An evening all aglow with summer light
And autumn colour—fairest of the year.

The wheat-fields, crowned with shocks of tawny gold,
All interspersed with rough sowthistle roots,
And interlaced with white convolvulus,
Lay, flecked with purple shadows, in the sun.
The shouts of little children, gleaning there
The scattered ears and wild blue-bottle flowers—
Mixed with the corn-crake's crying, and the song
Of lone wood birds whose mother-cares were o'er,
And with the whispering rustle of red leaves—
Scarce stirred the stillness. And the gossamer sheen
Was spread on upland meadows, silver bright
In low red sunshine and soft kissing wind—
Showing where angels in the night had trailed
Their garments on the turf. Tall arrow-heads,
With flag and rush and fringing grasses, dropped
Their seeds and blossoms in the sleepy pool.
The water-lily lay on her green leaf,
White, fair, and stately; while an amorous branch
Of silver willow, drooping in the stream,
Sent soft, low-babbling ripples towards her:
And oh, the woods!—erst haunted with the song
Of nightingales and tender coo of doves—
They stood all flushed and kindling 'neath the touch
Of death—kind death!—fair, fond, reluctant death!—
A dappled mass of glory!
Harvest-time;
With russet wood-fruit thick upon the ground,
'Mid crumpled ferns and delicate blue harebells.
The orchard-apples rolled in seedy grass—
Apples of gold, and violet-velvet plums;
And all the tangled hedgerows bore a crop
Of scarlet hips, blue sloes, and blackberries,
And orange clusters of the mountain ash.
The crimson fungus and soft mosses clung
To old decaying trunks; the summer bine
Drooped, shivering, in the glossy ivy's grasp.
By day the blue air bore upon its wings
Wide-wandering seeds, pale drifts of thistle-down;
By night the fog crept low upon the earth,
All white and cool, and calmed its feverishness,
And veiled it over with a veil of tears.

The curlew and the plover were come back
To still, bleak shores; the little summer birds
Were gone—to Persian gardens, and the groves
Of Greece and Italy, and the palmy lands.

A Norman tower, with moss and lichen clothed,
Wherein old bells, on old worm-eaten frames
And rusty wheels, had swung for centuries,
Chiming the same soft chime—the lullaby
Of cradled rooks and blinking bats and owls;
Setting the same sweet tune, from year to year,
For generations of true hearts to sing.
A wide churchyard, with grassy slopes and nooks,
And shady corners and meandering paths;
With glimpses of dim windows and grey walls
Just caught at here and there amongst the green
Of flowering shrubs and sweet lime-avenues.
An old house standing near—a parsonage-house—
With broad thatched roof and overhanging eaves,
O'errun with banksia roses,—a low house,
With ivied windows and a latticed porch,
Shut in a tiny Paradise, all sweet
With hum of bees and scent of mignonette.

We lay our lazy length upon the grass
In that same Paradise, my friend and I.
And, as we lay, we talked of college days—
Wild, racing, hunting, steeple-chasing days;
Of river reaches, fishing-grounds, and weirs,
Bats, gloves, debates, and in-humanities:
And then of boon-companions of those days,
How lost and scattered, married, changed, and dead;
Until he flung his arm across his face,
And feigned to slumber.
He was changed, my friend;
Not like the man—the leader of his set—
The favourite of the college—that I knew.
And more than time had changed him. He had been
“A little wild,” the Lady Alice said;
“A little gay, as all young men will be
At first, before they settle down to life—
While they have money, health, and no restraint,
Nor any work to do,” Ah, yes! But this
Was mystery unexplained—that he was sad
And still and thoughtful, like an aged man;
And scarcely thirty. With a winsome flash,
The old bright heart would shine out here and there;
But aye to be o'ershadowed and hushed down,

As he had hushed it now.
His dog lay near,
With long, sharp muzzle resting on his paws,
And wistful eyes, half shut,—but watching him;
A deerhound of illustrious race, all grey
And grizzled, with soft, wrinkled, velvet ears;
A gaunt, gigantic, wolfish-looking brute,
And worth his weight in gold.
“There, there,” said he,
And raised him on his elbow, “you have looked
Enough at me; now look at some one else.”

“You could not see him, surely, with your arm
Across your face?”
“No, but I felt his eyes;
They are such sharp, wise eyes—persistent eyes—
Perpetually reproachful. Look at them;
Had ever dog such eyes?”
“Oh yes,” I thought;
But, wondering, turned my talk upon his breed.
And was he of the famed Glengarry stock?
And in what season was he entered? Where,
Pray, did he pick him up?
He moved himself
At that last question, with a little writhe
Of sudden pain or restlessness; and sighed.
And then he slowly rose, pushed back the hair
From his broad brows; and, whistling softly, said,
“Come here, old dog, and we will tell him. Come.”

“On such a day, and such a time, as this,
Old Tom and I were stalking on the hills,
Near seven years ago. Bad luck was ours;
For we had searched up corrie, glen, and burn,
From earliest daybreak—wading to the waist
Peat-rift and purple heather—all in vain!
We struck a track nigh every hour, to lose
A noble quarry by ignoble chance—
The crowing of a grouse-****, or the flight
Of startled mallards from a reedy pool,
Or subtle, hair's breadth veering of the wind.
And now 'twas waning sunset—rosy soft

On far grey peaks, and the green valley spread
Beneath us. We had climbed a ridge, and lay
Debating in low whispers of our plans
For night and morning. Golden eagles sailed
Above our heads; the wild ducks swam about

Amid the reeds and rushes of the pools;
A lonely heron stood on one long leg
In shallow water, watching for a meal;
And there, to windward, couching in the grass
That fringed the blue edge of a sleeping loch—
Waiting for dusk to feed and drink—there lay
A herd of deer.
“And as we looked and planned,
A mountain storm of sweeping mist and rain
Came down upon us. It passed by, and left
The burnies swollen that we had to cross;
And left us barely light enough to see
The broad, black, branching antlers, clustering still
Amid the long grass in the valley.

“‘Sir,’
Said Tom, ‘there is a shealing down below,
To leeward. We might bivouac there to-night,
And come again at dawn.’
“And so we crept
Adown the glen, and stumbled in the dark
Against the doorway of the keeper's home,
And over two big deerhounds—ancestors
Of this our old companion. There was light
And warmth, a welcome and a heather bed,
At Colin's cottage; with a meal of eggs
And fresh trout, broiled by dainty little hands,
And sweetest milk and oatcake. There were songs
And Gaelic legends, and long talk of deer—
Mixt with a sweet, low laughter, and the whir
Of spinning-wheel.
“The dogs lay at her feet—
The feet of Colin's daughter—with their soft
Dark velvet ears pricked up for every sound
And movement that she made. Right royal brutes,
Whereon I gazed with envy.
“ ‘What,’ I asked,
‘Would Colin take for these?’
“ ‘Eh, sir,’ said he,
And shook his head, ‘I cannot sell the dogs.
They're priceless, they, and—Jeanie's favourites.
But there's a litter in the shed—five pups,
As like as peas to this one. You may choose
Amongst them, sir—take any that you like.
Get us the lantern, Jeanie. You shall show
The gentleman.’
“Ah, she was fair, that girl!

Not like the other lassies—cottage folk;
For there was subtle trace of gentle blood
Through all her beauty and in all her ways.
(The mother's race was ‘poor and proud,’ they said).
Ay, she was fair, my darling! with her shy,
Brown, innocent face and delicate-shapen limbs.
She had the tenderest mouth you ever saw,
And grey, dark eyes, and broad, straight-pencill'd brows;
Dark hair, sun-dappled with a sheeny gold;
Dark chestnut braids that knotted up the light,
As soft as satin. You could scarcely hear
Her step, or hear the rustling of her gown,
Or the soft hovering motion of her hands
At household work. She seemed to bring a spell
Of tender calm and silence where she came.
You felt her presence—and not by its stir,
But by its restfulness. She was a sight
To be remembered—standing in the straw;
A sleepy pup soft-cradled in her arms
Like any Christian baby; standing still,
The while I handled his ungainly limbs.
And Colin blustered of the sport—of hounds,
Roe, ptarmigan, and trout, and ducal deer—
Ne'er lifting up that sweet, unconscious face,
To see why I was silent. Oh, I would
You could have seen her then. She was so fair,
And oh, so young!—scarce seventeen at most—
So ignorant and so young!
“Tell them, my friend—
Your flock—the restless-hearted—they who scorn
The ordered fashion fitted to our race,
And scoff at laws they may not understand—
Tell them that they are fools. They cannot mate
With other than their kind, but woe will come
In some shape—mostly shame, but always grief
And disappointment. Ah, my love! my love!
But she was different from the common sort;
A peasant, ignorant, simple, undefiled;
The child of rugged peasant-parents, taught
In all their thoughts and ways; yet with that touch
Of tender grace about her, softening all
The rougher evidence of her lowly state—
That undefined, unconscious dignity—
That delicate instinct for the reading right
The riddles of less simple minds than hers—
That sharper, finer, subtler sense of life—
That something which does not possess a name,

Which made her beauty beautiful to me—
The long-lost legacy of forgotten knights.

