I

Now it is autumn and the falling fruit
and the long journey towards oblivion.

The apples falling like great drops of dew
to bruise themselves an exit from themselves.

And it is time to go, to bid farewell
to one's own self, and find an exit
from the fallen self.

II

Have you built your ship of death, O have you?
O build your ship of death, for you will need it.

The grim frost is at hand, when the apples will fall
thick, almost thundrous, on the hardened earth.

And death is on the air like a smell of ashes!
Ah! can't you smell it?
And in the bruised body, the frightened soul
finds itself shrinking, wincing from the cold
that blows upon it through the orifices.

III

And can a man his own quietus make
with a bare bodkin?

With daggers, bodkins, bullets, man can make
a bruise or break of exit for his life;
but is that a quietus, O tell me, is it quietus?

Surely not so! for how could ******, even self-******
ever a quietus make?

IV

O let us talk of quiet that we know,
that we can know, the deep and lovely quiet
of a strong heart at peace!

How can we this, our own quietus, make?

V

Build then the ship of death, for you must take
the longest journey, to oblivion.

And die the death, the long and painful death
that lies between the old self and the new.

Already our bodies are fallen, bruised, badly bruised,
already our souls are oozing through the exit
of the cruel bruise.

Already the dark and endless ocean of the end
is washing in through the breaches of our wounds,
Already the flood is upon us.

Oh build your ship of death, your little ark
and furnish it with food, with little cakes, and wine
for the dark flight down oblivion.

VI

Piecemeal the body dies, and the timid soul
has her footing washed away, as the dark flood rises.

We are dying, we are dying, we are all of us dying
and nothing will stay the death-flood rising within us
and soon it will rise on the world, on the outside world.

We are dying, we are dying, piecemeal our bodies are dying
and our strength leaves us,
and our soul cowers naked in the dark rain over the flood,
cowering in the last branches of the tree of our life.

VII

We are dying, we are dying, so all we can do
is now to be willing to die, and to build the ship
of death to carry the soul on the longest journey.

A little ship, with oars and food
and little dishes, and all accoutrements
fitting and ready for the departing soul.

Now launch the small ship, now as the body dies
and life departs, launch out, the fragile soul
in the fragile ship of courage, the ark of faith
with its store of food and little cooking pans
and change of clothes,
upon the flood's black waste
upon the waters of the end
upon the sea of death, where still we sail
darkly, for we cannot steer, and have no port.

There is no port, there is nowhere to go
only the deepening blackness darkening still
blacker upon the soundless, ungurgling flood
darkness at one with darkness, up and down
and sideways utterly dark, so there is no direction any more
and the little ship is there; yet she is gone.
She is not seen, for there is nothing to see her by.
She is gone! gone! and yet
somewhere she is there.
Nowhere!

VIII

And everything is gone, the body is gone
completely under, gone, entirely gone.
The upper darkness is heavy as the lower,
between them the little ship
is gone

It is the end, it is oblivion.

IX

And yet out of eternity a thread
separates itself on the blackness,
a horizontal thread
that fumes a little with pallor upon the dark.

Is it illusion? or does the pallor fume
A little higher?
Ah wait, wait, for there's the dawn
the cruel dawn of coming back to life
out of oblivion

Wait, wait, the little ship
drifting, beneath the deathly ashy grey
of a flood-dawn.

Wait, wait! even so, a flush of yellow
and strangely, O chilled wan soul, a flush of rose.

A flush of rose, and the whole thing starts again.

X

The flood subsides, and the body, like a worn sea-shell
emerges strange and lovely.
And the little ship wings home, faltering and lapsing
on the pink flood,
and the frail soul steps out, into the house again
filling the heart with peace.

Swings the heart renewed with peace
even of oblivion.

Oh build your ship of death. Oh build it!
for you will need it.
For the voyage of oblivion awaits you.

I have been seeking solace
In fantasies
Of meeting my quietus
All my pleas to the maker
To be exonerated from the tyranny of drudgery
Fell to the wind

In the throes
Of self-abasement
I have been torn asunder
And rue haunts me
Like no ghost ever could

I don't quite know
Where this road
With no footmarks leads
Marching into the uncharted
All what my eyes perceive
Are visions of fractured glass
As I stare into the distance of a destiny painted in eerie hues.

