Inconspicuous, his presence noted only by the obscurity and the ever growing number of spent cigarette stubs that littered the ground.  It had been a long day and the rain, relentless in its tenacity had little intention of stopping, baleful clouds still  hung heavy, dominating the lateness of the afternoon sky, a rain laden skyline broken only by smoke filled chimney pots and the tangled snarl of corroded television aerials.

     The once busy street was fast emptying now, the lure of shop windows no longer enticed the casual browser as local traders closed their premises to the oncoming night, solitary lampposts curved hazily into the distance, casting little more than insipid pools mirrored in the gutter below, only the occasional stranger scurrying home on a bleak, rain swept afternoon, the hurried slap of wet leather soles on the pavement, the sightless umbrellas, the infrequent rumble of a half filled bus, hell-bent on its way to oblivion.

     In the near distance as the working day ended, a sudden emergence of factory workers told Beamish it was 5-o'clock, most would be hurrying home to a hot meal, while others, for a quick drink perhaps before making the same old sorry excuse... for Jack, the greasy spoon would be closing about now, denying him the comfort of a badly needed cuppa' and stale cheese sandwich.  A subtle legacy of lunchtime fish and chips still lingered in the air, Jack's stomach rumbled, there was little chance of a fish supper for Beamish tonight, it protested again... louder.

     From beneath the eaves of the building opposite several pigeons broke cover, startled by the rattle as a shopkeeper struggled to close the canvas awning above his shop window.  Narrowly missing Beamish they flew anxiously over the rooftops, memories of the blitz sprang to mind as Jack stepped smartly to one side, he stamped his feet... it dashed a little of the weather from his raincoat, just as the rain dashed a little of the pigeons' anxiety from the pavement... the day couldn't get much worse if it tried.  Shielding his face, Jack struck the Ronson one more time and cupped the freshly lit cigarette between his hands, it was the only source of heat to be had that day... and still it rained.

     'By Appointment to Certain Personages...' the letter heading rang out loudly... 'Jack Beamish ~ Private Investigator...' a throat choking mouthful by any stretch of the imagination, thought Jack and shot every vestige of credulity plummeting straight through the office window and amidst a fanfare of trumpet voluntary, nominate itself for a prodigious award in the New Year Honours list.   Having formally served in a professional capacity for a well known purveyor of pickled condiments, who  incidentally, brandished the same patronage emblazoned upon their extensive range of relish as the one Jack had more recently purloined from them... a paid commission no less, which by Jack's certain understanding had made him, albeit fleeting in nature, a professional consultant of said company... and consequently, if they could flaunt the auspicious emblem, then according to Jack's infallible logic, so could Jack.  

     The recently appropriated letterhead possessed certain distinction... in much the same way, Jack reasoned, that a blank piece of paper did not... and whereas correspondence bearing the heading 'By Appointment' may not exactly strike terror into the hearts of man... unlike a really strong pickled onion, it nevertheless made people think twice before playing him for the fool, which sadly, Jack had to concede, they still invariably did... and he would often catch them wagging an accusing finger or two in his direction with such platitudes as... "watch where you put your foot", they'd whisper, "that Jack's a right Shamus...", and when you'd misplaced your footing as many times as Jack had, then he reasoned, that by default the celebrated Shamus must have landed himself in more piles of indiscretion than he would readily care to admit, but that wouldn't be quite accurate either, in Jack's line of work it was the malefactor that actually dropped him in them more often than not.

     A cold shiver suddenly ran down his spine, another quickly followed as a spurt of icy water from a broken rain spout spattered across the back of his neck, he grimaced... Jack's expression spoke volumes as he took one final pull from his half soaked cigarette and flicked it, amid an eruption of sparks against the adjacent brick wall.  Sinking further into the shadow he tipped his fedora against the oncoming rain, then, digging both hands deep within his pockets, he huddled behind the upturned collar of his gabardine... watching.

     It was times such as these when Jack's mind would slip back, in much the same way you might slip back on a discarded banana peel, when a matter of some consequence, or in particular this case the pavement, would suddenly leap up from behind and give the back of Jack's head a resoundingly good slapping and tell him to "stop loafing around in office hours... or else", then drag him, albeit kicking and screaming back into the 20th century.  This intellectual assault and battery re-focused Jack's mind wonderfully as he whiled away the long weary hours until his next cigarette; cup of tea, or the last bus home, his capacity to endure such mind boggling tedium called for nothing less than sheer ******-mindedness and very little else... Beamish had long suspected that he possessed all the necessary qualifications.  

     Jack had come a long way since the early days, it had been a long haul but he'd finally arrived there in the end... and managed to pick up quite a few ***** looks along the way.  Whilst he was with the Police Constabulary... and it was only fair to stress the word 'with', as opposed to the word 'in'... although the more Jack considered, he had been 'with' the arresting officer, held 'in' the local Bridewell... detained at Her Majesties pleasure while assisting the boys in blue with their enquiries over a minor infringement of some local by-law that currently had quite slipped his mind at that moment.  Throughout this enforced leisure period he'd managed to read the entire abridged editions of Kilroy and other expansive works of graffiti exhibited in what passed locally as the next best thing to the Tate Gallery, whereupon it hadn't taken Jack very long to realise that it was always a good place to start if you wanted free breakfast, in fact the weeks bill of fare was tastefully displayed in vivid, polychromatic colour on the wall opposite... you just had to be au-fait with braille.
                            
     No matter how industrious Beamish laboured to rake the dirt there always appeared to be a dire shortage of gullible clients for Jack to squeeze, what would roughly translate as an honest crust out of, and although his financial retainer was highly competitive he understood that potential clients found it bewildering when grappling with the unplumbed depths of his monthly expense account, which would tend to fluctuate with the same unpredictability as the British weather, the rest of Jack's agenda revolved around a little shady moonlighting... in fact he'd happily consider anything to offset the remotest possibility of financial delinquency... short of extortion... which by the strangest twist was the very word prospective clients would cry while Jack beavered around the office with dust-pan and brush sweeping any concerns they may have had frantically under the carpet regarding all culpability of his extra-curricular monthly stipend... and they should remain assured at all times... as they dug deep and fished for their cheque books, and simply look upon it as kneading dough, which eerily enough was exactly the thick wedge of buttered granary that Jack had every intention of carving.

     Were there ever the slightest possibility that a day could be so utterly wretched, then today was that day, Jack felt a certain empathy as he merged with his surroundings... at one with nature as it were.  The rain, a timpani on the metal dustbin lids, by the side of which Beamish had taken up vigil, also taking up vigil and in search of a morsel was the stray mongrel, this was the third time now that he'd returned, the same apprehensive wag, yet still the same hopeful look of expectation in his eyes, a brief but friendly companion who paid more attention to Jack's left trouser leg than anything that could be had from nosing around the dustbins that day... some days you're the dog, scowled Beamish as he shook his trouser leg... and some days the lamppost, Jack's foot swung out playfully, keeping his new friend's incontinence at a safe distance, feigning indignance  the scruffy mongrel shook himself defiantly from nose to tail, a distinct odour of wet dog filled the air as an abundance of spent rainwater flew in all directions.   Pricking one ear he looked accusingly at Jack before turning and snuffled off, his nose resolutely to the pavement and diligently, picking out the few diluted scents still remaining, the poor little stalwart renewed its search for scraps, or making his way perhaps to some dry seclusion known only to itself.
  
     Two hours later and... SPLOSH, a puddle poured itself through the front door of the nearest Public House... SPLOSH, the puddle squelched over to the payphone... SPLOSH, then, fumbling for small change dialled and pressed button 'A'..., then button 'B'... then started all over again amid a flurry of precipitation... SPLASH.  The puddle floundered to the bar and ordered itself a drink, then ebbed back to the payphone again... the local taxi company doggedly refused to answer... finally, wallowing over to the window the puddle drifted up against a warm radiator amidst a cloud of humidity and came to rest... flotsam, cast upon the shore of contentment, the puddle sighed contentedly... the Landlady watched this anomaly... suspiciously.

     The puddle's finely tuned perception soon got to grips with the unhurried banter and muffled gossip drifting along the bar, having little else to loose, other than what could still be wrung from his clothing... Beamish, working on the principle that a little eavesdropping was his stock-in-trade engaged instinct into overdrive and casually rippled in their general direction...  They were clearly regulars by the way one of them belched in a well rehearsed, taken-a-back sort of way as Jack took stock of the situation and was now at some pains to ingratiate himself into their exclusive midst and attempt several friendly, yet relevant questions pertinent to his enquiries... all of which were skillfully deflected with more than friendly, yet totally irrelevant answers pertinent to theirs'... and would Jack care for a game of dominoes', they enquired... if so, would he be good enough to pay the refundable deposit, as by common consent it just so happened to be his turn...  Jack graciously declined this generous offer, as the obliging Landlady, just as graciously, cancelled the one shilling returnable deposit from the cash register, such was the flow of light conversation that evening... they didn't call him Lucky Jack for nothing... discouraged, Beamish turned back to the bar and reached for his glass... to which one of his recent companions, and yet again just as graciously, had taken the trouble to drink for him... the Landlady gave Jack a knowing look, Beamish returned the heartfelt sentiment and ordered one more pint.

     From the licenced premises opposite, a myriad of jostling customers plied through the door, business was picking up... the sudden influx of punters rapidly persuaded Beamish to retire from the bar and find a vacant table.  Sitting, he removed several discarded crisp packets from the centre of the table only to discover a freshly vacated ashtray below... by sleight of hand Jack's Ronson appeared... as he lit the cigarette the fragile smoke curled blue as it rose... influenced by subtle caprice, it joined others and formed a horizontal curtain dividing the room, a delicate, undulating layer held between two conflicting forces.

     The possibility of a free drink soon attracted the attention of a local bar fly, who, hovering in the near vicinity promptly landed in Jack's beer, Beamish declined this generous offer as being far too nutritious and with the corner of yesterdays beer mat, flipped the offending organism from the top of his glass, carefully inspecting his drink for debris as he did so.

     A sudden draught and clip of stiletto heels as the side door opened caused Beamish to turn as a double shadow slipped discreetly into the friendly Snug... a little adulterous intimacy on an otherwise cheerless evening.  The faceless man, concealed beneath a fedora and the upturned collar of his overcoat, the surreptitious lady friend, decked out in damp cony, cheap perfume and a surfeit of bling proclaimed a not too infrequent assignation, he'd seen it all before... the over attentive manner and the band of white, Sun-starved skin recently hidden behind a now absent wedding token, ordinarily it was the sort of assignment Jack didn't much care for... the discreet tail, the candid snapshot through half drawn curtains... and the all too familiar steak tartare... for the all too familiar black eye.

     To the untrained eye, the prospect of Jack's long anticipated supper was rapidly dwindling, when it suddenly focused with renewed vigour upon the contents of a pickled egg jar he'd observed earlier that evening, lurking on the back counter, his enthusiasm swiftly diminished however as the belching customer procured the final two specimens from the jar and proceeded to demolish them.  Who, Jack reflected, after being stood out in the rain all day, had egg all over his face now... and who, he reflected deeper, still had an empty stomach.  Disillusioned, Jack tipped back his glass and considered a further sortie with the taxicab company.

     "FIVE-BOB"!!! Jack screamed... you could have shredded the air with a cheese grater... hurtling into the kerb like a fairground attraction came flying past the chequered flag at a record breaking 99 in Jack's top 100 most not wanted list of things to do that day... and that the cabby should think himself fortunate they weren't both stretched flat on a marble slab, "exploding tyres" Jack spluttered, dribbling down his chin, were enough to give anyone a coronary... further broadsides of neurotic ambiance filled the cab as the driver, miffed at the prospect of missing snooker night out with the lads, considered charging extra for the additional space Jack's profanity was taking...

     And what part of 'Drive-Carefully', fumed Beamish, did the cabby simply not understand, that pavements were there to be bypassed, 'Nay Circumvented', preferably on the left... and not veered into, wildly on the front axle... an eerie premonition of 'jemais-vu' perched and ready to strike like a disembodied Jiminy Cricket on Jack's left shoulder, looking to stick its own two-penny worth in at the 'Standing-Room-Only' arrangements in the overcrowded cab... and at what further point, Jack shrieked, eyes leaping from his head as he lurched forward, shaking his fist through the sliding glass partition, had the cabbie failed to grasp the importance of the word 'Steering-Wheel...' someone wanted horse whipping, and as far as Beamish was concerned the sole contender was the cab driver...

