The wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees
The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon the cloudy seas
The road was a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor
And the highwayman came riding,
Riding, riding,
The highwayman came riding, up to the old inn-door.

He'd a French cocked hat on his forehead, a bunch of lace at his chin,
A coat of claret velvet, and breeches of brown doe-skin;
They fitted with never a wrinkle; his boots were up to the thigh!
And he rode with a jewelled twinkle,
His pistol butts a-twinkle,
His rapier hilt a-twinkle, under the jewelled sky.

Over the cobbles he clattered and clashed in the dark innyard,
And he tapped with his whip on the shutters, but all was locked and barred;
He whistled a tune to the window, and who should be waiting there
But the landlord's black-eyed daughter,
Bess, the landlord's daughter,
Plaiting a dark red love-knot into her long black hair.

"One kiss, my bonny sweetheart, I'm after a prize tonight,
But I shall be back with the yellow gold before the morning light;
Yet if they press me sharply, and harry me through the day,
Then look for me by the moonlight,
Watch for me by the moonlight,
I'll come to thee by the moonlight, though hell should bar the way.

He rose upright in the stirrups; he scarce could reach her hand
But she loosened her hair i' the casement! His face burnt like a brand
As the black cascade of perfume came tumbling over his breast;
And he kissed its waves in the moonlight,
(Oh, sweet black waves in the moonlight!)
Then he tugged at his rein in the moonlight, and galloped away to the west.

He did not come at the dawning; he did not come at noon,
And out of the tawny sunset, before the rise o' the moon,
When the road was a gypsy's ribbon, looping the purple moor,
A red-coat troop came marching,
Marching, marching
King George's men came marching, up to the old inn-door.

They said no word to the landlord, they drank his ale instead,
But they gagged his daughter and bound her to the foot of her narrow bed;
Two of them knelt at the casement, with muskets at their side!
There was death at every window
And hell at one dark window;
For Bess could see, through the casement,
The road that he would ride.

They had tied her up to attention, with many a sniggering jest;
They had bound a musket beside her, with the barrel beneath her breast!
"now keep good watch!" And they kissed her.
She heard the dead man say
"Look for me by the moonlight
Watch for me by the moonlight
I'll come to thee by the moonlight, though hell should bar the way!"

She twisted her hands behind her, but all the knots held good!
She writhed her hands till her fingers were wet with sweat or blood!
They stretched and strained in the darkness and the hours crawled by like years!
Till, now, on the stroke of midnight,
Cold, on the stroke of midnight,
The tip of one finger touched it!
The trigger at least was hers!

Tlot-tlot! Had they heard it? The horse-hoofs were ringing clear
Tlot-tlot, in the distance! Were they deaf that they did not hear?
Down the ribbon of moonlight, over the brow of the hill,
The highwayman came riding,
Riding, riding!
The red-coats looked to their priming!
She stood up straight and still!

Tlot in the frosty silence! Tlot, in the echoing night!
Nearer he came and nearer! Her face was like a light!
Her eyes grew wide for a moment! She drew one last deep breath,
Then her finger moved in the moonlight,
Her musket shattered the moonlight,
Shattered her breast in the moonlight and warned him with her death.

He turned; he spurred to the west; he did not know she stood
Bowed, with her head o'er the musket, drenched with her own red blood!
Not till the dawn he heard it; his face grew grey to hear
How Bess, the landlord's daughter,
The landlord's black-eyed daughter,
Had watched for her love in the moonlight, and died in the darkness there.

Back, he spurred like a madman, shrieking a curse to the sky
With the white road smoking behind him and his rapier brandished high!
Blood-red were the spurs i' the golden noon; wine-red was his velvet coat,
When they shot him down on the highway,
Down like a dog on the highway,
And he lay in his blood on the highway, with the bunch of lace at his throat.

Still of a winter's night, they say, when the wind is in the trees,
When the moon is a ghostly galleon, tossed upon the cloudy seas,
When the road is a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor,
A highwayman comes riding,
Riding, riding,
A highwayman comes riding, up to the old inn-door.

He loves his soca and
His carnival.
He calypsos
Like only Dionysus could.

His power is like the
Nymph's - the Oceanid daughter that
Kept Odysseus from
Penelope - only stronger.

So mesmerising: his smile
Bursts with a contagious
Warmth, like the sun
Over his island homeland.

A gold cross hangs from a chain
Around his dark, dark neck.
The smell of his skin spices the air around him,
Making my mouth salivate.

He tastes like Mayan chocolate;
Slightly bitter and tinged with chilli.
The scars on his shoulders and back
Feel like a ripe nectarine againt my tongue.

I want to bite down and feel the juices
Run.
But.
He's a good Christian boy.

This island boy is an enigma.
Tall and willowy
Like a rapier, and
Strong and beautiful.

I wonder if this island boy
Would sheath his faith
In my worship,
For just one, cool, island night.

If I am to dig graves for the rest of my life
I wish to do it with my hair long and proud,
Swinging at the small of my back as a testament of
Will in the face of adversity,
Grown by the fruits of my labor.
I want to harvest the nectar
From the pear tree on my horizon
And when I eat my fill,
I will just as easily leave the sweetness behind,
Before it spoils and then,
I will look the hurricane in the eye and laugh,
Because I know it will baptize the earth
And my pear tree will be waiting for the day
This nomad returns to her roots.