They say the neon lights**
Don’t often burn that bright
Splintered from my urethra
Swollen in this hex
Devoured by the Eve
Brought to justice by the guilt
And when they said
That all I had to give
Wasn’t worth a fitful look
I’ve been duped by sedative
The artificial power
Has swollen in my head
Wrapped around an ice pick
Can be found my fleeting shell

As our defunct cohesion
Masticates my head
Disintegration will lay me to my bed.

That sweet nectar
Lingers on my tongue
An inebriated hour of reverie genuine
A claustrophobic detainment
Incarceration with power windows
As your effigy is left behind
These shiv grasped hands
Awaiting exertion, transpierce my eyes
Upon introspective re-inspections
Ichor transmogrifies
Necessitate me
Remain vacant here

As our defunct cohesion
Masticates my head
Disintegration will lay me to my bed.

I just sat there
And
Kept on sitting 
Staring at the tombstone
Kept on sitting
Half-life; newly alone
I just sat there 
Because
I had nothing left to do
Without you.

He stopped sleeping one night, alone
Keeping his eyes awake, watch
As he lies vacantly, treading
Through tough thoughts, though
Knowing less by knowing, more
Memories fleeting by, now
He begins to itch, finally
Fingers twitching like moth's wings, fast
Scratching at sin scar skin, alone
Until he sleeps forever, more?

Can I be every love song written?
Or a longing lost in your heart?
Sweet melodies and
Forgotten harmonies
Are the ampersands linking my soul with yours.
Sempiternal presence and wishes,
Have you found a rocondite?
You will never be able to catch a bolide,
Nor find Yoknapatawpha.
Yet why do I feel so close to you?
A la belle étoile,
Under the beautiful star,
Maybe I wish to be held
In honest, caring arms.
Serendip will come at last,
Cicatrix will fade away.
As I slowly saxify,
Will you ever realize
Now is too late?

A dying heavenly light

signals home

as I lay dying

all alone.

The buckboard

bucks and rattles down

the blazing dust

of country road;

toward the gentle

green of tree

high on the hill

a plot for me.

I rave against the burn,

the sting of death;

no more to yearn.

I rage against the diggers *****.

Peace at rest where i am laid.

Free from this final walk on fire.

I've climbed to a celestial shire.

I craved your soul but you wouldn't let me have a taste.
I was looking for a place to burn but you wouldn't let me warm myself.
I was after someone who'd appreciate my dying heart but you're too beautiful to care.
I would cry in the comforting disconsolate of your callous heart but I am too prideful in my worth.
I could have done anything for you.
It's never good for the heart to suffer this way but I believe in the price of penance I have to pay to find Nirvana.
I could of, would have, loved you; to allow the patience bloodlet that only demons can inspire.
But.
I wanted to love you more than I could ever love myself; so imagine my hurt when you decided I was the worthless, cut-flower ornament to your perfection.

To leave me bleeding.
To let me die.
To **** me with the care you never gave.

The morning cigarette,
With a cup of igneous coffee,
On an early winter morning,
Alleviates the morning high,
Like the smoke from molten lava.

The immature ride to the vacant highway,
The zephyr gust from the near mountains,
Touches the juvenile jacket
And through the quietus of nature,
The wings inside sails away.

The green undertone of cannabis,
It's a rational sensation,
With every roll the paper silhouettes,
Like a shotgun of peace,
The buds displace on the white face.

The rejuvenating smoke calibrates,
Through the dry pipes,
And layers the ravenous soul,
Like a honey bee,
Pouring the golden sugar,
Into the barren depth of an empty bowl.

Like a centaur with tenacious wings,
Accelerating with the air,
Feeling every loop of a fresh wound,
Riding from north,
And taking the fear out,
Like a first raindrop to hit the ground.

Carrying a sleeping baby.
Cleaning after a successful party.

Camping beyond mountains more mountains.
Playing trumpet on the streets of New York City.

Eating although the food supply is deeply compromised.
Flying with Democrats and Republicans, evangelicals and atheists.

Flying like a fruit fly that won’t quit mating.
Cool as a hummingbird in the stream’s wet spray.

Abstaining wholly, absent from worldly life.
Two dogs fighting but not biting hard.

Chanting as if the planet were mending.
Gourmet dining, devout prayer, loving Mary.

Evenings watching tv. Scotch and Star Trek.
Taking off Emily Dickinson’s clothes.

