At the Zoo

Patriots and faux exhibit and binge on synonyms of liberty printed on beer and underwear
Advertising what should be unspoken and inspired to pervert and romanticize
Preludes to the parades and finale above us all
Weeks of saturated irony
Cuckoo bird irony and BBQ
As they reform Phoenix, rebirth of distractions and thievery
Predators in ally ways pursing America's diamonds and legs

Then gunpowder
Gunpowder of colors and cuckoos
Layers of streets in gunpowder
Towns built of gunpowder
Sky is gunpowder
We are born addicted to led and gunpowder
Gunpowder ****** in the air
Success, display and diversion and more gunpowder to ingest.

The Grand Finale
The Volta of the evening
The hammer of the judge
*** appeal of death and nature flexing it's muscles-  
show us some skin!

Covering your ears
Eyes fastened-
Ready to burrow back to mothers womb
Binged and free
Chinese celebration hijacked
Red, White and Blue
And a moment of silence  

Orchestrated onomatopoeia in heaven
Chorus of arousal on Earth
Band marching war machines in hell

The showdown of 241 years!
This freedom we are all grateful to only talk about

Only free to battle shackling intoxication
Men and women tugging extra weighted offspring
Sulking for indoors and portable addiction  
Chanting three letter obedience
God being counted by his blessings
Fear and Statism in every breathe for salvation from our stick swatted enemies
Checkpoints that serve and protect asking for a toll;
liberty synonyms.
Arresting the too free

At the Zoo,

The cuckoos regaining reality.
The phoenix red eye and held under oath
To the next day where we are back
To hate each others freedom, again.

I

The winter evening settles down
With smell of steaks in passageways.
Six o’clock.
The burnt-out ends of smoky days.
And now a gusty shower wraps
The grimy scraps
Of withered leaves about your feet
And newspapers from vacant lots;
The showers beat
On broken blinds and chimney-pots,
And at the corner of the street
A lonely cab-horse steams and stamps.

And then the lighting of the lamps.

     II

The morning comes to consciousness
Of faint stale smells of beer
From the sawdust-trampled street
With all its muddy feet that press
To early coffee-stands.

With the other masquerades
That time resumes,
One thinks of all the hands
That are raising dingy shades
In a thousand furnished rooms.

     III

You tossed a blanket from the bed,
You lay upon your back, and waited;
You dozed, and watched the night revealing
The thousand sordid images
Of which your soul was constituted;
They flickered against the ceiling.
And when all the world came back
And the light crept up between the shutters,
And you heard the sparrows in the gutters,
You had such a vision of the street
As the street hardly understands;
Sitting along the bed’s edge, where
You curled the papers from your hair,
Or clasped the yellow soles of feet
In the palms of both soiled hands.

     IV

His soul stretched tight across the skies
That fade behind a city block,
Or trampled by insistent feet
At four and five and six o’clock;
And short square fingers stuffing pipes,
And evening newspapers, and eyes
Assured of certain certainties,
The conscience of a blackened street
Impatient to assume the world.

I am moved by fancies that are curled
Around these images, and cling:
The notion of some infinitely gentle
Infinitely suffering thing.

Wipe your hand across your mouth, and laugh;
The worlds revolve like ancient women
Gathering fuel in vacant lots.

It was a cold night for a concert. There was frost on the windscreen as we got into the car for the short drive to this city church. We drove because we were going to be late, and it was cold, and would be likely to be colder still when the concert was over. I had wondered if part one would be enough. Could Bach and Rameau be enough? Might the musical appetite cope with Mozart and Beethoven too? Were we about to sit down to a large meal, possibly in the wrong order. Can the cheese course be a transcendental experience I wondered? Bach to begin certainly, a substantial starter with one of the mid period keyboard toccatas and two ‘distant’ preludes and fugues, but then a keyboard suite by Rameau?
 
When I listen to Beethoven though I want to hear a work on its own, unencumbered round about with other musics.  A recent experience of several hours driving to hear a single Beethoven symphony has remained close and vivid, and an experience that brought me close to tears. So I imagine that I might only hear Op.110 to make that opening sequence of chords so ominously special. The introduction seems to come from nowhere and does not connect with musical past, except perhaps the composer’s own past. It is as though the pianist puts on a pair of gloves imbued with the spirit of the composer, and these chords appear . . . and what is there that might possibly prepare the listener for the journey that pianist and listener embark upon?  Certainly not the soufflé of Mozart’s K.332.
 
The audience is hardly a smattering of coats, hats and grey hair. There is another piano recital in town tonight and this is but the artist’s preview of a forthcoming concert at a major venue. Our pianist is equipping herself for a prestigious engagement and sensibly recognizes the need to test out the way the programme flows in front of an audience, and in a provincial church where she is not entirely unknown. I admire this resolve and wonder a little at the long-term planning which makes this possible and viable.
 
Now a figure in black walks out from the shadows to stand by her piano. Coming from stage right she places left her hand firmly on the mirror-black case above the keyboard. She looks at her audience briefly, and makes a bow, almost a curtsey, an obeisance to her audience and possibly to those distant spirits who guard the music she is to play. We will not see her face again until the next time she will stand at the piano to acknowledge our applause after the Bach she is about to play. Her slightly more than shoulder-length hair is cut to flow forward as she holds herself to play; her face is often hidden from us, her expression curiously blank. Perhaps she has prepared herself to enter a deep state of concentration that admits no recognition of those sitting just in front of her. Her dress is long and black with a few sparking threads to catch the careful lighting. Without these occasional glimmers her ****** movement would be unnoticeable. As it is the way the light is caught is subtle and quietly playful, though not enough to distract, only remind us that though in black she is wearing the kind of starry sky such as you might perceive in crepuscular time.
 
Thus, we already sense so much before she has played a note there is a firm slightly dogged confidence and reverence here in her approach to instrument and audience. And in the opening bars of the Bach toccata that is manifest; and not just a confidence born out of some strategy against nervousness, but a ritual of welcoming to this music that now spills out into the partially darkened church. The sonorousness and balance of the piano’s tone surprises. It is not a fine piano, but it has qualities that she seems to understand. There is a degree of attentive listening to herself that enables her to control dynamics and act resolutely on the structure of the music. When the slow section of this four-part toccata appears there is a studied gentleness and restraint that belies any ****** led gesture or manner. Her stance and deliberation at the keyboard remain determined and in control, unaltered by the music’s message. She does not pull her body backwards as seems the custom with so many who feel they have to show us they are stroking and coaxing such gentleness and restraint out of the keyboard.
 
