Rattler

I lay, languid,
upon the rocky
outcropping.
Basking in the early
afternoon Sun.
Just then
a furry vole
wandered past me.
I slithered over and said
“Let’s do Lunch.”

corinth picked up the ball and tossed it up into the air as high as he possibly could. the energy it took for him to do so left him gasping and his muscles stung a little, but to watch the ball arc high above the sky, black against blue, was worth it. when the ball started to sink back down, he ran after it, bumping past athens who had been watching mere inches away.

the enclosure was a backyard to a white building surrounded by concrete walls that cut open hands when rubbed too hard or when scuffles turned sour. in the corner, there was a patch of green grass. the rest was stained yellow from lack of water or from too much sun.

sparta sat in the dust, his hands red with dirt and blood. the stains wrapped around his fingers and wrists and spiraled up to his elbows. he rubbed the pads of his fingers along the dirt, picking up small twigs and stones along the way, as he drew circles around the bird. the bird was dead, long dead, but its brown and grey feathers still stayed in its skin most of the time and the blood was drying so sparta’s hands wouldn’t be red for too much longer. the cracks of flaking blood opened like wounds on small boy's hands: palms big for holding bigger hands and fingers short to keep everything close. sparrow feathers and tears smeared comets into the dust while he cried for his mama even though his mama never came.

corinth ran after the ball, his breath short and his face glowing pink from exertion. as he ran, his hand running along the concrete wall, he started coughing. catching up with the ball started the initial coughing fit that turned into a rattler. he held his hand against the wall, clinging to it with white knuckles, as he hunched over to cough and cough so hard he could feel his throat start to stretch ragged, could feel lunch starting to come up. athens kicked corinth's foot gently before backing away a few feet while corinth continued to cough. when corinth's lungs and throat settled, he stood up straight, grabbed the ball, and threw it up again, this time out of anger rather than play. the ball went sailing backward and athens ran in order to try and get to the ball first, having had a head start. corinth was still faster and managed to shove athens away with a rogue elbow to the ribs in order to claim the ball again. athens didn't argue against the bone.

play continued until the sirens sounded. sparta stopped crying, corinth dropped the ball, and athens picked it up. all three of them hurried quickly and clumsily inside the bunker, shutting the door behind them. as they crawled down the narrow passageway, sparta started to hiccup, a leftover symptom of crying. corinth stopped and glared, and sparta murmured an apology before wiping his sniffles away with the sleeve of his shirt. corinth led the way until the three boys dropped inside the hollowed out room. it was round and the walls were mixtures of concrete, dirt, and chalk drawings. they each had to hunch, especially athens, as the ceiling

they sat in a practiced circle around the center of the room. after a few moments of quiet, hushed breathing, athens began the processions.

“we all here?”

the other two boys raised their hands. sparta’s fingers trembled while corinth raised his arm as high as it could possibly go. his ******* scraped against the ceiling in his earnestness. the three then began the tradition discussion of their names. sparta, forgetting conduct, almost gave away corinth's name, but corinth shut him up quickly. sparta apologized quickly and shoved his fingers in his mouth to keep from saying anything more. dirt and blood mixed with saliva in his mouth, and as he swallowed he ended up choking and gagging on the combination. he coughed and coughed, and corinth slapped him on the back. it didn't help, and the more sparta tried to stop coughing, the harder it lasted. eventually, he had to turn and face away from the other boys as hot bile slid up his throat and onto the floor with a small splat. athens grimaced and edged away.

"alright… show your lungs. everyone."

all three boys began the process of reaching under their shirts and pressing the smooth button under their ribs that unlocked the hatch. the hatch was a small door that ran from the bottom of their ribs up to their collar bone. when they found the smooth button, no bigger than the pad of their thumb, then a small click allowed them to open up their skin. underneath their torsos was a small plastic box that kept everything inside. it helped protect their bones, their heart, and, especially, their lungs. their lungs were frequent targets for doctors; they needed to be accessed quickly. fewer and fewer doctors came by to see the boys recently. corinth wiggled his shirt until he could shove most of it into his mouth, opening his body up and showing gray and green lungs that expanded and collapsed with every breath. his lungs were swollen behind his rib cage, and he experimentally reached in to poke in between his third and fourth ribs. the muscle that was there had been replaced by plastic, and had come loose when he'd pressed the button. his lung shuddered underneath his touch, but he felt the odd relief of pain swoop over him. two blue shirts tumbled to the floor as sparta and athens decided to take off their clothing and help each other find the buttons to unlock their hatches. the boys clung to the small moments of touch when the effects of their touh felt so alien, even after all those years after the surgery.

athens’ lungs were pink and perfect. he coughed and corinth couldn’t help but watch the way his diaphragm moved as he did so, and he felt jealousy pang in his stomach. sparta’s lungs were purple and blue, bruised and small, and they merely fluttered.

“lungs in order,” athens said quietly after a quick inspection of everyone’s insides. sparta immediately closed his hatch, flinching when his finger got caught initially between his inside and his outside, and started to put his shirt back on. corinth stole athens' shirt and slipped it on over the one he currently wore, his other hand slamming shut his lung hatch. athens blinked but let corinth stare at him greedily as he quietly shut his own hatch.

as they waited for the background noise of wailing sirens to disappear, corinth hugged his knees and athens started to draw people in the dirt with his forefinger.

