Dedicated to stillborn fetuses, 99 cent Malt Liquor and Existentialism
1.
Nymphomaniac tree huggers
And overweight bisexual vegetarians
Swallowing phentermine poison to stay fit.

2.
Funky fresh *******  
throwing pigs at St. Augustine’s pear tree
and frolicking abortions over Moloch’s philoprogenitiveness,

3.
While sipping barbecue sauce dipped in Lipton tea,
dancing around adhesive bonfires
reciting memories of holocaust, the Kristallnacht nights
and beautiful words suffered by ancestors lost.

4.
Inhale chicken noodle soup, with a side of Lithium,
And prance to Literacy class to combat envisionment
With free association conceptual constructions,

5.
Computerized like Prometheus’ fire burning through SmartBoards
In classrooms where the poison of heterosexual history
Is fed to boys in skirts cursed by Adam’s apple,

6.
Baptized by social norms and locked away in hopeless closets
According to the Tautology of Leviticus…
until they cut their breath by the vein of soteriology;

7.
Misunderstanding of God’s words
Covets the innocent to early graves
In biblical paratactic irony…like God betting Satan for a Job.

8.
Rub fried chicken oil on Bartholomaeus Anglicus’ skin
and soil his white pride with ***** flavor,
for revenge  On the Properties of Things

9.
and howl out in glory of victory
over totes of  lickerish piper methysticum blunts
that beg the conundrum,
'What is the origin of this world?'
'Ether,' he replied.
But it is not ether!
Nor Datta. Dayadhvam. Damyata.
It is Dada. Dada. Dada!
  10.
For this is a record of the life stories of the greatest minds and geniuses of your generation,
written in boys and girls
who mimicked Basquiat’s genius and tagged bathroom walls with abstract philosophies like “Love is a prime number” and “ the weight of Duncan McDougall’s soul can only be found on the 15th of October”
who drank vampirish gulps of Vicodin while consoling themselves with aphorisms such as: “don’t rue the misses, you don’t need a Mrs. when you’re elevated by chemical kisses”
11.
Who stood naked in mirrors, weeping, for they were a mystery to themselves, but a great talent and soon to be legend to some.
Who lit cannabis in loneliness and waltzed naked with their ghosts, fantasizing about ****** tomatoes and Corpus Christi Mexican Jazz.
Who composed psychedelic anthems from dreams that were lost in ghettoes where virginities were lost for loaves of bread, for the hunger of bread.
12.
Who wrote suicide notes on a toilet seat, contemplating the texture of Marshall Mathers’ favorite underwear and whether the color green was an invention of **** Germany.
Who used to love their lovers in darkness and colored the streets of Manhattan with rainbows on June 24, 2011 to mark the date lady liberty finally bought a new pair of glasses.
13.
Who lost musical talents to a Wine-house and ended up in a whine-house where lobotomy was subsequently prescribed by the milligram.
Who indulged in pharmaceutical vices and when asked why replied simply, every recursively enumerable set is Diophantine.
Who diagnosed themselves with “start ****-itis” and self medicated by eating Fifinellas at the stroke of each midnight.
Who rubbed paraprosdokians on their skin and occupied Wall Street in search of a new euphemism for being American.
Who poured Alkalizer on a dead moose and kicked it while feasting on the divine question, “why does Rice play Texas?”
14.
who got bored with conventional relationships and bought the Origin of the World on street corners from vixens nicknamed “Jezebel” and climaxed atop of them screaming  “I’m in Babylon, the great Mother of ******!”
Who attempted suicides upon suicides upon suicides, in Oakland, until they were shipped away to private catholic universities in Rhode Island, where the history of Colossus was being taught.
15.
who serenaded love interests with four letter curse words at open bars where Kubla Khan was read and Tartars kings were licked all over like holy communion *****.
Who drove home with the spirits of wine and crashed on telephone poles where their obituaries were written in their prime, leaving their mothers weeping and calling congress to reconsider Prohibition.
16.
Who mixed Redbull with Propofol and drank the juxtaposition galore only to be woken up the next morning dead in their sleep.
Who tattooed rat poison packages with goodwill messages such as “****** divided by Water =6th day of creation” or “Seroquel + Brett Favre = St. Patrick”,
who went speedballing with Basquiat during autoscopy and woke up wondering the cost of Nautilus in Albuquerque.
17.
who took 33 hallelujah 1800 tequila jello shots and daydreamed about laying on Mithras’ grave, yelling, beetlejuice, beetlejuice…beetlejuice.
who found the truths of the Bible invalid by the miscalculation of Pi in 1 Kings 7, verse 3, and mailed death on anthrax letters to Reagan in protest.
18.
who sat empty bellied at breakfast tables wondering the temperature of satellites at Lagrangian points,  only to soon catch fire in their tongues and speak Labyrinth soliloquies that ended in
19.
Zion,
Where Google knows every answer.
In Zion
Where the youth, tomorrow’s future, quote a ***** named Hova better than they can quote Jehovah.
In Zion
Where *******’s art was used as weapon during the Cold war.
20.
In Zion
Where sartorial geniuses where no pants,
In Zion
Where David Kato Kisule is the secret hero of these words, for he was taken at a time
In Zion
Where we were supposed to be our ancestor’s sci-fi.

21.
In Zion,
Where the youth bear the scarlet letter X for they are a problem to tradition and hold no definition for the future, for they have discovered
In Zion
That the origin of this world is in their living eyes, and not in the dictionary of their ancestors who lived
In Zion
when the epitome of the literature of life ended in Revelation of Amen and Shantih shantih shantih;
this is a record of the greatest minds and geniuses there ever was, written
in Zion
where the meaninglessness and nothingness of Dada reigns, and the trinity of life now lives in the Subject, subjective and subjectivity.

Is such a big and impossible to miss step for a scribbler
of poetry free poems to trip over.
A step that cannot be ignored, except consciously and conscientiously.
Such a person as a scribbler of poetry less poems would be a person who cannot tell the difference between truth and truthfulness.
A person whose sole raison d,etre in pretending to be a poet is their lifelong angst in being unable to escape from being under the control of  their mind and its operating system --the Conditioned Identity.
The Conditioned Identity,which is the facetious and morally dishonest "I am a poet" mask that is the consciously adopted Conditioned Identity--the operating system for the Mind.
In the great scheme of things becoming just another member of the human GroupMind--one who doesn't count--not even on the fingers of one hand-.
One,who,in the grand scheme of things,never has counted and never will count-call them countless.
Shadows that flicker and dim on the walls of the Prison of political, racial,national,familial and religious conformity
And these worthless scribblers of poetry less poems do have an all consuming conditioned habit  of consciously ignoring truthfulness and integrity and substituting pathetic sub-teen lower middle class emo whinging "truth"--about their "art" and "insight"and "vision"and their "truth"--always their worthless "truth".
Sitting and mourning the fulfilling love that always evades them and always will evade them--unless they let go of the conditioned identity and the Mind--consigning them to the dustbin of history--where they rightfully belong.
Angst ridden whingers all--in love with their image in the mirror of Minds oh so believable deception.
Scribbling about a conditional possessive love that would have been a valueless truth but never can be the essence of truthfulness.
A conditional possessive love that never was and never will be unconditional and non-possessive.
Whinging about nothing more than conditional love and a truthfulness that never can be for them--- as we see openly here and there and everywhere there are scribblers of poetry less "poetry" who use sites such as this to scribble their pretentious infantile nonsense.
Poverty of values and integrity,orphaned from the Isness of the Universe, children of worthless technological consumerism and followers of false oligarchic hopes.
With their greedy gobs open for any crumbs falling from the rich peoples tables,like baby chicks in the nest--feed me feed me they screech.
Colluding with like minded betrayers of truthfulness,groupminds of
limp wristed bombastic poseurs.
Deluding themselves by babbling media made inane celebrities
empty insights and twisted conclusions--purveyors of puerile pettiness.
Oligarchic media celebrities noted only for the illusions between their ears,and the beguiling way they collude with each other to delude themselves.
Ludare!
Oh how they love to play mind games
Lives spent colluding with these babbling worthless celebrities who know the price of everything and the value of nothing,
Pompous posturing pretentious pissants of aesthetic poverty.
Bound together into a worldwide consumers Groupmind,
persuaded by perverts of PR into believing in the Illusion of Wealth and Demockery that the Oligarchy sells.
To step over the truthfulness threshold is,indeed, to  leave behind their
security blankets of "truth and beauty and revealed knowledge"
and the concomitment meaningless verbiage about "veracity" and "existence".
Shallow and unrequited attempts to own another that the weak and unwanted call "love".
Stomping through the quagmire of conditional love
up to their necks in the **** of consumer garbage.
The Conditional love of possessing another and grasping at thin air
as they submerge slowly in the seas of righteous stupidity .
poets cling to their misconceptions religiously,
poets cling to their ignorance avidly,
poets cling to their proto-fascist politics squeamishly,
with each word and stanza that they write.
Pouring out such pleasant and elegant and flowery and "deep"
words and verses(rhyming or not) that,at their core,
have only one meaning and aim.
Which is!.
To divert and confuse their readers with the"shallow beauty"
of endless strings of meaningless associated but fine sounding words .
To create a groupmind for their poetry business products.
Admire me--buy my product--join my groupmind--eulogise me,
let me rip off your energy--I need your praise,I need your lifes energy
gimme your money honey!.
The Publishing Oligarchy will bestow rewards and honours,
medals and diplomas--critiques fit only to wipe your **** on.
Book sales and the summer Poetry festival circuit--reciting and signing scribbles of narcissism--casting lecherous eyes over dripping **** or stiff wobbling **** in the adoring crowd of sycophants.
The  Media will fawn and adulate and cast its sly net
to entangle your desires in ---infamy awaits.
Come admire me and my use of other poets stolen words,
my criminality in even daring to think the word "poet" has any value.
These are my words about my inexperience and unknowingness they scream possessively in jaundiced teeny remembrance.
Remembrance of mediocre middle class homes and attitudes
of ingrained ignorance and wilful imagined self victimisation.
Eating societies poisoned dishes--.
Serve me up a burger of roasted babies on toast
from Vietnam--live on Channel Whatever.
Or chargrilled peasants from Afghanistan
with breathless commentary from
our "reporter on the spot".
Or homeless mental wrecks from the streets
of any Amerikan or World city big or small,
trailing acerbic criticism from the immoral majority.
Or dead celebrity  consumer junkies in 5 star hotels
complete with PR handouts and **** licking "friends"
positioning themselves for increased sales.
Or the children of the Oligarchs with their "I" newspapers
and inbuilt fascist attitudes.
Who spend their shallow lives hoping for the kind
of meaningless and worthless Honours and Validation
from those that do not have honour or validity..
Or the not just lame but crippled duck presidents with their finely crafted speeches that say nothing but I am a beard wearing  failure,
looking forward to penning lies and calling it a frank memoir
while holding out my hands  for the Oligarchies pennies.
Can anyone tell me where to get a bucket of truthfulness?.
A glass of honesty?.
A tumbler full of veracity?.
A beaker of back breaking honest labour?.
Can anyone tell me where I can find
a peaceful man or woman,of any of the 5 colours.
Not those merely observing a Cease-Fire
while they rearm their weapons of the lies of beauty and truth.
Oligarchy allowed social commentary.
Is there just one decent truthful man or woman out there?.
Judging by the world Id say not.
No Id say not.
Not.
There Ive said it.

www.thefournobletruthsrevised.co.uk

All is not what it seems
Because I was an atheist
Long before I realized I was God,
But that was much, much later
Then, at that time, I succumbed
To the lurid but exciting depths
Of freedom, the joy of love and danger
Of searching and of knowledge,
Embracing every moment;
I surrendered to ungovernable impulses
That invoked within my very existence

Still to realise the true extent of this
It's perhaps best to start before the beginning
Before the earth embalmed me
A time when Cyparisse had not
Yet set root in my belly
Nor made sap of my blood
A time when it was possible to speak
To Panza's donkey when I thought of Zanzibar
A time when the vagrancy of my soul
Had not yet embarked
On its erratic itinerary
Plunging me eventually
Into the bright light
Of tainted and squalid reality

Like oscillating libraries, noise oppressed,
Contradictions of dreams
Suddenly I took flight,
With violent wrenches of imagination
In Persia being worshipped
Beneath the moon by Gods;
Caressed by those impetuous charms
A dazzling vision
I thought of death the only sister of charity
Whose dark night has no malevolence;
Black and white, silences that migrated
In sonorous symbolism took control
Shimmering like a painting of a sorrow

Streaked with unashamed colours
A single tear from a promethean candle
I would move to lick the stain of destiny
That pillar inhaling its black perfumes
Like a communicant on his knees.
Exiled in reality, I saw what I had never saw
Or only thought I saw now condemned
To see what has never been seen

Words corralled themselves in my mind
Writhing maggots on a corpse
Wriggling for position waiting to be pronounced
How they flew, taking wings
Hovering for an instant above the page
Hunting out the detritus of man
To feast upon the putrid flesh of misery
I too went searching
For my ancient feast; for Zanzibar

However hideous pages
From the note book of the ******
Imprisoned the words, stampeded the search
Scattering it in many directions
Shattering blue-white eyes
A castrated country, century, impotent, impure
Like politics, the ******* that can be purchased by coin
Like so much bread in the market,
A thousand profanities became the popular song
But silence is the real language of the fool

For he alone bears witness to what he feels
Misfortunes not understood, weeping the popular ballad
Morality and law, parades of red robed Judges
Carcasses, a circus for carrion crows
Yet like a cannibal the dead were still buried in my belly
The gloss of reason hiding madness
Like so many veneered fronts in a proud precinct

Paraded in full view, silence is demanded and got
The words wither, fake time continues,
To count the unrelieved falsehood the chimera of life;
Reason did not imprison me
My life being not heavy enough
Was allowed to take flight
To float above the reasoned realm
Revelations of the truth realised only by detachment
Devoured my mind increased my errorless purpose
The search for Zanzibar

Accepted values; valued only;
Because of this acceptance
Are accepted as value
Thus accepted in silence
The fools resign themselves
To a false reality
One that nails them to a poisoned cross

In the gardens of the dead
Like rowed tulips that
Gardeners know how to match
I found myself, among those who had gone
Remembered yet forgotten
Whose edifice unlike their lives
Reached not upwards but down.
I smelt the scent of unknown things
The perfumes of eternity that histories bind;
Intensity, a murmur; gurgle, as in a child
Yet extreme its aberrations
Like celluloid hand that
Had never known toil
Or wiped sweat from a brow
Laughed yet grimaced
Its smile a crimson smear
The sorrow that it felt
A burnished hand upon its nakedness
To see its enshrouded presence in such a garden
One well stocked and growing
Caressed my being with its glee
To turn white feel the touch
Of its venomous fingers upon my flesh;
Its purpose, to prevent any search for Zanzibar

The stench of death
Then cast its' new
Yet antediluvian gaze
Upon its purpose
Odour of grave
Faraway nonexistent
Yet it is perfume to those
Who feast upon its scent
Moistures mingling with the air
Its common purpose
Floating like un-forgiveness
Its atmosphere ozone sans holes
Its meaning ever present
Its' outcome to halt
The search for Zanzibar

And so the stencils of oriental scribes
Like black shadows overpowered my reason
Floating high above, adrift on an expanse of darkness
However, presently that azure ink
Raised its curtain before my very eyes
Revealing the stage, the illuminated stage
On which I was to set my drama
Where the phantoms of my imagination
Would enact their mysterious mysteries;
A poetic alchemy

Then a golden spark of pure
Nocturnal light blinded me
In an instant I saw, observed
The sun drown in its deathly sea
Its healing wings spread
Fear would see it rise again
Still searching for that fatal flaw, happiness
How many lives do I need?
How many existences will it take?
Incarnations a hundred times
Searching for Zanzibar.
Awakening to continue to
Live the saddest of my dreams

Furtive footsteps through Cimmerian landscapes
Ah such enchantment, do you understand?
Ah such a charm, listen to its undying echo
Feel its charge, that siren call
Cosmic summons, the vagrancy of mind
That caresses the imagination
Whose tender touch can place you
At the apex of the universe
Can lead to Zanzibar.


And so the subtle and foolish tortures
Inflicted upon me by I, my quest began
One that would ascertain, take centre stage
Make an unheard appearance of a philosophy
That, I am everyone and everyone else is me
Eventually at some point
In time and space we are all one
All linked, for we are condemned
Yes condemned to live these lives
This is why the dead have dreams
Dreams about the tyrants and demons
Of other lives of who they were;
Who they have yet to become.
Nourished on half truths,
Forever pulling at the thread
The rotted rags of reason
Those tattered twines
Unravelling the stitching of reality
Of hallucinations, empty illusions
And tarnished dreams create a constant struggle


Therefore for every conscious thing
That happens in the world
There must be a responding reverberation
Within the human soul
Let us put a halt to the calls
For the death of imagination
And demands for imagination to be silent
Such absurdities
For imagination is the true door to reality
For only in imagination
Can there be a bearable act
Of self examination
It is memory that hurts
More than the imagination
Always prefer the imaginary to the real
Imagination is neither an exit
From our nightmares nor
An escape from reality
But the place we are all trying to get to,
Zanzibar its shared images
Its story, its own life a new reality.


Mysteriously in the midst of unknown
Mazagran landscapes I feel
The full impact of fleeting visions
Without the limitations of space or time
Feel the act of experiencing their reality
This requires no explanation, no proof
Either together or separate
Because simply they are,
Judgement, condemnation
Punishments are gone
There is no cleansing a world
Without consciousness
Landscape devoid of people
'La Lune' growling in the orchard of the sea
Calypso again one or ten
Eucharis, tempest or temptress
Take both the meaning and the experience
Taste the tear drops of the sun
Telemachus searching, searching
Zanzibar

The idol, tentacles undulating
Vibrations of collective knowledge
The blank face, featureless
Touching around the domain of Atlas
Speaking in a thousand different tongues
Moving but still, blocks my path
Disturbs the line of imagination
Makes reality quiver
Dream flowers sway in its cosmic wind.
Yet Alhazers' iridescent arch allows
The steerage of my passage
Without pious pilgrimages to empty silences that
Contain an eternity of tears
Who graciously offers coverage
For the echo of footsteps
Allowing the magic moments to come


Robbed of sunlight, artificial night shines
Its deception attempting to secure knowledge
Of a future unknown, winning only it's unattainably
Offering instead knowledge of the past
Master of silence, offers only knowledge
Of invaded consciousness
Bedlam of paradise where Eros and Pan
In congress sleep, close at Zanzibar.