Meeting in the meeting house, arguing and praying.
Planning a legacy as if you knew enough to control events.

Pursuing happiness as a naturalist or humanist.
Spinning with the planet, performing the history that surrounds us.

Killing many Germans, saving many Jews.
Doing less until one thing’s done well.

Fainting from staring at candles through stained glass windows.
Morning, a billion trillion nuclear detonations per second warming your
        bones.

Manipulating symbols, solving equations.
Disregarding tweets and facebook persuasions.

Sitting with a tiny Buddha near a rushing stream cutting a gorge.
Running, disciplining myself, making myself healthy.

Ingesting drugs, throwing die, drinking sludge.
Growing varicolored corn.

Participating in the cause because it’s impossible not to participate in
      the effect.
Running over a chipmunk, groundhog or a skunk.

Lying face down in the emergency room facing doom.
Waking up Monday thinking Sweet Saturday! but soon remembering
      your trick knee.

Turning the towering young thunder of my anger against my sons.
Regretting the callow dispassion with which I met my parents’ quietus.

Lawn mowing, leaf blowing, yapping dogs, napping old people.
No jets but a rooster mornings, cows and goats.

Al is painting an apartment. Sirma is cleaning the floors. Felix is taking
      out the garbage.
Deciding tentatively I slightly prefer Heifetz’ to Oistrakh’s Sibelius.

No cedar waxwings, no chickadees, but beautiful moon!
If you’re alone as you get, why are you crying?

I wish upon the burning candle;
I pray for this to be my last - another year of despondency I cannot handle.
I wish arduously for nothing but my quietus as I blow out the ember,
and everybody claps without a second thought about what my wish could render.

Rest, rest now beneath my feet.
Take comfort in your scarce heat.
The grey cross erected in your name.
Blackens now, and erodes away
Beneath this stinging rain.

Oh icy claw that grips your heart,
I long for my body torn apart.
Black crow, perched in tree,
For this I beseech thee.
I am no stranger to this bloodless air.

I, in shrillness, would scream
As my lungs did rip and tear.
I stand above your sodden grave,
And shall no longer by life enslaved.
Death, death do conspire;

Transform my black, funeral heart
And wilting sadist mind into my pyre.

I thought you were going to make it out of this tribulation alive,
but your words to me formed a wretched goodbye; you just could not survive.

I have long sought quiet.
And please, let me be clear: quiet.
Not the quietus Hamlet desired,
No “consummation devoutly to be wished” for me.
No, with or without a bare bayonet,
UNBEINGNESS is hardly what I seek.
It is not the predicament of death,
But the quiet spectacle of the grave I envy.  
Originally a city mouse,
I am familiar with the urban soundscape.
I know city noise, amped up in decibels.
Noise-induced stress, shrill and enervating,
Add to the mix a working-class neighborhood,
Where someone is always hammering,
Using a power tool of some kind,
Repairing, improving an older, somewhat decrepit home;
But a steal as the realtors say.
Or vehicles, like Old Havana relics,
Held together by secular prayer,
And thriving underground Cuban capitalism.
Then just for fun: "Let’s send the ******* to war."
Tympanic membranes be wary and be ******.
Stretched and perforated,
Compressed and torn,
Shredded like wheat.
Pummeled by shock wave.
I was Lear wandering the heath,
Your ***-cheeks cracked:
“Cataracts and hurricanes . . .
Oak-cleaving thunderbolts . . .
Sulphurour and thought-executing fires . . .
Singe my white head!”
Cue Cabaret music (Cabaret (1972) - IMDb www.imdb.com/title/tt0068327): “Willkommen, bienvenue, welcome . . . to Indochine,”
First a Weimar-Saigon suckee-fuckee,
Then out to The ****,
Mind-numbing concussion,
Reek of jellied gasoline,
Charred meat,
Assorted red entrails,
Obliteration of thought complete.

It is implied imagination lives in memory,
for I have lived immortal in his memory!