the second phase of marxism is:
why do people enforce Hegel
to commad, when neglecting
Kant?
              i find Kant to be neglected...
of all schwabe...
     bewildering: like admiring
a yoyo sling...
             if there ever was
a dialectical materialism,
  capitalism is profound,
in that it killed communism when
communism was a premature
death -
            too young to
match up to the relieved serfdom -
yet communism will continue
to subvert,
           it will sentence
the subconscious with a tease -
said poet - said terse -
       otherwise the scaffold!
dialectical materialism has
morphed into
dialectical historiology -
        could it be an exclusion
of space? by comparison
the 20th century is absolute
in these times, its not relative,
yet relativism pervades
the narrative...
            we always and always
have lived in absolute times,
the allude to relativism
in a framework of temporal
affairs will never achieve
spatial democracy,
   untied from the spaghetti past...
love it or loath it,
         the 2nd phase of
the: ignoring Kant while
fervently adamant concerning
Hegel trusts what is
already apparent:
journalism is a trans-categorical,
szubrajce!
                journalism's primo
concern is the loser white
living with his parents,
little do they know of the investment
paid by the man who
entertains being patient...
journalists,
the ones who send their grandparents
to homes for the elderly,
quack out a Bulgarian **** joke
by now...
   a baby is far from an Alzheimer -
rotten memory,
   rekindle imagery of
lost years...
ensure that memory is
a citadel, and not some
     meagre fancy worth the pillage;
of those who find thought
least entertaining,
find morality the hardest
the fathom -
for the said concern,
lacking a mediating ought -
principle theta;
buckle on the P -
boss around a cleavage,
       pardon, rho alt romeo,
ultimatum grzechotnik...
   rattler... god i hate crosswords.
- because of journalism
history has become irrelevant...
   i hate journalists,
journalists are to me
the grand inhibitors of
what's necessary: inhibitions...
the journalist is the new Jew
to me...
         a leech, a parasite,
akin to the parody of a kiss
under a mistletoe...
  ever set foot on Slavic lands?
ever see a tree, plagued by
a mistletoe?
  mistletoe is a parasite...
yet you kiss beneath it,
cranium above myrhh's worth
of crown...
         jemioła,
ever see a tree riddle with this
parasite?
  as i once said:
the cancerous man better
invite the sight of the botanical
cancer akin to the mistletoe...
  only in Slavic lands,
akin to mole mounds
   (maulwurfhügel -
germanem, faust, chem -
czyli chmiel; zdrowo)...
and yet the social norm is
to kiss beneath this botanical
scurvy...
             easier seen
on a botanical body
than on a heaving gloat -
          yet have you ever seen
mole mounds, or mistletoe
on a tree in its wintry skeletal
form?
          what a sad sight...
but a sight kept, as reminder...
western lands do not
allow such trivialities -
quasi-germanic Gaels -
               akin to the labours
of the mistletoe -
sometime mistaken for
abandoned nests of migrating
birds -
   man lost,
in the advent, atomising
the percularity of swan
and stork nobility -
namely monogamy...
             feeble man knows not
the sixth sense bypassing
sight of ghosts:
   fickleness -
     and chance of adequate
temperament stagnate-:
for the exploration of
the civilised caste.
         mistletoe is a botanical
parasite...
              in the wild i've
seen it green on branches
of birches and oaks -
while the host hibernated
the parasite grew...
    yet this kiss-me-lovely
parasite never managed
to bind itself
to the acidity of the pine,
the evergreen, the prickly
needlework of insomniac
tree...
              and they
make amends with a kiss,
under a parasite...
     how horrid wild
mistletoe is,
        perverse,
nonetheless,
  what else to comfort a cancern
patient with,
  if not a tree labouring
with a likened strain
of excessive bulge?
o, right...
  dialectical materialism has
been replaced by
dialectical historiology...
        at least the 1st tier
achieved something akin
to competition...
the second tier of communism
is merely confusion...
   economical model intact...
yet talk of ****; thoroughly.

Fangs bared
Dripping with venom
The rattler lies in wait
The Shwisshing Hissing  warning
Always too late
Blind-sided victim
Struck in the heart
Dies of the venom the snake did impart.

The dying victim
Calls out in vain
I did not deserve this
Why won’t you explain?
I offered you love, but
You bit my hand
Killed me with lies
I just don’t understand.

Without a word
Snake slithers away
Hides under a rock
Awaiting more prey.
PwL  March 2015

because chances are, you haven't heard it
before, i know, in either case
not to my liking either -
but then the olympic flame was passed
between a thousand interlocking legs
that ran from one centre of the games
being celebrated, and onto another -
and if there were aquatic obstructions
along the way, the baton was still allowed
to run, on a ship, in circles, before landing
and unwound, allowed a straight line
once more - not straight in the strict
geometric sense, obviously zigzagging -
but let's say i found cross-generational points,
in each generation there are cross-generational
interests - should my own produce very little,
or of little interests, there's a back-catalogue
to delve into - who'd imagine the youth could
never die like that - but intact - even though
some could be asserted as being ancient -
a revision of their work years later only made
them however the revision was to understand it -
and yes, links, under a million and the chances
are you haven't, haven't heard it, you yet to be
a cross-generational - cronquist stick-seeds might
describe the writers born in the 1910s - and say
a rebellion against Wordsworth took pace -
or some other rebellion, or even an appropriation -
you have those from the 1980s too, minding
the literary output from the 1960s, anticipating a
future, a splinter group of hopefuls anticipating
something more - unlike in the current state of affairs,
where no longer the old moaning and groaning
cuckoo cranks - our's, youth's cultural arthritis -
we too complain, scaled to the nanometres of
metaphysics - our spiritual health has been dampened,
and if the timing was anything, although in agreement
it was: canto LXXXV - rock drill, well a drill assuredly,
a burning that implants a windy vacuum of gravity,
cf. (conferre, i.e. - id est - compare) with an article
in the style magazine (every sunday, religiosity of
newspapers, a weekly event, much anticipated) -
the article in question? generation viz / not to
be confused with viz. (videlicet - namely, that is to say),
rather generation viz as visual, a visual generation,
visuals only, censor all ****** words and have as much
******* and gore as you like, the offensive
u                c                  k               from fathering an oath,
so generation vista print, vista (the all pleasing generation),
no drink, no drugs, aloe vera water and cucumber
extracts - generation squeak - squeaky clean -
mother's failed rebel - generation mind the gap -
it's no longer a stoner, a mary and juan dipper -
'yeah man, far out...'
                                worse, it culminated in post-language,
and due to lack of intoxication, it's supposedly
serious... well... by god it is serious - post-language
is akin to a venture into the unknown acronyms -
acronyms and emotive chinese of :( -
the lesser form of computer coding - the tip of the
iceberg as they say - a champagne bottle splits
in the ratio 1:10 - that's one bottle and ten mouths -
during london fashion week also called an entrée,
in russia it's called a canapé - ah but the sober
eye that can explore further afield rather than raw
memoriam dimmed slightly - a rattler of cigarette
packets - more caffeine less gasoline -
and so, i too a hackelia nervosa, clingy to the past
in some way or other, not to mention attempting
an enticement to my palette - a storage room,
just there, lost & found - umbrellas, books and
other memorabilia - should any claimant come,
it's, just, there.