“I chose amongst the five fat creeping things
This rare old dog. And Jeanie promised kind
And gentle nurture for its infant days;
And promised she would keep it till I came
Another year. And so we went to rest.
And in the morning, ere the sun was up,
We left our rifles, and went out to run
The browsing red-deer with old Colin's hounds.
Through glen and bog, through brawling mountain streams,
Grey, lichened boulders, furze, and juniper,
And purple wilderness of moor, we toiled,
Ere yet the distant snow-peak was alight.
We chased a hart to water; saw him stand
At bay, with sweeping antlers, in the burn.
His large, wild, wistful eyes despairingly
Turned to the deeper eddies; and we saw
The choking struggle and the bitter end,
And cut his gallant throat upon the grass,
And left him. Then we followed a fresh track—
A dozen tracks—and hunted till the noon;
Shot cormorants and wild cats in the cliffs,
And snipe and blackcock on the ferny hills;
And set our floating night-lines at the loch;—
And then came back to Jeanie.
“Well, you know
What follows such commencement:—how I found
The woods and corries round about her home
Fruitful of roe and red-deer; how I found
The grouse lay thickest on adjacent moors;
Discovered ptarmigan on rocky peaks,
And rare small game on birch-besprinkled hills,
O'ershadowing that rude shealing; how the pools
Were full of wild-fowl, and the loch of trout;
How vermin harboured in the underwood,
And rocks, and reedy marshes; how I found
The sport aye best in this charmed neighbourhood.
And then I e'en must wander to the door,
To leave a bird for Colin, or to ask
A lodging for some stormy night, or see
How fared my infant deerhound.
“And I saw
The creeping dawn unfolding; saw the doubt,
And faith, and longing swaying her sweet heart;
And every flow just distancing the ebb.

I saw her try to bar the golden gates
Whence love demanded egress,—calm her eyes,
And still the tender, sensitive, tell-tale lips,
And steal away to corners; saw her face
Grow graver and more wistful, day by day;
And felt the gradual strengthening of my hold.
I did not stay to think of it—to ask
What I was doing!
“In the early time,
She used to slip away to household work
When I was there, and would not talk to me;
But when I came not, she would climb the glen
In secret, and look out, with shaded brow,
Across the valley. Ay, I caught her once—
Like some young helpless doe, amongst the fern—
I caught her, and I kissed her mouth and eyes;
And with those kisses signed and sealed our fate
For evermore. Then came our happy days—
The bright, brief, shining days without a cloud!
In ferny hollows and deep, rustling woods,
That shut us in and shut out all the world—
The far, forgotten world—we met, and kissed,
And parted, silent, in the balmy dusk.
We haunted still roe-coverts, hand in hand,
And murmured, under our breath, of love and faith,
And swore great oaths for one of us to keep.
We sat for hours, with sealèd lips, and heard
The crossbill chattering in the larches—heard
The sweet wind whispering as it passed us by—
And heard our own hearts' music in the hush.
Ah, blessed days! ah, happy, innocent days!—
I would I had them back.
“Then came the Duke,
And Lady Alice, with her worldly grace
And artificial beauty—with the gleam
Of jewels, and the dainty shine of silk,
And perfumed softness of white lace and lawn;
With all the glamour of her courtly ways,
Her talk of art and fashion, and the world
We both belonged to. Ah, she hardened me!
I lost the sweetness of the heathery moors
And hills and quiet woodlands, in that scent
Of London clubs and royal drawing-rooms;
I lost the tender chivalry of my love,
The keen sense of its sacredness, the clear
Perception of mine honour, by degrees,
Brought face to face with customs of my kind.

I was no more a “man;” nor she, my love,
A delicate lily of womanhood—ah, no!
I was the heir of an illustrious house,
And she a simple, homespun cottage-girl.

“And now I stole at rarer intervals
To those dim trysting woods; and when I came
I brought my cunning worldly wisdom—talked
Of empty forms and marriages in heaven—
To stain that simple soul, God pardon me!
And she would shiver in the stillness, scared
And shocked, with her pathetic eyes—aye proof
Against the fatal, false philosophy.
But my will was the strongest, and my love
The weakest; and she knew it.
“Well, well, well,
I need not talk of that. There came the day
Of our last parting in the ferny glen—
A bitter parting, parting from my life,
Its light and peace for ever! And I turned
To ***** and billiards, politics and wine;
Was wooed by Lady Alice, and half won;
And passed a feverous winter in the world.
Ah, do not frown! You do not understand.
You never knew that hopeless thirst for peace—
That gnawing hunger, gnawing at your life;
The passion, born too late! I tell you, friend,
The ruth, and love, and longing for my child,
It broke my heart at last.
“In the hot days
Of August, I went back; I went alone.
And on old garrulous Margery—relict she
Of some departed seneschal—I rained
My eager questions. ‘Had the poaching been
As ruinous and as audacious as of old?
Were the dogs well? and had she felt the heat?
And—I supposed the keeper, Colin, still
Was somewhere on the place?’
“ ‘Nay, sir,’; said she,
‘But he has left the neighbourhood. He ne'er
Has held his head up since he lost his child,
Poor soul, a month ago.’
“I heard—I heard!
His child—he had but one—my little one,
Whom I had meant to marry in a week!

“ ‘Ah, sir, she turned out badly after all,
The girl we thought a pattern for all girls.
We know not how it happened, for she named
No names. And, sir, it preyed upon her mind,
And weakened it; and she forgot us all,
And seemed as one aye walking in her sleep
She noticed no one—no one but the dog,
A young deerhound that followed her about;
Though him she hugged and kissed in a strange way
When none was by. And Colin, he was hard
Upon the girl; and when she sat so still,
And pale and passive, while he raved and stormed,
Looking beyond him, as it were, he grew
The harder and more harsh. He did not know
That she was not herself. Men are so blind!
But when he saw her floating in the loch,
The moonlight on her face, and her long hair
All tangled in the rushes; saw the hound
Whining and crying, tugging at her plaid—
Ah, sir, it was a death-stroke!’
“This was all.
This was the end of her sweet life—the end
Of all worth having of mine own! At night
I crept across the moors to find her grave,
And kiss the wet earth covering it—and found
The deerhound lying there asleep. Ay me!
It was the bitterest darkness,—nevermore
To break out into dawn and day again!

“And Lady Alice shakes her dainty head,
Lifts her arch eyebrows, smiles, and whispers, “Once
He was a little wild!’ ”
With that he laughed;
Then suddenly flung his face upon the grass,
Crying, “Leave me for a little—let me be!”
And in the dusky stillness hugged his woe,
And wept away his pas

Justify the real illustration on the pastel, this is a painting festival live your thoughts and ideas and dreams. Illuminate the night, stretch the light and make the night turn white. The luminous charm didn't work this time, I'm fine but let's look for something neat to see, so we can look harder and harder and harder, nice to know we went farther and farther than we knew we could, so picked my rain coat and yelled hey looks like rain and rain came down.
The thunder preyed on the sky and all we saw was light and we went higher,higher,higher and higher, higher, higher and higher, higher, higher and the Highlands seeked all in sight was light and the sky sighed out grief and died from the white light

From my "Bestifreadaloud" series about a girl that got away that Spring because I waited too long.

Part 1 The Past
A case made now faded of a simple place, a time, a space,
a perfect moment let pass in haste.
Clasped in clashes,
brash in passion,
rose from ashes,
desire fires every second's essence as it passes,
a ton amasses.
Fast bloom,
Blast!! Boom!!
The past relapses.
Notably lesser song notes float hopeful, emotional ends and remember whens.
Sent us spinning, then spin adrift again.
Sprung in spring, we fell,
Some are reasons to recall.
Summer's season breaks, we fall.
Flocks fly down and fallen callings fade to Winter's south.
How fate related still debated.
Re-Sprung the next Spring' rise, chance misses fate this date.
I weighed and debated and waited too late

PART 2
Still all these years alone, the "one", the "purpose" unsought.
Capturing thoughts,
The ones I caught and tossed,
Things I was taught and lost.
Proof framed and embossed for a cost.
Coping through the unabashed hopes to one day cash in on all this stashed trash I clash with.
"Smash it?" ...the thought crossed.  

