Nobody knows where the Ragman goes
In the wee, small hours of the morn,
When he’s taken the dray with your rags away
Through the pin-point eye of a storm.
He came to stay while you were away
And your sister gave him your dress,
The one with the dreams and the bright sequins
Sewn in to the lace at the breast.

She said that you wouldn’t be needing it
Since your dreams have faded to dust,
When all those hundreds of bright sequins
Were dimmed, and turning to rust,
But the Ragman knew that he’d capture you
If he made away with your dreams,
And sits unpicking your party dress
With a razor blade at the seams.

Your sister Grace has a second face
That she turns when she’s not near you,
In a zealous, jealous and carping place
That she keeps well hidden from view,
For nobody gives her a second glance
While she schemes and dreams and plots,
To plant your beauty deep in the ground
With a host of forget-me-nots.

Don’t peer too long from the balcony,
Don’t stand too long at the edge,
She’s loosened the rail you lean upon
And thrown the bolt in the hedge,
A sudden rush and a simple push
Will send you a long way down,
While she prepares her look of despair
As they plant you there in the ground.

I’m only a menial footman here
But my love is stamped on my face,
I’m going to track the Ragman down
And bring him back to this place,
I’ve seen his dray by a cottage door
In the forest of chills and frost,
And seen the women he buys and sells
Who wander the forest, lost.

Your sister sips on a nightly draught
As she sits and watches the Moon,
Plotting to see the end of you,
I know that it’s coming soon.
I’ll drop a potion into her drink
And tie her up in a sack,
Then throw her up on the Ragman’s dray,
She’ll never be coming back.

He’ll take her deep in the forest there
To the caves of unshriven souls,
Then put her up on the auction block
And sell her to one of the trolls.
The bolt is back in the balcony rail
And the potion’s in her drink,
The Ragman’s dray is coming today
And your sister’s at the brink!

David Lewis Paget

the greateast lie of all is feeling of firmness beneath our feet we are at our most honest when we are lost - soren kierkegaard

think about people managing running this city state country how do they do it trouble managing myself today 3/19/10 eating alone at cantonese restaurant suddenly felt nauseous sick rushed to cashier paid drove hurried home feeling need to go maybe ***** ran upstairs pooped exhausted lied down sick anxiety attack could not breathe opened windows fetus position all in my head imagined hours later feel fine think about women how beautiful they are menstraution pregnancy giving birth menapause subjugation abuse stress am i pretty enough good enough property commodity find provider daunting pressures they bear tearing while typing think about my mom turning 90 alone trudging heavy purse think about children of the future so much weight on their shoulders so much dysfunction disarity how will they manage run reach their dreams think about myself so scared desperate about tomorrow future i have no money property belonging this world is tough with great sadness want to hear joke what do you call fish with no eyes fssshh not very funny

I HAVE kept all, not one is thrown away, not one given to the ragman, not one ****** in a corner with a "P-f-f."
The red ones and the blue, the long ones in stripes, and each of the little black and white checkered ones.
Keep them: I tell my heart: keep them another year, another ten years: they will be wanted again.
They came once, they came easy, they came like a first white flurry of snow in late October,
Like any sudden, presumptuous, beautiful thing, and they were cheap at the price, cheap like snow.
Here a red one and there a long one in yellow stripes,
O there shall be no ragman have these yet a year, yet ten years.

There's a regret
So grinding, so immitigably sad,
Remorse thereby feels tolerant, even glad . . .
Do you not know it yet?

For deeds undone
Rankle and snarl and hunger for their due,
Till there seems naught so despicable as you
In all the grin o' the sun.

Like an old shoe
The sea spurns and the land abhors, you lie
About the beach of Time, till by and by
Death, that derides you too--

Death, as he goes
His ragman's round, espies you, where you stray,
With half-an-eye, and kicks you out of his way;
And then--and then, who knows

But the kind Grave
Turns on you, and you feel the convict Worm,
In that black bridewell working out his term,
Hanker and ***** and crave?

'Poor fool that might--
That might, yet would not, dared not, let this be,
Think of it, here and thus made over to me
In the implacable night!'

And writhing, fain
And like a triumphing lover, he shall take
His fill where no high memory lives to make
His obscene victory vain.

