Loping down at Winter
the raven
ravishes the light,
broad black beating wings spread
feeding on
tiny hidden corpses-its beak
hades' daggers pummelling the frost.

Bones in the ashless fire
bright
from the growth of vitalic hands
from surpassing echo
of careless ground
letting all of the roads just
go
into the charging and dug-out
roads
as we walk in one body  
and the uncared for birds ate
with the cared for birds
lifting their heads up and down
in agreement
of shadow suns - sun’s shadow
the knuckled cocoons open
in the hemisphere’s grace  
that are not held back
by the dams that were fathers
to you
and the mothers eating their jammed crowns
of animalised peace
along with the ****
ha!
even they are cheered also, the hunters
of the field, arrows obliterating through eternity,
your heels creating, it
that song that tempers the cities reflection
returning mine
and season less unions inside,
desert storm, and warmed ice breathes
in toasts across seas
force open the laughing cage-

And the farm machine says:

“We will take more animals-
from you
tonight
we will
make you pay by the long tongue
of submissive crawl
and your livers
and liver brought
hum
by the hand-made knife
by the half-made, gesture

the horizons will laugh with boredom, at you  
pummelling dry, the mountains  
if you do not-

light!
LIGHT!
light...

(...//light.)”
...

throw ****** grunts like burping darts directly at the puddled lipped sky

run by, and through
the days of collapsing flesh
raining

Juggernauting mist!///

be unable to find sound

or sand hold

where the lights incept fog

and give it form,

be the crows in saliva
with no threat
as they fly by
between knife and bread
spewing cello grips
along the graffetied walls
of music
and moss burning teeth
in lines of paint  
into the secret wars
and charities
that nothing can touch
and the face at the end of that
brick’s
mind

is a welcome,
face

we walk by//////
sweeps that cannot
smell, themselves
at 5
a.m
fish shattering
by the entry
of our dive
into synapse blue - gulls bound to moon
the waves and the salt and ourselves
moments of dance
in conversation away from the roar
after the vermin
has roared
it’s last spittle
and has dispersed into low
figments
and the juice of that spittle
drapes over our shoulders
in curtainous glowing rocks

Come now junkerd star, trembling
gloats drooling with Cerberus' tears, through space
encountering unwashed books, and curving onyx lips
down hallow of easy river, of moor walk and gait
hares thump the ground of the fields, exchanging
the wilderness for sustenant flight, across it
up flow the silence as it reacts upon your gut
and sends sleep near lass and lad, back by a thousand hands of stars
into sewer skies of rats and eager swans,
growing from the dust of your gone fear,
the penultimate circles that cascade in the sleeplessness
of cigarette sounds and our waltzing vice
Hear Bound the stimulus! Of new sinewed blood
be the one trembling as the dwarf stars explode
into you, and our grips calm, sends them back
and are normal nights of coffeed jokes
sculpted from the clay of time
cascading outer vehicles driving along, the mocking hands glance,
and the hands of menace
ate artichokes
pealing plumes
and handing
one –
to you
the feet of your veins

pouring growth
of root
near mine
stopping only when

the roof top
is ripped clean//////////////

dry from every car, so that it settles
across naked architecture, giants in our hemoglobin
smile, the silhouettes, the wall, and the agonyless
streets, see our shadows standing to attention
devouring the suns toll-in the departure of our being

in the unwavering strikes of our dark hands upon the earth
that bring light to our iris, soaring,
It is this fortune that the soul gets to spend, only,
returning to the work, of life.