If I am to choose between
A false lover and Uncertainty in the North
I want to have the gall to say,
“Brother, come at eight.”
I want to have the self-control
To lower the gun on a man,
Whose mind is a dank closet full of spiders.
By then, I must be ready to venture out,
And risk this Uncertainty in the North.

If I am to take my revenge,
I wish to do so without collateral damage,
And if I do,
I want everyone to learn that revenge
Will stab you with your own rapier
And that I am the kind of person,
Who will make you drink your own wine,
Because, in the end,
We are all sinners.

If I am to write propaganda to support
A nauseating turn of society,
I would rather be exiled.
Iceland, Siberia, The Ministry of Love:
They are all the same,
Because I will come out a different person
For better or for worse.

I wish to have the strength to cut my hair
Because I will not hesitate
To cut ties with anyone,
Who stands in the way of my passion.
I must be unorthodox
If I see my fellow men
Following in each other’s footsteps, with their eyes closed.
I will scream it in the streets,
“The world is not pretty.”

If I am to be unorthodox,
I wish to have faith,
Strong enough not to be undone by mere chance,
Strong enough so I can watch the coin fall:
Heads.
Heads.
Heads.
Accepting that I will one day die.
And if it involves a ship,
I will be its captain.

(A Virginia Legend.)

The Planting of the Hemp.

Captain Hawk scourged clean the seas
(Black is the gap below the plank)
From the Great North Bank to the Caribbees
(Down by the marsh the hemp grows rank).

His fear was on the seaport towns,
The weight of his hand held hard the downs.
And the merchants cursed him, bitter and black,
For a red flame in the sea-fog's wrack
Was all of their ships that might come back.

For all he had one word alone,
One clod of dirt in their faces thrown,
"The hemp that shall hang me is not grown!"

His name bestrode the seas like Death.
The waters trembled at his breath.

This is the tale of how he fell,
Of the long sweep and the heavy swell,
And the rope that dragged him down to hell.

The fight was done, and the gutted ship,
Stripped like a shark the sea-gulls strip,

Lurched blindly, eaten out with flame,
Back to the land from where she came,
A skimming horror, an eyeless shame.

And Hawk stood upon his quarter-deck,
And saw the sky and saw the wreck.

Below, a **** for sailors' jeers,
White as the sky when a white squall nears,
Huddled the crowd of the prisoners.

Over the bridge of the tottering plank,
Where the sea shook and the gulf yawned blank,
They shrieked and struggled and dropped and sank,

Pinioned arms and hands bound fast.
One girl alone was left at last.

Sir Henry Gaunt was a mighty lord.
He sat in state at the Council board;
The governors were as nought to him.
From one rim to the other rim

Of his great plantations, flung out wide
Like a purple cloak, was a full month's ride.

Life and death in his white hands lay,
And his only daughter stood at bay,
Trapped like a hare in the toils that day.

He sat at wine in his gold and his lace,
And far away, in a ****** place,
Hawk came near, and she covered her face.

He rode in the fields, and the hunt was brave,
And far away his daughter gave
A shriek that the seas cried out to hear,
And he could not see and he could not save.

Her white soul withered in the mire
As paper shrivels up in fire,
And Hawk laughed, and he kissed her mouth,
And her body he took for his desire.


The Growing of the Hemp.

Sir Henry stood in the manor room,
And his eyes were hard gems in the gloom.

And he said, "Go dig me furrows five
Where the green marsh creeps like a thing alive --
There at its edge, where the rushes thrive."

And where the furrows rent the ground,
He sowed the seed of hemp around.

And the blacks shrink back and are sore afraid
At the furrows five that rib the glade,
And the voodoo work of the master's *****.

For a cold wind blows from the marshland near,
And white things move, and the night grows drear,
And they chatter and crouch and are sick with fear.

But down by the marsh, where the gray slaves glean,
The hemp sprouts up, and the earth is seen
Veiled with a tenuous mist of green.

And Hawk still scourges the Caribbees,
And many men kneel at his knees.

Sir Henry sits in his house alone,
And his eyes are hard and dull like stone.

And the waves beat, and the winds roar,
And all things are as they were before.

And the days pass, and the weeks pass,
And nothing changes but the grass.

But down where the fireflies are like eyes,
And the damps shudder, and the mists rise,
The hemp-stalks stand up toward the skies.

And down from the **** of the pirate ship
A body falls, and the great sharks grip.

Innocent, lovely, go in grace!
At last there is peace upon your face.

And Hawk laughs loud as the corpse is thrown,
"The hemp that shall hang me is not grown!"

Sir Henry's face is iron to mark,
And he gazes ever in the dark.

And the days pass, and the weeks pass,
And the world is as it always was.

But down by the marsh the sickles beam,
Glitter on glitter, gleam on gleam,
And the hemp falls down by the stagnant stream.

And Hawk beats up from the Caribbees,
Swooping to pounce in the Northern seas.

Sir Henry sits sunk deep in his chair,
And white as his hand is grown his hair.

And the days pass, and the weeks pass,
And the sands roll from the hour-glass.

But down by the marsh in the blazing sun
The hemp is smoothed and twisted and spun,
The rope made, and the work done.