Dying sunlight painted translucent gold varnish
over tree branches, and leaves wept in cinder
as sunlight pierced their flesh  
Sentient, solemn willows swayed in wind prayers,
Deep into her mind forest pagan temples rang
as though treasures hailed immortal proclamations
upon night
  
The fine chiffon billowed, a mere lambrequin
caressing her milky thighs ── the window ajar.  
Blue and white flowers in knots strewn along vines,
appeared violated, twisted valentine creatures,
lost in belief on Lupercalia dreams, blaring
into the impending night, screaming hungry ──
blooms awaiting their opening to moon promises of
fertile love

The old clock past that sings in tick of dying time ── her
mind a bush of stinging nettles,
a reminder to pain and wet in flesh.
Once married to magical inducements to deaths promise,
Pleasures that once sang from his lips,
"The song of sunsets elixir”,
An unparalleled potency to release mortal time

‘Awake in Malarian dreaming immortal ── writhing
in fragrant silent purple hazes of love that vanishes.
She waited across violet poppies and crimson bride orchids
on mortal memories.  
“I can taste you” came from her full lips,
finely cracked with need,
In the parlour poised, dreaming ardent dreams

The moon glinted off the lake beyond,
invoking querulous images,
Swirling, roaming a prayer in black laughed,
escaping the dead air about him
A battalion of flowers hung in nights trees, opulent
reminiscent to Victorian chandeliers.
His aurelo radiated black from a jewelled crown,
mesmerized she gazed

── He blew quietus, a cold gust of emptiness & neglect,
the candles restless flickering ceased,  
his tines glinting by moon lights silver smile  
His breath bore a spice, and a mild coolness encircled her waist,
arms raised, a kiss he placed to each her wrists
Reverent, passionately he bit consuming, gorging in lust
Her mind danced in sparkled delight,    

Springs first ****** shoots sped across time and,
watercolour smears of emerald splashed
earth in communion, between life and death,
between death and life,  she took her last breath.  

She listened to his shatter, ‘into black shards
his ‘obsidian motion tore into night’
A black fire star stained across amaranthine skies,
touching, delicately bleeding into mortal dreams
in poets and writers
It is said, “Love bites but once in true love”

──Unto death shall we once again meet
immortal “In just one piece, poetry we bite”.





©ASPAR S2018(A Sol Poet Arnay Rumens)

you will not like what
you will soon imbibe...

long has a single moot court team
infernal internal debated,
the if's and of's, among itself:

"To Read, Or Not To Read?"

in solitary confinement,
place one's self,
undisturbed but for stale bread,
but unpolluted water

letting only visions sprung internal
guide thy words and world,
from tongue to paper,
creating as pure as one can,
unperturbed by the
rocket's glare of another's poetry

risking all but certain knowing,
it is my fawlty fault alone,
no compare, all laid bare,
no infection of inflection,
no reflection of yours,
in mine mirrored image

my issued seed, entire genetic,
it's only inked environment what is
pre-seeded by blood and *****,
my eyes filter all sight by this light,
this lonely light alone

for the moment, when,
I bend my head to thy stream
to partake when inspiry is parched,
the knowledge that what you
write and wrought,
so much better
than my small portions,
I am condemned in perpetuity
not to the agony mot of defeat,
for I could not
cease to write,
any more than I could
cease to breathe,
or despair of all hope
for messianic better days

but, if to be burdened
by the too real title of
second best,
then my poems,
all sadness to be.

this I cannot have,
so let my pieces,
mediocre or even trash,
live peacefully unencumbered
by the site lines of the living
and the dead

thy finery exceeds my plain grasp,
when I read yours,
my self-pity self-suffocates,
and I ask,
nay, I beg of myself:

let my voice be still
but not stilled,
let my thoughts be boundless,
but not in thine clasped,
let my heart speak my truth,
even unto admitting my yellow courage,
let it not be disparaged by,
for my rank of commonality,
it's low caste author's curse

"for who would bear the Whips and Scorns of time"

I have read the best

once, I wrote
to laugh,
reminded and reminding,
they too feared,
the compare to those who
wrote before their own hour

now I know better,
my only solution,
let my additive, be uncomplicated
my images, uncompromised,
by that, my eyes have n'ere seen,
in languages unspoken, but yet believed,
that were given birth only
for a poet's needs

you may dispense
with my droppings,
as you please, but when
I read you and yours,
I am,
so dangerously pleasured,
my creativity,
my one true god and deity,
oft no longer speaks to me,
it's silence a death sentence
that no court, not in any land,
on earth or unheaven,
may e'er grant clemency,
that of course,
unkindest cut of all

"Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprise of great pitch and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry"

"The undiscovered Country, from whose bourn
No Traveler returns, Puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have,
Than fly to others that we know not of"

