Part One
Nascent Craving

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

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

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

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

Part Two
Tendered Senses

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

Piercing eyes parallel crystalline waters of Lake Tahoe.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

© 2013 W. S. Warner

Morning and evening
Maids heard the goblins cry:
"Come buy our orchard fruits,
Come buy, come buy:
Apples and quinces,
Lemons and oranges,
Plump unpeck'd cherries,
Melons and raspberries,
Bloom-down-cheek'd peaches,
Swart-headed mulberries,
Wild free-born cranberries,
Crab-apples, dewberries,
Pine-apples, blackberries,
Apricots, strawberries;--
All ripe together
In summer weather,--
Morns that pass by,
Fair eves that fly;
Come buy, come buy:
Our grapes fresh from the vine,
Pomegranates full and fine,
Dates and sharp bullaces,
Rare pears and greengages,
Damsons and bilberries,
Taste them and try:
Currants and gooseberries,
Bright-fire-like barberries,
Figs to fill your mouth,
Citrons from the South,
Sweet to tongue and sound to eye;
Come buy, come buy.-"

               Evening by evening
Among the brookside rushes,
Laura bow'd her head to hear,
Lizzie veil'd her blushes:
Crouching close together
In the cooling weather,
With clasping arms and cautioning lips,
With tingling cheeks and finger tips.
"Lie close,-" Laura said,
Pricking up her golden head:
"We must not look at goblin men,
Who knows upon what soil they fed
Their hungry thirsty roots?-"
"Come buy,-" call the goblins
Hobbling down the glen.

"Oh,-" cried Lizzie, "Laura, Laura,
You should not peep at goblin men.-"
Lizzie cover'd up her eyes,
Cover'd close lest they should look;
Laura rear'd her glossy head,
And whisper'd like the restless brook:
"Look, Lizzie, look, Lizzie,
Down the glen ***** little men.
One hauls a basket,
One bears a plate,
One lugs a golden dish
Of many pounds weight.
How fair the vine must grow
Whose grapes are so luscious;
How warm the wind must blow
Through those fruit bushes.-"
"No,-" said Lizzie, "No, no, no;
Their offers should not charm us,
Their evil gifts would harm us.-"
She ****** a dimpled finger
In each ear, shut eyes and ran:
Curious Laura chose to linger
Wondering at each merchant man.
One whisk'd a tail,
One *****'d at a rat's pace,
One crawl'd like a snail,
One like a wombat prowl'd obtuse and furry,
One like a ratel tumbled hurry skurry.
She heard a voice like voice of doves
Cooing all together:
They sounded kind and full of loves
In the pleasant weather.

               Laura stretch'd her gleaming neck
Like a rush-imbedded swan,
Like a lily from the beck,
Like a moonlit poplar branch,
When its last restraint is gone.

               Backwards up the mossy glen
Turn'd and troop'd the goblin men,
With their shrill repeated cry,
"Come buy, come buy.-"
When they reach'd where Laura was
They stood stock still upon the moss,
Leering at each other,
Brother with queer brother;
Signalling each other,
Brother with sly brother.
One set his basket down,
One began to weave a crown
Of tendrils, leaves, and rough nuts brown
(Men sell not such in any town);
One heav'd the golden weight
Of dish and fruit to offer her:
"Come buy, come buy,-" was still their cry.
Laura stared but did not stir,
Long'd but had no money:
The whisk-tail'd merchant bade her taste
In tones as smooth as honey,
The cat-faced purr'd,
The rat-faced spoke a word
Of welcome, and the snail-paced even was heard;
Cried "Pretty Goblin-" still for "Pretty Polly;-"--
One whistled like a bird.

               But sweet-tooth Laura spoke in haste:
"Good folk, I have no coin;
To take were to purloin:
I have no copper in my purse,
I have no silver either,
And all my gold is on the furze
That shakes in windy weather
Above the rusty heather.-"
"You have much gold upon your head,-"
They answer'd all together:
"Buy from us with a golden curl.-"
She clipp'd a precious golden lock,
She dropp'd a tear more rare than pearl,
Then ****'d their fruit globes fair or red:
Sweeter than honey from the rock,
Stronger than man-rejoicing wine,
Clearer than water flow'd that juice;
She never tasted such before,
How should it cloy with length of use?
She ****'d and ****'d and ****'d the more
Fruits which that unknown orchard bore;
She ****'d until her lips were sore;
Then flung the emptied rinds away
But gather'd up one kernel stone,
And knew not was it night or day
As she turn'd home alone.

               Lizzie met her at the gate
Full of wise upbraidings:
"Dear, you should not stay so late,
Twilight is not good for maidens;
Should not loiter in the glen
In the haunts of goblin men.
Do you not remember Jeanie,
How she met them in the moonlight,
Took their gifts both choice and many,
Ate their fruits and wore their flowers
Pluck'd from bowers
Where summer ripens at all hours?
But ever in the noonlight
She pined and pined away;
Sought them by night and day,
Found them no more, but dwindled and grew grey;
Then fell with the first snow,
While to this day no grass will grow
Where she lies low:
I planted daisies there a year ago
That never blow.
You should not loiter so.-"
"Nay, hush,-" said Laura:
"Nay, hush, my sister:
I ate and ate my fill,
Yet my mouth waters still;
To-morrow night I will
Buy more;-" and kiss'd her:
"Have done with sorrow;
I'll bring you plums to-morrow
Fresh on their mother twigs,
Cherries worth getting;
You cannot think what figs
My teeth have met in,
What melons icy-cold
Piled on a dish of gold
Too huge for me to hold,
What peaches with a velvet nap,
Pellucid grapes without one seed:
Odorous indeed must be the mead
Whereon they grow, and pure the wave they drink
With lilies at the brink,
And sugar-sweet their sap.-"

               Golden head by golden head,
Like two pigeons in one nest
Folded in each other's wings,
They lay down in their curtain'd bed:
Like two blossoms on one stem,
Like two flakes of new-fall'n snow,
Like two wands of ivory
Tipp'd with gold for awful kings.
Moon and stars gaz'd in at them,
Wind sang to them lullaby,
Not a bat flapp'd to and fro
Round their rest:
Cheek to cheek and breast to breast
Lock'd together in one nest.

               Early in the morning
When the first **** crow'd his warning,
Neat like bees, as sweet and busy,
Laura rose with Lizzie:
Fetch'd in honey, milk'd the cows,
Air'd and set to rights the house,
Kneaded cakes of whitest wheat,
Cakes for dainty mouths to eat,
Next churn'd butter, whipp'd up cream,
Fed their poultry, sat and sew'd;
Talk'd as modest maidens should:
Lizzie with an open heart,
Laura in an absent dream,
One content, one sick in part;
One warbling for the mere bright day's delight,
One longing for the night.

               At length slow evening came:
They went with pitchers to the reedy brook;
Lizzie most placid in her look,
Laura most like a leaping flame.
They drew the gurgling water from its deep;
Lizzie pluck'd purple and rich golden flags,
Then turning homeward said: "The sunset flushes
Those furthest loftiest crags;
Come, Laura, not another maiden lags.
No wilful squirrel wags,
The beasts and birds are fast asleep.-"
But Laura loiter'd still among the rushes
And said the bank was steep.

               And said the hour was early still
The dew not fall'n, the wind not chill;
Listening ever, but not catching
The customary cry,
"Come buy, come buy,-"
With its iterated jingle
Of sugar-baited words:
Not for all her watching
Once discerning even one goblin
Racing, whisking, tumbling, hobbling;
Let alone the herds
That used to ***** along the glen,
In groups or single,
Of brisk fruit-merchant men.

               Till Lizzie urged, "O Laura, come;
I hear the fruit-call but I dare not look:
You should not loiter longer at this brook:
Come with me home.
The stars rise, the moon bends her arc,
Each glowworm winks her spark,
Let us get home before the night grows dark:
For clouds may gather
Though this is summer weather,
Put out the lights and drench us through;
Then if we lost our way what should we do?-"

               Laura turn'd cold as stone
To find her sister heard that cry alone,
That goblin cry,
"Come buy our fruits, come buy.-"
Must she then buy no more such dainty fruit?
Must she no more such succous pasture find,
Gone deaf and blind?
Her tree of life droop'd from the root:
She said not one word in her heart's sore ache;
But peering thro' the dimness, nought discerning,
Trudg'd home, her pitcher dripping all the way;
So crept to bed, and lay
Silent till Lizzie slept;
Then sat up in a passionate yearning,
And gnash'd her teeth for baulk'd desire, and wept
As if her heart would break.

               Day after day, night after night,
Laura kept watch in vain
In sullen silence of exceeding pain.
She never caught again the goblin cry:
"Come buy, come buy;-"--
She never spied the goblin men
Hawking their fruits along the glen:
But when the noon wax'd bright
Her hair grew thin and grey;
She dwindled, as the fair full moon doth turn
To swift decay and burn
Her fire away.

               One day remembering her kernel-stone
She set it by a wall that faced the south;
Dew'd it with tears, hoped for a root,
Watch'd for a waxing shoot,
It never saw the sun,
It never felt the trickling moisture run:
While with sunk eyes and faded mouth
She dream'd of melons, as a traveller sees
False waves in desert drouth
With shade of leaf-crown'd trees,
And burns the thirstier in the sandful breeze.

               She no more swept the house,
Tended the fowls or cows,
Fetch'd honey, kneaded cakes of wheat,
Brought water from the brook:
But sat down listless in the chimney-nook

               Tender Lizzie could not bear
To watch her sister's cankerous care
Yet not to share.
She night and morning
Caught the goblins' cry:
"Come buy our orchard fruits,
Come buy, come buy;-"--
Beside the brook, along the glen,
She heard the ***** of goblin men,
The yoke and stir
Poor Laura could not hear;
Long'd to buy fruit to comfort her,
But fear'd to pay too dear.
Who should have been a bride;
But who for joys brides hope to have
Fell sick and died
In her gay prime,
In earliest winter time
With the first glazing rime,
With the first snow-fall of crisp winter time.

               Till Laura dwindling
Seem'd knocking at Death's door:
Then Lizzie weigh'd no more
Better and worse;
But put a silver penny in her purse,
Kiss'd Laura, cross'd the heath with clumps of furze.
At twilight, halted by the brook:
And for the first time in her life
Began to listen and look.

               Laugh'd every goblin
When they spied her peeping:
Came towards her hobbling,
Flying, running, leaping,
Puffing and blowing,
Chuckling, clapping, crowing,
Clucking and gobbling,
Mopping and mowing,
Full of airs and graces,
Pulling wry faces,
Demure grimaces,
Cat-like and rat-like,
Ratel- and wombat-like,
Snail-paced in a hurry,
Parrot-voiced and whistler,
Helter skelter, hurry skurry,
Chattering like magpies,
Fluttering like pigeons,
Gliding like fishes,--
Hugg'd her and kiss'd her:
Squeez'd and caress'd her:
Stretch'd up their dishes,
Panniers, and plates:
"Look at our apples
Russet and dun,
Bob at our cherries,
Bite at our peaches,
Citrons and dates,
Grapes for the asking,
Pears red with basking
Out in the sun,
Plums on their twigs;
Pluck them and **** them,
Pomegranates, figs.-"--

               "Good folk,-" said Lizzie,
Mindful of Jeanie:
"Give me much and many: --
Held out her apron,
Toss'd them her penny.
"Nay, take a seat with us,
Honour and eat with us,-"
They answer'd grinning:
"Our feast is but beginning.
Night yet is early,
Warm and dew-pearly,
Wakeful and starry:
Such fruits as these
No man can carry:
Half their bloom would fly,
Half their dew would dry,
Half their flavour would pass by.
Sit down and feast with us,
Be welcome guest with us,
Cheer you and rest with us.-"--
"Thank you,-" said Lizzie: "But one waits
So without further parleying,
If you will not sell me any
Of your fruits though much and many,
Give me back my silver penny
I toss'd you for a fee.-"--
They began to scratch their pates,
No longer wagging, purring,
But visibly demurring,
Grunting and snarling.
One call'd her proud,
Cross-grain'd, uncivil;
Their tones wax'd loud,
Their looks were evil.
Lashing their tails
Elbow'd and jostled her,
Claw'd with their nails,
Barking, mewing, hissing, mocking,
Tore her gown and soil'd her stocking,
Twitch'd her hair out by the roots,
Stamp'd upon her tender feet,
Held her hands and squeez'd their fruits
Against her mouth to make her eat.