A CURSING rogue with a merry face,
A bundle of rags upon a crutch,
Stumbled upon that windy place
Called Cruachan, and it was as much
As the one sturdy leg could do
To keep him upright while he cursed.
He had counted, where long years ago
Queen Maeve's nine Maines had been nursed,
A pair of lapwings, one old sheep,
And not a house to the plain's edge,
When close to his right hand a heap
Of grey stones and a rocky ledge
Reminded him that he could make.
If he but shifted a few stones,
A shelter till the daylight broke.
But while he fumbled with the stones
They toppled over; "Were it not
I have a lucky wooden shin
I had been hurt'; and toppling brought
Before his eyes, where stones had been,
A dark deep hollow in the rock.
He gave a gasp and thought to have fled,
Being certain it was no right rock
Because an ancient history said
Hell Mouth lay open near that place,
And yet stood still, because inside
A great lad with a beery face
Had tucked himself away beside
A ladle and a tub of beer,
And snored, no phantom by his look.
So with a laugh at his own fear
He crawled into that pleasant nook.
"Night grows uneasy near the dawn
Till even I sleep light; but who
Has tired of his own company?
What one of Maeve's nine brawling sons
Sick of his grave has wakened me?
But let him keep his grave for once
That I may find the sleep I have lost."
What care I if you sleep or wake?
But I'Il have no man call me ghost."
Say what you please, but from daybreak
I'll sleep another century."
And I will talk before I sleep
And drink before I talk.'
And he
Had dipped the wooden ladle deep
Into the sleeper's tub of beer
Had not the sleeper started up.
Before you have dipped it in the beer
I dragged from Goban's mountain-top
I'll have assurance that you are able
To value beer; no half-legged fool
Shall dip his nose into my ladle
Merely for stumbling on this hole
In the bad hour before the dawn."
Why beer is only beer.'
"But say
""I'll sleep until the winter's gone,
Or maybe to Midsummer Day,''
And drink and you will sleep that length.
"I'd like to sleep till winter's gone
Or till the sun is in his srrength.
This blast has chilled me to the bone.'
"I had no better plan at first.
I thought to wait for that or this;
Maybe the weather was accursed
Or I had no woman there to kiss;
So slept for half a year or so;
But year by year I found that less
Gave me such pleasure I'd forgo
Even a half-hour's nothingness,
And when at one year's end I found
I had not waked a single minute,
I chosc this burrow under ground.
I'll sleep away all time within it:
My sleep were now nine centuries
But for those mornings when I find
The lapwing at their foolish dies
And the sheep bleating at the wind
As when I also played the fool.'
The beggar in a rage began
Upon his hunkers in the hole,
"It's plain that you are no right man
To mock at everything I love
As if it were not worth, the doing.
I'd have a merry life enough
If a good Easter wind were blowing,
And though the winter wind is bad
I should not be too down in the mouth
For anything you did or said
If but this wind were in the south.'
"You cty aloud, O would 'twere spring
Or that the wind would shift a point,
And do not know that you would bring,
If time were suppler in the joint,
Neither the spring nor the south wind
But the hour when you shall pass away
And leave no smoking wick behind,
For all life longs for the Last Day
And there's no man but ***** his ear
To know when Michael's trumpet cries
"That flesh and bone may disappear,
And souls as if they were but sighs,
And there be nothing but God left;
But, I aone being blessed keep
Like some old rabbit to my cleft
And wait Him in a drunken sleep.'
He dipped his ladle in the tub
And drank and yawned and stretched him out,
The other shouted, "You would rob
My life of every pleasant thought
And every comfortable thing,
And so take that and that." Thereon
He gave him a great pummelling,
But might have pummelled at a stone
For all the sleeper knew or cared;
And after heaped up stone on stone,
And then, grown weary, prayed and cursed
And heaped up stone on stone again,
And prayed and cursed and cursed and bed
From Maeve and all that juggling plain,
Nor gave God thanks till overhead
The clouds were brightening with the dawn.

How have you been? I hope you’ve been well, but I’ve been thinking about how

A poem does have too much
person in it to be a tree.
Too many clichéd feelings,
too much sadness and inadequacy.
All of it pressed into words
that are too tight because
poems are always a size too small.
You’re right, a poem is nothing
like a tree.

I’ve been busy too, kind of, but I just want to say

Forget the miles,
and give me the woods.
Give me the dark and the deep
and the lovely.
I’ll leave the horse,
it’s better off without me and
I’ll imagine that the woods
belong to no one.
Just give me the woods
and the snow
and the hypothermia.
Give me the frozen lake.
I don’t want your miles
of tired positivity.

I think we were talking about faith last time, but I don’t think that’s quite it. You see,

I don’t need God
to do the battering.
There’s already something inside me
pummelling my cheeks,
leaving invisible bruises
and a lack of air in my lungs.
I don’t want to be ravished,
and besides, even this
monster won’t ravish me.

It really has been a while now since we last wrote

But nothing’s changed,
for the day I was born,
a week early, afraid
of being late,
I caught a glimpse
of the world and changed my mind.
I tried to turn back
but got a cord wrapped round my neck
and nearly choked.
They plied me out with pincers
anyway, wailing:
leave me be.

But I’m alright. I’ll be okay, don’t worry too much. Things happen and

Maybe after that,
I should have seen
that it’s not worth the fight.
Maybe it’s just lucky
I’m lazy.