As the final fugato of the toccata flows at almost twice the speed I’ve ever heard it, my concentration begins to disengage. It is too fast for me to follow the voices, I miss the entries, and the smudged resonance of the texture hides those details I have grown over so many years to know and love. This is Glen Gould on speed, not the toccata that resides in my musical memory. I am aware of missing so much and my attention floats away into the sound of it all. It seems to be all sound and not the play of music.
 
In this stage of disengagement I sense the tense quality of her right leg pedalling with the tip of a reddish shoe just visible, deft, tiny flicks of movement. She turns her face away from the keyboard frequently, looking away from the keyboard through the choir to the high altar; and for a moment we see her upturned face, a blank face, possibly with little or no make up, no jewellery. A plain young woman, mid to late thirties perhaps, and not a face marked by children or a busy teaching life, but a face focused on knowing this music to a point at which there is almost a detachment, where it becomes independent of her control, flowing momentarily beyond herself.
 
Then she reins the toccata in, reoccupies it; she is seeking closure for herself and for her audience whose attention for a short while has been, as the Quakers say, gathered. Gathered into a degree of silence, when breathing and the body’s sense and presence of itself disappear, momentarily, and musical listening moves from a clock time to a virtual time. There is a slowing down, an opening out, even though in reality’s metronomic time-field there is none.
 
There is a hesitation. With more Bach to follow, should we applaud? With relief after holding the flight of time’s arrow in our consciousness, just for those concluding minutes and seconds we acknowledge and applaud - the beginning of the concert.

Constructed in a year of inconsequential relevance,
A lighthouse stood over the turning tide.

Many a vessel had found respite in the glow of this beacon.
Through many years this tower stood strong.

The keeper, never of like name,
A position handed over in death.

Countless generations of watchful eyes relieved after duty.
All but an instant to this pillar,

This guiding light of prosperity.

I took over, 19 years from birth.
Training took a fragment of an hour.

Stood on guard, through a ceaseless haze,
First night on duty.

Tremors shook the beacon,
But it never lost its light.

A wave came to view,
Its size well beyond my comprehension.

The tower stood, as I was knocked upon the floor.
It never lost its light.

Sixteen years slipped by,
Not so much as a boat.

I admit, my head was starting to slip.
I hadn’t spoken in years.

I went in search of conversation and left my post.
In it’s place I discovered a barren wasteland of death and decay.

There was no life.
It was gone.

Without purpose or place, I marched on into the wasteland,
Until I came across a roaming beacon, shining out upon the horizon.

There I returned to my post,
With this guiding light of prosperity.

"The past is a bucket of ashes."

            1

THE WOMAN named To-morrow
sits with a hairpin in her teeth
and takes her time
and does her hair the way she wants it
and fastens at last the last braid and coil
and puts the hairpin where it belongs
and turns and drawls: Well, what of it?
My grandmother, Yesterday, is gone.
What of it? Let the dead be dead.
  
            2

The doors were cedar
and the panels strips of gold
and the girls were golden girls
and the panels read and the girls chanted:
  We are the greatest city,
  the greatest nation:
  nothing like us ever was.
  
The doors are twisted on broken hinges.
Sheets of rain swish through on the wind
  where the golden girls ran and the panels read:
  We are the greatest city,
  the greatest nation,
  nothing like us ever was.
  
            3

It has happened before.
Strong men put up a city and got
  a nation together,
And paid singers to sing and women
  to warble: We are the greatest city,
    the greatest nation,
    nothing like us ever was.
  
And while the singers sang
and the strong men listened
and paid the singers well
and felt good about it all,
  there were rats and lizards who listened
  ... and the only listeners left now
  ... are ... the rats ... and the lizards.
  
And there are black crows
crying, "Caw, caw,"
bringing mud and sticks
building a nest
over the words carved
on the doors where the panels were cedar
and the strips on the panels were gold
and the golden girls came singing:
  We are the greatest city,
  the greatest nation:
  nothing like us ever was.
  
The only singers now are crows crying, "Caw, caw,"
And the sheets of rain whine in the wind and doorways.
And the only listeners now are ... the rats ... and the lizards.
  
            4

The feet of the rats
scribble on the door sills;
the hieroglyphs of the rat footprints
chatter the pedigrees of the rats
and babble of the blood
and gabble of the breed
of the grandfathers and the great-grandfathers
of the rats.
  
And the wind shifts
and the dust on a door sill shifts
and even the writing of the rat footprints
tells us nothing, nothing at all
about the greatest city, the greatest nation
where the strong men listened
and the women warbled: Nothing like us ever was.

I made preludes to understand loss.
I broke the rules,
I dont understand mathmatics,
My friend a disabled tragedy,
Convinced herself,
The rules are mathmatic.
I dont count on death the way a
Funeral home director makes his car payment.
Or howmany shards of glass are stuck in somebodys head.
She had to know something physics
The nite he died.
It was a first hand demonstration.
One of the those moments of inspiration.
She celibrates with a drink every nite.
Her walker makes sure you can walk straight.
And the bartender made sure hes ontop of
Every drink, like the lime in a plastic sword.
The juice is arsenic.
And she will slowly poison herself till she dies.

I really wonder everytime
How they feel
When they crush every norm’s entities
Is this part of a ritual you religiously do?
Do you smirk or grin everytime you did?
Do you feel better perceiving lives too see them ache?
You do don’t you?

Why?
Because you've been there
You felt that pain, that agony that preludes
That melancholy past precedes you everytime
"Why always me?"
Why do you end up in bruises and blood-
Dripping from beginning to the end?
End?
No!
There’s no end to this
Unless you make it stop

But why relay the pain on others?
You created that villain in your head
You've become what you hate
Do you like that?
Making others suffer for what ‘they' did

You were once good
You still are
Well your pretense won an Oscar for the 'Ignorant'(s)
They know what you did
You broke their wings and the mettle they believed in
They don’t want to lose a 'Friend' like you
Their courage demised never to prevail again
You became this (****)tator
Which everyone obliged cowardly

But be reminded
Like every TV Show
The Hero always wins
Karma will be chasing you
Waiting for the right moment to expose you
You will get the retribution you deserved

You will cry
Remorse will elevate in your senses
And Every Name, Every Face, Every Sound
*Will be remembered to those you maimed.

