1
I celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.

I loafe and invite my soul,
I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.

My tongue, every atom of my blood, form’d from this soil, this air,
Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and their
parents the same,
I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin,
Hoping to cease not till death.

Creeds and schools in abeyance,
Retiring back a while sufficed at what they are, but never forgotten,
I harbor for good or bad, I permit to speak at every hazard,
Nature without check with original energy.

2
Houses and rooms are full of perfumes, the shelves are crowded with
perfumes,
I breathe the fragrance myself and know it and like it,
The distillation would intoxicate me also, but I shall not let it.

The atmosphere is not a perfume, it has no taste of the
distillation, it is odorless,
It is for my mouth forever, I am in love with it,
I will go to the bank by the wood and become undisguised and naked,
I am mad for it to be in contact with me.

The smoke of my own breath,
Echoes, ripples, buzz’d whispers, love-root, silk-thread, crotch and
vine,
My respiration and inspiration, the beating of my heart, the passing
of blood and air through my lungs,
The sniff of green leaves and dry leaves, and of the shore and
dark-color’d sea-rocks, and of hay in the barn,

The sound of the belch’d words of my voice loos’d to the eddies of
the wind,
A few light kisses, a few embraces, a reaching around of arms,
The play of shine and shade on the trees as the supple boughs wag,
The delight alone or in the rush of the streets, or along the fields
and hill-sides,
The feeling of health, the full-noon trill, the song of me rising
from bed and meeting the sun.

Have you reckon’d a thousand acres much? have you reckon’d the
earth much?
Have you practis’d so long to learn to read?
Have you felt so proud to get at the meaning of poems?

Stop this day and night with me and you shall possess the origin of
all poems,
You shall possess the good of the earth and sun, (there are millions
of suns left,)
You shall no longer take things at second or third hand, nor look
through the eyes of the dead, nor feed on the spectres in
books,
You shall not look through my eyes either, nor take things from me,
You shall listen to all sides and filter them from your self.

3
I have heard what the talkers were talking, the talk of the
beginning and the end,
But I do not talk of the beginning or the end.

There was never any more inception than there is now,
Nor any more youth or age than there is now,
And will never be any more perfection than there is now,
Nor any more heaven or hell than there is now.

Urge and urge and urge,
Always the procreant urge of the world.

Out of the dimness opposite equals advance, always substance and
increase, always ***,
Always a knit of identity, always distinction, always a breed of
life.
To elaborate is no avail, learn’d and unlearn’d feel that it is so.

Sure as the most certain sure, plumb in the uprights, well
entretied, braced in the beams,
Stout as a horse, affectionate, haughty, electrical,
I and this mystery here we stand.

Clear and sweet is my soul, and clear and sweet is all that is not
my soul.

Lack one lacks both, and the unseen is proved by the seen,
Till that becomes unseen and receives proof in its turn.

Showing the best and dividing it from the worst age vexes age,
Knowing the perfect fitness and equanimity of things, while they
discuss I am silent, and go bathe and admire myself.

Welcome is every ***** and attribute of me, and of any man hearty
and clean,
Not an inch nor a particle of an inch is vile, and none shall be
less familiar than the rest.

I am satisfied - I see, dance, laugh, sing;
As the hugging and loving bed-fellow sleeps at my side through the
night, and withdraws at the peep of the day with stealthy
tread,
Leaving me baskets cover’d with white towels swelling the house with
their plenty,
Shall I postpone my acceptation and realization and scream at my
eyes,
That they turn from gazing after and down the road,
And forthwith cipher and show me to a cent,
Exactly the value of one and exactly the value of two, and which is
ahead?

4
Trippers and askers surround me,
People I meet, the effect upon me of my early life or the ward and
city I live in, or the nation,
The latest dates, discoveries, inventions, societies, authors old
and new,
My dinner, dress, associates, looks, compliments, dues,
The real or fancied indifference of some man or woman I love,
The sickness of one of my folks or of myself, or ill-doing or loss
or lack of money, or depressions or exaltations,
Battles, the horrors of fratricidal war, the fever of doubtful news,
the fitful events;
These come to me days and nights and go from me again,
But they are not the Me myself.