Lifeless beauty that lives everlasting
Time that reason cannot change, only help.
O enchanted torture you have stolen
The taste from my mouth
Masked I against the spectre of reality
Proclaimed the age of 'hasashin'
The creator of recollections, maker of memories
Possessor of impulse giver of echo
That rings in the ear
Cloud cast its surroccoian shadow
Air tinged with the aftermath of fire
Floating in an Asian wind, so subtle
Like a breath suddenly the sound of song
Of dance rents the solitude
Silence is slashed like a canvass screen
Happiness pours forth unconfined
Unfettered, both faces of Kandinsky as one
I extinguish the light, turn to the wall
Gazing upon its Janis face
My eyes behold the giver of pleasure.

Then I found myself in an extraordinary place
Whose skies where made of crystal glass
Water of the enchanted land was blue-grey
Bridges zig-zagged its shimmering domes
I stared as masts and parapets came to life
Its people, musicians sporting
Tangerine and white livery danced
The air filled with the sound of their music
Then as if from nowhere a light hit my eyes
Blinking, this apparition was gone
Can I not always believe what I see
Just because I see what I believe
The inhabitants at once became spectres
Engulfed in thick clouds of smoke and sulphur
Erinyies roamed, inflicting madness
A circus of the macabre sped past
Its symbols of death fluttering frantically
Around this false and fragile world
Suggested children, like creatures in an imagination
Were made ready for their rebirth
By the touch of the poets pen
A thousand Cheribino

In another, swirling sonorous scenes
Stormed the citadels of my mind
Marched through my imagination
Mab engulfed the long closed
Cemeteries of my thought allowing me
To see the dreams of others
Like precious pearls prised from their shells
Their visualisation so intense
Joy overcame me at once
Then a swarm of kisses descended upon me
Like a regiment of famished men
Feasting for the first time
I freely gave myself as the main course
In the most beautiful of banquets
In another, yielding to these seductions
I was enraptured by portraits of beautiful young men
Which appeared to be on the point of speaking
They were most mysterious their intrinsic
Charm so beautiful, stimulated desire
Whose assuagement was so pleasurable
That it might be called pure ecstasy
A perfect pleasure which had never before existed
Entirely individual and new

Thus upon the horizons of my mind
Had been shed a mysterious light
In which I now saw everything bathed
I was summoned by the Prince
Knowing dreams have no limits
I obeyed his call
For a long time failing to set
Foot on the shores of reality
Drinking from the wells of magic
While angels danced on grassy slopes
Disturbed by flames
The stars shot out their fragrance

Sweet smelling; blue abyss
On I went to the court, the court of the Prince of
Poets, a visitor to life
There I spat out the bit of liberty
Embraced the Prince
Courtesans mocked me, ridiculed
Laughed and taunted me
Their jibes merely part of
Their own deluded reality, not of mine
They did not serve my purpose
Dressed as they were
In meaningless words
Clothed in phrases of falsehood
They tried to make me compromise
There was fire burning in my eyes
Vivid dreams were eating up my mind
They wouldn't let me be
There were dead men lying
By the sides of the road
With daylight in their eyes
I saw villages under the sea
I stood at Galactic central point
Watched the earth burn
They did not know
The way to Zanzibar
Could the Prince show me?

However each morning I awoke
I found myself in a purgatorial fog
I roamed lost the alternative harbour
For my soul still distant
The Prince, I discovered, existed
In a twilight world of mysterious ailments
He denied his feelings
Such denial only immersed him
In maintaining the world of external restraints
It created emptiness, a vacancy
Filled by material concerns
I pleaded with him
The emerald gene came down
Soon the leaves of grass
Whispered another order of existence
Strangeness of sensation
Intoxication of vision
Unhinged for mortals
And as the sound increased one cannot
Describe what else it is that has been
I viewed a world transparent
Devoid of illumination within which
Was never a sea or land
Then the prophets were ******
For they were all liars
And I saw the most beautiful flower
Unfolding out of its own roots
For such a flower cannot
Unfold other than it does
I stood on the threshold of Orcus
I met Abbas Effendi the Gene without a name
Bab, Upanishads spilled music in my ears
Called to me in the most spectacular of colours
It was wonderful for the colours
Were like my dreams, red, black and green
I witnessed the three, sometimes as one
Other times as two, again and again
The self eternal and inseparable sons
Of Shakyamuni caressed me with their thoughts
Their music and colour moved about me
In ecstatic rhythm like the peaceful
Waves of the ocean as upon a shore
I read the sentences of silence
Breathed the perfume of never fading flowers
Walked in cherry blossom snow
Heard Hafiz reciting in the night
I saw for the first time
The unfinished likeness of others.

Then one day the Prince
With a sweeping theatrical and
So to speak, allegorical flourish bowed
Called me an exiled angel
Said the time had come to travel
To leave the images of naked heels
Imprinted in the clay
We wondered
Then as if by magic, suddenly the shadows
Of houses, halls, and a church
Emerged like enchanted islands in a fairy tale
The spiritualised forms of civilisation
I was approached by a graceful youth
Draped in cobweb lawn
He was pale, delicately beautiful
Spanish looking, but his name was Alexis Sonyeuse
Whose family it was said was
Related to the French Emperor Napoleon
It was also rumoured that he had
Had a tempestuous affair with the Bishop of Monaco
And once slept with his half brother Julian Apollinaire
When he spoke he was at once original
Delicious, moving, droll and discreetly melancholy
Listening to him was like breathing
The perfume of wondrous flowers
But the scent of datura hung about him
Paralleling his every movement
  Another youth, Edmond also greeted me
He was a young man with aristocratic features
A complexion pink, like a girls
And a bearing at once charmingly gracious
And audaciously insolent
His shirt was strange, the lining
A peculiarly orange colour
A flame coloured taffeta
Like the petticoats of a *****



They looked at me
Furtive glances emanated from their eyes
Training a profound stare upon my person
The two youths took me to 18 Avenue de Friedland
There two boy servants
Adoum and Outhman greeted us
Spinario's lay about its confines
Frezans caressing them
As they touched their feet
A hundred echansons moved
With dazzling delicacy dispensing dreams
In drops from crystalline cups
Here I witnessed the tragic faces of the population
Urnings, cleaning in the midst of anarchist trials
The room a fiery red, stained with light
The caress of forgotten thought
Like the thickness of a sorrow
Musicians playing on broken strings
Crimson ******, who defied the King of Naples
We moved past wretches
Like Virgil, but Danteian
Saw the usurers heard the rustling
Of lute strings the clinking of grey paper
Observed in this Minatare's lair
The purchase of a twelve penny dagger
Liberty of speech meeting its great reckoning
In a little room, Ingram the poltergeist
Of misfortune was there
Dead Scythian, who ever loved you
Loved you as you might, loved you at first sight.

This was a new and exciting world
Whose environs were populated
By the most mysterious and colourful of people
I was introduced by the two youths
To a suicidal young painter who
Was rebelling against his class
He was a somewhat forced intellectual
With an over quixotic passion for equality
Still he was warm, kind and impulsive
Poetry, he made it known
Had opened his mind to the invisible
Beside him was a painting
Exemplifying a new kind of observation
In a style absolutely faultless
Each structure clear, each brush stroke
Falling exactly into place
Inscribed in the top left
Corner were the words
"Quod me nutrit me destruit"
An introduction to himself of a tall youth
Whose eyes possessed a constant
Vagrancy of desire
Who seemed at once, for one so

All is not what it seems
Because I was an atheist
Long before I realized I was God,
But that was much, much later
Then, at that time, I succumbed
To the lurid but exciting depths
Of freedom, the joy of love and danger
Of searching and of knowledge,
Embracing every moment;
I surrendered to ungovernable impulses
That invoked within my very existence

Still to realise the true extent of this
It's perhaps best to start before the beginning
Before the earth embalmed me
A time when Cyparisse had not
Yet set root in my belly
Nor made sap of my blood
A time when it was possible to speak
To Panza's donkey when I thought of Zanzibar
A time when the vagrancy of my soul
Had not yet embarked
On its erratic itinerary
Plunging me eventually
Into the bright light
Of tainted and squalid reality

Like oscillating libraries, noise oppressed,
Contradictions of dreams
Suddenly I took flight,
With violent wrenches of imagination
In Persia being worshipped
Beneath the moon by Gods;
Caressed by those impetuous charms
A dazzling vision
I thought of death the only sister of charity
Whose dark night has no malevolence;
Black and white, silences that migrated
In sonorous symbolism took control
Shimmering like a painting of a sorrow

Streaked with unashamed colours
A single tear from a promethean candle
I would move to lick the stain of destiny
That pillar inhaling its black perfumes
Like a communicant on his knees.
Exiled in reality, I saw what I had never saw
Or only thought I saw now condemned
To see what has never been seen

Words corralled themselves in my mind
Writhing maggots on a corpse
Wriggling for position waiting to be pronounced
How they flew, taking wings
Hovering for an instant above the page
Hunting out the detritus of man
To feast upon the putrid flesh of misery
I too went searching
For my ancient feast; for Zanzibar

However hideous pages
From the note book of the ******
Imprisoned the words, stampeded the search
Scattering it in many directions
Shattering blue-white eyes
A castrated country, century, impotent, impure
Like politics, the ******* that can be purchased by coin
Like so much bread in the market,
A thousand profanities became the popular song
But silence is the real language of the fool

For he alone bears witness to what he feels
Misfortunes not understood, weeping the popular ballad
Morality and law, parades of red robed Judges
Carcasses, a circus for carrion crows
Yet like a cannibal the dead were still buried in my belly
The gloss of reason hiding madness
Like so many veneered fronts in a proud precinct

Paraded in full view, silence is demanded and got
The words wither, fake time continues,
To count the unrelieved falsehood the chimera of life;
Reason did not imprison me
My life being not heavy enough
Was allowed to take flight
To float above the reasoned realm
Revelations of the truth realised only by detachment
Devoured my mind increased my errorless purpose
The search for Zanzibar

Accepted values; valued only;
Because of this acceptance
Are accepted as value
Thus accepted in silence
The fools resign themselves
To a false reality
One that nails them to a poisoned cross

In the gardens of the dead
Like rowed tulips that
Gardeners know how to match
I found myself, among those who had gone
Remembered yet forgotten
Whose edifice unlike their lives
Reached not upwards but down.
I smelt the scent of unknown things
The perfumes of eternity that histories bind;
Intensity, a murmur; gurgle, as in a child
Yet extreme its aberrations
Like celluloid hand that
Had never known toil
Or wiped sweat from a brow
Laughed yet grimaced
Its smile a crimson smear
The sorrow that it felt
A burnished hand upon its nakedness
To see its enshrouded presence in such a garden
One well stocked and growing
Caressed my being with its glee
To turn white feel the touch
Of its venomous fingers upon my flesh;
Its purpose, to prevent any search for Zanzibar

The stench of death
Then cast its' new
Yet antediluvian gaze
Upon its purpose
Odour of grave
Faraway nonexistent
Yet it is perfume to those
Who feast upon its scent
Moistures mingling with the air
Its common purpose
Floating like un-forgiveness
Its atmosphere ozone sans holes
Its meaning ever present
Its' outcome to halt
The search for Zanzibar

And so the stencils of oriental scribes
Like black shadows overpowered my reason
Floating high above, adrift on an expanse of darkness
However, presently that azure ink
Raised its curtain before my very eyes
Revealing the stage, the illuminated stage
On which I was to set my drama
Where the phantoms of my imagination
Would enact their mysterious mysteries;
A poetic alchemy

Then a golden spark of pure
Nocturnal light blinded me
In an instant I saw, observed
The sun drown in its deathly sea
Its healing wings spread
Fear would see it rise again
Still searching for that fatal flaw, happiness
How many lives do I need?
How many existences will it take?
Incarnations a hundred times
Searching for Zanzibar.
Awakening to continue to
Live the saddest of my dreams

Furtive footsteps through Cimmerian landscapes
Ah such enchantment, do you understand?
Ah such a charm, listen to its undying echo
Feel its charge, that siren call
Cosmic summons, the vagrancy of mind
That caresses the imagination
Whose tender touch can place you
At the apex of the universe
Can lead to Zanzibar.


And so the subtle and foolish tortures
Inflicted upon me by I, my quest began
One that would ascertain, take centre stage
Make an unheard appearance of a philosophy
That, I am everyone and everyone else is me
Eventually at some point
In time and space we are all one
All linked, for we are condemned
Yes condemned to live these lives
This is why the dead have dreams
Dreams about the tyrants and demons
Of other lives of who they were;
Who they have yet to become.
Nourished on half truths,
Forever pulling at the thread
The rotted rags of reason
Those tattered twines
Unravelling the stitching of reality
Of hallucinations, empty illusions
And tarnished dreams create a constant struggle


Therefore for every conscious thing
That happens in the world
There must be a responding reverberation
Within the human soul
Let us put a halt to the calls
For the death of imagination
And demands for imagination to be silent
Such absurdities
For imagination is the true door to reality
For only in imagination
Can there be a bearable act
Of self examination
It is memory that hurts
More than the imagination
Always prefer the imaginary to the real
Imagination is neither an exit
From our nightmares nor
An escape from reality
But the place we are all trying to get to,
Zanzibar its shared images
Its story, its own life a new reality.


Mysteriously in the midst of unknown
Mazagran landscapes I feel
The full impact of fleeting visions
Without the limitations of space or time
Feel the act of experiencing their reality
This requires no explanation, no proof
Either together or separate
Because simply they are,
Judgement, condemnation
Punishments are gone
There is no cleansing a world
Without consciousness
Landscape devoid of people
'La Lune' growling in the orchard of the sea
Calypso again one or ten
Eucharis, tempest or temptress
Take both the meaning and the experience
Taste the tear drops of the sun
Telemachus searching, searching
Zanzibar

The idol, tentacles undulating
Vibrations of collective knowledge
The blank face, featureless
Touching around the domain of Atlas
Speaking in a thousand different tongues
Moving but still, blocks my path
Disturbs the line of imagination
Makes reality quiver
Dream flowers sway in its cosmic wind.
Yet Alhazers' iridescent arch allows
The steerage of my passage
Without pious pilgrimages to empty silences that
Contain an eternity of tears
Who graciously offers coverage
For the echo of footsteps
Allowing the magic moments to come


Robbed of sunlight, artificial night shines
Its deception attempting to secure knowledge
Of a future unknown, winning only it's unattainably
Offering instead knowledge of the past
Master of silence, offers only knowledge
Of invaded consciousness
Bedlam of paradise where Eros and Pan
In congress sleep, close at Zanzibar.


Lifeless beauty that lives everlasting
Time that reason cannot change, only help.
O enchanted torture you have stolen
The taste from my mouth
Masked I against the spectre of reality
Proclaimed the age of 'hasashin'
The creator of recollections, maker of memories
Possessor of impulse giver of echo
That rings in the ear
Cloud cast its surroccoian shadow
Air tinged with the aftermath of fire
Floating in an Asian wind, so subtle
Like a breath suddenly the sound of song
Of dance rents the solitude
Silence is slashed like a canvass screen
Happiness pours forth unconfined
Unfettered, both faces of Kandinsky as one
I extinguish the light, turn to the wall
Gazing upon its Janis face
My eyes behold the giver of pleasure.

Then I found myself in an extraordinary place
Whose skies where made of crystal glass
Water of the enchanted land was blue-grey
Bridges zig-zagged its shimmering domes
I stared as masts and parapets came to life
Its people, musicians sporting
Tangerine and white livery danced
The air filled with the sound of their music
Then as if from nowhere a light hit my eyes
Blinking, this apparition was gone
Can I not always believe what I see
Just because I see what I believe
The inhabitants at once became spectres
Engulfed in thick clouds of smoke and sulphur
Erinyies roamed, inflicting madness
A circus of the macabre sped past
Its symbols of death fluttering frantically
Around this false and fragile world
Suggested children, like creatures in an imagination
Were made ready for their rebirth
By the touch of the poets pen
A thousand Cheribino

In another, swirling sonorous scenes
Stormed the citadels of my mind
Marched through my imagination
Mab engulfed the long closed
Cemeteries of my thought allowing me
To see the dreams of others
Like precious pearls prised from their shells
Their visualisation so intense
Joy overcame me at once
Then a swarm of kisses descended upon me
Like a regiment of famished men
Feasting for the first time
I freely gave myself as the main course
In the most beautiful of banquets
In another, yielding to these seductions
I was enraptured by portraits of beautiful young men
Which appeared to be on the point of speaking
They were most mysterious their intrinsic
Charm so beautiful, stimulated desire
Whose assuagement was so pleasurable
That it might be called pure ecstasy
A perfect pleasure which had never before existed
Entirely individual and new

Thus upon the horizons of my mind
Had been shed a mysterious light
In which I now saw everything bathed
I was summoned by the Prince
Knowing dreams have no limits
I obeyed his call
For a long time failing to set
Foot on the shores of reality
Drinking from the wells of magic
While angels danced on grassy slopes
Disturbed by flames
The stars shot out their fragrance

Sweet smelling; blue abyss
On I went to the court, the court of the Prince of
Poets, a visitor to life
There I spat out the bit of liberty
Embraced the Prince
Courtesans mocked me, ridiculed
Laughed and taunted me
Their jibes merely part of
Their own deluded reality, not of mine
They did not serve my purpose
Dressed as they were
In meaningless words
Clothed in phrases of falsehood
They tried to make me compromise
There was fire burning in my eyes
Vivid dreams were eating up my mind
They wouldn't let me be
There were dead men lying
By the sides of the road
With daylight in their eyes
I saw villages under the sea
I stood at Galactic central point
Watched the earth burn
They did not know
The way to Zanzibar
Could the Prince show me?

However each morning I awoke
I found myself in a purgatorial fog
I roamed lost the alternative harbour
For my soul still distant
The Prince, I discovered, existed
In a twilight world of mysterious ailments
He denied his feelings
Such denial only immersed him
In maintaining the world of external restraints
It created emptiness, a vacancy
Filled by material concerns
I pleaded with him
The emerald gene came down
Soon the leaves of grass
Whispered another order of existence
Strangeness of sensation
Intoxication of vision
Unhinged for mortals
And as the sound increased one cannot
Describe what else it is that has been
I viewed a world transparent
Devoid of illumination within which
Was never a sea or land
Then the prophets were ******
For they were all liars
And I saw the most beautiful flower
Unfolding out of its own roots
For such a flower cannot
Unfold other than it does
I stood on the threshold of Orcus
I met Abbas Effendi the Gene without a name
Bab, Upanishads spilled music in my ears
Called to me in the most spectacular of colours
It was wonderful for the colours
Were like my dreams, red, black and green
I witnessed the three, sometimes as one
Other times as two, again and again
The self eternal and inseparable sons
Of Shakyamuni caressed me with their thoughts
Their music and colour moved about me
In ecstatic rhythm like the peaceful
Waves of the ocean as upon a shore
I read the sentences of silence
Breathed the perfume of never fading flowers
Walked in cherry blossom snow
Heard Hafiz reciting in the night
I saw for the first time
The unfinished likeness of others.