Spanish

Vagos preludios. En la noche espléndida
Su voz de perlas una fuente calla,
Cuelgan las brisas sus celestes pifanos
En el follaje. Las cabezas pardas
De los búhos acechan.
Las flores se abren más, como asombradas.
Los cisnes de marfil tienden los cuellos
En las lagunas pálidas.
Selene mira del azul. Las frondas
Tiemblan… y todo! hasta el silencio, calla…

Es que ella pasa con su boca triste
Y el gran misterio de sus ojos de ámbar,
A través de la noche, hacia el olvido,
Como una estrella fugitiva y blanca.
Como una destronada reina exótica
De bellos gestos y palabras raras.

Horizontes violados sus ojeras
Dentro sus ojos–dos estrellas de ámbar–
Se abren cansados y húmedos y tristes
Como llagas de luz que quejaran.

Es un dolor que vive y que no espera,
Es una aurora gris que se levanta
Del gran lecho de sombras de la noche,
Cansada ya, sin esplendor, sin ansias
Y sus canciones son como hadas tristes
Alhajadas de lágrimas…

              English

Murmuring preludes. On this resplendent night
Her pearled voice quiets a fountain.
The breezes hang their celestial fifes
In the foliage. The gray heads
Of the owls keep watch.
Flowers open themselves, as if surprised.
Ivory swans extend their necks
In the pallid lakes.
Selene watches from the blue. Fronds
Tremble…and everything! Even the silence, quiets.

She wanders with her sad mouth
And the grand mystery of amber eyes,
Across the night, toward forgetfulness
Like a star, fugitive and white.
Like a dethroned exotic queen
With comely gestures and rare utterings.

Her undereyes are violated horizons
And her irises–two stars of amber–
Open wet and weary and sad
Like ulcers of light that weep.

She is a grief which thrives and does not hope,
She is a gray aurora rising
From the shadowy bed of night,
Exhausted, without splendor, without anxiousness.
And her songs are like dolorous fairies
Jeweled in teardrops…

                          The strings of lyres
                          Are the souls' fibers.–

The blood of bitter vineyards, noble vineyards,
In goblets of regal beauty, rises
To her marble hands, to lips carved
Like the blazon of a great lineage.

Strange Princes of Fantasy! They
Have seen her languid head, once *****,
And heard her laugh, for her eyes
Tremble with the flower of aristocracies!

And her soul clean as fire, like a star,
Burns in those pupils of amber.
But with a mere glance, scarcely an intimacy,
Perhaps the echo of a profane voice,
This white and pristine soul shrinks
Like a luminous flower, folding herself up!

Thou hast committed—
       Fornication: but that was in another country,
       And besides, the ***** is dead.
                                         The Jew of Malta.

I

Among the smoke and fog of a December afternoon
You have the scene arrange itself—as it will seem to do—
With ‘I have saved this afternoon for you’;
And four wax candles in the darkened room,
Four rings of light upon the ceiling overhead,
An atmosphere of Juliet’s tomb
Prepared for all the things to be said, or left unsaid.
We have been, let us say, to hear the latest Pole
Transmit the Preludes, through his hair and fingertips.
‘So intimate, this Chopin, that I think his soul
Should be resurrected only among friends
Some two or three, who will not touch the bloom
That is rubbed and questioned in the concert room.’
—And so the conversation slips
Among velleities and carefully caught regrets
Through attenuated tones of violins
Mingled with remote cornets
And begins.
‘You do not know how much they mean to me, my friends,
And how, how rare and strange it is, to find
In a life composed so much, so much of odds and ends,
(For indeed I do not love it… you knew? you are not blind!
How keen you are!)
To find a friend who has these qualities,
Who has, and gives
Those qualities upon which friendship lives.
How much it means that I say this to you—
Without these friendships—life, what cauchemar!’

Among the windings of the violins
And the ariettes
Of cracked cornets
Inside my brain a dull tom-tom begins
Absurdly hammering a prelude of its own,
Capricious monotone
That is at least one definite ‘false note.’
—Let us take the air, in a tobacco trance,
Admire the monuments,
Discuss the late events,
Correct our watches by the public clocks.
Then sit for half an hour and drink our bocks.

II

Now that lilacs are in bloom
She has a bowl of lilacs in her room
And twists one in his fingers while she talks.
‘Ah, my friend, you do not know, you do not know
What life is, you who hold it in your hands’;
(Slowly twisting the lilac stalks)
‘You let it flow from you, you let it flow,
And youth is cruel, and has no remorse
And smiles at situations which it cannot see.’
I smile, of course,
And go on drinking tea.
‘Yet with these April sunsets, that somehow recall
My buried life, and Paris in the Spring,
I feel immeasurably at peace, and find the world
To be wonderful and youthful, after all.’

The voice returns like the insistent out-of-tune
Of a broken violin on an August afternoon:
‘I am always sure that you understand
My feelings, always sure that you feel,
Sure that across the gulf you reach your hand.

You are invulnerable, you have no Achilles’ heel.
You will go on, and when you have prevailed
You can say: at this point many a one has failed.

But what have I, but what have I, my friend,
To give you, what can you receive from me?
Only the friendship and the sympathy
Of one about to reach her journey’s end.

I shall sit here, serving tea to friends….’

I take my hat: how can I make a cowardly amends
For what she has said to me?
You will see me any morning in the park
Reading the comics and the sporting page.
Particularly I remark
An English countess goes upon the stage.
A Greek was murdered at a Polish dance,
Another bank defaulter has confessed.
I keep my countenance,
I remain self-possessed
Except when a street piano, mechanical and tired
Reiterates some worn-out common song
With the smell of hyacinths across the garden
Recalling things that other people have desired.
Are these ideas right or wrong?