Apart from the pulling and hauling stands what I am,
Stands amused, complacent, compassionating, idle, unitary,
Looks down, is *****, or bends an arm on an impalpable certain rest,
Looking with side-curved head curious what will come next,
Both in and out of the game and watching and wondering at it.

Backward I see in my own days where I sweated through fog with
linguists and contenders,
I have no mockings or arguments, I witness and wait.

5
I believe in you my soul, the other I am must not abase itself to
you,
And you must not be abased to the other.

Loafe with me on the grass, loose the stop from your throat,
Not words, not music or rhyme I want, not custom or lecture, not
even the best,
Only the lull I like, the hum of your valved voice.

I mind how once we lay such a transparent summer morning,
How you settled your head athwart my hips and gently turn’d over
upon me,
And parted the shirt from my *****-bone, and plunged your tongue
to my bare-stript heart,
And reach’d till you felt my beard, and reach’d till you held my
feet.

Swiftly arose and spread around me the peace and knowledge that pass
all the argument of the earth,
And I know that the hand of God is the promise of my own,
And I know that the spirit of God is the brother of my own,
And that all the men ever born are also my brothers, and the women
my sisters and lovers,
And that a kelson of the creation is love,
And limitless are leaves stiff or drooping in the fields,
And brown ants in the little wells beneath them,
And mossy scabs of the worm fence, heap’d stones, elder, mullein and
poke-****.

6
A child said What is the grass? fetching it to me with full hands;
How could I answer the child? I do not know what it is any more
than he.

I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful green
stuff woven.

Or I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord,
A scented gift and remembrancer designedly dropt,
Bearing the owner’s name someway in the corners, that we may see
and remark, and say Whose?

Or I guess the grass is itself a child, the produced babe of the
vegetation.

Or I guess it is a uniform hieroglyphic,
And it means, Sprouting alike in broad zones and narrow zones,
Growing among black folks as among white,
Kanuck, Tuckahoe, Congressman, Cuff, I give them the same, I
receive them the same.

And now it seems to me the beautiful uncut hair of graves.

Tenderly will I use you curling grass,
It may be you transpire from the ******* of young men,
It may be if I had known them I would have loved them,
It may be you are from old people, or from offspring taken soon out
of their mothers’ laps,
And here you are the mothers’ laps.

This grass is very dark to be from the white heads of old mothers,
Darker than the colorless beards of old men,
Dark to come from under the faint red roofs of mouths.

O I perceive after all so many uttering tongues,
And I perceive they do not come from the roofs of mouths for
nothing.

I wish I could translate the hints about the dead young men and
women,
And the hints about old men and mothers, and the offspring taken
soon out of their laps.

What do you think has become of the young and old men?
And what do you think has become of the women and children?

They are alive and well somewhere,
The smallest sprout shows there is really no death,
And if ever there was it led forward life, and does not wait at the
end to arrest it,
And ceas’d the moment life appear’d.

All goes onward and outward, nothing collapses,
And to die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier.

7
Has any one supposed it lucky to be born?
I hasten to inform him or her it is just as lucky to die, and I know
it.

I pass death with the dying and birth with the new-wash’d babe, and
am not contain’d between my hat and boots,
And peruse manifold objects, no two alike and every one good,
The earth good and the stars good, and their adjuncts all good.

I am not an earth nor an adjunct of an earth,
I am the mate and companion of people, all just as immortal and
fathomless as myself,
(They do not know how immortal, but I know.)

Every kind for itself and its own, for me mine male and female,
For me those that have been boys and that love women,
For me the man that is proud and feels how it stings to be slighted,
For me the sweet-heart and the old maid, for me mothers and the
mothers of mothers,
For me lips that have smiled, eyes that have shed tears,
For me children and the begetters of children.

Undrape! you are not guilty to me, nor stale nor discarded,
I see through the broadcloth and gingham whether or no,
And am around, tenacious, acquisitive, tireless, and cannot be
shaken away.