Then one day the Prince
With a sweeping theatrical and
So to speak, allegorical flourish bowed
Called me an exiled angel
Said the time had come to travel
To leave the images of naked heels
Imprinted in the clay
We wondered
Then as if by magic, suddenly the shadows
Of houses, halls, and a church
Emerged like enchanted islands in a fairy tale
The spiritualised forms of civilisation
I was approached by a graceful youth
Draped in cobweb lawn
He was pale, delicately beautiful
Spanish looking, but his name was Alexis Sonyeuse
Whose family it was said was
Related to the French Emperor Napoleon
It was also rumoured that he had
Had a tempestuous affair with the Bishop of Monaco
And once slept with his half brother Julian Apollinaire
When he spoke he was at once original
Delicious, moving, droll and discreetly melancholy
Listening to him was like breathing
The perfume of wondrous flowers
But the scent of datura hung about him
Paralleling his every movement
  Another youth, Edmond also greeted me
He was a young man with aristocratic features
A complexion pink, like a girls
And a bearing at once charmingly gracious
And audaciously insolent
His shirt was strange, the lining
A peculiarly orange colour
A flame coloured taffeta
Like the petticoats of a *****



They looked at me
Furtive glances emanated from their eyes
Training a profound stare upon my person
The two youths took me to 18 Avenue de Friedland
There two boy servants
Adoum and Outhman greeted us
Spinario's lay about its confines
Frezans caressing them
As they touched their feet
A hundred echansons moved
With dazzling delicacy dispensing dreams
In drops from crystalline cups
Here I witnessed the tragic faces of the population
Urnings, cleaning in the midst of anarchist trials
The room a fiery red, stained with light
The caress of forgotten thought
Like the thickness of a sorrow
Musicians playing on broken strings
Crimson ******, who defied the King of Naples
We moved past wretches
Like Virgil, but Danteian
Saw the usurers heard the rustling
Of lute strings the clinking of grey paper
Observed in this Minatare's lair
The purchase of a twelve penny dagger
Liberty of speech meeting its great reckoning
In a little room, Ingram the poltergeist
Of misfortune was there
Dead Scythian, who ever loved you
Loved you as you might, loved you at first sight.

This was a new and exciting world
Whose environs were populated
By the most mysterious and colourful of people
I was introduced by the two youths
To a suicidal young painter who
Was rebelling against his class
He was a somewhat forced intellectual
With an over quixotic passion for equality
Still he was warm, kind and impulsive
Poetry, he made it known
Had opened his mind to the invisible
Beside him was a painting
Exemplifying a new kind of observation
In a style absolutely faultless
Each structure clear, each brush stroke
Falling exactly into place
Inscribed in the top left
Corner were the words
"Quod me nutrit me destruit"
An introduction to himself of a tall youth
Whose eyes possessed a constant
Vagrancy of desire
Who seemed at once, for one so

I was listening to a poet
reciting his poem “Times”.
He was pondering, could
it be like this and that?
Suddenly my cup of tea
happened to taste so sweet,
made me wonder why
wasn’t it such an edgy,
a while ago any time
before now just as tasty.

Where on a stony thorn
was it stuck this long?
It had to bloom just now,
so sweet a rose!  
No one predicted whether it
will rain or not, it just drops.
The sun, shedding clouds,
suddenly swims so low!

Pondering me, I could
then only digest it
accepting a truth:
It doesn’t matter when
the bees love to come out,
sit on the rose and fly.
For the time, its best bard
only sings on time!

Marriage is changing, from who can get married (37 states now allow gay marriage!) to who actually ends up doing it. Only 26% of millennials are married, a sharp decrease from 36% of Generation X and 48% of baby boomers, according to the Pew Research Center. But marriage isn't obsolete — in fact, in many ways it's thriving as we re-evaluate what the institution really means to us.

And with re-evaluating marriage comes re-evaluating weddings. The Knot's "2014 Real Weddings Study" found that couples are foregoing traditional wedding customs to modernize their nuptials through their choice of rings, dresses and officiants.

That includes — perhaps most importantly — the vows. Couples today are taking cues from badass brides like Amelia Earhart, who banned the word "obey" from her 1931 wedding vows, and reciting promises to one another that reflect the partnerships they strive for. Here are 12 real-life couples who vowed...

1. "To split the difference on the thermostat."

Why it's awesome: When Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston got married, Pitt pledged to "split the difference on the thermostat." While that partnership didn't last, as we all know, it was a lighthearted vow that highlights a crucial element of modern marriage: compromise. The key to a happy marriage is learning how to meet halfway.

2. "To be a true and loyal friend to you."

Why it's awesome: Marriages weren't always about intimate, caring partnerships between equals. But we know well enough now that the happiest, most long-lasting marriages are those in which partners see each other as friends (even studies have proven it true). Jevan's vows to Alithea, shared by the Knot, are a reminder that the bedrock of friendship is what makes a modern marriage stand.

3. "To communicate fully and fearlessly."

Why it's awesome: Among the traditional promise of partnership and faith, real-life couple Anne and Gabrielle told the Knot they vowed "to communicate fully and fearlessly" as spouses. In our modern world, we have seemingly endless ways to communicate — text, email, Skype, Snapchat — and yet still have to work to connect. Sitting down face-to-face, making eye contact and being vulnerable with one another is still crucial, as is being honest without fear of judgment from your partner. Emojis aside, that's what really sustains a lasting relationship.

4. "To grab your **** even when we're old and wrinkly."

Why it's awesome: As we become more open about sexuality (thank goodness), it's only natural that a wink and a nudge find their way into the wedding vows. In an open thread on A Practical Wedding, Zach and Kate shared their vows, which included the promise "to hit on you in awesome accents and grab your **** even when we're old and wrinkly." This promise to keep the spark alive even years down the line is no small thing. After all, studies have shown that all it can take is a simple touch to maintain a ****** connection.

5. "To value our differences as much as our common ground."

Why it's awesome: Love is a powerful force to bring people together, even when they're divided by cultural background, religion and, increasingly, politics. As society grows more divisive and we hold tight to our views, it's valuable to remember that our differences don't have to actually divide us, as these vows from real-life couple Greta Christina and Ingrid, told to Patheos, show.

6. "To continue to love your children, as if they were my own."

Why it's awesome: A marriage isn't just a vow to one person, it's a vow to an entire family — future and present. In 2011, Pew Research found that more than 4 in 10 American adults have at least one "step relative" in their family, including a stepparent, a stepchild or a step or half sibling. These adults are just as likely as others to say that family is the most important element of their lives. So it's no surprise that people have been adapting their weddings to encompass the commitment to an entire family, as Sara M. did in her vows, shared on Offbeat Bride.

7. "To comfort you when the Falcons lose and drink beer with you when they win."

Why it's awesome: As Mallory summed up so perfectly to Eddie in their vows, shared by the Knot, appreciating each other's distinct interests and actively sharing in them together makes a huge difference. It goes beyond just putting on the Falcons jersey: Sitting down for the game and sharing a beer is what researchers would call "shared leisure," and it makes a big difference for marital satisfaction. That football game is more than just a football game.

8. "To never try to hurt you just because I'm angry or tired."

Why it's awesome: The chaos of our lives means lots of stress, lots of late nights and lots of exhaustion. (Unsurprisingly, Gallup found that 40% of American adults get less than the recommended amount of sleep.) That can actually wreak havoc on a relationship, which is why it's all the more important to anticipate the challenge. Sarah's vows to her husband, which she shared on A Practical Wedding, are a promise not to take out her stress and exhaustion on him. Instead, she vows to trust him throughout the chaos, "even when we veer from GPS directions, schedules, itineraries and to-do lists."

9. "I have called you my life partner, my significant other, my longtime companion, my lover. ... Now I vow to love you always as my lawfully wedded husband."

Why it's awesome: The vows said by George Takei and longtime partner Brad Altman at their wedding, after the passage of marriage equality in California, were unsurprisingly moving, given they were 21 years in the making. As couples, straight and gay, wait longer to get married (and cohabit in the meantime), labels like "husband" or "wife" are less crucial for defining the relationship than the moments a couple has shared. Takei and Altman's wedding was not proof of their commitment, but rather a tribute to the commitment they had already demonstrated — a truth echoed clearly in their vows.

10. "To be your partner in all things, not possessing you, but working with you as a part of the whole."

Why it's awesome: If we're really striving for egalitarian marriages, then recognizing the equal amounts of work required by each half, as partners, is crucial, especially as women's participation in the workforce keeps growing (57.2% compared to 69.7% for men in 2013). In order for both careers to receive equal focus, a promise not to "possess" but to work to support each other is key. Much like Amelia Earhart refused to use the word "obey," real-life couple Alex and Michelle promised to be each other's "equal in all things" in the vows they shared with the Knot.

11. "I will love you no matter what makes my blood circulate, or even no matter what provides my body with oxygen."

Why it's awesome: Traditional weddings tend to be religious occasions, but with increasing rates of atheism and marriages across faiths, religion is taking a back seat to a more personalized expression of commitment. As of 2013, only one third of couples opted to get married in a church, and even more are removing religion from their vows. But that doesn't mean the vows don't appeal to a higher sense of faith — in the other person or in the world, as these scientific, "atheistic" vows, translated from Swedish and shared on Reddit, prove.

12. "I see these vows not as promises but as privileges."

Why it's awesome: Marriage might have been necessary decades ago, but these days it's more of a choice. So it's only natural that the vows we recite — traditionally a list of duties and obligations — actually reflect the happy choice that marriage now is for so many.

Yuval and Dina chose to frame their vows as honors, as they shared with the Knot: "I see these vows not as promises but as privileges: I get to laugh with you and cry with you; care for you and share with you. I get to run with you and walk with you; build with you and live with you." With between 40% to 50% of marriages in the U.S. ending in divorce, it's more important than ever that couples remind themselves that being with their partner is a privilege in itself, and one to never take for granted.

Source: http://www.graziadressau.com

All is not what it seems
Because I was an atheist
Long before I realized I was God,
But that was much, much later
Then, at that time, I succumbed
To the lurid but exciting depths
Of freedom, the joy of love and danger
Of searching and of knowledge,
Embracing every moment;
I surrendered to ungovernable impulses
That invoked within my very existence

Still to realise the true extent of this
It's perhaps best to start before the beginning
Before the earth embalmed me
A time when Cyparisse had not
Yet set root in my belly
Nor made sap of my blood
A time when it was possible to speak
To Panza's donkey when I thought of Zanzibar
A time when the vagrancy of my soul
Had not yet embarked
On its erratic itinerary
Plunging me eventually
Into the bright light
Of tainted and squalid reality

Like oscillating libraries, noise oppressed,
Contradictions of dreams
Suddenly I took flight,
With violent wrenches of imagination
In Persia being worshipped
Beneath the moon by Gods;
Caressed by those impetuous charms
A dazzling vision
I thought of death the only sister of charity
Whose dark night has no malevolence;
Black and white, silences that migrated
In sonorous symbolism took control
Shimmering like a painting of a sorrow

Streaked with unashamed colours
A single tear from a promethean candle
I would move to lick the stain of destiny
That pillar inhaling its black perfumes
Like a communicant on his knees.
Exiled in reality, I saw what I had never saw
Or only thought I saw now condemned
To see what has never been seen

Words corralled themselves in my mind
Writhing maggots on a corpse
Wriggling for position waiting to be pronounced
How they flew, taking wings
Hovering for an instant above the page
Hunting out the detritus of man
To feast upon the putrid flesh of misery
I too went searching
For my ancient feast; for Zanzibar

However hideous pages
From the note book of the ******
Imprisoned the words, stampeded the search
Scattering it in many directions
Shattering blue-white eyes
A castrated country, century, impotent, impure
Like politics, the ******* that can be purchased by coin
Like so much bread in the market,
A thousand profanities became the popular song
But silence is the real language of the fool

For he alone bears witness to what he feels
Misfortunes not understood, weeping the popular ballad
Morality and law, parades of red robed Judges
Carcasses, a circus for carrion crows
Yet like a cannibal the dead were still buried in my belly
The gloss of reason hiding madness
Like so many veneered fronts in a proud precinct

Paraded in full view, silence is demanded and got
The words wither, fake time continues,
To count the unrelieved falsehood the chimera of life;
Reason did not imprison me
My life being not heavy enough
Was allowed to take flight
To float above the reasoned realm
Revelations of the truth realised only by detachment
Devoured my mind increased my errorless purpose
The search for Zanzibar

Accepted values; valued only;
Because of this acceptance
Are accepted as value
Thus accepted in silence
The fools resign themselves
To a false reality
One that nails them to a poisoned cross

In the gardens of the dead
Like rowed tulips that
Gardeners know how to match
I found myself, among those who had gone
Remembered yet forgotten
Whose edifice unlike their lives
Reached not upwards but down.
I smelt the scent of unknown things
The perfumes of eternity that histories bind;
Intensity, a murmur; gurgle, as in a child
Yet extreme its aberrations
Like celluloid hand that
Had never known toil
Or wiped sweat from a brow
Laughed yet grimaced
Its smile a crimson smear
The sorrow that it felt
A burnished hand upon its nakedness
To see its enshrouded presence in such a garden
One well stocked and growing
Caressed my being with its glee
To turn white feel the touch
Of its venomous fingers upon my flesh;
Its purpose, to prevent any search for Zanzibar

The stench of death
Then cast its' new
Yet antediluvian gaze
Upon its purpose
Odour of grave
Faraway nonexistent
Yet it is perfume to those
Who feast upon its scent
Moistures mingling with the air
Its common purpose
Floating like un-forgiveness
Its atmosphere ozone sans holes
Its meaning ever present
Its' outcome to halt
The search for Zanzibar

And so the stencils of oriental scribes
Like black shadows overpowered my reason
Floating high above, adrift on an expanse of darkness
However, presently that azure ink
Raised its curtain before my very eyes
Revealing the stage, the illuminated stage
On which I was to set my drama
Where the phantoms of my imagination
Would enact their mysterious mysteries;
A poetic alchemy

Then a golden spark of pure
Nocturnal light blinded me
In an instant I saw, observed
The sun drown in its deathly sea
Its healing wings spread
Fear would see it rise again
Still searching for that fatal flaw, happiness
How many lives do I need?
How many existences will it take?
Incarnations a hundred times
Searching for Zanzibar.
Awakening to continue to
Live the saddest of my dreams

Furtive footsteps through Cimmerian landscapes
Ah such enchantment, do you understand?
Ah such a charm, listen to its undying echo
Feel its charge, that siren call
Cosmic summons, the vagrancy of mind
That caresses the imagination
Whose tender touch can place you
At the apex of the universe
Can lead to Zanzibar.


And so the subtle and foolish tortures
Inflicted upon me by I, my quest began
One that would ascertain, take centre stage
Make an unheard appearance of a philosophy
That, I am everyone and everyone else is me
Eventually at some point
In time and space we are all one
All linked, for we are condemned
Yes condemned to live these lives
This is why the dead have dreams
Dreams about the tyrants and demons
Of other lives of who they were;
Who they have yet to become.
Nourished on half truths,
Forever pulling at the thread
The rotted rags of reason
Those tattered twines
Unravelling the stitching of reality
Of hallucinations, empty illusions
And tarnished dreams create a constant struggle


Therefore for every conscious thing
That happens in the world
There must be a responding reverberation
Within the human soul
Let us put a halt to the calls
For the death of imagination
And demands for imagination to be silent
Such absurdities
For imagination is the true door to reality
For only in imagination
Can there be a bearable act
Of self examination
It is memory that hurts
More than the imagination
Always prefer the imaginary to the real
Imagination is neither an exit
From our nightmares nor
An escape from reality
But the place we are all trying to get to,
Zanzibar its shared images
Its story, its own life a new reality.


Mysteriously in the midst of unknown
Mazagran landscapes I feel
The full impact of fleeting visions
Without the limitations of space or time
Feel the act of experiencing their reality
This requires no explanation, no proof
Either together or separate
Because simply they are,
Judgement, condemnation
Punishments are gone
There is no cleansing a world
Without consciousness
Landscape devoid of people
'La Lune' growling in the orchard of the sea
Calypso again one or ten
Eucharis, tempest or temptress
Take both the meaning and the experience
Taste the tear drops of the sun
Telemachus searching, searching
Zanzibar

The idol, tentacles undulating
Vibrations of collective knowledge
The blank face, featureless
Touching around the domain of Atlas
Speaking in a thousand different tongues
Moving but still, blocks my path
Disturbs the line of imagination
Makes reality quiver
Dream flowers sway in its cosmic wind.
Yet Alhazers' iridescent arch allows
The steerage of my passage
Without pious pilgrimages to empty silences that
Contain an eternity of tears
Who graciously offers coverage
For the echo of footsteps
Allowing the magic moments to come


Robbed of sunlight, artificial night shines
Its deception attempting to secure knowledge
Of a future unknown, winning only it's unattainably
Offering instead knowledge of the past
Master of silence, offers only knowledge
Of invaded consciousness
Bedlam of paradise where Eros and Pan
In congress sleep, close at Zanzibar.


Lifeless beauty that lives everlasting
Time that reason cannot change, only help.
O enchanted torture you have stolen
The taste from my mouth
Masked I against the spectre of reality
Proclaimed the age of 'hasashin'
The creator of recollections, maker of memories
Possessor of impulse giver of echo
That rings in the ear
Cloud cast its surroccoian shadow
Air tinged with the aftermath of fire
Floating in an Asian wind, so subtle
Like a breath suddenly the sound of song
Of dance rents the solitude
Silence is slashed like a canvass screen
Happiness pours forth unconfined
Unfettered, both faces of Kandinsky as one
I extinguish the light, turn to the wall
Gazing upon its Janis face
My eyes behold the giver of pleasure.