     In having a somewhat sedate and unruffled disposition it had fallen to Beamish... as befalls all great leaders in times of adversity, to single handedly take the bull by the horns, so to speak and at great personal cost, alert the unwary passing motorist...  Waving his arms about like a man possessed whilst performing acrobatic evolutions in the centre of the road as the cabby changed the wheel came whizzing around the corner at a back breaking 98 on Jack's ever growing list... and why, Jack puzzled, why had they all lowered their side windows and gestured back at him in semaphore..?  Rallying to its aid, Jack's head and shoulders now joined his shaking fist through the sliding glass partition and into the cabby's face, "Who" Beamish screeched with renewed vigour ,"Who Was The Man", Jack wanted to know... *"a

Ah, Yorkshire, thou art purer than Coventry;
and thy promises whiter; than my fluid poetry.
Thou art braver, prudent, and all the way more intelligent;
thy lands are mightier; and perhaps in every possible way-more imminent.
Thou art sincere-and so more delicate than wine, and thoughtful;
Thou adored my words, and made everything else healing, and more beautiful.

In my heart but there might have been no Yorkshire at all-
had I attended not one Coventry last fall.
I witnessed not-at t'at time, all t'is rude twilight-and toughness and madness;
and every chapped breath it had in its roughness, and hilarious-though indeed fake, felicity.
No soul has even bits of a heart, here, to forgive others' soreness,
No being wants to share; no human lives in joy, nor simplicity.
No delight indeed; as I stream my way through every roads;
Everyone is either busy with their selfishness or their coats.
No living is cared for; for humans are phantoms at night and on morns;
Vulnerability is mocked, and demised and often slyly torn.
Ah! Coventry is but a sphere of hell!
For even hell is still lighter when has it not hellfire;
As well cities are, when there is no scoundrel nor liar;
But Coventry is not at all tender;
Its wicked gasp is alive, and never to heartily surrender.
It falls for glory; it bows to such fears for pleasure;
And wanes by the light of whose death; the end of whose allure.
But thou art true-thou art as shy as every flash of virtue;
Thou art indeed-everything t'at is solemnly agreeable and brand new.
Ah, and just now-I had dreams of a fine image of thee;
Smiling within thy fullest verdure, bushes, and lavish undergrowth.
And thy summer is but vivid and friendlier;
Healing every sore heart, and turning 'em all, merrier.
Thou adored the nouns and verbs I wrote,
and admired such simple notions I quoted;
Thou shine upon me-asthe light that shall makest me grow
and the promising dim, faraway region, that lets me glow.
O, Yorkshire, this is still but too early in the transparent evening;
But I am deeply endorsed yet, by t'is poetry writing-
And with thy soul that remains but too witty,
Tearing me away, but with loveliness-
from my cautious present engagement,
Thy charms might be just too hard to bear,
for thy tongue is too sweet;
and thy veracity too chaotic, ye' imminent.
In thee shall I find peace-of that I am convinced,
Peace whose soul is calm, neat and on all occasions, careful-
Unlike t'is bustle which is at times perpetual, and sorrowful;
Unlike t'is very city of Coventry,
Which is damp with exultant bareness, and haziness,
In many ways exalted, but indeed too proud;
And its tongue which is blurred with sin and poison-
Its all-too-loud excitement makes everything but faint,
And at times sends my heart to exile, sends my heart to pain,
In every possible way too unlike thee,
With an imagery, and coaxing voices so sweet
Thou shall leave all my poems bright and freshly lit,
Even though I am still here, even though we are still yet-to meet.

Coventry is too proud and vibrant-yes, too vibrant,
Amidst its own foolishness, which sadly made itself formerly too elegant.
Too elegant to me-in various shapes, and keenly cloaked in unseen deceit,
But only by some beings, whom I was to meet, and my breath to greet.
And as I wake up to an early morning hour,
the plain summer strangely makes me thirst for honest water.
And should I love still-one intelligence t'at is so bitterly repugnant?
I shall certainly not; I shall turn to thee, Yorkshire, who is truer ye' far above, tolerant.
Ah, Yorkshire, but honesty is something Coventry promises not;
for its soul has been maliciously beheaded, and twitched,
It has been paled, corrupted, and despaired-
by its own claws, derived from the jaws of those evil souls
Veiled by their even still inhuman, disguises,
And shall still be wicked, otherwise.
In t'is sea of hate, and these waves of despondency,
I shall think of thee with tantalising depth and scrutiny,
Though thou art still imprisoned in my soul,
Thou who hath flattered and accepted me as a whole.
But Coventry is-still, accidental with some of its bindings,
For mortal as thou art, itself, and is unable to escape its fate,
Still I canst think only of the beauty of thy linings,
And upon thy lands shall I venture to fill my plate.
Ah, Yorkshire, remember that virtue is in thy hand,
but neither is vice-thy dormant enemy, is in its therein,
Virtue who is vile to all of t'is world's inconsolable men,
like in Coventry, as deemed it is, unreasonable and ungenerous, within.
Virtue which is tragically abandoned, in its pursuit of honour;
virtue which was rich, but flattened, and dismayed and disfigured
within the course of one unsupervised hour.
Ah, York, Yorkshire, when shall I ever taste the grandeur
And the very superiority of thy dignity?
For in yon picture, thou art still but a comely neighbour,
Which endorses and attests to my mute, yet unaffected-virginity.

Ah, but Coventry shall despise thee, and with its stubbornness
and overwhelming pride, shall jostle and taunt thee;
Shall defect and isolate thee-when I am but by thy side,
But God be with me still, and blind shall not, my virtuous sight.
Detesting and confronting thee for the remainders of years-as 'tis to be,
Which for thee lie ahead; as how hath it deluded me-just now!
I, who, disconcertingly, placed my heart within its sacred vow,
hath been robbed of my satisfactions, and utmost fortune,
All were perused in centuries and gone in one moon.
Ah, Yorkshire, shall I continue my poetry here-but call out endlessly to thee?
And shall I abandon this tiny caprice of mine-which is a fine, tiny desire of glory
And let myself on the loose, and for evermore be in search
of thee, whom I shall've lost-under the very indulgence of their mirth?
O, I think not!
For I shall mount my poetry-and achieve my silent dreams,
I shall take him with me, if allowed am I-to conquer him,
And make him and thee mine, just like I hath made my poetry,
And be thy light; and thy spiritual and endless reciprocal adoration
All day and night, at the end of our quest for destiny
Wherein I shall dwell, and thrive as my intellect be granted-its long-lost coronation.
O, Yorkshire, for within thy hands now I shall lie my faith-
and trudge along thy forking paths, unto the light of my fate.

Ah, Yorkshire, I am infatuated with these paintings-
these very paintings of thy lush green lands,
And of myself wandering and skulking idly about thy moors;
With my best frock, and his fingers, the one I love, entwined in my hand
As lights procured and on our storming out of yonder wooden doors.
I am shining like a bee is-upon the sweet finding of its honey;
but in whose tale 'tis like thee-to sweet and unpardonable to me.
Be with me, Yorkshire, and be with me forever, only,
As I leave behind this faint malice and commence my journey;
I shall be with thee, and my poems shall be free,
And t'is bitterness of winds shall be no more tormenting me,
Furthermore-be them what they desire to be;
But let me write; and play my song as beautifully as yon naive bee.

Ah, Yorkshire, and wait, wait again for me;
But before let me sink again into a deep sleep,
and tease thee again in my dreams;
Read me once more-the very passages of thy indolent poetry,
Take me out of my stiffness; swing me out of abhorrent Coventry.
Coventry shall be envious, and waiting forever for thy demise;
but honesty is honesty-and one that has no lies,
for thy virtue is clear as thy Western gem,
which is to God, shall always be virtue, all the same.

Why would it be bad
To have cake and also eat it?
Why is that a metaphor of greed?
What else should I do with cake?
It could be a piece of art
Something beautiful to behold
But it’s purpose is to be eaten
It’s cake

Yes, I would like my cake
And to eat it as well
I want to enjoy
The things I enjoy
Not simply to hold them in my hands
Stare at them upon a platter
Wonder what they taste like
I want to eat the cake
It was made for someone to eat
Why not me?

Too much cake
Will make me fat
The sugar and flour
Conspire together to build a gut
It is not healthy to eat cake daily
I cannot keep cake in the house
The temptation is too great
But everything in moderation
A piece of cake here and there
To be had and to be eaten
Is a nice treat

The daily grind of salads and chicken
Nuts and fish
Avocado and eggs and water
Will keep me healthy
Grounded
So when I feel like cake
I can have it

Order cake for dessert
Or to celebrate a birthday
An accomplishment
Or anniversary
No one bats an eye
But order cake for breakfast?
Might just incite a riot

There is a time and place for cake
Society has deemed it so
We are not the rulers of our own lives
(Though we could be)
Instead our culture dictates
The rules of life
Steak for breakfast or for dinner
But not lunch
Bread goes with every meal
Eggs and bacon are for the morning
But at night is a nice treat - on occasion
Beer after five
But it’s five o’clock somewhere

And somewhere
Someone is ready for dessert
So **** it
Let’s eat this cake
That I have procured
You and me, together
Let’s have our cake
And eat it too

what's the biggest difference
between 20th century's
french and german
existentialism,
    and the 21st century's
primarily, anglo-sphere,
realisation of an existential
   "crisis"...
           anti-jew meme...
         the globalist octopus...
imagine...
     some people have
recovered from an existential
crisis, having established
vast constructs of thought
way back in the 20th century,
namely
the french, and the germans..
but...
my oh my oh my my...
the anglo-sphere of linguistics
has only, "just now"
awoken to this...
   quiet a predicament,
wouldn't you say?
                         fertile ground...
oh sure, there was existential
angst in the anglo-
sphere among irish
pillars...
                beckett, joyce...
but concrete architectures
of thought, regarding existentialism,
seem to be absent...
  so... counter-argument:
so how come i can
freely buy a copy of some
german philosopher,
a french novelist turned
philosopher...
           but...
  i'm skint... when it comes
to english thinkers more
or less associated with
my status, rather than stance,
on contemporary "translation"?
   elitism...
no... it's not that...
      i could have just well
have procured
a life helping out my father
in industrial roofing...
             i didn't mind roofing...
it's not an exactly pristine
labour of love sort
of environment...
the scottish widows' h.q.
roof near st. paul's?
        me.
   i was part of that
monstrosity...
       but... come again?
but there are some many attachment
cursors when it comes
to an anglican take
on "revising" continental
existentialism...
        whatever crisis
the continental people
felt, and consolidated
the 20th century people...
is only just starting to bud
in the anglo-phonic world...
start-up, island,
end result,
    h'america and australia...
there was never a question
as to why, or if,
the english-speaking
people would ever entertain
existentialism,
but, suddenly they are,
at least starting to look
into the pit,
from their ivory towers...
immediate escape
impetus?
      reach for the fictive
narrative,
                disavow journalism...
make journalism bedfellows
with political rhetoric...
there's no debate...
circus, however you look
at it...
             you can't fathom
an abstract variant
of the german or the french
mind, gripped by
an existential critique,
a piquancy,
    a pedantry...
in the english speaking world...
there are,
just simply...
   too many attachments
to deal with...
       - growing a beard:
meant exactly that -
eat ****.    
         i don't see where
there a "me" to be found
in a (0, 0) starting space,
of net-worth-"work"...
     coumpters-freeze
network...
for a language...
that ridiculed,
or became succinct
in succumbing
to its anglo-preferences
of objectifying counter-standards
for its own...
shortcomings...

  what has 20th century
existential philosophy have
to do with "anything",
esp. if arrived from
the either french
of german, cultures?

we have Joe Slave over 'ere...
oh right... sorry...
paweł nowak....
just took joe stephen slave's
role was
the person, the hands,
in a recycling factory...
do you mind?
  rather:
do you mind...
teaching your natives...
   to...
   and you know how that
cindarella story ends...

introducing existentialism
to the brits and,
generally,
  the anglican variety of
the tongue, being
used...
   will end up as, failure...
the 20th century
taught me this,
the irish failed,
the french
and the germans...
basically a "foreign" idea
is more than just...
******..
the people are ******,
with paradoxes
of their women...

                sure... a bit like
Iceland...
oh, ****, a bit too close
to the continent...
like madagascar
  is to africa...
and sri lanka is to india?
i'm not 'ere to care to
the idiosyncratic
concerns of island people...
contra the, "collective"...

island people will forever
remain island people,
"solipsistic", idiosyncratic,
idioms...
            i can't change that...
always prone to export...
but never to import...
    island people,
       the **** is there to say?
ever bewilder yourself
over chanel 4 news...
and how...
  john snow is slipping
into dementia?
      you listen to the cue?
no?
                  sorry... john...
dementia on the horizon...

attempting to adapt
existentialism into england
will fail,
given their moral high-ground
of the "migrant crisis"...
it's an island...
  the borders are clarifying,
distinct,
        sure, the people can be *****
when their language
is bored in being
a "lingua franca"...
         but other people have
other, in-debt defences...

western slavs?
ever hear a spaniard speak
pollack, just because
he hiked with a polish girl?
yeah... mahler...
                       violins and ****...
you only listen:
                  for an idea...
it comes, it comes,
it doesn't come...
well... you move onto
some khachaturian...
        so,                 no biggie...

you can't import continetal
thinking to an island people,
they have no concept
of borders...
their naive presupposing
barrier, centered-ground is
unshakeable...

   existential philosophy
"meme" rate of survival is... ?
0.1,
binary, negation, an affirmative
statement,
and then the fiasco...

       it doesn't help
that there's an alternative
outlet via h'america or australia...
i'm not looking
at the "bigger picture",
when there isn't one...