8
The little one sleeps in its cradle,
I lift the gauze and look a long time, and silently brush away flies
with my hand.

The youngster and the red-faced girl turn aside up the bushy hill,
I peeringly view them from the top.

The suicide sprawls on the ****** floor of the bedroom,
I witness the corpse with its dabbled hair, I note where the pistol
has fallen.

The blab of the pave, tires of carts, sluff of boot-soles, talk of
the promenaders,
The heavy omnibus, the driver with his interrogating thumb, the
clank of the shod horses on the granite floor,
The snow-sleighs, clinking, shouted jokes, pelts of snow-*****,
The hurrahs for popular favorites, the fury of rous’d mobs,
The flap of the curtain’d litter, a sick man inside borne to the
hospital,
The meeting of enemies, the sudden oath, the blows and fall,
The excited crowd, the policeman with his star quickly working his
passage to the centre of the crowd,
The impassive stones that receive and return so many echoes,
What groans of over-fed or half-starv’d who fall sunstruck or in
fits,
What exclamations of women taken suddenly who hurry home and
give birth to babes,
What living and buried speech is always vibrating here, what howls
restrain’d by decorum,
Arrests of criminals, slights, adulterous offers made, acceptances,
rejections with convex lips,
I mind them or the show or resonance of them-I come and I depart.

9
The big doors of the country barn stand open and ready,
The dried grass of the harvest-time loads the slow-drawn wagon,
The clear light plays on the brown gray and green intertinged,
The armfuls are pack’d to the sagging mow.

I am there, I help, I came stretch’d atop of the load,
I felt its soft jolts, one leg reclined on the other,
I jump from the cross-beams and seize the clover and timothy,
And roll head over heels and tangle my hair full of wisps.

10
Alone far in the wilds and mountains I hunt,
Wandering amazed at my own lightness and glee,
In the late afternoon choosing a safe spot to pass the night,
Kindling a fire and broiling the fresh-****’d game,
Falling asleep on the gather’d leaves with my dog and gun by my
side.

The Yankee clipper is under her sky-sails, she cuts the sparkle
and scud,
My eyes settle the land, I bend at her prow or shout joyously from
the deck.

The boatmen and clam-diggers arose early and stopt for me,
I tuck’d my trowser-ends in my boots and went and had a good time;
You should have been with us that day round the chowder-kettle.

I saw the marriage of the trapper in the open air in the far west,
the bride was a red girl,
Her father and his friends sat near cross-legged and dumbly smoking,
they had moccasins to their feet and large thick blankets
hanging from their shoulders,
On a bank lounged the trapper, he was drest mostly in skins, his
luxuriant beard and curls protected his neck, he held his bride
by the hand,
She had long eyelashes, her head was bare, her coarse straight locks
descended upon her voluptuous limbs and reach’d to her
feet.

The runaway slave came to my house and stopt outside,
I heard his motions crackling the twigs of the woodpile,
Through the swung half-door of the kitchen I saw him limpsy and
weak,
And went where he sat on a log and led him in and assured him,
And brought water and fill’d a tub for his sweated body and bruis’d
feet,
And gave him a room that enter’d from my own, and gave him some
coarse clean clothes,
And remember perfectly well his revolving eyes and his awkwardness,
And remember putting piasters on the galls of his neck and ankles;
He staid with me a week before he was recuperated and pass’d north,
I had him sit next me at table, my fire-lock lean’d in the corner.

11
Twenty-eight young men bathe by the shore,
Twenty-eight young men and all so friendly;
Twenty-eight years of womanly life and all so lonesome.

She owns the fine house by the rise of the bank,
She hides handsome and richly drest aft the blinds of the window.

Which of the young men does she like the best?
Ah the homeliest of them is beautiful to her.

Where are you off to, lady? for I see you,
You splash in the water there, yet stay stock still in your room.

Dancing and laughing along the beach came the twenty-ninth
bather,
The rest did not see her, but she saw them and loved them.

The beards of the young men glisten’d with wet, it ran from their
long hair,
Little streams pass’d all over their bodies.