Then I found myself in an extraordinary place
Whose skies where made of crystal glass
Water of the enchanted land was blue-grey
Bridges zig-zagged its shimmering domes
I stared as masts and parapets came to life
Its people, musicians sporting
Tangerine and white livery danced
The air filled with the sound of their music
Then as if from nowhere a light hit my eyes
Blinking, this apparition was gone
Can I not always believe what I see
Just because I see what I believe
The inhabitants at once became spectres
Engulfed in thick clouds of smoke and sulphur
Erinyies roamed, inflicting madness
A circus of the macabre sped past
Its symbols of death fluttering frantically
Around this false and fragile world
Suggested children, like creatures in an imagination
Were made ready for their rebirth
By the touch of the poets pen
A thousand Cheribino

In another, swirling sonorous scenes
Stormed the citadels of my mind
Marched through my imagination
Mab engulfed the long closed
Cemeteries of my thought allowing me
To see the dreams of others
Like precious pearls prised from their shells
Their visualisation so intense
Joy overcame me at once
Then a swarm of kisses descended upon me
Like a regiment of famished men
Feasting for the first time
I freely gave myself as the main course
In the most beautiful of banquets
In another, yielding to these seductions
I was enraptured by portraits of beautiful young men
Which appeared to be on the point of speaking
They were most mysterious their intrinsic
Charm so beautiful, stimulated desire
Whose assuagement was so pleasurable
That it might be called pure ecstasy
A perfect pleasure which had never before existed
Entirely individual and new

Thus upon the horizons of my mind
Had been shed a mysterious light
In which I now saw everything bathed
I was summoned by the Prince
Knowing dreams have no limits
I obeyed his call
For a long time failing to set
Foot on the shores of reality
Drinking from the wells of magic
While angels danced on grassy slopes
Disturbed by flames
The stars shot out their fragrance

Sweet smelling; blue abyss
On I went to the court, the court of the Prince of
Poets, a visitor to life
There I spat out the bit of liberty
Embraced the Prince
Courtesans mocked me, ridiculed
Laughed and taunted me
Their jibes merely part of
Their own deluded reality, not of mine
They did not serve my purpose
Dressed as they were
In meaningless words
Clothed in phrases of falsehood
They tried to make me compromise
There was fire burning in my eyes
Vivid dreams were eating up my mind
They wouldn't let me be
There were dead men lying
By the sides of the road
With daylight in their eyes
I saw villages under the sea
I stood at Galactic central point
Watched the earth burn
They did not know
The way to Zanzibar
Could the Prince show me?

However each morning I awoke
I found myself in a purgatorial fog
I roamed lost the alternative harbour
For my soul still distant
The Prince, I discovered, existed
In a twilight world of mysterious ailments
He denied his feelings
Such denial only immersed him
In maintaining the world of external restraints
It created emptiness, a vacancy
Filled by material concerns
I pleaded with him
The emerald gene came down
Soon the leaves of grass
Whispered another order of existence
Strangeness of sensation
Intoxication of vision
Unhinged for mortals
And as the sound increased one cannot
Describe what else it is that has been
I viewed a world transparent
Devoid of illumination within which
Was never a sea or land
Then the prophets were ******
For they were all liars
And I saw the most beautiful flower
Unfolding out of its own roots
For such a flower cannot
Unfold other than it does
I stood on the threshold of Orcus
I met Abbas Effendi the Gene without a name
Bab, Upanishads spilled music in my ears
Called to me in the most spectacular of colours
It was wonderful for the colours
Were like my dreams, red, black and green
I witnessed the three, sometimes as one
Other times as two, again and again
The self eternal and inseparable sons
Of Shakyamuni caressed me with their thoughts
Their music and colour moved about me
In ecstatic rhythm like the peaceful
Waves of the ocean as upon a shore
I read the sentences of silence
Breathed the perfume of never fading flowers
Walked in cherry blossom snow
Heard Hafiz reciting in the night
I saw for the first time
The unfinished likeness of others.

Then one day the Prince
With a sweeping theatrical and
So to speak, allegorical flourish bowed
Called me an exiled angel
Said the time had come to travel
To leave the images of naked heels
Imprinted in the clay
We wondered
Then as if by magic, suddenly the shadows
Of houses, halls, and a church
Emerged like enchanted islands in a fairy tale
The spiritualised forms of civilisation
I was approached by a graceful youth
Draped in cobweb lawn
He was pale, delicately beautiful
Spanish looking, but his name was Alexis Sonyeuse
Whose family it was said was
Related to the French Emperor Napoleon
It was also rumoured that he had
Had a tempestuous affair with the Bishop of Monaco
And once slept with his half brother Julian Apollinaire
When he spoke he was at once original
Delicious, moving, droll and discreetly melancholy
Listening to him was like breathing
The perfume of wondrous flowers
But the scent of datura hung about him
Paralleling his every movement
  Another youth, Edmond also greeted me
He was a young man with aristocratic features
A complexion pink, like a girls
And a bearing at once charmingly gracious
And audaciously insolent
His shirt was strange, the lining
A peculiarly orange colour
A flame coloured taffeta
Like the petticoats of a *****



They looked at me
Furtive glances emanated from their eyes
Training a profound stare upon my person
The two youths took me to 18 Avenue de Friedland
There two boy servants
Adoum and Outhman greeted us
Spinario's lay about its confines
Frezans caressing them
As they touched their feet
A hundred echansons moved
With dazzling delicacy dispensing dreams
In drops from crystalline cups
Here I witnessed the tragic faces of the population
Urnings, cleaning in the midst of anarchist trials
The room a fiery red, stained with light
The caress of forgotten thought
Like the thickness of a sorrow
Musicians playing on broken strings
Crimson ******, who defied the King of Naples
We moved past wretches
Like Virgil, but Danteian
Saw the usurers heard the rustling
Of lute strings the clinking of grey paper
Observed in this Minatare's lair
The purchase of a twelve penny dagger
Liberty of speech meeting its great reckoning
In a little room, Ingram the poltergeist
Of misfortune was there
Dead Scythian, who ever loved you
Loved you as you might, loved you at first sight.

This was a new and exciting world
Whose environs were populated
By the most mysterious and colourful of people
I was introduced by the two youths
To a suicidal young painter who
Was rebelling against his class
He was a somewhat forced intellectual
With an over quixotic passion for equality
Still he was warm, kind and impulsive
Poetry, he made it known
Had opened his mind to the invisible
Beside him was a painting
Exemplifying a new kind of observation
In a style absolutely faultless
Each structure clear, each brush stroke
Falling exactly into place
Inscribed in the top left
Corner were the words
"Quod me nutrit me destruit"
An introduction to himself of a tall youth
Whose eyes possessed a constant
Vagrancy of desire
Who seemed at once, for one so

'Help, help, ' said a man. 'I'm drowning.'
'Hang on, ' said a man from the shore.
'Help, help, ' said the man. 'I'm not clowning.'
'Yes, I know, I heard you before.
Be patient dear man who is drowning,
You, see I've got a disease.
I'm waiting for a Doctor J. Browning.
So do be patient please.'
'How long, ' said the man who was drowning. 'Will it take for the Doc to arrive? '
'Not very long, ' said the man with the disease. 'Till then try staying alive.'
'Very well, ' said the man who was drowning. 'I'll try and stay afloat.
By reciting the poems of Browning
And other things he wrote.'
'Help, help, ' said the man with the disease, 'I suddenly feel quite ill.'
'Keep calm.' said the man who was drowning, ' Breathe deeply and lie quite still.'
'Oh dear, ' said the man with the awful disease. 'I think I'm going to die.'
'Farewell, ' said the man who was drowning.
Said the man with the disease, 'goodbye.'
So the man who was drowning, drownded
And the man with the disease past away.
But apart from that,
And a fire in my flat,
It's been a very nice day.

Let me tell you what society will tell you:
Increases your chances of getting a job,
Provides you an opportunity to be successful,
Be a lot less stressful,
Education is the key.

Now let me tell you something your parents will tell you:
Make me proud,
Increases your chances of getting a job,
Provides you an opportunity to be successful,
Your life will be a lot less stressful,
Education is the key.

Now let's look at the statistics,
Steve Jobs - net worth seven billion R.I.P,
Richard Branson - net worth four point two billion,
Oprah Winfrey - two point seven billion,
Mark Zuckerberg, Henry Ford, Steven Spielberg, Bill Gates
Now here comes the Coup de grâce,
Looking at these individuals, what's your conclusion?
Neither of them in being successful,
Ever graduated from a higher learning institution.

Now some of you may be like,
Money is only the medium by which we measure worldly success,
And some of you even have the nerve to say
"I don't do it for the money."
So what you studying for?
To work for a charity?
Need more clarity?

Let's look at the statistics:
Jesus,
Muhammed,
Socrates,
Malcolm X,
Mother Teresa,
Spielberg,
Shakespeare,
Beethoven,
Jesse Owens,
Muhammad Ali,
Sean Carter,
Michael Jeffrey Jordan,
Michael Joseph Jackson.
Were either of these people unsuccessful... or... uneducated?

All I'm saying is that,
If there was a family tree hard work and education would be related,
But school would probably be a distant cousin,
Because if education is the key,
School is the lock,
Because it rarely ever develops your mind to the point where it can perceive red as green and continue to go when someone else said stop.
Because as long as you follow the rules and pass exams your cool,
But are you aware that examiners have a checklist,
And if your answer is something outside the box then the automatic response is a cross,
And then they claim that school expands your horizons and your visions,
Well tell that to Malcolm X who dropped out of school and is world renowned for what he learn in a prison.

Proverbs 17:16
It does a fool no good to spend money on an education,
Why?
Because he has no common sense.
George Bush. Need I say more?
Education is about inspiring one's mind,
Not just filling their head,
And take this from me because I'm an 'Educated' man myself,
Who only came to this realization after countless nights in the library,
With a can of red bull keeping me awake till morning,
Another can in the morning,
Falling asleep between piles of books that probably equates to the same amount I spent on my rent,
Memorize equations, facts and dates,
Write down to the letter,
Half of which I would never remember,
And half of which I would forget straight after the exam,
Before the start of the next semester,
Asking anyone if they had notes for the last lecture.
I often found myself running to class,
Just so I could find a spot on which I could rest my head and just sleep without making a scene,
Ironic because that's the only time I ever spent in university chasing my dreams.
And then after nights with a dead-mind,
I'd den find myself in a queue of half-awake students, zombies,
Waiting to hand in an assignment,
Maybe that's why they call it a deadline.
And then after three years of mental suppression,
And frustration,
My "Proud Mother" didn't even turn up to my graduation.

Now, I'm not saying that school is evil and there's nothing to gain,
All I'm saying is: understand your morals and re-assess your aims,
If you want a job working for someone else then help yourself,
But then that would be a contradiction because you wouldn't really be helping yourself,
You'd be helping somebody else,
There's a saying that is: if you don't build your dreams, someone else will hire you to help build theirs.

Redefine how you view education,
Understand it's true meaning,
Education is not just about regurgitating facts from a book,
Or someone else's opinion on a subject to pass an exam,
Look at it.
Picasso was educated at creating art,
Shakespeare was educated in the art of all that was written,
Colonel Harland Sanders was educated in the art of creating Ken Tucky Fried Chicken.

I once saw David Beckham take a free kick,
I watched as the side of his Adidas-sponsored boot hit the patent leather of the ball at an angle,
Which caused it to travel towards the skies as though it was destined for the heavens,
And then as it reached the peek of it's momentum,
As though it changed it's mind,
It switched directions.
I watched as the goalkeeper froze,
As though reciting to himself the laws of physics,
And as though his brain was negotiating with his eyes,
That was indeed witnessing the spectacle that was the leather swan that was swooping towards it,
And then reacted,
Though only a fraction of a millisecond too late,
And before the net of the goal,
Embraced the Fifa-Sponsored ball as though it was the prodigal son returning home,
And the country, that I live in, Erupted into cheers,
I looked at the play and thought,
****,
Looking at David Beckham,
There's more than one way in this world to be,

An educated man.

Peace.

What poem will you wear, when first we meet?

How will I recognition-you,
when you transverse my land?
Unknown our faces, our voices,
Only silent words electronic exchanged

Will lantern, it be: one, if by land, two, if by sea?
Will your ID badge, passport stamped and state,
Your chest bear a witness-sign?

The Arrivals Board flashes:
                    une poétesse est arrivé
                    eine Dichterin ist angekomme
                    a poetess has arrived
                    una poetisa ha llegado

Will there be a haiku in your hair,
A limerick exposed by raucous grin,
Or just ten words
allotted for your entire visit?

Desperate to locate
Urgent to sensate
Matters I take
Into two cupped hands,
On the shoeshine stand
Climb and recite-shout

Know me by my words,
Know me by the lilt lyrical
Of my American accented,
Canadian Tongue of my mother

Know me by my words,
Carved by time on my forehead,
Poetry is the blood of this fool's soul,
Hear me, find me, look upon me slamming

Poems are the thorns in my palms,
See me crucified, bleeding stanzas
Upon my shoeshine stand cross
Recitation resuscitation welcoming:

Benedicting Gloria, Gloria, Gloria

But if this should fail your attention to secure,
Or the TSA unappreciate my second coming,
Look for the crowd gathered round,
A man of moderate height, in a tall hat,
Beard scraggly, looking sorrowful
Reciting the Gettysburg Address

Either way,
Should be easy peasy to find me,
Grab your bag, off to short-term parking

This is how an Americana poet meets n' greets
Arriving poetess from a foreign land

Is there any other way?
------------------------------
Postscipt
Alas, five years on and I know in my heart
that you are not coming...

“leave at your own chosen speed”

always,
Dylan inserts a phrase that haunts,
indestructible permafrost,
played in slow and ever slower reverb all life long,
for it’s intuitive and you recognize it too well
as the best companion to the sour ending of another love affair

(but! this one differs; called love yourself)

the sad of a dying love, remembering the steady drift away,
capped by a casual remark that doesn’t sting but
cuts a Y on your chest, a lover’s coroner courtesy,
the bad humours permitted to at long last healthy escape

you’re staggered but say nothing for
speed
is a changeable elf, a mischievous devil,
requiring constant monitoring cause you moving,
but the speed limit alway a reflection of the road you’re on

speed is a tag along to show the overall fit still works,
though now far from the obvious and familiar
and the inspiration modifies,
so you retrofit untill the parts are incapable of
bending to new demands, contours unfamiliar, old plans no good

“leave at your own chosen speed”

for I am leaving you as I leave myself,
beaches erode,  lighthouses corrode, the salt cannot be refused,
the earth demands your return as the lease is deemed
non-renewable and the space where the date shall be inserted,
is parcel of the contract and though blank, certain to be fulfilled

the body erodes, the ***** parts corrode,
and this season of the new year^ comes with the usual disclaimer
recited on the tenth day from today

‘who will live, who will die,’^^

taught to you as a young-in, a child who can comprehend
even before manhood arrives, comprehend that life ends,
all good things and it ain’t no use, born compromised, but
“don’t think twice, it’s alright”

the slate you have written overdue for a prudent clean wet erasure,
so you begin to leave at your own chosen speed,
which is kind of nice, even cool, organizing your papers,
write with contented softness that so long eluded,
now come easy heady peasy

after a life of reciting poetry, good bad and always too long,
the pressure is on and off, side by side, even a dimming bulb
sheds some light, revealing what yet needs revealing

that Day of Atonement annual visitor,^^^ he/she of impish humors,
makes Pandora play a new station,
‘dimming of the day,’
reminder that it gave you a piece of an unowned heart to hold,
leased temporarily but the temp is roaring,
who, boo hoo, for you?

life and love is all about leaving,
the pen in penitent gone dry, no refills in this new world,
wish that **** rooster would stop crowing at
the break of sundown,^^^^  when I'll be gone
I'll be travelling on, for when the new day begins,
that’s my own signature personal gravestone marker,
the sundown poet
------------------------------------------------------------­-------



~the first day of the new year on the Jewish calendar
  Mon, 10 September 2018 =  1st of Tishrei, 5779

  Rosh Hashana 5779

His Funeral was today.  Well, his wake rather.  It was in his old colonial home on Elm Street, a bought of irony that Paolo would never get.  Anyway, it was an odd set up at his house. Family and friends downstairs in the living room, acquaintances and honorable mentions meandering through the hallways clearly more interested in the intricate little floral patterns that adorned the wallpaper than how his family was holding up.  The company of the house was split, everyone either legitimately full of sorrow, or completely full of ****.  In everyone’s grasp either handkerchiefs or hand grenades it was as if the invitation read “Come see it to believe it!” In the study across the hall a small memorial was set up.  Big cards, tons of photos, some flowers, anyone who actually cared stayed there and stared at his once happy face, who knew what it looks like now.  
He had died of some sort of overdose, one that destroyed his heart, so he would have looked fine in an open casket.  The doctors say it was *******.  I don’t believe them.  Paolo had his fun in college, ***, *****, sure, but coke?  There’s no way.    The services weren’t to take place for another two hours, so his family rolled him onto the second floor balcony.  It was actually his dad’s decision, something about a “disgrace” and not wanting to look at his face.
Apparently his mom had felt bad letting her dead son chill on the porch for a few hours, so she rolled him across the hallway to his own room him and kind of laid him out on the bed, as if letting her baby boy take his eternal sleep where he’d have had most of his shorter ones.  
Picturing him lying up there was the first negative connotation I ever had with the image of him on that bed.  He had that kind of headboard that when we started getting at it the bed would hit the wall with each rhythmic movement.  Steady and almost tribal as our bodies danced to the ever increasing beat of a talking drum.  Our clothes off and our skin glazed with sweat it was like my own personal method for getting high. Now don’t get the impression that our relationship was based purely on a physical connection, we’d been dating for three and a half years, the love was there all right.  
We had met in the strangest of ways, through a mutual friend that I was kind of, almost, sort of, but not really having a “thing” with, you know?  Cisco was his name.  So we were together one day and he, being the adorable spaz that he was, had forgotten that his own birthday party was that same night.  He asked if I didn’t mind tagging along, it was a celebration for him and two friends whose birthdays followed his in sequence.  
This had been going on for several weeks, and I know we weren’t dating but I still had a feigning interest in the guy.  So we arrive to this girl, Cristina’s, house and I noticed this other boy almost immediately.  In a backwards cap and pair of boot cut jeans he was jumping around, tossing his arms, right in the middle of reciting some hilarious anecdote to any of his friends who hadn’t heard it yet; even those who had seemed riveted.  He was so full of charisma and with such assurance.  Besides that he was kind of cute so, though pathetically, I tried flirting with him for the rest of the night; he didn’t really catch on.  We left that night without having exchanged more than ten words between each other, I thought I’d never see him again, turns out I was wrong.  
“Broadway CAREols.  Show others that you care by enjoying a night of with your favorite blend of Christmas ditties and Broadway biddies” And before you ask, Yes, I did come up with that title, I think it was great and it was at the top of each flyer in big red and green letters and if you asked me “If you could do it again…” I would do it the same each and every time don’t judge me.
It was a show I had to direct for a community service project and of all people he played the piano for my show.  Only me and several other girls made up the cast, and I knew how easy it was to mistake a positive attitude for flirtation when it comes from a handsome young man.  He ran the music over three or four times individually with each cast member before the night of the show, but when Paolo and I worked that night he stopped me and just sang. For me.  
Each night after rehearsal I had to give him a ride home, I was a year older and thus had my license a year sooner.  I’d never mind allowing myself more time to bask in the glow of his perfectly understated confidence, so I was happy to oblige.  Technically Connecticut state imposed a law forbidding new drivers under the age of 18 to be on the roads past 11 at night.  My mom, being a government employee, really stressed this one.  His house was a solid ten minutes drive from our rehearsal spot, and my mom often warned me to allow myself enough time to get back home before 11.  What started as me beginning to drive faster and faster during the trip home ended as a routine each night, where I would finally allow him to step out of my car just as the clock read 11:00 PM.  
Our first kiss was in that car, my first uncontrollable breakdown was in the car, hell the first time he told me he loved me was in that car…right at the lip of the driveway.  I learned to ride my brakes perfectly to the point where I could park just beyond the edge of the sidewalk yet just before the point where the porch light would flash on, reminding his mother that his son is out past ten on a school night.  It was so warm.  I’ll never forget the cadence of his laughter as it trailed off, seamlessly merging with that next statement “Anna, I love you”.  I could have sworn the porch light went on.  