Unimpressed by my evidence of self-less requests,
pursuit of self-evident truth proves a most ruthless abuse.
Even less are my skewed protests for “selfish quests" at the behest of the very strangers I sought to impress.
I digress.

The years compound, bossed around, kicked down but soundly employed,
I turn cold, blaming Freud for defining my non-violent, intolerance threshold on page 23 of some textbook I should have resold.
I go silent. Grow old.
"While your whining and shunning your shinning,
They're sinning and winning." Bad timing.

Girls come, go and follow this shallow, hollow fellow on the run.
While preyed upon...I paid a ton. I play.
The sum never more than the cost of rented fun.
Without insight but consent forthright,
my 30 years of intent were spent in a fortnight.
Still bent on shedding every pound of one first-moment's ton I lost not won.
Can't buy happy for less than the cost of your one-ness.
While prayed upon...paid a Son, they say.

part 3

Ohh the wait....
Ohh the weight...
My set-adrift-soul's mending depends solely on tossing
lost cause cost-spending into thrift.
Well it's a beginning.
All the amassed notes, quotes, boat-floaters,
and sailboat hopes spun in one 1-ton loss moment sprung that one Spring.

Now and again, it creeps in,
like slowly growing stinging nettles around a squelched,
once steaming scorched dream kettle.
Still stays packed away in my heart's darkest parts.
Blurred by time and place,
this burning, misplaced furnace space lays in wait.

Such compiled cold-case denial files from other life trials, lay piled in haste on my proverbial, "less pressing" messy desk of "not ready to face."
Too scared or daring to date, try to relate or contemplate
how to best equate this great weight.
Wait?... Wait.
Elation brewing from pursuing future fruition or ensuing
pure ruin gates these fates from moving, year-to-date.
For the sake of trying or dying forsaken,
another day awake is another day gained or taken.

I found her again,
the town's she's in
but she is taken and then
She learns of my wait, it's weight, my fate, she's shaken,
another ton amasses again. I pretend.
Lay down.
Drown the score of sounds surrounding.
Furthermore, slow the pulse-pounding abounding your core.
Fill your breath.
What is less is gone, tomorrow more.  

by R. Craig David-Copyright 2012

Sag my corpse
in 32 degree weather
through the city of God
where paraplegics dream of running.
“Oh Rhodesian mercenary,”
humble my soul again
like in C(hi)(ca)ongo.
But remember
The revolution starts
on my mama’s bed
at half past six.

So excuse me while I smoke my drink like a Brooklyn Leftist from the 40’s tramples
burning cigarettes on cold pavements where codeine and Sprite
make any Tuesday fabulous because we already suffered from (and for) the goods of mankind.
But before you read me the history of Hatchepsut;
I learned the art of man within the confines of FCC regulations after my ‘Pa threw ******* out the window and made life in the cell not mundane by telephoning philosophical-entendres    
that tomorrow never happened.

He too was from the blood of the ancestors whose bodies were charred on as goods—
whose children now char their bodies with the goods of the goddess of Victory—
the official trademark for the lost Exodus—the blood and blue moribund—
sagging pyrrhic victories in 32 degree weather as homage to their charred ghost (fore)fathers
who preyed to the city of God for bread

The gods let this baby be born
As a thing they could reclaim
One day with cruel delay
Boils from black plague desecrated her skin
Right before her second birthday
A lesson on how a life can be stolen
Shortly after it begins
Or how we're without hope to the whims
Of the bored gods before us

To save the last of his kin
The father implored the science
Of the village sage and physicians
He was turned down at every door
Their medicine was not meant
To save the poor nor destitute
  
Resolute in his faith
there were good gods who gave grace
Unto children without sin
He next beseeched healing power
from varied institutions of the miracle men
Preyed over by priests, rabbis, and sheikhs
He sacrificed and spent
every cent he had saved
And their churches took his tithes
But did not take her pain away

Grief striken, defeated, with no recourse
Liquid sedated in a pub,he feels remorse
" our child will join you soon,
my dearest departed wife"
a pubhand overhears him saying,
"you can still save your daughter's life!"

"listen as I entail
The hidden trail you must trek
before the antelucan hour strikes
Her magiks are only ripe
in the dead of the night
Nestled within that loury forest
Her cabin obscured from mortal sight
Resides an occultist of such cunning:
A bog witch named Blight"

The pubhand helped him to more mead for free
Unprompted he then proceeds to lead
The father through that place he now seeks
-claiming his shift had come to an end
As they drew closer to the cabin
Something happened most curious and queer
The pubhand turned into a black cat,
Scurried off into the brush- to dissappear

Influenced by fermented spirits in his blood
He pays heed to their whisper
-Her cabin door is ajar
And they beckon he enter

Now in Blight's place of power with his offspring.

"oh hapless father when you sing,
How the gods do smile
You worshipped the very ones
who wish to **** your only child
they're vile and malcontent
All they know are delinquent tendencies
They'll torture her spirit for sport,
When she dies you see
But by my incantation
That needn't come be"

"drain the blood of a bat
with deviant intent
Recant the name of your gods;
You now resent  
The blood will brew all the while
-in my elixir
When the little girl drinks:
it will fix her
It will turn her pale white
You will fear she has perished
She will stalk this earth
Forever parched with ravenous thirst
And a stark aversion to sunlight
NOW YOU MUST CHOOSE:
A dead child!
...or a creature of the night?"

The father did as directed
He did not second guess
Unaware of the sorceresses subtle gesticulations
-Were creating a hex
He's blind to machinations set in motion long ago
The wiccan pours her will into a binding circle
As the child drinks the concoction slow

His daughter's vitality returns
The plague is receding
Fangs sprang forth
as she bites into her father's neck
Blood trickles down in specks
The girl keeps feeding
And feeding

all gods once assembled to fight Blight
The powerful mad goddess would direct
her sadistic debauchery at their human subjects
-human praise appealed to the god's vanity-
Her godhood sealed by the Parthenon
in a prison comprised of flesh
Divinity bound;
betrayed by other gods
There were too many for her to resist
A former god trapped in mortal form
Blight's punishment was to simply exist

For 300 years Blight had waited for a night like this
An ancient curse she could wield
As revenge for imprisonment
Finally obtaining the last two ingredients:
A child that was pure
And a father's consent

A direct strike of lightning sets Blight's cabin ablaze  
still in her binding circle, she's indifferent
And unphased
From threats of fearful deities who see
She's about to set her nocturnal creations free
Undeterred by their show of force
she releases her two vamps
with a flick of her wrist and no remorse

Iightning strikes within an inch of Blight
She leers at the heavens
Much defiance and mirth
In the distance a village screams
As her fiends burn it down to the dirt

The Parthenon replies:
Bellowing cumulonimbus clouds
decries her decision
Such chaos;
now her scheming REALLY has their attention
The.Ones.Who.Watch. Above

See all.

Throughout panoptic thrones they peer
pained fury for this village culling:
Blight jeers
Sanctimonius thunderstorm brings fervent rain
Their vain,pious tears-
The skies can not contain

The gods cry.

"Oh, how i wonder what will worship gods then,
When humanity dies?"

Luminous surges of lightning bolts strike
Tries to smite this emboldened bog witch
...Yet, in spite of their wish,
she somehow stays unhurt...

Blight smirks.

The potter and I had arranged a barter.

So, I went to see him and complete our business.

This same potter is also a painter,
and so, when I arrived,
he was in the middle of a deal that would put one of his paintings on someone’s wall
while putting more money in his pocket,
right then,
than I make in a month and a half.

Rather than impede a more artful capitalism,
I left his shop so as to pursue
some time inside of these pages.

Purchased of some small food,
a cold drink on a hot day,
I sat down to write for a while.

Having paid my own art some attention,
I made my way back toward the potter’s space
so as to complete our transaction.

On my way there,
I felt two pairs of rather wild eyes
upon me.

They, those eyes, pierced my side,
with the intensity, authority of a Roman Centurion,
stared at me with the zealousness
of The Old Testament,
fell upon me like the weight of The New Testament;
King James edition,
and I knew it.

I felt,
strangely obligated,
to acknowledge this weighted gazing,
asking these ladies how their evening was going.
My efforts were polite,
rhetorical.
I left them sturdily in my wake.

These women faded from my thoughts.
And, I wish, retrospectively,
that I had vanished
from their minds as well.

Alas, these missionaries
had been set to their devine task
by none other than
Yahweh Himself.

And, their mission,
it seemed,
was me.