An unseen hand also pass’d over their bodies,
It descended tremblingly from their temples and ribs.

The young men float on their backs, their white bellies bulge to the
sun, they do not ask who seizes fast to them,
They do not know who puffs and declines with pendant and bending
arch,
They do not think whom they ***** with spray.

12
The butcher-boy puts off his killing-clothes, or sharpens his knife
at the stall in the market,
I loiter enjoying his repartee and his shuffle and break-down.

Blacksmiths with grimed and hairy chests environ the anvil,
Each has his main-sledge, they are all out, there is a great heat in
the fire.

From the cinder-strew’d threshold I follow their movements,
The lithe sheer of their waists plays even with their massive arms,
Overhand the hammers swing, overhand so slow, overhand so sure,
They do not hasten, each man hits in his place.

13
The ***** holds firmly the reins of his four horses, the block swags
underneath on its tied-over chain,
The ***** that drives the long dray of the stone-yard, steady and
tall he stands pois’d on one leg on the string-piece,
His blue shirt exposes his ample neck and breast and loosens over
his hip-band,
His glance is calm and commanding, he tosses the slouch of his hat
away from his forehead,
The sun falls on his crispy hair and mustache, falls on the black of
his polish’d and perfect limbs.

I behold the picturesque giant and love him, and I do not stop
there,
I go with the team also.

In me the caresser of life wherever moving, backward as well as
forward sluing,
To niches aside and junior bending, not a person or object missing,
Absorbing all to myself and for this song.

Oxen that rattle the yoke and chain or halt in the leafy shade, what
is that you express in your eyes?
It seems to me more than all the print I have read in my life.

My tread scares the wood-drake and wood-duck on my distant and
day-long ramble,
They rise together, they slowly circle around.

I believe in those wing’d purposes,
And acknowledge red, yellow, white, playing within me,
And consider green and violet and the tufted crown i

Chad looked over at his sleeping son sitting next to him in the passenger seat. This little journey from the airport to his home still seemed so strange and uneasy to him. It astounded him that Ian was now twelve years old, nearly a teenager. To be honest, he still did not fully feel sure about this arrangement, this set-up for him to have his son for the summer. Nevertheless, he tried to project confidence to everyone involved, to his family and to Ian's mom. He kept reminding himself that it did not matter how he felt.

He needed to step up to the plate.

No, Chad Brewster never envisioned himself as a father, never dreamed of it, and certainly never once desired it or would have chosen it as his path. Though some of his close friends wanted or had a family, it was never a part of his plans to ever be a dad. He did not dislike children, but he just never expected he would ever settle down and have them.

He especially never expected to be a father at the mere age of sixteen years old.

The suburbs of Las Vegas were worlds away from the suburbs of Milwaukee. Driving down the desert surrounded streets and highways, sometimes homesickness tugged at his consciousness. At times, Chad’s craved the surroundings of his old existence—the shady pine trees, and spending time at Lake Michigan—and he would gladly trade some palm trees for the some of the pines he was so accustomed to. But this was the life he now chose to have, and he thought he should have no reason to complain or be too sentimental. Many people were not so lucky to experience any refreshing change in their lives, and he was able to have it.

While on the road, Chad reminded himself to give Ian's mom, Becca, a quick call to let her know that they were on their way to his home. He pulled out his cell phone before he got distracted. Ian already texted her a few times to let her know he was alive and breathing along the way.

Becca had her reservations about sending her son off to be with his dad. He had his visiting rights, though, and she couldn't lawfully deny him them. It was a tough decision to send him off alone on the plane to meet up with his father, but Ian had good sense, and he was taking a direct flight to Vegas. He loved to text, and his mother made sure he had his very own cell phone to keep in constant contact with her. It was so hard to let him go like this, for Becca cherished Ian. He had a much harder start in life than some other kids, and she felt partly to blame for it.