ząb... or tooth... zęby... or teeth... the lesser Ezra in me is more bewildered by the non-existent strain of either vowels or consonants in English, than the Chinese ideogram... i agree: you must have an idea when reading Chinese, and a population of over a billion... and subsequently a well-known linguistic complexity, a thrice-over Chinese wall in the eye and off the tongue, to later precipitate into an ease in making the mathematic tongue acrobatic... but then have no theoretic procession to study the complexity, or hear a xylophone... i'm the membrane mid-way between burying the Latin anecdote Beijing... and asking to kiss the hand of Marco Polo... had he wrote the Quran... i'm just simply juiced for one reason, this is my take on the corner-stone rejected... ******* the crucifix, and tickling the feet of the crucified one... as anti-jew as i can be... well: volk zu γoλγoθα... or volk zu γoλγoφα... compass! mein kompaß! alter: volk zu ßιναι! oh look... quantum physics... it behaves gleiche y = w, ~i, >ł.... and into a p.s., as γ = Υ (upsilon contra gamma)... once more, the lesser Ezra in me is bored with the Chinese ideogram, it's translated plain and simple, perfécto arithmetic! and the billion-strong populace... applause to the Chinese politicians... democracy as an pure English export is not wanted... it's decadent, and ripe for only decay... please, god or yoga no... we can do without it! this is the lesser Pound... i could be fascinated with the Chinese ideogram, but i'm frankly occupied with addressing the English encryption.... mind you, that translates as: you missed a spot... and they did keep their language so diacritic-free in order to form the global empire... which can only mean that mad geniuses and other akin stipend students will ever appreciate... but my fascination with diacritical marks, or their lack, is akin to Ezra Sr.'s fascination with the complexity of the Chinese ideogram, or rather the syllable form of not enraging the trinity, therefore concise, xi (ξ), chi (χ), chow (χω) mein (μεjn / μει - gagging ιota: main... mejn... replaced by additional curvature of j), kfu mang thu! kuchi kuchi, kat(h)mandu.. gucci gucci... rattler... or pinky on the black key in a piano concerto... the odd number... thus the english siamese of i and j, the only letters with diacritical marks, beginning with ιota being the one under-dressed... and they are indeed there, for clear syllable intake, as a way to pave for the architecture of punctuation, and what could be later described in the real world, as a punctured rubber tire, or a sewing technique, in the guise of tartan to a cayleigh whirl / orthodox scot that's: ceilidh... ****** me, god's a pauper, leaving him out in the cold of nonsense when man just asks for kejl i, p.s. dogged out hound harking grammaton, and some random number outside of tetra.