The Using of the Hemp.

Captain Hawk scourged clean the seas
(Black is the gap below the plank)
From the Great North Bank to the Caribbees
(Down by the marsh the hemp grows rank).

He sailed in the broad Atlantic track,
And the ships that saw him came not back.

And once again, where the wide tides ran,
He stooped to harry a merchantman.

He bade her stop. Ten guns spake true
From her hidden ports, and a hidden crew,
Lacking his great ship through and through.

Dazed and dumb with the sudden death,
He scarce had time to draw a breath

Before the grappling-irons bit deep,
And the boarders slew his crew like sheep.

Hawk stood up straight, his breast to the steel;
His cutlass made a ****** wheel.

His cutlass made a wheel of flame.
They shrank before him as he came.

And the bodies fell in a choking crowd,
And still he thundered out aloud,

"The hemp that shall hang me is not grown!"
They fled at last. He was left alone.

Before his foe Sir Henry stood.
"The hemp is grown, and my word made good!"

And the cutlass clanged with a hissing whir
On the lashing blade of the rapier.

Hawk roared and charged like a maddened buck.
As the cobra strikes, Sir Henry struck,

Pouring his life in a single ******,
And the cutlass shivered to sparks and dust.

Sir Henry stood on the blood-stained deck,
And set his foot on his foe's neck.

Then from the hatch, where the rent decks *****,
Where the dead roll and the wounded *****,
He dragged the serpent of the rope.

The sky was blue, and the sea was still,
The waves lapped softly, hill on hill,
And between one wave and another wave
The doomed man's cries were little and shrill.

The sea was blue, and the sky was calm;
The air dripped with a golden balm.
Like a wind-blown fruit between sea and sun,
A black thing writhed at a yard-arm.

Slowly then, and awesomely,
The ship sank, and the gallows-tree,
And there was nought between sea and sun --
Nought but the sun and the sky and the sea.

But down by the marsh where the fever breeds,
Only the water chuckles and pleads;
For the hemp clings fast to a dead man's throat,
And blind Fate gathers back her seeds.

I will wrap you up
in duct tape & glass.
Cheap wood your caged throne.
Black grease paint,
a halo for the false God.
A Revolver glorifies you
but the rapier kisses your lips.
Allegiance only to dark aesthetics
tainted
torn face
worn leather.
I mount your eternal beauty
a heretics altar.
Naked before you,
I touch faith
& give you my little death.

In the air, floating just next to the window
solidly constructed
as sure as the golden highway
stretching from Frisco across the Bay
looking square
as the acres of boxcars
north on the interstate
on the south side of Chicago,
it's all atoms...

This morning my son postulated to me a so-far unrealized condition
relating to matter transmitters and, probably, hyperspace. "What
would happen, " he asked, "if some guy transported himself inside a big rock?"
Indeed.
Putting on my ears, I considered the situation.  Would the hypothetical solid mass of rock give way, shudder just enough to allow the insertion of a soft, squishy human being?  Or would the spaces in their respective atoms--rock's and human's--intermesh neatly with each other?  Molecular integration?  But such a challenge to the atomic bonds holding the things together might result in a nasty atomic accident. Would that leave a human-shaped void inside the solid rock, a mold exact down to the finest details of skin texture and even eyelashes? Imagine the crystal-filled waters seeping down to find such a hole--Behold!! Geode Man.

Holding my silver pen extended
like a rapier before me,
I dissect the wispy chunks
of smoke. The balance of air
that gave them form
is destroyed.  They are
no more.

sometimes it seems as though the cars
passing my street won't drive quickly enough,
and that the strands of christmas lights
aren't strong enough to support my weight.
                   
so for now i'll settle for forgetting to look both ways,
and perhaps later, i will invest in some sturdier rope,
all the better to scale my own cliffs of despair,
and face off with the spanish swordsman
reclining on the tip of my tongue,
matching rapier in (left)hand.

if victory finds its way to me, i'll continue to confound
in meeting the brute within, he who pounds boulders,
whose heart is like tourmaline in a granite casing,
and who claws at pristine arms in convulsion.

if i am once again triumphant, i shall travel further,
and face the shards of wit cutting through my irises,
except i am not as the dread pirate, the man in black,
i am vulnerable, i have no resistance, i am broken down
as easily as i am built up, and it is truly a gamble.

if, by some miraculous stroke of good fortune, i continue further,
i shall be disappointed, for at the end of the trials lies tribulation,
no flower princess for me, no blindfolded beauty,
only that **** noose of christmas lights again,
suspended from a macabre and rickety structure
seemingly crafted from the same material as the road to hell,
destination identical.

Madness round about us and no one knows,
Memories of ember fired trust,
Watch them, these entombed brains,
Piano sonata, violin concerto, torn notes,
Who are the ******, them or us?

Madness, insanity, absurdity, irrationality,
Craziness, dementia, stupidity, psychosis,
Senility, fanatical, deranged, mental,
Foolishness, hysterical, delusional, frenzied,
Psychotic, maniacal, lunacy, neurosis, disordered,
Take these notes and from them weave
A hymn to chaos.

And so here it begins...

Bee bar locked up honey sting hive,
For them that have wept grains of sand warm yet wet,
In that dark distant horizon mountain bark,
Onion quake cuts splash serrated blade,
Insanity uncorked frothy so seeps humanity.