     20th century existentialism
will not work in 21st century england,
or any english-speaking world
to begin with...
there are just, too many,
attachment points,
         as many nurtured
nostalgia avenues
as there are amnesia riddled
currencies of attention
exhaustion...
        it's just a pristine model
to revive the serf...

there's no point reading existentialism
to a people,
so far lodged in their
isolationism that they
can claim, both an island-stature...
and two continents,
by extension
       of stating: "being aware"...      

i guess you have to be born
on the continent
to read anything by 20th century
writers,
but... trying to implement
the word...
into the idiosyncrasy
of island-dwelling people,
akin to the English?

                    i'm not even going
to bother trying...
they're island-folk...
   they "think" of borders akin
to coastlines...
and not migration
fake bordering of a contradiction
of peoples occupying
a quicksand pit
of looking at a geography map...
island-folk...
  they know border...
because they know... island...

you can't translate
something that's already
paradoxical to them
  (hypocritical, is not a milder
term of usage for the desired
execution)...
     no...
                not going to happen...
two islands,
some set of continental enclaves...
culture...
whatever you want...

             i've lived with them,
even though i've lived pretty much
among either the irish migrants,
or the scots...
    you're not going to translate
an island, into a continent's
auxiliary...
  right now...
you'd think that
   Estonia would become
characteristic of an island-people
auxiliary mentality...

       i can't blame these people
though...
   an island environment
provides an island people
mentality...
    if you have never been
part of a congregation,
geographically...
   yes...
      but they're borrowing
continental idiosyncracy...
****** *****...

   Iceland?
            yeah... oh yeah...
they're hot on the topic of what
island life is like...
being so...
   conservative that they even
have developed apps
for people to check their
genetic proximity
and any immediacy to live,
+ baggage...

      the Brits were always 'ere...
the Icelandisch?
were always there...
          and...
  sorry... for the already given
postcard: wish you were
here analogy of...
            curiosity killed
the cat...

           but island dwelling people
will always be,
an island dwelling people...
right now,
you do what i do...
you play chamaleon...
  "sociopath"...
                you...
begin with: a-pathy...
          without pathology
looking for... what requires
you to mingle with the most
pathological examples of
a hushed sanity of society...

          and...
          your luck, as well as mine...
nothing really happens...
like butter smeared
over a gently toasted
piece of toast.

hello tomorrow.

And indeedst, thou mourneth once more
When th' lover who is to thine become
Returneth not, in thy own brevities-of love and hate,
As t'is chiding ruthlessness might not be
thy just fate.

Cleopatra, Cleopatra
Shalt thy soul ever weepest for me?
Weep for t'ese chains of guilt and yet, adorable clarity
T'at within my heart are obstreperously burning
I thy secret lover; shrieks railing at my heart
Whenever thou lurchest forwards
and tearest t'is strumming passion apart.

And t'ere is one single convenience not
As I shalt sit more by northern winds; and whose gales
upon a pale, moonlit shore.
Cleopatra, play me a song at t'at hour
Before bedtime with thy violin once more
And let us look through th' vacant glasses;
at clouds t'at swirl and swear in dark blue masses.

Ah, my queen, t'ese lips are softly creaking
and swearing silently; emitting words
of which I presume thou wouldst not hear.
On my lonely days I sat dreamily
upon t'at hard-hearted wooden bench,
and wrote poems of thee
behind th' greedy palm trees;
They mocked me and swore
t'at my love for thee was a tragedy;
and my poem a menial elegy
For a soldier I was, whom thy wealth
and kingdom foundeth precisely intolerable.
How I hate-t'ose sickly words of 'em!
Ah, t'ose unknowing, cynical creatures!
I, who fell in love with thee
Amongst th' giggling bushes,
stomping merrily amongst each other
and shoving their heads prettily on my shoulder
As I walked pass 'em;
I strapped their doom to death,
and cursed their piously insatiable wrath
Until no more grief was left attached
To th' parable summer air; and rendered thou as plainly
as thou had been,
but bleak not; and ceremoniously unheeded
Only by thy most picturesque features, and breaths.
Thou who loved to wander behind th' red-coated shed,
and beautiful green pastures ahead
With tulips and white roses on thy hand,
And with floods of laughter thou wouldst dart ahead
like a summer nightingale;
'fore stretching thy body effortlessly
amongst th' chirping grass
Ah, Cleopatra, thou looketh but so lovely-
oh, indeedst thou did; but too lovely-too lovely to me!
A figure of a princess so comely,
thou wouldst but be th' one
who bringst th' light,
and fool all t'ose evils, and morbid abysses;
Thou shalt fill our future days with hopes,
and colourful promises.

And slithered I, like a naive snake
Throughout th' bushes; to swing myself into thee
Even only through thy shadow,
I didst, I didst-my love, procured my satisfaction
By seeing thee breathe, and thrive, and bloom.
I loveth her not, t'is village's outrageous,
but sweet-spirited maiden;
a dutiful soldier as I am,
my love for thee is still bountiful,
ah, even more plentiful t'an t'is cordial one
I may hath for my poor lover. Not t'at I despise
her poorness, but in my mind, thou art forever my baroness;
Thou art th' purest queen, amongst all th' virgins
Ah, Cleopatra!
To me, if rejection is indeedst misery,
thine is but a glorious mystery;
for whose preciousness, which is now vague,
by thy hand might come clear,
for within my sight of thee
All t'ese objections are still ingenious,
within thy perilous smile,
t'at oftentimes caresses me
With relief, whenst I am mad,
and corrupts my conscience-
whenst I am sad;
Even only for a second; and even only
for a while.
But if thy smile were all it seemeth,
and thy perfection all t'at I dreameth,
Then a nightmare could be mirth,
and a bitter smile could be so sweet.
Just like everything my eyes hath seen;
if thy innocence was what I needest,
and thy gentleness th' one I seekest,
then I'd needst just and ought, worry not;
for all thy lips couldst be so meek
and thy glistening cheeks
wouldst be so sleek.

Oh, sweet, sweet-like thee, Cleopatra!
Sweet mournful songs are trampling along my ears,
but again, t'ey project me into no harmony-
I curse t'em and corrupt t'em,
I gnaw at t'em and elbow t'em-
I stomp on t'em and jostle t'em-
th' one sung by my insidious lover,
I feel like a ghost as I perch myself beside her.
Whilst thou-thou art away from me!
Thou, thou for whom my breath shalt choke
with insanity,
thou who wert there and merrily laughed with me-
just like last Monday,
By yon purple prairie and amber oak trees
By my newest words and dearly loving poetry.
Oh, my poetry-t'at I hath always crafted so willingly,
o, so willingly, for thee!
For thee, for thee only, my love!
Ah, Cleopatra, as we rolled down th' hoarse alley t'at day,
and th' silky banks by rueful warm water-
I hoped t'at thou wouldst forever stay with me,
like th' green bushes and t'eir immortal thorns,
Thou wouldst lull me to sleep at nights,
and kiss me firmly every dewy morn.

Cleopatra, Cleopatra
Ah, and with thy cherry-like lips
Thou shalt again invite me into thy living gardens,
With thy childish jokes and ramblings and adventures
To th' dying sunflowers, thou wert a cure;
and thy crown is even brighter t'an their foliage,
For it is a resemblance of thy heart, but
thy vanity not;
Thou art th' song t'at t'ey shalt sing,
thou art th' joy t'at no other greatness canst bring.

Ah, Cleopatra, look-and t'is sun is shining on thee,
but not my bride;
My bride who is so impatiently to withdraw
her rights; her fatal rights-o, I insist!
And so t'is time I shall but despise her
for her gluttony and rebellious viciousness.
T'at savage, unholy greed of hers!
How unadmirable-and blind I was,
for I deemed all t'ose indecipherable!
How I shalt forever deprecate myself,
for which!
Ah, but whenst I see thee!
As how I shall twist my finger into hers,
(Oh! T'is precocious little harlot!)
Thou art th' one who is, in my mind, to become my lover,
and amongst tonight's all prudence and marriage mercy
I shall dreameth not of my wife but thee;
Whilst my wife is like a cloaked rain doll beneath,
and her ******* shall be rigid and awkward to me-
unlike thee, so indolent but warm and generous
with unhesitant integrity;
Ah, I wish she could die, die, and be dead-by my hands,
But no anger and fury could I wreak,
for she hath been, for all t'ese years,
my single best friend.
Or she was, at least.
Oh Cleopatra, thou art my girl;
please dance, dance again-dance for me in thy best pink frock,
and wear thy most desirous, fastidious perfume;
I shall turn thee once more, into a delicious nymphet,
and I standing on a rock, a writer-soldier husband to thee-
Loving thee from afar, but a nearest heart,
my soul shalt become tender; but passionately aggravated
With such blows of poetic genuinity in my hands-
by t'ese of thee-so powerful, and intuitive sonnets.

Oh, my dear! T'is is a ruin, ruin, and but a ruin to me-
A castle of utmost devastation and damage and fear,
for as I looketh into her eyes behindeth me,
and thine upon thy throne-
so elegant and fuller of joy and permanent delight
Than hers t'at are fraught with pernicious questions,
and flocks of virginal fright,
I am afraid, once more-t'at I am torn,
before thy eyes t'at pierce and stun me like a stone,
an unknown stone, made of graveyard gems, and gold
Thou smell like death, just as dead as I am
On my loveless marriage day
And as I gaze into th' dubious priest
And thee beside him, my master-o, but my dream woman!
Oh, sadly my only dream woman!
Th' stars of love are once more
encompassing thine eyes,
and with wonder-oh Cleopatra, thou art seemingly tainted
with sacrifice, but delightfully, lies-
As I stareth at thee once more,
I knoweth t'at I loveth thee even more
just like how thou hath loved me since ever before
And thy passion and lust rooted in mine
Strangling me like selfish stars;
and th' moon and saturated rainbows
hanging up t'ere in troubled, ye' peaceful skies, tonight.

I want her not, as thou hath always fiercely,
and truthfully known,
so t'at I wriggle free,
ignoring my bride's wise screams
and cries and sobs uttered heartbreakingly-
onto th' gravel-and gravely chiseled pavement outside,
'fore eventually I slippeth myself out of my brownish
soldier's uniforms.
Thou standeth in surprise, I taketh, as I riseth
from my seat-my fictitious seat, in my mind,
for all t'is, pertaining to my unreal love for her,
shalt never be, in any way, real-
All are but th' phantom and ghost
of my own stories; trivial stories
Skulking about me with unpardonable sorries
Which I hate, I hate out of my life, most!
As to anyone else aside from thee
I should and shalt not ever be-married,
and as I set my doleful eyes on thee once more,
curtained by sorrow and unanswered longings,
but sincere feelings-I canst, for th' first time,
admire thy silent, lipped confession
Which is so remarkably
painted and inked throughout
thy lavish; ye' decently translucent face;
t'at thou needst me and wouldst stick by me
in soul, though not in flesh;
but in heaven, in our dear heaven,
whenst I and thou art free,
from all t'ese ungodly barriers and misery,
to welcome th' fierceness of our fate,
and taste th' merriment of our delayed date.
Oh, my love!
My Cleopatra! My very own, my own,
and mine only-Cleopatra!
My dear secret lover, and wife; for whom
my crying soul was gently born, and cherished,
and nurtured; for whose grief my heart shall be ripped,
and only for whose pride-for whose pride only,
I shall allow mine to be disgraced.
Cleopatra! But in death we shall be reunited,
amongst th' birds t'at flow above and under,
To th' sparkling heavens we shall be invited,
above th' vividly sweet rainbows; about th' precious
rainy thunder.