Louise is still in bed.
     It is almost eleven, Louise lies in her bed.
     She lies, entangled in the multiple blankets that shape with lights and shades the delicate curves of her body.
     Her hair flows softly on the pillow where they lay.
     One of her leg, skinny but still forceful is spread out of the warm shield of the covers : A white arrow against the crimson mattress, and her smell fulfills the room.
    It is a drunk sensation, that smell, like a rough rush of desire as a perfume.

    Her white complexion distinguished itself clearly on the brass pillow, her sleek blond hair shining, her head hangs slightly on the left and she wears a dreamy face. And again that heady smell of her.
    A man has taken his clothes and escaped by the window a few minutes ago, or more. The sound of a ragman praying in the distance is still ringing through.
    The window open wide allows the breeze in, throwing the red curtains billowing. The chill is there too, engaged in a mighty fight against the protection of the blankets. The sun is pouring like burning coal inside, all of gold and beams.
    The flowered wallpaper, yellowish now due to the ages’ action, emanates a soft warmth ; an old lady has just sneezed somewhere ; the picture of the madonna peers quietly over the room, all over the big brass bed, half-drowned in a vivid light.Oh, and that unwearable smell likewise a goddess body, entrancing.
    
     Louise, she’s just near, she moves, rolling tenderly on her side, in an endless struggle against the reawakening. Stretching a leg now, crunching on herself then, the mouth slightly open ; a sugary breath blows between her ivory teeth.
     The bed seems too big for her, she could have shrunk during the wild blazing nighttime, though I doubt it.
     The murmur of the blankets rippling can be heard to the advert ear. The sandman is on a beach in Florida now : only the defense of her fragile eyelids remains. A deck of cards has been scattered on the floor, the jack of hearts swimming flat in a pool of hopes.
    
     Outside, across Greenwich Village, nobody can guess that baby isn’t blessed, but that’s all our fate too. A man is sliding, a hat on his eye, round the corner of the avenue, God knows he paid some dues but now it makes it only seem so cruel.
    The lamppost mule is holding up the skies, folding upon the world, that makes the dogs bark but they are only dogs, remember it.
     What if Mona Lisa was not smiling and the Chineses were blind ? The highway happy, and the rumbling thunder shivering ? Like a roar, those questions still echo in the air, but she does not care, just like a little girl.
     Her pearly fingers run across her face, through her hair and down her eyes. She bridges languorishly her back to the ceiling and falls back featherlike, lying now straight.
     Two spotlights of blue and mist opened, staring at the ceiling, the dreadful ceiling. Images of past and future, of lovers and crooks swirling in front of her : she’s awake.
    
     A fat budgie sings like silence from a corroded cage in the darkened corner ; A bra and a shirt hang from it but no one really cares. The rumbling of the crowds, the soundtrack of our life. A tree near the window shatters the blinding light that bursts in the room. And that smell… it’s so hard to get on.
     Likewise the leopard, she stands out her nest, softly, without any noise and with great grace. She grabs a shirt that she let on her shoulders floating to her hips, to protect the body from the haunting chill, and she strikes the fat budgie.
    The floor it is cold, she walks, she floats on her tiptoes to the window ; as she walks, the sunshine draw ghosts of valleys, hills and forests upon her flesh. Dignity is carved in her features, meanwhile the spirit of sensuality howls in the bones of her face.
    A strand of hair taunts her eye as her mane seems to follow every breath, every pace she takes, timelessly. She removes that strand arrogantly. An eternity had just passed when she arrived at the window, an eternity of elegance that no school can ever teach, that no one can ever learn.
    
   She stands, framed by the pouring light, bathed in clarity, like an angel on the window ledge. A restless memory of him has disappeared : she said she was called Johanna yesterday, she said  she would never forget, neither of them believed it, she said watery words, she spoke from her watery lips, once. The egyptians pretended that every new day was a new world, she’s not egyptian. Still she does not feel yesterday anymore. She just stands there, framed by the pouring light, the beauty of the world and the beauty of my lover so entwined,  an oblivion conquers our minds.
     She looks but does not see ; She listens but does not hear ; she exists, she does not live and she spends a lifelong while at those window. Greenwich Village, the green and gold and brown and grey daytime light and tree and street. The shirt dancing on her sides, she smiles mirthful, her shiny eyes seem to encompass the whole universe in a sight, or two. She is present, she is here, she is her. Like she never done before…
    
    Maybe she has stood the trial of time at this window, carved in an instant of perfection, maybe she is flying with the doves by now, heading for the gates of Eden, maybe, she has jumped…anyway.
Oh, and that smell of her, is now all that remains.