Now I know it may seem like I don’t care for his being dead right now, but the thing is, I did something.  I did something really bad.

You see, I had mentioned that he was up in his room, right?  Still, stiff, simply waiting to be brought down in a few hours as the catalyst to another round of tears.  Now don’t get me wrong, I did my share of crying the night before.  He’d been in the hospital for only a few days and when they told us he was dead…God, he was just so young, two years into college, the friend you have who was chasing his dreams down with a brand new pair of sneakers.  That kid the whole town knew because of the multitude of silly town functions he attended.  He would always insist.  Every other weekend was one silly thing or another “Oh you’re gonna love this.  Two words – ‘Poetry showdown’.  If you can’t take the heat, don’t stay in the kitchen”
The day of the funeral I just had to see him.  I snuck up the two floors to his room on the third floor.  As I neared his door at the top of that final flight of stairs each creak of the floorboard seemed to resonate through the house, followed by the hollow silence of my stillness.  I paused with each step as if stepping in larger spans of time would make what I was doing seem less suspicious, should someone hear me.  Upon touching his doorknob I felt an immediate chill. I couldn’t tell whether it was some ghostly feeling of being in the presence of a dead person, or the fact that the thermostat had been turned down to keep his body prime for viewing.
I held my breath as I opened the door, and blinked a couple times when I saw him.  He was wearing what everyone else was in downstairs, black tuxedo and a dark tie.  I know he would have scowled had he known he was going to be buried in a constricting penguin suit.  We had a conversation about it, you know?  Out on Academy Hill, right in the middle of a picnic. We were in enough shade that his transition lenses were only half tinted, and when he sat up, it was abruptly.  Pushing my head off his chest he kind of leaned in to the cemetery in the distance and pointed out how sad it is that no one really ever gets the chance to choose how they want to spend the rest of eternity dressed in.  He would have preferred his puma sneakers, still white after seven months, his striped green and blue socks, his only pair of ripped designer jeans and that express shirt he loved so much because it showed off his natural physique.  
I moved closer, inching toward him at first, then quicker as I broke through a place where I just relaxed, and for a moment he wasn’t dead.  For a moment he was just sleeping, all ready in his fancy get up simply waiting for me to wake him up.  I found myself sitting next to him, my eyes cast downward, half expecting his gaze to meet mine, and while stroking his hair I got an idea.  It happened quickly, and I kind of have a problem with acting upon my impulses, it’s something he used to criticize me on that and I never really improved.  Without thinking I threw open his drawer and pulled out what I knew he’d have wanted to be dressed in, should he have gotten the chance to create a will concerning his death-wear.  As I pulled of his starchy shirt my hand brushed against his chest, chilled as the room was, eerie as nothing else.  I finally got him down past his pants and saw, of all abominations, that he was outfitted in a fresh pair of tighty whities.  God, it’s as if the funeral home was asking to be haunted by his tormented soul.  I found his single pair of silk boxers and reassembled him in the way I knew he’d have wanted to be.
So great, now everyone will think I’m a loon for having desecrated his body.  Well what do they know; I’m the only one who ever really knew him! But how the hell would I explain it to his parents when the pallbearers march in and there he is, laying face up in his street clothes?  
This wasn’t right.  He didn’t belong here, he needed to be somewhere comfortable, someplace he enjoyed, not sitting upstairs in a suit with the lights off and the air blasting.  He hated the cold!  Certainly he would have hated a hundred people staring at his dead and lifeless shell, and he would, without a doubt, hate being six feet under, pushing daises at the Nichols Road cemetery.
I wrapped my arms around him, and as the building adrenaline made my breaths deepen I inhaled several moments of ecstasy off his clothes that still clung to his musty scent.  I lowered him gently to the floor and took care as I dragged him across the carpet to his door.  After fumbling, for what felt like several minutes, on his door handle I got him onto the awning introducing the stairs.  I even made it down the first flight of stairs without freezing up at the tiniest creak when I heard someone coming my way.  ******, they must need to use the bathroom, why couldn’t they just use the one downstairs like any normal person?  Without hesitation I throw open up the window near bottom of the stairs, heaving myself and him, sending us tumbling onto the garage roof.  Ignoring my probable bruises I spring up and slam the window behind me while taking special care to hide us both as far away from the bathroom window as possible.
Sitting up there, my heart racing, I felt his hand in mine and it was probably because my palms had gone clammy but I swear for a span of time he was alive again.  I closed my eyes and felt the breeze in my hair and was transported to a place where I spent a single moment in each day we ever shared.  Each beach side sandcastle, each afternoon spent cloud gazing, those same afternoons turning into evenings of star gazing, each and every night spent utterly and irrevocably lost with this silly boy that chose to love me.  
I was torn from my oasis as I heard the bathroom’s occupant exit and continue downstairs.   Knowing that my van was parked on the other side of the street I pushed his body as close to the edge of the roof as I could without his falling off and let him be. I hopped back inside and ran downstairs, but not before flying through the doors of the memorial and interrupting his mothers eulogy.  In an act of sheer brilliance I mustered a few tears and tore out the back door.  Everyone figured I was just so taken away by his death that I couldn’t stand to be there anymore.  Who knew anxiety could be mistook for remorse so easily?
I ran down the driveway, losing the grace I had composed in my dress in high heels the moment I slammed that door.  I jumped into Emmet, my van, because only crazy people drive around in un-named vehicles.  
I pulled out of my spot, nearly ruining the paint job on both my and his Uncle Ed’s car.  I flew my trunk door open and set the third row down, the general idea being his landing securely in my back seat.  I reversed up the driveway with the precision of a surgeon and the speed of a leopard right back to the edge of the garage where I had tossed his body.  I jumped out of my car nearly forgetting to put it into park before I shut off the engine.  I barely got halfway around my car before becoming transfixed on his hand, hanging off the gutter as if reaching for mine to grab hold and pull him to sweet salvation.  I jumped up a few times, unsuccessfully before I took off my shoes and got a good running start.  I flew up, grabbed his arm and ****** towards the car in a sideways downward motion.  He nearly cracked his head on the pavement coming down, he would have too if it wasn’t for my body breaking his fall.  I got up, too distracted by the sheer volume of my own heart to realize the pain I felt.  I shoved him into my back seat, slammed the trunk, stumbled into the car, stuck it in reverse and stepped on gas without even putting my shoes back on.

I told you I had done something bad.

i've come here to commit the quivering weak,
feeding scurrying beasts more reeking fodder
sentimental flesh no match for their razor sharp teeth
banging *** lids, stomping feet
hoping that rats near, feasting
on scraps and detritus will scatter amid bluster
before eyes dare to open - perhaps catch sight of things
that might scare us
our cans, never closed -
left always ajar, an offering of communion
lest they grow too hungry
gnaw through walls and come inside,
share foie gras with guests I'd hoped to impress
now seated and dining behind;
disgust them in sights of sins best hidden out back in the darkness
and leave fine linens soiled with meals yet digested

his body's been disposed before,
innocent specter resurrected by morning to fog up the mirror
reciting novenas as beads of his rosary roll in counts down its surface
never suspecting fate that awaits as night falls once more
daytime is easier, drowning sound
from his voice in symphonies of piano and strings
Mozart's or Mahler's  -
other things of distraction...
that aren't there to hide in when
sun fades and sleep, again, tries to invade
his figure repudiated, extracted
from a psyche dissected years ago, like a tumor threatening to grow
swallow the Now from which time's made.
in pretense of conversion for the moment,  i take his hand and lead him -
more fresh meat for the rodents
(even saints sometimes lie when they don't like the answers - they atone deception later)
he still cries when I leave him alone at the altar

once
a shaman shaking dried heads tied to a stick with palm leaves
promised mysterious potions that would strengthen the weak
reciting magical incantations expected to exorcise spirits within
for all those who believed
practicing his science of faith or faith in his science
for clients lined up at the door,
seeking doses of hope that he sold them -  returning each week for some more
but for those apostate, left to stare in the glare of florescent
humors never found balance in bloodletting
lancet nor leaches
the weakness of faithless was in never tasting the cure
or trusting tears could ever be wiped away by ice picks
he ****** deep in eye sockets, the sweet lies he told us
holes left in the soul could never filled by blue pills -
they couldn't reach there

missionaries positioned their ways
through that breach,
preaching a new theology requiring surrender
of my reliquary of cherished memories
as precondition for salvation,
discarding polished bones i'd kissed and prayed over:

Her precious pink t-shirt, coil of hair still stuck there,
though having no root it could never be proved
from whom it was groomed,
it was article of faith - who could dare question it;

the used ticket stub with date imprinted
indicating temporal evidence that
once something true existed
that i, too, felt part of;

words bound in a covenant sent by saints
in small pieces of lavender-scented mail
though having waited so long
faith in The Coming had wasted
and perfume, long ago, faded to imagination

and so, a soul abandoned all hope of redemption

a red rose rendered in oils
expressing devotion for eternity lost meaning
when it withered
watered by hope, as it was and forgotten;
our castle built on clouds came tumbling to the ground
when we looked up, stared at the sky;
the permanent brilliance of diamonds become mere stones in the garden
when sown from a window on high -
wealth for worms to covet and fight over,
though the fool still knelt to sift soil through his fingers
in search of lost sacrament
finally planting his hope
in the many graves that he'd made
otherwise, for forsaken,
faith is just hope not yet ready to die

then, there's the weak one i'll face in the morning,
likely still worshiping old bones and reciting from memory his ancient liturgy
when i let it, a cacophony of questions
can echo about paths never taken, and why some vows, not others;
and i wonder if there's a heaven for heathens when clocks cease their ticking
off nows that i try to live in

♦   ♦   ♦

She was an earnest devotée.
Her ideals, birthed in Chardonnay
were globally diverse (read: white).
A liberal bark preceded bite.
Her crystal clearer than her vision;
she provoked bemused derision
as she breathed intolerance
toward all who would not dance her dance.
She swooned for distant pagan tribes,
attuned to their exotic vibes –
rapt in multi-culti piety
strangely deaf to her own society,
judged by her as abomination;
unredeemed. The background station
always stuck on N.P.R.
(the soundtrack of her culture war,
Pacifica News and Democracy Nows,
and other progressive holy cows)
Her motherland a shameful mystery:
guilty first, and void of history –
its origins defiled, corrupted…
while she enjoyed uninterrupted
freedom to pursue her whims:
misguided one-world global hymns.
The sisterhood of hu(man) kind
was foremost in her earnest mind –
even should that same sisterhood
be sealed by her well-meaning blood.
Out on a date with global death
she hoped to unify the earth
in solidarity with causes
led by killers, warlord bosses,
thugs she never knew existed
who, if she’d met she’d have resisted.
Her theory landed far from her praxis
spun, by default, on an evil axis.
Hot with zeal she fumed and stormed
quite certain she was well-informed,
at benefits, non-profit functions
rallies, boycotts, left-wing luncheons;
warm with righteous spite for Israel,
aiding and abetting Ishmael
with fellow-travelers, like-minded
similarly hateful, blinded,
rattling sabers, scimitars, axes…
(lunacy never wanes, but waxes
hotter with the passing years
as activists confront their fears).
She finally shilled for the Intifada
(stopping short of reciting Shahada),
reaching out to the terrorist
with righteous raised progressive fist…
offering thus her neck to blade:
collateral to be repaid
by murderers who couldn’t care less
about her open-mindedness.

Yellow is
a high-minded mood
the extravagance of sunlight
to be touched--
before long
by colors of play
___

It is of hair
tendering golden sun
brown pennies for lemonade
__

Yellow is
bumping into the screaming end
of a lit
cigarette
___

Yellow is
dripping from the eaves
onto an empty soup can
___

It is
spindling sparrow song
from highest perch on roof
his pitch can aspire
___

Yellow is
in rattled doorknob
an infant's sweet
voice wanting – in
Reciting menu
above mattress
edges into sleep
two dark eyes
plead
for yellow
waking
Mother into morning--
“juice.... eggs”

Yellow  ___
is
opening a car door
at the shore's
unmistakable!
Smells of life  
warmth and breeze
touching strings
those kites  
of sense
harmonics
above the tone
octaves of excitement
to see to hear to touch to taste
to know
again –

the ocean of my mother
as she calms the waves,
ignores the pouts of us
with stuff to lug out to the beach
the towels, pails and shovels
Picnic basket, cooler
lotion, comic books, her magazines

Mom looks out
She is a good swimmer
Her glasses, dark
Preside  
reflecting beauty –

“Take your sister's hand.”

Yellow are the squeals
Feet thrashing sand
of cannot wait

I remember it like it was yesterday.
We were driving a little too fast,
and the destination didn't matter.
I was just watching you,
Singing the song on the radio,
Reciting every line perfectly,
(me chiming in where I could),
The smile on your face filled my heart with nostalgia.
Because in that moment,
You weren't the guy that you grew up to be,
You were the boy I fell in love with years ago.

I go to that moment whenever I miss you.
Whenever my heart goes numb,
Or worse,
When I can feel every ounce of pain from you not being there.

In that moment,
I was safe.
In that moment,
I knew,
the definition of never-ending.
I knew,
that I would forever be stuck,
In that seat,
In that car,
In that moment,
Watching you.