               White and golden Lizzie stood,
Like a lily in a flood,--
Like a rock of blue-vein'd stone
Lash'd by tides obstreperously,--
In a hoary roaring sea,
Sending up a golden fire,--
Like a fruit-crown'd orange-tree
White with blossoms honey-sweet
Sore beset by wasp and bee,--
Like a royal ****** town
Topp'd with gilded dome and spire
Close beleaguer'd by a fleet
Mad to tug her standard down.

               One may lead a horse to water,
Twenty cannot make him drink.
Though the goblins cuff'd and caught her,
Bullied and besought her,
Scratch'd her, pinch'd her black as ink,
Kick'd and knock'd her,
Maul'd and mock'd her,
Lizzie utter'd not a word;
Would not open lip from lip
Lest they should cram a mouthful in:
But laugh'd in heart to feel the drip
Of juice that syrupp'd all her face,
And lodg'd in dimples of her chin,
And streak'd her neck which quaked like curd.
At last the evil people,
Worn out by her resistance,
Flung back her penny, kick'd their fruit
Along whichever road they took,
Not leaving root or stone or shoot;
Some writh'd into the ground,
Some ***'d into the brook
With ring and ripple,
Some scudded on the gale without a sound,
Some vanish'd in the distance.

               In a smart, ache, tingle,
Lizzie went her way;
Knew not was it night or day;
Sprang up the bank, tore thro' the furze,
Threaded copse and ******,
And heard her penny jingle
Bouncing in her purse,--
Its bounce was music to her ear.
She ran and ran
As if she fear'd some goblin man
Dogg'd her with gibe or curse
Or something worse:
But not one goblin scurried after,
Nor was she *****'d by fear;
The kind heart made her windy-paced
That urged her home quite out of breath with haste
And inward laughter.

               She cried, "Laura,-" up the garden,
"Did you miss me?
Come and kiss me.
Never mind my bruises,
Hug me, kiss me, **** my juices
Squeez'd from goblin fruits for you,
Goblin pulp and goblin dew.
Eat me, drink me, love me;
Laura, make much of me;
For your sake I have braved the glen
And had to do with goblin merchant men.-"

               Laura started from her chair,
Flung her arms up in the air,
Clutch'd her hair:
"Lizzie, Lizzie, have you tasted
For my sake the fruit forbidden?
Must your light like mine be hidden,
Your young life like mine be wasted,
Undone in mine undoing,
And ruin'd in my ruin,
Thirsty, canker'd, goblin-ridden?-"--
She clung about her sister,
Kiss'd and kiss'd and kiss'd her:
Tears once again
Refresh'd her shrunken eyes,
Dropping like rain
After long sultry drouth;
Shaking with aguish fear, and pain,
She kiss'd and kiss'd her with a hungry mouth.

     &nb

There was a house fire on my street last night …well… not exactly my street, but on a little, sketchy, dead-end strip of asphalt, sidewalks, weeds, and garbage that juts into my block two houses down. It was on that street. Rosewood Court, population: 12, adjusted population: 11, characterized by anonymity and boarded windows, peppered with the swift movements of fat street rats. I’ve never been that close to a real, high-energy, make-sure-to-spray-down-your-roof-with-a-hose-so-it-doesn’t-catch­ fire before. It was the least of my expectations for the evening, though I didn’t expect a crate of Peruvian bananas to fall off a cargo plane either, punching through the ceiling, littering the parking lot with damaged fruit and shingles, tearing paintings and shelves and studs from the third floor walls, and crashing into our kitchen, shattering dishes and cabinets and appliances. Since that never happened, and since neither the former nor the latter situation even crossed my mind, I’ll stick with “least of my expectations,” and bundle up with it inside that inadequate phrase whatever else may have happened that I wouldn’t have expected.



I had been reading in my living room, absently petting the long calico fur of my roommate’s cat Dory. She’s in heat, and does her best to make sure everyone knows it, parading around, *** in the air, an opera of low trilling and loud meows and deep purring. As a consequence of a steady tide of feline hormones, she’s been excessively good humored, showering me with affection, instead of her usual indifference, punctuated by occasional, self-serving shin rubs when she’s hungry. I saw the lights before I heard the trucks or the shouts of firemen or the panicked wail of sirens, spitting their warning into the night in A or A minor, but probably neither, I’m no musician. Besides, Congratulations was playing loud, flowing through the speakers in the corners of the room, connected to the record player via the receiver with the broken volume control, travelling as excited electrons down stretches of wire that are, realistically, too short, and always pull out. The song was filling the space between the speakers and the space between my ears with musings on Brian Eno, so the auditory signal that should have informed me of the trouble that was afoot was blocked out. I saw the lights, the alternating reds and whites that filled my living room, drawing shifting patterns on my walls, ceiling, floor, furniture, and shelves of books, dragging me towards the door leading outside, through the cluttered bike room, past the sleeping, black lump of oblivious fur that is usually my boisterous male kitten, and out into the bedlam I  had previously been ignorant to. I could see the smoke, it was white then gray then white, all the while lending an acrid taste to the air, but I couldn’t see where it was issuing from. The wind was blowing the smoke toward my apartment, away from Empire Mills. I tried to count the firetrucks, but there were so many. I counted six on Wilmarth Ave, one of which was the awkward-looking, heavy-duty special hazards truck. In my part of the city, the post-industrial third-wave ***** river valley, you never know if the grease fire that started with homefries in a frying pan in an old woman’s kitchen will escalate into a full-blown mill fire, the century-old wood floors so saturated with oil and kerosene and ****** and manufacturing chemicals and ghosts and god knows what other flammable **** that it lights up like a fifth of July leftover sparkler, burning and melting the hand of the community that fed it for so many decades, leaving scars that are displayed on the local news for a week and are forgotten in a few years’ time.



The night was windy, and the day had been dry, so precautions were abundant, and I counted two more trucks on Fones Ave. One had the biggest ladder I’ve ever seen. It was parked on the corner of Fones and Wilmarth, directly across from the entrance into the forgotten dead-end where the forgotten house was burning, and the ladder was lifting into the air. By now my two roommates had come outside too, to stand on our rickety, wooden staircase, and Jeff said he could see flames in the windows of one of the three abandoned houses on Rosewood, through the third floor holes where windows once were, where boards of plywood were deemed unnecessary.



“Ay! Daddy!”



My neighbor John called up to us. He serves as the eyes and ears and certainly the mouth of our block, always in everyone’s business, without being too intrusive, always aware of what’s going down and who’s involved. He proceeded to tell us the lowdown on the blaze as far as he knew it, that there were two more firetrucks and an ambulance down Rosewood, that the front and back doors to the house were blocked by something from inside, that those somethings were very heavy, that someone was screaming inside, that the fire was growing.



Val had gone inside to get his jacket, because despite the floodlights from the trucks imitating sunlight, the wind and the low temperature and the thought of a person burning alive made the night chilly. Val thought we should go around the block, to see if we could get a better view, to satisfy our congenital need to witness disaster, to see the passenger car flip over the Jersey barrier, to watch the videos of Jihadist beheadings, to stand in line to look at painted corpses in velvet, underlit parlors, and sit in silence while their family members cry. We walked down the stairs, into full floodlight, and there were first responders and police and fully equipped firefighters moving in all directions. We watched two firemen attempting to open an old, rusty fire hydrant, and it could’ve been inexperience, the stress of the situation, the condition of the hydrant, or just poor luck, but rather than opening as it was supposed to the hydrant burst open, sending the cap flying into the side of a firetruck, the water crashing into the younger of the two men’s face and torso, knocking him back on his ***. While he coughed out surprised air and water and a flood of expletives, his partner got the situation under control and got the hose attached. We turned and walked away from the fire, and as we approached the turn we’d take to cut through the rundown parking lot that would bring us to the other side of the block, two firemen hurried past, one leading the other, carrying between them a stretcher full of machines for monitoring and a shitload of wires and tubing. It was the stiff board-like kind, with handles on each end, the kind of stretcher you might expect to see circus clowns carry out, when it’s time to save their fallen, pie-faced cohort. I wondered why they were using this archaic form of patient transportation, and not one of the padded, electrical ones on wheels. We pushed past the crowd that had begun forming, walked past the Laundromat, the 7Eleven, the carwash, and took a left onto the street on the other side of the parking lot, parallel to Wilmarth. There were several older men standing on the sidewalk, facing the fire, hands either in pockets or bringing a cigarette to and from a frowning mouth. They were standing in the ideal place to witness the action, with an unobstructed view of the top two floors of the burning house, its upper windows glowing orange with internal light and vomiting putrid smoke.  We could taste the burning wires, the rugs, the insulation, the asbestos, the black mold, the trash, and the smell was so strong I had to cover my mouth with my shirt, though it provided little relief. We said hello, they grunted the same, and we all stood, watching, thinking about what we were seeing, not wanting to see what we were thinking.

Two firefighters were on the roof by this point, they were yelling to each other and to the others on the ground, but we couldn’t hear what they were saying because of the sirens from all the emergency vehicles that were arriving.  It seemed to me they sent every firetruck in the city, as well as more than a dozen police cars and a slew of ambulances, all of them arriving from every direction. I guess they expected the fire to get really out of hand, but we could already see the orange glow withdrawing into the dark of the house, steam and smoke rippling out of the stretched, wooden mouths of the rotted window frames. In a gruff, habitual smoker’s voice, we heard

                                      “Chopper called the fire depahtment

We was over at the vet’s home

                He says he saw flames in the windas

                                                                                                                                                We all thought he was shittin’ us

We couldn’t see nothin’.”

A man between fifty-five to sixty-five years old was speaking, no hair on his shiny, tanned head, old tattoos etched in bluish gray on his hands, arms, and neck, menthol smoke rising from between timeworn fingers. He brought the cigarette to his lips, drew a hearty chest full of smoke, and as he let it out he repeated

                                                “Yea, chopper called em’

Says he saw flames.”

The men on the roof were just silhouettes, backlit by the dazzling brightness of the lights on the other side.  The figure to the left of the roof pulled something large up into view, and we knew instantly by the cord pull and the sound that it was a chainsaw. He began cutting directly into the roof. I wasn’t sure what he was doing, wondered if he was scared of falling into the fire, assumed he probably was, but had at least done this before, tried to figure out if he was doing it to gain entry or release pressure or whatever. The man to the right was hacking away at the roof with an axe. It was surreal to watch, to see two men transformed from public servants into fingers of destruction, the pinkie and ring finger fighting the powerful thumb of the controlled chemical reaction eating the air below them, to watch the dark figures shrouded in ethereal light and smoke and sawdust and what must’ve been unbearable heat from below, to be viewing everything with my own home, my belongings, still visible, to know it could easily have gone up in flames as well.

I should’ve brought my jacket. I remember complaining about it, about how the wind was passing through my skin like a window screen, chilling my blood, in sharp contrast to the heat that was morphing and rippling the air above the house as it disappeared as smoke and gas up into the atmosphere from the inside out.

Ten minutes later, or maybe five, or maybe one, the men on the roof were still working diligently cutting and chopping, but we could no longer see any signs of flames, and there were figures moving around in the house, visible in the windows of the upper floors, despite the smoke. Figuring the action must be reaching its end, we decided to walk back to our apartment. We saw Ken’s brown pickup truck parked next to the Laundromat, unable to reach our parking lot due to all the emergency vehicles and people clogging our street. We came around the corner and saw the other two members of the Infamous Summers standing next to our building with the rest of the crowd that had gathered. Dosin told us the fire was out, and that they had pulled someone from inside the gutted house, but no ambulance had left yet, and his normally smiling face was flat and somber, and the beaten guitar case slung over his shoulder, and his messed up hair, and the red in his cheeks from the cold air, and the way he was moving rocks around with the toe of his shoe made him look like a lost child, chasing a dream far from home but finding a nightmare in its place, instead of the professional who never loses his cool or his direction.

The crowd all began talking at once, so I turned around, towards the dead end and the group of firefighters and EMTs that were emerging. Their faces were stoic, not a single expression on all but one of those faces, a young EMT, probably a Basic, or a Cardiac, or neither, but no older than twenty, who was silently weeping, the tears cutting tracks through the soot on his cheeks, his eyes empty of emotion, his lips drawn tight and still. Four of them were each holding a corner of the maroon stretcher that took two to carry when I first saw it, full of equipment. They did not rush, they did not appear to be tending to a person barely holding onto life, they were just carrying the weight. As they got close gasps and cries of horror or disgust or both issued from the crowd, some turned away, some expressions didn’t change, some eyes closed and others stayed fixed on what they came to see. One woman vomited, right there on the sidewalk, splashing the shoes of those near her with the partially digested remains of her EBT dinner. I felt my own stomach start to turn, but I didn’t look away. I couldn’t.