Orphan sky spits pregnant daggers drip,
Wing plucked harpies never will sing,
Dead sailors salted lie in silken mermaid beds,
Schooners sail the scattered chase round the horned tail,
Skulls bubble air sockets freed from cloven trouble.

Roads webbed spiralled butterfly miles of bottled lies,
Venom harvested acres baked into medicine,
Undone years plunged inside veins popped into mouths,
I loved you know,
No, no, you did not know for all eternity.

Hope filed cabinet all lost my ghostly dancer,
Rooms silver sunned windows seared,
Playground memories brim on the haze,
Smoke fogged pipes puffed clouds,
Asleep amongst trees over green glass grass blades frost.

Hold fingers to hands strange,
Notes ring around maze tower of desires,
Low sands but tides rise and torrents break or fall,
Alone we enter same goes exit,
Midnight clowns ****** into dreamscapes.

Creased rage silver ironed steam brains,
Unfurl flags red and painted war pain,
Impotent artful eye with sedated lust,
Boil drum not loud remember to listen,
Say less, speak more, silence best of all.

Galleons crawl upon the divided cloud docks,
Look there, point to starboard land ahoy,
Deep bosomed tear slaked shore,
Sense mixed universe reduced to a tick-tock,
Never shall it stand, withered time no glance past.

Adios, fare thee well, goodbye, auf wiedersehen,
Tongues weep, eyes talk, observe tender songs silence,
Contradiction philosophises perplexing paradoxes pure,
Marbles, one and all, drown in the air,
Narrow, so narrow are those who judge all.

Sin to fear and all is terror called,
Wanton doves warble tunes broken,
Afraid I was, too wrapped in fear coiled I,
To know fright and bride forsake,
Never were holes deeper dug.

Reason not the rhythm nor rhyme,
Pandora, oh Pandora, what hast thou done?
Stare upon thy casket coffin spread-eagled,
Fire stealer Prometheus universal milk burns,
Gorgon Medusa snake dancer charmer seducer.

Silent bones drum against skin, wake up fool!
White winged dove blood red beak suite,
Humbled blood sore butchered vows vain,
Then as now silent partner is all,
Meant so much more you were.

Rapier, pistol, kiss and hold, to my temple place,
Slash, bang, smack and rake, let matter escape,
What uncharted continents we all are,
Walls rise hand bricked high over hill and sky,
Dilated screams of the civil dead no wall can cage.

Tears glitter sky to earth,
Seeding jewels amongst dung natural,
Fountains colour horizon wide,
Sanity transfigured stitched, haggled,
Eternal slaughter diamond edged sold.

Torquemada burrows rib cracked skin blood,
Skeleton tomb dust for leprosy romance,
Wail now poor Quasimodo tongue-tied,
No one to keep company but rat bones,
Unborn, forgotten, locked and barred.

Hush there! Let there be deafening silence,
Lie, cuddle snuggle, caress dark death,
There, still now, wipe away sleep,
Space time galaxies born in minds beyond measure,
Planets die, titans die, you and me we all certify.

Madness here! She creeps into bed mine,
Yours too! Oh, how richly embraced we,
Paris Town cellars breed inmates,
Lice tea stirred drunk and promises sung,
Escape none, trapped all, sky above and death underfoot.

This asylum madness no wall can hold,
Floats into night skies and into ears young,
Oh no, goodness no, you cannot out keep it in,
Destroy the house of madness you cannot,
Dost thou fear thyself knave? ‘tis merely a jest most musical,
All the chords sprinkled peppered and cast asunder.*



©Rangzeb Hussain

It was not really thee
bards of the ages
who inspired me
but of your wages
I shall purloin lithe lines
to add to the meager confines
of my tailored tale

nineteen
green
inside and out
not knowing when I would be ripe
cramming all the ammo clips I could find
into my fresh jungle fatigues
he
the sage of 2nd platoon
told me of the frightful night
when
in the midst of a hellish firefight
he reached for more clips
and found only the remnants of chips
tasty morsels when first consumed
but then a sign he was doomed
“NO MORE AMMO—****”
he sunk even lower into the carpet of night
but to his ironic delight
“the **** that was shooting at me ran out of ammo too”
after exchanging an infinite stare
both fled into the ebony air
the moral of his twice told fable
grab all the ammo clips you are able

and the sage from 1st platoon said,
one night when our brains were brimming with beer
that a full bladder was also something to fear
for being distracted by the urge to ****
could perhaps be the reason we would miss
“some **** slithering through the black grass,
and that, my friends, could mean your ***”

so their caveats did not fall on deaf ears
although
they were filtered by my too few reckless years
yet, I snatched all the clips I could carry
on my 140 pounds of nineteen
and took not one sip from my canteen

others words bounced around my crowded skull
some were from rapier wit and others were dull
but the ones to which I would listen
were the ones that gave me hope for
another day of light
after the perpetual blind night
in the land of the ******