They tracked my progression to the potter’s field.

“Can we pray for you?”

“Sure, you can do whatever you feel compelled to do.”

“Do you not have a relationship with The Lord?”

“I have a relationship with the entirety of The Universe.”

“Do you not seek salvation from sin, the wickedness of Satan, and the evils of men?”

“I do not. However, I do know that you seek the ability to feel good about praying for me, a disabled man, because you seem to believe that because I have legs that do not work like yours do, I must be fundamentally lacking something that you can bestow upon me.”

“Have you no faith at all?”
“Have you no relationship with Jesus Christ?”

“I do have a faith. I have a faith in my own humanity, in my inherent ability to commune with all that is honest, true, and good in The Universe.
I do not need your self-serving prayers.”

My friend,
the potter,
the painter,
sang these ladies a song;
played his guitar.

The ladies swayed in time to the music,
just a little.

Together, we bestowed,
upon this pair of zealous women,
kindness and patience
that they seemed to accept
along with our collective faithless, heathen, message
of goodwill;
love for their humanity,
if nothing else.

“Well, we didn’t come here for this,” they said.

And they left us,
none the worse for not
having been prayed over,
or preyed upon, to commune,
in each, our own way,
with each other,
The Universe,
The Great Spirit,
The Buddha,
or Whomever.

Once they had gone,
I traded three books that I had written
for a very nice vase that the potter had made.
The vase was gray,
spun with earth tones,
was flecked with robin’s-egg blue,
sits beautifully on the shelf.

It is now part of The Universe
with which I commune.

I pray
that it
is always
so.

*
-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications 2018

I

Our life is twofold; Sleep hath its own world,
A boundary between the things misnamed
Death and existence: Sleep hath its own world,
And a wide realm of wild reality,
And dreams in their development have breath,
And tears, and tortures, and the touch of joy;
They leave a weight upon our waking thoughts,
They take a weight from off waking toils,
They do divide our being; they become
A portion of ourselves as of our time,
And look like heralds of eternity;
They pass like spirits of the past—they speak
Like sibyls of the future; they have power—
The tyranny of pleasure and of pain;
They make us what we were not—what they will,
And shake us with the vision that’s gone by,
The dread of vanished shadows—Are they so?
Is not the past all shadow?—What are they?
Creations of the mind?—The mind can make
Substances, and people planets of its own
With beings brighter than have been, and give
A breath to forms which can outlive all flesh.
I would recall a vision which I dreamed
Perchance in sleep—for in itself a thought,
A slumbering thought, is capable of years,
And curdles a long life into one hour.

II

I saw two beings in the hues of youth
Standing upon a hill, a gentle hill,
Green and of mild declivity, the last
As ’twere the cape of a long ridge of such,
Save that there was no sea to lave its base,
But a most living landscape, and the wave
Of woods and corn-fields, and the abodes of men
Scattered at intervals, and wreathing smoke
Arising from such rustic roofs: the hill
Was crowned with a peculiar diadem
Of trees, in circular array, so fixed,
Not by the sport of nature, but of man:
These two, a maiden and a youth, were there
Gazing—the one on all that was beneath
Fair as herself—but the boy gazed on her;
And both were young, and one was beautiful:
And both were young—yet not alike in youth.
As the sweet moon on the horizon’s verge,
The maid was on the eve of womanhood;
The boy had fewer summers, but his heart
Had far outgrown his years, and to his eye
There was but one beloved face on earth,
And that was shining on him; he had looked
Upon it till it could not pass away;
He had no breath, no being, but in hers:
She was his voice; he did not speak to her,
But trembled on her words; she was his sight,
For his eye followed hers, and saw with hers,
Which coloured all his objects;—he had ceased
To live within himself: she was his life,
The ocean to the river of his thoughts,
Which terminated all; upon a tone,
A touch of hers, his blood would ebb and flow,
And his cheek change tempestuously—his heart
Unknowing of its cause of agony.
But she in these fond feelings had no share:
Her sighs were not for him; to her he was
Even as a brother—but no more; ’twas much,
For brotherless she was, save in the name
Her infant friendship had bestowed on him;
Herself the solitary scion left
Of a time-honoured race.—It was a name
Which pleased him, and yet pleased him not—and why?
Time taught him a deep answer—when she loved
Another; even now she loved another,
And on the summit of that hill she stood
Looking afar if yet her lover’s steed
Kept pace with her expectancy, and flew.

III

A change came o’er the spirit of my dream.
There was an ancient mansion, and before
Its walls there was a steed caparisoned:
Within an antique Oratory stood
The Boy of whom I spake;—he was alone,
And pale, and pacing to and fro: anon
He sate him down, and seized a pen, and traced
Words which I could not guess of; then he leaned
His bowed head on his hands and shook, as ’twere
With a convulsion—then rose again,
And with his teeth and quivering hands did tear
What he had written, but he shed no tears.
And he did calm himself, and fix his brow
Into a kind of quiet: as he paused,
The Lady of his love re-entered there;
She was serene and smiling then, and yet
She knew she was by him beloved; she knew—
For quickly comes such knowledge—that his heart
Was darkened with her shadow, and she saw
That he was wretched, but she saw not all.
He rose, and with a cold and gentle grasp
He took her hand; a moment o’er his face
A tablet of unutterable thoughts
Was traced, and then it faded, as it came;
He dropped the hand he held, and with slow steps
Retired, but not as bidding her adieu,
For they did part with mutual smiles; he passed
From out the massy gate of that old Hall,
And mounting on his steed he went his way;
And ne’er repassed that hoary threshold more.

IV

A change came o’er the spirit of my dream.
The Boy was sprung to manhood: in the wilds
Of fiery climes he made himself a home,
And his Soul drank their sunbeams; he was girt
With strange and dusky aspects; he was not
Himself like what he had been; on the sea
And on the shore he was a wanderer;
There was a mass of many images
Crowded like waves upon me, but he was
A part of all; and in the last he lay
Reposing from the noontide sultriness,
Couched among fallen columns, in the shade
Of ruined walls that had survived the names
Of those who reared them; by his sleeping side
Stood camels grazing, and some goodly steeds
Were fastened near a fountain; and a man,
Glad in a flowing garb, did watch the while,
While many of his tribe slumbered around:
And they were canopied by the blue sky,
So cloudless, clear, and purely beautiful,
That God alone was to be seen in heaven.

V

A change came o’er the spirit of my dream.
The Lady of his love was wed with One
Who did not love her better: in her home,
A thousand leagues from his,—her native home,
She dwelt, begirt with growing Infancy,
Daughters and sons of Beauty,—but behold!
Upon her face there was a tint of grief,
The settled shadow of an inward strife,
And an unquiet drooping of the eye,
As if its lid were charged with unshed tears.
What could her grief be?—she had all she loved,
And he who had so loved her was not there
To trouble with bad hopes, or evil wish,
Or ill-repressed affliction, her pure thoughts.
What could her grief be?—she had loved him not,
Nor given him cause to deem himself beloved,
Nor could he be a part of that which preyed
Upon her mind—a spectre of the past.

VI

A change came o’er the spirit of my dream.
The Wanderer was returned.—I saw him stand
Before an altar—with a gentle bride;
Her face was fair, but was not that which made
The Starlight of his Boyhood;—as he stood
Even at the altar, o’er his brow there came
The selfsame aspect and the quivering shock
That in the antique Oratory shook
His ***** in its solitude; and then—
As in that hour—a moment o’er his face
The tablet of unutterable thoughts
Was traced—and then it faded as it came,
And he stood calm and quiet, and he spoke
The fitting vows, but heard not his own words,
And all things reeled around him; he could see
Not that which was, nor that which should have been—
But the old mansion, and the accustomed hall,
And the remembered chambers, and the place,
The day, the hour, the sunshine, and the shade,
All things pertaining to that place and hour,
And her who was his destiny, came back
And ****** themselves between him and the light;
What business had they there at such a time?

VII

A change came o’er the spirit of my dream.
The Lady of his love;—Oh! she was changed,
As by the sickness of the soul; her mind
Had wandered from its dwelling, and her eyes,
They had not their own lustre, but the look
Which is not of the earth; she was become
The queen of a fantastic realm; her thoughts
Were combinations of disjointed things;
And forms impalpable and unperceived
Of others’ sight familiar were to hers.
And this the world calls frenzy; but the wise
Have a far deeper madness, and the glance
Of melancholy is a fearful gift;
What is it but the telescope of truth?
Which strips the distance of its fantasies,
And brings life near in utter nakedness,
Making the cold reality too real!

