fed the kind of meat that forms soldiers,
from any man worth his salt, which, if it were ever a sin to gather
salt, say from the sides of the roads, where there's a plenty this spring,
why then I would think the concept of sin had passed its use by.
why,
I'd get the old pickup runnin' and take a flat blade shovel,
or, what was I thinkin'
not a type scooper, but a flat, scale-scraper shovel, there you go,
use a phrase arranger allowing such metaphors that morph to any tool.

Fluidbots in The Abyss, look it sees you seeing it, so what, was that new
when Nietzsche notict, tskt,
I trow not. But if it was then, it is not now, and that leaves me room
to say Freud imagined he knew things and his followers do as well.

Sometimes a cigar is a prop.
A stiff staff to lean on in a manifested dream interpreting schema
for ancient meta data shuffling,
the whole of all we know so far right now,
this being in which words act as though we know, we
at machine level code, being the internet, being a node, a nerve,
in the ever of ever since every thing, the whole truth thought impossible
but, to not imagine, thinking it at once,

it must be possible to tell, or why, in hell, aha, instant answer,

this is not hell, because if it was, I could not tell you the truth,
as Paul bore witness All Cretans are liars, I tell you the truth.

I bet my life, against any one of many, each experience as fable forms from,

those hang as moss in swampy tidal deltas, where rivers do not branch,
but open wide, another spring time in the Rockies, reaches all the way
to Burro Creek, down through all the Diablo Canyons in bad lands,
at the edges of the last great tsumamis that our satellitia see through centuries
and eons to when there was no thing made by man that could show him,
the Nazca Lines and our Blythe Intaglios.

In the world of artists at work, function descriptive sign making symbol
we agree, we be
come and see, sit beside our tiny fire, see, we have no words to say,
so we some times whistle and sound so much like a bird, a jay,
some one out there laughs he is my brother so he whistles better,

then every body laughs and shout PA PA PA papapapapapapa yah, way
cool, pa looks at his old walkabout friend,
he nods,
we grin, and go, well, when why was just a guest at our station,
in the core script lost,
left in the back of a black volkswagon,
who gave this boy a ride, from Santa Barbara, that strip,
I never paid enough mind to what they call it,
but it was lined with hitchhikers, they gave them rides,
and he was one of those who took PCH up and down,
a few times, spring of 1970, eventually, I imagine,
I would have been invited
to learn
at Esalen, what I could imagine doing about it.
The big? mark of the beast, the very knowledge forvidding one.

Cognosis infections sets in, but you know Jesus never sneezed,
and hees heest atuitionally
assumet' be wiping your excretions from your beard.

In the spirit, no offence, only words, no gestures, ups or downs,
rounds and rounds, teetering palms, tilting eyes, furled brow,
world class rime crimes tearing whole realities' religited ties, bows gnosis
knot release,
tricky three pole knot…

Magic, once, a few who knew, easily seemed so, read Twain,
and imagine your own, in dementia, joining other intentionally scattered
brains
informing conformist patterns that make our laughing echo
as medicine from men listening to grand fathers and uncles whistling
and laughing and little sister joining in, so grandma's sister does so, too,

woo hoo pretty soon its allusfools fullfilled dancing in the dark
where we can still feel the fire.

As a s aside, for science sake, I have reached a stage,
an effect in on or to or any of the hundred and fifty
or so pre
positions things can be, and become, formative,
logos, logical sense of saying something seems so,
if you have been at this stage, and wondered

what is it worth to say it is no secret and never was,
I use cannabis, and I read and write and function

as any writer in the days of Post and Colliers, n'such
had to believe was possible,

to create the creatures we see on television,
those were dime a dozen underground reds,
feeding fertlizer to minds subknowingly with science,
hidden persuaders, falsely called so, they were inyaface!

Fool, he follow the old weigh where heavy mean good,
real good, get down, to the ground feel the weight o'
oh momma did you know,
oh momma when did you start to show,

could you have let me be nothing but a bad draw, you
nevahnevahnevah gonna know now, but momma,

mam, where all good mommas gone, go on, you done,
you brought a heel into the world,
yes, ma'am.
a real snake stomping, preacher, kinda man, selling
salve, to soothe the transition, come the kingdom

due any day. What price you pay, what task you prefer
performance mandatory, in any sucha story
as this very one intends to be,
at a rate, cuneiform forming lets, say that,
this way
in an other time, one symbol to the thumbprint,
one per inch,
10 wpm during upload to ever from now.
Used just yoosta be we were tools.
"a used key is ever bright."

