Part One
Nascent Craving

The insular heart unsealed; pearled eyes
Breach parapets of stone— periled shield,
The sweetest ****—
A threatening wonder and irrefragable synergy,
Nervous routes of cognition  
In this nascent, amorous craving.
Locked and abased,
Dissonance lends pathos — euphoric and onerous,
Disconsolate cries curb sublimation,
The regnant bleed diffusing — fervid lust
Fondled, tactile surfaces in throbbing anticipation.

Sullen, aft a veil of laughter,
Visceral aftermath, out of
The ardent ash,
Burns a thirst;
Insuperable numbness and ache.
Efflorescent intimacy,
Table for two
Enraptured in new alliance,
Élan vital (psyche);
Urgent dialect petitions
Equivocation, jocularity blending
Provocation with indecision,
Noted lilt of descending inhibition.

Adrift, the incessant Now;
As occasion inexorably diminished;
Resonant simpatico tending,
Numinous amity;
Heard conversant, cognitive idioms—
Lassitude, time-eaten pangs of the unhinged heart,
Wounds axiomatic,
In disquieting synergy,
Nibbling, the circumference—
Misery’s permeating truth;
None immune, all trundle incongruously past,
Facing intrepid savages.

Licitly felt, reverberations of Amor
Whence the heart behaves;
Measured cadence, pulse elevating—
Treasured lover, contemplative muse;
Undulating clasp, inflated bone of absence;
Incarnation — a woman,
Beyond prosaic;
Ineffable adoration pours in certitudes of verse,
Elenita, enclothed —virtue unvarnished;
Reservoir intrinsic, poised advocate of the innocent:
The crooked lines of insolence,
Brazen culture of neglected youth.
Perceptive blue stare, sensitized tears—
Plaintively, evincing her injustice ago.

Part Two
Tendered Senses

Siren silence, eruptive blush, ampler between phrases
In dulcet tones — stirring discourse;
Foments rebellion, the strife beneath— his ****,
Out of its vast reserve,
Penetrate the narrowed ambit, vaguely announced.
Groping hands, migrating the sensual member
Stern faces grimacing— mirror in abrasion,
Under the blind surf of consent;
Burrowing ambiguity, emerging torsion,
Plunge, enlisted and content in the sea;
Subsumed in the nonverbal cue,
Persuasion’s plea,
Quelled in the post cerebral assent.

Piercing eyes parallel crystalline waters of Lake Tahoe.

An untouched portion of his awareness remains aloof,
Palpable in the subsequential quiet,
Obsequious and febrile, they sinned on sofas;
Peregrine predilections quenched and viscid—
Serenely requited, the room breathes her presence,
Limp, figures *******, mantled in adolescent torpor.

Erudition in bloom, trust undoubted,
Illuminating, satiating; tempest calm—
Under canvas
Terrain soaked and sodden,
Postliminary — rains of invalidation.
Allowance and permission
Recalibrate, salivate, shortly only—
Initiate, obliged consecration, appraising
Curvatures of the spine,
Stuns him obeisant, her femenine pulchritude,
Propinquity inciting vigor,
Emergent allure, the updriven
Tower of wood sprung from the blanket.

Suffused in ether, purring streams of remembrance
Vaginal honeyed dew, sung into
Orchids, remnants of remember;
Drenched down the cynosure of devotion;
Succulent view, diaphanous pantied bottom;
Halcyon mist, saporous wine — compliance of the will,
Freed fires wander,
Pliable rind, twin plums dripping,
Abject confession, dispatching doubt
In tendered senses,
Pivotal tree, lavender Jacaranda holds the key,
Unfurled, cindered vulnerability.

Half-denuded skin invites confessional savor
Acutely bubbled rear, fleshly furnished denim;
Sultry visit, San Ramon Valley in the fall,
Strewed limbs splendid, flowing filmy;
Imagination yields—
Bursting silk congealed
Across deft thighs, ambrosial thong draping ankles,
Grazing ascension, the curvaceous trajectory
Nose inflamed with fragrance,
Inhaling, climb of acquiescence,
The ****** weal, amid the globed fruit,
Focal intention — ploughed lance thrusting,
Absconding, the ancillary perfume of essence.

Perceiving avid validation,
Swimmingly, amid the monstrous gaze.
  
Humid skies simper dank, set swell the incense of Eros,
Surge of poetry engorged
The flame levened shaft,
Nimble ******* flounce, spill the harboring mouth;
Moist hands merging, unfettered,
Weave in supplication,
Vicinity voicing, enmeshed diversion;
Supple and spherical behind
Posterior arch, milky-skin against the lip—
Ripeness jostling their complacency;
Lapped the mooring, ridden decisively;
Recapitulating— spumed forth, bellied over hips warmth.
Abandon the dirge of self-pity
Late under ego’s trance.
  
Part Three
Present Tenses

Tempting trespass across sacred gardens,
Flowering, scandal set luminous: attachment—
Consensual, their corresponsive fear;
Protean manifestations— evocative, perpetual
Unutterable contention in a fictive resolve,
Deliberating the merits of their widely disparate tastes in coffee,
Amorously touring wine, let’s drowse through the gnarled vine.
Sundry deficiencies pale, once contrasted;
The beatific vision—
Material substance unaccompanied,
Imperceptible, tear-streamed cheeks in synch,
Ventral kiss, peak of carnal perfection,
Reminiscence— flesh violent with Love.

Fiction knew to meander the innominate rift,
A tincture of irony soften misdeeds
Immense as the sea.
Insolvent beast stippled with sapience—
Unmasked, the fabric of delusion;
Dependence smothering the disciplined heart
Resentment put up for release.

Waste of residual years
Fate’s apportion, scars bleakly observed;
Chastened by heartache, engulfing fervor
Too faint to recapture.
Vague glimpses dry—
Hypervigilant his defenses,
Veritable suspensions, embers lit linger;
Slender walls of solidity, the horizoned self,
Faith and reason in concert — stone levels of elucidation.

Fractured bones of distance, emanate a rigid salience,
Another ponderous night of absence—
Lingering, cauldron of dearth as indifference ushers,
The quotidian coil of contrition.
Tearful pallor, sequestered —ciphering time and solitude;
The unkissed mouth, his restive brow;
Suspend in the approximate span.
                      