i can't stop feeling this pounce of melancholy,
and i mean: it's like a lynx pouncing on my chest,
i can't even claim a clinical dimension to it,
it's a sadness that comes on two fronts...
   it's a sadness that i left Poland when i was 8,
and the greater part of my life was spent
using the English language...
         and i find the Anglophone world so devoid
of consistency... all this post-truth
          labelling...
       this throwing of the cartesian maxim the other
way around, the "i am" really does
   predated the "i think" scenario on the hopes
of asking for a genesis, a (0, 0) / (ο, ω) coordinate
beginning... yes, i know more of a dougnut
   and less the orbit of a planet in the latter case...
     i can't believe i'm getting this technical -
but it sometimes happens, you know?
i don't really like it... i'd love to write about less
claustrophobic matters, less constrictive intellectual
matters... and before you shoot me down
by denouncing the crass lack of motivation -
                i am frail in undertaking another "poem",
and i mean that as a way of saying:
              terse narration and no claim to technique,
or at least that's what i know is modern...
           i watch the following list of videos
as a sort of freak-natured lullaby while drinking
Obey the Walrus         I FEEL FANTASTIC
Agamemnon Counterpart       Username 666
Cursed Kleenex Commercial      There is nothing
Performance Olivier de Sagazan 2008  
     The Wyoming Incident        My Dead Great
Grandma’s Coffin in My Own backyard!
K-Fee Car Commercial       Pretty Woman
Fatal Diving Accident        Girl Goes ****** During
Makeup Tutorial       Paris Catacombs Lost Footage
Shaye Saint John – Hand Thing (yes, copy & paste
given the uppercase lettering, i can be lazy
once in a while) -
                          so i do see a lot of potential in
these clips... if you can't dazzle them: might as well
scare them...
                      but i watch them and then write
a native-language poem while listening to
    music accompanying a zbigniew herbert poem
by tadeusz woźniak - and i get all nitty gritty
when using a language i should have forgotten
aged 8... and i type one out and i am brought
to tears with it... and then it vanishes from the html
blank...
             and then a deeper horror sets in,
which Ezra Pound would have liked
and it merely means: ten quotes by Horace,
a video, with only 230 views on youtube...
                    no one would dare say carpe diem
like a cliche after seeing this video...
             but still the sadness persists...
and i can't make it systematic, not systematic in
the sense that it might appeal to the zeitgeist of:
the January blues, or... i need the pharmacological
rainbow...
        i have a miniature vineyard... enough for
35 litres of wine... and i make the wine myself...
i pick the grapes...
i crush them, i buy the yeast, i melt the sugar until
i get runny sugar-thick water,
   and you know? out of the 5 litre holders for it...
i get about 10 pristine bottles of wine,
roughly in the range of 15% a pop...
                   from 35 litres i get about 10 pristine bottles
of wine... quality-wise: the stuff you'd expect to
buy in a shopping market...
       and that's the sad part...
it bothers me that i've waited for long for the wine,
i might have mentioned it a few months back that
i do actually make my own wine... but given the addiction
it's a product that could only last for something
worth celebrating...
                     these days people speak of a marathon's
worth of abstinance from the stuff for a month...
    which is a bit sad, given that if people ventured
into producing their own alcohol, they'd have
a Dionysian month of binging on it... and then having
11 months being sober... until the natural cycle comes
back, like the rare event of a comet...
    i'm sad i lost a few poems on the way...
but i'm also sad that the drinking should begin by spring
and that i'm ****** already...
                  that i'm still buying whiskey,
and when i do actually drink that one bottle of clouded
wine today, i'll feel a sense of the most minute accomplishment...
   i can't stop facing this industrialisation of
everything... whether it's alcohol, or art...
   or intellectual debate...
   sure, i'll listen to Breitbart for a bit...
then i'll listen in on how we've began mutilating
language... then i'll think of god, and recount
kant's concept: imagine the pangs of despair i felt
reading through the second volume of the critique -
if you do: you'd be surprised by what's involved
in transcendental methodology...
    what could possibly obstruct you in the existence
of: said word... not enlarged in religious practices?
   i am comforted by the fact that kant deals with
god on a non-religious basis...
    religious i mean: worthy of a reciting only one
book a thousand ******* times and building churches...
if god is merely lodged in your mind and allows
for a narrative, who is sane enough to take that
narrative initiative from you, considering the fact
that you're not bound to kneel and read only one
book a thousand times as if that one book held
the sole capacity for your vocab exfoliation and learning
of the alphabet?
     how can you ever be bound to a cognitive detestation
of god? that really must be painful...
considering that thought is so ****** whimsical, frail,
   picky, panicky... give it all you want...
you can't establish a cognitive detestation of god
  on the simple ground that thought is being bombarded
by a 5:1 ratio of the senses versus 1 non-sense -
    which god evidently is: given the numbers of
the good-church going folks... kneeling lunatics i call them...
but the simple fact that you want to do a lobotomy on
yourself with atheism, is a bit like saying
you'll censor the mathematical statement 1 + 1 = 2...
      at least the concept of god is: language exists...
and can i add to that? if a being as such exists:
he wouldn't consist of games... the verbal colliseum
of anagrams and crosswords... language you seize
to be entertaining... it would spell out a clear
format: a x, y, z      vector precision:
    starting from point (0, 0) moving to (1, 1),
  (2, 2)        to ( 5, 5) etc. you'd get a y = x graph...
   not a ******* parabola of nuance and political
chess... or nuanced ***...
                    and is that a.i.?
           well: the french question about man inventing
god because it would be useful is much better said
these days since we we have the capacity to create ourselves...
and given how it looks: i'm going to be a caveman
trapped in a two-dimensional world of the collective
consciousness by the time the true avant-garde in this
medium starts... creating a god became boring...
so many had to recreate himself in the robotic form...
    man is currently needing this exploration...
forget the space project... it's a case of definition...
but i'm still melancholic about the wine...
     i've been waiting to sniff it and feel the sharpness
of the alcohol for a good 3 months...
       and i really wish i could write in my native tongue
so easily as i do in my acquired tongue...
     i'm sad because i'm drinking the whiskey
prior, rather than getting completely sloshed on
what alcoholism looked prior:
    it's that curse of town insomnia and how we don't
celebrate enough of what comes with natural
cycles...
              which means that ontology is dead...
given we've managed to tame the seasons...
  means that any ontological question, based on
the cycle of wine-making, brings us to a more dreary
position than with nietzsche's god is dead...
look here: at least you have something tangible...
   you can't erase god from thinking...
it's the primost a priori essence of every, single man,
it's not an a posteriori fact,
god is there, in that a priori medium like space
and time...
                              and why do people never claim
that god can contain a dualism, primarily because
the herd is encapsulated by a monotheism?
              if god could ever be an a posteriori you'd
be forced to experience some sort of revelation,
and later encounter the evil contained within the concept's
dualism, so in actual sense: be considered mad:
for not making certain choices in life and wishing to
reach for the pulpit... mind you: i had such an experience...
and my life didn't become better for it...
     evidently i should have pressed harder for
the ontological argument of: marrying the girl...
but then the same ontological argument came back
to me when i started making wine...
                      meaning i could produce alcohol
on an industrial level... and forget any ritualism involved
in consuming it prior... since i would only be
left with an addictive socio-pathological use of the
once celebrated, collective engagement by waiting for
autumn to ferment and keep me warm through
the winter... which i suppose is when all the Greeks
were kept together... drinking and ******* rather
than bother to exploit natural resources like gas and oil...
but hey! that's just me...
         but there's a sadness behind this...
start making your own wine and you'll see it...
which is to say: i don't know whether i'd have lived
a happy life with my russian fiance...
             i have only a quantum idealism to mind
expressed by fanciying myself counter to the history
i'm writing right now...
    so why is god as a priori bound as time and space?
well... why would you otherwise get so many eager
atheist gobs to reach for an argument?
                  i find that the most authentic atheists are
murderers... why? they have transcended
    the cognitive debility of an atheistic argument...
      i'll prove god does not exist by "thinking" about it...
my my: what a lovely congregation you have there!
      i'm not even trying to be clever here...
  well... there's an antidote to this scenario...
               so he's permanently lodged in our a priori
  "consciousness" (might as well do away with psychiatry
******* about with its three-layer cake of
con- subcon- and uncon-) -
                   and he's not lodged in our a posteriori
"consciousness" - i hate becoming the fiddler on the roof -
because what then? experiencing the omniniscence
and the omnipotency and whatever other trait that ******
thing does, would translate as what?
     at best a monotheism... or a place where people concentrate
in numbers... not necessarily worths of being beyond
the estimates concerning their congregation...
            it's dangerous to claim a god in the a posteriori
realm...
                that's why the safest place to keep him is in
the a priori realm... where all the big things happen,
or don't happen, depending whether you're from New York
or Hiroshima...
                    and following from kant's distinction
in transcendental methodology concerning time and space...
and god...
                 it dawned on me that he did see a distinction
between mathematical language and the lingua of
  doodling and anagrams and all those poetic jives that
give no precision...
    if time... then space...
                    if god...            then nothing...
and how are dual in the a priori realm...
       only that with regards to time and space
i'm more likely to throw a 1, or a 2 into conceptualising
these things, than i am to throw an a, or a b into it...
    algebra is secondary in talking about these two mediums...
why? because i'll get a definite rationalisation of
time and space... if i tell you the fastest man on earth
can run 100m in under 10secs...
                       if i throw in x y z into this: i might as well
end this whole narrative with: oi! Zeno! give us
that Achilles joke!
                when i mean god i mean: medium of
communication... that's not necessarily a democratic
omni-versed plateau of sponging everything every human
has to say...
       but i primarily throw 1, 2, 3... 4, 5... 8, 9 and 0
into the a priori conceptualisation of time and space...
  but if i do the same when i throw in the other symbols
into the a priori conceptualisation of god and nothing -
sure, mathematical symbols can be phonetic encoding,
as one, two, three, four... five, six...
          but apply them as one two three four to time and space
and there's no way to rationalise time and space,
because time and space is met with a nonsense
in dealing with a phonetic encoding of 1 (as one) -
due to the vacuum of space... and the timelessness of
    time as a ref. point fixated upon... let's just leave
it with the vacuum of space... 2 overpowers two (because
of to and too), 3 overpowers three (because of free)...
4 overpowers four (because of for)... not only that:
but they're more about photographic memory
and visual conceptualisation ease - no one really bothers
   a - z to be anything more than: what they actually
are as phonetically: awaiting pronunciation.
sure... letter can become mystical in a sense of:
   y looks like a tree (other than pine),
           H is a rugby goal...
                               w is a cosine graph...
                    y is a serpent's tongue...
              but that's mysticism and that's also: fair enough!
what bugs me is the opposite of the a priori
magnetism... as opposed to space and time...
god and nothing...
     well... if i throw 1 and 0 into a priori thinking
about working time and space...
  i'll get, say: 365 days in a calendar year...
               or that the acceleration of earth if 9.8 metres
per seconds squared... (cubic gravity evidently
becomes a bit pointless -
                                        imagine it:
   9.8m/s(superscript)3...   or 9.8m(superscript)2/s...
or whatever variation...
no wonder the chemists got the ****-end of the stick
when they were told they weren't allowed into
the heaven of superscript... but sent to the subscript hell
of writing dwom oxygen... ah shame: Faust! i'm coming!)...
yes... but throw 1 - 0 into the a priori
"conceptualisation" opposite of time and space,
i.e. god and nothing... the best answer you can get
is matthew chapter 1 verse 8... or SIX SIX SIX!  boogie man!
well... not... you throw in the symbols α - ω
into the a priori "conceptualisation" of god & nothing
and you get, e.g.: δατυμ -
which basically means: it can't be meaningless -
       otherwise we'd be stuck with animalistic intuition
and intelligence, overloaded with sensual intelligence
and not marred by the murk of thought...
  how this devolution happened is beyond me...
  no amount of wit makes up for the sensual sharpness of
a monkey shouting at a congregation: spy! snake!
and all with the bare minumum of phonetic distinction...
    thus α - ω are slightly meaningless when it comes
to time and space, i know these symbols to enter
this a priori venture, but we're still primarily talking
about using 1 - 0 symbols to get at the knitting-work...
just like in verse, i say of a crossword
    sound of Valhalla (4),
                 and you say: 1 across... horn!
                              and then we get the pretty picture.
3a.m.
       and the wine ritual is about to begin...
      

“Two teaspoons of coffee, one teaspoon of sugar, and pour it right before it boils down”, my mother said smelling the coffee she is cooking to perfection. I stand there and wonder what scent Hamlet was smelling when he said “Something’s rotten in the state of Denmark”, I’m guessing it’s the same scent colonizing this house. I look at the ***** ceiling and start sniffing the air. My mother looks at me and says “your nose is nearing the skyline, keep it where your feet are. Men don’t like prideful women”.

I looked around trying to see what smelled so repulsive. My grandmother lit incense, my sister baked a fresh orange cake for celebration, my other sister splashed a few drops of the musk that the Arab man gifted us all over the house, and father held a stack of 500 Riyal banknotes to his nose.  

The rich Arab that knocked on our door last week asking if we have an extra womb for sale is visiting again today. My mother prepared a hot bath for me an hour ago; she said I have to smell like freshly uprooted Baladi roses, so I soaked in the bathtub trying to figure out what is this repulsive scent I am smelling.

Right after I finished my bath I told my mother “something stinks”. Her reply was dragging me to the kitchen where she teaches me how to make coffee. I say “mother, nobody drinks coffee here”, she says “You need to learn how to properly make coffee to serve our sheikh some tonight. Remember, eyes on the ground”. I reply reciting the lesson she just taught me “Keep them where my feet are”.

I hear people in the city overlook what lies beneath their feet; a 16 year old city girl will never know what it means to have to walk 30 kilometers with a broken shoe in order to read one book. I guess farming taught me a thing or two about looking down. I remember reading before that African slaves were shipped to America to primarily work in farms, coffee and sugar farms to be exact. I realize now what this stink is. I look at my mother and tell her “I will not marry him. This ring reeks of slavery”. She looks at me in astonishment, and I reply reciting the lesson she just taught me “and pour it right before it boils down”.

She tends her cactus garden,
beads of perspiration,
works with a maniacal absorption.

One of many visitors she receives
yet looking at each other's eyes
dawned this quick realization;
similar maniacal obsession and passion.

A tornado she was, self created,
in her swirl uprooted
many huge trees, even tombstones
by the sheer force unleashed,
with her poetic flourish.

Love of a crazy woman
with effervescent creative  surge,
is a magical portion
brewed by a witch ,
in her forbidden rituals, night after dark night.

Injured by conjugal lust, unrequited
prompted to walk the garden path
holding hands of lovers, one after the other,
who took her to wilderness, deeper and deeper
and at the end to a blind alley,
life was a tribal dance,
from where return was impossible.
She never had to apologize to her mate,
who for all the world to see, remained  with her
till he went behind the curtain.

Imagine a life, a walk
through a cactus garden,where sharp thorns would nip,
searing pain and bleeding has its moments of exhilaration.
Life pulsated wildly for her on such notions,
(There were many who walked with her for each adventure)

They met, poetry flowed like wine,
she had a rare warmth seen in women of such creative combinations,
she feared nothing, but  her truth made many squirm.
Midnight dances of her and her friends gypsy bunch,
attained such fame.But all ended in a great  betrayal,
she was deep down a naive woman,
craving for love, to immerse in it.

On occasions she would change identities
at will, she was one but many
there wasn't any one like her before or after.
They would walk through the witch's cactus patch,
somnambulists reciting poems,
when they are together, in private,
cactus spine criss- crossed his skin
her nail wrote poems on the back
of the lover of the moment,
each one bled like soldiers in combat.

One monsoon night brought
everything to an end,
the cactus garden was trampled by
big grey wolves, the journey
met with an abrupt end.

What is she, cactus herself,
vampire, witch, lover indefatigable,
with the heart of a lion?
Erotomaniacal  poetic surge,
yet a fantasy in flesh and blood?

**They buried her
in a cactus garden away from town
not even ten people arrived to mourn,
not even all her lovers, had time that afternoon.
Her songs of pain, pierced hearts and they
still shed tears,
cactus garden, it was---
the metaphor perfected by her life and death.

The images I see
Are nothing more than daydreams,
that keep replaying.
Sweet melodies reciting words that will never be said.

All is not what it seems
Because I was an atheist
Long before I realized I was God,
But that was much, much later
Then, at that time, I succumbed
To the lurid but exciting depths
Of freedom, the joy of love and danger
Of searching and of knowledge,
Embracing every moment;
I surrendered to ungovernable impulses
That invoked within my very existence

Still to realise the true extent of this
It's perhaps best to start before the beginning
Before the earth embalmed me
A time when Cyparisse had not
Yet set root in my belly
Nor made sap of my blood
A time when it was possible to speak
To Panza's donkey when I thought of Zanzibar
A time when the vagrancy of my soul
Had not yet embarked
On its erratic itinerary
Plunging me eventually
Into the bright light
Of tainted and squalid reality

Like oscillating libraries, noise oppressed,
Contradictions of dreams
Suddenly I took flight,
With violent wrenches of imagination
In Persia being worshipped
Beneath the moon by Gods;
Caressed by those impetuous charms
A dazzling vision
I thought of death the only sister of charity
Whose dark night has no malevolence;
Black and white, silences that migrated
In sonorous symbolism took control
Shimmering like a painting of a sorrow

Streaked with unashamed colours
A single tear from a promethean candle
I would move to lick the stain of destiny
That pillar inhaling its black perfumes
Like a communicant on his knees.
Exiled in reality, I saw what I had never saw
Or only thought I saw now condemned
To see what has never been seen

Words corralled themselves in my mind
Writhing maggots on a corpse
Wriggling for position waiting to be pronounced
How they flew, taking wings
Hovering for an instant above the page
Hunting out the detritus of man
To feast upon the putrid flesh of misery
I too went searching
For my ancient feast; for Zanzibar

However hideous pages
From the note book of the ******
Imprisoned the words, stampeded the search
Scattering it in many directions
Shattering blue-white eyes
A castrated country, century, impotent, impure
Like politics, the ******* that can be purchased by coin
Like so much bread in the market,
A thousand profanities became the popular song
But silence is the real language of the fool

For he alone bears witness to what he feels
Misfortunes not understood, weeping the popular ballad
Morality and law, parades of red robed Judges
Carcasses, a circus for carrion crows
Yet like a cannibal the dead were still buried in my belly
The gloss of reason hiding madness
Like so many veneered fronts in a proud precinct

Paraded in full view, silence is demanded and got
The words wither, fake time continues,
To count the unrelieved falsehood the chimera of life;
Reason did not imprison me
My life being not heavy enough
Was allowed to take flight
To float above the reasoned realm
Revelations of the truth realised only by detachment
Devoured my mind increased my errorless purpose
The search for Zanzibar

Accepted values; valued only;
Because of this acceptance
Are accepted as value
Thus accepted in silence
The fools resign themselves
To a false reality
One that nails them to a poisoned cross

In the gardens of the dead
Like rowed tulips that
Gardeners know how to match
I found myself, among those who had gone
Remembered yet forgotten
Whose edifice unlike their lives
Reached not upwards but down.
I smelt the scent of unknown things
The perfumes of eternity that histories bind;
Intensity, a murmur; gurgle, as in a child
Yet extreme its aberrations
Like celluloid hand that
Had never known toil
Or wiped sweat from a brow
Laughed yet grimaced
Its smile a crimson smear
The sorrow that it felt
A burnished hand upon its nakedness
To see its enshrouded presence in such a garden
One well stocked and growing
Caressed my being with its glee
To turn white feel the touch
Of its venomous fingers upon my flesh;
Its purpose, to prevent any search for Zanzibar

The stench of death
Then cast its' new
Yet antediluvian gaze
Upon its purpose
Odour of grave
Faraway nonexistent
Yet it is perfume to those
Who feast upon its scent
Moistures mingling with the air
Its common purpose
Floating like un-forgiveness
Its atmosphere ozone sans holes
Its meaning ever present
Its' outcome to halt
The search for Zanzibar

And so the stencils of oriental scribes
Like black shadows overpowered my reason
Floating high above, adrift on an expanse of darkness
However, presently that azure ink
Raised its curtain before my very eyes
Revealing the stage, the illuminated stage
On which I was to set my drama
Where the phantoms of my imagination
Would enact their mysterious mysteries;
A poetic alchemy

Then a golden spark of pure
Nocturnal light blinded me
In an instant I saw, observed
The sun drown in its deathly sea
Its healing wings spread
Fear would see it rise again
Still searching for that fatal flaw, happiness
How many lives do I need?
How many existences will it take?
Incarnations a hundred times
Searching for Zanzibar.
Awakening to continue to
Live the saddest of my dreams

Furtive footsteps through Cimmerian landscapes
Ah such enchantment, do you understand?
Ah such a charm, listen to its undying echo
Feel its charge, that siren call
Cosmic summons, the vagrancy of mind
That caresses the imagination
Whose tender touch can place you
At the apex of the universe
Can lead to Zanzibar.


And so the subtle and foolish tortures
Inflicted upon me by I, my quest began
One that would ascertain, take centre stage
Make an unheard appearance of a philosophy
That, I am everyone and everyone else is me
Eventually at some point
In time and space we are all one
All linked, for we are condemned
Yes condemned to live these lives
This is why the dead have dreams
Dreams about the tyrants and demons
Of other lives of who they were;
Who they have yet to become.
Nourished on half truths,
Forever pulling at the thread
The rotted rags of reason
Those tattered twines
Unravelling the stitching of reality
Of hallucinations, empty illusions
And tarnished dreams create a constant struggle


Therefore for every conscious thing
That happens in the world
There must be a responding reverberation
Within the human soul
Let us put a halt to the calls
For the death of imagination
And demands for imagination to be silent
Such absurdities
For imagination is the true door to reality
For only in imagination
Can there be a bearable act
Of self examination
It is memory that hurts
More than the imagination
Always prefer the imaginary to the real
Imagination is neither an exit
From our nightmares nor
An escape from reality
But the place we are all trying to get to,
Zanzibar its shared images
Its story, its own life a new reality.


Mysteriously in the midst of unknown
Mazagran landscapes I feel
The full impact of fleeting visions
Without the limitations of space or time
Feel the act of experiencing their reality
This requires no explanation, no proof
Either together or separate
Because simply they are,
Judgement, condemnation
Punishments are gone
There is no cleansing a world
Without consciousness
Landscape devoid of people
'La Lune' growling in the orchard of the sea
Calypso again one or ten
Eucharis, tempest or temptress
Take both the meaning and the experience
Taste the tear drops of the sun
Telemachus searching, searching
Zanzibar

The idol, tentacles undulating
Vibrations of collective knowledge
The blank face, featureless
Touching around the domain of Atlas
Speaking in a thousand different tongues
Moving but still, blocks my path
Disturbs the line of imagination
Makes reality quiver
Dream flowers sway in its cosmic wind.
Yet Alhazers' iridescent arch allows
The steerage of my passage
Without pious pilgrimages to empty silences that
Contain an eternity of tears
Who graciously offers coverage
For the echo of footsteps
Allowing the magic moments to come


Robbed of sunlight, artificial night shines
Its deception attempting to secure knowledge
Of a future unknown, winning only it's unattainably
Offering instead knowledge of the past
Master of silence, offers only knowledge
Of invaded consciousness
Bedlam of paradise where Eros and Pan
In congress sleep, close at Zanzibar.