pst! look in the woods! you might find him there!
music always overpowered my
need for women, i always found music to
be antidote
  to ensure women exist -
               dunno, dough]nut -
or dunno, it just happened...
      CENSOR MR. CENSOR!
HELLO?!
                  LOSER. HTML
IS INFECTED.... now i'll come off as paranoid...
    but then i am typing in paradox
  land...
                my keyboard is ******...
a case of etymology... *wargi - and
pysk - or usta, and buzia -
one's kiss kiss,
      Tarkan style...
  but i wonder why when i listen to
  in extremo's rotes haar...
i imagine dwarfs dancing,
        but then the prancing pony of
hedningarna's vargtimmen -
       which might    
mean *******, but
then it might mean something
in Finnish... vargtimmen: meaning: close your lips...
in Finnish; so bound to the word trim...
trim your lips.
even though the people didn't move,
a lot of ******* children made Poland their
home... for example wargi, which
means usta... add a p to usta
and you'll end up saying: she's empty, barren.
no wonder the transgender movement
occurred in english... words have no
feminity or masculinity... so ***...
they're asexual, apathetic...
   a male can't own a table
in the Freudian sense of signifying a phallus...
stupid me blaming St. Thomas' gospel,
when the problem lay within the realm of per se...
       i have to add: it's a bit foggy where i'm right
now... and my html is a bit bonkers...
     but it still stands as Finnish and Polish
versus English non-mythical when sniffing
the **** crack of America...
          fog ought to be enough, apparently it isn't,
you need to care to
economise and work to an ethic of working
so hard throughout the year for a 2 week holiday,
   and then end up throwing away your food produce
and then feel irritated by a homeless person...
   so yeah... you're grand!
          i mean i am...
the we is automatically bewildered...
i couldn't pet a woman, women are much more
than cats, and i pet two cats and hate them...
     not having women means i am resistible...
if i were irresistible i'd be insane...
      the magnetism of prefix convergence...
   re- means again, not against...
   and in- can also mean a-,
          every time i speak the scandi tongue
like i might found saying the lazy way an english
man says ****-,
               i feel like jumping up and down...
hed- -nin- -garna!
      hey hey **! jump you mo fo!
                     and i live in england and i care to
take to escaping english, that's really messed up...
i can't listen to the tongue... a bit like my russian
girlfriend said to me: Polish is just static,
sh sh sh sh ch ch ch ch... i mean, the best
***** in the universe are done by the people that
really hate your ethnicity,
they love you as a person, and the person they
love to ****, but then the collective unconscious
comes along, and they say the most horrid
things in between the orchestra of vowels during
the ******... babe, you drowning? i know
i am.
            if a yiddish man would come along,
he'd write yzwz... because that's how h became
z in the grapheme sz and ch...
                 and paradoxically: it's not the smallest
sound... and if the Latin grapheme continued its
existence... and was regarded as the smallest
linguistic unit, it has to mean that
    two names converged... it means that
the coliseum will overpower the church...
   which means that the Latin man had names for
his letters... and it was never all about music
and castratos... it was never a simple a when
the Greek said alpha, or it was never as simple
a b when the greek said beta...
vargtimmen! purse yer lips! ye gods, pout!
  duck-alliances throughout!
   yack yack yack... quack... ******* ponces
and narcissistic nuances...
yes, when w = v = w = ł -
               when it is meant to invoke the ugly duckling,
and a swan, and a łabądz -
my soul is already Scandinavian bound...
  like Frankenstein's Jr., to the fog, the snow, the frost...
      if Spinoza is the prince, then i'm the king,
the tetragrammaton just drops out like
a birth of an antelope - it just drops out of language,
but it only drops out, once you have used
a language associated with diacritical marks...
knowing solely English or Russian Cyrillic won't
help you... it really does just drop out from
the ****** of nothing like an antelope on the savannah
plain... but given there's no diacritical
distinction in it... being born into a language that
uses diacritical markings to ensure there are
distinctions, makes studying the tetragrammaton
all the more fascinating...
English uses no diacritical marks, neither does Cyrillic...
the Greeks are cosmos (polish slang reference
to them being on l.s.d.) with their niqab of
diacritical usage when English Latin remains
slap-stick naked... come on! put on a ******* bow-tie
that might be at least the french acute over
e!         éh?!           knowing the lazy sod, he won't!
but such is the joy of experiencing etymology
with music... to associate
vargtimmen... a Finnish compound word,
with the English word trim...
         or the word dimmed...
           and the Polish clear-denotative word
for lips... i.e. wargi... or usta...
  timmen might also mean: to bite...
  warga is the singular of wargi, i.e. bottom lip,
    to bite the bottom lip...
            does the music in hedningarna's expression
say much? no it doesn't...
   poetry can be the least musicological
         when analysing music...
             the best poetry can attest to is:
gauging your eyes out with it's bewilderment that
it has become such a primitive art,
   compared to the etchings in the caves of
Lascaux...  how that's really said?
                 obviously las-cow...
                  or proper: lascau(x)...
            the two tier of language... those who live
off it as noun-to-noun... and those who live
off it as hand-to-mouth... solely verb in action...
    it's actually a great shame that i should be writing this
and having a father who perfected the craft of roofing...
  i feel more an imbecile, and even more a rooster
in a wheelchair...
        so much for having a russian girlfriend for a summer
and an egyptian friend for no reason;
don't worry, you won't write a biography about me,
  such nuances of language with a personal twist
can remain where they are, in the archeological
dept. of nowhere.

A gust of wind sails
by it rattles my home and
uproot trees in rage.

At such moments of weakness
The heart must hold its own
Foot on the gas
Hand hovers over the break
Attention to form unconscious

Straddling between youth and adulthood
Taste shifts
Memories lift
And love becomes a necessity
Loneliness can **** the strongest of men

In between the cracks of work and downtime
The dog barks at the shadows of felines
Waking the whole ******* neighborhood up
The empty coffee cup stained brown and black
Newscasters praying for another foreign attack

Masks of men reflect the insecurities of humanity
We fear many things
Some we know not why, but we feel we must
The shadow has no name
Yet it has always been and will be

Evolve!
The scientists say so easily
Religious Revolution!
The priests have always thought
The cost of blood to be so cheap
War!
Bullets rust in their cartridges
And bombs tick in their gold casings

I've attended one funeral
And it was a struggle for me to weep
I forced myself into tears
To fit in with all the others

I've been comfortable with death
Since I first witnessed the end of love
Between the two Gods
That bore me, hence bringing me here
Their Sun's hearts were not warm enough for one another
The best and truest way to introduce a child

To the Pains of Life

The fact of pain, terror, intimidation, and death
Is very real
And though I have not been to war,
Killed a man,
Shot a gun into a crowded street,
That does not mean that I do not feel its weight
I do not wish to be the judge
Wielding the ultimate sentence
Nature is the only worthy one to wield that right

Yes,
The Pains of Life
Are here and they are
Forever changing

But, I take comfort in the old pains
That of the body and the simple mind
Though there is no such thing as the latter
And if you think I'm lying, ask the hatter

Rippling through lines attending the masquerade ball
Seeping through the back door unnoticed, the red curtain falls
The play is starting, the actors in position, the stage is set
I trust no man with two, one, or five of anything and doesn't bet

Bend your nose to the ground
Smell the wine soaked soil
The sun is high, the miles long
Beware the rattler as it lay in coil

The Pains of Life
Are the Joys of Life

Each one of us
Is seeking our Eden

11/15/2015

it has been a while since
i've been to the wetland coppice
teetering close to the neck of
a somerset sourland hummock

soft rushes and pickerel ****,
wild lavender and marsh elder
a Canadian goose choking on a

birch branch
it died.
it has been a time since I've been there

timber rattler and weasel
playing in the grounsel
September,

like Wallace Stevens: lonely in
Jersey city.
November dead
cold bright annihilating days

i sometimes walk a mile
cutting across dead garden snakes
they sit in the living room, playing

the Nile is full of waste and bile
i wait alone by this little grove,
hoping that my fickleness of