After Lucid alliterations are spoken
Devoid of her face, his lover’s nudge—
The man nurtures his hurt.
Anxious as seldom unscarred,  
Venus’s susurrations,
In present tenses,
Kissed by her serenades of integration—
Notwithstanding metaphysic intrusion,
No chain stays unbroken,
Postponed drifts of deferment left unspoken,
Reverberations of amor.

© 2013 W. S. Warner

If we were the kind of friends who unironically
raised our glasses in toasts,
I would give one to the generation too comforted by the ease
of a honeybee in the plaintively nonexistent mind
of a tulip

To the generation, or at least its subset
that wrongly feels representative, who stumble drunkenly
or maybe just tiredly out of tents
to **** in the view of their friends, who are still at the fire
because the tent was too cold

To those who did raise their glasses in a toast
on New Year’s Eve at what felt, with the ball drop
not screening in luddite protest, enough like midnight.
Beginning with “dear friends” and a couple laughs;
concluding with “now let’s get ****** up” and
a couple more

To those who proceeded
as directed, clinking their shot-glasses
and swigging them back. If only because
they were not tulips.

.does the concept of a misnomer, exist, within the confines of synonyms?

                       poets began complaining:
if we're not rewriting
         the brother grimms'
fairy tales...
   we're writing: about reading...
so what the hell
is up with the modern revamping
of journalism?
  journalism about...
journalism?
   and this legalißation of
homosexuality...
and the standardißing of
of transgenderißm?
i'm living inside a society,
that has abolished the concept
of the asylum...
      and i'm like:
oi! garçon! noch eine tee
   für mich...
             an dis verrückt
                  engländerteeparty!
- since writing about reading
is the consequence of
a landfill site ergonomics...
what is alt and Samson
journalism?
            oh look... another set
of people, who've entered
a problematic posit of plagiarism,
having to wrestle with,
yet another cul de sac scenario...
the nuestasi...
      i agree, there's a healthy
canvas of competition...
but... after a while?
  it's basically people slagging
each other off...
    journalists "doing" journalism
for the front-liners -
journalism as simply
     the editorial sections
of newspapers...
     opinion avenues, rubrics...
there's no longer a journalism
within the regards of:
what's happening in the world...
but...
  there's a journalism,
within the confines of:
what's happening in journalism...
the day had to come,
when the times newspaper...
had to run a page 2 story...
about a Toff Tinder dating app.,
about pseudo-eugenics -
minus the strict Nazis,
and more:
   those annoying English
aristocrats,
   who received, much more
than a circumcision when
     ruling over the Indian Raj...
mind you... it always bewildered
me...
   most european languages...
do not actually allow noun ascription
to letters...
   like the greeks might with
O being omicron,
   or A being alpha...
    hence me, among the "losers"...
well... because i have
a roof over my head,
and there actually exists a class
of employed
people in england,
that are, nonetheless, homeless!
    the latin alphabet,
with its Ah Be(e) Ce(e)...
                      ****...
just before they cut his ***** off,
the castrato at the Vatican: sang!
sang! ****** sang like a
Modena tenor... having his *****
squeezed, before having them cut off...
sung the alphabet...
   and... couldn't fathom
ascribing a noun... to a single letter
in the encoding metric...
            no surprises...
but it's not like tyrants didn't
need eunuchs to keep harems...
back when the plastic industry
wasn't in full swing...
   and you wanted to keep 200 women...
you basically needed walking ******
to keep the women occupied...
     so... a walrus bollocking
within the grasp of a, "sudden"
loss of stamina?
                 evolved...
like a tree made into a toothpick...
because... only some make
it into the kingdom of god,
imitating the monogamy of
the nobles, that are... notably swans...
the concept of
     widowhood exists among
swans...
                 sometimes...
among people...
        but hell...
                      this Bulgarian
******* asked me:
do you have a girlfriend?
   nope.
              - and the "affair" was over
within the confines of an hour...
the same emotional investment
as one might take...
   in killing a mosquito -
   omni corpus - nulla cor vel mens...
was that said, plaintively?
not really...
              no bogus drama -
   the sheep was still intact,
when the wolf left, satiated.

Canto 1

My childhood’s home I see again,
    And sadden with the view;
And still, as memory crowds my brain,
    There’s pleasure in it too.

O Memory! thou midway world
    ‘Twixt earth and paradise,
Where things decayed and loved ones lost
    In dreamy shadows rise,

And, freed from all that’s earthly vile,
    Seem hallowed, pure, and bright,
Like scenes in some enchanted isle,
    All bathed in liquid light.

As dusky mountains please the eye,
    When twilight chases day;
As bugle-notes that, passing by,
    In distance die away;

As leaving some grand waterfall,
    We, lingering, list its roar—
So memory will hallow all
    We’ve known, but know no more.

Near twenty years have passed away
    Since here I bid farewell
To woods and fields, and scenes of play,
    And playmates loved so well.

Where many were, how few remain
    Of old familiar things;
But seeing them, to mind again
    The lost and absent brings.

The friends I left that parting day,
    How changed, as time has sped!
Young childhood grown, strong manhood gray,
    And half of all are dead.

I hear the loved survivors tell
    How nought from death could save,
Till every sound appears a knell,
    And every spot a grave.

I range the fields with pensive tread,
    And pace the hollow rooms;
And feel (companion of the dead)
    I’m living in the tombs.

        Canto 2

But here’s an object more of dread
    Than ought the grave contains—
A human form with reason fled,
    While wretched life remains.

Poor Matthew! Once of genius bright,
    A fortune-favored child—
Now locked for aye, in mental night,
    A haggard mad-man wild.

Poor Matthew! I have ne’er forgot
    When first, with maddened will,
Yourself you maimed, your father fought,
    And mother strove to ****;

When terror spread, and neighbours ran,
    Your dang’rous strength to bind;
And soon, a howling crazy man
    Your limbs were fast confined.

How then you strove and shrieked aloud,
    Your bones and sinnews bared;
And fiendish on the gazing crowd,
    With burning eye-***** glared—

And begged, and swore, and wept and prayed
    With maniac laughter joined—
How fearful were those signs displayed
    By pangs that killed thy mind!

And when at length, tho’ drear and long,
    Time soothed thy fiercer woes,
How plaintively thy mournful song,
    Upon the still night rose.