I had learned to walk without sound
all on my own
and find a place to crouch
where not even the dead
could see me, I would briefly imagine
but they were there
permeating the dank air
with silent dirges to their demise
and me waiting with cracked open eyes
for one to come alive
and yank my young *** into some dark hole

we have always seen things in the dark
while hiding from the devil our sisters said would come
under our blankets with one eye closed and the other agape
he was coming, she would say, to get you
for being….born
sometimes, the chosen, the blessed souls,
would forget he was there
and breath calm air
and walk into the life of nineteen
with a full canteen but
not worried about a full bladder
and missing Jacob’s ladder

but those of us who came to this wicked place
could not blithely put our demons to rest
and they continued their animated fest
in the darkness our eyes could not penetrate
and our spirits could not relegate
to the silent land of the past

there could have been a dozen, live ones,
snaking their way through the grass
close enough to smell my sweat
or perhaps only one
crouched in his own woeful world
miles away through the ****** jungle
but it did not matter
for in my wordless chatter
they were all around
maybe the same ones in my childhood room
coming to thicken the gloom
with another tormented soul
who at nineteen
was afraid to drink from his canteen

I would stop seeing them
at some point
but only for a shallow breath or two
then they would be there again
and I would hear nothing
except the other sages
from those ancient pages
where my eyes followed my fingers in curious delight
far from this lethal foaming night

"Because I could not stop for death, he kindly stopped for me
the carriage held just ourselves and immortality"
"Death be not proud, though some have called thee so"
“I looked in vain for another path for my feet
but they were all too small
except the one labeled ‘Death Street’”

and other less ominous verse would take the chance
to make its way into my riddled trance,
“Nature’s first green is gold,
her hardest hue to hold
her early leaf’s a flower,
but only so an hour
then leaf subsides to leaf
so Eden sank to grief
so dawn goes down to day
nothing gold can stay”

nothing gold, nor green I would recall
and when I would lose the light lull of the verse
I would again begin to traverse
into the blind black depths in front of my eyes
and the devils would tauntingly reappear
and I would again hear
the nothingness we all share
there
in the land of the ******
with a full canteen
and an M-16
at nineteen

A bright lad called Alistair Cook
Did enjoy the occasional book,
     He went out to bat,
     NO - don't play at that,
They did him; line, sinker and hook.

On him I'd bet my whole house,
More like a lion than a mouse,
     He bats with aplomb,
     Both dainty and strong,
It can only be Andrew Strauss.

From the pavilion did Jonathan Trott,
Nervous and anxious he is not,
     He'll be there for a while,
     All England will smile,
And South Africa know he is hot.

Next in is the feisty KP,
His batting, the top of the tree,
     Sixes so great,
     They should be worth eight,
Now just stay IN for a hundred or three!

A chap from ooop north who is good,
Goes by the name of Paul Collingwood,
     Gritty and tough,
     We just can't get enough,
Fight as hard as him, we all should.

No more will the fear he smell,
He's been down to the gym as well,
     His batting is slick,
     Number six does the trick,
The crowd cheers for Ian Bell.

Swinging his bat, it's Matt Prior,
Born with iron grit, steel and fire,
     If he holds each catch,
     We'll win the match,
And his ranking will go much higher.

Our spinner is next, Mr Swann,
His bowling is coming on strong,
     His batting is great,
     Which the opposition hate,
Not to pick him much sooner was wrong.

Our tall quickie is young Stuart Broad,
His bat is a rapier like sword,
     He can oft' bowl too short,
     Yet the batters get caught,
And Of wicket-taking we never are bored.

James Anderson is our king of swing,
Late movement his favourite thing,
     Please bowl nice and full,
     Offer nothing to pull,
And just hear those stumps go 'ping'.

Graeme Onions comes in at long last,
Cannot bat but, he can bowl fast,
     He makes them play,
     While others may stray,
Durham long-hops a thing of the past.

Drop your pen
-
How does that feel?
I agree
The pen is mightier than the sword
Only, however, if you want to get people
On your side
If the other side is carelessly
Brandishing their rapier
Then the pen can become a thing of evil
Just because the pen doesn't **** people
Doesn't mean it can't lead people
Off a cliff
People need to remember that

Wake up and use me, with your rapier wit,
that cynical whirlpool of jobbies,
your ****** heid of *****,
the way you address an audience is so funny
and the way you dress, comedy, loose and snooky,
you make me puke, puke, pukey.
******* my fragile mannequin,
oh you have bad breath.

Her alabaster shoulders shamed by
scandalous spears of searing light
crashing from the frame of oak
that broke the smoldering night
a whispered confessional of sinners
plunged into passioned plight
Juliet y Angelica accost by Romeo
and he no rapier wit or steel to fight
nor they the kissless tongues to plead
or frozen feet to take their flight

only hearts to bleed.

Nobody ever told you to have a high opinion of me.
I know I can be friendly.
However I am quick to stab and ******
Into your psyche. I might be off, slightly,
Because of some anomaly. I'll politely
correct myself then get all touche feely
with your feelings.

There are many unseen dragons that torment me in this life

There is a tiny dark creature
with a vicious forked tongue  
Who crawls behind my ear
and twists a barbed tail around my neck.
It whispers bitter words and
noxious notions that dissolve
my sense of self-
That make me believe
I am nothing
Unwanted
worthless,
Talentless
and pointless.