Conversation topics
can help me now
but my mind, it raced

like a dead horse at a betting show
Sunday morning,
Saturday night really

I read Wallace Stevens in the field
And dream about jersey city

Hast thou entered into the springs of the sea?
or hast thou walked in the search of the depth?
Have the gates of death been opened unto thee?
Hast thou perceived the breadth of the earth?
declare if thou knowest it all.
       Job 38: 16-18

Oh that the desert were my dwelling place,
With only one fair spirit for my minister.
That I might forget the human race,
And hating no one, love her only.
       Lord Byron,Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage

I walked alone into the waste
in search of rivers—not a taste
of water could I find
to liquidate my mind.

Under the sun in vanished lakes
alive with scorpions and snakes
I sought within my soul
her limpid watering hole.

The mogollón once hunted here
as piñon pines disclosed the deer
but now not even bones
remained among the stones.

Scattered beads and the odd spearhead
my visionary soul misled;
the moment was my home
and I was free to roam.

Burial caves of ash and silence
spoke in tones of bygone violence—
grinding stones lay broken:
her archeological token.

I found a *** within a niche
still balanced well, despite the pitch
as if the owner’s urn
awaited her return.

Amidst the fragments, free at last
in potsherd patterns of the past
I followed ancient streams
through arid zones and dreams.

Exploring a dry riverbed
unraveling her golden thread
while stepping off a ledge
descending from the edge,

I almost trod upon a snake
and quick adjustment had to make.
Reluctant viper-battler,
I flinched. It was a rattler.

As my right foot continued down
I saw the scales and dusty brown;
Mere inches from its head
the imprint of my tread!

The serpent was too cold and slow
to strike a poisoned morning blow
The sun still in the east—
I swerved and missed the beast.

The desert’s charm advanced from there;
She showed me sights I barely dare
to tell lest I sound singed . . .
My mind she so unhinged.

I stood before the gate of vision
rapt in shadowed indecision
gazing in the maw,
unsure of what I saw:

A ruined mineshaft’s empty grin
that mocked and whispered: “Come within.
The words of Job are here
in wisdom born of fear.”

Necropolis; a gaping  portal…
Feeling less than weakly mortal,
deep I stared inside;
allured yet terrified.

A passage to the depths of dread:
the Book of Job, the sleeping dead.
I barely now recall
yet understood it all…

Still thirsting through her arid land
divining truths in shifting sand
I ventured on in vain,
beseeching God to reign

The javelinas mocked my quest
beguiled me onward, further west
where Dutchmen hide their gold
and Apache tears are sold.

Her rainbow shades and distant mesas
silhouetted, paint her face as
nobly as the lands
her presence still commands.

Her beauty smiled: a virtual face
of glyphic pre-Columbian grace
decentralized desire
in sublimated fire…

She led me to the springs of life
my moonlight maid and desert wife;
my nights upon the mountains
in search of spectral fountains.

Ex-nomad of the mythic west
my unfound treasure now confessed;
her deserts had me smitten…
for her my poem’s written.

yep, and the Welsh and the Chinese were intuitively drawing dragons before dinosaur bones were dug up.

i'm poor, in tatters, worn-out rags,
i slashed my cowboy denims
to show a plagiarism of the gaping holes
in my encoding -
listen... the Chinese were working
on the serpent long before you came along,
it's can be more abstract as that,
cold gaze venomous rattler, or sidewinder,
a spine of what was once a tyrannosaurus rex,
fair enough, arms too short to make a bed
but you wonder where the Koranic
reference about Iblis and pride came from,
if not that, meaning the prior to
mammal was somehow superior,
the lizard coliseum - looks like i'm
the Gremlin that drank all the brain juice
and became a talk-show host for the night -
and become famous for simply interviews interviews,
interviews? crackpot nostalgia,
bull ******* nostalgia swinging my way?
oh, i think i hear the church bells ding-****
the uvula of the anthem: mm mm Albert Hall,
hmm hmm, one ball... Colonel Bogey
boogied in the Elizabethan **** with a
Kit Kat... maybe two chunkies, depends on
the lung capacity of thrills too ooze up
that soaked sponge... granny gotta take,
she's up to her pleas for a deathbed seance;
was it me or was grass' *the tin drum a bit ****?
i mean, i loved the Bolshevik granny stuffing
potatoes into her skirt at the beginning,
but then the scenery changed into undecipherable,
images coming thick and fast like a tube
journey from Liverpool St. to Bank - the roller coaster
part of the Central line, ride it someday,
then you'll know what i'm dabbling about -
a real Karma Sutra geometric twist and turn
etching out what pop lit. would testify as a real
page turner, a thriller, a Tom Clancy -
here me with the Parisian boys, upturned nose
and a stiff-upper lip;
but like i said, i'm poor, look at my phonetic encoding,
**** just pours right through me,
thanks to the added space i get Voltaire Newton
Mary Sinclair... it just rapes the **** out of me,
if i were Chinese i'd be taking fancy to the words:
**** building a wall to keep the Mongol out,
let's just write ~ (tai) ~ (ji - chee, chi or źee),
that'll keep the ******* out.
i mean, look at it, it's so ******* complex compared
to the arrogant simplicity of the Latin text that
it's no wonder the Chinese were well grounded people,
necessarily staying gravity prone in one region
and no other, lucky them... i've got a lot of backpackers
to mind, ants in their pants crew, brothel safe-haven
in Spain or Corfu for the summer, and then
top-hat christian goody-two-shoes back home.