I’ve heard it oft, as if I dreamed,
    Far-distant, sweet, and lone—
The funeral dirge, it ever seemed
    Of reason dead and gone.

To drink its strains, I’ve stole away,
    All stealthily and still,
Ere yet the rising God of day
    Had streaked the Eastern hill.

Air held his breath; trees, with the spell,
    Seemed sorrowing angels round,
Whose swelling tears in dew-drops fell
    Upon the listening ground.

But this is past; and nought remains,
    That raised thee o’er the brute.
Thy piercing shrieks, and soothing strains,
    Are like, forever mute.

Now fare thee well—more thou the cause,
    Than subject now of woe.
All mental pangs, by time’s kind laws,
    Hast lost the power to know.

O death! Thou awe-inspiring prince,
    That keepst the world in fear;
Why dost thou tear more blest ones hence,
    And leave him ling’ring here?

You hold echoes of a shift
so plaintively
against the swell
of midnight summer rain—
within the roar of the planes
on cold faded glass
the stuffy air at the airport

There was no way around it
that I could see—
the world still kept its spinning

You lock your stare here
and how I wish
I was packed up too,

snug heartbeats in your leather briefcase.

© BT

Gently you patted my cheek,
with a tenderness piquant,
not  known hitherto to us both.
Those quivering long fingers
exude motherliness,I miss ever after,
my mom has gone to her last pilgrimage,
And I crave for at moments of pain intense.

From the layers of memory darkened
by distance,I recover that feeling,
to place you instantly at a level higher,
than that of a sultry lover to whom
desire than anything higher binds together.

In to my lackluster eyes, you peer,
see the ineptly hidden drop of tear,
in the corner shivering plaintively
before rolling down to lose forever,
it's in the memory of my mother,
who rhythmically tapped my back,
led me to the cozy cloud of sleep,
when outside raged the rain storm,
I now gather, to a women I owe
when, time after time she takes
another avatar, of my mother,
momentarily, at times,when earth slips,
from under the feet
unexpectedly.
                         You did see the storm raging
inside and the child looking for solace.

You hold me close to your *****,
and I travel to a world gone by again
even when wolves howl refusing to sleep.
and let me doze off to wake up in another world!

Scene VI – The Car Ride


Location notes: Quai Henri IV is located on the Right Bank just west of Pont d’Austerlitz.

Jesse: Glad somebody does. Now, this is better than the Metro, right?

Céline: Definitely!

(The camera cuts ahead of the car, leading it as it pulls onto the main road. The conversation continues.)

Céline: I was thinking...for me it's better I don't romanticize things as much anymore. I was suffering so much all the time. I still have lots of dreams, but they're not in regard to my love life. (Cut to interior of the car.) It doesn't make me sad, it's just the way it is.

Jesse: Is that why you're in a relationship with somebody who's never around?

Céline: Yes, obviously, I can't deal with the day to day life of a relationship. Yeah, we have, you know, this exciting time together and then he leaves, and I miss him, but at least I'm not dying inside. When someone is always around me, I'm like suffocating!

Jesse: No, wait, you just said that you need to love and be loved...

Céline: Yeah, but when I do it quickly makes me nauseous! It's a disaster... I mean I'm really happy only when I'm on my own. Even being alone...it's better than...sitting next to a lover and feeling lonely. It's not so easy for me to be all romantic. You start off that way and after you've been ******* over a few times...you...you…you forget about all your delusional ideas and you just take what comes into your life. That's not even true I haven't been...******* over, I've just had too many blah relationships. They weren't mean, they cared for me, but... there were no real...connection or excitement. At least not from my side.

Jesse: God, I'm sorry, is it...is it really that bad? It's not, right?

Céline: (Shaking her head with eyes nearly watering.) You know...it's not even that. I was...I was fine, until I read your ******* book! It stirred **** up, you know? It reminded me how genuinely romantic I was, how I had so much hope in things, and now it's like...I don't believe in anything that relates to love. I don't feel things for people anymore. In a way...I put all my romanticism into that one night, and I was never able to feel all this again. Like...somehow this night took things away from me and...I expressed them to you, and you took them with you! It made me feel cold, like if love wasn't for me!

Jesse: I... I don't believe that. I don't believe that.

Céline: You know what? Reality and love are almost contradictory for me. It's funny...every single of my ex’s...they're now married! Men go out with me, we break up, and then they get married! And later they call me to thank me for teaching them what love is, and…

Jesse: (Smiling sympathetically.) Oh God. (Rubs his face with both hands.)

Céline: …and that I taught them to care and respect women!

Jesse: (Pointing at himself.) I think I'm one of those guys.

Céline: (Yelling.) You know, I want to **** them!! Why didn't they ask ME to marry them? I would have said "No", but at least they could have asked!! But it's my fault, I know it's my fault, because...I never felt it was the right man. Never! But what does it mean the right man? The love of your life? The concept is absurd; the idea that we can only be complete with another person is...EVIL!! RIGHT??!!

Jesse: (Sheepishly.) Can I talk?

Céline: (Speaking more quietly.) You know, I guess I've been heartbroken too many times. And then I recovered. So now, you know, from the starts I make no effort…because I know it’s not going to work out, I know it’s not going to work out.

Jesse: You can't do that. You can't do that, you can't live your life trying to avoid pain, at the expense of en...

Céline: (Interrupting.) OK, you know what? (Moving her fingers to mock the movement of Jesse’s mouth as he speaks.) Those are words! I've gotta...I've gotta get away from you. (To Philippe.) Stop the car, I want to get out!

Jesse: No, no, no, don't...don't get out.

Céline: You know, it's being around you...

Jesse: Keep talking...

Céline: (Jesse grabs her arm) Don't touch me! (Slaps his hand.) You know, I wanna get on a cab...

(To Philippe.) Monsieur! Arretez-vous! Non, non, c'est bon, au feu la! Juste au feu, au coin, il y a un metro meme! Je veux prendre le metro. (Sir, please stop! No, no, it’s okay, at the next traffic light, at the corner, there is even a metro! I want to take the metro.)

Jesse: (To Philippe) No, no, no, keep going... (To Céline) No, listen, I'm just so happy... (To Philippe) Thank you, just keep going...(To Céline.) Alright. Look, I am just so happy, alright...to be with you. I am. I'm so glad you didn’t forget about me. OK.