III

The October night comes down; returning as before
Except for a slight sensation of being ill at ease
I mount the stairs and turn the handle of the door
And feel as if I had mounted on my hands and knees.
‘And so you are going abroad; and when do you return?
But that’s a useless question.
You hardly know when you are coming back,
You will find so much to learn.’
My smile falls heavily among the bric-à-brac.

‘Perhaps you can write to me.’
My self-possession flares up for a second;
This is as I had reckoned.
‘I have been wondering frequently of late
(But our beginnings never know our ends!)
Why we have not developed into friends.’
I feel like one who smiles, and turning shall remark
Suddenly, his expression in a glass.
My self-possession gutters; we are really in the dark.

‘For everybody said so, all our friends,
They all were sure our feelings would relate
So closely! I myself can hardly understand.
We must leave it now to fate.
You will write, at any rate.
Perhaps it is not too late.
I shall sit here, serving tea to friends.’

And I must borrow every changing shape
To find expression… dance, dance
Like a dancing bear,
Cry like a parrot, chatter like an ape.
Let us take the air, in a tobacco trance—

Well! and what if she should die some afternoon,
Afternoon grey and smoky, evening yellow and rose;
Should die and leave me sitting pen in hand
With the smoke coming down above the housetops;
Doubtful, for a while
Not knowing what to feel or if I understand
Or whether wise or foolish, tardy or too soon…
Would she not have the advantage, after all?
This music is successful with a ‘dying fall’
Now that we talk of dying—
And should I have the right to smile?

Aligned to unite
With others who lost their way
It’s a mess we perceived
To those in dismay
These lines create dreams 
For the broken
For the ones never spoken-
Of Love & Courage

Conjuring up notions of time
Structuring of desires preludes
To pursue what’s lost 
To preach and beseech truth
Faith denotes eternally
Surviving pain and deceit
What speaks only bleeds
To fabricate amity

Not fazed by power
But to denote greed
Greed of Love & Passion
Exhaling Hate & Deception
To succor the pillar of fate
To exist in this factual state

Your heart's a fragile thing. 
Everyone’s heart is. 
Don’t ever contaminate hatred
Contaminate love instead.

He had sat at his desk with intent to write to her. And he had not. He had sat and let his mind wander. He wanted to write if only to capture something of her he had yet to capture. It was as though by trying to find words to describe her everyday self he discovered it was often extraordinary, and it filled him with more tenderness that he could reasonably deal with. The other day he had written her a letter. It was rather ordinary, full of unplanned thoughts and descriptions, a day-to-day letter, but he had written it by hand, taking care with the curl and mark of his pen on the little sheets of laser-copier paper he felt suited him best. Once he wrote expansively (though never to her) on large sheets of thick, fine paper with a calligraphic pen and Indian ink. Now he felt more comfortable with a fine roller-ball nib and a light touch, on paper of a dimension and quality that seemed appropriate to the size of his script.

Today, as he thought about the letter he might write, he had imagined her finding his most recent letter as she came home, a letter with his careful handwriting on the envelope. It would be lying on the doormat with the brown envelopes, the circulars, the bank statement and one of the many journals she subscribed to. There was a letter too from her ‘pen friend’, someone who had invited her to correspond having been so touched to find a late relative’s letters full of the minutiae of life, but properly described and not the ad hoc jottings of what now passes for communication on social media. So this friend, who was not then a friend but an acquaintance, had set out to recruit a group of like-minded people she might write to properly, in proper sentences – and had, it seemed, fixed on her. He had been a little jealous at first that she should write, and write properly to this ‘friend’ she hardly knew, and since then she had so very rarely written to him. He had so wanted her words, on paper and not just her end-of-the-day thoughts on the telephone. But he had soon got over this jealousy realising how valuable this letter, written once a fortnight, would be for her. An opportunity no less, of the kind and value he could no longer provide.

It had changed the way he had continued to write to her. He stopped the hand-written caress of a letter on paper and took up what he called the Ten-Minute Letter composed at the computer. Not an e-mail, but a proper letter as an attachment she could print out. Written each day just before he stopped for lunch, he set an alarm on his phone and wrote for ten minutes only until the sampled chimes of Big Ben struck. It was a challenge, and to meet it he would prepare his ‘daily subject’ in those transient moments between the demands of work and other people’s needs, as he walked to work or cooked supper. He felt that by doing this he would eradicate that falling into passionate contemplation, the downloading of his memory’s thoughts, his often-intense feelings and emotions. He thought she would prefer such brevity, as she now had so little time for reflection, except when travelling.

In imagining that picking up of his letter he sought to imagine further. Would she open it straight away? Would she put it at the bottom of the stairs on a pile of things to take up to her bedroom, and read before bed?  Occasionally there was  a little time stolen during the day when, before the necessity to go at her desk and ‘get on’, she would sit on her bed with her cats and be conscious of her physical self. She would think of him beside her, kneeling on the floor in one of those occasional preludes to their passionate moments she knew he so loved, when he was full of tenderness, and he would kiss and stroke her, their quiet voices caressing each other in the lamplight. He thought of her carefully pulling the envelope flap open without a tear (whereas he could hardly contain himself, when a letter did arrive, from pulling the envelope apart). And she would read his careful writing, his late afternoon thoughts written after a long day’s work, before returning to more time at his desk.

She would read quickly, rather impatiently sometimes. She had to ‘get on’, attack the list, get things done. But just occasionally he surprised her. He would catch her attention. There was some phrase, some reflection that made her feel warm and loved. He would make an observation about her, and she would feel treasured and honoured by his words and be grateful for the time he had put aside to write them. And then the letter would be returned to its envelope, placed on the bookshelf beside her bed, and she would feel secure that she was loved, and could then put all that away for now and ‘get on’. But just once in a while she would recall the pit-in-the-stomach thrill of his first letters, as letter by letter he declared himself, saying what he thought of her, what he felt for her. She was often overcome with his play of words and would touch herself to sustain those rich feelings that would gradually envelop her; that someone could care about her that much. And for a while she was transformed . . .