You see, already cursed and contaminated,
All my sins italicized, except for my original one,
The imposition of mine own hand,
To dare to write and dream in line and meter, verse

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


*To be, or not to be, that is the question—
Whether 'tis Nobler in the mind to suffer
The Slings and Arrows of outrageous Fortune,
Or to take Arms against a Sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die, to sleep—
No more; and by a sleep, to say we end
The Heart-ache, and the thousand Natural shocks
That Flesh is heir to? 'Tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep,
To sleep, perchance to Dream; Aye, there's the rub,
For in that sleep of death, what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause. There's the respect
That makes Calamity of so long life:
For who would bear the Whips and Scorns of time,
The Oppressor's wrong, the proud man's Contumely,
The pangs of despised Love, the Law’s delay,
The insolence of Office, and the Spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his Quietus make
With a bare Bodkin? Who would these Fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscovered Country, from whose bourn
No Traveler returns, Puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have,
Than fly to others that we know not of.
Thus Conscience does make Cowards of us all,
And thus the Native hue of Resolution
Is sicklied o'er, with the pale cast of Thought,
And enterprises of great pitch and moment,
With this regard their Currents turn awry,
And lose the name of Action. Soft you now,
The fair Ophelia. Nymph, in all thy Orisons
Be all my sins remembered.

Over a month, or a little more,
Maybe two, or just before;
At mine last métier,
Working at the
Dollar store.
I kept on seeing
The vatic harbinger's
In tax form; thirty-one
And thirteen. The register
Wouldst with none other
Sign to me read. For one day
After earning mine wages, I told
Mine mother of these prognostic gazes.
In fret, and distress, I kneweth these symbol's
Hadst to do with mother and father, twas mine guess.
In mine soul, God gaveth me sigil's, in the appearance of extra-change; O' how mighty God is, powerful, unchanged. Just a few twenty-four hour's ago, on the thirty-first of  March, mine father went to the restroom in anguish; Lip's parched. Panic hit ourn abode, mother ran to father's side, I was in the living room as mine father walked out-tears in eye's. He was holding his chest, as if a stone rolled on his beating heart, his face crimson red, he was stumbling toward's death's spark. Mother grabbed the phone, I went into dismay, I ran to grab the aspirin's, and started praying in mine mind silently. Popping the bottles top, fortunately knowing what to do, Sat father down on the couch, mother talking to medics to. I told him in force, " chew these pills right now, making him drink water, to get those orange thing's down. I couldst seeith quietus coming from his heavied breath, I held his hand as If that day was the last dance, with mine father's paining chest. The two emergency medical technician's, crossed into ourn door, there bag's in hand's with oxygen tank's; machines and much more. As the emt's were keeping mine father conscious, I took mine mother by the arm, I took her into the bedroom-closed the door in silent charm. I whispered to mother quickly, " Come on were praying NOW", we bowed ourn head's on the side of the bed, asking God though faith in Christ, " Lord please hath mercy and saveth Ron now. After a few questions from the emt's, I went down to the ambulance with father, as whilst mine dad was dying, he to the ambulance men preached. I laughed and smiled, as dad was telling those fine men how to be saved; Mine father spoke of Yeshua, even whilst his heart beat in rage. Mother followed behind the ambulance, I was sitting inside with dad, knowing all wouldst be alright, for the Lord and Savior was on ourn side that day, and for all coming night's. We got to the hospital, doctor's gaveth dad some tests, A miracle happened; no damage to his beater, no issues with his chest. As after dad was taken for x-rays to a darkly picture room, I looked at mother left alone with me, and it hit me with prophetic swoon. I thought about the number's thirty-one and thirteen, as I kept on seeing them in tax form, I kneweth it was about mine father or mother both, as crazy as it mayest seem. Though Yahweh giveth signs; vision's, or by death, symbols and dream's. As water started flowing in that room, left alone with mother, I cried out to her, as we stared upon another. I told mine mother "GOD SHOWED ME ALL ALONG", mine father's day of birth, was the thirteenth back way long. His heart attack was the thirty-first thus both signs matching the story, thirteen God showed me his birth, and thirty first was when this happened, a harbinger in timely warning. Though the story doth not end there, verily more to it, father hadst a dream a month ago, that I did not tell. Mine father sawest mine grandfather Nagley, who died when I was only five, from tumors throughout his body, cancer the way he died. Grandpa Nagley warned mine father a month in advance, of mine father's coming soon shaking, mine father didst not remember the word's from grandpa's mouth in the dream, though now we knoweth it was truth on string's. And one day before mine dad's happening as well, mine dad dreamt three dream's in a row, three; the number of the father son and holy spirit, the Trinity in God's mode. Dad hadst dreamt three dream's right before what took place, dad saidst he saweth me whispering " there's two men at the door, wake up. He sawest the two men come in, the end of his dream. The two men that first walked in to help saveth his life, were those two emt's. ...........