Céline: No, I didn't...and it ****** me off, OK? You come here to Paris, all romantic, and married, OK? ***** you! Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to get you or anything. I mean, all I need is married man! There's been so much water under the bridge, it's...it's not even about you anymore, it's about that time, that moment in time that is forever gone, I don't know!

Jesse: You...you say all that, but you didn't even remember having ***. So...

Céline: (Flatly, with resignation.) Of course I remembered.

Jesse: (Confused.) You did?

Céline: Yes! Women pretend things like that. I don’t know…(Laughs.)

Jesse: (Still confused.) They do?

Céline: Yeah, what was I supposed to say? That I remember the wine in the park and...us looking up at the stars fading away as the sun came up? We had *** TWICE (claps her hands), you idiot!

Jesse: Alright, you know what? I'm just...happy to see you, even if...you've become an angry, manic depressive activist. I still like you! I still enjoy being around you!

(Reaches out to touch her face, but pulls his hand back quickly, before she notices.)

Céline: And I feel the same. (Laughing.) I'm...I'm sorry, I don't know what happened. I just...I had to let it all out. I...

Jesse: Don't worry about it.

Céline: I'm so miserable in my love life, in my relationship, I always act as... like...you know, I'm detached, but I'm... I'm dying inside. I'm dying because I'm so numb. I don't feel pain, or excitement. I'm not even bitter, I'm just...uh…

Jesse: You think you're the one dying inside? My life is twenty four-seven...BAD.

Céline: I'm sorry.

Jesse: No, no, no...I mean, the only happiness I get is when I'm out with my son. I've been to marriage counseling, I've done things I never thought I would have to do. I lit candles, bought self-help books, lingerie...

Céline: Did the candles help?

Jesse: HELL. NO. (Plaintively.) Alright, I don’t love her the way she needs to be loved, and...I don't even see a future for us. But then I look at...at my little boy, sitting at the table across from me, and I think I would suffer any torture to be with him for all the minutes of his life. You know, I don't wanna miss out on one. But then...there's no joy, or laughter, in my home. You know, and I don't want him growing up in that!

Céline: Oh, no laughter? That's terrible. My parents have been together for 35 years and even when they have a bad fight they end up laughing like crazy.

Jesse: I just...I don't wanna be one of those people who are...getting divorced at 52 and falling down into tears admitting that they never really loved their spouse, and they feel that their life has been (waves his hand, as if being pulled) ****** up into a vacuum cleaner! You know, I want a great life. I want her to have a great life. She deserves that! Alright? But we're just living in a pretense of a marriage, responsibility and all these...just...ideas of how people are supposed to live. Then I...I have these dreams...

Céline: What dreams?

Jesse: (Looks away distantly, eyes starting to water.) I have these dreams, you know, that I’m…I'm standing on a platform, and uh, you keep going by on a train, and...you go by, and you go by, and you go by, and you go by, and I wake up with the ******* sweats, you know? And then I have this other dream, oh...where you're...pregnant, in bed beside me, naked, and I want so badly to touch you, but you tell me not to and then you look away and...and I...I...I touch you anyway, right on your ankle and your skin is so soft and I wake up in sobs, alright? (Inhales deeply.) And my wife is sitting there looking at me, and I feel like I'm a million miles from her, and I know that there's something...wrong! (Céline reaches out to stroke Jesse’s face, but pulls her hand back before he sees her.) You know, that I ca...that I can't keep living like this, that there's gotta be something more to love than commitment. But then I think that...I might have given up...on the whole idea of romantic love. That I...I might have put it to bed that...that day when you weren't there. You know, I think I might have done that.

Céline: (Eyes starting to water again.) Why are you telling me all this?

Jesse: I'm sorry. I don't know, I'm...I...I should...I...I shouldn't have.

Céline: You know, it's so weird...that people think they are the only one going through tough times. I mean when I read the article I thought...your life was perfect. A wife, a kid, a published author. (Jesse laughs.) Your personal life is more of a mess than mine! I'm sorry! (Both laugh.)

Jesse: Well...I'm glad it's good for something.

Céline: (To Philippe.) Oh, monsieur, c'est la! Rentrez dans la passe la. (Sir, this is it. Pull into the alley right there.)

(Camera cuts to exterior of the car pulling into the driveway of Céline’s apartment.)

The kettle whistles plaintively as if it knows it's time for tea
but the time is only five past three,
far too early
and she's the one who put the kettle on
but
she, went back to sleep
leaving me to keep my ears awake until I rise,get up and make a
brew.

I don't know what to do,
should I make the tea?
would she thank me If I woke her with some toast and tea upon a silver coaster?
I think not.
She's got me wrapped around her little finger,slinging me a crumb or two and leaving me to make the brew.
Sod the kettle
let it whistle on,
she chose the tune,she knows the song,meanwhile
this hungry boy is gone
to get some coffee and a scone, in a diner down the street.

Let her wake and wonder why
the kettle's dry,there is no tea
let her wonder
what became of me
but
she,
will take it in her stride
she's got her pride and that won't slip.
I think this as I sip my drink and wonder if she'd ever think
just how much'brew a man can take
how many tea's a man can make
before he cracks.

I keep my back against the wall
lest she should fall from a great height and beat me senseless,
it would serve me right
but this I do not let her know
I go
to work
whistling.

O Hair, o Hair, wherefore art thou dear Hair?
You stuck with me since I can remember
How come you’re leaving? Why do you not care?
Why haven’t you grown since last November?

What did I do to make you love me less?
I’ve always given you the best shampoos,
Conditioners, hair cream- why are you distressed?
I wish you could talk- for I have no clue.

‘Stress’- the doctor says that you can’t bear it
It hurts you, it makes you sad, angry, weak
How I miss your happy, active spirit
You lit up my days when the world was bleak

You were obedient, made me look good
Introduced styles of your own I didn’t know
Growing fast into a shiny mane you would
Falling tantalisingly to my brow.

You used to cooperate with the stylist
So I tried new things, innovatively
Fashionable styles I never could resist
But you danced brightly, never plaintively!

Alas! I can’t possibly understand
Why you fall away to the cold hard ground
As I brush you, in the shower, strand by strand
The sight just shocks me as you make no sound.