a delay in my eyes= my head is gone
i had better plans for the future
follow through (a taste of codeine)))
a shakespearian poet once told me that my face would look better with his **** in my mouth
hahaha huh aha they sing baby rattler snake bite bi teME
I TOLD YOU my head is gone  ?   the lines are all mixed up
i cant read you like i can the back of my palms (blck… tar  )
   crack babies *** want some of    [ REDACTED ]
stop walking by my door i know you want the rent but all i can give you is a black eye
satan mustve been a pretty fun          guy
you think you can Swallow a little bit of my breath
it# barely moves ###
break even-even break my bones before i die

among the people that i hold accountable to suggest
someone has lost touch with reality:
    well, apologies for not engaging in your
  cinnamon-laced *** life - i sought other spices:
as in chilli for the tongue, and salt for my eyes,
and pepper for my nose - because that's what's
being debated: when philosophers come back
from their adventure i'll let you know what reality
actually is - then the cathedrals will crumble,
   then the neo-Babylonian extracts from modern
architectural preferences will become less neo-Babylonian
English and more: Glaswegian dialects
surrounded by Croat diacritical markings -
    as if drawing hunting antelopes in caves
   giving us "more" clues about the one inhospitable earth:
or are we truly surrendering to Darwinism
rather than carpe diem? i'm i'll ******* chirpy
given a dinosaur bone, and the timescale -
             and given that we turned Cartesian duality into
a dichotomy, everyday seems challenging:
a blimmin' boxing match 'n' all...
                                    i can't remember how many times
i've been k.o'ed (knocked out) in my waking moments
(conscious or, rather mourning? don't know).
      i still find it staggering they (no paranoia collective:
simply scientists) came up with the fact that the sun
(or any star) is a reaction of helium and hydrogen:
do people really explode into chipmunk joviality when
   doing a b.b.q. of their bodies on a beach?
             (asking questions becomes a ****** syringe
after a while) - and yes, use the term joviality before it
becomes archaic, you never know when it might
unearth a wormhole of Hades and **** the fact out
and flush it into oblivion.
              and some don bowler hats and use folded
umbrellas as walking sticks, perhaps the monocle,
but definitely the bow-tie: and make rhetoric of language:
airs, courtesy (court-t'eh-c vs. curt-see): herr chirurg!
how do you insert the scalpel into the rhythmic expression
of dribbling that kauczuk? (rubber ball).
      (cow- -chook).
           i mean in Cockney: how do you juggle that word
properly while balancing an oyster on your tongue?
and yes, i'm starting to believe Polish (as a language)
borrows too much from German - of the few slavic languages
i also say Kaiser bun -          she's called a variant of
antoinette, i.e., a kajzerka, or Wilhelm (dressed as a little
girl, all hurly burly) akin to philippe duke of orléans;
someone say lace stockings?
      i could write out this ******* in chauvinistic bravado
aesthetic: or i could smoke a cigar...
     and sooner we realised that crows never prayed
but croaked -
        that pigs grunted and never prayed -
that pigeons cooed, and never prayed,
       that monkeys did the mambo knock-knock joke -
that woodpeckers were the original carpenters and
                invoked the existence of the machinegun
and the rattler.
so there are people (sophists) who wear
bowler-hats, smocking, monocles and disdain:
rather ardently -
                 and then there are those that spontaneously
explode, from out of nowhere,
and dress themselves in rags and never rags to riches
sort of attitude - because appearances are deceptive
and too can be gambled with and neglected and seeing
a decay of a royal house: is much fancier than seeing
autumn...     because aren't the Windsors
                                         vacating Buckingham?
as in: from rot -                 apple and pear sweetness.
(at this point the poem should end) -
       not always the case of: less is more...
speaking on behalf the man who read the karamazov
brothers and stuck a leaflet on the back
of the book that read: the hash marihuana & hemp
museum - oudezijds achterburgwal 130 amsterdam
                    (next to the 'sensi seed bank' grow shop
   www.hashmuseum.com).
i mean you have read something equivalent of a brick
these days, at least one brick within that distractive
paradise of poetry - either the already mentioned book,
or war and peace, or in search of lost time,
or bolwesław prus' the doll - and they said
that life's short... not with these books being read it is...
life becomes a snail-paced traffic jam -
            it's what mystics aim at, across all religions:
the carpe diem momentum.
            it's not even boring, it's just a tedium-ladden
misanthropy: that suggestion is mainly aimed at seeing
an afternoon sitcom about 0-hour contract jobs...
       which is applauded by the terminally ill who
might say: thank **** it's not me.
            so we're all agreed - what the collapse of
communism left behind was a chance of a pension,
        given that all the western countries sold their remnant
versions of tribalism to stealth upper-tier formulations
         of "we're in this together" as otherwise know: companies...
we're not accompanied -
                   cold and wet and ***** -
                            which is odd why we'd think it
necessary to cause upheaval in iRaq...
                           given that the origins of communism were
in England, tested in Mongolia and then ingrained elsewhere...
ah, but of course, the profit margin: it's hard to
automate people surrounded by machines
        it's like olympians competing with para-olympians
where's talk of golf and the handicap?
              not here...
                       but i'm wondering, how can i redeem myself
after having stretched the poem for too long?
     point being: i can't change the status quo, and don't
intend to - and is that hypocritical or simply being
honest? well: if i managed to fit the concept of the big bang
into my little head: i'd choose the bullet every single time -
   we've established a majority, we've become as deluded
in our hopes for individuality: as was once deemed worthy
of the idea of god; we simply have established a constant
supply & demand parameters;
or what Heidegger calls: the perpetuated "ineffectual"
(well, not really him, my wording) -
                  basically a state of panic and
how different does concern compare with anxiety?
   a woman would tell a man that crimson is very different
from burgundy, as man would use the crude sigma:
red, red. n'es pas?