Chad got a hold of Ian’s mom. "No way in Hell! You are calling me now?" she angrily accused him, her tongue sharp with criticism. "You know **** well this is his very first plane trip by himself, and I thought you'd have the decency to tell me once he got off that plane! Please! Don't try to convince me that this whole thing is a huge mistake, some major lapse in my judgment. Can you do that for me? You could have at least had the decency! Put him on the phone! Let me talk to him!"

"Look, Becca, he's asleep. It was a long day for him. He's exhausted". Chad was trying his best to hold back any displeasure or to raise his voice, but he expected his calm wouldn’t last. "Don't ***** me out for not calling you the very second you are demanding. You know I would have called in a heartbeat if I felt Ian was in danger. You know I would".

"Oh, I'm really not so sure", she replied, sarcastically. "I'm tempted to fly over there and come get him! I've been sick about it all day!"

"Such a **** drama queen, Becca! Like it or not, the world doesn't revolve around you! You don't have all the control! “ The anger rising was rising up in his tone. Her judgment of him of was so tiring.

"Oh, really Chad?" she replied. "I've got my act together a long time ago, but you...".

"Look, he is my son, too!" Chad shouted loudly. He was fed up of her ****** attitude, ready to hang up in her face.

"You could have fooled me!"

His eyes were glaring as he drove down the arid Nevada highway, just as if Becca stood there right before him, her finger wagging in his face, her other hand on her hip. He pictured her now as if time and everything in it had stood still, and she was before his motionless car and in his face, still in step with time and letting him have it.

This little display was so typical of her. Only Becca Morgan thought she ever had any common sense when it came to their parental abilities. Sure, she was the one who really raised their son, but she never would have pulled it off without the huge intervention of her mother.

Without a doubt, Ian had to admit to himself that he had been avoidant and immature in the past, but Becca did not have the patent on good parenting or on maturity. In her eyes, Chad was never going to be a proper father, even if he proved it.

Chad vowed that he wasn't going to pay forever for his mistakes of being an absent father, far more absent than present in his young son's life.

He looked over at his son sitting beside him. Ian was sound asleep—thank God—for he heard his parents squabble about him far more than he should have. In fact, he never saw his parents talking in a friendly manner. No matter how they began talking to each other, their conversations always ended up with angry words.

Ian must have been dead tired to sleep through it all. He hardly stirred since he fell asleep. If Chad wasn’t driving, he would be studying his slumbering son in peculiar wonder, sitting there for quite some time and thinking how on earth he ever was able to produce such a child, a seemingly healthy and well-rounded boy. It was as if his child was an UFO alien, or something—someone to be discovered for who he really was, and someone to be fathomed with fear.  He felt that uncomfortable about being placed into the role of a father.

It gave Chad's stomach a funny, odd feeling to think he wasn't too much older than Ian when Becca—his loving girlfriend at the time—came up to him and told him the shocking news. It would be the news that would forever change his life, and hers.

She was pregnant. Chad was definitely the father.

It wasn't that Becca did not know what to do about her condition, for she knew what she wanted from almost the very start, and she had settled it in her mind without much inner conflict. There was no helplessness or hopelessness in her, not like some pregnant teenage girls that found themselves in such a predicament. She wanted to have her baby and keep it to raise as her very own, and not for a future adoption—with or without Chad's approval. She did love Chad, but in the long run, she did not care what he thought if he did not agree with her.

As far as she was concerned, this baby was hers.

Chad, on the other hand, was terrified, simply terrified. He did not want to believe the news, hoping that Becca would turn around and tell him it was a huge joke. He would be quite ticked at her if she did such a thing, but also very relieved. He would gladly kiss the ground for it not to be true.

If only it was a joke. Becca was quite serious, playing  no such prank on him, Next, she planned to tell her mother next about her unborn baby. But the first person she wanted to tell was her boyfriend, and she expected that he would be on her side—or at least be won over eventually.

As a dumbfounded Chad stared at her in disbelief and shock—like the classic deer in the headlights—Becca insisted that she was telling the truth, that she was even beginning to show. She could prove it.  Her periods had stopped, and three home pregnancy tests confirmed her suspicions.  Gently, she took Chad’s hand to place over her stomach. Freaked out of his mind, he ****** his hand away as quickly as it touched her belly. His knee **** reaction would always stick in Becca's mind of how Chad really felt about her. It was almost like she had a disease.