Today, as he continued to hold his pen away from composing that first sentence, he had wanted to return to writing of her and for her. It was his small gift, his almost once a day gift. With words he knew he was on safer ground. He struggled somewhat in his *******; he worried that he disappointed her with his awkwardness and never being sure if he was doing the right thing at the right time in the right way. Perhaps in reading his thoughts rather than responding to the messages of his physical self, she felt safer too. He wanted her to know something of the intensity that she brought to his ‘being aliveness’. He remembered a recent phone call when for once he seemed able to say pretty much what he meant. ‘I hope I don’t presume in saying,’ he had said, overtly formal as so often, ‘ that one of the reasons I think we are the companions we are is that we have so much in common; we love the same things, we share the same joys and pleasures.’ And she had agreed. He felt this was true, and he wanted to celebrate this somehow; but they were apart, being on the phone, and he could not. There was less and less time for the joy of coming together, of that celebration of being-together that had once seemed beyond magic and the stuff of dreams and fantasy. There was now the ever-present awareness of the clock, of having to do this, needing to do that, and at a certain time. Their life together was changing and he needed to rise to the challenge that this change would bring, no matter how busy and preoccupied she became. He would write, he thought, and tell her that he knew this would be so, that she should never be concerned for him if there wasn’t time. Hadn’t she said she loved him, this young woman who had once been so diffident about speaking such endearments? She had already given him so much that he never imagined he would ever receive. Perhaps not for always, he was so much older than her, but for a long time to come. He must acknowledge the receipt of such gifts, and let her know he loved her all the more for her industry, her ambition, her preoccupation, and the beautiful, gracious person she was.

Headless chickens running aimless toward the almighty dollar
Blindly staring at the knife"s stainless steel amidst all the squaller

My thirsty soul argues against my numb skull to hold a thorough audition
They lewdly feud about potential candidates accrued to search for recognition
They conclude on a suspicion they mutually feared as a result of blind ambition
Search preludes the admission, that I found my dream car with no keys for ignition

Don"t question authority especially when it's the majority
Everyone knows the world is flat and let's just leave it at that
I bought water from you now I have ice to sell
I have a great story but no one worthy to tell
Hindsight should really be at least twenty fifteen
Because to admit we just don"t know is too obscene?

Blissful ignorance"s repugnant scent wafting through the cave
Mindless sheople"s chainlinked brains all dancing at the rave
Fire flickering Shadow puppets tastefully riding the next wave
Puppeteer wizard behind the curtain telling them how to behave
Misaligned redcoated frontline soldiers falsely labeled as brave
Life"s ironic conundrum puzzle, choosing which children to save
Diseased cement steadily drying in a world ever ready to pave
Hungrier than I"ve ever been, yet sickly devoid of things to crave

I
The morning traffic settles down
When the smell of chips create a haze
By the arts block.
Squawking fills the passageways
And now a familiar face taps
Your weary back
While you are drowned by stomping feet
And despite the try your mind clots;
The name deletes
And you’re left thinking it is Scott,
While all this time his name is Pete.
He didn’t hear it through the stamps
And we sit lakeside by the lamps.

II
Morning: you arise from consciousness
And faint stale smells of beer
From the night on Dublin streets,
A night you won’t repeat, unless
The moon reclaims the lands.

And of course the Paddy’s day parades,
That, one naturally assumes.
Just thinks of all the hands
Raising pints by the spades
In a thousand bright green rooms.

III
You stretched your arms above your head
And yawned at a class you’ve never hated
You dozed, and watched the screen revealing
The thousand boring images
Of which World War II was constituted;
Their burning qualities weren’t appealing -
They stung until the world went black
But the light crept up between your shutters
And you heard the backgrounds snobbish tutters,
Despite meeting them on Grafton Street
Where you exchanged drunken demands.
You awoke and cringed as you were aware
Of the tuft sticking up about your hair,
But instead of a fix-trip, to save your feet,
You covered it with your hands.

IV
You stared up at the flawless skies
That fade behind the Newman block,
Or often watched insistent feet
At four and five and six o'clock,
Or watched the fountain-spewing pipes,
And watched the swans watch life’s disguise
While you recalled wild fantasies,
Of walking down a college street
And opening your eyes to receive the world.

And now my eyes have been unfurled
And I feel like a god, a king
For I have seen an infinitely mental,
Infinitely wonderful thing.

Wipe your hand across your mouth, and laugh;
And treat the worlds like you treat the women
And hopefully both will give you lots!

Like a sinful seduction, I slip off the edge of sleep,
my eyes are drawn to the darkest shadows of my room... kinetically searching...
I seem to penetrate them, my mind breathes life into them,
they begin to stir and morph into the preludes to my peculiar dreams,
bizarre at first until inevitably familiar,
as if I had lived them indefinite times in the past... and infinite times in the future... remembering... becoming... unfiltered and unaffected...
my subconscious is my truth, awakened by my dreams.
I long to remain lost in this ethereal bliss.

the first step to letting go is learning to exist. i admittedly, still have not completely let go. no one ever said you had to demonstrate your knowledge, although i'm working at it. when you were there, roadmaps became love letters, the songs you wrote were preludes, flight schedules became the dreams i never spoke about, no one i was close to knew you. as far as they all know, you were a figment of my imagination, and the act of knowing you itself became a test in what i could hold onto by the skins of my soft teeth even once you'd disappeared, once your friends all buried you, and you stopped writing love songs. special occasions no longer sound like your voice. the test was, could i exist without you?

i have written this a thousand times in my head. erased and arranged memories so as not to spoil us. tried to press you into the backs of my eyes like the flowers in the pages of her notebook. and a few weeks back, i stood at the very top of a rope swing, and when i jumped, i stared straight into the churning water all the way down, because all i wanted was to look at you. but this is not a story of getting the things we want so easily. this is not a story of holding your hand, or sleeping in and having late breakfast. this is the paradox of something so strong, that could be so fragile. something that is so raw the universe could only erode it. that love could exist, and disappear so quickly, and i still want to know why no one ever taught you to swim when you were young.

i am on the train. i see a picture of you. "rest in peace" it said. at first i didn't understand. i had talked to you just yesterday. then i do. the sickening sound of your voicemail on repeat. the way you used to call every night, and tonight at seven there is just a silent cell phone sitting in my lap. i think about your baby pictures. the mother and sister you sometimes talk about. the guitars collecting light layers of dust in your empty new apartment. i wonder how they got your kayak back to shore, when you didn't come up for air, and the swing became still over the foaming water. that kayak was as empty as i am. without you, that is very.