©Brandon Nagley
©Lonesome poet's poetry
©dedication to father Ron Nagley..... Thank God your alive dad love you.... As angels were once again protecting you, as God answered me and mothers prayer... And God's giving mine father a warning sign to come back to him.... As if we turn away from God he gives signs for us to come back to him....and it's truth and reality!!! Though what a loving merciful God you are!!! This even isn't the end of the story. Found out 31 had to do with my mother .. Kept seeing 31 and 13 at work. On cash register... Lol. Well mine mother just got into a car accident Jane knows about now I told her. Mother made it home safe. Totaled her vehicle. So this happened all literally two days apart from each other... Both numbers God kept showing me and I kept telling Jane, Jane these numbers are bothering me because I know they have to do with parents!! And yes!!! They did! God warned me!!! 31 July 31st mothers b day. August 13. Dads b day both matching signs God gave me!!! God wants mother and father to come back to him. I'm his vessel he's using to reach parents. And for me to come back fully!!! An amen to God alot!!!

A lunar eclipse passeth between ourn Soma's
A solar eclipse maketh glitz
On ourn lip's;
Kiss of pneuma.
                            Aforetime quietus, breathless existence
                            Now coalesced in vivacity;
                            Sculpted, in the creator's
                            spiritus.



©Brandon Nagley
©Lonesome poet's poetry
©Earl Jane Nagley-filipino rose dedication





Note;
Happy four month anniversary Reyna Jane Nagley!!!!
Love you more Reyna, thank you for sticking with me the last four month's, seem's as If we've been together for lifetimes now,which verily I've known thee a lot longer than thou hath known!!!! Mas mahal kita Reyna.... For anyone who don't know what ( mas mahal kita Reyna means) it means I love you more queen.. In Filipino tongue.!!!!!! Me more queen Jane!!!! Happy 4th mine Reyna!!! Mine soulmate....

Just when we thought
this place couldn't get
any
more
depressing,
a detriment of inadequacy ensues,
and the following hour is spent
beneath a paled,
frosted-blue canvas,
atop a frigid construct
of tether, and steel.

BUT!

As quickly as the dystrophy settled
within minds scarcely caressed
by hallowed slumber,
a frail,
yet,
intensifying light
erupts from the faded line
that separates reality
from ethereality.

As this newly self-empowered
hero of the day
ceases the boundless tundra overhead
with a golden fluorescence
of warmth,
and rapture,
still,
ever-trifling is the southern counterpart.

HARK!

From out of the myriad sheets
of thundercloud gray,
laced with veins of majestic purple,
and glazed with the ensemble
of over-ripened peaches
that blanket the northern skies
of this dawning day
spawns a duet of our mothers'
most
sacred
creation.

HOW MAGNIFICENT!

This spectrum couplet
that champions the veil,
extruding their way out
from the darkest,
most steadfast regions
of our Terran celestial.

Betwixt these valours,
who stand
as beacons of glory
in these most
disparaging of times,
dance a flock
of little
black and white birds,
unveiling to our starving eyes,
ever so eager to feast-
their autumn courtship that,
in its own wonderment,
was that of a
silent
symphony.

LO!

For many a fort night,
we have gazed upon naught
but soot-black sand,
sun-bleached dirt,
and endless foliage,
who's lives have been bled dry
long before even our first wave achieved
boots on ground.

And even as the sun rose higher,
relieving the quietus night
to nothing
but a faded memoir,
so, too,
these masters of vibrancy
shall fade.

BUT!

Even in their last moments of glory,
they triumphed as heralds,
mutely evoking a message
that said:

*'Even at our final breaths,
we shall stand as strong as we did
when She first employed us
into Her heavens.
And until we are completely vanquished,
never; never shall we falter.'