She suddenly felt dejected. It looked like Chad would not be on her side, after all.

Maybe it wasn't his? Chad knew that Becca would hate him if he ever implied such a thing. She was crazy about him. Chad knew that. But she had an equal amount of passion to go the other way if he betrayed her. The doubt on his face, and the hesitancy in his voice, did betray him and Becca’s heart slowly sank. She wanted Chad to care, to understand, certainly not to view her as the guilty partner who was ready to ruin his life.

Instead, it looked like the beginning of the end for them.

No way was Chad willing to break the news to his parents, especially his dad, Ed Brewster. He’d rather put a gun to his head than say anything about it. Chad really never saw eye to eye with his father.  Unlike his two older brothers, Michael and David, Chad always felt like he could never please the man. His mother, Nancy, had forever seen Chad as the role that life had given him—the baby of the family. He seemed to have more leeway with her, but not so much as an inch with his father.

Ed, a veteran police officer, wanted all three of his sons to do well in life, better than he had achieved. And as Michael and David were dreaming of such careers as doctors and lawyers, all Chad ever dreamed of was to be a drummer in a rock band. Playing the drums was fine for a hobby, but Chad's father wanted his son to see the garage band he played in as something temporary, something to grow out of.  His son saw otherwise, never seeing himself ever retiring his drumsticks for some job he was bored to death with, or that he hated. He didn’t care if he would never end up earning a dime from it, not playing the drums would be like not having arms or legs. Chad would never give up on his musical aspirations.

One of the first photos that his mother took of her youngest son was him as a baby, sitting on the floor in the kitchen and banging a ladle on the bottom of a pan. At that age, he would much rather play with kitchen utensils, using them like a drum, than any shiny, fascinating toy in his possession. His mom simply thought it was adorable. His father wasn't so impressed, especially since the racket he made was only the beginning in his musical journey of too much noise surfacing from the basement.  There would be plenty of times when Ed would warn his son to give the drums a rest, or he would throw them in the garbage, for Chad could practice for hours on end.

It seemed that music flowed in Chad's blood, was natural to him, but no one in the family had any such musical talents or ambitions.  While his father just didn't get it, his mother supported him with any help she could. When he was six, he was in his glory when his she bought him a child's drum set to bang on. When he turned eleven, she bought him a real set of drums, and encouraged his participation in school band. His brothers' interests were far more typical. They were heavy into sports, and they always had their father's blessings. When Chad kept on doing what he loved, he was seen by his dad as almost a delinquent.

Now that he was an adult, his love of music was paying off. Resettling in Vegas provided many opportunities, plenty of musical venues. With all the entertainment in Sin City, Chad could find enough work playing the drums. There has been a good flow of steady work for him to work in the casinos, and he also played in a local band that did such gigs as weddings, birthday parties and bar mitzvahs. They were a group of six talented musicians that got together to form their own band, and play just about anything—rock, rap, blues, jazz, country and swing. They soon voted with each other on what to call themselves. A good name had a lot to do with if someone got hired for gigs, and nothing they could think up sounded any good.  It seemed like all the great names were already taken, nothing new under the sun. The Sonic Waves sounded the coolest, but since that name was already used, Chad played around with the idea and suggested they call themselves Sonic Stream. That had good potential, and the others agreed with it. He was glad and honored to make such a contribution to his band.        

Chad could honestly say he was happy out here in Nevada. His mother felt like he was trying his best to distance himself from the reality of his problems, especially his strained relationship with his father. Chad disagreed. He just wanted to feel like he could accomplish something in his life, not proving anything to anybody—but to himself.

Would Ian be happy out here with him? It would only be for the summer, but would Chad make a good impression on him in his life out here? Ian glanced over at his son who still slept almost like a baby, seemingly wiped out, though the day was still young.

Several minutes later, Ian called out, "What time is it?"