Even if I loved thee a thousand times, still thou'd never be real.
But still, in t'ese dark miseries and dreams of th' night-
ah, just like t'is silent night of ours
And t'ose fierce fairy tales of young hours
Thou'd still be shaken off my realms
As soon as morn comes-and unveils anew, my charms.
O, death, how lush and inviting thou art,
even though at t'is early age thou might
still be asleep and thus soundeth really far.
Thou art but as naughty as t'ose abundant peeping stars,
brimming with locks of divine warmth and wealth
T'ey shalt again, tease up my mind
Whilst capture my rude, hating heart;
and once more shall t'is gruesome life turn into a solitude
Beside promises t'at canst harm souls' benign attitude.
But as soon as thou art gone; thou might just be no longer safe
And to my conscience thy threat is no more than a slave
Thy delicacy is but servile and uninviting
In t'ose choruses of blood and suffering
For which our senses should nay be proud;
but only of our genuine voices and gravity
T'at though sometimes seem virtual,
but still, are crafted within reality.

And yes, my painting, behind thy soul was ever born thy art,
Locked safely within thy summer foliage and forests
But shall I, for your goodwill ever be sketched?
Ah, one swiftly done, and miraculously correct-
yes, one only, my love, for th' very sake of single jests!
For in thy eyes hovers my triumph,
and in t'ose bogs beneath-
yes, th' ones idling about thy feet,
are cuddled-just here like my little heart, my love.
A sacred love t'at is thrown about
But to which my thirst canst never shout.
Ah, as if my voice is hoarse, and not loud-
and soon I step into whose soils, shall be sanely caught.
Caught and swung around thy idyll-though against my will;
amongst heaven's sandy shoals, and t'eir creepy windowsill.
Oh, and be defected with t'ose blades of thy swords, how evil!
Bereft of my sanity, prudence and sometimes too-bitter delicacy
As I dance around to those lands of hurtful mockery.
Be my soul's delighted worry, and mouth-oh, but mouth of blasphemy!
Ah, how of which I'm now devilishly tired!
Though you might be my eternal sire,
and beside whom my virginal soul shall forever feel so sure
As if my pride shall never ever retire,
everything shall altogether be wounded and obscure
But comely and true, just like t'at shimmering white-lipped dew
With breaths so smooth, like one from my feelings for you.

Ah, my prince! T'is craze for thee is an arrogant little devil;
and its longing for thee which gradually eats away my soul
and at times ****** and tells me harshly what to feel.
Just like t'ose ill-hearted fruits of people's minds
For which t'eir villains wouldst even in death bleakly whine
I am but forever bound to thee;
just like thou art already inside of me;
For in majestic times of our days
Thou shall hungrily partake
my fruity; but eager soul, soul away
and marvel about th' visages of my purity
I shall always but love thee once more;
no matter how boastful thou art,
and detestable virginal pain might be!
For thou art always to me as pure,
though unconvincingly art forever in vain-
For t'ose loveless satisfactions thou hath procured-
and premature pain thou hath delightfully endured.
But healthily t'ese senses shall always love thee
And with such tragedies and tears
canst t'ey but forgive thee only
Because, regardless of how untrue thou art;
You lifted my soul when I was down
And cheered me up 'twixt yon last wound
Dark was th' night t'at day, ye' tender was the moon
As both would pass and dusk would fade away soon
And into my blood thou injected th' real meaning of virtue
Whenst I was all wasted and coldly blue
Whilst my thoughts had not even a clue.

Ah, painting, but still, our love is incorrect as a tragedy-
for t'is world is too exhaustive and greedy
And at times elusive whenst but not necessary-
to grant our love th' chance we needst best!
Oh, but hark; hark once more, my love!
Over t'ere are bursts and chants of a heartbroken violin,
Though spurned by heretic hanging clouds,
slandered by boastful chirping winds.
But, no matter; no matter how hard it might seem
Thou art still to me an indescribable story;
and in thy red cheeks lies my stranded vitality
Signs of virtuous tenderness and curtained loyalty
As though thou art but still with no sin;
No sin; and ah! No stain, no stain at all-of
neither viable crossness nor madness
Though thy cleverness is at times no more to be seen
As once thou said, t'at for thee t'ere might just be
no any further happiness.

Ah! And trapped shall I be, within poisonous vileness
Should I not be granted thee
For thou art th' only soul I love, and idolise
Through whom my life was once formed, and characterised.
For love, to me is like a whole pattern;
and thus needst to be complete;
Thereby in t'is sense-loving him is but like denying
my own merit-merit t'at I am part of, and sure of-
for it is not love, though he might; as fate might say;
just as reliable and handsome and sweet.
But still, he is not thee!
And by no chance, is being not thee is but the same,
as being thee!
How fraudulent, and gross-t'is comparison all be!
Ah! And so thou knoweth, t'at he is, too me-
more even not than a stunning evening doll
Like those ones I hath seen so often
strutting about posh malls
Whilst with heartlessness welcoming
and sneering at innocent cold falls
With faces too stern, yellow, and sometimes bold;
Too bold to be true, much less sincere
And wholly unlike thine-amongst those sins;
t'at for thou honestly admit; look still sparkling and keen;
thus so astoundingly charming my veins and curdling my blood
Until thy unread shadows but reach my heart;
With such braveness and th' frankness of a gentleman
Like at that moment-whenst we told each other's life stories, back then.

Ah, and lure, lure my heart, my love!
And play with it soon as we sit 'mongst th' groves;
I would like to lay again about thy breast,
as I whisper once more to thy chest;
t'at it is truly thee that my soul loves;
and invites to love from t'is moment to end.
Ah, but t'is love started I knew not when,
though never have I thought thou art just my friend.
And lie, just lie to me no more,
t'at thou, just like me-but needst me to thy very core,
with a love t'at seems impatient,
but is born still, from pure virtue and resilience.
Oh! How valuable thou art to me, darling!
Thou who art to me such a mindful; soulful treasure,
and betwixt thy impurity thou remaineth but pure;
Thou are a smiling cloud to my blinding sun;
but sunlight to my rain as soon as it is done.

And thick and tough just as yon bough may seem,
thou shall forever be to me more t'an him!
I shall do and always want thee,
it is thy picture t'at I keepest within and about me.
Ah! And to t'is world, I promise, I shall not bluntly surrender
as how my wailing heart it shall never disrupt!
For thee I shall swear with a thousand loves greater,
t'at from actualising thee, I shall never be stopped!

Then please, please me, o my love-once more,
and talk to me and look at me sweetly as just never before.
For I love thee brightly and gently, as how air loves breath;
and so shall I love thee purely and greatly, as how life loves death.

I was restless this evening past,
tossed and turned until shadows cast,

disheveled hair, and eyes mad,
I procured a parchment and quill to acquit my mental fast

.

I was restless this evening past,
tossed and turned until shadows cast,

disheveled hair, and eyes mad,
I procured a parchment and quill to acquit my mental fast

.

I was restless this evening past,
tossed and turned until shadows cast,

disheveled hair, and eyes mad,
I procured a parchment and quill to acquit my mental fast

Mom should’ve been here by now. I sat on my frilly blue and purple polka-dotted bed waiting for the knock on the door telling me mom found my dress. Finally, it raps on my door. “Mom! Did you find it?” My eyes widen as the silky blue sways in her arms, it’s beauty sings as a caged bird let free. I gasp in admiration. “I-It’s wonderful!” I pick it up and it glides down into a perfect fit.  “I’m glad you love it. Come down after you finish getting ready.” The door thuds after her. Looking across the room I note my honey brown hair that curls into pigtails. Restraining the squeal that is caught in my throat, I travel the length of my room to the mirror.

     The mirror sits on an antique dresser that my mom found at a garage sale. At first I didn’t care much for the ancient wooden junk that is at least half a century old. Now the gold-tinted metal gleams with pride once again. Rusty gems were in carved into an arc surrounding the mystic glass. “Lydia! Can you go upstairs and get that box down for me?” Mom’s request interfered with my thoughts. … Go in that dusty attic? “Sure mom!”

       Out the door and into the hallway stood a door like any other in our house. It squeaked open as eerily as what you’d expect in a haunted house. ‘A box, a box’ than out of the side of my vision I thought I saw motion. I shook it off as just being a spider or mouse. Soon my footsteps lead me to come across a dresser and mirror identical to the one in my room. It was cluttered with cobwebs and spiders. “Not very well taken care of, are you?” I muttered the joke. I looked into the mirror expecting to see a light blue dress covered in dust and sparkly silk material, but there was no reflection at all. I looked even closer at the mirror, before realizing, there was no mirror at all.

     I looked around until I found it behind the dresser, sitting on the ground. I touched one of the gems that surprisingly glowed despite the rust. Something shone until I was blinded. A tingle ran through the hand that brushed the mirror’s gem and flew through my arm until it encompassed me, racing into my every feeling until I couldn’t feel anything. My eyes shut and refused to open themselves.


     A gentle breeze grasped my hair, as music descended from the air. I could smell what seemed to be a banquet of some kind, mixed with perfume. Slowly my eyes lifted their veil to lock with waves pounding against a brick wall. I was looking down from a balcony into the erupting sea. The white brick-made balcony was large and lonely even with the brush of people walking by. I hid behind the rose-red curtains to look around. People danced and talked. Some ate. The music paved the trail for their feet to follow, all very gracefully. The men wore suits that tails drip to their knees. Their white shirts buried under sashes of gold, red, or blue. Sometimes holding medallions, some only dressed in ties. The woman wore Victorian dresses of every color and shade. Frilled hats with flowers were arranged on their heads.

     Wait, I’m not supposed to be here. I was in the attic, going to the café with mom. What was I doing? My head ached from the effort to recall my actions. Why can’t I remember? I stumble backward only to reach the balcony’s edge. Where is this anyway?

      I dive back into the curtain to search for my answer. The softness of the curtain was a rose pushed to my nose. I peeked through the small gap to find a page carting some clothes past my hiding spot. I sneaked next to the cart being wheeled into a doorway, planning to find a way out. I lost the page and walked around until I went through an archway door. The cool air spiraled against my silk-trapped skin. The scent of flowers bloomed around me. I found the garden labyrinth.

     Walking through the maze’s hedges I arrive at a beautiful fountain displaying crystal clear pouring waters. Everywhere I gazed, flowers embraced the greenery. My breath deprived my lungs of air as I took in the sight. It was so magnificent under the light of the full moon. A few lamps lighted a sidewalk path maneuvering along the hedges. I circled the fountain, taking in the surroundings. My silk dress was shining in the dim glow. The sceneries beauty entranced me.






     I didn’t see a shadow before me, and almost fell to the ground. In a graceful swoop an arm latched around my waist to pull me to my feet. “Be careful to look where you’re going, please my lady.” He bowed his head while his slim rimmed glasses started to fall off of his face, suddenly he looked up at me; sliding them back on with a slight wave of a finger. “That garb isn’t from around here.” He noted my sky blue dress with interest. I’m not even sure where I am. “I seem a bit lost. Will you help me?” he stares at me closer, a deeper curiosity shines in his green eyes, daintily brushed by his dark hair. “My dear, if it brings you comfort to know, we are in London at the Buckingham palace.”

      I gasped; London was so far away from New York. It’s across seas. I gulped at my next question as sweat pricked the nape of my neck, “What’s todays date?” His eyes sparkled at the question. “Why, it is June 28, of 1838. The entire castle is bustling at these very words. It’s a day to remember. Now my dear, I must take my leave and see to the ballroom. Farewell.” He bowed, than turned to leave. His slow stride seemed like a dance all on it’s own. My gaze was caught on his figure following the foot trail until he had disappeared. I sighed at my first encounter with someone in this grand place. The Buckingham Palace, in 1838. …1838!! That can’t be right, it’s 2014. Then the shock hit me as if bricks fell from the castle onto my forehead; the clothes, the language, the pages, and royalty. This couldn’t be London in present Great Britain.