1

I say I'm a designer of systems, plans
Man's
Parts that stand together, set in place to serve
Trees and planets, too, which are unplanned by us
The observant, wise man
Tries to understand
Name the parts, pistil and stamen
Rocks, eskars
Elements.

Winter is shuddering to an end, mud roads
Cardinal pairs
Robin flocks return that will soon pair off
Buds
Soils swell
Will I live to smell it again, learn the lobelias
Understand and name the parts
It ought to be a great comfort to be so insignificant
Go among weeds, a wind
Thinking to myself

One's never alone
A dichotomous key is needed, a book of twigs and fruits
Accumulated over time and generations
Without it mine would be a blank mind

To be blank but knowledgeable
Without any machinery
In a perfect silence
That is the definition of death for which we have only to wait
But in my panic last night I thought death's inert
Grace requires consciousness
Hold on long to the senses
At least a century, maybe more
A boy hanging upside down from a fence at sunset, counting
      clouds

2

Now we go to our daily practice
And chosen disciplines
Sustained by the satisfactions of being good men among our
      fellow men
Women
Choosing to do this and not that
With the finite days allotted us that at first seemed like a lot
They're now few
But the chickadee's life to the chick and the cankerworm
      moth's to the worm
Seem as long to them as ours to us
What question am I asking today
By now, past half a century, I should have chosen a discipline
And been satisfied

To be a war president one must have war
May you live in interesting times - wish or curse?
Squirrels, high in oaks,
Fiber, fat and protein in acorns
Strong runners, leapers, climbers
Should stay off the roads which some cannot avoid being
      where they're born
Natural selection is occurring
Those that look for machinery in motion
Hesitate or don't as needed before crossing
Live in larger numbers than those whose modus operandi's
Guessing
The ravens eat the fur and guts of bad guesses off the roads

I impose my own small order
Having chosen mountains over plains or shore
Go to my daily discipline
And estimate the motions of the seas and stars
Measuring my satisfactions by my children's satisfactions

Ce doit être bon de mourir,
D'expirer, oui, de rendre l'âme,
De voir enfin les cieux s'ouvrir ;
Oui, bon de rejeter sa flamme
Hors d'un corps las qui va pourrir ;
Oui, ce doit être bon, Madame,
Ce doit être bon de mourir !

Bon, comme de faire l'amour,
L'amour avec vous, ma Mignonne,
Oui, la nuit, au lever du jour,
Avec ton âme qui rayonne,
Ton corps royal comme une cour ;
Ce doit être bon, ma Mignonne,
Oui, comme de faire l'amour ;

Bon, comme alors que bat mon cœur,
Pareil au tambour qui défile,
Un tambour qui revient vainqueur,
D'arracher le voile inutile
Que retenait ton doigt moqueur,
De t'emporter comme une ville
Sous le feu roulant de mon cœur ;

De faire s'étendre ton corps,
Dont le soupirail s'entrebâille.
Dans de délicieux efforts,
Ainsi qu'une rose défaille
Et va se fondre en parfums forts,
Et doux, comme un beau feu de paille ;
De faire s'étendre ton corps ;

De faire ton âme jouir,
Ton âme aussi belle à connaître,
Que tout ton corps à découvrir ;
De regarder par la fenêtre
De tes yeux ton amour fleurir,
Fleurir dans le fond de ton être
De faire ton âme jouir ;

D'être à deux une seule fleur,
Fleur hermaphrodite, homme et femme,
De sentir le pistil en pleur,
Sous l'étamine toute en flamme,
Oui d'être à deux comme une fleur,
Une grande fleur qui se pâme,
Qui se pâme dans la chaleur.

Oui, bon, comme de voir tes yeux
Humides des pleurs de l'ivresse,
Quand le double jeu sérieux
Des langues que la bouche presse,
Fait se révulser jusqu'aux cieux,
Dans l'appétit de la caresse,
Les deux prunelles de tes yeux ;

De jouir des mots que ta voix
Me lance, comme des flammèches,
Qui, me brûlant comme tes doigts,
M'entrent au cœur comme des flèches,
Tandis que tu mêles ta voix
Dans mon oreille que tu lèches,
À ton souffle chaud que je bois ;

Comme de mordre tes cheveux,
Ta toison brune qui ruisselle,
Où s'étalent tes flancs nerveux,
Et d'empoigner les poils de celle
La plus secrète que je veux,
Avec les poils de ton aisselle,
Mordiller comme tes cheveux ;