                                                                                It was like I was seven again,

                                in the alleyway running along the side of the junior high school I lived near and would eventually attend,

looking in silent horror at what three eighth graders from my neighborhood were doing.

It was about eight in the evening of a rainy,

late summer day,

and I was walking home with my older brother,

cutting through the alley like we always did.

The three older boys were standing over a small dog,

a terrier of some sort.

They had duct taped its mouth shut and its legs together,

but we could still hear its terrified whines through its clenched teeth.

One of the boys had cut off the dog’s tail.

He had it in one hand,

and was still holding the pocket knife in the other.

None of them were smiling,

or talking,

nor did they take notice of Andrew and I.

There was a garden bag standing up next to them that looked pretty full,

and there was a small pile of leaves on the ground next to it.

In slow motion I watched,

horrified,

as one of the boys,

Brian Jones-Hartlett,

picked up the shaking animal,

put it in the bag,

covered it with the leaves from the ground,

and with wide,

shining eyes,

set the bag

on fire

with a long-necked

candle

lighter.

It was too much for me then. I couldn’t control my nausea. I threw up and sat down while my head swam.

I couldn’t understand. I forgot my brother and the fact that he was older, that he should stop this,

Stop them,

There’s a dog in there,

You’re older, I’m sick,

Why can’t I stop them?

It was like

Part I


the plateau. the truest of them all. coast line. night spells and even controlled by the dream of meeting again. the ribbon of darker than light in your crown. No region overlooked. Third picnic table to the drive at Half Moon Bay, meet me there, decant my speech there. the table by the restroom block. While the tide is in show me your oyster garden, 3:00p.m. at half-light here in the evilest torments that have been shed.---------------door locked.  The moors. Cow herds and lymph nodes, rancorous afternoon West light and bending roads, the cliffs, a sister, the need to jump. There is nothing as serious as this. There is nothing nor no one that could ever, or would ever on this side come between. Who needs sleep or jokes or snow or rivers or bombs or to turn or be a rat or a fly or ceiling fan or a gurney or a cadaver or piece of cloth or a bed spread or a couch or a game or the flint of a lighter or the bell of a dress; the bell of your dress, yes, perhaps. Having been crushed like orange cigarette light in a pool of Spanish tongues. I feel the heave, the pull; not a yawn but a wired, thread-like twist about my core. Up around the neck it makes the first cut, through the eyes out and into the nostrils down over the left arm, on the inside of the bicep, contorting my length, feigning sleep, and then cutting over my stomach, around and around multiples of times- pulled at the hips and under the groin, across each leg and in-between each nerve, capillary, artery, hair, dot, dimple, muscle, to the toes and in-between them. Wiry dream-like and nervous nightmarish, hellacious plateaus of leapers. Penguin heads and more penguin heads. Startling torment. The evilest of the vile mind. The dance of despair: if feet contorted and bound could move. The beach off Belmont. The hills and the reasons I stared. Caveat after caveat at the heads of letters, on the heads of crowns, and the wrists, and on the palms. Being pulled and signed, and moved away so greatly and so heavily at once in a moment, that even if it were a year or a set of many months it would always be a moment too taking away to be considered an expanse, and it would be too hellacious to be presumptuous. It could only be a shadow over my right shoulder as I write the letters over and again. One after another. Internally I ask if I would even grant a convo with Keats or Yeats or Plath or Hughes? Does mine come close? Does it matter the bellies reddish and cerise giving of pain? Does it have to have many names?


"This is the only Earth," I would say with the bouquet of lilies spread out on the table. Are lilies only for funerals, I would never make or risk or wish this metaphor, even play it like the drawn out notes of a melody unwritten and un-played: my black box and latched, corner of the room saxophone. Top-floor, end of the hall two-room never-ending story, I'm the left side of the bed Chicago and I see pink walls, bathrooms, the two masonite paintings, the Chanel books, the bookshelves, the white desk, the white dresser, you on the left side of the bed in such sentimental woe, **** carpet and tilted blinds, and still the moors and the whispering in the driver's seat in afternoon pasture. Sunset, sunrise, nighttime and bike room writing in other places, apartments, rooms where I inked out fingertips, blights, and moods; nothing ever being so bleak, so eerily woe-like or stoic. Nothing has ever made me so serious.

Put it on the rib, in a t-shirt. Make it a hand and guide it up a set of two skinny legs under a short-sheeted bed in small room and literary Belmont, address included. Trash cans set out morning and night, deck-readied cigarette smoking. Sliding glass door and kitchen fright. Low-lit living room white couch, kaleidoscope, and zoetrope. Spin me right round baby right round. I am my own revenge of toxic night. Attack the skin, the soul, the eyes, the mind, and the lids. The finger lids and their tips. Rot it out. Blearing wild and deafening blow after blow: left side of the bed the both of us, whilst stirs the intrepid hate and ousts each ******* tongue I can bellow and blow.

Last resort lake note in snow bank and my river speak and forest walk. Wrapped in blocks and boxes, Christmas packaging and giant over-sized red ribbons and bows. Shall I mention the bassinet, the stroller, the yard, several rings of gold and silver, several necklaces of black and thread? I draw dagger from box, jagged ended and paper-wrapped in white and amber: lit in candle light and black room shadow-kept and sleeping partisan unforgettable forever. Do I mention Hawaii, my mother dying, invisible ligatures and the unveiling of the sweat and horror? Villainous and frightening, the breath as a bleat or heart-beat and matchstick stirring slightly every friends' woe and tantrum of their spirit.

Lobster-legged, waiting, sifting through the sea shore at the sea line, the bright tyrannosaurs in mahogany, in maple, and in twine over throw rose meadow over-looks, honey-brimming and warehouse built terrariums in the underbelly of the ravine, twist and turn: road bending, hollowing, in and out and in and out, forever, the everlasting and too fastidious driving towards; and it's but what .2 miles? I sign my name but I'll never get out. I am mocked and musing at tortoise speed. Headless while improvising. Purring at any example of continue or extremity or coolness of mind, meddling, or temptation. I rock, bellowing. Talk, sending shivers up my spine. I'm cramped, and one thousand fore-words and after words that split like a million large chunks of spit, grime, and *****; **** and more ****. I might even be standing now. I could be a candle, in England, a kingdom, in Palo Alto, a rook in St. Petersburg. Mottled by giants or sleepless nights, I could be the Eiffel Tower or the Statue of Liberty, a heated marble flower or the figure dying to be carved out. I'm veering off highways, I'm belittling myself: this heathen of the unforgettable, the bog man and bow-tied vagrant of dross falsification and dross despair. I am at the sea shore, tide-righted and tongue-tide, bilingual, and multi-inhibited by sweat, spit, quaffs of sea salt, lake water, and the like. Rotten wergild ridden- stitched of a poor man's ringworm and his tattered top hat and knee-holed trousers. I'm at the sea shore, with the cucumbers dying, the rain coming in sideways, the drifts and the sandbars twisting and turning. I'm at the sea shore with the light house bruise-bending the sweet ships of victory out backwards into the backwaters of a mislead moonlight; guitars playing, beeps disappearing, pianos swept like black coffees on green walled night clubs, arenose and eroding, grainy and distraught, bleeding and well, just bleeding.






I'm at the sea shore, the coastline calling. I've got rocks in my pockets, ******* and two lines left in the letter. I’m at the sea shore, my mouth is a ghost. I've seen nothing but darkness. I'm at the seashore, second picnic table, bench facing the squat and gobble, the tin roof and riled weir near the roadside. .2 and I'm still here with my bouquet wading and waiting. I'm at the sea shore and there's nobody here. My inches are growing shorter by the second, cold, whet by the sunset, its moon men, their heavy claws and bi-laws overthrowing and throwing me out. The thorns stick. The tyrannosaurs scream. I'm at the sea shore, plateau, left bedside to write three more letters. Sign my name and there's nobody here.

I'm at the sea shore: here are my lips, my palms (both of them facing up), here are my legs (twine and all), my torso, and my head shooting sideways. I'm at the seashore and this is my grave, this is my purposeful calotype, my hide and go seek, my show and tell, my forever. .2 and forever and never ending. I was just one dream away come and keep me. I'm at the sea shore come and see me and seam me. I'm without nothing, the sky has drifted, the sea is leaving, my seat is a matchbox and I'm all wound up. The snow settling, the ice box and its glory taken for granted. I'm at the sea shore and there's nobody here. The room with its white sets of furniture, the lilies, the Chanel, the masonite paintings, the bed, your ribbon of darker on light, the throw rug **** carpet, pink walled sister's room, and the couch at the top of the stairs. I'm at the sea shore, my windows opened wide, my skin thrown with threat, rhinoceri, reddish bruises bent of cerise staled sunsets. I'm at the sea shore and there's nobody here. I'm at the plateau and there isn't a single ship. There are the rocks below and I'm counting. My caveats all implored and my goodbyes written. I'm in my bed and the sleep never set in. I'm name dropping God and there's nobody there. I'm in a chair with my hands on a keyboard, listening to Danish throb-rock, horse-riding into candle light on a wicked wedding of wild words and teary-eyed gazes and gazers. Bent by the rocking and the torment, the wild and the weird, the horror and everything horrifying. There is this shadow looking over my shoulder. I'm all alone but I feel like you're here.



Part II




I wake up in Panama. The axe there. Sleeping on the floors in the guest bedroom, the floor of the garden shed, the choir closet, the rut of dirt at the end of the flower bed; just a towel, grayish-blue, alone, lawnmower at my side, and sky blue setting all around. I was a family man. No I just taste bits of dirt watching a quiet and contrary feeling of cool limestone wrap over and about my arms and my legs. Lungs battered by snapping tongues, and ancient conversations; I think it was the Malaysian Express. Mom quieted. Sister quieted. Father wept. And is still weeping. Never have I heard such horrifying and un-kindly words.-----------------------It's going to take giant steel cavernous explorations of the nose, brain cell after brain cell quartered, giant ******* quaffs of alcohol, harboring false lanterns and even worse chemicals. Inhalations and more inhalations. I'm going to need to leap, flight, drop into bodies of waters from air planes and swallow capsules of psychotropics, sedatives beyond recalcitrance. I'm requiring shock treatments and shock values. Periodic elements and galvanized steel drums. Malevolence and more malevolence. Forest walks, and why am I still in Panama. I don't want to talk, to sleep, to dream, to play stale-mating games of chess, checkers, Monopoly, or anything Risk involving. I can't sleep, eat, treaty or retreat. I'm wickeded by temptations of grandeur and threats of anomaly, widening only in proverb and swept only by opposing endeavors. Horrified, enveloped, pictured and persuaded by the evilest of haunts, spirits, and match head weeping women. I can't even open my mouth without hearing voices anymore. The colors are beginning to be enormous and I still can't swim. I couldn't drown with my ears open if I kept my nose dry and my mouth full of a plane ticket and first class beanstalk to elysian fields. It's pervasive and I'm purveyed. It's unquantifiable. It's the epitomizing and the epitome. I have my epaulets set for turbulent battles though I still can't fend off night. Speak and I might remember. Hear and it's second rite. Sea attacks, oceans roaring, lakes swallowing me whole. Grand bodies of waters and faces and arms appendages, crowns and more crowns and more crowns and more crowns and more crowns and I'm still shaking, and I'm still just a button. And I still can't sleep. And I'm still waiting.