    I circle the garden once more before I decide to go back inside. The young noble had realized my clothes didn’t belong here, probably anyone who sees me would recognize this too. I start off towards the footpath. The melodic rhythm still swirled in the breeze. Than for a second I thought I heard a footstep. My head twists back only to see a shadow move. The cool air now seems icy. Multiple possible things to say to the night air gallop through my mind. “ Such a lovely night,” is the one I decide on. From behind me a few feet back I imagine a sigh. No, not imagined, but actually there. It’s too real. I turn on my heels just to catch a glimpse of a black cape caught in the wind, as it’s master floats into the open. “My, It is lovely. However, I didn’t realize such a strangely dressed commoner as you could enter this palace.” His smirk shows sarcasm as easily as his eyes. “I never intended to visit a palace, even less in London.” My honest answer only has him conceal his laugh.




     “I’m sure you didn’t. Yet, your dressed for a fine occasion.” His hand reaches for mine. I pull away from the willowy figured glove. “Why not allow me this dance in the garden?” I back away, aware that his voice is too prescient and I should be careful. “Are you going to be wary of me?” his gaze turned pained, his blue eyes that were once full of playfulness now melted into hurt. I unintentionally reach out for his gloved hand. His laugh echoes past the foliage. “Such a naïve girl.” Dread decided that this nobleman should be avoided at all costs. I ran towards the palace. “And so the chase begins.” He snickers and rushes after me.


     I pass through the archways, glancing back now and again to find the caped captor flying along my tracks. If only there was some way to lose him. I ducked into the nearest doorway. At the far end of the hall I could see a door with a sign saying, “Dressing room”. I flung myself under a table and tablecloth to hide myself as my pursuer rounded the corner into the hall. I tucked my head between my knees and waited for his footsteps to fade. The warm place that held me trapped was close and too easily discoverable. I held my breath and tried to sink into the darkness. I’m not here. No one can find me.

     After enough time flew by to ensure my safety, I crawled out from under the table. The cloth draped over my head. I looked back and forth, half expecting to see a smirking smile, and haughty eyes. A girl stares down at me. She’s at least ten years old. “Shhh.” I press my finger to my lips and gently smile at her as if we’re keeping a secret between us. She giggles, copies the motion to her own mouth, than delightfully skips away. I let out a sigh and stand up. I follow the hall to the dressing room. The door creaks open and I look around once more, startled by the sudden noise.

     I sneak inside hoping find that the room is abandoned. In the darkly lit room, only my footsteps sound. As far as I can tell, no one has entered lately. I walk over to the carts of clothes and run my hand over the first one on the stack. It’s a ruby-red dress with fine material and some gems similar to those in the mirror. … The mirror. Not in my room, but the attic. My head hurts again, but I know I touched its gem before winding up here. How? I look through the dresses until I find a light blue and white one. The bowed sleeves come down to my elbow with frills encasing the bottom. The neckline forms a squared area of similar white frills. A small white sash acts as a belt that drops into the skirt of the dress. Two similar white ones come down each side. I pick up the light material and set it near my feet.
      My old silk dress easily slips overhead, making way for the new clothing. After tugging tight sleeves and bodices into place the light dress swoops over my feet. I spin through the dark room only to stop at catching someone’s eye. I immediately turn towards the frozen face. It is my own reflection in a mirror. I face myself as my sight settles on the dress I wear. My honey brown hair curled over the dress from my pigtails. My eyes sparkled it’s matching blue to the dress. In the corner of the room, next to the mirror, sat a large wooden box. I looked through it to find that it was full of jewelry and accessories. I prodded its contents until I found sky blue bows to wrap in my pigtails.

     I walked into the open hallway, now littered with people going to and fro. Anyone from passerby’s, young nobility, servants, and pages. Once the hall emptied I fled the room, hurrying through the corridors until I met with the room that created the harmonious trance. At the ends of the great ballroom sat crowds eating and laughing. Clusters of on-goers danced and chatted. In the middle of the farthest side of the room sat a throne that was embroidered with metal marks from centuries of legends. On the throne sat a woman at least eighteen of age. Her regal crown shone despite other attractions surrounding the dance room. A page strode over to her as she flourished her hand for his service. He stood and listened intently to her whispers. Finally, he stood and roared for the room’s attention. From his mouth spilled cheer and wistfulness, as he demanded the crowd’s ear. “Our young Queen Victoria’s coronation has completed. Now starts a new era! Let the celebration proceed.” The room reverberated with hope, love, and admiration for their new ruler.

     ‘Queen Victoria has been crowned’ having no clue how to find a way home, I disconsolately decide to join in the festivities. The crowd moves into a larger room. I stagger after them; the mass pushing everyone forward. We pass the kitchens. The aroma of cakes and deserts of every kind rises into the cool night air. The only smell more perceptible than delicate delights is the perfume penetrating the entire castle. We enter a by far more spacious ballroom. Empty amphitheater seats loom overhead, tied into the walls for onlookers to watch the ball unravel. Once again I glance at these to notice black material hangs over the edge. A head moves as people fill the seats. A nobleman with a black cape and familiar blue eyes takes their seat next to men and woman of high status. I walk into the mop to hide myself, while watching him. He laughs and chats with them as if he’s known them all his life.


      Unable to watch where I’m going, I trip. The harsh, solid ground hits my knee as if I’ve met a tornado. I wince at the pain as I strain myself to stand. A firm, but careful hand grabs mine. I look up into green eyes shaded by recognizable glasses. “My dear, you are very clumsy.” He smiles at me as I pat my dress back into place. “I see we’ve met again.” My response comes weakly as the sore from my knee makes me flinch. “I don’t think you’ve told me your name.” I inquire. “You have not requested my name, so I haven’t told it. However, if you do me the honor of a dance, my secret may be leaked.”  He bowed and offered me his arm, as I timidly accept it.

     A new song disrupts the last, as new pairs take the stage. He walks me onto the floor, and diligently starts to dance. I watch my feet, not wanting to mistake my pace. “Lift your chin, my dear. You don’t seem to but much of a church-bell.” I looked up at him puzzled. “Church-bell?” As he tried to conceal a grin, his glasses couldn’t suppress the laughter in his eyes. “Your rather quiet. And most likely not from around London, are you?” I looked to the ground once more. Should I tell him or not? Will it start problems, or will I be okay? “It’s fine, I shall not expect you to answer a question you wish not to.” I looked up at him, solemnly. “I promised to introduce myself, correct?” I nodded, as the music that echoed around us faded into the next song.

      His movements were so fluid; he was a wave at the end of the day, flowing into the sunset. “Miss, I am known by most as William Anderson. It’s a pleasure to meet you.” He procured my sweaty palm into his, tenderly swiping his mouth to my fingers. I let my hand be brought back into the dance as I searched for words to speak. Once the dance ended a few moments later, I curtsey and murmur, “It’s nice to meet you. I am Lydia Olsen.” At my gesture he bows, and requests once more, “Am I trustworthy enough to understand why you are in a mysterious place you don’t understand?” My answer had been decided and started to splatter from my mouth. “Y…”









     The next sound bounces along the room, it’s symphony starting. My words mix into the noise. In my vision of the seats above, snowy dots shoot arrows in my direction. Blue eyes gaze down at me, their iciness piercing me as icicles prickle my skin. I exchange a glance with William, nod and answer, “You are. I’ll explain.” My discomfort is surely recognizable. I often peek over my shoulder above as we dance. The shadow with a glare starts his voyage through the seats to reach the stairs that pillar into the wall. He descends from the tower, only adding to my panic. My hand seizes Williams, as I give him an apologetic smile. We hurry from the room, stumbling over each other’s feet. His graceful prance, now a faltering wreak.

     Once we are outside the ballroom, I turn towards him. “I trust you, so please understand, I live In the USA in 2014. Not London, not Even in the 1800’s.” His expression is masked, but I’m sure that I’ve confused him. “I went back into time, from the future.” The simple words struck a chord with him, his glasses tilted off his nose as he listens intently. “The future? How?” even I don’t know how to answer such questions. “I’m not sure. I was in the attic with a mirror, than … ****! I’m here.” Confusion once again wonders onto his face. “I went into a storage room with old things, and found a mirror, touched a gem, now I was here.”

     “I see, but why did we run away from the celebration? I was looking forward to another dance with you.” His casual smile does nothing to conceal unasked questions. I’m not sure how to answer them ei

Social Network, droll and at times informative: keeping me in tune with out of tune people. Except, this time you did something different. This time you took a life from my web of friends a trend of late: One loss to cancer, one to a fatal accident, another to pneumonia, and the rest deceased from overdoses. It’s been so many that the track marks are beginning to show across my veiny webs, long black thin trails leading to round puncture wounds where the touch of cold steel kissed your skin, stroked your hair back, and slowly laid you to bed exactly where you sat. This network doesn't show me the nights you cry curled in the corner, it doesn't reveal the moment when the ocean came crashing into the Steel Pier you are, tearing away lumps of mangled frame work from beneath, soaking brine and rattling support beams that you depend on. A smile instead manages to froth along the pages scrolled like white curled lapping shorelines pushing foam further up the sandy coast with each eroding wave.  Now I stand in the wave of your wake; among seagulls flapping their dense thoughts and cretinous like minds and memories each vouching for the validity of their affirmations about the soul whose body is now center stage like a porcelain doll on a shelf to be displayed and examined exposed to all with each and every flaw highlighted so that they can have a chance at reciting her history, origins, funny moments, and fatal mistakes. The difference here is that there is no makers mark; there is no branded tag, no little black book of logs from which we can pull and decipher or recall every waking moment of your life. The reality is that for those of us who lost touch with you all that we know now is only history or what we thought we knew. It’s such *******, I’m not a historian, I really was your friend back then, but because of that I don’t remember ****, just the frame of the picture within, the shell of who you were, of what we did. I can tell you it was fun: the Bacardi filled Gatorade bottles, the sound of your laughter diluted in an intoxicating environment of rollerblades on the rink-floor, contemporary music and house beats reverberating against the circling congregation of equally happy and inebriated teenage youths. But how could I ever describe you today, who you were when you passed. That is not something I can claim as some of these birds squawk. Your social posts were a false facade. Obviously there was something I missed, what was it. Was it so subtle? So much like a light breeze fluttering at the thin frayed thread of a seam that I could have seen but didn't care enough to realize it was there. Were you just a tumbling leaf among a forest of fresh autumn arrivals lost in the vastness, one among millions? It pains me to admit that as much as I would have liked to have been a friend to you during your dark times, I too was in a dark place of my own and in turn was deaf and blind to the billowing smoke signals that tried to underline and emphasize the sorry plights of others. I wish you could have told your story yourself, could have left a memoir of the ****** up thoughts that zipped through behind your eyes while you filtered the layers of **** served in white paper bags that this world seems to dish up like a fast food chain of heartbreak and deep ruts, while every so often rewarding us with a mistakenly placed toy or salad to “make up” for the rest of the empty calories served. I've tried so long to be an optimist, to look at the glass half full, but that glass is shattered on the floor right now, I broke it. My life hasn't been easy, not many people’s lives are and that’s life, I understand that much. If it isn't raining it’s snowing, if it isn't snowing it’s hailing, and if there isn't any precipitation it’s either hot or cold as hell and you have to fight through it to make it to the next day. I’m taking the shoes I wear now off so I can step on that pile of excrement they call a glass half full, half empty. Give me the pain, it hurts and the tears burn as they roll down my cheeks while I stare at this half a cent card with your face on it and some mass produced poem on the back listening to the ******* eulogy mutterings of everyone around me, but I want that. I would take this shuttering pain, this volcano of discharged emotions erupting from the shaking core of my body. I would take it any day over the numbness that is ******. Wasn't your child a life raft? Wasn't he the duck it or **** it of your life? Had you not a fiancé to whom which you could have rested your beaten structure on? Did you not have an array of support, a field of pile driven beams to share the weight in it all? Or was it a mistake? Was it a fault of somebody else that provided you with the birthday batch of ******? When you blew out the candles and smiled behind the thin line of adumbrating smoke that sketched out the soul behind your eyes did you think to yourself, today will be the celebration and cessation of my birthday; a bitter sweet memory for all who know me: on this day she was both born and deceased. Today she began to live and learned of death. I will never have the answers for the many who continue to fade into the credits of their dismal painful lives, but I will never stop trying to understand and I will never learn to forget or let go. This blood in my veins detest the cold steel rush that so many of you have tasted, that so many of you ran to when no one was listening, when no one was looking, when no one could comprehend you anymore and the only languages you spoke were procured from endless nights on the cushioned wooden floor as you drifted off among the silver linen clouds, as you left this body on earth and spoke with angels perched over the smoke stack that overlooked the back-lit-keyboard of lights that was your city, your town, your home while the strand of rubber slowly fell from your arm. We couldn't hear you, and those **** angels seem to weave such a pretty tale sometimes when you forget that you are speaking to your own deceitful mind. I will learn that language, I will look for those signs, I will place a candle on the sill beckoning every friend of mine to come and share with me in person. Let me reach into that white bag and see what is inside, I’ll eat whatever you pull out whether they are empty calories or not, preservative filled fries cold or hot. You are my friends and Social Networks are a lie, just a wall to hide behind, an occasionally droll and informative medium, until you die and then there is nothing left to pretend to say or be.

one plus one...