VIII

A change came o’er the spirit of my dream.
The Wanderer was alone as heretofore,
The beings which surrounded him were gone,
Or were at war with him; he was a mark
For blight and desolation, compassed round
With Hatred and Contention; Pain was mixed
In all which was served up to him, until,
Like to the Pontic monarch of old days,
He fed on poisons, and they had no power,
But were a kind of nutriment; he lived
Through that which had been death to many men,
And made him friends of mountains; with the stars
And the quick Spirit of the Universe
He held his dialogues: and they did teach
To him the magic of their mysteries;
To him the book of Night was opened wide,
And voices from the deep abyss revealed
A marvel and a secret.—Be it so.

IX

My dream is past; it had no further change.
It was of a strange order, that the doom
Of these two creatures should be thus traced out
Almost like a reality—the one
To end in madness—both in misery.

I was only four when it happened.
Late at night, when I was alone.
You preyed on my innocence and my weakness,
How could I know that it was wrong?
The things you did so horrible to me,
My soul and body were barred.
What you did to that little girl,
Left me feeling alone and scared...
You said it was to show your love,
By taking my body for your use.
But now I know what happened to me,
It wasn't Love, it was ABUSE!
All the ***** things you did to me,
Won't wash away with rain,
Nothing on earth will rid my heart
of this never ending pain...
I hope that you hurt as much as I do,
Or do you even remember what you did?!?
Nothing will make up for the pain you caused,
When I was just a kid...
The physical scars on my body,
Have since healed with time,
But my pain still shows on the outside,
Whenever the the child inside me finally starts to cry...
That little 4 year old girl,
Had to grow up way too soon,
And ALL of the hurt and pain you have caused,
Will forever be remembered every time I look at the moon.

This evening a terrible discovery I made.
Adolf ****** was a ******.
On all those life's he preyed.
He played his sickening games.
When totally out of his head.
The megalomaniac leader.
Plastered out of his head.
He ran impure merry hell.
He played wicked games with crystal ****.
Never let the world forget,
Just how corrupting drugs can get.
Not just his head but many more.
Drugs responsible.
Mass destruction.
Chemical war.
Drug addicted mother's *****.
For all out war.
(C) Livvi

A wild-bear chace, didst never see?
    Then hast thou lived in vain.
Thy richest bump of glorious glee,
    Lies desert in thy brain.

When first my father settled here,
    ’Twas then the frontier line:
The panther’s scream, filled night with fear
    And bears preyed on the swine.

But woe for Bruin’s short lived fun,
    When rose the squealing cry;
Now man and horse, with dog and gun,
    For vengeance, at him fly.

A sound of danger strikes his ear;
    He gives the breeze a *****;
Away he bounds, with little fear,
    And seeks the tangled rough.

On press his foes, and reach the ground,
    Where’s left his half munched meal;
The dogs, in circles, scent around,
    And find his fresh made trail.

With instant cry, away they dash,
    And men as fast pursue;
O’er logs they leap, through water splash,
    And shout the brisk halloo.

Now to elude the eager pack,
    Bear shuns the open ground;
Through matted vines, he shapes his track
    And runs it, round and round.

The tall fleet cur, with deep-mouthed voice,
    Now speeds him, as the wind;
While half-grown pup, and short-legged ****,
    Are yelping far behind.

And fresh recruits are dropping in
    To join the merry corps:
With yelp and yell,—a mingled din—
    The woods are in a roar.

And round, and round the chace now goes,
    The world’s alive with fun;
Nick Carter’s horse, his rider throws,
    And more, Hill drops his gun.

Now sorely pressed, bear glances back,
    And lolls his tired tongue;
When as, to force him from his track,
    An ambush on him sprung.

Across the glade he sweeps for flight,
    And fully is in view.
The dogs, new-fired, by the sight,
    Their cry, and speed, renew.

The foremost ones, now reach his rear,
    He turns, they dash away;
And circling now, the wrathful bear,
    They have him full at bay.

At top of speed, the horse-men come,
    All screaming in a row,
“Whoop! Take him Tiger. Seize him Drum.”
    Bang,—bang—the rifles go.

And furious now, the dogs he tears,
    And crushes in his ire,
Wheels right and left, and upward rears,
    With eyes of burning fire.

But leaden death is at his heart,
    Vain all the strength he plies.
And, spouting blood from every part,
    He reels, and sinks, and dies.

And now a dinsome clamor rose,
    ’Bout who should have his skin;
Who first draws blood, each hunter knows,
    This prize must always win.

But who did this, and how to trace
    What’s true from what’s a lie,
Like lawyers, in a ****** case
    They stoutly argufy.

Aforesaid ****, of blustering mood,
    Behind, and quite forgot,
Just now emerging from the wood,
    Arrives upon the spot.

With grinning teeth, and up-turned hair—
    Brim full of ***** and wrath,
He growls, and seizes on dead bear,
    And shakes for life and death.

And swells as if his skin would tear,
    And growls and shakes again;
And swears, as plain as dog can swear,
    That he has won the skin.

Conceited whelp! we laugh at thee—
    Nor mind, that now a few
Of pompous, two-legged dogs there be,
    Conceited quite as you.

Once wars were fought with sticks and stones
to flog the flesh and batter bones
and conquer lands, defending thrones -
though gods provoke, not one atones.

The multitude (by hordes beset
with battle-ax or bayonet)
braved blades, dyed red and dripping wet -
the stains were wiped with no regret.

When raining blood, the teardrops spill,
enough to drown the daffodil
that withers in the mourning chill -
who was it said 'thou shalt not ****'?

The mad machine's now mechanized,
torment and torture legalized,
blind barbarism globalized
and wrath of demons sanitized.

Each rival's right (whichever side)
committing holy homicide
in names of gods diversified -
like Cain and Abel fratricide.

Above, a Drone that terrifies -
a button's pushed, a missile flies
to rip apart, to vaporize
(defending life, they fantasize).

Dismembered victims everywhere,
most, non-combatants, unaware -
a lone survivor, solitaire,
unfolding hands, too late for prayer.

Beneath the dust, a baby lies
with mouth agape, with bleeding eyes,
arrayed in death that money buys -
though warriors watch, none empathize.


The media's impervious -
in truth they're ever devious
for fear that reason's dangerous,
find every question treasonous.

Through eyes lit up like rosy sores,
embedded scribes report on wars
with tales to line the cuspidors -
the Fourth Estate? A herd of ******.

To paint the slaughter civilized,
objective news is sodomized -
when foreign streets smoke, pulverized,
the body counts are minimized.


Big Berthas boomed in days of yore
but now the tanks spit spikes of Thor
and mortar shells like raindrops pour
upon the lands of Nevermore.

The grumble of a hand grenade
is drowned in claps of cannonade -
assorted charnel chunks lie flayed
in battlefields where kids once played.

Somewhere a ******'s bullet flies,
somewhere a voiceless victim dies,
somewhere a famished orphan cries
while weapons warble lullabies.

The bunker busters burst the sides
of dwellings where mankind resides
and innocence in darkness hides -
the die is cast, but who decides?

Use cluster bombs and barrels too,
(crude critters in the wartime zoo),
to shred more souls than hitherto -
choose death en masse, avoid the queue!

The leaders lead (twelve steps behind),
enmeshed in intrigues, well enshrined -
yes, powers, business (so entwined)
pull twisted threads, ensnare mankind.


The mercenaries hack and maim
(god's creatures crippled, morally lame),
do beastly things that none will name -
well-paid for such, they feel no shame.

The ****** bombs and phosphorus
and ghastly weapons gaseous
are scattered widely, bounteous -
behold the desert wilderness!

Yes, Agent Orange burns slow and calm,
may leave behind a blazing palm
(or better yet, a molten mom
inside a hut)  in Vietnam.

And phosphorous… its flame so white,
exploding, falling through the night,
commemorates the Sacred Rite -
and babes in arms, thus blessed, ignite.

Cast chlorine, sarin or VX…
a lethal dose (or side effects
like blistered lungs) will serve to vex -
but death in war? No one objects…


Constructing A-bombs's arduous -
uranium, depleted thus,
can trash a tank with little fuss,
cause natal cankers, cancerous.

But doomsday warheads (dropped or thrown),
ignited, leave the sun outshone -
beneath a mass of melted stone
lies powdered ash, once flesh and bone.

When atoms split in bombs debased,
vast cities smolder, laid to waste,
a million sinless souls erased -
perhaps, one day, all life effaced.


You close your eyes but can't ignore
that body parts and bags of gore
are bursting through golgotha's door,
and strewn beyond the ocean's roar
like rotting fish that wash ashore.