I’ll write again, as and when I can.

I was not the only kid who grew up this way,
taught to believe I was a complete waste
because we'd never been taught to pause
but just to continue on as though ricochets
of words never pierced through the skin
and that the flicker of flame within
will always remain lit, we always pressed play.
It didn't feel that way, the right way;
I'd remember on a specific Friday,
as the other kids raced to enjoy
their time before the weekend arrives,
I heard a kid I didn't know, ask
"Why don't we play vehicles? It's simple".
...
"What's vehicles?" I asked with a smile,
lit by the internal flames of happiness,
a smile lit by an expectation that
fun was to be had.
...
"Vehicles is simple. You're fat, so you
be a truck or a semi-trailer truck.
And you'd try to chase us cars."
...
I didn't press pause, I'd continue to play
with a broken smile lit on my face
as though the pummelling words had no
impact
...
I was not the only kid who grew up this way,
taught to believe I was a complete waste
because we'd never been taught to pause...
and I wished I had pressed pause...
before a spiral of artillery hit my artery
became a stained conscience
on what is really okay to believe in.

Do I believe in the models on screen
or do I believe in the heroes the world hasn't seen.
It's become obstinately obscene...
And I wished in this cataclysm of movies
in this cataclysm of choices I have made
in this cataclysm of regretful mistakes
I wished I pressed pause and simply said

"I may have a big waist,
But I am not a complete waste
because the best things in the world
aren't an illusion created by the eyes."

Let's play vehicles.

We'll all be cars and run thoughts of division over,
because we were all made to be loved.

because we are all beautiful

**No more playing,
It's no longer fun and games,
let's bring a change
by pressing pause
and simply saying...
"I am not a waste".

what gravity, and where has the gravity gone?
when yesterday a new year dawned -
I asked myself this question,pained,
and answered with the things i've done.
I blame myself for our pummelling decline,
though in part, it be yours beside -
i could have, but didn't-and did, but could not have -
many things that made the difference.
And i lay there, wondering if ever i would feel as heavily entwined,
as when first your gravity became mine.
and feared - that never again - should i be tethered -
by the few invisible tines that held me to this mote of dust
I fear free fall, up into the sky.
And all i can do is lay here, and fight the lies, while we cry.

When I pen, what really is the intent.
To answer a question or delve in sophistry;
to express the self or churn a story?

Most likely,
a surgical act to extract the knives lodged in the chest.
A walk to meet a lover, when the legs do not answer.
A savage, deafening scream that only I can hear.
An arduously extracted knife, pushed back through the chest.

The pen is my voice hoarse, a pitch I cannot reach.
It is total silence, less the pummelling waves.
It is my eyes closed, where logic makes sense.
But it is no map, but a maze, where I lose my hands.

*It is across my back, a different dimension.
Where the right is sullied with nothing available.
It is wrought and taut in every direction.
A lost heart, a lost soul, a lost art, a lost woe.

This M is a ****, treat it with needle and thread.
This K is a sigh, cage its noise and beware.
This C is a life, what burdens will he bear?
This I is a lie, why should anyone care.

I give and I write. One and the same.
A grave and thimble to protect my faith.
A loathing and swelling to numb the brain.
A mangled lie, as always, I go away.

What is the colour of noise?

Is it the rushing,
bubbling blue of the stream
as it tumbles over pebbles and boulders?

Is it the dismal grey chug-chug of lorry’s exhaust?
Or the sizzling smoke of an overheated engine?

Is it the metallic silver of a computer processor?
The hum of a CD preparing to play,
or the click click of fingernails on the keyboard?

Is it the golden yellow of jazz music
played on the saxophone,
a deep and hearty rhythmic melody?

Is it the fresh,
pure green of the rolling hills,
where the bleating of the ewe carries on the breeze?

Is it the crimson red of rage?
The anger of injustice?
The sores caused by pain?
The cry of despair?

Is it the burning orange
of an open fire sending up crackling sparks
and radiating tangible warmth?

Is it the chocolate brown muffin-mixture in the blender?
The beater pummelling eggs and flour together?

Is it the pure pink delight
of a baby’s gurgle
as he splashes and giggles in the bath?

Is it the velvety black of nightfall
as birds sing out their roosting calls in the trees
and the moon rises on the horizon?

Is it the glorious glow of pure white,
as my pen dashes across the crisp,
clean page, scratching blue lines of text,
unleashing a new idea?