*i wish i could write something within the framework
of universal appeal; something simple
   and easily digested: like baby pulp, or simple
pulp of any fruit, mashed up and regurgitated
as if a seagull feeding its chicks... alas! not to be.

The polyester cardigan grows thin
As I nervously tug at its tiring seam
The silence does not dare to lessen
And I dare not to break the stream
That fills this exhausted space
We so ashamedly know

Please, just turn on the radio
To drown out my thoughts
Of Yours.

I have already decided it will be another six months
And Guilt has already welcomed himself
Tearing through the bones
Pulsing.
Agony, pain.

Take him away.
This Guilt
is Yours.

I dread the day that I will see the water fall from your eyes,
the same squinted hazel as mine,
Your shoulders will give in and Collapse,
Your chest it will shake, like my old rattler,
as we attempt not to relapse.

But I truly dread the following day,
as I will hear that radio play.

I asked a bird
Who was flying by
If he ever worried about time gone by?
He laughed and smiled with no reply.

I saw a pig wallowing in complete despair.
I say, old fellow, "what are you doing there?"
He snorted and spit, sat in his own **** without a care.
Yet he seemed content and gazed into his muddy lair.

As I trod onto the the beaten path, i suddenly began to laugh.
And out popped a rattler slithering to and fro.
Not even a daring thought of discussing life with him, my future at that point seemed awfully grim.
My chances of survival were getting slim.
Ill think again before going on another adventure on a dangerous  whim.

the waters ring red
with the ferrous clay from these plains
brutish brown on cloud cluttered days
caramel during floods

my feet know nothing
of water moccasins, though
a rattler nipped an ankle on these banks
a million years ago

feet don't recall
they slip into the cool tickling stream
innocent, not looking for a Baptismal
though the serpents are ever present

slithering in the depths
just beyond my eyes, only a few silt filled steps
from my ten toes, waiting--wanting fallible
flesh to slip within their sights

where there will be no
original naked temptation, only the striking,
the ******* venom, and the second fall
from grace, without woman to blame

Bo Goodin Reddy was a friend o' mine
Gargled in the morning with turpentine !
Ate catfish and drank moonshine ,
Worked like a mule on the old rail line !
Bo yanked a heifer 'outta Whitewash Creek ,
He could whup a black bear with a hickory switch !
Played five card stud till the cows came home ,
Shot a pine cone off a tree at a hundred yards                                                      Man could grab a rattler before the snake could blink ,    
Bo was more man than a man could think !

Beautiful oblivion of the mind that hides the truth your mouth spews,
I don't want to hear the **** you say because of how you gained it.
Your just going to believe whatever the hell you want to because
after all if I say go ahead and do it that must mean there truth.
Poison of the soul are stirred fully to a boil through the blood stream
like the bite of a rattler that's almost to the critical position,
hurry,
quick now,
drain the poison from your veins.

Oh but that poison is such a head rush of pure bliss like some drug
that you can become addicted to so easily mmm sweet venom for the soul.
Open your mouth and swallow it all let it run down your throat,
like the blood dripping from your veins.
You can't be free of this toxin of no,
it will come back every chance it can and offer you immortality.
**** the world with its hurt and pains why can't I be drained
down to the soul to nevermore face the toxins of your words.
Hurry,
quick now,
cut the emotions from your soul.

Can't get angry because of the toxin that slows the reflexes
draining the pleasure of feeling your blood heated enough to burn,
offering the ashes to the wind after words like some old ritual.
Yet this sweet toxin can't be freed of the blood so easily,
I've been drained to the soul and I can't bleed anymore.
Is that an angel upon the horizon oh crap no,
its the devil come to take me home once again.
Hurry,
quick now,
I'm heading to the light of hope.

The dude wore
a desert-cammie boonie,
cut-off cargos
& chain-smoked Camels.
He was a walking billboard, too.
On his right calve,
an inked rattler
lay coiling,
buzzing,
"Don't Tread On Me"
& on his left
was etched
the *******,
spewing,
"**** Iraq!"

God, I loved him.

Today I will return
To the mountain trail

There is an element of mystery there
I wonder who I will meet along the trail

Last time I met Mark
A 32 year old

He asked me if I needed any water
And offered me some beef jerky

He was from Los Angeles
Working at a Target
Couldn't afford to finish college

A bit overweight
Raised as a Christian scientist
But not particularly religious it sounded liked

We talked about the beauty of nature
And I mentioned Buddhism and Daoism

We talked about our love for hiking
Peace be with you Mark

And yesterday evening
I heard the familiar jingling of the bells

I had heard them on a previous night
She said the most kind hello
I think I have ever heard
Bless her
What a pretty woman

Maybe next time I will chat with her for a bit

Yesterday evening I watched the sunset
On my rock chair I sat

Alone as usual

I made my way back down
With only my Iphone light

I heard the rattlesnake
On the trail
So loud, it startled me

I went back up
Not wanting to continue down
I waited for my fellow hikers
Who had LED lights

I warned them of the rattler
And they said they saw it coming on the way up
And so I made my way down with them

She was such a gorgeous ***** brunette
But women always ignore me
I'm used to it

As I finished the trail
A car was parked at the bottom
In a wide open area

A couple chatting in their car

I made my way back down to Sierra Madre

I had walked to the trail
When you are as poor as me
You have to save gas

And I walked through the town
I heard the familiar cry of the baby
And the woman sitting on her front porch

Always on the outside
Looking into homes
They are not like me
They are not alone like me

A woman with her child in the living room
Sierra Madre is a quaint mountain town

Stumbling around with my hiking poles
Tired
One leg a bit longer than the other
One hip a bit higher than the other

I don't know why
I don't care
Just a body
An earth body
Connected to the earth

It's all pointless
Meaningless
Absurd
I say out loud
As I bang my hiking sticks together

And I am forever walking
Forever searching
For something I cannot find

And I keep on feeling nothing
And it leads to nothing
And I'm always tired
And I don't know why
And I just don't care

And I keep on walking
It's just another day
Like all the other days

Read some sign

"Investing in our future"
Some new pipes being put in on our streets

I said out loud there is no future
No future for America

10/15/2015

down by the ravine twisted woods,
By boxelder and sweetgum,
a timber rattler in the field over,

you say "those are dangerous"

"Mhm" all I mumble, stifling in the memorial of that sticky sunny summer in the forest

you say sooner or later
"Barely is enough sometimes"

Extern and intern
From the prowling death itself
(like an afeard mouse into the hole)

Still heating,
You will be to a woman escaping,
For protection at her arms, laps and knees.