Why can't we stop and end all war…


POSTSCRIPT
Regard the dreary death Arcade
of Armaments (a fruitful trade)
and tally up the millions made
by ghouls that raise a colonnade
of miles of missiles, weapons-grade,
in Armageddon's crazed parade,
and hide behind a masquerade
of lollypops and lemonade
while planning new an escapade
for sending armies to invade
and loot far oil lands, unafraid
of misery and grief parlayed
until our final days cascade
into a hell no more delayed
by happenstance or luck outplayed
that leaves society decayed,
bombarded with a fusillade
of lies upheld and truth betrayed
by pundits in the shifting shade,
and crises of the world clichéd
as sung in solemn serenade
by journalistic hacks that preyed
on wide-eyed folk in sham charade
that lulls to sleep with eyelids weighed
by tiny tears that disobeyed
to stay behind the barricade
and bathe the modern-day crusade
of war in cheers and accolade.

The bottom line? Just profits paid
for deadly sins that god forbade…

we had monsters in our house.
they had come uninvited, of course, and they wouldn’t go away.
hush

we had monsters in our house. they had come uninvited, of course, and they wouldn’t go away so we stuffed them in my cupboard
we thought we had hid them well.
only they didn’t like it – at all.

we had monsters in our house and we stuffed them in my cupboard where they took all the space but didn’t like it there at all
we thought they wouldn’t – but we didn’t care
they cared, of course, because they didn’t like it at all

the monsters from my cupboard would beat gongs to protest – I don’t know how they got them there –
the monsters in my cupboard would never rest.
the monsters in my cupboard would not give up.
we would tell we couldn’t hear them but our eyes betrayed us every time.
one would point at the other when they saw several small circles of red veins on their irises
and black clouds underneath
but the fingers would also point back at ourselves so we never had to say
shush

Our Lips Were Sealed.

our lips were sealed except on days we screamed, altogether
we would scream and scream while the monsters from my cupboard would play a thunderous clap
they would shout in alien languages and beat gongs, and roll drums – I don’t know how they got them there but they would. none would tire.

our lips were sealed until the monsters from my cupboard Won and found a way Out
the monsters in my cupboard were no longer monsters inside my cupboard for they found a way out
when they found a way out they hid under my bed. they had better plans to take revenge.

every time the screaming happened, a similar series ensued:
we always got tired and slept cuddling each other, demanding warmth, pleading for safety in The Most Silent Language Ever
we never wanted the monsters to hear. you see, we were trying to manage everything despite suffering
every time the screaming happened and we went to sleep afterwards, craving warmth and safety, rubbing scars revealing fresh blood, one of us wouldn’t sleep.
one of us couldn’t sleep.
one of us couldn’t sleep because the monsters that were stuffed in my cupboard and were now hiding under my bed would find them.
they would face them boldly, ruthlessly, and make a living mess out of them.
they would threaten to shred their skin and scar their lips. pull their bulging eyes out.
(our eyes would be bulging because of our fear.)

every time the screaming happened, a similar series ensued:
we always got tired and went to sleep with one another, but the monsters wouldn’t sleep
they preyed on one of us.
they would eat some of their flesh, and gargle with their blood
and finally, they would pull them under their bed and put a hand over their mouths
As If They Could Scream

one by one, we fell prey to the monsters – at night
during our days we would live like each other.
and did we see our wounds and half fleshes? of course we did.
but we didn’t say for we couldn’t help it. none of us could
and we were losers who had lost while pretending all the way that we knew better
we became them.
and started biting ourselves.

Transparency of your soul looks me in the eye
and I can see the weight of the world
breathing possessively
as you whisper why.  
I can read your thoughts better
than I can read your lips
and there is no question
as to what the words mean
delivered.........
with your each and every sigh.

I believe someone told you
the world wears a veiled smile
and attempts
to cling deceptively to your every breath
like a warrior breaks all stillness.
Yet, I see that you are not afraid
to sit and think
about how great men can fall in a moment
when preyed upon...........
by life's unwillingness.

Come with me when your heart aches
from standing in the shadows
of those thoughts
that have been tucked away
in the air you breathe.  
Always remember that our time
waits in a path of sunlight
lying beyond the stillness
that will never fade
from all.........
that we can feel
and see.

Yes, the fingertips of happiness
strum my words
setting fires ablaze
so you can see me looking
into the transparency of your soul.  
Everything is well-defined
even if it seems out of your control
and there is no need to apologize
when the weight of the world
keeps you.....
from feeling whole.

There is no turning back
not now.
No
This time
sir
you've fallen too hard too fast
the diagnosis
Love
and there is no cure
it's like a virus, it
Spreads
through your cells
and consumes you
engulfs you.
It moves
Through
you and effects you in strange ways
it turns atheists
into bible beaters
on their knees
prepared to pray.
That is what you've become now
sir
Prey.
Love has preyed on you
preyed on your mind.
Mind you,
your mind is not your own now sir
because i've infected you
you're mine.
i've caught you in my honey trap.
I've stuck you in my love
and now there's no turning back
sir.
because you're down too deep
sir.
is it you or is it me?
There's no turning back now
I'm stuck in your honey trap
and there's no turning back
You've tagged me now
there's no catch and release
no tag backs
I've caught the
Love
and there's no return policy
on my heart.
There's no turning back
This feels disorganized and wrong
like modern art
to be trapped like this
pulled by my heart strings
like a leash
sir.
I'm sincerely yours
sir
a puppet for your enjoyment.
There's no turning back
I've caught the love
I'm stuck in your honey trap
There's no turning back
you've caught the love
you're stuck in my honey trap.
and it hurts
when we pull each other
by the heartstrings
like twisted puppets
Now there's no turning back
we are stuck in the honey trap.

jaeger.
chasseur.
foxtail.
seduction of fascism in mind,
like tumbling autumn leaves
ever and always
on the steps of a country house.
always and ever
just outside the aix-les-bains dance hall.
his blousy new bride
and her old lover
aware of his sympathies and
  the danger he presents to them.

jaeger.
chasseur.
foxtail.
seduction of fascism in mind,
ever and always
on a deserted alpine road.
always and ever
one trail of blood,
remnant of the preyed upon.
she screams against the glass,
quiet devil in the backseat
haunted by the disorder
  of his own mind.

eyes opened to
his own mutability.
alienation is immanent,
bred in the bone.
a desperate need for gravitas,
built upon vaporous credulity.
and she is pursued through the woods
ever and always,
through iridescent fields
always and ever,
until finally in his crosshairs
  she falls.

those like him have not suddenly
vanished from the earth, but
  are merely lying in wait.

A girl lies naked, bruised and bleeding on the bathroom floor. She’ll say she was ***** but it’ll be her who’ll take the fall. The football team will still play that Friday night and she’ll be accused of telling hysterical lies.
“She was breaking the dress code” you were breaking the law, violation of the law gets you a court sentence but rich parents get you good lawyers who get you off free, she’ll never be free to walk the streets home alone fearing that every time she looks into a man’s eyes she will see the image of you as she prayed for help but was instead preyed on by the Prom King Predator.

Her bruises whether they be physical or not are hers to reveal and if you feel the need to go around telling her story then you’re an ***, “she had a sweet ***” you had sweet talk which made her feel safe and then suddenly she felt betrayed. So she’s a ***** if she sleeps with a guy even if it wasn’t consensual but when you sleep with a girl you’re a playa and did a good job on hitting that; you going to bang her? ***** her? Nail her?

The words used to describe it are almost as violent as the act done upon her.

There was pain in her voice but her body betrayed her, it portrayed pleasure when all she felt was agony. The pain in her voice was clear to those around her but the pleasure was all they focused on, the pleasure is what caused her the feeling of being ashamed for the next four years until she could open up to someone.

Around school she was known as the quiet girl, the girl without a story, this was true in a sense because her story like most was never told.

You're fading.
Our summer moon thieves
the remaining fragments of your soul.
That shade of pink dries from
your quivering lip.
Don't go.
This tasteless humidity will do your lungs no glory.
Wait! Don't go.
I'll only crave each speck of
skin, fiend for the gentle
***** of your shadow.
Love me, Oh love me,
my reflection shakes and shatters,
it cracks as your smile once did.
Let me into your personal nightmare,
sink my venom and adventure through each pulsating memory.
There's that smile, the one that hid,
amongst the delirium and preyed upon the suffering.
There's that smile,
the one I've only longed for.
Don't go.