There is the sleek silver beast
Which laughs as
Sharp blooded claws and rapier teeth
cut and rip at my flesh
Guided by my own hand

There is the fiery flash
That ravages my mind to rage
And fight
And destroy those close to me
And the things I hold dear

There is the red heart eater
Who eyes glow brighter
As it steals the joy
And the pleasure
From the things I do
And from the magic moments in life

There is the grotesque malformed nightmare,
That drips sickly slime
And pumps putrid poison into the air
As it breathes heavily on me
And whittles away my will,
Drains all my energy
Until I can barely breathe
Or get out of bed

Then there is the great beast,
Of whom I only know eyes
Darker than the blackest night,
A despair that seeks the quickest end
That teaches my surrendering soul
To long for the final sleep

I want to see where nice words are used on young ladies.
                      ****** Rome of rude-bred heights from the balcony of the city of dynamite.  The villagers sacrifice their seven pounds of worry, and sleep like children in caves of textile reactors. Souls packed in coins and gasoline sin are sold hot at the bazaar on a University campus in America. What the **** do these lambs do in societal gardens? What the hell do pets know watching letters drizzle from the clouds? Parcel dreams scattered on foster children--I want to know where all our words for niceties went when we paid the women to be young.
                                                                      Devils make knees slick
                                                                   barbwire anacondas bless our country
                                                   write a laugh--write a song--and we will all work it out

                       We--used as a rapier to categorize the salt in vigorous blood flow--the bells, the bells of centuries worth of midnights. I--the edited cobble in roads that precipitation breaks in stride. Hearing the  rambles of lucky men in the next room, but I know young ladies don't kiss and tell to friends they find effeminate, they rupture and explode. And laugh. And laugh. And laugh. And laugh with squeaky voices as true as poetry. Now they mumble till they are paid.
                                       But you--are no *******, just an empty glass with chunks of broken accents skipping deadlines in life, for new deadlines in life. Abstract puzzle pieces resemble therapy that burns the interrupted wick in--you.  
   But as for--them--they--or others--delirium commercializes whispers aching the back of their tonsils till there is no relief, but coin to pay for more coin that will pay for more coin. Relief is in another language they refuse to learn because they are arrogant.

Cats scowl at one in the morning for attention, nails anchored in carpet, the rest of us are tired by the week of spending. They want more, more, more--till the gates in your eyes open.

Dear Estranger,

the only boy who has called you father
is your buried best friends son;
Sorry but Secretly, sir I don’t think I would have wanted
you as my dad.
I was never the athletic athen or the sporty spartan
I was the kid who could create.
Create a world with words and word those worlds
into a willed waistband that held my reality up on the hips
of hypocrisy.
Although, I never could see
what you expected from me
because I tried to wrestle,
wrestle the writhing rapids
of emotion I now choose to hide.

Dear Estranger,

You choose to stay out late
Keeping the company of neatly lined papers
and that was a stab to our hearts, a ****** with a rapier.
I garishly grinned
grabbing at a grasp.
grasping your grip
a grip with a twist
or rather your twisted grip on reality.
I never could see
what you expected from me
because the lawn grew overnight
overtly obfuscating all the golf green
grass grinding I had completed
just to please you.

Dear Estranger

Your television shows are
brimming with bottles
sans ships, but full of ****
just like you I guess.
“We are what we eat”
but
“You are what you See”
and I hope that that mirrored mirage minimizes
revealing the rottenness
wrought on our innocence
I never could see
what you expected from me
because I tried to make a movie
filled full of wounded warriors, you collected my camera
and gave me **** sans soldier.

Dear Estranger,

When I was 7 years old you
chucked a block of cheese at my mother
when we should have been at chucky cheeses
enjoying the recess
of the life afforded to youth.
Where are the kids? 'Who cares” he carelessly
croaks
I never could see
what you expected from me
because i grew grumpy and grim
from despairing disapproval and
maybe just maybe thats why my sisters cite
superficial substantiation
on their lack of physical attraction

Dear Estranger,

the life of a rockstar
is the life of a shiny silver stone
set in a slimming silver ring.
Pretty to look at. Not much else.
Beauty is what you seek
but the shriek of your ugly soul
seeps through into our toxic home
Lullabied loathing lasts longer than you think
and is heard louder than they speak
I never could see
what you expected from me
because I spent time with celebrity
and celebrated there celibacy
of a live lived fully
and quite frankly
that life just doesn’t seem very fulfilling

Dear Estranger,

I can now understand
who’d stick around
when there is people to please
saying pleased to meet you
words filled with friendship
a necessary work trip
well let me tell you our ship has sailed
I am lost at sea and no one is out
looking for me and I wish I could just drown
but I still can’t see
what you expected from me
because the other boys built boats in boy scouts
with their dads,
While I stayed home building lego dreams
stuck in the fad of boys with a too busy dad

Dear Estranger,

Pictures this, framed photos floating
on the sides of white walls.
Full of a fake family that
feared their father
Strangers are dangers
and nothing is stranger
than an estranger
in this the mormon Mecca called mesa.
Yes I called you a danger
so would the slits on your daughters wrists
and the poems pouring out of your poor
sons lips.
I never could see
what you expected from me
because you never told me.
Christmas came and you left
my eyes were left bereft of tears and
my journal was stained red from the dead
I felt when my shoes wore out and your
feet dated dockers new from the box store
Mom sold her ring to a rock store
to pay the studios electric in may
may I suggest you man up
or get the hell out.