          ...equals one,

two minus one...

          ....equals zero.

Romance once lived in a tragic heart.
Released.
Now she dances.
Only through the catacombs of ancient Rome.
Where Latin lovers once lived.

Love is a larceny.
A tragic crime in time.
Sent to prison.
For crimes not committed by woman.
Nor man.
Insulted by emotions.

Playing games of idiocy.
In idiosyncratic ways.
Left awarded only agony.
Prize for suffering such pain.
Pain not caused by self.
Self trapped.
With eyes wide shut.

Unseeing eyes.
Hiding secrets.
Broken.
Away from the world.
Don't want to love again.

One more love would be a wonder.
Seared by pain.
Won't love again.
Scared to love again and lose.
Unjustly executed.
Believes emotion's dead!




By ladylivvi1

© 2013 ladylivvi1 (All rights reserved)

I sold smack on a playground today

    biding time to scrounge the rent--

Two months ago I had never even seen the stuff.
    I'd never procured it for personal use,
    let alone sold it.

Now I'm a full-time pusher of prescriptions
for problems that can't be cured,
a modern-day snake-oil salesmen
schlepping panaceas for every conceivable ill.

Trying to cope with depression?
    This'll give you a shot in the arm!
Your boyfriend just broke your heart
mere weeks after breaking your *****?
    Here's a ***** that you can depend on...

I thought I was better than this,

but who can afford scruples
                      with bills to pay?

Internally
I struggle to compete
with people who would never deign to take note of me.
My revenge is in undermining their immaculate lives,
a pill-peddling Socrates
keeping creditors at bay.

I'd always envisioned being someone's hero--
at least being remembered for an act of creation.

Instead I'm an enzyme for eradication.
A cancer cell at best--
    A ****** wrecking ball.

                 One day I woke up a sidekick
to a heroine that's never saved anyone...

I think I've procured myself again
The word 'filth' comes to mind
(For lack of a better word)

Yeah, I'm a *****
Unmetalled in the interface
It took yet another 'kind' word
Or should that be 'false' word
To realize what they think of me

To think
With their mangled good looks
Ubiquitous in psyche
Like they ever gave a chocolate-flavoured ****

Soon they'll all have had a go with me
And i'll become
How do you say? Sui generis?
Numb betwixt the thighs

I 'detest' myself
(For lack of a better word)
And I stare at the periwinkle
To find relief

And that's still no relief
Because I'm jealous of periwinkle
The capita thinks it's 'beautiful'
And of course 'I am no periwinkle'
(For lack of a better understatement)

For lack of a better me.

Pompeii stood proud near Naples.
Close to Herculaneum.
When in August of AD 79.
Volcano magnificent erupted.
Without nonchalance.
A buried city born.
Complete with frescoes of erotica.
Were subject to ancient censorship.

City modern with flowing water.
Trendy port.
Gymnasium.
Modernist by all accounts.
Population 20 000.
Mostly perished in brimstone's evacuation.
From the deepest depths of hell.
Suffocated nearly all.
Asphyxiated on vile fumes.

Eruption cataclysmic.
City buried far underground.
By written description.
'Tis believed that hell on earth unleashed.
The day following magical celebrations.
Worshiping Vulcanalia the Roman God of Fire.
Ironic tragedy procured.

Few survived the tragedy.
Those that did ran free
Anarchy, starvation.
Mainly petty larceny.
Landscape near destroyed.

Pliny the Younger wrote in a letter.
Vivid description of images seen as Pliny the Elder tried to rescue a few.
Felt perhaps had a duty to do.
Was admiral proud of the Roman fleet.
His life taken in forfeit as citizens from the ash world perished.

Pax Romana followed tragedy.
Dealt such a wicked card.
Embalmed in ash citizens lay.
Locked forever on the spot as they ran away!
By ladylivvi1

© 2013 ladylivvi1 (All rights reserved)

Local designer Vanessa Froehling has denim on the brain. Stonewashed, herringbone print, chambray, stretch and black denim, to be sure.

In her home studio, Froehling flips through hangers of designs, including sailor-style high-waisted women’s shorts, a men’s blazer and a women’s jumpsuit.

“It’s something that’s in everyone’s closet and it will never go out of style,” says Froehling of the French-born fabric (denim’s etymology comes from “de Nîmes,” the French town where Levis Strauss first procured the tough cotton twill for your 501s). But, she adds, “people are stuck on what denim can do.”

The line is called Carpe Denim and it’s Froehling’s entry into FashioNXT (self-described as “Portland’s Official Fashion Week”) — not to be confused with Portland Fashion Week — three days and nights of runway shows in early October. She will present Carpe Denim in the UpNXT competition, the “emerging designers accelerator,” alongside four other Pacific Northwest designers the evening of Oct. 5.

The fashion week has a cozy relationship with Project Runway, the fashion-designer reality show running since 2004, and, in fact, two of the judges assessing the competition are Seth Aaron (winner of Project Runway season 7) and Michelle Lesniak (winner of season 11).

In 2015, Froehling applied to both Portland Fashion Week and FashioNXT, but was only accepted by the former that time. She says auditioning in front of the FashioNXT judges was intimidating.

“My nerves were like, ‘What do I do with my hands?’” Froehling says, shaking her hands by her sides and laughing. The judges were tough, she recalls, and they recommended that she develop the marketability and cohesion of her line.

Over the past year, she took their advice to heart and decided she would try out again, this time with a denim ready-to-wear line, a departure from the couture gowns that have distinguished her style. She took inspiration from the city — recalling watching the denizens of Portland walk by, falling in love with their street-wear style — and the layers of people, buildings and traffic.

Eight jean looks — five for women and three for men — will walk the runway, but rest assured, this will be no **** of Canadian tuxedos. Although denim is the common thread, the designs feature smart juxtapositions against black leather and a colorful textile that looks like a cross between gas puddles and graffiti.

The self-taught designer has also developed several innovative details: a woman’s denim peplum jacket that unzips at the waist, transforming it into a more casual cropped jacket; women’s stretch leather pants that zip open at the knee, a nod to ripped jeans; and a men’s chambray shirt with the illusion of a double collar creating a fresh origami effect.

This summer, the judges welcomed Froehling on the FashioNXT train.

Froehling says one judge told her that she’s the first designer to return the following year to try out again after being rejected.

“It’s the highest fashion production in Oregon,” she says.

The winner will be announced at the after-party Oct. 5, and the prize package secures a spot for the designer in the main runway show in 2017 and includes business mentorships, feature stories inPortland Monthly and Portland Mercury, and a strategic marketing course at Portland Fashion Institute.Read more at:http://www.marieaustralia.com/short-formal-dresses | www.marieaustralia.com/red-carpet-celebrity-dresses

Reach into the nothingness
Like a warm breath slipping into the cold night
Hands outward, eyes open, upwards towards the sky

Embrace the silent subtle voice
Which hides behind the daily routines
But is no less mindfully alive

Cast images onto the fog itself
Until you've seen the many dreams which you've procured for yourself
In this cloudy life

Breathe with the forgetfulness of evey waking step  
As you amble through these miles set
With jawline firm and eyeline slight

Smile at the passing sight of another universe in tow
Which ambles by and out of view
As your inward story comes alive

And live not in line with every Crow on any high wire
But fly as if there were no tomorrow in your quiet sigh
Upwards and towards the sky

I stared catatonic nonstop and could not pull my eyes away or scream
except for the great internal scream and I felt like death was upon me, or nearly so.
And my body asleep but my mind twisted and my eyes awake wide-open
and no dream this was but real things and then my thoughts put outward
and all these things terrible formed into death-shadows
and flowed down through the fabrics above my head. 



Flesh undulating in darkness that creeped
and I found ten seconds of courage to sit up and stare
at the wall as the rippling fabric became a thousand black snakes
crawling down from the ceiling and out from my dreamcatcher
that did nothing at all but release these terrors from the wall.

And I thought it was sordid wind that came in gusting through my window that made my sheets become like a mechanical sea
but it was not so, and these vile snakes poured out like *****
from some gaping maw above and went underneath my bed
and all through the floor to the four corners of my room
and then came together again above on the center of my ceiling
and murmured death-talk and horror-faces from the walls and ceiling

and even closing my eyes would bring nothing but flashes
of demonic children and things with no jaws or eyes
hollowed out and terrible ghosts I procured and almost choked out laughter because this was it and I've finally gone and gone mad



There was a man at my closed door wearing my jacket that hung on a hook
and his face was the face of a skull that hung above my door
and from the corner of my eye the man with the door on his back with the coat still attached walked with silent step toward my bed, and I turned to look at this figure
and instead of snapping back against the wall like all nightly visions should;
he stood there, and as I stared at him I saw slow moving black legs receding against the wall

but the horrors of his feet were ten thousand worm bodies and black leathery fingers of bats and crawling things
and my carpet floor was no longer static but a creeping madness,
and my body trembled as if it were being continuously dropped
from heights a hundred times over and great odious black
pillars and monoliths slid steadily up the corners of my room with arms
that then burst out to the middle into nothing but a smiling cheshire grin
and I could not move anymore and just stared until my mind went numb

and like the first sunlight upon the last fog before dawn, I awoke.

The new built church was filling up
For its very first Christmas Eve.

It was finished in October
On a piece of vacant land, and
Reverend James had joined the greeters,
At its entrance shaking hands.

From seeming out of nowhere
A stranger just appeared
He was hunched a bit, and limping
With a longer gray-white beard.
His suit was black and dusty,
Like it hadn’t been used in years,
And his eyes were red and misty
Like he’d been shedding countless tears.

The Reverend grabbed his hand and said,
“Welcome!  Welcome, come right in!!
You’re a stranger to these parts I guess,
But we’re mighty glad you came.
And if it’s all the same to you,
We’d like to know your name.”

“Name’s Everett.  Everett Kent,” he said.
“Been alookin’ for this church.
Knowed some day you’d build it here.
Now I can end my search.”

The stranger loosed the Reverend’s grip,
Limped in and settled down,
At the far left end of the far back pew;
Where no one was around.

He sat through prayers and sermon,
Through a couple hymns as well
And when they got to ‘Silent Night’
He appeared to know it well.  
Silently, he closed his eyes,
The words were his release
“Round yon ******, Mother and Child,”
“Sleep in Heavenly Peace.”
“Sleep in Heavenly Peace.”

As the song went to the second verse,
The bearded stranger, dressed in black
Vanished into silent night,
Not once looking back.

The next day - Christmas Morning,
The ushers found a curious thing
A parchment in the offering plate
******* with a string.
When they untied the string they found
Much to their surprise,
A stack of Hundred Dollar bills
Of a slightly larger size.
They were from a different era,
Was this some kind of a joke?
A heartless cruel trick to play
At the expense of righteous folk.

On the inside of the parchment
In an antique writing style
Was a poem, (or a riddle?)
Now they couldn’t help but smile.

“One Thousand for the Father,
Two Thousand for His Son.
Three Thousand for the men who followed on the run.
Four Thousand for Mother Mary, who must have suffered most,
Five Thousand in remembrance of the wandering Holy Ghost.
That leaves nothing for the Devil
Though he’d like to claim it all.
May it help to pay the mortgage
On the church you built this fall.
Fifteen thousand dollars here,
Count it if you want –
I’ve had it for safe-keepin’
‘Twas much safer than a vault.”

The Reverend and the Deacons counted 15 Grand
The Reverend and the Deacons, together made a plan
Early the next morning of the very next business day,
They found a numismatist
To see what he would say.

He said,
“As currency it’s worthless
But a collector will pay well
These notes are rare and valuable
As far as I can tell.
You’ll get thirty / forty times the face
Look at the condition that they’re in!!
Where the Hell did they come from?”
And, where the Hell have they been?”

Reverend James contradicted
Remembering Everett Kent,
“Sir, it wasn’t Hell they’ve come from.
These notes were Heaven sent.
A stranger came on Christmas Eve
And left them on the pew.
All we did was count them,
And bring them straight to you.”