Lifeless beauty that lives everlasting
Time that reason cannot change, only help.
O enchanted torture you have stolen
The taste from my mouth
Masked I against the spectre of reality
Proclaimed the age of 'hasashin'
The creator of recollections, maker of memories
Possessor of impulse giver of echo
That rings in the ear
Cloud cast its surroccoian shadow
Air tinged with the aftermath of fire
Floating in an Asian wind, so subtle
Like a breath suddenly the sound of song
Of dance rents the solitude
Silence is slashed like a canvass screen
Happiness pours forth unconfined
Unfettered, both faces of Kandinsky as one
I extinguish the light, turn to the wall
Gazing upon its Janis face
My eyes behold the giver of pleasure.

Then I found myself in an extraordinary place
Whose skies where made of crystal glass
Water of the enchanted land was blue-grey
Bridges zig-zagged its shimmering domes
I stared as masts and parapets came to life
Its people, musicians sporting
Tangerine and white livery danced
The air filled with the sound of their music
Then as if from nowhere a light hit my eyes
Blinking, this apparition was gone
Can I not always believe what I see
Just because I see what I believe
The inhabitants at once became spectres
Engulfed in thick clouds of smoke and sulphur
Erinyies roamed, inflicting madness
A circus of the macabre sped past
Its symbols of death fluttering frantically
Around this false and fragile world
Suggested children, like creatures in an imagination
Were made ready for their rebirth
By the touch of the poets pen
A thousand Cheribino

In another, swirling sonorous scenes
Stormed the citadels of my mind
Marched through my imagination
Mab engulfed the long closed
Cemeteries of my thought allowing me
To see the dreams of others
Like precious pearls prised from their shells
Their visualisation so intense
Joy overcame me at once
Then a swarm of kisses descended upon me
Like a regiment of famished men
Feasting for the first time
I freely gave myself as the main course
In the most beautiful of banquets
In another, yielding to these seductions
I was enraptured by portraits of beautiful young men
Which appeared to be on the point of speaking
They were most mysterious their intrinsic
Charm so beautiful, stimulated desire
Whose assuagement was so pleasurable
That it might be called pure ecstasy
A perfect pleasure which had never before existed
Entirely individual and new

Thus upon the horizons of my mind
Had been shed a mysterious light
In which I now saw everything bathed
I was summoned by the Prince
Knowing dreams have no limits
I obeyed his call
For a long time failing to set
Foot on the shores of reality
Drinking from the wells of magic
While angels danced on grassy slopes
Disturbed by flames
The stars shot out their fragrance

Sweet smelling; blue abyss
On I went to the court, the court of the Prince of
Poets, a visitor to life
There I spat out the bit of liberty
Embraced the Prince
Courtesans mocked me, ridiculed
Laughed and taunted me
Their jibes merely part of
Their own deluded reality, not of mine
They did not serve my purpose
Dressed as they were
In meaningless words
Clothed in phrases of falsehood
They tried to make me compromise
There was fire burning in my eyes
Vivid dreams were eating up my mind
They wouldn't let me be
There were dead men lying
By the sides of the road
With daylight in their eyes
I saw villages under the sea
I stood at Galactic central point
Watched the earth burn
They did not know
The way to Zanzibar
Could the Prince show me?

However each morning I awoke
I found myself in a purgatorial fog
I roamed lost the alternative harbour
For my soul still distant
The Prince, I discovered, existed
In a twilight world of mysterious ailments
He denied his feelings
Such denial only immersed him
In maintaining the world of external restraints
It created emptiness, a vacancy
Filled by material concerns
I pleaded with him
The emerald gene came down
Soon the leaves of grass
Whispered another order of existence
Strangeness of sensation
Intoxication of vision
Unhinged for mortals
And as the sound increased one cannot
Describe what else it is that has been
I viewed a world transparent
Devoid of illumination within which
Was never a sea or land
Then the prophets were ******
For they were all liars
And I saw the most beautiful flower
Unfolding out of its own roots
For such a flower cannot
Unfold other than it does
I stood on the threshold of Orcus
I met Abbas Effendi the Gene without a name
Bab, Upanishads spilled music in my ears
Called to me in the most spectacular of colours
It was wonderful for the colours
Were like my dreams, red, black and green
I witnessed the three, sometimes as one
Other times as two, again and again
The self eternal and inseparable sons
Of Shakyamuni caressed me with their thoughts
Their music and colour moved about me
In ecstatic rhythm like the peaceful
Waves of the ocean as upon a shore
I read the sentences of silence
Breathed the perfume of never fading flowers
Walked in cherry blossom snow
Heard Hafiz reciting in the night
I saw for the first time
The unfinished likeness of others.

Then one day the Prince
With a sweeping theatrical and
So to speak, allegorical flourish bowed
Called me an exiled angel
Said the time had come to travel
To leave the images of naked heels
Imprinted in the clay
We wondered
Then as if by magic, suddenly the shadows
Of houses, halls, and a church
Emerged like enchanted islands in a fairy tale
The spiritualised forms of civilisation
I was approached by a graceful youth
Draped in cobweb lawn
He was pale, delicately beautiful
Spanish looking, but his name was Alexis Sonyeuse
Whose family it was said was
Related to the French Emperor Napoleon
It was also rumoured that he had
Had a tempestuous affair with the Bishop of Monaco
And once slept with his half brother Julian Apollinaire
When he spoke he was at once original
Delicious, moving, droll and discreetly melancholy
Listening to him was like breathing
The perfume of wondrous flowers
But the scent of datura hung about him
Paralleling his every movement
  Another youth, Edmond also greeted me
He was a young man with aristocratic features
A complexion pink, like a girls
And a bearing at once charmingly gracious
And audaciously insolent
His shirt was strange, the lining
A peculiarly orange colour
A flame coloured taffeta
Like the petticoats of a *****



They looked at me
Furtive glances emanated from their eyes
Training a profound stare upon my person
The two youths took me to 18 Avenue de Friedland
There two boy servants
Adoum and Outhman greeted us
Spinario's lay about its confines
Frezans caressing them
As they touched their feet
A hundred echansons moved
With dazzling delicacy dispensing dreams
In drops from crystalline cups
Here I witnessed the tragic faces of the population
Urnings, cleaning in the midst of anarchist trials
The room a fiery red, stained with light
The caress of forgotten thought
Like the thickness of a sorrow
Musicians playing on broken strings
Crimson ******, who defied the King of Naples
We moved past wretches
Like Virgil, but Danteian
Saw the usurers heard the rustling
Of lute strings the clinking of grey paper
Observed in this Minatare's lair
The purchase of a twelve penny dagger
Liberty of speech meeting its great reckoning
In a little room, Ingram the poltergeist
Of misfortune was there
Dead Scythian, who ever loved you
Loved you as you might, loved you at first sight.

This was a new and exciting world
Whose environs were populated
By the most mysterious and colourful of people
I was introduced by the two youths
To a suicidal young painter who
Was rebelling against his class
He was a somewhat forced intellectual
With an over quixotic passion for equality
Still he was warm, kind and impulsive
Poetry, he made it known
Had opened his mind to the invisible
Beside him was a painting
Exemplifying a new kind of observation
In a style absolutely faultless
Each structure clear, each brush stroke
Falling exactly into place
Inscribed in the top left
Corner were the words
"Quod me nutrit me destruit"
An introduction to himself of a tall youth
Whose eyes possessed a constant
Vagrancy of desire
Who seemed at once, for one so

he could play a frakkin' minuet
with his hands, this dude,
with perfect pitch and key --
and birdcalls of a timeless cult.
he'd hangglided in volcano rainbows,
had meathook *** from rafters.
reciting Shakespeare, conjured instant goosebumps, tears --
towering heartwise, intellect vast
whatever roles he played at night to model for our soul
we ripped the roof from off my fathers house, sublime,
wearing attic soot in all our pores,
asbestos grin contracting into mycophile hopes
flirting with the passing birds
in leaves and pizza parlors,
tanned and buff, shingle tar on shoulders, nails,
iron hard for her and her and her
the beating sun-breath coughing under mask
each tack an instant echo for the breeze
to take direction from a symbol core
no symbol ever truly held..
refreshing airs to bleed away the vanity,
yet halfway on the ladder there
an interrupting brag, my father's fascia beams
report card scores as if a better world they made
in money pitted recess taxing hidden filth- -
thank you,
Bach, to break up pride with existential high
new melodic rain to cover over thousands lost to sell,
settle dust,
handwind bard, aesthete
innovate human
you turn me on with tales of your amazing wife
bareshirt in your unfinished house, lusting eaves,
backyard grasshoppers on the counter,
****** as insect brains can be
to tilt their eyes with me at unreal fullness spectra-circle on a cloud
not possible the wholeness found
in wish fulfilling living roofs
of ecosystem awe and sunlamp bottles
here, and here,
under moss on backwoods skillion
or trussed on tree spread wide, open-hipped for skylove --
contentednesses missed the meaning now
of mother-art to birth anew the endless homes,
ecosophy's abundant cheer
laughter even in the nooks of dying nails
extemporaneous arcology of barefoot
ridgetop feardance raked in soffit shift
from gray to green
invulnerable vigor gained and gone
and grown again
from marginalia to universal veil
'happy evermore' no matter this or that
a swimming hole of naked sayings streamed,
inner wash of salt and sweat, an afterthought deluge
to challenge dormer crease-dive of a dogma drain
structured, learned pillage ivory still
though greensulated soon








.

Prelude

This happened after Layla-Majnun were separated by Layla's dis-approving parents, family and community when these two LOVERz realized that true eternal LOVE had happened between them
After that - Majnun had become a mad wanderer singing songs about/for/of his Eternal LOVE for Layla
And on this side – Layla was given by her family a life of every comfort she desired. But Layla's heart was worried for Majnun’s well being.


Layla's Family Response:

Many a times Layla cried longing and missing Majnun
The family of Layla could not see Layla sad and sorrowful
To cheer Layla up the family often told her they loved her so much
They tried to cheer Layla with her favorite flowers and decorated her room with lots of beautifully scented flowers
They got famous singers from around the world  to come in the evening and sing songs in front of Layla to make her feel happy
They saw that Layla was part of every occasion and functions, every party family had. They organized events just to keep Layla feel good and make her part of every gathering
Everyone overtly LOVED Layla and respected her
Layla’s family often made many sweets that Layla liked
The family took Layla to excursions, far and away to the meadows and the mountains, to the springs and the oceans, to the forests and oasis - so that seeing nature Layla would forget Majnun
They often complimented her - How beautiful she is…; How nice she sings…; How well she is behaved…; and how intelligent she is…
Whenever Layla was in little good mood and when she talked a little, the family sat around her to eagerly listened to what Layla had to say
The parents of Layla made sure that Layla was not kept alone for a single moment. There was someone or the other - friends, mates, children or relatives surrounding Layla to give her company
Many a times Layla's parents invited guests who would bring Beautiful gifts and souvenirs for Layla from distant foreign lands
There were mentors, coaches, teachers hired to teach and upgrade different skills that are useful for Layla
The mother of Layla often told “Sorry” to Layla for not allowing her to meet Majnun. Though the sorry was sincere. it did not cheer Layla's heart because the dictate always remained: "Majnun is not the right one for you Layla"
In the house of Layla it was made mandatory that family members while leaving and entering the house would always say good bye and give a hug to Layla to make her feel so SPECIAL
Every now and then inside the house - there were religious sermons preached, religious scriptures read. The Maula and Maulavis recited verses - the morals, ethics, codes were taught; faith, belief, worship, prayers were made integral part of their life to make Layla feel devoted to God. They thought – when Layla understands Allah’s LOVE there won't be any need for Majnun’s LOVE
The family invited Layla's friends to play - indoor and outdoors games to get her involved in some sort of hobby so that it would keep Layla busy and thus forget about Majnun
Some days if Layla did something on her own - the family members would praise her every little efforts and celebrate it to create an atmosphere of happiness around her for every little achievement in Layla’s life
The family had created that “Halo” around Layla's image in the village/ town. She was known throughout the land as the most decent, gorgeously beautiful, well-educated, noble, kind fun-loving girl. Everyone in their town LOVED Layla. All these were done so that they could find the the most suitable richest PRINCE for Layla to get married to...
To make Layla feel good and confident the family often asked her opinions and included her in all family and business decision making
To make Layla feel attached to something else, the parents gifted her with - a dog, a cat, a rabbit, a pigeon and other exotic birds. So that by LOVING them Layla will forget Majnun
They also filled the house with all sorts of books that  interested Layla. They thought while reading the good books - Layla will forget Majnun
Not a week went where Layla was not gifted and adorned with - diamonds, pearl, stones, gold and silver jewelry

Each and every person who came in touch with Layla was so nice and sweet towards her, just to make sure that  Layla is kept busy with things in LIFE. The whole idea is to keep Layla involved in different things of work and life so that the LOVE for Majnun is completely forgotten amidst enjoyments of chasing success, career, work, wealth and a partner etc.


Layla's Sorrow:

But Layla was different…!

Layla had everything a girl wanted
Wealth, education, family,
Friends, relatives, company
Fruits, sweets, flowers
Game, animals, toys
Trips, Travel, occasions
Festivals, events, get-togethers

But

Layla's heart kept beating for Majnun
She was always worried of Majnun
"Where will be my Majnun wandering today?"
"What will he be doing right now?"
"Did he get some food to eat?"
“Did he sleep well..?" etc.

If anyone on the village street
Got a little bit of news of Majnun
Layla ran out to listen to what it was

If someone was reciting
The new songs Majnun had sung today
Layla carefully listened to those lyrics
And wrote them in her secret dairy.
She read them again and again
In the candle light of solitary darkness

With tears rolling from her eyes

Day-night, afternoon-evenings
Waking, sleeping, eating, sitting
Layla only thought of her Majnun

Blessed with every luxury of life
Yet Layla felt so helpless about
Her inability to go to meet Majnun
So that Majnun can see…

Layla's eyes, Layla's face
Those lips, that smile
The smell of Layla….
The way she looks at Majnun
The LOVE in Layla’s soul
Pouring out for Majnun

Layla's knew very well that
Majnun's only dreams was having
One glimpse of his BELOVEDz Layla

This cruelty of the world & everyone
That they and their norms
Stopped Layla to reach out to Majnun
This broke Layla’s heart into pieces
It killed Layla from inside more
Than it killed Majnun
In his longing for Layla

That was Layla's sorrow...
This is Layla’z sorrow

End Note:
Only the one who feels LOVE,
Only the one who know LOVE
Will understand Layla's sorrow
Of seeing the cruel punishment the world had given
To her LOVERz Majnun
By making him an useless mad wanderer
- Who only chants Layla's name
And sings Layla's praise

I wrote a poem on a bus
but to hear it you must
climb to the top
of the bouncing metal stairs.
  
Slither snake-like
past the rail
and sit
on the rainbow nylon bench.
  
I'll be there
at the top of the bus,
reciting my rhyme,
written as we ride along,
past shops and houses
with musty nets
and peeling paint
on dingy doors.
  
There's the old woman who
lives in a house no bigger than a shoe box
who had so many children she didn't know what to do!
But they've all grown and flown now and she's all alone
with no-one to talk to but herself.
  
Look at that kid: grimy smile and mischievous eyes,
skateboard-scuffed knees,
darting out from the roadside.
Screech!
As we stop and angry words.
The kid glances back and tosses a vee
leaving just his smile behind.
  
The bus lurches on
at a snail's pace and stops at a stop
for a giggle-girl-gang
to chatter up the stairs
with a clatter of feet and voices:  
weekends and boyfriends,
music and laughter.

The bus trundles and sways
past shops all shuttered,
old folks gathered by doorways
talking about people
dead and forgotten ...
except by them.
  
Into the town now:
a river of road-rage
as our bus ambles onward
toward car-parks and markets
and rat-racing shoppers
  
And stops by a brown pigeon-stained temple
of public philanthropy,
a gift from a long-dead civic leader
and now proud home
to dogeared tomes of PC persuasion.
  
Our bus, like some Trojan horse,
disgorges its riders
who spatter and scatter
like rays of dawn light
to shop till they drop.
  