It is night. The moon ripening, peeling back his face. Writhing. Seamed by the beauty of the nocturne, his ways made by sun, sky, and stars. Rolled and rampant. Moved across the plateau of the air, and its even and coolly majestic wanton shades of twilight. It heads off mountains, is swept as the plains of beauty, their faces in wild and feral growths. Bent and bolded, indelible and facing off Roman Empires too gladly well in inked and whet tips of bolder hands to soothe them forth.-----------Here in their grand and grandiose furnaces of the heart, whipped tails and tall fables fettered and tarnished in gold’s and lime. Here with their mothers' doting. Here with their Jimi Hendrix and poor poetry and stand-up downtrodden wergild and retardation. I don't give a ****. I could weep for the ***** if they even had hair half as fine as my own. I am real now. Limited by nothing. Served by no worship or warship. My flotilla serves tostadas at full-price. So now we have a game going.-----------------------------------------------------------­------------------------  My cowlick is not Sinatra's and it certainly doesn't beat women. As a matter of factotum and of writ and bylaw. I'm running down words more quickly than the stanza's of Longfellow. I'm moving subtexts like Eliot. I'm rampant and gaining speed. Methamphetamine and five star meats. Alfalfa and pea tendrils. Loves and the lovers I fall over and apart on. Heroes and my fortune over told and ever telling. Moving in arc light and keeping a warm glow.

the fish line caves. the shimmy and the shake. Bluegrass music and big wafting bell tones. snakes and the river, hands on the heads, through the hair; I look straight at the Pacific. I hate plastic flowers, those inanimate stems and machine-processed flesh tones. Waltzing the state divide. I am hooked on the intrepid doom of startling ego. I let it rake into my spine. It's hooves are heavy and singe and bind like manacles all over me. My first, my last, my favorite lover. I'm stalemating in the bathtub. Harnessing Crystal Lite and making rose gardens out of CD inserts and leaf covers. I'm fascinated by magic and gods. Guns and hunters. Thieving and mold, and laundry, and stereotypes, and great stereos, and boom-boxes, and the hi-fi nightlife of Chicago, roasting on a pith and meaty flame, built like a horror story five feet tall and laced with ruggedness and small needles. My skin is a chromium orchid and the grizzly subtext of a Nick Cave tune. I've allowed myself to be over-amplified, to mistake in falsetto and vice versa. To writhe on the heavy metallic reverberations of an altercated palpitation. The heart is the lonely hunted. First the waterproof matchsticks, then the water, the bowie knife, crass grasses and hard-necked pitch-hitters and phony friends; for doing lunch in the park on a frozen pond, I play like I invented blonde and really none of my **** even smells like gold.--------------------- There are the tales of false worship. I heard a street vendor sell a story about Ovid that was worse than local politics. As far as intermittent and esoteric histories go I'm the king of the present, second stage act in the shadow of the sideshow. Tonight I'm greeting the characters with Vaseline. For their love of music and their love of philosophy. For their twilight choirs and their skinny women who wear black antler masks and PVC and polyurethane body suits standing in inner-city gardens chanting. For their chanting. The pacific. For the fish line caves. For the buzzing and the kazoos. For the alfalfa and the three fathers of blue, red, and yellow. For the state of the nation. But still mostly working for the state of equality, more than a room for one’s own.-------------------------------------------------------------­------"Rice milk for all of you." " Kensington and whittled spirits."
(Doppelganger enters stage left)MAN: Prism state, flash of the golden arc. Beastly flowers and teeming woodlands. Heir to the throes and heir to the throng.----------------------------------------------------------­--------------- The sheep meadow press in the house of affection. The terns on my hem or the hide in my beak; all across the steel girder and whipping ******* the windows facing out. The mystery gaze that seers the diplopic eye. Still its opening shunned. I put a cage over it and carry it like a child through Haight-Ashbury. At times I hint that I'm bored, but there is no letting of blood or rattle of hope. When you live with a risk you begin at times to identify with the routes. Above the regional converse, the two on two or the two on four. At times for reasons of sadness but usually its just exhaustion. At times before the come and go gets to you, but usually that is wrong and they get to you first. Lathering up in a small cerulean piece of sky at the end turnabout of a dirt road

every put a cat's warm purr breathing snout
into your ear like a seashell?
what do you hear? Genesis? Milton...
the petted felines with lizard eyes tell you
a lot: i've found the satanic spy,
lingering in your midst!
put a cat's snout purring against your ear,
it's going to be a renovation of
the once fabled seashell being pressed against your
ear... hear that pervert breathing heavy?
hear him? it's called purring...
but put that snout against your ear,
lodge it right in the ear... it's heavy breathing...
it's not purring anymore...
lions don't have lizard eyes...
the serpent of Eden second time around,
crazy lady with cats...
lions don't have lizard eyes...
cats have lizard eyes,
hence an old man's aversion toward cats
and embracing dogs...
cats being bonsai felines given whatever
it was that became woman's fancy:
a serpent in the garden, a cat in the household...
for the illiterate an angry labouring husband,
slapping an all too eager romance reading wife
that would have never read this poem,
when i put a cat's snout into my ear,
to decipher purring like the seashell,
to say: bulldog snout... heavy breathing,
asthmatics.

The house is quiet, only my whisper is heard...

oh, I guess I'm such a nerd,
are you hanging on my every word?

OK good, come on, let's go,

Shadows drifting, so discreet,
fowl breath, a cut out sheet,
  hard to move these trembling feet
a waiting guest, for me to greet?
not a trick, I hope a treat!?!

Perhaps the reaper comes this way
he knows of this, a game I play?
waking Crowley, where he lay,

I grab ahold the banister,
and step around the stair valute,
the air grows dark and thick again,
as everything is put in mute,
until a bell, I pause to think,
perhaps a playing flute?

Prolly not & that's real cute,
or maybe
inquiries of  candied loot?

True that,

I wait to hear again, a ding,
the joy of laughter it will bring,
the songs again my heart will sing,

I grip the rail, I'm petrified
a ghostly ghoul,
me, has spied
I move away,
from where I hide,

Shhhhhh be quiet,

My legs are heavy,
I slowly stepped,
you escorted,
up I crept
tears I wish,
that I had wept,
I move my hand,
away are swept,
no way for me to leave, get out,
they'd never hear me scream & shout
trudging on with wary doubt,
I bite my lip,
I moan & pout,
in every step, as I grow brave,
climbing up, a darkened grave,
with every step, my soul to save,

Very dramatic poet,
emmmm thanks, read on,

I reach the top in my suspense,
ahead I say, in my defense,
sorry if you're feeling tense,

It's alright,

I open up the door ahead,
filling me & you with dread,
dragging knuckles, telluric bed,
I look, in horror, shrilling,
....shrieking
a glowing face, chilling,
peeking, must be the one,
that I,
... am seeking!

I chuckle at the sounds of creaking,
bones & boards beneath my feet
they tell,
so sneaking up?
say
you lived in hell?
so I give up
hey, where's the bell?

Oh hear it is, that's just swell,
I know right?
Thanks for finding it though,

Look out!?!

Jumping out, you give a start,
I feel it pump inside my heart,
looks as if I need black art,

Yikes!!!

Your not afraid?
you silly girl, let me give
another whirl
a bony hand, sweeps & swirls
tattered sheets they creep & twirl

You do your best
to discourage guests
I'm prepared for any scary test
Yes I'm different from the rest,
& by the way,
you mustn't know that I am blessed
I'm not leaving, you may have guessed

Some pumpkins happy
some are scary
the children here,
they shan't be wary
I am not, no I am nary
this may be a fateful twist
but by the gods I have been kissed
sorry but your aim, it missed

I know that I look a witch
as I move my nose & give a twitch
but my dear, I pulled a switch

I raise my hands, I curse your words
as spirits cry, my voice, is heard
I bind you here, your soul I gird,
I cast a spell, hogtie your feet
take a bite, it's really sweet
yes my dear please have a treat
do you mind, if I have a seat?

I call my spoon, my kettle stirring,
as he speaks,
the words are spurring,
I laugh aloud, as kitty's purring,
supernatural events, occurring,
as caldrons bubble, broomsticks fly,
& Frankenstein went walking by,
his Mummy gives a wistful sigh,

Your look of shock, a priceless one,
like someone just removed the sun,
I dare not say, a silly pun?

No it's very good,
Oh hey thanks friend,

As breaking glass of aged pane's
& your attempts to stop me,
all in vain,

In  rattlin' of my heavy chains
relieving bones,
from what they weigh
as my skeleton comes out to play
protecting children as you prey,
wave a wand, a hand & down I slay,

Too much?

No, go on...

The werewolf howling at the moon
growling baying, softly croons,
a clown I think might be a goon,
the wicked hour coming soon,
cackling witches laugh &  snicker
spirits run & candles flicker
demons plot, giggle...
... snicker,
rubbing hands,
they fight & bicker,

Hehehe...

I must admit their kinda spooky
Some are cute and kinda kooky,
To me look like a bunch of groupies,

Ha ha, good one poet!
Oh, well thanks!

I give my stick another flick,
I guess I gotta few more tricks!?
as fires dance in flaming licks,

Ewwww, I like it...

Halloween no time for fools,
the banshee comes with gaurding ghoul,
we're taking him to scaring school

Oh very cool,
yeah I made some room,

You can ride with banshee there,
the one with all the crazy hair,
you'll be alright just don't stare,
It's not as if I just don't care,

Huh!?! Great,

The unwanted speaks,

Well my dear, I'd say we're even
but temporary guess I'm leavin'
and your magic I might believin
pretty good, you think you won
congrats again, it's been real fun
a spell like yours can be undone

Hmmmm,

Oh I see, you think my best?
wait a sec, I'll get undressed
something here I must confess

Most these monsters are my friends
on whom my back I can depend
do your thing, with time you spend

That's okay, you go ahead
I don't wanna end up dead
and now I see, an empty bed
& your face is just filled with dread
boy you're really turning red
must be all the ink I bled

Careful now,
is this just a story?
filled with rhymes,
& kinda gory,
finding out is mandatory,



Now I jump out,
- I just say BOO
I guess, you see-
the tricks on you!

Happy Halloween!

Great ending,

Awww thanks for the love,
yeah sure do love this time of year,
lotsa fun, this one,

Enjoy a candy,
& thanks for coming!

Cherie Nolan © 2016

If I could
pinpoint the
exact moment
your breath
touched mine
washed me over
in ocean waves
sea creatures glowing
in delightful recognition
as the seedlings
of connection
shimmied into our being
and, dancing within me
in its own lifeforce
your mind a living,
breathing animal
your heart, purring
and whirring its sacred forces
into my molecular structures
your soul throbbing
in mitochondric pulsing
(oh what
a delicious vibration
of ribosomes)
Between us, we hold
the true treasures
close, in frothy
                       tenderness
a purity of the expanse
of our universe,
swathed in prismatic color
colors that shift,
these fresh hues
for which there are no name
they are lucid and fine-woven
as silk histories
yet deep as earthcore
your eyes, voice
are forever burned
into my own
every day scriptures
that rock my shattered parts
into wholeness
and,
like ancient magic,
I conjure forth
the holy gospel
rising from our bones
every second of
every minute
as our deepest fires
our most secret filth
our murky corners
our darkest hours
we weave into light
brilliant and lustrous
multi-layered in the richest
folds of the earth
and as you place me
upon the shores
of your garland-graced
                              throne
Now I'm alive in a new
kind of light
and
all I can do
is love
        and love
and love

Every week we bypass each other



As if neither of our existences





Matter much to one another









From across the room



We gaze at each other



Time further elapsing





How my mouth just waters



By the way you sway your hips



As you perform your **** walk





****... Would I ever love



To softly smack that backside



The way you flaunt drives me wild





And then you turn to flash



That lovely trademark smile



Seducing me over the edge





Purring like a naughty kitten I say:



'I want you...'



'I need you...'



'Come play with me I don't bite.'







Upon my lap she jumped



In her sexiest tone she whispered



'Let our bodies take the shape of lust.'





© 2011 (All rights reserved)

Through long nursery nights he stood
By my bed unwearying,
Loomed gigantic, formless, queer,
Purring in my haunted ear
That same hideous nightmare thing,
Talking, as he lapped my blood,
In a voice cruel and flat,
Saying for ever, "Cat! ... Cat! ... Cat!..."

That one word was all he said,
That one word through all my sleep,
In monotonous mock despair.
Nonsense may be light as air,
But there's Nonsense that can keep
Horror bristling round the head,
When a voice cruel and flat
Says for ever, "Cat! ... Cat! ... Cat!..."

He had faded, he was gone
Years ago with Nursery Land,
When he leapt on me again
From the clank of a night train,
Overpowered me foot and head,
Lapped my blood, while on and on
The old voice cruel and flat
Says for ever, "Cat! ... Cat! ... Cat!..."

Morphia drowsed, again I lay
In a crater by High Wood:
He was there with straddling legs,
Staring eyes as big as eggs,
Purring as he lapped my blood,
His black bulk darkening the day,
With a voice cruel and flat,
"Cat! ... Cat! ... Cat! ... Cat!..." he said, "Cat! ... Cat!..."

When I'm shot through heart and head,
And there's no choice but to die,
The last word I'll hear, no doubt,
Won't be "Charge!" or "Bomb them out!"
Nor the stretcher-bearer's cry,
"Let that body be, he's dead!"
But a voice cruel and flat
Saying for ever, "Cat! ... Cat! ... Cat!"