On the way home, Reverend James perplexed
Reviewed the strange events
Prayed that God would grant him wisdom
So he’d know what to do next
Surely the stranger didn’t know
The value of the notes
He mentioned only Fifteen Thousand
In the poem that he wrote.

A lawyer was a member
Of the Richland Christian Church
So Reverend James implored him
To do a legal search
He vowed to find the stranger Kent
To make known the real worth,
And inform him of the value
Of the bills he left at church.

Three days later, four o’clock
The Reverend heard a frantic knock
“I’ve found something that’ll interest you,
From 23 December, Eighteen Seven Two.


Richland Herald, December 31, 1872
The First National Bank of Richland was robbed last week, on December 23rd, by a man who, holding the tellers at bay with a pistol, demanded that they surrender all the money in the vault, without protest so that none would be harmed.  The thief escaped on horseback, though the Sheriff’s department was duly informed, and the Sheriff and two newly appointed deputies immediately gave chase.

On or about 4 pm the following day, a man matching the thief’s description was said to have been seen at the stage stop, run by Everett Kent, and his wife Mary, two fine people known about these parts for their hospitality and generosity.  As a testament to this fact, an itinerant preacher (known only as Reverend Jim) had been staying at the house for some time and conducting meetings at the stop whenever possible.  It should be mentioned as well that the Kent’s have a young son David, who, taking a liking to the eloquent Reverend Jim, had decided to also preach the Gospel and had taken the his first steps in that Almighty Direction.

As the posse surrounded the house, the thief, perhaps knowing that he could not escape, endeavored to bargain his way out of the situation by taking hostages and thereby securing his own safety.  Everett Kent, pleading for some shred of decency from the villain, asked that his wife and child and Reverend Jim be released, and that he, alone would serve in that capacity.  The thief relented (maybe the only time in his villainous life that he concluded a decent act.)  Mary and David ran from the building and were quickly placed out of harm’s way by the sheriff and his men.

What happened next will never be known to any but those in the building and the Lord God Himself.  What is known, is that yelling and commotion came from the house, and three shots were fired.  Perhaps upon being released, instead of removing himself to safety, Reverend Jim, attacked the villain and a scuffle ensued.  In the process, a kerosene lamp was broken, and the building caught fire.  Although Mary implored the sheriff to rescue her husband who had been tied to a chair, the Sheriff exercising judgment, if not valor, determined that it was already too late.

The thief (identity forever unknown), the valiant Reverend Jim and the pious and unfortunate Everett Kent all perished in the fire.  When the house had burned to the ground and the bodies could be examined, it was determined that the thief was shot through the heart and Reverend Jim also had received a mortal wound.  Everett Kent, though tied to a chair, had somehow procured a bullet wound to his right leg.

The spoils of the robbery, according to the First National Bank, $15,000 in uncirculated $100 bank notes, were never found, and presumed burned to ashes in the fire.

Reverend James felt faint
His knees and legs were weak
He sat down at his desk, and
Heard the lawyer speak.

Reverend James, there’s something more
That you have a right to know.
The stage stop never was rebuilt.
The widow moved away
And raised her son in another town
Very far away.

The son became a preacher
And later changed his name
In honor of the Reverend Jim,
Called himself David James.

You are David’s GG Grandson
You descend from Everett too.
The land where you just built the church?
Left so long ago to you?
Was once the home of Everett Kent
I found that in my search.
The widow left it to her son
And he thus passed it down.
And now you’ve built your brand new church
On that very ground.

You’ll never find the stranger
The notes are yours to spend
And the Christmas Eve Tale of Everett Kent
Has finally reached its end.

“One Thousand for the Father,
Two Thousand for His Son.
Three Thousand for the men who followed on the run.
Four Thousand for Mother Mary, who must have suffered most,
Five Thousand in remembrance of the wandering Holy Ghost.
That leaves nothing for the Devil
Though he’d like to claim it all.
May it help to pay the mortgage
On the church you built this fall.
Fifteen thousand dollars here,
Count it if you want –
I’ve had it for safe-keepin’
‘Twas much safer than a vault.”
Reverend David James III,  recounted to Philip W. Lindsey on 4/13/2015

“into the women-coloured twilight”

from Post Impressions (VI)   by E. E. *******^



there is a woman here who seeded in a ‘darling,’
awhile ago, thinking it passed unnoticed
but wax polished and jewelry bag separate kept

placed in a soft Etsy silken purse
suitable for holding precious iou’s,
vision her in the fields picking up the fragrance
of bulbs from soil, now scented upon a working woman's gloves,
arrival timed, in the woman-colored twilight of e.e.’s woman,
knowing she will be both prepared and unprepared,
perhaps for my recital, certainly, my comings unexpected

she knows I come with no singularity or multi-purpose,
except to complete this poem with proper decorum,
decorum properly undefined, but how many fictitious poems
scribbled in between the living days, in plastic bags to keep,
till a grounded definition is someday procured


April 2019

In the silence of atrocity she grieve
the ache she procured on Saturday eve,
oh she grieves.
so kind, serene he was at first
when she met him on Hamel's street.
would dress pink
and hairs so neat
would live time with him.
slowly, nicely, time
edged.
''I, will marry you and save your heart with me''
he pledged!!
as they lay in serenity.
moon and sun and stars gazing their love
the continuous curve that won't over,
but then came the wind so hard,
hours stunned it
A Saturday eve
the orange love turned into a clover.
he became frenzied and fierce
voices flying up and decisions pierce.
her beauty turned red,
swollen mouth and cut hairs,
shouting stories and crying nights.
oh, how the crushed dreams and
horror bites.
made one lass,
mum, afraid and hurt.
now the nights are dried.
the sun ignorant.
he left.
Alone in a dark spot, silence
silence every air
and In the silence of atrocity she grieve
the ache she procured on Saturday eve,
oh she grieves..

A benevolent device procured  to
           provoke an enigmatic action relevant
                   to escaping once benighted reality*.

"There are monsters on the building," she said in the sad song of a West Texas drawl.  She sounded like she did when she talked in her sleep.  We had paused there to examine the doorway the way people do when they know something frightening and important will happen to them on the other side.  

Somehow the banality of the details seemed at odds with the profundity of the situation:  A hot breeze taunted us with the smell of garbage.  Pigeons did their stupid strut and pecked and **** on the sidewalk.  Manhattan pedestrians slogged past through the May heat wave in a sweaty river of hurried lives, each stranger a subtle hint that perhaps our pain wasn't so profound after all.  My own rivers of perspiration seemed to drive the point home.

Molly had more than once accused me of being attracted to the dramatic, and she was right.  In response to this weakness, this juvenile habit of seeing myself as a hero in the story of my life rather than just another person in the world, the God I still half believed in seemed to be punishing me with mundane aggravation as we prepared to defy him:  crowded subways, humidity that pressed in from all sides, growing stains in my armpits.  Now that we had reached the building the half-believed God added a master stroke of lewdness.  Squatting on the threshold of our destination were a pair of gargoyles [cement artistic tradition combined with superstition] that peered down at us with obscene toothy grins.  

Molly tugged on my damp fingers, and asked again,  "Greg, why are there monster's on the building?" Her eyes seemed both accusatory and desperate for affection, but her voice was sleepy, like she was trying to pretend it was all just a dream.

"I don't know," I said.  "It doesn't matter."

It was true.  It didn't matter accept as a symbol in a story that somewhere deep in my mind I was shamefully conscious I would someday write.  Disgusting but unavoidable for the boy I was at 19, a boy who wanted to be important someday, wanted to be important by being "a writer," and didn't see how he could ever be anything else.  

"Write what you know" they say, but I was just an upper middle class white kid, nothing important had ever happened to me.  This was important.  This was life and death.  Most of me lived it but part of me watched from outside.

We went inside and found the elevator, then the waiting room.  I held her left hand while she filled out the forms with her right.  I told her I loved her, trying to say it like a transcendent spiritual truth that could make all the facts of our situation irrelevant and sweep them off somewhere they didn't matter.  

Then a nurse came and took her away.  

It offended me that despite the life and death business conducted behind the wall, the waiting room looked just like any other.  Maybe worse.  Worn out office furniture in generic shades of brown.  Stacks of magazines that looked like they had been procured second hand from some cleaner pricier office where happier people sit and smile about life while they fill out forms and wait.

I glanced around the room, careful to avoid eye contact.  There were two other men, one white one black, both looking sad and dejected, staring into space, thinking of the women in that other room I just like me I figured, wishing there was something they could do.  

I selected a magazine with half its cover missing.  Celebrities at a party.  Celebrities at the beach.  I put the magazine down.

I should be feeling more than this, I thought, and that thought seemed shameful too.

It was still a question about me.  The pathetic existential question that has always gnawed my television generation:  Why can't I just be real?  The question brought more shame.  Why are you asking these questions?  This inner monologue  ...  they are killing your son in there!  They are ripping him out of the girl you love.  Shut up and just feel!  Or don't feel, and just shut up.  

Searching myself for sadness I found again a numb disgust for being outside myself and looking in.  

I thought of praying but an image came to me of Jesus struggling to carry his cross up a hill.  He was being chased by His Father who took the form of the God of old paintings, a long white beard, muscled body, the eyes of a tyrant. God was leading an angry mob, scaring Jesus up the hill to his death, screaming at Him:  "This is what my son was meant for!  You don't have any other choice!"  It was not the sort of image I hoped prayer would inspire.

Finally I arrived at the thought I was avoiding:  Molly crying on a cold table, machines inside her, everything happening too fast.  I had asked if I could go with her and hold her hand.

"No," the nurse had said with a touch of scorn, like the question was not just dumb, but an insult to women everywhere.  Why would she let the guilty party make things worse?

A few yards away there were doctors working machines inside the womb of the only girl I had ever loved, taking the life of a child I would never know.  But even if I had wanted to stop them, which I didn't, it was too late now.  

It was the first life and death decision either of us would make, and even though I would try to console her with the idea that we had chosen life, our own lives, our own futures, right or wrong, I knew we had also chosen death for our first child. Death always brings sadness, and despite whatever happiness we might still enjoy in the years to come, this sadness would would linger with us, in some form, forever, unless we came together to conceive another child and raise it.  This is not what Jesus told me.  This is what I told him.  He listened but he didn't seem to care.  He had no time for *******.

Molly appeared in the doorway to the back rooms where I had not been allowed to go with her.  I would have liked to go with her back there.  I would have held her hand, made her know that we were doing it together, that I was equally if not more culpable in this death than her, and if that were not possible, and it probably was not, at least I could have held her hand.            

But I was not allowed back there.  She went through it alone with strangers all around her speaking in professionally sensitive tones.
      
I put down the magazine and went to her.  Her face was blotchy, and there was still dampness in her eyes.  She had been crying for awhile and she was crying still.  A nurse's hand was on her shoulder.
      
"She was very brave,"  the nurse said, like Molly was a four year old who had just made it through her first hair cut without squirming.
      
"Will she be okay?"
      
"Yes, but now you need to take her home so she can rest."
      
The nurse disappeared.  I held Molly, and kissed her forehead, and told her how much I loved her and always would.  She did not speak and her body felt lifeless in my arms.  I led her back to the elevator and then out into the Manhattan bustle.  The humid heat had reached its most brutal hour, and I began to sweat immediately as we walked towards the subway.
      
We passed a deli.  I asked if she was hungry and she nodded.  I went inside and used the little money I had to buy a sandwich and two bottles of juice and we found a bench in the shade and sat there to eat.  She ate a little and drank some of her juice and then finally
spoke.
      
"It was a spot."
      
"What?"
      
"It was a spot.  They showed me.  It was a little black spot on a screen."
      
"It's okay, Molly  It's going to be okay," I lied.
      
"It was my little girl, but she was just a spot.  They showed me and then they took her away forever."
      
"I love you.  I love you so much."  It was true and all I could think to say and it didn't help much.
      
I brought her downtown to the financial district where I was staying that Summer in an NYU dorm with a friend from High School.  We were there to take film classes together.  Our parent's had allowed us to spend extra on the best housing, and the dorm we stayed in was actually an apartment on the 14th floor of a building with a doorman across from South Street Seaport.  It had a kitchen, high ceilings, and huge windows with a view of the Brooklyn Bridge, and even a
separate bedroom.  Fortunately Rick had allowed me the private room so he could have the larger one with the view and the television, so there was a place for Molly and I to go behind a locked door and lay down.