With values life will get aid
And illicit, bad, nature preyed,
Without them we remain maid
Who follow like weeds swayed.
Are we void of them paid?
Yes, but temporarily laid,
Laid with burden and stained.
With values we are under shade,
Poor, deprived but sin is out lade.
Values get immorality out flayed
Like an IT officer criminal raid.
Hence values – an important shade
Never let us or world be afraid
And always scale on our grade.
So let values reign the world jade
Precious and  treasured be it made.

The lights are out ......and the clouds sail past the window.
I can't wait until naptime is done....I want to play with my friends and have some fun.

I see the other kids and they fall off one by one....like a set of dominoes set up by a magician.  I'm laying on my back staring at the ceiling .....the teacher comes to my cot and asks me how I am feeling.

I said "I'm not sleepy", and he says "you should try".  Close your eyes and you will fall asleep....if that doesn't work ....try counting sheep.

I still couldn't sleep and was just laying there....the other children were all sleep now....and he returned to me.

He kneeled next to my cot and said "maybe this will help you sleep".  
The teacher unzipped my pants and pulled out my little meat.

The feeling that I received felt really good and I did go to sleep.

This happened two more times during the week......I never told anyone ....because I didn't know.
All I knew is that it made me feel good and I was able to sleep....he wasn't a teacher. This man was a creep.

He preyed on a child who didn't have a clue.  

I was abused at home...so I never said anything about what happened at school.  This was the place where I was allowed to have fun.....and wasn't confined to a room with a lock.  Instead of watching television I was learning how to block.....but I was always accused of flopping.

I've seen stars many times...and I've never been to outer space.  Those views came from several slaps across the face.  The memories don't produce any smiles....they just gave me a blueprint on how not to raise a child.

I didn't have any toys....or a bed.  I was a prisoner in a room that was blue......it's crazy that I like that hue.  My room was ***** trapped with pieces of thread....to see if I had been out....and I was smart .....so he put on a latch....he became mad because I learned how to take it off and put it back.

  He eventually installed a lock with a key.  If you have to use the bathroom ....you have to ask me.  Wow...you are my father not a sheriff or a deputy.

My father was on drugs and beat me like a stranger.  I felt school was the lesser of the dangers.  I'm a product of abuse and I sit here and write.

I'm realizing that Jesus helped me win the fight.  How you may ask did he help me win? I'm learning about this word called Sin.  When the teacher abused me .....he planted the seed of lust.

The enemy attacks when you are young.  His job is to steal, **** and destroy.  I was supposed to be dead....not helping other abused boys.

I now work with childeren who suffered from similar situations....and I say to them......allow school to be a vacation.....away from the abuse and cursing.  I'm rebuilding their self esteem and allowing them to dream about a different life.

I tell them that my life was also filled with strife.  The children with father's who seldom bother.....are the one's that break my heart.  My dad wasn't around....but God provided me with another start.  

I survived the tests and now I have a testimony.....To help those who are abused and lonely.  I've been on that street and I have ran away on several occasions.....

I almost died...but that's another story.  I'm just getting some answers about who I am......and why I make the decisions I do.  I just shared a real deep piece of my life story with you.

The reason.....God told me to.


Help prevent child abuse.....save a few lives

The earth’s been our playground, beautiful and vast.
A utopian world on which the human race was cast.
In the sliver of time, we’ve been an industrial culture
We’ve preyed on her resources like a ravenous vulture.

A carnivore hunting for bigger and fatter game,
All in the guise of improving and seeking for fame.
Inventors create contraptions and devices,
Never bothering to notice how much smaller the ice is.

Carbon is aplenty, spewing forth in filthy emission
Ozone suffering from man with limited vision.
Many animals hunted to extinction, and more on the way
Ecologists fight to be heard, to government's policies sway

Our waters suffer abuse and lose their purity
Advances in culture, lend earth no security
Oil and garbage circle the earth killing the wildlife off it,
Inventions and efforts to save us, offer no profit.

Efforts must be made to lower and stop pollution  
All species soon will be dead without a solution.
Let’s work together and help clean mother earth.
What’s our future generations’ health really worth?

A partner we should be, and not a voracious parasite,
We are cognizant beings; we should know to do what’s right.
Love the earth, give back more than you take,
Do it now, do it fast, for our children’s sake.

Six times life has trembled,
At the passing of apocalypse.

Each time,
Three causes were possible:

Heaven,

Hell,

And Earth.

From heaven, asteroids could fall,
And throw up curtains on the world,
Or passing waves of cosmic fire
Would strip away the clouds.

From hell, the waters of Styx
Might slip through terrestrial cracks,
Then rise as gas,
To heat the world as sheets of floating glass.

Between the two:
Animals themselves
Could mediate the flow
Of Earthly poisons.

Of the three apocalypses
Born on Earth,
Their horsemen are:
The progenitors of atmosphere:
Primordial Cyanophyta,
Then Archeopteris, first of the trees,
And inventor of the root,
And last:
Humanity ourselves,
The apes who play with fire.

Apocalypse number one was caused
When Cyanophyta -
Named for the blue-green colour
Possessed by these bacterial worms -
Learned to inhale the Sun.

They breathed in photons,
Filtered through a heavy atmosphere,
And exhaled an ocean of oxygen,
That filled the skies with ******.

Then the world was a canvas painted
With a single simple transformation:
The land – which then was only iron –
Was touched, naked
By the breath of blue snakes
And so the wide metallic continent of Ur,
Was racked from coast to coast
With rust.

The world’s iron skin absorbed oxygen like cream;
So that, when the global epithelium
Could take no more,
The new air rose,
And thinned the heights,
And all the gathered warmth of centuries
Escaped into the stars.

Then – an interlude of flame –
Comets fell on reddened ice,
And the planet’s molten core restored
The stratospheric glass,
And the world was hot once more.

Next, Archeopteris:
First of the trees,
As plant life rose to giants,
The primal soil of Gondwana
Was infiltrated
By the evolution of the root.

As vascular limbs drilled down to earth,
They plundered minerals,
From which these new goliaths
Grew fronds,
And then, upon the giants’ deaths,
Their carcasses were ill received
By little lives
Who could not hold their salt.

Then came the chaos of holy war:
Heaven rained and hell spilled up,
And so passed end times three and four,
Up to the kaleidoscope of teeth and claws
That was the age of dinosaurs.

Now the fifth apocalypse
Was Chicxulub:
A worldstorm in a meteor,
So named for baby birds
And the sound of Armageddon:
Xulub!
A knight in igneous armour,
Who killed the dragons of Pangaea.

Now, to the sixth.
As yet far less fatal than the rest,
But the first apocalypse
With eyes and ears,
Who sees the fire its engines breath,
And to its own destructiveness attests.

We began in the trees,
And once the planes were cleared of predators
By mighty Chicxulub,
We moved out onto the grass,
Stood up and freed our hands,
And learned to play with fire.

With it we loosed the energy
In roasted meat,
And poured the new-found resource
Into intellect,
Then wielding sapience,
We humans spread:
The first global superpredator,
We preyed on adults of apex species,
Tamed the world,
Then dreamt of gods
Who placed us at its helm.

We noticed then,
The manifold atomic dots
On the cosmic dice that cast us;
And stuttered in shock.

Our dreams of stewardship
Were dashed on revelations,
That we are the chaos
In the inherent synchrony of dust.

Refusing all potentials
That mirror the errors of our youth,
We let the title ‘sentinel’
Drift from loosened fingertips,
Any now by morbid self-assertion,
We mark ourselves:
The selfish sixth apocalypse.

Chasing Pegasus deep into the void
hurtling like Sagitta the arrow
Cassiopeia my soul mate
the depths of the Hyperion shallows
paradoxically gnawing at my
heightened perceptions and
out there I meet Neil Armstrong
I have a feeling we may be passing through a place
where souls gather and he tells me
all he needs is
information all he wants
is knowledge
and we connect and shake hands
[well as best as we can do being in
spacesuits, you know,
all things considered]
and then Elvis appears and tells me I’ve
come a long way
and I laugh and say tell me about it
and he is more interested in Old Earth
he tells me he could always sense he
had a affinity with Ancient Egypt it was something
that had preyed on his Earthly perceptions
dancing around his peripheral vision
like some demented djinn
then he told me
not to worry tell them all back home
when the right song comes along
I’ll be back
and the glories of Ra will be bestowed upon us
and everyone will be entitled to free access
to the best burgers
angel can produce
and everyone will live in a world of song and applause
everyone will have their own spotlight
and beds will be made of marshmallow
with rice paper sheets
just imagine
and I did
one arm over Elvis Presley’s shoulder
deep in space.