It's Friday evening from life's cares we'll have a brief leave taking
And lets go to the Basy Pub for hour of merry making
In confines of the Settlers Bar the voice of mirth is ringing
And Pete Atkinson from Dublin Town an Irish song is singing.

The Mckelvey men father and son are talking of horse racing
They know the horses inside out from form and race card tracing
Has Vo rogue gone over the hill, can Horlicks race to glory
Can Almaarad come bouncing back and go down in history?

Phil Cronin go back down the years he flick back through life pages
To friends he knew in Millstreet Town he has not seen for ages
Big Jerry Shea and Mister O, James Manley hale and hearty
And Johnny Sing from Millview Lane the life of every party.

Brave Harry the brave English man the one as tough as leather
You'll only see that man in shorts no matter what the weather
A man of elephantine strength yet gentle and kind hearted
And he has taken life's hardest blow since his son this world departed.

Big **** Kissane the Kerry man he doesn't like Maggie Thatcher
And he feels that for Union bashing that few in history could match her
Still he won't go back to Kenmare to weather wet and hazy
He'd much prefer Mt Evelyn it's nearer to the Baysy.

**** Kelleher and Phil Schofield well into greyhound breeding
They talk of how greyhounds should be schooled and for them proper feeding
Two greyhound trainers and of late their reputations growing
And Millstreet Town keep racing on when others dogs are slowing.

Vin Schofield a Manchester Man he does love Man United
And every time United win he feel proud and delighted
But United not doing well of late of late they're not impressing
And this too much for him to take he find it all depressing.

Galway's Matt Duggan and Westmeath's Sean Fay the hurling game debating
On the first sunday of September who will be celebrating
Can Westmeath make the big break through or will Galway flags be waving
Or will Tipperary still be champs their reputation saving?

And Marty Kerins from Mayo a good and happy fellow
I've never met him in bad mood I've always found him mellow
He love the Bayswater Hotel he say there is none better
And to be kept from Settlers Bar he'd have to be in fetter.

And **** O Shea from Dublin his friends are in the many
And he doesn't have one enemy and he doesn't deserve any
He's given homes to Homeless souls and he's easily moved to pity
And good a man as ever came to live in this great City.

The amazing J D Ellis his name and fame keep spreading
And he has bounced back from the floor and for the top he's heading
Still he is easily stirred up and Garry Carter does the stirring
And el tigre he begins to growl the cat's no longer purring.

It's friday evening from life's cares we'll have a brief leave taking
And where better than the Basy Pub for hour of merry making
In Confines of the Settlers Bar the voice of mirth is ringing
And Pete Atkinson from Dublin Town an Irish song is singing.

there was little hedgehog he just long to be
a little Sherlock holmes and solve a mystery
he bought himself a fiddle and a pipe and hat
then off to solve the puzzle of the missing cat
searching for some clues to where the cat could be
looking for some evidence sherlock holmes was he
he took along his spyglass to see what could be found
searching everywhere in the forest ground
he searched for while along the forest floor
there and back again and again once more
suddenly he heard a little purring sound
hedgehog he decided to take a look around
there he saw the cat he had trapped his paw
he was very stuck and couldnt walk no more
hedgehog dug him out now the cat was free
no longer was he missing he solved the mystery
hedgehog played a tune upon his little fiddle
just like Sherlock Holmes he had solved the riddle

your eyes are like oysters i'd wish i would have gulped,
  a scenario of Narcissus who ate by the mirror...
     but then i listen to a heavy metal song:
and retract to change the lyrics
toward: fear of the selfies... fear of the selfie...
fear of the selfie... i have a phobia that someone
somewhere needs me to pose.
it's almost a cheerie cry, i'm a big boy i can walk
into a deathly hollowed-out road of
confiscated pride... the route i took,
engaged me with seven horses and one that almost
mistook my fingers for sugar cubes
and knocked my brains out after discovering
the plight of what it was nibbling on...
  but that's so ****** personal,
i might have insurrected the existence
of a satanic cult with me shouting
in the forest one time or other...
never mind that... your eyes are still akin
to oysters... a gulping-down of
whatever content it suggests...
no tongue-waggling, no breathing,
         just that shape akin to feline asiatic squirm
above a permanent slit: entangling with
what's known as sober-faced poker... or beyond
    purring: murmuring a sodden / well-trodden
path: and was anything else expected to suffer less?
   those eyes: esp. bound to a hispanic frozen lot of longing...
oysters jeopardised along with snails
  whenever the inquisition dared to come between us...
ergo dispersed the oily sexed up
***** Juan stereotypes of piston pump-pump...
nevermind, i call them twirling pumper-nickle gymnasts
of all things necessary kneaded into a chasm of org':
                         hispanic tilde eyes...
the eyebrow within the eye encompassing whatever
needs an expression... surprise? mmm, nada.
sunrise and was phone-*** so ever interesting as to
forget writing mistimed odes such as this?
                  thespian hoplites raised their tongues
toward the spear that suggested a marching was
the proper aversion toward a coup
with the director of theatre too violently itemising
Shakespeare toward a boorish scenario of
thrown rotten cabbage onto the stage.
        fewer hoplites suggested ******
  in the trojan horse, and fewer of the said "hashishin"
might have allowed history to bite at Homer's narrative
for posterity, had they not already said: ha ha! dope!
still, that locomotive tilde of the hispanic girl's eye
that ate the eyebrow, and squinted toward a sunrise
in demanding asiatic slit offense:
                           as monogamy for the sun invoking
marriage...
                    spinoza im eisen mädchen?
     hilfe anaconda! hilfe anaconda! hilfe aisha!
pricklengrund von hattin!
              hispanic tilde of the eye that ate the eyebrow
and demised the asiatic natural "squirm"
    and the forgotten sales of eyeglasses for myopia,
or too the once ticklish origin of silk with her
spinning don quixote's platonism to a
dame (akin to that fabled bride of Athos, good grief!)
that's dubbed *riza'doviento'dealma.

My feet sweat, my shoulders burn
But I am indifferent.
Nature plays around me.

Close your eyes. The last thing you see
is a white butterfly dance past the tree-line
into oblivion blue.

Bush leaves crackle above you in branches
and below you, let loose through brittle grass.

A light wind conducts a symphony in which
Each shrub plays a part.
Each dry branch, kindling ready to explode,
Itching to snap its dangerously perfect note.

Thorns whistle sharply - reeds hiss and hum.
Every breeze is a clown, taking up instruments
And jostling melodies to play all at once.
The grass rushes to its queue, dry as a bone.
Leaves follow behind in vague harmonies.

I wait on the edge of an eventful storm.
The sky is blue.
A storm of events - something big,
Behind the horizon, behind the mirage.
A rhino.
A microlite .
Electric fences, purring.

A wan nation celebrates, then groans behind the hills.
Natures orchestra sings to no one in particular

I feel my warmth,
slick and ready,
Wanton and soft
I love myself.

Trim and smooth,
Tempo slow to begin,
My nerve endings electric,
I love myself.

Eyes closed, I can picture your body,
feel your hands all over mine,
Wet now, dripping.
I love myself.

My kitty is purring now,
faster and steady,
With each caress and stroke.
I love myself.

******* now cupped,
Cocooned in bliss,
Rubbing my ******,
I love myself.

Eyes rolled, toes clenched,
Fireworks dancing, I BLAST OFF
Writhing, moaning, releasing
I love myself.

Weakened bliss flows down
Worries and cares removed,
Smile on face
I love myself.

Like tigers scratching over scraps,

The fat cats posture and hiss

Over who gets the favoured meat

From the cows nervously

Chewing the cud, scuffing their hooves,

Pacing the green and pleasant hills,

No longer fooled by the purring soothe.

Each tiger takes a swipe,

Claws trailing blood lines

Over fatted flanks of meat

Of the cows hiding

In their homes, in their fields,

Pacing the mud that replaced the trees,

Not picked for need, instead for yield.

The fat cats grow full on our flesh.

I hope they choke on it.

Get it while it’s fresh.

Under the ivory light
of a full amber moon;
your *******,
rose and white,
never looked so inviting.
The half moon reminds me
of their shape.
My kisses like fairies
dance between them;
skin tingles,
you writhe.
The crescent moon reminds me
of slowly drooping eyes
as I fall asleep
on the pillow of your *******,
purring happy
contented sighs.

When I am old, and comforted,
  And done with this desire,
With Memory to share my bed
  And Peace to share my fire,

I'll comb my hair in scalloped bands
  Beneath my laundered cap,
And watch my cool and fragile hands
  Lie light upon my lap.

And I will have a sprigged gown
  With lace to kiss my throat;
I'll draw my curtain to the town,
  And hum a purring note.

And I'll forget the way of tears,
  And rock, and stir my tea.
But oh, I wish those blessed years
  Were further than they be!

Goblin Market
by Christina Rossetti

Morning and evening
Maids heard the goblins cry:
"Come buy our orchard fruits,
Come buy, come buy:
Apples and quinces,
Lemons and oranges,
Plump unpecked cherries,
Melons and raspberries,
Bloom-down-cheeked peaches,
Swart-headed mulberries,
Wild free-born cranberries,
Crab-apples, dewberries,
Pine-apples, blackberries,
Apricots, strawberries; -
All ripe together
In summer weather, -
Morns that pass by,
Fair eves that fly;
Come buy, come buy:
Our grapes fresh from the vine,
Pomegranates full and fine,
Dates and sharp bullaces,
Rare pears and greengages,
Damsons and bilberries,
Taste them and try:
Currants and gooseberries,
Bright-fire-like barberries,
Figs to fill your mouth,
Citrons from the South,
Sweet to tongue and sound to eye;
Come buy, come buy."

Evening by evening
Among the brookside rushes,
Laura bowed her head to hear,
Lizzie veiled her blushes:
Crouching close together
In the cooling weather,
With clasping arms and cautioning lips,
With tingling cheeks and finger-tips.
"Lie close," Laura said,
Pricking up her golden head:
"We must not look at goblin men,
We must not buy their fruits:
Who knows upon what soil they fed
Their hungry thirsty roots?"
"Come buy," call the goblins
Hobbling down the glen.
"Oh," cried Lizzie, "Laura, Laura,
You should not peep at goblin men."
Lizzie covered up her eyes,
Covered close lest they should look;
Laura reared her glossy head,
And whispered like the restless brook:
"Look, Lizzie, look, Lizzie,
Down the glen ***** little men.
One hauls a basket,
One bears a plate,
One lugs a golden dish
Of many pounds' weight.
How fair the vine must grow
Whose grapes are so luscious;
How warm the wind must blow
Through those fruit bushes."
"No," said Lizzie: "No, no, no;
Their offers should not charm us,
Their evil gifts would harm us.'
She ****** a dimpled finger
In each ear, shut eyes and ran:
Curious Laura chose to linger
Wondering at each merchant man.
One had a cat's face,
One whisked a tail,
One tramped at a rat's pace,
One crawled like a snail,
One like a wombat prowled obtuse and furry,
One like a ratel tumbled hurry scurry.
She heard a voice like voice of doves
Cooing all together:
They sounded kind and full of loves
In the pleasant weather.

Laura stretched her gleaming neck
Like a rush-imbedded swan,
Like a lily from the beck,
Like a moonlit poplar branch,
Like a vessel at the launch
When its last restraint is gone.

Backwards up the mossy glen
Turned and trooped the goblin men,
With their shrill repeated cry,
'Come buy, come buy.'
When they reached where Laura was
They stood stock still upon the moss,
Leering at each other,
Brother with queer brother;
Signalling each other,
Brother with sly brother.
One set his basket down,
One reared his plate;
One began to weave a crown
Of tendrils, leaves, and rough nuts brown
(Men sell not such in any town);
One heaved the golden weight
Of dish and fruit to offer her:
"Come buy, come buy," was still their cry.
Laura stared but did not stir,
Longed but had no money.
The whisk-tailed merchant bade her taste
In tones as smooth as honey,
The cat-faced purr'd,
The rat-paced spoke a word
Of welcome, and the snail-paced even was heard;
One parrot-voiced and jolly
Cried "Pretty Goblin" still for "Pretty Polly";
One whistled like a bird.