We got in the little bed together and curled into a combined fetal position.  I kissed the back of her neck and she took my hand and placed it on her pelvis where I could feel the bandage rustling under her sweatpants.
      
"Can you feel it?"
      
"Everything will be all right," I almost said, but it felt like garbage on the tip of my tongue and I had not yet grown used to lying except to myself.

I hadn't known there would be a bandage.

"Yes.  I can feel it,"  I said.  This, at least, I knew was true.

I lay there with her like that with my hand where our child had
grown for a few weeks and we fell asleep.

When I awoke, the room was gray with dusk, and Molly was snoring peacefully.  I got out of the bed carefully without disturbing her, sat at my desk, and opened my favorite drawer.  There was my small purple glass pipe, and a little baggy stuffed with the high quality marijuana that in my experience, you can only find in New York City, the Pacific Northwest and American Colleges.  I filled the pipe, lit it, and pulled hard, holding it in as long as I could and then coughing intentionally on the exhale for the fullest effect.  I repeated the process until the bag was nearly empty, lit a cigarette, and sat at the desk with my feet up, looking back and forth from the
high rise across the street to the young woman in my bed, contemplating life and love and God and the future.  

In that moment, high as I was on the drug and the city and the relief of having made it through the day, it truly did seem that everything would be all right.

I had taken to writing poetry a few months before, and I found a
piece of paper and began to write another:

God sat in the abortion clinic waiting room
while they killed his only son.
"My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?”
"I don't know.  It seemed like the right thing to do."
      
I thought I had the beginnings of a very good poem.  I hoped maybe, someday, somehow my poetry might change the way people thought about things.  I was young and stupid and ****** and my mind was about to crack open completely and let forth a torrent of strangeness.

I was very sad.

-2001

fightingcopsnaked.blogspot.com
brickdumbsublime.blog­spot.com

“RENDEZVOUS SONNET”  

“The long day wanes the slow moon climbs,
My pale enclave inspires me to write,
That of our midnight love rendezvous,  
As well as awful dreams of life’s hardships,  

All can be forgotten of travesty’s that followed,
As I easily compare you to a light of stardust,
Traipse of her breaching my mind of that day,
Thinking of your prompt nobility fills my days.

My love for you is the dedicated anamnesis,
Our heated times of past frolics of seasons,
Our summertime on the immense sleepy hollows,
The sounding furrows for my purpose holds

It may be that the gulfs will wash us down,
The prudence labor loving procured slowly,    
Whisking your rugged ways and thro's endings,
Subdued only to thro’s closure of laudability,
Ode to my rendezvous sonnet”


By Andrew Guzaldo 08/14/2018 ©

She searched for PERFECTION, so she's ALONE
Expected beautiful stories, so the pages are BLANK
LOVED the fluttering stars, sold her sleep
PROCURED trust but auctioned her FREEDOM...

The new-born child of gospel grace,
Like some fair tree when summer's nigh,
Beneath Emmanuel's shining face
Lifts up his blooming branch on high.

No fears he feels, he sees no foes,
No conflict yet his faith employs,
Nor has he learnt to whom he owes
The strength and peace his soul enjoys.

But sin soon darts its cruel sting,
And comforts sinking day by day,
What seem'd his own, a self-fed spring,
Proves but a brook that glides away.

When Gideon arm'd his numerous host,
The Lord soon made his numbers less;
And said, "Lest Israel vainly boast,
My arm procured me this success!"

Thus will He bring our spirits down,
And draw our ebbing comforts low,
That saved by grace, but not our own,
We may not claim the praise we owe.

You need sunglasses when your staring at me
Cause the light I emanate scars the retina of my enemies
There is no cure for the blindness you will endure
A pain perpetuated by the ignorance so perniciously procured
Squared against an inevitable death I easily steal your breath from the barrel of my Smith and Wess
Watching your hollow tears bleed on the canvas I project
a cataclysmic disaster wrapped up in a dismal death

We sit here at the pinnacle of our lives speaking in shadows
Masking our mouths from what we oblige
Stop and listen to the earth as it decries
The subtle architecture of this worldly demise
So as we kick back and sorely reside
I’ll be the change in the coming tide

Caged inside tortured flesh I search for rest to keep the human condition suppressed
But all I find each time that I design a new quest I become a servant of death
Invigorated by the test I stretch my consciousness to tear the limbs off your chest and beat you senseless
I won’t stop there, I’ll slit the throat leaving you without hope and then drown it in Everclear
While I may seem like a cynic
I’m not through with these gimmicks
Lacerating your heart with the bones I striped from your tendons
I’m not an advocate of violence but
Sometimes the pilot of peace needs to be reached by setting loose the destruction we inherently seek

We sit here at the pinnacle of our lives speaking in shadows
Masking our mouths from what we oblige
Stop and listen to the earth as it decries
The subtle architecture of this worldly demise
And I’ll hide my words with silence
And I’ll no longer become violent
Just another subservient machine lost in a sea of tyrants

I won’t be blunt here I’ll keep dropping metaphorical bombs onto your ears
Until all my peers understand the imminent plan that needs to be adhered:
Stop short cause change is impossible to purport
Don’t dream cause it’ll get shattered with a corporate hammer
Stay sinking in a world that raises a stagnant banner
Assimilate with the overzealous overweight materialism that manifests in the minds of the poor and is perpetuated by strip malls and ******

Now I know I've lost my mind
I've gone back to what I left behind
Forgot the progress that I procured
Let myself slip into a state unsure

**I let the universe collapse again

The most vile of all poisons
More potent than any snakes venom
Deadlier than all spider's saliva on earth
Worse than any brew procured from any apothecary

This most sweet of all delicacies
Makes men dose themselves 100 times
With the most lethal of all drugs
Leaving only destruction and mayhem in its wake

Though tolerable, and even so far as beneficial, in moderation
Seldom if ever does it stay that way for long
Like a rock rolling downhill
The speed of drinking speeds up til no one can stop it
Causing pain and suffering, not only for the abuser
But anyone near the blast zone

Moderation is the key to all things
And this toxic concoction is certainly no exception
Keep an eye on yourself, and don't be dumb
Don't drink more than from pinky to thumb

Good evening to all, I shall be your host
So won't you all raise your glass's please
A tribute like this, requires a proper toast
So take this one moment in time and freeze
For on this eve we shall honor all the ghosts
Who have epiphanied us all to our knees
So no matter who you may love the most
Let the collective works remind us to seize

The day, started out different, I'm not a morning person by any means
But this morning I awoke, with clear thoughts and vivid dream scenes

It was as if my body was merely a vessel
and my mind was possessed
But instead of my soul fighting to wrestle
It conceded, for I was blessed

A voice spoke to me for all of humanity
And warned that the words that I will channel
May have people questioning my sanity
Convicted by a psychoanalytic jury and panel

I was sound asleep when a voice awoke me from my bed
A whisper "Listen closely to me", the first ghost softly said
"There is absolutely no reason to sleep, after you are dead
So please share the words that I place in your head" he pled

Young man, rest is assured, allow me set the presage
After words are procured and you send my message
You will slumber so peacefully knowing these deeds
Shall contribute to billions of thought provoking seeds"

I said "let me sleep on it", for it was a very long day that I had endured
But I must admit, the concept of immortality absolutely had me lured
He said, "Just remember words are meaningless once you leave earth
Goodnight sir, and by the way, my name is William, for what it's worth

933

Two Travellers perishing in Snow
The Forests as they froze
Together heard them strengthening
Each other with the words

That Heaven if Heaven—must contain
What Either left behind
And then the cheer too solemn grew
For language, and the wind

Long steps across the features took
That Love had touched the Morn
With reverential Hyacinth—
The taleless Days went on

Till Mystery impatient drew
And those They left behind
Led absent, were procured of Heaven
As Those first furnished, said—

Anonymous  (1730s ?)

In good King Charles's golden days,
When Loyalty no harm meant;
A Furious High-Church man I was,
And so I gain'd Preferment.
Unto my Flock I daily Preached,
Kings are by God appointed,
And ****'d are those who dare resist,
Or touch the Lord's Anointed.

And this is law, I will maintain
Unto my Dying Day, Sir.
That whatsoever King may reign,
I shall be Vicar of Bray, Sir!

When Royal James possessed the crown,
And popery grew in fashion;
The Penal Law I hooted down,
And read the Declaration:
The Church of Rome I found would fit
Full well my Constitution,
And I had been a Jesuit,
But for the Revolution.

 And this is Law, &c.

When William our Deliverer came,
To heal the Nation's Grievance,
I turned the Cat in Pan again,
And swore to him Allegiance:
Old Principles I did revoke,
Set conscience at a distance,
Passive Obedience is a Joke,
A Jest is non-resistance.

  And this is Law, &c.;

When Royal Ann became our Queen,
Then Church of England's Glory,
Another face of things was seen,
And I became a Tory:
Occasional Conformists base
I ****'d, and Moderation,
And thought the Church in danger was,
From such Prevarication.

  And this is Law, &c.;

When George in Pudding time came o'er,
And Moderate Men looked big, Sir,
My Principles I changed once more,
And so became a Whig, Sir.
And thus Preferment I procured,
From our Faith's great Defender,
And almost every day abjur'd
The Pope, and the Pretender.

  And this is Law, &c.;

The Illustrious House of Hanover,
And Protestant succession,
To these I lustily will swear,
Whilst they can keep possession:
For in my Faith, and Loyalty,
I never once will falter,
But George, my lawful king shall be,
Except the Times should alter.

  *And this is Law, &c;.

When ships set sail, their masts held high
Daunting flags, painting the sky
With rails gold rimmed
And sails sharp trimmed
A crowd appears, waving adieu, goodbye
Thunderous roar, unequaled praise
Wind catching sheets
Anchors raised
A bell rings softly and waves do lap
Against the hull of a wooden throne

From far off shores this scene is spied
With two friends of oars we've always tried
To reach for that deck
In fervent eye
Climb on board or surely die
Tattered clothes, sailors cap
Smudge on cheek
Shirt of burlap
We push off deck
Yet crowd is gone
A journey ventured with bright sun dawned

Water ripples with our wake
Small and steady pulses we make
Though we row to catch schooner bold
As we creak of wooden old
Land gestures for us to stay
Why venture out on choppy bay?
Whispers roll and caustic laugh
With sun beat oars a line is set
No motive sweeter, nor regret
Sweat beads mix with salty froth

Cutting across the water green
Battleship chugs with billowed steam
A voice escapes you as you scream
Sputtering away, with muted cries
And oars but stop
Far from home
As head does drop
Splintered hull tears apart
We're left to cling to shattered planks
And fight to stay afloat

Alone
With far off yacht a speck
Atone for water slapping neck
We groan with defeated boat and deck
Driftwood in salty surf
Connecting with shore
We walk back to land
Imprints swallowed by golden sand
A new rowboat to be procured
Again we build to flag down our Brig
And stand upon its polished bow
We persist to where we are but now
As we strive to grasp victory bell
We strive ever onward
To sail with our destined
Caravelle

Sometimes I feel so gloomy,
Got a brand new bag of shroomies
And now my blues are through
There’s one last thing to do….

Trip out (trip out) Let’s go for a walk
Trip out (trip out) I wanna smoke some ***
Trip out (trip out)  I'm tripping out man!
Tra lala lalalay (doo dadoo dadoo doo)

Sometimes I feel so bored,
I want to live like Harrison Ford
I procured some L.S.D.
I watch you paint those happy trees…

Trip out (Bob Ross) Let’s go for a walk
Trip out (Bob Ross) I wanna smoke some ***
Trip out (Bob Ross)  Trippin' out to Bob Ross
Tra lala lalalay (doo dadoo dadoo doo)


Bob Ross….(We love you)

subtlety is not a trait I possess well, when I mention
late night texts and infatuation here and there I mean you,
the problem is that I've been here before and I've
fallen too fast.

the problem is that I build these walls that cave in
quickly and resolutely;
I am a dreamer of romance and like
procured fat bouquets of sunflowers unexpected,
quilts, meaningful embraces where the whole world
drops right out of your stomach.

I worry myself because this heart is so brittle; it's known
to have been dropped a time before;
I'm sick of sweeping up slivers of organs like glass,
always laying everything that means anything out on the table for people to poke around in like
I am some kind of mystifying tag sale.

even though things seem different this time,
they don't, really,
anxious wrists and fingers that don't
hold pencils very tightly,
hugging sweaters and the memory of a
quite lovely monday night
and some really awful ones time and time before.