Not just the fire,
That calls with ease, not just the desire,
But you are also pushed there by the must -

For this, you'd hug,
If you were on her drug,
Hugging her till the whiteness of the mouth.

A double burden,
'n double treasure is the must to love.
For the one who cannot find a simple mate,

So homeless,
As so suportless
As the wild animal doing excrete.

There's nowhere to hide
No resort; even you get a knife
And as a brave, you aim at your mother!

See now, it happened
A woman who understand'
These words, but she pushed you away.

I have no place,
In this way, among livings. Pains,
In my head' to flourish my troubles;

Like a toddler,
Rattling the rattler
If he is left all alone.

What to do
Being contra or pro?
I have no shame to find out,

Since gets castaway
Even the poor who is a prey
Of the sun's and night's nightmares.

The culture's
Falling of me like costumes
While from others, they fall in big love -

But where it is written,
To be tossed by death hither-thither
In fact of that I'm suffering all alone?

The baby
Is also in pain, being born by the lady,
Since the shared pain is eased by humbleness.

But for me
My painful chants bring money
Enjoined with disgrace and more sorrow.

Help me, guys!
You, little boys, let your eyes,
Let them burst where this woman goes.

O' innocents,
Scream under the boots of dissidents
And tell them, please: It hurts so much.

O' faithful dogs,
Get under cars' wheels and smogs,
Then bark to them: It hurts so much.

O' women with burden,
Abort your half-living *****,
Then cry painfully: It hurts so much.

O' healthy men,
Fall down and ******* then,
Just to mutter: It hurts so much.

O' men,
Fighting each other for a woman,
Don't keep it silent: It hurts so much.

O' horses and bulls,
For the yoke loosing your *****,
Don't miss a moo: It hurts so much.

O' dumb fish,
Getting a hook to become dish,
Gawp and articulate: It hurts so much.

All who's alive,
Join the life-long strife,
Let burn the forest, the house, the hutch.

And then, at his bed,
Mortified, slumber-near, almost dead,
Gibber with me for last: It hurts so much.

So, she can hear while alive.
This is what she denied, if worthwhile.
She did restrict it by her own pleasure

Extern and intern
Escaping from living itself
That was his last resort.

Though the upward blue is swarthy
I shalt get mine fill, on one day a queen and thrill;
She shalt tuck me in, her cosy confinement
Like the universe in etching, ourn spirit's realignment.

Bursting color's like snakes Rattler's
Tambourine music to flood the air;
A damsel on life's edge, loosing her head
Though me as her king, I shalt be there.

Walking hand to finger's
Gently nuzzle her with mine nose;
The word's " I loveth thee mine queen"
No if's, and's, or I suppose.

None interweb sensation
That just DIETH out;
A clap of hand's, from the crowd of band's
A strain of sand, ourn feet to route.

Her nape i shalt warmly bloweth on
To arouse her inner awareness;
Agreeing to be one unshunned
A village to be isolated, in ourn fairness.



©Brandon nagley
©Lonesome poets poetry

I came to a canyon
one autumn evening,
parched.

I was deserted
on one side,
distant from you in
sienna barrenness,
amongst bubbling grey boulders.
I felt desperate, like a beetle
being squished between rattler jaws,
fangs of fate chewing out chances to grow,
to fully bud above the rest,
to push past the heat
like cacti greeting the purple sunset sky.

You were on the other side
making the grass wave in your wind,
painting hills with dainty dandelions
and dancing mushrooms,
to cover up the reeking decay
of your last relationship,
the decomposition
of dear flesh,
of rotten opportunity,
the true will of degeneration
still not stopping your junipers and ferns.

And in the middle,
below the drama,
time’s rushing river
worms it’s way through rock,
forcing chasm, yet
somehow encourages flourishing,
and quenches our thirst.

Vapid viper
Reckless rattler
Killer copperback
I see the fangs
The cottonmouth
The lashing out
My skin
The poison coursing directly for my heart
Killing me slow
Killing me complete
The world we know
Is full of snakes
Snakes and me
My blood
I find you
Your hands
These toxins
My skin
And you with anti-venom
I see your hands
As this poison saturates
And hope you could be the one to save me

I shine a sun in your direction
I give my all that you would give me something
I hope for you when I'm hopeless
I watch you walk away.....
I die as your foot hits the ground
I die still loving you

Watching the grass grow, the gaslight goes down, I know that I'm standing back in my hometown where nothing's as real as the things that they say
and I feel like I'm crying in the midst of a rainbow with a glow all around me,
is this being free or is it dead?

Seventeen marks out of twenty they said, I could have saved them the bother of the telling.

A top o' the morning and the new day, but it catches me yawning my life away and I pray, won't you tell me or bell me sometime with the news from this family, they're kinfolk of mine, she gets me when I'm lower than the scales on a rattler, I look up to see me looking up, looking down, weird what you think when you think no one is watching.

The grass grows at last, not too slow or too fast and I like it that way.