You don’t respond to new-fangled oils
Bought online for you in desperate attempts
To make you grow again, healthy, unspoiled
But you stare up at me with harsh contempt!

Do not desert me yet, my darling friend!
I will change myself for you, make it right
Ensuring your precious life doesn’t end
I will put up a victorious, mighty fight.

I’ll meditate to reduce stress on you
I’ll stop shampoos to use homemade products
I’ll take the required medicines, oils too
Baby, for me, increase your good conduct!

I’m so sorry for all that I did wrong
All the things that then made you want to die
I’ll take care of you now, you will be strong
Work with me now, sweetheart, don’t ever cry!

Her two golden lamps made me pause,
As she spread her liquid gaze upon my flesh,
And slowly blinked
When she discovered that I stared back.

The dry valleys of age ran crazily over her face,
Deepening as she squinted in the sun,
A sun whose weakening hold on life
Put forth its meager attempt at warming her.

Her tattered, faded scarf was wrapped demurely
About her head; I am sure they had lived together long
And seen and watched many like me pass
On the graying pavement.

When she approached, she was like an old cart
With as many creaks, the difference being that
There was no one to pull her, help her along;
Certainly not I, who was mesmerized by her limping stride.

She cast her golden lamps into mine, lifting the shade;
I could see where her pride had been interred,
Left for dead, yet a shred of dignity still tried to dance,
As she plaintively asked,

“Could I, perhaps, have but a cent?”

In the vaulted way, where the passage turned
To the shadowy corner that none could see,
You paused for our parting,—plaintively:
Though overnight had come words that burned
My fond frail happiness out of me.

And then I kissed you,—despite my thought
That our spell must end when reflection came
On what you had deemed me, whose one long aim
Had been to serve you; that what I sought
Lay not in a heart that could breathe such blame.

But yet I kissed you: whereon you again
As of old kissed me. Why, why was it so?
Do you cleave to me after that light-tongued blow?
If you scorned me at eventide, how love then?
The thing is dark, Dear. I do not know.