So, just me and you seated
atop the steel stairway
and you say to me sharply,
“So where's your poem then?”
I look at you strangely:
“It's happened around you,” I tell you quite curtly.

i had a poetry reading
last night, well not
just me, but i read
some of my poems

it did not go well
this fellow in front
would not stop
talking into his mobile

as though everyone
wanted to know
what time his girlfriend
was going to arrive

and why she was
such a ***** in the
first place just because
he would not pick her up

when she knows that
she lives on the
completely opposite
side of town and

would make him late
late? to a poetry
reading, i thought,
why don't you hang

up the phone then
and what kind of
a woman puts up
with this **** anyway

so, i paused, and
asked him to stop
talking on the phone
people clapped, i said

that i know i am not
exactly "on" tonight
but did not think he
could do any better

i was wrong this
**** was brilliant
he stood and began
reciting with clever

lines and impossible
rhymes he did not
even stop to breathe,
well, my fault i guess

his girlfriend showed
up and of course she
turned heads as she
walked past to sit with

him, and i heard her
apologize for being late
then they left so i
just stepped off the

stage and sat down
then i left just as
soon as i thought
no one would notice

All is not what it seems
Because I was an atheist
Long before I realized I was God,
But that was much, much later
Then, at that time, I succumbed
To the lurid but exciting depths
Of freedom, the joy of love and danger
Of searching and of knowledge,
Embracing every moment;
I surrendered to ungovernable impulses
That invoked within my very existence

Still to realise the true extent of this
It's perhaps best to start before the beginning
Before the earth embalmed me
A time when Cyparisse had not
Yet set root in my belly
Nor made sap of my blood
A time when it was possible to speak
To Panza's donkey when I thought of Zanzibar
A time when the vagrancy of my soul
Had not yet embarked
On its erratic itinerary
Plunging me eventually
Into the bright light
Of tainted and squalid reality

Like oscillating libraries, noise oppressed,
Contradictions of dreams
Suddenly I took flight,
With violent wrenches of imagination
In Persia being worshipped
Beneath the moon by Gods;
Caressed by those impetuous charms
A dazzling vision
I thought of death the only sister of charity
Whose dark night has no malevolence;
Black and white, silences that migrated
In sonorous symbolism took control
Shimmering like a painting of a sorrow

Streaked with unashamed colours
A single tear from a promethean candle
I would move to lick the stain of destiny
That pillar inhaling its black perfumes
Like a communicant on his knees.
Exiled in reality, I saw what I had never saw
Or only thought I saw now condemned
To see what has never been seen

Words corralled themselves in my mind
Writhing maggots on a corpse
Wriggling for position waiting to be pronounced
How they flew, taking wings
Hovering for an instant above the page
Hunting out the detritus of man
To feast upon the putrid flesh of misery
I too went searching
For my ancient feast; for Zanzibar

However hideous pages
From the note book of the ******
Imprisoned the words, stampeded the search
Scattering it in many directions
Shattering blue-white eyes
A castrated country, century, impotent, impure
Like politics, the ******* that can be purchased by coin
Like so much bread in the market,
A thousand profanities became the popular song
But silence is the real language of the fool

For he alone bears witness to what he feels
Misfortunes not understood, weeping the popular ballad
Morality and law, parades of red robed Judges
Carcasses, a circus for carrion crows
Yet like a cannibal the dead were still buried in my belly
The gloss of reason hiding madness
Like so many veneered fronts in a proud precinct

Paraded in full view, silence is demanded and got
The words wither, fake time continues,
To count the unrelieved falsehood the chimera of life;
Reason did not imprison me
My life being not heavy enough
Was allowed to take flight
To float above the reasoned realm
Revelations of the truth realised only by detachment
Devoured my mind increased my errorless purpose
The search for Zanzibar

Accepted values; valued only;
Because of this acceptance
Are accepted as value
Thus accepted in silence
The fools resign themselves
To a false reality
One that nails them to a poisoned cross

In the gardens of the dead
Like rowed tulips that
Gardeners know how to match
I found myself, among those who had gone
Remembered yet forgotten
Whose edifice unlike their lives
Reached not upwards but down.
I smelt the scent of unknown things
The perfumes of eternity that histories bind;
Intensity, a murmur; gurgle, as in a child
Yet extreme its aberrations
Like celluloid hand that
Had never known toil
Or wiped sweat from a brow
Laughed yet grimaced
Its smile a crimson smear
The sorrow that it felt
A burnished hand upon its nakedness
To see its enshrouded presence in such a garden
One well stocked and growing
Caressed my being with its glee
To turn white feel the touch
Of its venomous fingers upon my flesh;
Its purpose, to prevent any search for Zanzibar

The stench of death
Then cast its' new
Yet antediluvian gaze
Upon its purpose
Odour of grave
Faraway nonexistent
Yet it is perfume to those
Who feast upon its scent
Moistures mingling with the air
Its common purpose
Floating like un-forgiveness
Its atmosphere ozone sans holes
Its meaning ever present
Its' outcome to halt
The search for Zanzibar

And so the stencils of oriental scribes
Like black shadows overpowered my reason
Floating high above, adrift on an expanse of darkness
However, presently that azure ink
Raised its curtain before my very eyes
Revealing the stage, the illuminated stage
On which I was to set my drama
Where the phantoms of my imagination
Would enact their mysterious mysteries;
A poetic alchemy

Then a golden spark of pure
Nocturnal light blinded me
In an instant I saw, observed
The sun drown in its deathly sea
Its healing wings spread
Fear would see it rise again
Still searching for that fatal flaw, happiness
How many lives do I need?
How many existences will it take?
Incarnations a hundred times
Searching for Zanzibar.
Awakening to continue to
Live the saddest of my dreams

Furtive footsteps through Cimmerian landscapes
Ah such enchantment, do you understand?
Ah such a charm, listen to its undying echo
Feel its charge, that siren call
Cosmic summons, the vagrancy of mind
That caresses the imagination
Whose tender touch can place you
At the apex of the universe
Can lead to Zanzibar.


And so the subtle and foolish tortures
Inflicted upon me by I, my quest began
One that would ascertain, take centre stage
Make an unheard appearance of a philosophy
That, I am everyone and everyone else is me
Eventually at some point
In time and space we are all one
All linked, for we are condemned
Yes condemned to live these lives
This is why the dead have dreams
Dreams about the tyrants and demons
Of other lives of who they were;
Who they have yet to become.
Nourished on half truths,
Forever pulling at the thread
The rotted rags of reason
Those tattered twines
Unravelling the stitching of reality
Of hallucinations, empty illusions
And tarnished dreams create a constant struggle


Therefore for every conscious thing
That happens in the world
There must be a responding reverberation
Within the human soul
Let us put a halt to the calls
For the death of imagination
And demands for imagination to be silent
Such absurdities
For imagination is the true door to reality
For only in imagination
Can there be a bearable act
Of self examination
It is memory that hurts
More than the imagination
Always prefer the imaginary to the real
Imagination is neither an exit
From our nightmares nor
An escape from reality
But the place we are all trying to get to,
Zanzibar its shared images
Its story, its own life a new reality.


Mysteriously in the midst of unknown
Mazagran landscapes I feel
The full impact of fleeting visions
Without the limitations of space or time
Feel the act of experiencing their reality
This requires no explanation, no proof
Either together or separate
Because simply they are,
Judgement, condemnation
Punishments are gone
There is no cleansing a world
Without consciousness
Landscape devoid of people
'La Lune' growling in the orchard of the sea
Calypso again one or ten
Eucharis, tempest or temptress
Take both the meaning and the experience
Taste the tear drops of the sun
Telemachus searching, searching
Zanzibar

The idol, tentacles undulating
Vibrations of collective knowledge
The blank face, featureless
Touching around the domain of Atlas
Speaking in a thousand different tongues
Moving but still, blocks my path
Disturbs the line of imagination
Makes reality quiver
Dream flowers sway in its cosmic wind.
Yet Alhazers' iridescent arch allows
The steerage of my passage
Without pious pilgrimages to empty silences that
Contain an eternity of tears
Who graciously offers coverage
For the echo of footsteps
Allowing the magic moments to come


Robbed of sunlight, artificial night shines
Its deception attempting to secure knowledge
Of a future unknown, winning only it's unattainably
Offering instead knowledge of the past
Master of silence, offers only knowledge
Of invaded consciousness
Bedlam of paradise where Eros and Pan
In congress sleep, close at Zanzibar.


Lifeless beauty that lives everlasting
Time that reason cannot change, only help.
O enchanted torture you have stolen
The taste from my mouth
Masked I against the spectre of reality
Proclaimed the age of 'hasashin'
The creator of recollections, maker of memories
Possessor of impulse giver of echo
That rings in the ear
Cloud cast its surroccoian shadow
Air tinged with the aftermath of fire
Floating in an Asian wind, so subtle
Like a breath suddenly the sound of song
Of dance rents the solitude
Silence is slashed like a canvass screen
Happiness pours forth unconfined
Unfettered, both faces of Kandinsky as one
I extinguish the light, turn to the wall
Gazing upon its Janis face
My eyes behold the giver of pleasure.

Then I found myself in an extraordinary place
Whose skies where made of crystal glass
Water of the enchanted land was blue-grey
Bridges zig-zagged its shimmering domes
I stared as masts and parapets came to life
Its people, musicians sporting
Tangerine and white livery danced
The air filled with the sound of their music
Then as if from nowhere a light hit my eyes
Blinking, this apparition was gone
Can I not always believe what I see
Just because I see what I believe
The inhabitants at once became spectres
Engulfed in thick clouds of smoke and sulphur
Erinyies roamed, inflicting madness
A circus of the macabre sped past
Its symbols of death fluttering frantically
Around this false and fragile world
Suggested children, like creatures in an imagination
Were made ready for their rebirth
By the touch of the poets pen
A thousand Cheribino

In another, swirling sonorous scenes
Stormed the citadels of my mind
Marched through my imagination
Mab engulfed the long closed
Cemeteries of my thought allowing me
To see the dreams of others
Like precious pearls prised from their shells
Their visualisation so intense
Joy overcame me at once
Then a swarm of kisses descended upon me
Like a regiment of famished men
Feasting for the first time
I freely gave myself as the main course
In the most beautiful of banquets
In another, yielding to these seductions
I was enraptured by portraits of beautiful young men
Which appeared to be on the point of speaking
They were most mysterious their intrinsic
Charm so beautiful, stimulated desire
Whose assuagement was so pleasurable
That it might be called pure ecstasy
A perfect pleasure which had never before existed
Entirely individual and new

Thus upon the horizons of my mind
Had been shed a mysterious light
In which I now saw everything bathed
I was summoned by the Prince
Knowing dreams have no limits
I obeyed his call
For a long time failing to set
Foot on the shores of reality
Drinking from the wells of magic
While angels danced on grassy slopes
Disturbed by flames
The stars shot out their fragrance

Sweet smelling; blue abyss
On I went to the court, the court of the Prince of
Poets, a visitor to life
There I spat out the bit of liberty
Embraced the Prince
Courtesans mocked me, ridiculed
Laughed and taunted me
Their jibes merely part of
Their own deluded reality, not of mine
They did not serve my purpose
Dressed as they were
In meaningless words
Clothed in phrases of falsehood
They tried to make me compromise
There was fire burning in my eyes
Vivid dreams were eating up my mind
They wouldn't let me be
There were dead men lying
By the sides of the road
With daylight in their eyes
I saw villages under the sea
I stood at Galactic central point
Watched the earth burn
They did not know
The way to Zanzibar
Could the Prince show me?

However each morning I awoke
I found myself in a purgatorial fog
I roamed lost the alternative harbour
For my soul still distant
The Prince, I discovered, existed
In a twilight world of mysterious ailments
He denied his feelings
Such denial only immersed him
In maintaining the world of external restraints
It created emptiness, a vacancy
Filled by material concerns
I pleaded with him
The emerald gene came down
Soon the leaves of grass
Whispered another order of existence
Strangeness of sensation
Intoxication of vision
Unhinged for mortals
And as the sound increased one cannot
Describe what else it is that has been
I viewed a world transparent
Devoid of illumination within which
Was never a sea or land
Then the prophets were ******
For they were all liars
And I saw the most beautiful flower
Unfolding out of its own roots
For such a flower cannot
Unfold other than it does
I stood on the threshold of Orcus
I met Abbas Effendi the Gene without a name
Bab, Upanishads spilled music in my ears
Called to me in the most spectacular of colours
It was wonderful for the colours
Were like my dreams, red, black and green
I witnessed the three, sometimes as one
Other times as two, again and again
The self eternal and inseparable sons
Of Shakyamuni caressed me with their thoughts
Their music and colour moved about me
In ecstatic rhythm like the peaceful
Waves of the ocean as upon a shore
I read the sentences of silence
Breathed the perfume of never fading flowers
Walked in cherry blossom snow
Heard Hafiz reciting in the night
I saw for the first time
The unfinished likeness of others.

Then one day the Prince
With a sweeping theatrical and
So to speak, allegorical flourish bowed
Called me an exiled angel
Said the time had come to travel
To leave the images of naked heels
Imprinted in the clay
We wondered
Then as if by magic, suddenly the shadows
Of houses, halls, and a church
Emerged like enchanted islands in a fairy tale
The spiritualised forms of civilisation
I was approached by a graceful youth
Draped in cobweb lawn
He was pale, delicately beautiful
Spanish looking, but his name was Alexis Sonyeuse
Whose family it was said was
Related to the French Emperor Napoleon
It was also rumoured that he had
Had a tempestuous affair with the Bishop of Monaco
And once slept with his half brother Julian Apollinaire
When he spoke he was at once original
Delicious, moving, droll and discreetly melancholy
Listening to him was like breathing
The perfume of wondrous flowers
But the scent of datura hung about him
Paralleling his every movement
  Another youth, Edmond also greeted me
He was a young man with aristocratic features
A complexion pink, like a girls
And a bearing at once charmingly gracious
And audaciously insolent
His shirt was strange, the lining
A peculiarly orange colour
A flame coloured taffeta
Like the petticoats of a *****



They looked at me
Furtive glances emanated from their eyes
Training a profound stare upon my person
The two youths took me to 18 Avenue de Friedland
There two boy servants
Adoum and Outhman greeted us
Spinario's lay about its confines
Frezans caressing them
As they touched their feet
A hundred echansons moved
With dazzling delicacy dispensing dreams
In drops from crystalline cups
Here I witnessed the tragic faces of the population
Urnings, cleaning in the midst of anarchist trials
The room a fiery red, stained with light
The caress of forgotten thought
Like the thickness of a sorrow
Musicians playing on broken strings
Crimson ******, who defied the King of Naples
We moved past wretches
Like Virgil, but Danteian
Saw the usurers heard the rustling
Of lute strings the clinking of grey paper
Observed in this Minatare's lair
The purchase of a twelve penny dagger
Liberty of speech meeting its great reckoning
In a little room, Ingram the poltergeist
Of misfortune was there
Dead Scythian, who ever loved you
Loved you as you might, loved you at first sight.

This was a new and exciting world
Whose environs were populated
By the most mysterious and colourful of people
I was introduced by the two youths
To a suicidal young painter who
Was rebelling against his class
He was a somewhat forced intellectual
With an over quixotic passion for equality
Still he was warm, kind and impulsive
Poetry, he made it known
Had opened his mind to the invisible
Beside him was a painting
Exemplifying a new kind of observation
In a style absolutely faultless
Each structure clear, each brush stroke
Falling exactly into place
Inscribed in the top left
Corner were the words
"Quod me nutrit me destruit"
An introduction to himself of a tall youth
Whose eyes possessed a constant
Vagrancy of desire
Who seemed at once, for one so

Some people find
solace in words,
some people find
solace in music.
Some people find
solace in paintings,
but I find solace
in your voice.
You reciting stories,
slow and steady;
luring me in
with your eyes
and waving hands.
I am hopelessly
trapped in your
hypnotizing existence.

-m.b

she told me that this is what it was like to be a firestorm,and i believed her.youre not golden sweetheart,
none of us are.we're not meant to look nice.
this is for our eyes only.dont look me in the eyes
and pretend that you dont know what i mean
take me to the cathedral pour holy water over my shivering shaking bones
build a baby grand out of my corpse,honey,its the only one ive got.
dont pretend you dont feel it too
and even if ill never be as romantic as you,at least ill try
at least i wont leave you here
gasoline on pavement,dying the only way you know how
they told me i could be anything i wanted so i turned myself into a gun,
hollow like your stomach when all youve had to eat the past three days is stale ******* bread.
dont look at me like that.
i know all of your secrets and youre the one still forgetting about my jaw,the one you broke.
i see it in your eyes.we both know how this ends
but I wont pull the trigger on heartbreak hills
not until theres more whiskey than broomsticks beating us ******
cigarette **** wrists against a concrete wall,you always were one for a metaphor werent you?
jesus,babe you look so beautiful in this light.would you let me take your picture with the old kodak we pretend doesnt exist?
im sorry if this is forward of me,but i think id like it if you dug bruises
into my throat
loving the only way you know how,and this isnt the kind of love you see in movies
cause its not really love when neither of you can stop chainsmoking for a ******* second
to look at the way the sun glints off hair at just the right time.
maybe if i had sinners hips youd kiss me,just the way i like
too much,all at once.this,you say,
this is what its like to be a firestorm.
we tell people we're just close friends,like in the way real people are close friends,
we tell people that the bruises on both our mouths are just from the red wine,silly,isnt it obvious?
the train station is too crowded.im fidgety
and the woman in the dress sitting next to me is reading a newspaper article about string theory
i wonder if it tells her about the way i sewed my mouth shut one winter
(or maybe that was you.whatever.its the same ******* thing anyway,isnt it,you say.stop ******* smiling at me like that.you know its not funny)
i wonder if she knows that the needle does not have to be very sharp to pierce the skin.
lesson one:stop pretending that youre the dragon.
lesson two:god.god.god youre ******* annoying.cant you keep your ******* mouth shut?i told you not to tell anyone,you ******* *******.if you show up outside my house again ill **** you.
dont leave someone voicemails after they leave you for the subway station. they will not reply.
this is normal.
you called me a narcissistic ***** and i think you were right but at least i think im worth something,right?at least i havent given up on my collarbones,thrown
them away like they're ******* trash.but what i mean to say is,
at least im not like you.at least i dont have a scar on my upper lip.
stop telling me that the ******* is a ******* metaphor,
this isnt a novel and im not a vampire
and last time i checked your eyes were brown,not black.youre not a monster so stop trying to be one.
the woman sitting next to me on the airplane wont stop reciting bible verses but i dont feel any more holy than i did three hours ago.
this isnt a ******* contest.you cant compete with someone to be the most ****** up,god whats wrong with you
havent you read about cain and abel
this will end the only way it possibly can
stop hanging grave markers on walls,cant you see the marks on your fingers
this isnt a ballad for a dead man and i dont mean to be condescending
but i like the way you kiss people,ten days after the time of death
and maybe ive left you too many voicemails at three in the morning
and maybe i stained your pillowcase with whiskey and secrets
but listen up,honey,you need me more than i need you
dont lie to me,you know its true
youre lying down at the bottom of the gymnasium swimming pool
and somehow youve managed to find comfort in it
dear reader:im sorry.im sorry about the mixtapes,okay,you were never supposed to find them and-and ****,ive messed everything up.bye.see you soon,
i guess.

Though I know I’m just
Pleading with my palms -
I say a prayer anyway

I grip the barbed wire that I use a rein,
For this beast of a world that I cannot yet tame,
I grit my teeth and I hold my breath,
The name of my lover is death.
I kneel in the salt as I am abused,
With cables and whips, yet I am amused,
Blood hits the floor, and I smile at the stain,
The name of my lover is pain.
I spit out the words that I hear in my soul,
Reciting them from this internalized scroll,
I gather my demons and open the gate,
The name of my lover is hate.

i am worn books and french vocabulary, ice cold chai and steaming earl grey. i am stone stares and eyes watering, uncertainty in silence and sharp decisive conversation. i am shaking hands and reciting poetry during anxiety attacks and i am indie rock showers and top-of-your-lungs pop radio in the car. i am empathy without sympathy, crying in the bathroom stall and i am childhood cartoons and your favorite stuffed animal and the beach in the summer. i am desperate to be alone and desperate to scream and desperate to find someone who knows what i mean and still likes me. i am comfort zone constellations, Orion's belt on every nighttime stroll, i am the hollow tree in the backyard of the house we don't own and i am my handwriting and the words in my poems. i am everything you have made me out to be and i hate that; hate that you see all my flaws so clearly but that isn't all of me and i know that now.

i am the trinkets my grandmother left me and her eyes when she looked at me and the way she cried when she read my poetry. i am a thousand ways i have loved those dear to me and the children who fall asleep on me and the way my cat runs to me and i don't need your or anyone's approval but God's and my own. thanks anyway.