Sincerely, a ******* who found his father ******* around

Vacuous.
A sliver of moon,
Slight but sharp;
A rapier forged in the fire of sin.
Feigned delicacy.
Her minimalism, a pretense;
Beneath it lies her ****** truth.
She dances to the tune
Of the manifold wails of the wicked.
She sings a soft siren lullaby,
Luring the hearts of the weak astray.
Down the path of her legs
To the trap of her thighs,
He follows her beckoning croon,
A wanton plea from her soulless eyes.
I watched as she wove
Her beautiful tapestry
With hideous threads,
Colored red with falsehoods.
And when it was finished,
She draped it over his eyes,
And I knew I had lost him for good.
For temptation had blinded him,
And ensnared his weak heart,
And into the darkness she took him.

a cat died
under a tree
today
the macho cat
I knew well
of his
notorious
fair share
of kids
of fights
of conquest
under a tree
he laid

approachable by
encircling flies

under a tree
laid stiff
leaping
feet snarling
jaws and
rapier claws
useless
now
frozed
by death
still poised
to fight for
a last time.

welcome

she welcomes my energy inside and gives me tea
calms my busy light without a single word
smiles at my bright aura
a tabby ginger cat purrs on a gingham cloth
blue Delft plates in a row

this was a time with no fuzzy
no noise
no waste
no haste




dimming of all goodness

a woman’s head rolls on the fine sifting sand
dry and warm
a rapier juts forward, pierces the guts of an old man
who carries a child on his back
there’s a red blanket what flies on the line
soggy and now,  it’s hard to tell whose blood drips so

an elongated horn is blown from a desert hill
nobody lives in the mountains of Miranda anymore
her ghost has found voice in the echo of the brambles
her secrets still buzz in heavy hives of long ago
discovered and ravaged by trusted traitors
now hanging in clusters, newly unfound
dried corpses also hang (unmolested) in bloodwood trees
where every trace of gall is let flow in kino



the blood of Miranda flows on**

she of terminalis
lives on eternal
in brook and vale and bush
in veins of progeny bee
and also
in the crickets of the field

The airport
bar in Boston,
I'm sway
drunk
& holding
my glass as
if it's liquid
gravity.

She sits
next to me,
technically.
But she's
drifting away
like Orion into
unreachable
courts of evening.

Its a hard thing
to live with
someone who
loves you
less and less.
Rooms are
always empty
& loneliness
settles like
ash on the soul.

The heart
passes sentence
against itself.
Guilt's rapier
parries any
kindness.

Sometimes
I was desperate
and clawed
my way through
acres of gin.
It never
ended well.

But at that
airport bar
I first heard
a voice calling
from under the
scattered waves of
the alcohol sea
inside me.

It told me
the truth:
her love was
guttering
like a candle
whose wax
is fleeing
across the table.

He awakens, sighs, bones acreak at every move.
Reaches for the boilerplate, straps on his rapier
wit (but half of once it was), takes an aching
hold of his rusty lance, and mounts the ancient keyboard.
In clattering, staccato bursts, they gallop through
acres of verse:  thatches of haiku and senryu,
prim English gardens of sonnet, manicured villanelles,
and mile after mile of untamed blank verse just like this.
All along the journey, he tilts at the ogres
in his mind, swiping in steady rhythm
at possesive pronouns replacing contractions,
your/you're...their/they're...its/it's...gah!
Set to charge full speed downhill from the
Valhallan heights of two courses of college English
at unedited mounds of unexamined thoughts,
he fetches up sharply; slows to a trot, looking uphill
at the hordes of English majors
eyeing him and his keyboard
with malice aforethought.

My words are my armour, my blade, my security.
I use their definitive purpose to strike, to wound, to ****.
I have no need to use an actual knife, my rapier bladed tongue
cuts with an accuracy of a surgeons scalpel.
If you have no parry, or riposte, I'll Épée a thrusting word like the sword.
Your entire being is a valid target, I cannot fight with fists, I cannot crush
you physically, but mentally I will make you my target for words.

"Sticks and stones may break my bones! but words will never hurt me"

Oh, but they will hurt. Long after a scar has healed, a cut has scabbed,
words will linger, haunt and remind your every waking moment of the day you picked a fight, a dalliance if you will with a lexicographer.