I want to throw myself off a cliff
When I hear my mother's voice
Like a soft death
A dog death
That she comforts and hides in
Whispering tender nice things

Her voice is fur
It is soft and wriggly like a dormouse
Capable of entering every nick and cranny
Making a space it's own
Pummelling my senses  
It opens myself up to prickly situations

Sad times
Despite this blanket of sound
It attempts to heal our wounds
Cradling in a wrap around scarf of energy
And lifting her head up into your lap
You, quietly sing her to sleep
The last thing she will feel,
That voice, as described is a warm cloud
Bursting with despair
Gushing over into our home
Still, it is a kind of drowning.

~ May fourth, 2005
wedded bliss nearly fifty years
half a century almost
me not most favorite grown offspring,
she (when alive) did boast,
about youngest sister and her family,
unlike me – severely socially withdrawn
a veritable wallflower
as a result, I suffered emotional contusions.

When thru life yours truly did
nervously, frightfully, blisteringly coast,
nevertheless her spirit dwells
within wonky tonk prodigal host
crafted in the following poem he doth post
holding tumblr full of favorite brew
probiotic kombucha drink
to thee mother dearest
foregone fading memories
your long haired heir does toast.

Often these days,
the following genuine sentiment
Matthew Scott Harris
doth wish to share
how one and only son,
remembers his mother
cuz about eighteen years
after she succumbed
courtesy of terminal illness
he trots out and updates yearly
a poem initially crafted
when she passed away.

I still reckon eyes how yours truly
analogous to the fountainhead  
of Atlas shrugged off,
whose fanciful essence coalesced
immensely helped  sired,
and yelped ****** ******
when ******* ***** in heat whelped  
at what human biology wrought
doggone muttering schlep
despite being nurtured,

proffered, and registered
tender loving care
within whose womb,
a mature haploid female cell
experienced fertilization courtesy
complimentary male haploid *****
underwent fertilization yielding
zygote thru mother nature's gestation
this sole male offspring born,
thus subsequently after her demise,
yours truly shouldered himself with self scorn.

He clearly recounts
when she felt the scythe of the grim reaper
as if her death occurred yesterday...,
when all mine troubles
(emotional, financial, and physical)
moost definitely
no more farther away
then present moment.

Tempus fugit popular worded couplet
brings Latin alive with succinct precision
or imagine an hourglass
where fine granules
analogous to last remaining
grains representing sands of time
trickle from one to another
(upper to lower) bulbed chamber.

Just prior when coroner decreed death,
yet once in a lifetime opportunity prevailed,
wherein said self (me) chose
NOT to stand vigil at deathbed
(analogous to sitting Shiva)
of she who begat
an older and younger daughter
(mine sibling sisters).

Last breath(s) expelled while mama
tethered to machines,
one or more helped diminish
agonizing, depressing, and writhing
pain and discomfort
figuratively and literally
wracked and pinioned once fitness
and health conscious, flirtatious
industrious, tenacious, and vivacious body,
dinged, harangued, peppered
nefarious carcinoma by dint of
common atomic beastie boy
among certain Semitic people
linkedin to presumptuous inbreeding.

According to google search
frequency of breast, ovarian,
and uterine cancer among Ashkenazi
elicited revelatory statistic
1% of all Ashkenazi Jews
living today inherited
a defective copy of one
of their BRCA2 genes.

Unbeknownst to them,
these carriers of BRCA2 mutation
at increased risk for developing
breast, ovarian, prostate
and pancreatic cancer.

Indomitable esprit de corps
eradicated courtesy regimen of
chemotherapy and radiation,
which latter malignant terminal illness
(no joke) riddled a former robust
Arthur Murray ballroom dance instructor
(think approximately sixty nine years past),
whose coy and coquettish demeanor
instantaneously caught fancy of handsome
twenty something papa at his prime.

Before rigor mortis quickly
stole precious lifeblood, and
final minutes ticked away until
countdown to... realm
of absent consciousness
scant moments before subtle transition
slipped our beloved mother
out of misery (a veritable battleground)
where she did silently rage into deadzone...,
neither final adieu, caress, grief...,

nor poem written...
never communicated to deceased,
not an iota of sorrowful lament
bequeathed, prevailed, relinquished...
over lifeless body (mommy dearest)
relegated limp suddenly
cold stone pilot less body,
where morgue aged corpse
kept in cold storage
(despite aversion to frigid air
exhibited when mama alive)
preparatory to cremation process.