Seems I've already been here before,
searching endlessly in a void
A man trapped by the eyes of those who still see a boy

I guess I'm still yet to grow

There's an echo bouncing off the wall; back and forth
Swinging by, and whispering a sweet lie;
it could be the monsters, or just the voices in my head

Either way,
none of those sounds playing,
leaves me feeling a little bit scared

I should say a prayer,
but I've preyed on so much precious time,
I'm only left chasing the few seconds I have left
While being stuck in between an acute happiness,
and all the feelings of being depressed

There isn't an angle to explain how loudly
I want to scream at people's faces
Describing the colours of their aura,
mostly in their displaying hatred

But then again,
it may come out a little racist

I've come to find myself writing love letters to the dark

And the result:

the ugliness of the morning
to see such a beauty, of my dark art

                       ...bite your tongue,
                          as there are no other words
                          to speak of this
  
Just quietly shut your mind,
and open your eyes

                             This is the unholy piece

He said I'll love you till I die
She told him you'll forget in time

But as the years went slowly by.
She still preyed upon his mind.

He kept her picture on his wall.
Went half crazy,now and then.

But he still loved her through it all.
Hoping that she'd come back again.

He kept some letters by his bed.
Dated 1962. He had underlined in red.
Every single I LOVE YOU.

I went to see him just today.
Oh but I didn't see no tears.

All dressed up to go away.
First time I'd seen him smile in years.

He stopped loving her today. They placed a wreath upon his door.
And soon they'l carry him away. He stopped loving her today.

You know,she came to see him one last time.
Aw and we all wondered if she would.
And it kept running through my mind ."This time he's over her for good".

He stopped loving her today. They placed a wreath upon his door.
And soon they'l carry him away.

He stopped loving her today.

You can explain trigonometry to a zebra,
You can blab till blue in the cheeks,
But that doesn’t at all determine,
Whether a zebra will learn trigonometry.

A piece of irony:
We expect Zebras to be black and white,
Because their appearance says so,
But what about their feelings,
Who they are as Zebras?

Luscious, rare, and totally majestic,
But most of all,
Slept on…
Like most beautiful things, a pity indeed,
But that’s nature.

You find yourself mesmerized by them,
Yet you never truly grasp their beauty.
I ponder one small thought:
What do we really know about zebras?

We know what we are told,
We know what we see,
We know what we read,
But somehow,
These zebras,
They just… unapologetically exist,
In ways that never remain consistent.

Lions hunt zebras,
and rip them a part,
Because lions assume that these zebras,
Are merely the inferior species,
Ready to be preyed upon,
Simply because they’re less dominant,
In a world of carnivorous predators.

I know what you’re all about because you’ve told me.

You’re against using medicine and chemicals.
Unless I put them in my body and they become the permission slip for you to *** inside me.
Somehow this feminism pill that is supposed to liberate me is really liberating your ****.

You’re against plastic surgery.
Until I need it to fix this unbroken vessel which you can’t help but make comments about while we stand naked and on exhibit in the shower.

You’re against hurting women.
Unless it involves “hog-tying me and carrying me around like a brief case.”
Then it’s just **** and what you’re into.
I guess I should work on finding the pleasure in that.

You’re against me using a ******* chef’s knife to cut pizza rather than a pizza cutter.
Until it becomes an opportunity to tell me I’m doing it wrong.
I’m going to dull the knife you are so cunningly waiting to shove in my back.

You’re against giving in to unhappiness.
Unless it’s an excuse for you to ignore me.
I forgot I already reached my frown quota and you were given the free infinity pass at birth.

You’re against eating meat.
Unless it’s human meat because you aren’t above cannibalism. How many of us have you chewed up and **** out, anyway? I am just one more unassuming girl to be preyed upon.

You’re against pessimism.
Until it’s your life, your opinion, your need to rain on everyone’s parade. You say I don’t see the silver lining in the clouds, but it’s because I’m consumed by your storm. The entire sky is overcast and I can’t, or won’t, be the rainbow every single time.

What is a rainbow anyway?
Depending upon which way you look, it vanishes into nothing. Beautiful, but transparent and fleeting. I give you pleasure for a moment and then I am forgotten.
I am a refraction.
A bending light.
Invisibility spreading it’s legs wide open to give you a smile in fabulous color.

You shout these qualities in your autobiography like I’m supposed to give you some type of award.
The reality is that being in a relationship with you means constantly teetering on the balancing beam of a double-edged sword.
The only thing you’re really against is me.

On day 1 you told me you were an *******.
And I thought you were just exaggerating.

The Eyes
We see with our
Appetites
Not what we need
But what we greed

My jagged teeth
Feed me bloodshed
My brain NEEDS it
By God as I pray
I'm being preyed upon

Do you ******* Soul?
Swallow my whole
****** down a black hole
Lets talk about how
None of this is even ******* real.

Practically real at least
Floating out in space
Existing as geometrical shapes
Shaded by our history
Trying to remember
How exactly light works?...

The year my innocence was stolen by you, an evil man who preyed on the vulnerability of mere children.

Held me down when I squirmed in discomfort as you forced your thick finger inside of my ****** body, stretching me far beyond my limit. Silencing my frightened cries with assurements. You held my hand as you repeatedly slid your finger inside of me, telling me this unbearable pain was common.

Initiated a connection between us, that quickly expanded to include physical touch; a highly inappropriate action in such an innocent setting. You bent me over at my waist and pressed your ******* into my backend. My mom sat feet away as you fondled my rear.

Rested your hand on my nearly non-existent *******. You wrapped your hand around my waist, pulling me into your side. You draped your arm over my shoulder, allowing yourself to caress my undeveloped chest.

Talked with the utmost amount of charm. You warmly welcomed me into your office with open arms, to which I naively thought was you being kind. You referred to me as “sweetheart”. You told me I had a cute ****. You made me blush, but I did not notice how closely your eyes examined my being, staring at my most secretive parts with a gaze that penetrated clothing.

Exerted your strength, your power, your dominance. You physically restrained me, applying brute force and physical pressure upon my small body as I subtly attempted to create space between us, recognizing I feared your touch, yet not comprehending how sinful the actions you performed were. You controlled my movements. You ordered that I undress to undergo your treatment. I stood before you in a gown untied in the back, my ******* peeking through. You bunched the material of the gown above my narrow hips, allowing you to toy with the bow on the front of my flamingo-themed underwear. To think this was the most innocent touch you shared with my body as your fingers swiftly delved further, completely disregarding the cloth barrier that meant to keep you away from my most feminine structure.

Evaluated my condition by allowing your warm hands to sweep over my mound, brushing against my folds, pausing at my inner thighs and repeating this vicious cycle for an hour. Once you were satisfied you had acquired a sustainable amount of ****** indulgence, you enveloped my body into yours, hugging me tight before bidding farewell. Promising his sweetheart that the pain would lessen if I continued with his treatments.

Never will I ever regain the purity you ripped away from me. Was the pain you have caused me worth the pleasure you received from my adolescent body?

13.

The ghosts of our past haunt us
They dwell deep within
They are called regret, guilt, failure, and secrets
Our childhood was traumatic
We were preyed upon
when we really could have used some prayers
We were both victims and monsters
We were latchkey kids with major attitude
My eldest sister was left in charge but
she was just a kid herself
Kids with nothing else to do but find trouble
or is it that trouble will always
find kids with nothing else to do
Things happened that should
have never happened but they did
and my sister blames herself for this
She actually thinks she is being punished
with cancer for all of her mistakes.
I keep telling her she is wrong that bad things
happen to good people all the time.
That the past is just that it is in the past
We were just kids who made some mistakes
Everyone makes mistakes but we have to learn
To forgive ourselves

Breathe in and I breathe out!
                           I heard your voice throught these halls.
You
Once
Told
Me
         I should *beleive you, down on my knees I prey.
That the day!
                    Will heal you, I just asked if you could
                                                         ­     See me, if you could hear me?
                                                             ­                                Breathe
                                                  And if you would just let me, I would of never let you.
Fall down, I watched you.                    Breakdown

And
        everybody
could
see
           It in my eyes,    
                                  and just how it destroyed my life.
I know your down on your knees, in this cold wet room.
                                                 And these walls are breathing, in my mind your screaming.
                  So Calmly
                           I just wish you would let me fall with you,
               I would break with you
No more cobwebbed rooms, No more windows painted black.          No more locked doors, no more empty                                                     Whiskey bottles in the bottom drawer.
No more crying alone, no more scars
                                                                    to heal on their own.
Not for a second did I not prey for you.
                                                                   Not for a hour did I
                       ever leave your side.
                                                                                                                        I just preyed for you.     We all just preyed for you.
                                          We wish you would of never brokedown.
                                  And so we just prey for you.
                                                                                Even though you're gone now.