D'étreindre délicatement
Tes flancs nus comme pour des luttes,
D'entendre ton gémissement
Rieur comme ce chant des flûtes,
Auquel un léger grincement
Des dents se mêle par minutes,
D'étreindre délicatement,

De presser ta croupe en fureur
Sous le désir qui la cravache
Comme une jument d'empereur,
Tes seins où ma tête se cache
Dans la délicieuse horreur
Des cris que je... que je t'arrache
Du fond de ta gorge en fureur ;

Ce doit être bon de mourir,
Puisque faire ce que l'on nomme
L'amour, impérieux plaisir
De la femme mêlée à l'homme,
C'est doux à l'instant de jouir,
C'est bon, dis-tu, c'est bon... oui... comme,
Comme si l'on allait mourir ?

I sit with my feet dangling into a circle
whose edge I rest on
as if it were a window sill.

From here the earth looks ancient.
It’s pull mothered by the curvature
of spacetime.
The spring blossoms curving
when they fall.

Our fate floating out there: intangible–
outside this circle where my toes abide
Our fate floating in us: tangible–
The place in which my torso resides

The debate seems fresh unlike the sagely soil. My limbs alive –life giving life– emerging like the pistil from a bellflower
unconcerned with philosophy.

Aquamarines
Hues unseen

Velvets and
Mercury retrograde

Projecting lines
Of constant course

Meanders and oxbows
Hinting at future and past

Dancing to songs
Unheard

An effigy for love
Unseen

A garden of tears
Unwrapping the present

Pistil and stamen
Awaiting

Pollinating
Ones and zeros

Bifurcating from binary to analog
Or amalgamating the two

Becoming one
Reprogramming matrices

With personal
Trinities

Everything looks neo
Through this lens

My purple iris contends
U2?

Something in her eyes
Took 1000 years to get here

Something in her heart
Something in her heart

Life as a high school wallflower served me
without any budding female friendships
until lo…
a gent tulle mandate from my late mother uprooted me
from mine kempf familiar bedrock level road terrain
which venue offered a groundswell
to blossom forth into golden sterling resplendent rod

of natural equipoise (this an unbiased opinion) and balance
with freestyle improvisational swinging motions
unchained from the moors of formality
and lit figurative saint elmo’s sesame street fiery dance

allowing, enabling and providing this shy awkward self
during his young adulthood
to cast away four ever
thy self embroidered handsome

straight as an arrow
naturally high as a kite young guy
buzzing like a yellow jacket
thus liberating spontaneity that je nais sais quoi joie vivre

clamoring headlong toward venus
from healthy pistil packing overflowing bin
laden well nigh testosterone erupting *****
toward opposite gender

whereby bravado donned as key
to *** field of whet dreams
fostering initial albeit late blooming
roll in the hay hormonally rooted rutting squeal!

Epiphanies inside hypocrisies
Dionysus whispering prophecies
Chasing game theory trails
During the trials and tribulations

Of our workaday bungalow bills
Enduring quills of porcupine hills
I got a pistil, you got a rose
He Rose after a three day haze

Inside a purple manic depression
With Axl grease and Travolta eyes
We took our face-off and un-caged
Our subconscious in a

One and a half story, morning glory

I thought to acquire
A piece of wall art;
Reproduced in mass would be fine
As long as it’s attractive, yet honest,
without tasteless jest,
And appears to be organic,
Cultivated
At the artist’s discretion.

In the catalogue, my attention falls
To a print
Of an anatomical drawing
From a botanical field guide,
Colored with pencil: the perianth
A pastel pink
That yields to a gentle yellow
Just before
the petals are enveloped
by the green sepal coat.

High on the hanging stems
Round buds of emerald and buttery cream
Follow their elders
In gradient lines of expansion
To the end where the eldest
Bend into blossomed bells;
All come together and seem
As a pink and gold Easter dress.

From the petals stretch
The pistils and stamen.
Reaching
Reaching
Gasping, I can nearly hear
The flower’s patient breathing,
Waiting
For a kiss
From a fluttering errant proboscis.
The pistil aims for the ether,
To another’s anther and
Pollen dusted petals.

Tempted now am I
To wear always
A corsage about my neck.

do not lay me amongst thy hand
(towar' heaven ascending)
of earth stuff more come.

come thy mouth as daughters;
come thy slavering, come thy pistil keep.
a flower,

come. come as
riotously fragrant Spring
snowing easily with health.

come, and, steal my soul for sleep;
and place 'tween the knees of forests
***** bales of sighing wind.

come in most unsilent clothed
thy myriad of flesh.

come and life

unmeet thy thighs
,admitting,

perhaps the lather(your colour)
through me to seep.