Somehow awakened, he was rubbing his eyes, disoriented by the fact that he was in a different time zone and in an unfamiliar place. Chad smiled at him, trying to reassure the boy that he was glad to have him here.

“Almost two thirty", Chad returned. Ian moaned and tried to sit up straight, squinting from the glare of the strong Nevada sun. Quite groggy, his internal clock was not sure what time it was.

Your mom called”, Chad told Ian. “You know your mom, bud. She does worry about you”.

“I texted Mom. I said I made it OK”, he replied.

“But did you actually talk to her?” Chad asked. “You know how she is. Unless she talked to you herself, I am sure she was convinced some madman took control of your cell phone and pretended to be you”.

Chad laughed and Ian tried not to act like what he said was that funny, but he shyly grinned and tried to cover his mouth to conceal it. He did have a special bond with his mother, but he knew his dad was right. His mom worried way too much.

“I talked to her just before the plane took off”, Ian admitted.

They drove in silence for a while. Chad had to admit to himself that Ian was looking more and more like him the more he grew up, and Chad seemed to favor his mother's looks—of which he was grateful—for he never wanted to resemble his dad.  Lots of times, Chad and Ian were mistaken for brothers, Ian a much younger brother, but surely not imagined to be his son. Chad felt that Ian was already looking like a teenager, maturing fast for his age, and Chad often was perceived as younger than his twenty-eight years. Ian was growing up so much more than his father could envision, and Chad knew why. It wasn't like he saw his son so frequently that the change was not obvious. Every time he saw him, a big gap had been gapped by growth and change, and Chad was guilty of missing much of those experiences.

Was it that Chad did not really want to grow up? Becca surely accused him of that. His father did, too. Performing gigs in a local band seemed far from a man's job to Chad's father. When he still lived in Wisconsin, he knew he had better learn to have other work to fall back on, for band work did not always pay the bills in those days. That is why he trained to be an x-ray technician. It wasn't the job of his dreams, but it helped keep him afloat when making money from music did not meet his financial requirements. Even though Chad did achieve a fairly decent and respectable job, it did not seem to matter to his critical father.

At the mere age of sixteen, Chad had nothing to back him up against the anger his father would have towards him. He knew he would be knocked down for sure when his parents found out about Becca's pregnancy.

The words his furious father told him stung pretty harshly. "You don't have the sense to be a father! You don't seem lately to have the sense to be anything! You'd ruin that kid’s life, for sure!"

His father had to always play the street-smart cop, even at home, and Chad was fed up as looking like a criminal in his eyes. He almost wanted to cry, but refused to show his father any such weakness. Instead, he gave him the best stone cold, unemotional response that he could muster up. Replying in a monotone manner, though he really feared his father's anger, was the best way to stick it back to him.

"Sure, you're right. I take after you. Bad fathering runs in the family", he said back.

Ed looked like he wanted to punch his son, though he never laid a hand on any of his sons in such a way. Trying to repress his own sense of hurt, and remain with his anger, he replied, "If you were eighteen, I'd throw your *** out right now! Don't push your luck!"

Chad always aspire

Of that sort of Dramatic Poem which is call’d Tragedy.