they make plans for your funeral, everything is beautiful. everything is in order for you. i get off the train at the wrong stop and run all the way to ami's house, trying to breathe. i am painfully aware of what drowning feels like. i am as transient as us; my existence is a freak accident, circumstantial evidence with a shaky conclusion, two people who can never explain the nature of their affiliation. kierkegaard believed in taking an ethically existing approach, over a cognitive subject. that all single entities can be reduced to singular universal rules. he believed that even when we didn't do it purposefully, cognitive thought forced us into patterns of universal rules. existence is a song we play on repeat, a feeling on loop in our stomachs because a couple of words sucker punched you in the head and you still don't know why. why, is the answer and the downfall. i think what kierkegaard meant is, some things are simply unexplainable, and some things explain themselves, and our very beings switch between these two rules, baffling us, because we are creatures of ethical existence and cognitive thought; we base our actions on human-established concepts of right and wrong, refer to ourselves as "I", live in the present, and yet we also have the capacity to shape ourselves in the future tense. our ability to understand lies in whether we choose to resist or flow with universal patterns as we become part of them in our ethical existence. learning to exist is nothing more than playing chess with a higher power and allowing it to take your king when you're backed into a corner, even if the queen has to play the rest of the game alone. The game has been flipped. Learn to play even when your world turns inside out. you know the queen is your ace, your you, and she has amazing potential. you were not just some figment of my imagination that convinced me to sleep at night. i am so sure of that now.

I  "Orpheus"
؛pɐǝɹbuıpǝǝɹqs’uısnoɔpןoɥ
˙ɹoɟbuıɹɹıʇs
˙suıɐ­ʇunoɯpǝןsopuɐuǝnɐʇıןoʇuıɟopuɐuǝɹpןıɥɔpuɐǝɥʇpǝıɹp
˙puɐןıɹdɐpǝuǝʇɥb­ıɹɟʇdǝʞ
؛obǝɥʇɹǝʇuıʍ
؛snǝʍpǝddoʇs
˙ʎɯnoʎʇɥbıu
؛ǝɥʇbuıɯoɔǝǝɹɟ
˙uıʞ­uɐɹpǝɥ
˙ǝʍpuɐןɹɐbɥʇnospıɐs
؛uıɟoɥʇıʍʇnoǝǝsɹǝbɹǝquɹɐʇsbuıpǝǝɟןǝǝɟ
­؛ǝןʇʇıןɹnoɥ
؛ǝıɹɐɯuǝʇɹɐbɟoɥǝɹǝʍuıɐɹuıɥɔnɯ
؛snǝǝɟɟoɔuoǝɥʇ
˙ןnɟʇǝbɹ­oɟuısnɐsɔɐןıן
˙pǝʞןɐʇʇɥɔǝpuɐ
؛puɐbuıɹǝʌoɔɥʇɹɐǝɐ
؛uıssnɹǝɥʇʇuǝʍʇsǝ­ןןǝnɹɔǝɹǝɥʇıpɐǝp
؛sɐʍɯɹɐʍ
؛sıs’ǝʞnpɥɔɹɐ
؛ǝɥʇǝɹısǝpʎɹoɯǝɯǝɥʇpuɐbuı­ʎɐʇsǝɥʇ’ɯɯɐʇs
؛ɹǝʍoɥsʇnoǝɟıןǝɯ
˙uʍopuɐuıɥʇuoɯpuɐuıqʇuǝʍuoɐ
˙ʇɐʇɥb­ıʇǝpɐuuoןoɔuıɐɹɹǝʇuıʍ
؛ןןnpʍous
˙ʞooʇsɹǝqnʇɹǝʌo
˙ǝɥbuıxıɯɐɥʇıʍ
؛p­ǝsıɹdɹnsʇɥbıןunsbuıɹds
˙uoɹǝɯɯnsɥʇıʍǝɥʇ
˙ǝıɹɐɯɥɔsʇnǝpuǝɥʍıǝʍsʇooɹ­ǝuıǝʞ

II "Eurydice "
Swdreeiiemehutsehcwnoaritoken.
Trhewmnhuomesit.
Gseinuhsplis­ptsnrdigrur;
Ntxeigiwiamhh.
Oottbeekorsvru.
Nsowdull;
Inltdraetgn­earncittaonohiw.
Wnamnnnoendnatbnatioohwidn.
Oeeswrufohltemi;
Tsa­mm’etdnethtoshieereaaihtygrdmmensy;
Dcauhkre’iss;
Amarwsw;
Eeirie­ledluehutetwttshscednsnrra;
Aiegaeotrdvncanrh;
Ndatdlhctekea.
Srs­lciaielfgfotaunul.
Fhosneueocfte;
Rfeiwintnmuerhheiencgarorama;
H­oulritetl;
Bnwfeerflerittnioagerendesftsihgeoeu;
Waohnlrdeasgtiau­ds.
Drenhnkia.
Enoimehfrctge;
Iyhntgoyum.
Wdtopsuseep;
Nthwitgeeo­r;
Gadiifeatprekprelhdnnt.
Dlnetrehumoinsaincdirteeionotalslifndd­naddanhantuode.
Rrfigiosrnt.
Chsoulndio’irerdedenabgs;

I.
Some of the leaves are still green
crawling between cold alleys in morning
thin wind stringing them along
carrying them towards December

II.
The trees are decorated too early
every year is an unsurprising imitation
but still you are warm inside with your family
making up for the colours you lack outside

III.
Cocktail dresses flash like little winks
hints of resolve so ready to be broken
the gold flows like goddess ichor and smiles
kissing like lovers who will leave tomorrow
loving as if we aren't

IV.
Love is in the air like chlorine gas
and no one is the wiser for it
the streets are still covered in old, dark snow
but we're too tired of it to notice
it's only a few sleeps until spring.