Remnants of firecrackers litter parkgrass, splitting seams once encasing them;
exposed twine ribs attached, stretched out beneath shade like sunken reliquiae
dashed against the earth, as freedom is, withered paper husks abound.
What explosions in the sky were heard
above the quietus of patient submission?
Tracing the dotted white clouds to our horizon with thread and colored cloth,
held breath until nighttime, expelling then
-- as wind does each languishing puff of smoke--
from our lungs, sordid smells of Summer; vanquishing the past.
Isolating each other, like memories on kodak prints
we separately cling to that sleek filmy acquaintanceship of proximity and hue
-- disavowed pariahs and hearts lit anew.
Fused inside one sallow skull-box, which doubled once for holding shoes, we linger.
Ideas, impulses and infringements on the eye, until-- once--
bound, unbroken, encased and unspoken,
our ribs unwind with dew-- after,
unstitching seams outlined from heaven and inundating visions with brightness
we descend.
Violent fumes of childhood intercede amidst our shaking fuses lit.
--and BANG!

Reaching out mine poetic finger's,
None to reach back.

Roaming in this passage of expiry,
quietus; how solitary tis.

Patting panels of mysteriousness,
Feel like letting go;

Though do I knoweth I shalt get through
With God, for with humanity I'm alone.

I wilt seest the peep of gleam, just
Yonder the gloaming.

At the moment dead yet living,
Though betimes I'll reach
In pure love all that's
Right and knowing.

With one to hold me
In seas of affections
Warmth, I'll be the
Light I'm meant to
Be- I shalt with
Other's share
Mine torch.


© Brandon nagley
© Lonesome poets poetry.

There was a Mortician I used to know
With a chin of whiskers and sallow teeth
He didn’t comb his graying tresses
“Moonlight commence your drip” muttered he
But his hair grew stringier and his ligature looser
A man ever dingy with mourning

Shrouded with death was his visage
A man of fifty, shriveled like a rose
If you spend lifetimes watching milk curdle
And leaves stiffen
Traces of mortality will wrinkle you the same

Acrid appealed to the Undertaker’s senses
Drank black coffee to match his hue
Used to cloud lucid skies, he’d wipe out the blue

None spoke to him but the drawing room mirror
Listen he didn’t to its clamor of tongues  
For a reflection’s to blame for receding flesh

Thirty years conducting funerals
Built a morose man
Quietly he wept
Though a furrowed rose cannot
Thus his quietus was born

O thou, my lovely boy, who in thy power
Dost hold Time’s fickle glass his fickle hour;
Who hast by waning grown, and therein show’st
Thy lovers withering, as thy sweet self grow’st.
If Nature, sovereign mistress over wrack,
As thou goest onwards, still will pluck thee back,
She keeps thee to this purpose, that her skill
May Time disgrace, and wretched minutes ****.
Yet fear her, O thou minion of her pleasure!
She may detain, but not still keep her treasure.
    Her audit, though delayed, answered must be,
    And her quietus is to render thee.

Quack went the duck.
Who ran constantly into bad luck?

Quaff went the bartender.
Who complained about the drunk?

Qualification yell the employer.
Who he saw the empoyees limitations?
Although they warn him they wouldn't have experience.

Quietus holler the boss.
When he realized the employee had quick.

They all was queing instead of fueding.
They all was complaining instead of helping.
The way we all seems to do.
When we see problems that might aaffect you.

Sometimes this world can be so cruel.

~for Lori Jones McCaffery~

Lori Jones McCaffery commenting on
“a new time (poetry in the time of pandemic)”^
“Tender and brutal at the same time. Like the times.”*

                                                     ­          <>
your observation, a commission, opens an incision,
bleeding out a Noah flood vision:

                                                        ­        <>

when we begin, to compare and contrast the movable tender and the unstoppable brutal, the poetry must rise to equalize the pressure of unbalanced times, the tender, and the brutal in an uneasy peaceful coexistence, at the same time, same place
                                                           ­     
                              
                              
                            
The Brutal                                              The Tender
—————                                             —————
life in the epicenter, the greatest,       in the darkened bedroom,
noisiest city, now landscape               she awakens, her hand quick
painting quiet,                                      comes to rest on my chest,
one lives/writes/eyesights thru       the quality of motion+volume
pink mask + a minimum six              of heartbeats, is it loud enough,
feet of separation,                                steady on, no need to dial 911!
a citified tableau of macro wave       she unaware that I can hear
forces in crashing collision, upon     her loud, tender exhalation
your skin’s cells                                   celebrating surviving day#?