Rather... suppressed resentment
exhibited itself at 1148 Greentree Lane
(partially listed abode -
Matthew Scott Harris,
where family of mine then resided)
by mister recalcitrant,
felt ambivalent carte blanche blasé affection
regarding once young bride,
(who metaphorically
smothered cingular heir insync
with dada i.e. Boyce Brandon Harris),

cuz he (yours truly) overstayed
livingsocial under same roof as parents,
which happenstance situated
at me boyhood home
once located upon
six plus wooded acres;
324 Level Road
constituted the whittled down
once sprawling Leiper Estate,
which encompassed about
one hundred plus acre wood
home to Winnie the Pooh.

Both thee aforementioned
supposed biological guardians
railed, screamed, tormented
(albeit verbally traumatized)
yours truly, upon attaining
mine eighteenth birthday,
when great expectations
greatly exacerbating
emotionally hard times,
which ill suited poet de jure
experienced, brickbats rained

akin to fountainhead spewing
painful pelting piercing
poisonously pummelling (python like
hashtagged with moniker Monty)
down upon these
considerably mooch younger lovely bones,
whose anger (mine) smoldered
linkedin to constant epithets of expletives
out the mouths of those who begat me,
subsequently their livid with rage
tsunami festered within me
every holy moly molecule.

Mine atomized corporeal being
manifesting itself as deprivation
to embrace dear mama
attended at hospital with
both my non twisted sisters;
one hailed from Woodbury, New Jersey
and the younger staked out
modest digs within Bend, Oregon,
meanwhile thee grim reaper
did patiently soon scythe
heading back to his old curiosity shop,
a rather bleak house, I now conclude.

Time's ticking
Future waning
Engine clunky in disrepair
Hot muscle furious
Fists flying
Pummelling oppressive chest
Exorcising faulty heart
Weighty
No longer waiting
Clawing
Climbing windpipe ladder
Desperate to escape
Feral creature
Spitting fire
Shrieks and shivers
Defiant for
The end

Nestled hiding in the dormant shadows you have waited
Thirty nine years to be precise
Panther black,
head forward you leap,
wielding your pure  hatred, like thick brown molasses spewing and trickling down my well oiled throat.
And as you spiral out of control, a bucket down a darkened well,
branch like claws snag the delicate flesh of my windpipe, mimicking thorns piercing soft pink rose petals as they collide during a tempest’s flight.
Your journey forces upwards a cruel gasping dangerous fanfare to a stranger’s ear not willing to engulf such a tortuous tune.
And as you rock to the right and left, pebbles in a rib cage, thrashing blindly in the suffocating solitude you have rudely entered into,
flaying around like a drowned rat, forcing unsoiled matter to its knees , you hunt.
Yes you hunt for your prize which lies cradled in a gentle pink veil of the bubble gum I swallowed instead of popped, during my infancy.
and  towards this crimson pulsating beacon you move and set to work, like children feverishly on a Christmas morning , ripping layers of festive paper to reveal the gift ,which  like they,
you have waited so long for.
Dripping salted sweat from this momentary toil, which as a consequence etches away the tissued muscle of my heart, you pluck it away from its hiding place, pummelling and remoulding it, the repercussions of your actions soon to show its ugly face.
As from today I will be broken, I will not be the same, I will be an altered state, yet with this obvious consequence you continue.
Jewels bedeck my crumpled face, the water pouring from sunken eyes, ebb and flow leaving two puffed mounds of bread like flesh to bring me now adorned eyelids.
A small stream burrowing deep into the creases of my cheeks uses gravity to mark its path, and too exhausted I fail to catch the droplets as they cascade to the floor, a broken string of pearls bouncing noisily into every corner, marking their trajectory with a high pitched potent ping.  
A breeze taken from someones final breath circulates my space, freezing the moisture sliding down my neck,  causing me to shiver and shake. I succumb now whole heartedly to your uninvited takeover, too many signals fusing my grey matter, dumbing my reaction, overloading the electrical impulses, a heavy shroud falling heavily around hunched shoulders, smothering me, smouldering the flame of life I once held onto and bringing with it the realisation that this twinning which has  just taken place will be here until, like the trigger, I have closed my eyes forever, and with this you burrow deep, copying the rise and fall of my chest, wallowing in this sudden recognition, not in any hurry for your final release.