'There wasn't a beer in the house. The wind pushed the branches and the leaves of the trees outside like bullies does its prey. There wasn't a single beer in the house while the moon hung in the night sky like a thick toe nail. The stars were splatters of milk on an endless blackened canvas. I looked at my watch. It read 1AM. I had an hour.
My dog Wino laid next to me on her side. She was a miniature french bull dog who took pleasure in sleeping, eating, and occasionally drinking wine mixed with cocoa cola and water. The perfect dog if one had a small attention span and could keep them fed, petted, and fit. The coke and water trick had not come into fruition by my mind, but from my friend, Penny. He drank at a place called The Lounge, a dive of dives meant for locals and young kids with old souls. Luckily we were still young and somehow blessed with the formalities and general manners opposite of a drunken frat boys bent solely on intoxicating themselves on red bull and jager shots mixed with an aperitif of bud light.
The Lounge was four blocks toward downtown from where I lived. It was the kind of place that served microwaved hot dogs until closing if you're wondering what I meant about dive of dives. Penny was there, dead drunk or pain-stakingly sober, depending on how much money he had. I don't know why I thought of him at that moment, most likely trying to figure who else to drink with other than myself, but right when I thought of him, I knew it was already a lost cause. It was 1:05. The hour was too late to reconvene with anyone. I knew I'd have to go alone.
*******, there's got to be something, I thought, this God forsaken house is empty? A beer? A shot? Anything? Nothing! How can it be? My good for nothing roommates must have drank it all...or maybe it was me? Maybe I'm to blame? No...that couldn't be right. I would have remembered? But why so sure? I could have easily forgot from all the beer I was drinking before...people make mistakes...happens all the time. Jesus, I told myself, get yourself together and start thinking straight.
I felt like a handicapped, bloodthirsty hyena. Pensive, I looked down at Wino. She was dead asleep with her tongue oozing out between her lips. The stench of wine coke hung around her. She would be no help at all.
I got up from the kitchen table and looked in the refrigerator. Hungry gripped me as well. Getting attacked on the front of drink and food was not an enjoyable place to be. Moves would have to be made...but where? When? Well, before 2AM of course and where, well, that would take some thought. As I scrounged around in the deep crevices of the refrigerator, pushing aside moldy mashed potatoes and old plastic tins of Chinese food, furry oranges and near empty bottle of ketchup, dark soups with mysterious things swimming around inside and a very large bowl of what looked to be sugar, but was actually Arm and Hammer. We would eventually get a dating and signature system to avoid all of these unwanted science experiments, but that's another story.
There was nothing of nourishment in the fridge so I closed it, discouraged, weighing my options. There was a liquor store on Geary, the main drag in the inner richmond, my neighborhood. But it was a Wednesday and they were most likely closed. Why would they stay open late on a weekday? For people like me? Not a chance. I stepped into the laundry room and looked out the window. The sky was clear and the moonlight and the stars were white florescent shining down on the tops of the leaves hanging from the branches of the trees like a prisoner dead on the gallows. The roofs of the apartments across my ours were painted with this same cream white. I could smell the salt of the ocean from sporadic gusts of a sharp wind. In the distance, an ocean tanker heading into the city or out to sea blared their fog horn. It sounded like a whale in heat. There was a party going on in an apartment across the way. I saw people with glasses in their hands and listened to their chatter and their laughter. I knew they would have *****. I also wondered who throws a party on a wednesday night in the middle of June in San Francisco's winter of all the times. The fog had been rolling in hard the last few days and that night was no different. I was in a thick sweater, pants, and knee high socks and my teeth were still chattering. No use staring over plaintively at their apartment, I thought, I probably look like some kind of shadowy, drunk apparition. Better go inside before they call the cops on me...
Inside, I ran the faucet with hot water into a bowl. When it was almost full, I stopped the water and submerged my hands. That sting that happens when extreme cold goes to extreme hot began. My entire body started to tingle, go numb, especially my hands. The reason for this action I never fully understood for I really wasn't that cold, but the image of a hot water filling a bowl just popped into my head and I gave it no thought, only action. If anyone had walked in at that moment, I'm sure they would have thought me drunk and craze and, well, maybe I was? I was no longer sure. The only thing I did know that needed to happen was to get down the stairs, out the door, down the street, and to the 8th and Geary where my liquor store hopefully, was open.
My phone read 1:21 PM. I'd be cutting it close. Luckily, I had cash, so they wouldn't have to be bothered with a debit card transaction. I recalled trying to use a debit card there once and they were convinced it was OK to charge me $5 for a purchase under $10. Most places would charge you 50 cents, a dollar at most, but these hustling swindlers were trying to push $5! I wouldn't have it. I walked outta' there quick and knew the next time I ever was forced (I usually bought alcohol at grocery stores where their inconvenience offered more deals) to step foot into a liquor specific store, I would have cash in hand, poised in the ready position.
There was a problem with my departure though: I couldn't find my shoes. I thought back to when I got home from work, beers in my backpack as well as a pint of whiskey in the secret zipper department. My shoes were on at that point, I was sure of it. When I had arrived say around 3:30 - 4 o'clock in the afternoon, no one was home. They were still all at work and in no way taken my shoes by accident. This had never happened, so I was curious why I thought that that specific day, when I would later need my shoes so desperately, somebody would have mistakingly took them to thwart whatever plans I may or may not make to go out. In truth, I couldn't see any of my roommates devising such a plan, at least on a week day, even more so a wednesday. But where were they? Had they slipped under the couch? I checked, but was only to discover a few quarters, which I pocketed for pool and juke box use in the future, various types of potato and tortilla chips, a hat, *****, lint covered socks, and a remote control to the TV which I had been searching since the week I had moved in a year ago. No shoes though. Where could they be?
I lightly ran downstairs to check the shoe rack that no one ever used. The middle of our door is a rectangular piece of glass, so one could see right through and down to the street. The stale light of of a single street lamp beamed an orange streak across the pavement. Besides that, the block was black. There was a car parked in the space in front of our steps. No one was inside, at least it didn't look like there was. It was very dark. I could have been mistaken. The car sat underneath a large tree with heavy, thick branches that blocked any light that may have been coming from the lamp or the stars, so very possibly there could have been a mysterious person, thing, entity, what have you in vicious wait. But, I asked myself, waiting for what? For me? Why for me?. All I'm looking for is a six pack and another flask. What would this thing in that car even want with me except twelve bucks? I stared out the window, thinking these things until I remembered why the hell I was there in the first place. The shoe rack was filled with old bills, coupon brochures, voting ballots, and neon pink Chinese menus. I rummaged around this heap, with no sign of my shoes. Well, I thought, there's only one more place these ******'s could be.
My desk, which holds most of my books, looks out onto the street. It holds stacks of papers in deep drawers that should be thrown away but are kept due to the fear of tossing something potentially important, condoms, pens, checkbooks, candies, film canisters, notes from friends, headphones, cards, hair gels and deodorants, and really anything I don't want on my desk. Occasionally, there will be a left over dinner or breakfast plates lingering around the edge of the desk, flirting with its own demise and even more so if I have left the window open, which is  half a foot away. If not plates then bills that have yet to be paid or notes on old papers, probably old bills, that I never got around to flushing out or did and just never got rid of. A large oak desk, it sits and feels a little small for my size, but, I make it work, for it was a gift. I try to use whatever I receive for free to the utmost until the discomfort is either too much or I come across something better that I can afford, which is rare. But, there they were, pushed up against the wall that faced the street. My chair was jammed all the way up into the desk as well , so much so that it was tipped slightly upward, like someone had been trying to throw the thing out the window. I didn't remember doing this at all which made me think perhaps it wasn't me, maybe someone else had been in here...but who? Why would anyone trespass on such a simple, lowly place with no real worth or chance of treasure? It just couldn't be, so I threw the thought into the wind and got my shoes on. I checked my phone again. It read 1:37. That gave me 23 minutes.
I stumbled down the stairs, out the door, and down the stairs. A car drove by me as I walked down the street toward Geary. Their headlights were off. I turned to see the driver of the car as they passed me, but they were mere shadow, their faces black, blurry smudges. I paused and turned around back toward my apartment. Something in me told me the car would stop at my house, but it continued on to the stop light, then up the hill toward the park. Where we they going?
At Geary, I took a left and walked quickly toward 8th avenue. There were no cars on the main drag. Both sides of the streets were completely empty. A large gust of wind from the west forced me to pause, almost making me take a step back. I looked up into the sky. It was thick with a rolling grey fog. At night, the fog always rolled in the hardest. I never knew why. It just did. And there were no stars. Everything was black and grey, but when I pushed forward through the wind, I saw the neon yellow and red shell station ahead as well as the flashing stop lights which hung over the streets. As I came to 8th avenue, I saw the liquor store. It was closed. The only light that shone was a rotating blinking light in the shape of a beer bottle. I wanted that beer bottle, even if it wasn't real.
The store windows were grated and there was a large metal gate before the actual door to the store. This told me they had had trouble before, probably from guys like me. Inside there was everything I would need to get me through the night and to the morning. Out there, on the cold sidewalk with a violent fog swirling around me like a hurricane, I was just cold and dangerously sober. Reality rapped on my temples like a ravens beak on a thin window. There was nothing I could do. I was forced to go home, empty handed.
As I brushed my teeth in nothing but my underwear, I wandered to the back deck and opened the window. The fog was still rolling heavy and would continue to do so until the sun came to burn it all away. Sometimes, the fog was too much and it would hang there all day like a heavy shawl. Those days were nice. They didn't make me feel guilty about staying inside all day reading or sleeping or really doing nothing at all. Sometimes that is necessary. I spit my toothbrush saliva mixture into a dead plant that rested on the banister near the ladder that lead to the roof. I hadn't ever been up there. Terrified of heights, I figured I never would be.
My clock read 2:13. It had taken me a long time to walk home after such a defeat. I had spent so much time thinking about moving I had failed my overall goal. Too much discussion with oneself can make you go crazy. I've seen it happen to friends, family, ****...myself. I closed my eyes and told myself there is plenty of value in talk, in discussion, but it takes a true human being to act after all of that talk. I would have to remember that one. Yes, I would have to write that one down.

with each kiss you planted on my ribs
i felt a sprout take root,
and at once my chest was filled with blossoms
that made me cough like soot.
they were darling bells that made me hack
whenever your shadow appeared,
so I plucked each petal plaintively,
though he loves me not, I feared,
its been a spell since we have wilted, and
i’ve pressed you deep inside,
hoping still to preserve your youthful bloom
after all your leaves have dried
-r.s

The heady scents of night recede,
Unfamiliar birds call, plaintively, into the lightening sky,
Morning-flowers unfurl, rich and lush and greedy for the heat.
Stars retreat, but the moon lingers, proud and unrepentant,
Fading, but resolute; a promise to return.
In this garden of delights I sit and think of you, so far away, oh,
You are so far, you are too far.
I close my eyes and dream that you are here with me,
Sharing the newborn sun.
Coy pink petals unfurl, to a sudden brazen blaze,
The day is here, and you are gone with the night,
Back into my dreams, I know you will emerge
When the thai moon rises, I know that you are with me
And I know that you are thinking of me,
Unfurling, opening up, reaching out,
Drinking in your love.