But sweet-tooth Laura spoke in haste:
"Good folk, I have no coin;
To take were to purloin:
I have no copper in my purse,
I have no silver either,
And all my gold is on the furze
That shakes in windy weather
Above the rusty heather."
"You have much gold upon your head,"
They answered all together:
"Buy from us with a golden curl."
She clipped a precious golden lock,
She dropped a tear more rare than pearl,
Then ****** their fruit globes fair or red.
Sweeter than honey from the rock,
Stronger than man-rejoicing wine,
Clearer than water flowed that juice;
She never tasted such before,
How should it cloy with length of use?
She ****** and ****** and ****** the more
Fruits which that unknown orchard bore;
She ****** until her lips were sore;
Then flung the emptied rinds away
But gathered up one kernel stone,
And knew not was it night or day
As she turned home alone.

Lizzie met her at the gate
Full of wise upbraidings:
'Dear, you should not stay so late,
Twilight is not good for maidens;
Should not loiter in the glen
In the haunts of goblin men.
Do you not remember Jeanie,
How she met them in the moonlight,
Took their gifts both choice and many,
Ate their fruits and wore their flowers
Plucked from bowers
Where summer ripens at all hours?
But ever in the moonlight
She pined and pined away;
Sought them by night and day,
Found them no more, but dwindled and grew gray;
Then fell with the first snow,
While to this day no grass will grow
Where she lies low:
I planted daisies there a year ago
That never blow.
You should not loiter so."
"Nay, hush," said Laura:
"Nay, hush, my sister:
I ate and ate my fill,
Yet my mouth waters still:
Tomorrow night I will
Buy more;' and kissed her:
"Have done with sorrow;
I'll bring you plums tomorrow
Fresh on their mother twigs,
Cherries worth getting;
You cannot think what figs
My teeth have met in,
What melons icy-cold
Piled on a dish of gold
Too huge for me to hold,
What peaches with a velvet nap,
Pellucid grapes without one seed:
Odorous indeed must be the mead
Whereon they grow, and pure the wave they drink
With lilies at the brink,
And sugar-sweet their sap."

Golden head by golden head,
Like two pigeons in one nest
Folded in each other's wings,
They lay down in their curtained bed:
Like two blossoms on one stem,
Like two flakes of new-fall'n snow,
Like two wands of ivory
Tipped with gold for awful kings.
Moon and stars gazed in at them,
Wind sang to them lullaby,
Lumbering owls forebore to fly,
Not a bat flapped to and fro
Round their rest:
Cheek to cheek and breast to breast
Locked together in one rest.

Early in the morning
When the first **** crowed his warning,
Neat like bees, as sweet and busy,
Laura rose with Lizzie:
Fetched in honey, milked the cows,
Aired and set to rights the house,
Kneaded cakes of whitest wheat,
Cakes for dainty mouths to eat,
Next churned butter, whipped up cream,
Fed their poultry, sat and sewed;
Talked as modest maidens should:
Lizzie with an open heart,
Laura in an absent dream,
One content, one sick in part;
One warbling for the mere bright day's delight,
One longing for the night.

At length slow evening came:
They went with pitchers to the reedy brook;
Lizzie most placid in her look,
Laura most like a leaping flame.
They drew the gurgling water from its deep.
Lizzie plucked purple and rich golden flags,
Then turning homeward said: "The sunset flushes
Those furthest loftiest crags;
Come, Laura, not another maiden lags.
No wilful squirrel wags,
The beasts and birds are fast asleep.'
But Laura loitered still among the rushes,
And said the bank was steep.

And said the hour was early still,
The dew not fall'n, the wind not chill;
Listening ever, but not catching
The customary cry,
"Come buy, come buy,"
With its iterated jingle
Of sugar-baited words:
Not for all her watching
Once discerning even one goblin
Racing, whisking, tumbling, hobbling -
Let alone the herds
That used to ***** along the glen,
In groups or single,
Of brisk fruit-merchant men.

Till Lizzie urged, "O Laura, come;
I hear the fruit-call, but I dare not look:
You should not loiter longer at this brook:
Come with me home.
The stars rise, the moon bends her arc,
Each glow-worm winks her spark,
Let us get home before the night grows dark:
For clouds may gather
Though this is summer weather,
Put out the lights and drench us through;
Then if we lost our way what should we do?"

Laura turned cold as stone
To find her sister heard that cry alone,
That goblin cry,
"Come buy our fruits, come buy."
Must she then buy no more such dainty fruit?
Must she no more such succous pasture find,
Gone deaf and blind?
Her tree of life drooped from the root:
She said not one word in her heart's sore ache:
But peering thro' the dimness, nought discerning,
Trudged home, her pitcher dripping all the way;
So crept to bed, and lay
Silent till Lizzie slept;
Then sat up in a passionate yearning,
And gnashed her teeth for baulked desire, and wept
As if her heart would break.

Day after day, night after night,
Laura kept watch in vain
In sullen silence of exceeding pain.
She never caught again the goblin cry,
"Come buy, come buy"; -
She never spied the goblin men
Hawking their fruits along the glen:
But when the noon waxed bright
Her hair grew thin and gray;
She dwindled, as the fair full moon doth turn
To swift decay and burn
Her fire away.

One day remembering her kernel-stone
She set it by a wall that faced the south;
Dewed it with tears, hoped for a root,
Watched for a waxing shoot,
But there came none.
It never saw the sun,
It never felt the trickling moisture run:
While with sunk eyes and faded mouth
She dreamed of melons, as a traveller sees
False waves in desert drouth
With shade of leaf-crowned trees,
And burns the thirstier in the sandful breeze.

She no more swept the house,
Tended the fowls or cows,
Fetched honey, kneaded cakes of wheat,
Brought water from the brook:
But sat down listless in the chimney-nook
And would not eat.

Tender Lizzie could not bear
To watch her sister's cankerous care,
Yet not to share.
She night and morning
Caught the goblins' cry:
"Come buy our orchard fruits,
Come buy, come buy:" -
Beside the brook, along the glen,
She heard the ***** of goblin men,
The voice and stir
Poor Laura could not hear;
Longed to buy fruit to comfort her,
But feared to pay too dear.
She thought of Jeanie in her grave,
Who should have been a bride;
But who for joys brides hope to have
Fell sick and died
In her gay prime,
In earliest winter time,
With the first glazing rime,
With the first snow-fall of crisp winter time.

Till Laura dwindling
Seemed knocking at Death's door.
Then Lizzie weighed no more
Better and worse;
But put a silver penny in her purse,
Kissed Laura, crossed the heath with clumps of furze
At twilight, halted by the brook:
And for the first time in her life
Began to listen and look.

Laughed every goblin
When they spied her peeping:
Came towards her hobbling,
Flying, running, leaping,
Puffing and blowing,
Chuckling, clapping, crowing,
Clucking and gobbling,
Mopping and mowing,
Full of airs and graces,
Pulling wry faces,
Demure grimaces,
Cat-like and rat-like,
Ratel- and wombat-like,
Snail-paced in a hurry,
Parrot-voiced and whistler,
Helter-skelter, hurry skurry,
Chattering like magpies,
Fluttering like pigeons,
Gliding like fishes, -
Hugged her and kissed her:
Squeezed and caressed her:
Stretched up their dishes,
Panniers, and plates:
"Look at our apples
Russet and dun,
Bob at our cherries,
Bite at our peaches,
Citrons and dates,
Grapes for the asking,
Pears red with basking
Out in the sun,
Plums on their twigs;
Pluck them and **** them,
Pomegranates, figs." -

"Good folk," said Lizzie,
Mindful of Jeanie:
"Give me much and many:" -
Held out her apron,
Tossed them her penny.
"Nay, take a seat with us,
Honour and eat with us,"
They answered grinning:
"Our feast is but beginning.
Night yet is early,
Warm and dew-pearly,
Wakeful and starry:
Such fruits as these
No man can carry;
Half their bloom would fly,
Half their dew would dry,
Half their flavour would pass by.
Sit down and feast with us,
Be welcome guest with us,
Cheer you and rest with us." -
"Thank you," said Lizzie: "But one waits
At home alone for me:
So without further parleying,
If you will not sell me any
Of your fruits though much and many,
Give me back my silver penny
I tossed you for a fee." -
They began to scratch their pates,
No longer wagging, purring,
But visibly demurring,
Grunting and snarling.
One called her proud,
Cross-grained, uncivil;
Their tones waxed loud,
Their looks were evil.
Lashing their tails
They trod and hustled her,
Elbowed and jostled her,
Clawed with their nails,
Barking, mewing, hissing, mocking,
Tore her gown and soiled her stocking,
Twitched her hair out by the roots,
Stamped upon her tender feet,
Held her hands and squeezed their fruits
Against her mouth to make her eat.

White and golden Lizzie stood,
Like a lily in a flood, -
Like a rock of blue-veined stone
Lashed by tides obstreperously, -
Like a beacon left alone
In a hoary roaring sea,
Sending up a golden fire, -
Like a fruit-crowned orange-tree
White with blossoms honey-sweet
Sore beset by wasp and bee, -
Like a royal ****** town
Topped with gilded dome and spire
Close beleaguered by a fleet
Mad to tug her standard down.

One may lead a horse to water,
Twenty cannot make him drink.
Though the goblins cuffed and caught her,
Coaxed and fought her,
Bullied and besought her,
Scratched her, pinched her black as ink,
Kicked and knocked her,
Mauled and mocked her,
Lizzie uttered not a word;
Would not open lip from lip
Lest they should cram a mouthful in:
But laughed in heart to feel the drip
Of juice that syruped all her face,
And lodged in dimples of her chin,
And streaked her neck which quaked like curd.
At last the evil people,
Worn out by her resistance,
Flung back her penny, kicked their fruit
Along whichever road they took,
Not leaving root or stone or shoot;
Some writhed into the ground,
Some dived into the brook
With ring and ripple,
Some scudded on the gale without a sound,
Some vanished in the distance.

In a smart, ache, tingle,
Lizzie went her way;
Knew not was it night or day;
Sprang up the bank, tore thro' the furze,
Threaded copse and ******,
And heard her penny jingle
Bouncing in her purse, -
Its bounce was music to her ear.
She ran and ran
As if she feared some goblin man
Dogged her with gibe or curse
Or something worse:
But not one goblin skurried after,
Nor was she pricked by fear;
The kind heart made her windy-paced
That urged her home quite out of breath with haste
And inward laughter.

She cried, "Laura," up the garden.
"Did you miss me?
Come and kiss me.
Never mind my bruises,
Hug me, kiss me, **** my juices
Squeezed from goblin fruits for you,
Goblin pulp and goblin dew.
Eat me, drink me, love me;
Laura, make much of me;
For your sake I have braved the glen
And had to do with goblin merchant men."

Laura started from her chair,
Flung her arms up in the air,
Clutched her hair:
"Lizzie, Lizzie, have you tasted
For my sake the fruit forbidden?
Must your light like mine be hidden,
Your young life like mine be wasted,
Undone in mine undoing,
And ruined in my ruin,
Thirsty, cankered, goblin-ridden?" -
She clung about her sister,
Kissed and kissed and kissed her:
Tears once again
Refreshed her shrunken eyes,
Dropping like rain
After long sultry drouth;
Shaking with aguish fear, and pain,
She kissed and kissed her with a hungry mouth.

Her lips began to scorch,
That juice was wormwood to her tongue,
She loathed the feast:
Writhing as one possessed she leaped and sung,
Rent all her robe, and wrung
Her hands in lamentable haste,
And beat her breast.
Her locks streamed like the torch
Borne by a racer at full speed,
Or like the mane of horses in their flight,
Or like an eagle when she stems the light
Straight toward the sun,
Or like a caged thing freed,
Or like a flying flag when armies run.

Swift fire spread through her veins,
knocked at her heart
Met the fire smouldering there
And overbore its lesser flame;
She gorged on bitterness without a name:
Ah! fool, to choose such part
Of soul-consuming care!
Sense failed in the mortal strife:
Like the watch-tower of a town
Which an earthquake shatters down,
Like a lightning-stricken mast,
Like a wind-uprooted tree
Spun about,
Like a foam-topped waterspout
Cast down headlong in the sea,
She fell at last;
Pleasure past and anguish past,
Is it death or is it life?

Life out of death.
That night long Lizzie watched by her,
Counted her pulse's flagging stir,
Felt for her breath,
Held water to her lips, and cooled her face

one eye open,
jackhammer in brain
....appears to be blucat
purring.

i see,
my hangover
has not....
diminished his,
need for food.

one eye closes,
drifting off again,
my head, so heavy...

one eye open, again.
whaaa...!!!!
staring up at,
a wrinkly bald blucat belly...
his front paws, on my forehead
backpaws, top of my chest.
still purring...
so not,
letting me rest....

determination...
thy name is....
hungry kitty.