Rubicon on broadway 
young and beautiful 
in white Cadillacs and Buicks
audio pop gods transmit 
preludes for the night 
through hair waves 
and satellite finger tips

Buried souls are only resurrected
among friends
at Shakespearian rags
at 10
in mind
with wine, no whine 
oh mine, oh mine 
no more golden toads in Costa Rica—
the planet is a metaphor for the body—

old spice and white gum

our everyday gospel

Now in this season
It smells like sweet honey nectar,
Thick, warm pollen that heavies the air, that
Overarching succulent sweetness I can
Never find. I'm nearly
Dreaming in the midst of day,
Lack of sleep sharpens this
Feeling of loss that doesn't coincide with
The growth around me - My mind
Is falling back a quarter year, another,
Chilled over somehow in direct sunlight -

                    My hunger could be assayed with
                    Those honeyed towers somewhere blooming, but
                    I've not been told where to find them -

Stumbling along with aching limbs and
Exhausted heart, forced anxious smile,
Can't seem to find these supposed fruits
That hang down at reach, give way to new days -
Just quiet, vacant preludes
Along all these miles of solitude.

Today I felt the urge to fall down a flight of stairs, and when I say fall
I mean,
           jump,
                     plummet
                                   and plunge.

I wanted to feel something, a pain that wasn't already carried within me.

I could imagine the weightlessness I  would have felt as my body relaxed,
how time would have appeared hampered as if altered by my sudden descent.

That numbing pain as each step would buffet my spine and finally the  ominous silence that preludes my last breath while my misery pools around me glistening for all to see.

though sadly...


.             I live in a bungalow

In any mirrored face
the homeless sees nothing shuffling
from his favorite stores
At night they feel their wild
canine teeth

Words surfacing
uncollected in fragments and scratches
besde underdeveloped manors
in the city's growing mold
and buildings separated by dust like a ream of books
on the trail to the open west

Noise clock, sharp chiming
and unbearable
soot blackness of perpetual rain
pulsing faintly in a palsied
flow of the oppressive
heats and sounds

My sister is a forgotten composer of rebellion
given only the courage
to think her words will merely be
a droning
cello's moans
and preludes unsettled
and old

Without authority
someone might hear her
centuries too late
when few will give her a wait or wax cylinder
of words no better than it's tremorless
indentations unseen by the eyes and ears

The days of crystalized quartz
and effeminate handshakes and kisses
vacant gestures and the beautiful
view of the destitue on a warm
spring morning in the park

Space to make change an indelible part of life

Encourage the stagnant side to enliven its speech
Flourishes of energy folding in on one another
Pecking, their beaks marking time with biting tongues
Sqeamish reminders of circus clowns vying for laughs
Staring eyes and red painted smiles freakishly scaring
The innocent rosy cheeked wondrous audience
Clapping the skin from their fingers while querelous
Adults sit bored hoping to borrow a new time zone
Spot checking the interest of those encroaching their space

Space to make change an indelible part of life

To fool the viewer of the showcased goods before their
Sell by date, when holding onto stagnation pales the hand of change
Quell the nausea that preludes sickness leaving that vile taste
Rancour alongside a grinning mass of stained teeth borrows
Sweating it out with flailing words of ignorant abandonment
Scorching hot tears racing one another, dripping from lowered
Eyelashes, coaxing the seeping colour coated debris to release
To wash away the dirt, leaving streaks of diluted aftermath

Space to make chnage an indelible part of life

Just before midnight on scant-traveled roads,
the stream of each streetlamp hypnotically flows.
No one dreads the hours ahead
for onward through darkness we silently tread.

Nocturne and noontide, our wayfaring tsoris
dissolves in the preludes of a botanical chorus.
Echoes of muzak crackle in waves
as rhapsodies soothe our youthful malaise.

Over the moorland, into the canyon,
under the silken moon.

what have i to do with these grips,
these squared, white knuckles
holding tight to handle bars?
what have i to do with these empty stares,
eyes void of truth?

these "fill-in-the-bubble, A B or C, music only reaches the ears" types of humans
attempting to tell me how to carry out my existence,
attempting to tell me the most efficient
practical
mindless ways to die?
attempting
to tell me
to show me
the most rewarding ways
to die.

what have i to do with these sculptors
who try and quantify the rain,
who try and evaporate
the sun?
what have i to do with these ideas of perfection, of what is best?
these assumptions of false fulfillment,
these preludes to orderly, institutionalized chaos
and contempt?
what have i to do with all of these cardboard boxes
which cannot differentiate between being filled
empty
open
closed
soft
rough
dry
loved?
what have i to do with those who cannot detect their own storms,
their own energy waiting to explode?
what have i to do with one shade of blue?
what have i to do with feet that cannot move,
knees that cannot bend?
what have i to do with white houses
black cars
trimmed bushes
a front porch?
what have i to do with stationary?
what have i to do with these wings
unless they are free to flutter?
what have i to do with structure
with corners
with average
with plain?
what have i to do with boredom
with settling
with insignificant breath?

what have i to do with waste?
what
have i
to do
with waste.

aldous huxley told me twice,
'that men do not learn very much
from the lessons of history is the
most important of all the lessons of history,'
both times i put my pen to the page
and re-read what he had said
until i thought i understood

today i watched big fish and
thought of spectre longer than
i probably should have,
where is it that i arrived before
the road was paved to bring me there?
when will i return?

i know i don't need to figure out
timing because that's what fate's for,
but with a wild wandering mind
it's difficult to detract senseless what-if's
from buzzing about in my brain

tonight i delete excess and make plans
to live a life that doesn't declare ignorance
of what preludes each step taken,
tonight i find sollace in full moons and
figure if there's anything i've learned
thus far, it's just as aldous said,
live life as if you've learned something

Look at the stars
Spinning, coursing lightweight
   Through the blackness,
Like ice-coated spiders
Floating gentle, softly interweaving
Cloud and hovering nearly near enough
To be captured by your tiny hands.

It seems all so easy
To stay here mentally forever.

Look at the stars
Drifting magnetically, childlike
In their path. Lost and dreamy,
An image separated from a cause;
Heavenly blessings as they drop close enough
To kiss the roses,
Breezily hoping to rest frozen

'Neath the nest of your tired skin;
Lazily watching the night transition

As others must've all those nights before--
When you were too busy to pay them any mind.
These stars map a codex that laughs at you
While you're fixed to the ground and forced to look
           beautiful.