A fire, they said, blazing red
    Had eaten whole a house
And there, there was a husband, dead
    Who cried over his spouse
“Twas on a cold, dead winter’s night,”
    He sang, o plaintively:
“A red, tall fire, had blazed bright
    Eating twas all to see

I heard my wife’s most pleading cry
    Drowned out by outer noise
She screamed, ‘neath metal she did lie
    “Go save, just save our boys!”
Her frightened eyes ablaze with fear
    She tried to writhe out free
But she was trapped, the fires neared
    In her captivity

And red sparks flew, she screamed, “John, John!
    Help me, help me, o please”
Through the flames, quick I did run
    From where sprang her shrill pleas
And as I dodged through searing flame
    A beast tearing apart
Something in a cold twist of pain
    Gripped all my frightened heart

Her scream as her the flames did eat
    Raw, black and savaged flesh
“O, help me John!” my tears did meet
    The flames,
“O, where are you, where are you Jane
    O, I managed to yell
But all that answered was the pain
    These crimson tides of hell

And then all fell silent except
    The crackling flame’s fury
And that shrill voice inside my head
    “Go save the boys,” her plea
I searched around the debris bare
    Aflame with savage blaze
And to my dark, my cold despair


And all I heard again, again
    Her plead, her cry, her voice
You’re their father, you’re that man
    “Go save, go save our boys!”
But then somewhere, I heard the cries
    Of the twins, tis too late
I ran, I ran, the flames did rise
    And nothing did abate

And I ran into my sons’ room
    And there I found to dread
Befallen on them blackest doom
    For they were burned, were dead
I flooded up in sad tears, white
    And with grief, fall did I
For all to this fire at night
    My memories did die

And now I stand, I sing forlorn
    O’er my family, dead
In plaintive elegies, I mourn
    I kiss each of their head
And though that fire changed my life
    Live I shall continue
In death with my twins and my wife
    In a life, anew…

Had I been wondering?
When I was sitting on a park bench,
lighting a cigar,
I got swept away with the spirit of the flashing ember,
Brought me to another dimension
of recurring nightmare .

Had I been wondering?
When storms on its duty,
Banging my frail eardrums,
All I could hear was just my soul screaming plaintively,
My hands were shivering,
Remembering the sins I made.

Had I been wondering?
Asking for forgiveness,
Asking for sentenced.

You well know
You left once before
Returning with a
Tapping knock
Upon heart's door

Plaintively pleading
Can I enter once more
To press into your soul
Promising a true
Forevermore

Of only us as one
And none other
A one to forever remember
One of the blissful sublime
Not a love to wither and die

Shunning wise counsel
Reluctantly I granted
An entry through
Love's window to my soul
Yet all again a lie

In my agony of sorrow
Of a love lost forever
Having found my Athena
I sip deeply from my glass
Nepenthe warm and sweet

From behind heart's door
Whilst barely breathing
Teeth clenching
Rage seething
Quietly whispering
Nevermore, Nevermore


©  2017 Jim Davis

Could not resist a steal from Poe! For anyone concerned, this comes from an old personal thing.  

From Wikipedia on Edgar Allen Poe's poem, "The Raven":
... "Christopher F. S. Maligec suggests the poem is a type of elegiacparaclausithyron, an ancient Greek and Roman poetic form consisting of the lament of an excluded, locked-out lover at the sealed door of his beloved.[14]"

Paraclausithyron (Ancient Greek: παρακλαυσίθυρον) is a motif in Greekand especially Augustan love elegy, as well as in troubadour poetry.
The details of the Greek etymology are uncertain, but it is generally accepted to mean "lament beside a door", from παρακλαίω, "lament beside", and θύρα, "door".[1] A paraklausithyron typically places a lover outside his mistress's door, desiring entry. In Greek poetry, the situation is connected to the komos, the revels of young people outdoors following intoxication at a symposium. Callimachus uses the situation to reflect on self-control, passion, and free will when the obstacle of the door is removed.[2]

From greekgodsandgoddesses website
Athena
* Athena was the Goddess of War, the female counterpart of ARES.
* She was the daughter of Zeus; no mother bore her. She sprang from Zeus’s head, full-grown and clothed in armor.
.......
* In later poetry, Athena embodied wisdom and rational thought.


From Dictionary website
Nepenthe
* a drug or drink, or the plant yielding it, mentioned by ancient writers as having the power to bring forgetfulness of sorrow or trouble.
* anything inducing a pleasurable sensation of forgetfulness, esp. of sorrow or trouble.

Stronger than words dripping with passion
Like immortal memories lodged in your mind
Fiercely lunging from the depths of your soul
Burning so strongly it almost leaves you blind

You hear it whispering into the darkness
Plaintively declaring a heartfelt need
As if succumbing to its weaker side
Being overcome by such selfish greed

And it's climbing higher with each second
Growing more insistent than ever before
Constantly appearing so small and helpless
Falling to its knees and begging you for more

But you will never trust something like this
You have seen it lie to you in every way
Its earnest eyes have peered into your heart
And left you with absolutely nothing to say

And one more day will cut away to fade into the bubble wrap
where I can trap the memory to
film and file and in the circuitry where I can find the me
I picture history among the jewellry that sparkles lustre-ly.

One more night to fight the demons that arise to
whistle plaintively
as one more daylight dies
and who is there?
and who is there to battle fallen dreams that fell off sunken bridges to drown in flowing streams and who is there to lend a moment of their time and if in a moment would I resign myself to the night time mockery?
where Satan doles out misery and charges me to join in miserably.