I woke up to the sound of a train and it was raining. I might be dreaming.
My mom has always loved
the sound of a train and here I am in someone else’s bed thinking
about how much I love the taste of blood and the smell of sweat.
My plant has a pulse but my eyes might
be playing tricks on me, I have a way of forgetting to separate my dreams
from reality. Sometimes
I share too much of myself with people too soon. I told
him that my grandma had green eyes
and that’s where I got mine and that I’ve got nightmares that test
my patience night after night
with grotesque new realities on display before my eyes
and that my nails are stained from pomegranate and that
I got straight As and I told him to bite me because
I like it
but I shouldn’t have said it all so soon.
When I’m hurtling home in my metal death trap
powered by explosions I take pictures of the sky to show myself that
I’m alive and beauty is only here now and a deer
could leap or someone could swerve and ****
me or the airbag could rip off my jaw and I’ll
spend my life bearing my ******* way that I didn’t intend. I’m the writer
with no jaw that everyone reads out of pity and to get a glance
in the windows of a ******’s life.
When I wake up my jaw is still there
but I’ve been clenching it again.
No adderall, no *******, no caffeine, just the pressure
I put on myself and the weight of life knotting up the muscles in my back
until my ribs start to tighten and constrict my breathing so I pull at the ribbons
laced up and down my sternum
but it is too late and the bone corset pulls me in,
pulling pulling pulling until
my organs burst out of my skin.
He tells me,
“You’re hard to read, you know.” I giggle
but I find it tough to explain the rich cascade of emotions that are tied
to the lunar tides and make me crave coffee at midnight in terms
that don’t make me sound completely crazy.
Well, tonight I am eating dinner and attempting to read while the television
babbles at me from another room
about something I don’t need to hear but I hear
a cracking sound and my teeth are sharp and jagged and crumbling
as I run my tongue across them. I wake up sweating.
When it was sunny I bought socks from the little girl section and I drenched myself in perfume. Later on we were drinking chai tea
and getting *****, so I **** on your fingers
while you choke me and in the morning you make pancakes
and I eat it
but I’m afraid of the flour and the substance because it rises up
under my skin and collects in unwanted pools on my body.
I shouldn’t have drank any beer but
I had three
and I spilled my secrets the second I felt the warmth of trust.
God ******* ****.
I drive in silence.
The poster’s eyes have been following me
all night and I don’t know if it is a matter of perspective
or some delusion convincing me that I’m not alone
word vomiting on notebooks and textbooks and gushing
piles of words onto my comforter. I pictured
growing a human being inside of me and my heart
started trying to run from my chest
I scared myself into an anxiety attack
picturing years flashing before me. Before I told him
that I’m not like most girls
he kissed my forearms
and then he kissed my neck. Maybe I’m crazy for believing in astrology but
last night I was hearing your moans
as roars like the lion you are purring, nuzzling me
until you fell asleep and I remembered
being five and wishing I was Belle, marrying the beast. I don’t know.
I don’t know if I’m crazy.
I kept losing my earring in your bed like I secretly wanted to leave something more tangible than my scent or stray blonde hairs for
you to find and remember me by. I think you like me too much and I’m
afraid of what you’ll find when you get in my mind and see the battlefield
that rages inside of a pretty head.
I used to see the world with the eyes of a child but today I feel like I’m senile and looking at the world from the future and dissecting the past
because I lost track of time again and no one knew where I was for seven hours. I might have been wandering but I think I was asking
a fruit fly for directions when she flew into my pupil and laid eggs on my optic nerve causing the light to fraction
and my thoughts to be projected onto the wall ahead.
People passing by could see it all streaming out of me,
every emotion, every desire, every fear and every image,
even the smoking **** on the cement
from when he left got stuck on my screen
and the dream I had the night before
about a man with gigantic hands
and a woman shielded her eyes
as I thought about the way you use your tongue on me. When I finally
stumbled home the projection had stopped
but the maggots had started and I stared at the mirror
and branded myself with the word ugly.
The pill is folded in the dollar and I whack it with a lighter,
the white shards scatter out and I lay the bill flat and crush crush crush
until the powder is free of chunks. One two three
making ten perfect lines, five on each side and my nostrils are on fire.
I **** smoke from a pipe and get so high that my entire face feels like melting
off and I’m so determined to sleep that I can’t
and I anticipate
gritty dreams but I never drift off.
Three glasses of white wine later I drive to his house and I can hear the train hitting the breaks while we throw empty beer bottles at the moving cars
from the roof of a crooked house. And then, the willow tree
draped over the train tracks
grabs the wind with her branches and she summons
sheets of rain that come blasting down.
I’m afraid of heights and I’m not sure why but I think falling
from the apple tree at age thirteen was the first time I realized that
bones break and they never heal the same way and my hands are shaking but

I stay on the wet roof with you and I let myself melt into this
momentary reality.

The stars try to shine
Down through indifferent clouds.
Her tears mix with rain
and water her path
defining the moments
Of forever.
Love is the fiercest part
of her being.
Though she struggles to
find it’s authenticity
Hiding her codes
behind barbwire and thorns.
Her hands are bloodstained
in the hours of time.
She is mysterious
With many latitudes
Calling from a different
Kind of universe.
Yet she walks that path of stones
Believing she is a different
Person than the one she leaves
on the trail .

Walking away from that
Hushed comfort of
understated majesty.
Hearing music amid
The squalor of verse
With strangers who love
among the poetic’s
of language.

I grow tired of the
Deep waters
I’m learning to navigate
the shallows
Where purring oratory
Captures me and leaves
Me spellbound beyond
All measures and time .

I visited Jupp's house,
we had planned
a ball game
in the park.

Mrs J was in the lounge
on a sofa with her cat.

Come in, Benny,
she said,
it is Benny isn't it?
I nodded.

Yes, although
I was named Benedict
after the saint.

What do you think
of my *****?
She asked.
Did you want
to stroke it?

I wanted to get out
and play ball,
not stroke her *****.

It purrs when excited,
she said.

It was purring,
or she was purring
under her breath
like some
stage ventriloquist.

She wore a white dress
with a brown bow,
and her black hair
was wavy and permed.

Come closer,
she said,
it won't bite;
sit on the sofa,
near me.

Where was Jupp?
I wanted to get
some fresh air.

I sat next to her
on the brown sofa.

She smelt
of perfume and soap.

The *****
was brown and white,
furry, smooth.

You can touch it,
she said,
feel the fur,
smooth and soft.

She took my hand
and placed it
on the *****.

I stroked it
reluctantly.

Her hand
held mine,
moving it
over the *****.

It's purring, see;
feel it?

I nodded.

You can always
come here
and see *****
and play with it,
she said.

I smiled weakly,
wanting out;
the perfume smell
sickly in my nose.

Then Jupp came in
and said,
I’m ready to go.

I got up from the sofa
and Mrs J said,
want to kiss *****
before you go?

I kissed
the **** *****
and we walked
off and away.

Outside I said
to Jupp,
you and your
mother's *****.

And he sighed
and said,
I know.

I

He would drink by himself
And raise a weathered thumb
Towards the high shelf,
Calling another ***
And blackcurrant, without
Having to raise his voice,
Or order a quick stout
By a lifting of the eyes
And a discreet dumb-show
Of pulling off the top;
At closing time would go
In waders and peaked cap
Into the showery dark,
A dole-kept breadwinner
But a natural for work.
I loved his whole manner,
Sure-footed but too sly,
His deadpan sidling tact,
His fisherman's quick eye
And turned observant back.

Incomprehensible
To him, my other life.
Sometimes on the high stool,
Too busy with his knife
At a tobacco plug
And not meeting my eye,
In the pause after a slug
He mentioned poetry.
We would be on our own
And, always politic
And shy of condescension,
I would manage by some trick
To switch the talk to eels
Or lore of the horse and cart
Or the Provisionals.

But my tentative art
His turned back watches too:
He was blown to bits
Out drinking in a curfew
Others obeyed, three nights
After they shot dead
The thirteen men in Derry.
PARAS THIRTEEN, the walls said,
BOGSIDE NIL. That Wednesday
Everyone held
His breath and trembled.

II

It was a day of cold
Raw silence, wind-blown
Surplice and soutane:
Rained-on, flower-laden
Coffin after coffin
Seemed to float from the door
Of the packed cathedral
Like blossoms on slow water.
The common funeral
Unrolled its swaddling band,
Lapping, tightening
Till we were braced and bound
Like brothers in a ring.

But he would not be held
At home by his own crowd
Whatever threats were phoned,
Whatever black flags waved.
I see him as he turned
In that bombed offending place,
Remorse fused with terror
In his still knowable face,
His cornered outfaced stare
Blinding in the flash.

He had gone miles away
For he drank like a fish
Nightly, naturally
Swimming towards the lure
Of warm lit-up places,
The blurred mesh and murmur
Drifting among glasses
In the gregarious smoke.
How culpable was he
That last night when he broke
Our tribe's complicity?
'Now, you're supposed to be
An educated man,'
I hear him say. 'Puzzle me
The right answer to that one.'

III

I missed his funeral,
Those quiet walkers
And sideways talkers
Shoaling out of his lane
To the respectable
Purring of the hearse...
They move in equal pace
With the habitual
Slow consolation
Of a dawdling engine,
The line lifted, hand
Over fist, cold sunshine
On the water, the land
Banked under fog: that morning
I was taken in his boat,
The ***** purling, turning
Indolent fathoms white,
I tasted freedom with him.
To get out early, haul
Steadily off the bottom,
Dispraise the catch, and smile
As you find a rhythm
Working you, slow mile by mile,
Into your proper haunt
Somewhere, well out, beyond...

Dawn-sniffing revenant,
Plodder through midnight rain,
Question me again.

issues of the heart can get muddied
it all started out so simple
emotion is a tiger, purring

Tell me about the Ace of Wands!
Tell me about the Ace of Wands!

This has been poorly imagined I admit:
The sunny penthouse
Open to the breeze
which presses and sways
through the sliding glass doors

Upturned champagne bottles
set in buckets of melting ice
A crystalline view of the Pacific
Or dusky Vegas lights

Strewn silken sheets
A **** carpet you can grab on to
The myriad of variations under a rising Moon

Yet Leather and Ecstasy are no where to be seen.
And though I wasn’t thinking of Sardinia
or of the Amalfi
That is a great idea

ROMP
noun
1. a spell of rough, energetic play.
2. a farce.

Eventually
(An earth-sign cusp is slow no matter how much air)
Eventually
creeping into my mind’s eye
(Thank you Time)
was my dodging of the slow-moving bullet
Alas, the lumpy bed in Hollywood awaits
with serviceable sheets
Encased in variations on a theme of
brown everything
A soul death in faux wood paneling
Someone else’s earring on a
grubby carpet floor
that offers you
burns for your back that won’t heal so fast
if that’s what you want
There’s the opening of the door
on the purring refrigerator
to look at cold nothing
And think nothing
Cystitis is on its way
And yes,
Too much dust

Don’t get me wrong
I have no real issues with dust
I have stood
Alone in the semi darkness before
In such a living room
Staring at this luminous particulate
On album covers
and in the glare of backlit windows
Floating in a beam from
a ceramic thrift store table-lamp

I was on my way to find the bathroom
Where a pair of pink ******* lay
drying
in wait for
me

Bachelor dust
Is old
I can write my name with my finger
in that which rests
upon the turntable’s hinged cover
In case you don’t remember
What they call me

As I’ve said
I’ve got nothing against it
Ask the dust
Go ahead
Ask it
Resting quite comfortably
on the bookshelves
If there are bookshelves
As if it had
something to do.
I ask it why?

my invading molecules subdivide
and grow more comfortable

Dust?
Why do I smell the stench of
chaste virgins and ***?
The intoxicating odor of foxed letters from an epistolary exchange regarding:
One Fair Maiden and the Devilish Pursuits to  Compromise Her Virtue?
The Opinions and Observations of Fallen Fruit
Here: The woman and her only true
possession
And Here: The sticky absconder who smells of fish.
They meet.
She blinks.

The dust replies
It’s a simple plan:
The Dear Lady is to be led
Astray
by pretty words and unspoken indiscretions
her dowry in the end, useless
She’ll be banished to the counties
To be a governess
or the
Bored companion
of the only living relative who will
Admit her services
Unpaid in silver coins
He is Blind and his Cook has left
Dyspeptic
Disagreeable
Cheap
and Mean.