These stars sing of the dead. Muses without a voice
Or lives to any longer be lead. The stars dream
Silently of you, patiently nibbling at your breath,
Looking forward to the day they can absorb your
            smiling teeth.

The stars hold your spirit and you theirs,
Both constant and unremarkabley dull--
The stars did not ask to be beautiful,
We made them that way. The stars

And you are one, in as much a way as polar opposites
Can be one.
You and the stars, making your fates as you go along...

You and the stars: unintentional twin sisters left astray.

You and the stars: two blind men unravelling an exquiste corpse.
You and the stars: two pawns beating helpless in awe of their sojourn.
You and the stars: complimenting the other like sand does glass.
You and the stars: in awe of each other and the rainwater that
preludes

The moment.
You are the stars, you are the dreamer, you are the observer,
You are the life that has been given life in order to give it back

Sing softly now and lullaby the stars asleep,
Like the son does after growing old for his dying mother,
Like the summer leaves do when their boughs start to snap.
Sing softly for the stars that remind you of whence

Once you were nothing

But a hypnotised lantern

Wandering the endless black.

You and the stars, connect them
even when they appear as aimless

  anxious dots.

Form a shape out of the stars; encarve
And embody the flesh of your own constellation.

The riders come on horseback strange
The days are coming; soon will change
The four horsemen that come in night
One pale, one dark, one red, one white
And each will bring a plague derange

Now listen well and preludes hear
The coming of the horsemen’s near
The blood of God, our only hope
The riders come…

The first is white and wields a bow
The second, red, is war we know
The third is black and steals our food
The last is pale and kills our brood
Each plague when comes will bring us woe
The riders come…

I was once a classically trained pianist:

My nails cut weekly down to the bit
and internal tongue ta-ta-ta-ta, ta-tee-tee
ta-ta, tom tuned to the metronome.

Daily hours meant:
bent stick straight up
scales and etudes then
sonatas and scherzos and waltzes and nocturnes and preludes and arias

and movements memorized
by fingers that knew the way
and weight of adjusted arms.

What is the value of
a wrong note alone

or amongst many,

of memory incapable
and fingers fallible?

There are too many factors to be remembered,
In each second we are fragmented in so many ways.
There are too many mouths to feed when supplies aren't endless.
Some lose their voice if they are to be ignored.

This is a final call for freedom from memory.
The past is simple in a song, go ahead and live any aspect.
Transcendence at its best, I love the feeling of lightness.
What happened to butterflies? When nervous I only get
Preludes to heart attacks.

Things weigh heavy when they matter,
like a matter of importance.
I wish for this rigid stance to relax,
For strained hands to unclasp.

i can perpetually encapsulate the images
around me, of the outer-reaches of
suburbia with o.t.t.'s billy the kid strikes back...
the haunt of the place, outer-reaches suburbia...
you haunt the place with a chance traffic
of deer, foxes, and domesticated cats
crafting pacts with foxes to be un-edible
with the fox snouts readied for the blooming
scent of sardines, or some other
dietary requirement in black bin bags... a lovely place,
hazy, misty, enigmatic forest readied for
the lost soul in the dark to tread its path,
i know, the architecture of the place
bald patches everywhere, none used for
agriculture, just aesthetics, but still
the odd chance of complete darkness
encapsulating you to see nothing
while you walk in the doubled shade of trees
at night... this is the feel of the place, my vicinity,
it's not an urban environment of trade-secrets
of slang... that slang is way gone,
gone entombed in the 20th century cut of
the umbilical chord... it's gone gone gone...
there's no new cool, no new groove,
no jukebox humpty-dumpty beat-box
look smart... jive or grime...
the genocide of south america proves my point,
the chain "linkage" from ape to man
is among the unique ****** features of Chileans...
i wonder: Aztec, Mayan...
well, genocide via european diseases...
but we get a hot coco latte in return... thumbs up!
and then posthumous fame came to the one
who asked for peace... who said:
i want to drown the sound of modern traffic with
music, autumn is too subtle with falling leaves
falling notes to paper to guide me,
and spring is too deaf to be sound-testing
instruments for the two full symphonies of vivaldi
that are summer and winter, the two seasons
perpetuating a lack of change...
spring and autumn are vivaldi's pre nuptials...
they're not symphonies, they're preludes
should they be translated by jazz impromptus...
there are no constants in them, the fluxes,
the magnolias this year bloomed too early,
you could hardly see the pink and corpulent
flowering, the bloom of magnolias this year
showered no prawn pink for the eyes,
they hardly blossomed, shrivelled skin of petals
and excess bishopcric colouring (purple),
anorexia you might say, shrivelled up anorexia
attired in bishop...
tattoo me earth, with your changes,
make me an organic animate, rather than an
inorganic animate... let me chisel the facts into
myself that i see... don't give me the ***** of
regurgitated facts of having experienced education...
leave me be... leave me to experience this world
without aided information as a way of stabilisation
my experience of it... let me be the mini Columbus...
taking but a step but travelling a whole acre of open sea
diagonally... passing both electric air
and incubated waters in a glass bottle...
let me not unearth the metals of hades...
the metals, which when storing waters with the ship
heaving tremble and heartbeat agitate the waters
stored in them (aluminium of the beer can as example)
to a storm, a tsunami a frothing wave...
give unto me the storing of the voyage's ambition
in eye as in glass, the carbonated waters in bottle
insulated by glass and mirror, yet otherwise agitated
by metal; a message in a bottle, my captain's notebook
noting with a readied hand, unshaken, deciphered easily,
more easily than a student under examination:
sweaty hand oiling a pen to slip and mishandle
a g.c.s.e. a* grade of content reduced by poor handwriting
to a c grade... ready me for the voyage into
the sea of cosmos and eventual death.

Down inside of me something untouchable preludes my grace.
Leaves falling down like Chopin's Nocturne op.9 No. 2.
Through the looking glass a sail boat touches your watery eyes.
Standing by you.
Life is in the vine.
Hues of darkness against the light.
A thousand lifetimes in the flash of your smile.
Swan flight in the open field.
Breathe in and breathe out.
The softness your smile against the cold ice of death.
How does beauty and grace carry on even after death.
Up above in the clouds,
floating down down a creek
till the tree of knowledge is reached.
The tree of all life.
That which yields the ability to choose.