Oh bring me the day with all its history as yet untouched by hands that want to hurt and much good would it do to see
someone waiting especially for me
it cannot be
that all I have is bubble wrap to tap into and clap my eyes upon
where has this life of mine disappeared to and where has it gone?

It is just another trap to think like that and waiting as I do for some full on attack
I reset and play again the pack of tarot cards
and life is dealt to me as if I was a wind up toy whose mainspring went
oh boy
it couldn't could it not that I have drawn the hanged man
the final dot
black spot
a truly Pirate's lot.
I got no hope to make it till the morning comes
the sand runs and my life guns itself into the fast lane
another all the same
and if it's just a game
why do I always lose?

The wind chill in March
was at its *** end,
the sun in the east
half lit the murkier sky
of that morning
the cloudy patterns
seen through brittle and brown
branches
of the maple trees,
surrounded
a weird silence of forlorn.
the birds left
their broken nests,
flew away to the far end,
paralleling man's flying machine.
It was a scenic beauty,
blended with
technology and ecology.
Yet, the nature's creation
competed with man’s,
a bird from the flock,
plunged down
ablaze, ripped apart
plaintively,
with a sound.

Narinder

Soupy darkness enfolds
the wilted thornbush of your hands,
steepled plaintively in your ruined lap.

Your moist chin sags in defeat;
the mask of your tired smile
peels crookedly off your face
into the abyss of your leathery cleavage.

Ah, the void of thoughtless grief...
The burning house of your mind
lists limply to the side –
- a stranger’s hands smolder darkly
in the airless cave of your dreams.

The scar remembers the wound;
the wound remembers the pain –
- my flesh forgets your touch too soon,

Is is a sin to yearn for a nail?
Is is a crime to remember
the fleeting caress of your ice pick
on my hairless *****?
Is it a shame to laugh
when you’re hurting me beyond screams?

I remember your tender fists,
as my dog laps the essence of you
off the floor.
The dusk descends
through the flutter of curtains in the breeze.
The bath bath beckons steamily:
My wrist opens invitingly
under the gleaming caress
of my razor.

If someone else wants to touch you I can't tolerate
But when  you bloom in my arms I really celebrate
My sweetheart you are my good fortune and not fate
My eyes carry your image which is wonderful ,great

My eyes kiss your beauty and my heart starts dance
Love and beauty are intoxicated in just real romance
My beloved hails from Italy and I hail from France
Let be real lovers and try to take chance after chance

My beloved I carry you in my eyes to my sweet dreams
In dream you and me together play with all light beams
You have taken my heart as a play game to me it seems
My soul plaintively cries and my heart in dejection screams

Col Muhammad Khalid Khan
Copyright 2016 golden Glow

i refrain from picking people up
i drop them on the ground
and allow them to weaken
in the eyes of my existence
my careless mind that ceases to find
the good in life
but strives to make the
fittest of the fittest thrive
as i abandon those that
plaintively cry

Sing

I plead with you not to speak except to break the air and sing
Bring forth the heart that is listening
Dutiful to your passion, fulfilled, holding aloft that which can never be still;
The jagged heartbreak, the quavering schill calling plaintively, "Are you coming for me?"
...
"Are you coming back for me?"

And you reject the old bylines, criticisms, cataclysms of popular opinion
Noise buzzing within you turns to vibration
And you know
I have always been here

X
X
X
X
X

Grasp that which they say cannot be held
And continue as if no one is watching

I have never feared death
though it lurks round every bend
nor do I fear spiders
or snakes
or things that go
bump
in the night.

I do not fear investments
without returns,
for the investing is worthwhile
in itself.

I do not fear rejection,
nor heartache,
nor pain.
For all three I have experienced
and never have they won.

but you must fear something,
the fates proclaim. for a life without fear
is unbalanced,
and they do not permit their loom
to stretch without give,
nor give without take.

So what is it I fear?
What, or whom, lies in my shadowy nightmares
when I lie awake and dreamless
tossing in the sheets
and plaintively crying out
with nobody to hear?

simple:
inadequacy.
For when the day comes
with a hand to collect,
I may not have anything to give.
my heart, my flesh, my soul
may be too frail
to pass between us.

That is what I fear.
Not the darkness of the night,
but the soul left wandering
waiting for something
I could never give.

Nothing moves in the valley today
the sea is a flat silver platter
one sheep calls out plaintively
lost and alone easy prey to imagination.
All the winds of the compass silent
blown themselves out of breath.
This is a time of waiting thankfulness
a day few and far in between all mayhem.

On my keyboard laid my babay,
We   were talking , purring to each other , since she
had her litter, it had been awhile,  for us to have some
alone time. Mama was bringing up IP addresses and code,
somehow lying there, my history sprang up, all the cat videos I
had downloaded, when,
around the corner one of her kittens came,
mama went brrrrrrrrrrrrip! Kitten said mew, plaintively.
They both got up.
Mama went left around my coffee cup full of
pens, the kitten to the right, past my speaker ,
I pressed Escape. Silently.

In Hospital

Sitting quietly beside the bed
Who knows when the next
Slumbering sound or moan
Or grunt or wail

Plaintively will break
The comfortable silence   for me
But not for you
Your lumbering struggling

Breath   or gasp
Where are your eyes
Focused   Ah, yes   you can see
Me barely sitting at the end

Of that dark tunnel
A glimmer of light    never knowing
That words would fail
To emanate from those frail lips

One breath, yes just one word
I understand    you said a word

Have you ever looked at the world around you?
The edges, the curves and the beauty too?
Have you seen the sky at three?
The starts, the moon, and you who’s free

Have you felt things speak up at times?
Narrate a story, that’s unique and fine…
have you ever felt all eyes upon you?
And did you feel the admiration in them too?

Did you ever feel that you were strange?
Different or perhaps unique in a way?
Did you feel that interacting was strange?
Or maybe you saw the world in shades of grey?

Maybe you forget at times to, be you?
You- who’s different, you who’s you.
Did you feel defeated or plaintively weary?
Or did you, at times, sleep with your eyes bleary?

Have you ever tried to find answers?
Answers to all your problems?
Did you at times blame the world around you?
Or perhaps scream and shout in agony too?

Maybe, all this was a part of a test?
A test- that brought you to your fate
Perhaps it tried to bring out your best
To show that, your destiny awaits….