She is Ruined.
Perhaps she will escape
to Italy
and die
Alone
in the sunshine.

The dust tells me another story
The same century still
This time, a miscreant princeling
surrounded by Trifles
Picking up one bob and then another
Preoccupied by uselessness
Perhaps a strawberry
Perhaps more claret and his mistress’s left breast
Tonight will be the scullery maid
Who will lose more in the end
Than she could ever possibly imagine
Tossed out of the kitchens
to Providence.
God bless Her.

The dust tells me
It’s mercantile, my dear
It’s all transactional
But look at me
I’m here for a time but am easily
Agitated and
Airborne
Aeolian driven
Ever blossoming fugitive clouds of swirling devils
Interstellar Reflection Nebulae
As you can see
I’m never in one place
So I say keep it movin’.

My brother told me that cats purr because
it means you’re close enough to hurt them.
Their motors running, vibrating throughout their bodies,
their guards lowered, lying on their backs,
allowing someone to come close enough to harm them,
all the while keeping a position to protect themselves.
And I don’t know if what my brother said is true,
but I think we as humans have a way of purring too;
And we call it falling in love.

Offshore Oil Exploration

Months of preparatory work,
Permits obtained.
Maps explored, sited,
Ground and beneath scanned,
Each contour drawn, plotted, named.

Equipment assemblage.
Platform designed and towed,
Pre-commencement government inspection
Constant.

We test. Slowly, the loose, easy dirt,
Gives in.  No rejoicing yet, premature.
The diverter in place, functions well.

The deeper the bit, the harder the resistance.

The camera's eyes monitor until
We reach depths too deep for their functioning.

The derrickhands order about the junior roustabouts,
Check the mud pumps, check the pH levels,
Do this, do that. The pecking order on board clear.

The kings of the rig, the drillers, in charge.

Then, disaster.

Oil spill.

Worse.



Not only smiling,
She has
Opened her eyes and
Ceased purring.

P.S. This would as is my custom be,
Re-entitled properly:
First Poem of the Day:** Offshore Oil Exploration

Matilda listens to make sure they’ve gone out knowing Mr Doozie the cat is licking his milk the slurping sound fills the now silent room but she has to be sure her aunt and uncle have gone she can’t allow Moses to come in by the backdoor until they’re long gone and in the town buying and selling their wares she places her hands on her head and closes her eyes to focus her listening to close out Mr Doozie’s sounds the saucer of milk being pushed across the floor the purring but she cannot hear them now cannot hear their voices can’t hear Auntie’s whines and Uncle’s bellows can’t smell Uncle’s pipe or the aroma of his farts or Auntie’s sour body odour and sniffs the air and puts one leg up on the chair and lets the skirt fall back revealing her fine thigh and underwear something for Moses to see and get excited about not that he needs any encouragement  especially after the last time he came around when her aunt and uncle had gone off for the day to market on the old bus and Moses had sneaked in the back door his eyes peering around the door and she saying They’ve gone out you can come in and he did and while Mr Doozie sat on the end of the bed watching disinterestedly Moses had kissed her all over her body and after games of foreplay he’d entered her with subtleness and moved in a slow motion so that the bed only moved and rattled slightly and did not disturbed Mr Doozie and they had only just dressed and was letting Moses out the back door when Auntie came in the front door followed by Uncle with his arms laden with shopping and moaning about the prices and the shop girls and how there is no manners anymore and she feeling Moses’ ***** easing down her thigh and stood there with her innocent stare but this time Moses would need to be quicker as they had only gone to town and wouldn’t be long and if they returned earlier and caught her and Moses undressed and ******* with Mr Doozie sitting watching she doesn’t know what they’d say or do although knowing Uncle he’d chase off Moses with his walking stick and tan her hide until she cried and cried but Moses hasn’t come and she listens out hushing Mr Doozie with a shush shush and scratches her thigh and strains her ears was that him? She sighs opening her eyes sitting up looking towards the door waiting anticipating feeling the body’s urge the body’s need wanting Moses to come through the door and hurry with her up the stairs followed no doubt by Mr Doozie and quickly ******* and into her bed and setting aside the kissing and messing get on with the ******* but the door remains closed the room is almost silent apart from Mr Doozie’s licking and purring and the soft tick tocking of the grandfather clock and her heart thumping boom boom boom boom like a small drum all around the room and inside her head and she disappointed frustrated with no *** with Moses just a small empty bed.

I remember walking up
to the Fiddler on the Roof audition
when I was fourteen years old
alone, feeling very unstoppable and confident
and then hiding behind the big trashcan
in the foyer of the auditorium
As they repeatedly called my name.

If you want something
throw it away.

I remember getting a *******
from a purring cat
in the dark
in a dumpster
behind a ***** bar.

If you love something
throw it away.

I remember buying you lingerie
and ripping it off of you
not even two hours later.

If you love someone
throw them away.

I remember seeing you
wear my shirts after ***
and how undescribably gorgeous
you looked then, glowing
and I thought about callling you
the other day to ask for them back
but then I realized:

If you loved in something
throw it away.

My friend Gerard, (who is alive), looks like an Arabian slave-boy, though swarthier and longer of hair than Tony Curtis; an olive –skinned Mowgli, ape boy of Kipling’s  “Jungle Book”, although I have never seen Gerard swinging through any trees, nor eating any insects, nor even kissing a sultan’s foot. But looks can be deceiving, or receiving, with the proper pen, the zen pen of a poet, this proper poet who lives upstairs with his multitude of books piled on the floors, walking on Whitman, sitting on Shakespeare; tripping over Ginsberg, sleeping on Sartre; not a single shelf for this Jung man.
“A place for everything, and for everything it’s place”, he stands and stares out of a window overlooking the jungle of five-foot high weeds that serves as our backyard and wonders aloud “whither Oregon?”; questions our alleged enlightened sense of awareness, his disposition toward liberalness in a world gone madder than usual. Have I convinced him yet, my naïve, trusting neighbor? Yes, he realizes with a sigh that it is so, now that he has finally succumbed and bought a thirteen inch, black & white television of his own, now he can see with his own brown eyes in his own living room, far off wars, instant coffee & instant karma, depersonalized tragedies, faceless fatalities, insidious soap operas and humorless sitcoms, adverse advertisements, Howard Stern; “whither sanity?” we both cry and laugh out loud at this mediocre media, the global sewage, the Marshall McClueless, me and Gerard Rizza, my friend who is alive.

Gerard, (who is healthy), is gay, yet straighter than most men, and has been complaining quite a bit about the ferry service lately; contemplating a move off of Staten Island, and leaving his sporadic substitute teaching gig at a nearby high school, a mere six block walk from our house atop Winter Hill, where he is trying to convince me, a wide-eyed cynic, that a blank, white, unused canvas, surrounded by a wooden picture frame hung upon his wall is indeed a work of art; the job is very convenient, but again the ******* about the ferry, not the boat ride per se, but the incongruities of the ****** schedule, which anybody who has ever just missed a three a.m. boat and had to wait for an hour in the Hierynomous Bosch triptych known as the Whitehall Ferry terminal ,will definitely attest to; and Gerard has this thing about Staten Islanders, like the homophobes at a recent anti-peace rally in New Dorp, supporting the carpet bombing of an oil rich yet still poor third-world country, throwing beer cans at him and his companions while shouting “we know where you live, *******!”. Rizz came home that evening, visibly shaken and pale, (not his usual olive-skinned self), knocked on my door and pleaded “whither ******?”. I went upstairs, sat on his couch and rolled a joint. Gerard puts on the new 10,000 Maniacs tape and tries, once again, to bait me in a conversation about his “work of art”, my work of naught; he speaks of the horrific details of his day. “Isn’t this picture of Doc Gooden on my refrigerator door proof enough of my manhood, my patriotic intent, for those *******? The ******’ Mets, fuh chrissakes!” We sit out on his porch, watching the sun set over our backyard jungle as Natalie sings wireless Verdi cries, and I pass the burning joint to Gerard, my friend who is still healthy.

My friend Gerard, who is *** positive, was quite possibly a cat in a former life, probably a Siamese, thin, dark and aloof; yes, I can see ol’ Rizz now, sprawled out on an old tapestry rug, getting his belly scratched by his owner, perhaps Emily Dickinson or Georgia O’Keefe, Rizz purring like the engine of an old bi-winged barnstormer; abruptly rolls over, gets on all fours, tail waving *****, slinks over to lap water out of a bowl marked “Gerard”. He’d sleep all day on books and original manuscripts, and play all night amongst oil & acrylic, knocking over an occasional blank canvas, which he, in a future incarnation, will try to convince me, in his feline manner, is art. Sitting and staring from his usual spot on the windowsill, his cat eyes blink slowly as he wonders, “whither dinner?”; and begins to clean himself with tongue and paw, this cat who might be Gerard, my friend who is *** positive.

Gerard, who is sick, recently moved to Manhattan, Chelsea, to be precise, in with his best friend; and has stopped ******* about the Staten Island ferry, having far more pressing matters to ***** about, i.e. the ever-rising cost of homeopathic medicine and the lack of coverage for holistic and alternative care; any number of political and social concerns (Gerard was never the silent type); the lateness of his first published book of poems, entitled “Regard for Junction”; his rapidly deteriorating health, etc., etc.; and is now a true city dweller, a zen denizen, a proper poet with high regard for junction. That’s all that remains when it’s all over anyway, this junction, that junction, petticoat junction, petticoat junction – “I always wanted to **** the brunette sister”, I’d once told him; “I prefer uncle Joe!”, he laughingly replied; dejection, rejection, reclamation, defamation, cremation, conjecture, conjunction, all junctions happening at the same time, at now, a single place, a single moment, this forever junction with Gerard, my friend who is dying.

My friend Gerard, who is dead, officially passed from this life on a Saturday morning in early April, a mere two weeks before his junction with publication, although Gerard my friend passed away much earlier, leaving a sick and emaciated body behind to play host to his bedside guests, to help bear the pain of his family and friends; so doped-up on morphine, no longer able to remember any names, he called me “*****” when I entered the hospital room, where this barely physical manifestation of what had once been Gerard Rizza was being kept alive like the barest glimmer of hope, and displayed like some recently fallen leader, lying in state;  “whither Gerard withers” I thought, saying goodbye to this Rizza impersonator, this imposter, this visitor from a shadow world, an abstraction of a friend, whom the nurses told us, his disbelieving visitors, was our friend Gerard, who though technically still alive, was already dead.

My friend Gerard, who is laughing
My friend Gerard, who is singing
My friend Gerard, who is coughing
My friend Gerard, who is sleeping
My friend Gerard, who is holy
My friend Gerard, who is missed.

somedays, Love is like an empty driveway. sometimes Love is a grizzly; when it wakes, it growls at you. sometimes, Love is a full moon. Love dances with You and forgets its claws and gnashing teeth. sometimes, Love doesn't know that its bites aren't supposed to hurt. but sometimes You don't either, so you forgive. sometimes Love is a cat that scratches and comes back purring. You don't fault it for being that way. Love is not easy to understand, but at least You are always willing to try.

a cat came in my house from the house next door
sat down by the fire then laid up on the floor
he looked very comfy and made himself at home
the little cat next door he just loved to roam
then he started purring as peaceful as can be
then he wagged his tail and jumped up on my knee.
he was such a lovely cat and lived a house away
now he comes to see me every single day

An autumn 
sunbeam on
the edge of my
childhood bed,
curled up with my
softly purring cat
nestled by my side. 
Two unlike creatures,
brought together in warmth.

Salty air kisses my face in the darkness of the night
only the distant flashes of light
make the waves glow, the illumination of a calm moon nowhere in sight
the early autumn air rushes across my exposed skin
the lapping of the waves, mesmerizing pulls me in
warmth of a running engine purring under my feet
the cold metal roof becomes my seat
the black backdrop of the sky my ceiling
chilled hands feeling the light raindrops running over my palms
peaceful, unnervingly calm
as the storm rages on
every bolt of lightning unique and spontaneous
struggling to find something in my life that pertains to this
humbling feeling of isolation and solitude
i'd love to say i thought of you
as the low thunder rumbled seeming to run across the sea
to these very feet
but i'd be a liar and you'd feel significant
we were simply flashes of lightning, nothing different
blazing a night sky with our spectacular glow and intensity
flashes of memories
never striking in sync or together
i never understood the weather better
then how well i feel it at this moment
i was lightning in a bottle, you were never meant to hold it....