newspaper images of Death’s            many volunteer, food delivery,
ministers applauding the newly        though I am asymptomatic
arrived mobile morgues, for 100        my request tenderly, firmly
died yesterday,                                      denied, for I meet too many
their brutal death rattles                      of the vulnerable criteria,
overwhelmed  the super-surround.   instead, offering food to me,
sound silences of                                   to deliver to me, to deliver me,
brutal emptiness of millions of           tenderly I say, no thanks,
sacrificial                                             ­    my tour of duty, almost done
                              
                                all of us isolate lambs, in day jailed,
                                for we still breathing the maybe tainted,                
                                oxygen molecules of no safe surety      

a consummate perfection,                    the same, taming words I tell  
the holy quietus of                                 my son, young father,
those no longer breathing,                   tender me necessary tasks that
they now rest up above,                        require outside journeys, say I
hid in a white cumulus                         send me into the red hot areas
cloud cover, a noise suppressing         insert me into the front line,
sky coverlet, moving across a               militarized zones, he replies,
bright blue pure background,              ”you’re too old, part and
a train of funeral caissons,                     parcel of the most vulnerable,
brutal noisy hooves clacking             better-write-you tender-poems”

daily, hourly, the statistical alerts,         why so hard, to write tender
brief résumés delivered,                         so easy of the brutal, their
drumbeating, look now!                         curses so readily supplied,
are you up to date?                                  is tenderness short supplied?

catalog the debris, organized with brutal necessary efficacy, quantify, qualify the costs, include even the tender ineffable, countdown and graph the brutal calculus of the curve infection, and you, numbed, past the point of eyes capable of what once was tender droplet tearing

highlight the unknown faraway, the tender hope of a distant apex inflection, while plotting the second derivative, the rate of change of the rate of a brutal yet trending upward *****, the ascending all-inclusive stat, infected, the rate of change of decedents, downed, descending, giving in...gowned in hospital blue, for the funeral pyre

a city of lines, crosswalks, velvet ropes, unused, unemployed, social separators, no one about to need to separate, anymore, only the living and the dead, both staying indoors, so neither in attendance, at the empty funeral services, everybody is on the out list...

the now newly indistinguishable, the irresistible collision of two one-sides polarizing poles of no longer opposites, the tender and the brutal in a single embrace, but no, not kissing, embargoed, as we are stationed from above, far, high up on the watchtower observatory, observing the contrast dye that flies so fast on people denuded grand boulevards, down narrow hospital hallways, body-lined decorated, tales of millions of lives isolatized, and don’t forget the brutalizing discovery of scores of elderly, dying alone, withering in the dark, counted, lumped in to the category of statistically irrelevant, if dead, who cares, matters not now, in the afterworld no one asks how,
                        in a fashion both tenderly and brutal,
                        what was the actual cause?

I'm beginning to wonder if it's a nightmare or a wish...

I splashed in the puddles
for the first time in my life
and tried to be careless.

Like the child I used to be.

All things come to an end.
Childhood,
and the rain,
and now, it feels like
the past four years
have passed away like this storm.

It didn't have to die.
Now it feels like I'm the next one
who has to.

Quietus.

Or another synonym for death.

I still need you.
Like the child that clung to
the carelessness that died so long ago.

even when I was little I had a hard time leaving wounds alone —

the absent-minded uprooting of scabs and the slow flame of revived pain.

to bleed in so many small ways, to be so oblivious to being real.

if only they were tiny sacrifices, tiny offerings to whoever dealt out hurt and sadness, if only they were enough to keep my nose above water.

I find myself lost within four walls in more ways than one.

they say you should smoke sage in all your corners,

smudge its grey into the darkness. they say it puts the past to rest.

I burn leaves and I burn grass and I burn letters and thoughts and touches and it makes me blacker, blacker, blacker.

the remains of grief wait, latched shut in its music box. I can’t bear its singing. I can’t tear this flesh off my bones. I can’t make myself fiction.

but you did. you did and now I fade into a ballad not even worth its weight in the heartbreak it rhymes.

to have sought poetry only to plummet into misery. to have the currency of my decomposing tongue and no concoction of words to soothe the damage.

the rot runs deep. the rot is real. the rot is all I feel.

you’re all the lives kept out of my reach