Pirates from the sunken ship making it ashore on a dilapidated raft landed on the shoe of a reef that was home to a scurvy knave who’d once been master engineer to the Royal Navy until *** took over his thinking and he began to concoct schemes to overthrow the Crown.
Dismissed as an insane crackpot he’d been set adrift by his shipmates; coming upon the aerated cluster of marine life that was chock full of unusual and bizarre aquatic creatures and minerals; now dwelling this long among the coral creating living machines from the articulated pincers and shells of all but unknown gigantic crustaceans living on and around the reef.
Bringing liquor made them more than welcome as some of the pirates had survived clinging to a chestful of buoyant ***. The old Navy man running from his coral-thatched hut. Seeing the chest first of all he finessed the lock with a sharp fingernail tossing the chest open and guzzling down a bottle. “Ay man!” cried Captain Quick.
“I saw ‘em bring ya down,” the old mad man croaked.
“Was it a rocket?” asked the brawny woman coming up from the beach.
“Who the hell knows,” said the beachcomber.
The fierce and ***** Lizzie Quick had two gold teeth in front, one incisor on the right and one opposite front tooth outlined in gold. Her back teeth were ALL gold. So she was never without bandelier and pistols even when she slept, or ***** knaves would try to pry the gold right out of her head but now she carried a long knife at her side and a shorter rapier in her ruined kneehigh embroidered Spanish leather condorosa boots. Her red satin corset was embroidered with gold silk and her soaked hoop skirt were red and purple just because they could be. Normally light on her feet, soaked to the skin she felt as if she were wearing lead bloomers. Calling her serving ***** Esmeralda from the sand, the woman began arduously removing her mistress’ clothing layer by layer. The scavenging hermit helping himself to another bottle of ***.
“Ay man, I say, where we be?” tried Quick once again.
“You be on Wild Island, my island and ya best get off it. There’s no room for ya.”
“Ay man, you say you saw what happened out there did ya?”
“Sure did. That hole opened up and blew a **** I could smell from here. Couldn’t get away from it if I tried but it sent a blast of black **** through the air like a jet.”
“Like a what?” said the pirate.
“It’s a kind of rocket, short for ‘jettison’. I can do the same thing with a lobster. Launch it near into space.” Quick was convinced the isolated kook was completely out of his mind. The ruddy tattooed woman stripping completely naked with no inhibitions, her equally inked dark-skinned servant dutifully peeling the wet garments from the darkly freckled body.
Quick picking up a bottle drank it down and tossed it to the sand.
“Say, matey, this ain’t your home. Don’t be discardin’ your waste on me property.”
“Who be you old man?” said the stinking pirate even after a bath.
“They call me Savage but that’s just me name. I was somebody once, an engineer in the King’s Royal Navy. I put ships on the water. Built me own right here on this here island. But I ain’t got nowhere to go.”
“You say you have a ship?” said the Quicks together.
“Say old man, how would you like some choice *****?” broached Esmeralda.
The old man squinted, “What’s that matey? Pushups? I don’t do push-ups.”
“Cooch, me hardy. Me woman’s woman’s offering you some ******. Have at it eh?”
The old man sat down in the sand to think it over.
“I haven’t had a wooden leg on many a yarn. Are they still usin’ ‘em the same way?”
“Nothin’s changed a bit, my friend. That ship out there, it’s full of women, me hardy.”
The old man’s eyes finally widened brightly as he peered from beneath his shade hand. The Green Belle out at sea gliding smoothly across the waters her wake clear as crystal.
“There be women on that thar ship?” said the sailor. “I be needing a wife.”
“Then it’s settled. You help us take that ship and you’ll get the pick of the litter.”
“Deal!” said the lonely codger wagging the pirate’s hooked paw.
“Now how about that thar ship of yours?”
“It’s a mechanical ship. Does your band know anything about machinery? Moving parts and such?” queried the stranded relic.
“I can rig a mean mast, matey. Me whole crew’s expert at workin’ a ship no matter what size.”
“I don’t **** care about that, matey. My ship goes under the water.”
“It sinks?”
“No, *******. It moves under the water like a fish.”
Quick scrubbed his jaw and pondered, turning to his first mate.
“Mister Lance, can you make anything out of what he’s saying?”
“He seems to have a moving...er...no, sir. I haven’t a clue.”
“Okay, old man, you win!” shouted the pirate queen herself, dragging the man by the feet into the hut. He was fine with it because he was drunk and his limbs like rubber. She was done shortly, returning to the crew on the beach. “He’ll be needing a rest. In the meantime why don’t we think up a plan?”

in front of the mirror, she stands and sees them on the wall, tipping along the dust
she presses coffee and rinses dishes under hot, soapy water, her eyes on that wall
then out the window
the sun winks high and the glass talks in telltale signals left by sunken reveries

she falls into slumber so deep and intuitive webbing takes over all ahead
the old Singer in the corner sits silent and awaits its timely command
then, she wakes to find all the silent trappings of caterpillar's welcome
and deep in the forest of her serene thoughts, she taps into worlds half lost to Man
too little to expect in the moonlit attic of North verdant wedged into half a heart

she lowered all the burnt offerings into the soil and gave up one prayer after the other
pulling loose the pieces into the loom, turn the wheel and spin a cloak out of suffering
all night and all the next day, the spinning proves to be substantial
and it grows

the cloak is done, it's so beautiful
and on the wall, there it shows the promise of tomorrow
she eyes that missive dumped in the wastepaper basket

so many squares overlap in the rainbowed light; the shadows play rapier games on the wall
and the night lands refreshing on spicey green and greets the walker
hurtling somnabulist takes a dip into cast reflection of unexpected calls
and on the wings of nocturnal takings, she travels yet further

The second hand a rapier
The hour hand, a longsword
And the minutes are my claymore
Armored with the twelve as I push forward
The face is the shield
The gears inside by my command spin or yield
My arsenal is time itself, ticking as I walk
Slaying all of my fears with each sound of a tock
The seconds are my soldiers, loyal and true
The hours are my guardians, great, but few
The moments are precious, hold them dear
Time is the ultimate force, weild it to control eternity
Take control of your destiny
Reinforceing dreams considerably
There is a person and future for which I weild tick and tock
And I have the aid and power of an ever revolving clock