String of raindrops fall to its quite melody
Rhyme with the breeze of a vocal splendor of black daisy
To the tune of every bee sip the nectar while accessing the anthers and pistil
Made music to a garden of daffodils in April

A sharpen affection piercing a stone amethyst
Asunder of its composure with a helpless catalyst
A scattered pieces spells the truth of an essence is out of worth
The antidote of intoxication has been futile a miasma to a path


Gaze into a night sky grid-like segments of stars in sight
A semblance of a two sign that shines so bright at night
Vast Ocean of complicated happiness sinks a deepest peaceful loneliness
Wide-ranging terrestrial of verdict congeal with annoyance of fate


Precession of equinoxes changed twice a thousand years
A tenth cycle in which Pisces and Taurus situate vertigo in twelfth mensis
A Supreme Being fills the gap of distant in a long period of time
Keep on tenterhooks as the time goes by

wanting for to write a simple rhyme
with rhythms that, dance and move
me like butterflies and honey bees
work, the stamen and pollen pistil
until wings be still as, the night air,
day of travail has gone bye bye.

come in to me, your heart
and mingle intensely
(the muss, my fragrance)
thy nostril flared

deepishly to inhale:

the pistil


(Love's rose bared)

.
















                                                                                    b










                                                                                    r    e                                                                                   a





theth

e s
l
o
     w

l   y
      steam

of
      some

halfish
twinkling
infinitely pale
evening

when
out of ****
languishing
darkness
lifts
terribly its
marvelous
trundling deep
cool




                                                                                     and





the when world was
it were a
pistil
o'
the bulb
of hushingly
crushed mutest
with drabs of hulking
orange imped to 'er
******* 'er
tongue
'nd 'er
arms long
went out
like the
sea goes
out
under the moon
it goes out rushing
faster than

lungs were
the there was
and
o'er
'em was

R i B s

(

         bump


                      bUmpy

                                       bumP

                                                     BuMP

                                                                        )ribs and



a pair o'
darling ****
with
o'er 'em
a neatishly intense
girl head
with lips
it
drank the
air
in swooning
tiny
heaps









               i









                                                       t








                                                                              S










                                                                                                                   P









                                                                                                                                                                    RUNG









from
'er face
it went like
a blade goes
sharply quick
into softly         I


and took
the 'er
it
the
blade
o'
'er
cutting
i
the mouth
and (in my mouth)
cupped her kiss
instantly
which lingered
more brutally
than

b

         r




                     e


                                 a






                  t



                                       he,




                                                    .



                                    
                                   '




                                                  ,





                                    .

I wait
for spring;
the petals
on a fleeting breeze;
the scent of grass
made soft by the warm sun;
the hymn of life
started by the first birdsongs of the morning;
the faint hum
of beating wings
as a bee lands gently
on the pistil of a flower;
the lukewarm night
where the moon peers curiously
at the yellow-orange tinge of sunrise.

O these tender,
delicate,
intimate
moments
with her!

I lie face deep
in her beauty,
frolicking through
her lovely-petals,
kissing her wantonly
inside her open
receptical.

I am a witness
to her glory,
such sweet swollenness
unfolding in raw splendor.
And with a mouthful of her pistil
& my eyes fixated,
I tenderly swirl her style,
gently nibble her stigma
around her white filaments,
taste magnificent anthers
loaded with
her sweet
delicious pollen,
I feel her explode
into the wind.

O thank you
Dear Lord,
I swallow Heaven,
which quite simply,
is sublime.

little enough world how up Up UP
in your frail face is a pair of slick
rinds coloured in the drowsy dream
of being,

a forest that perhaps
is filled with sunset being sheathed
in rain

its voice that
tinly crawls
on tremendous legs of pale wind

a fine club
is wield by
enormous strength of drunk hands

drunk with vine and pistil
(poppy and thistle)

that ***** ***** *****
the alabaster hull of cloud

(a single star emits
and dances upon fall
all the deadness who
turn their cheecks up

         –even their cheecks up–

at this death more,
bright

more




vital

sleep this most and Spring to lie
with tired tress and awkward thigh
apart that bit where winter slept
but now where stock and petals kept

a garden small and fragile sleeps
a'tween the hull and meadows deep
tha' bumbles bri' wi' nettled buzz
an' blooms with light an' shocks o' fuzz

a little rill there constant speaks
of need to want for constant peaks
(as like the bee that tends to pistil
the water feels to drink of thistle)

and feel the full when sharply stuck
by root and stem of urgent pluck