Tragedy, as it was antiently compos’d, hath been ever held the
gravest, moralest, and most profitable of all other Poems:
therefore said by Aristotle to be of power by raising pity and fear,
or terror, to purge the mind of those and such like passions, that is
to temper and reduce them to just measure with a kind of delight,
stirr’d up by reading or seeing those passions well imitated. Nor is
Nature wanting in her own effects to make good his assertion: for
so in Physic things of melancholic hue and quality are us’d against
melancholy, sowr against sowr, salt to remove salt humours.
Hence Philosophers and other gravest Writers, as Cicero, Plutarch
and others, frequently cite out of Tragic Poets, both to adorn and
illustrate thir discourse.  The Apostle Paul himself thought it not
unworthy to insert a verse of Euripides into the Text of Holy
Scripture, I Cor. 15. 33. and Paraeus commenting on the
Revelation, divides the whole Book as a Tragedy, into Acts
distinguisht each by a Chorus of Heavenly Harpings and Song
between.  Heretofore Men in highest dignity have labour’d not a
little to be thought able to compose a Tragedy.  Of that honour
Dionysius the elder was no less ambitious, then before of his
attaining to the Tyranny. Augustus Caesar also had begun his
Ajax, but unable to please his own judgment with what he had
begun. left it unfinisht.  Seneca the Philosopher is by some thought
the Author of those Tragedies (at lest the best of them) that go
under that name.  Gregory Nazianzen a Father of the Church,
thought it not unbeseeming the sanctity of his person to write a
Tragedy which he entitl’d, Christ suffering. This is mention’d to
vindicate Tragedy from the small esteem, or rather infamy, which
in the account of many it undergoes at this day with other common
Interludes; hap’ning through the Poets error of intermixing Comic
stuff with Tragic sadness and gravity; or introducing trivial and
****** persons, which by all judicious hath bin counted absurd; and
brought in without discretion, corruptly to gratifie the people. And
though antient Tragedy use no Prologue, yet using sometimes, in
case of self defence, or explanation, that which Martial calls an
Epistle; in behalf of this Tragedy coming forth after the antient
manner, much different from what among us passes for best, thus
much before-hand may be Epistl’d; that Chorus is here introduc’d
after the Greek manner, not antient only but modern, and still in
use among the Italians. In the modelling therefore of this Poem
with good reason, the Antients and Italians are rather follow’d, as
of much more authority and fame. The measure of Verse us’d in
the Chorus is of all sorts, call’d by the Greeks Monostrophic, or
rather Apolelymenon, without regard had to Strophe, Antistrophe
or Epod, which were a kind of Stanza’s fram’d only for the Music,
then us’d with the Chorus that sung; not essential to the Poem, and
therefore not material; or being divided into Stanza’s or Pauses
they may be call’d Allaeostropha.  Division into Act and Scene
referring chiefly to the Stage (to which this work never was
intended) is here omitted.

It suffices if the whole Drama be found not produc’t beyond the
fift Act, of the style and uniformitie, and that commonly call’d the
Plot, whether intricate or explicit, which is nothing indeed but such
oeconomy, or disposition of the fable as may stand best with
verisimilitude and decorum; they only will best judge who are not
unacquainted with Aeschulus, Sophocles, and Euripides, the three
Tragic Poets unequall’d yet by any, and the best rule to all who
endeavour to write Tragedy. The circumscription of time wherein
the whole Drama begins and ends, is according to antient rule, and
best example, within the space of 24 hours.



The ARGUMENT.


Samson made Captive, Blind, and now in the Prison at Gaza, there
to labour as in a common work-house, on a Festival day, in the
general cessation from labour, comes forth into the open Air, to a
place nigh, somewhat retir’d there to sit a while and bemoan his
condition. Where he happens at length to be visited by certain
friends and equals of his tribe, which make the Chorus, who seek
to comfort him what they can ; then by his old Father Manoa, who
endeavours the like, and withal tells him his purpose to procure his
liberty by ransom; lastly, that this Feast was proclaim’d by the
Philistins as a day of Thanksgiving for thir deliverance from the
hands of Samson, which yet more troubles him.  Manoa then
departs to prosecute his endeavour with the Philistian Lords for
Samson’s redemption; who in the mean while is visited by other
persons; and lastly by a publick Officer to require coming to the
Feast before the Lords and People, to play or shew his strength in
thir presence; he at first refuses, dismissing the publick officer with
absolute denyal to come; at length perswaded inwardly that this
was from God, he yields to go along with him, who came now the
second time with great threatnings to fetch him; the Chorus yet
remaining on the place, Manoa returns full of joyful hope, to
procure e’re long his Sons deliverance: in the midst of which
discourse an Ebrew comes in haste confusedly at first; and
afterward more distinctly relating the Catastrophe, what Samson
had done to the Philistins, and by accident to himself; wherewith
the Tragedy ends.


The Persons

Samson.
Manoa the father of Samson.
Dalila his wife.
Harapha of Gath.
Publick Officer.
Messenger.
Chorus of Danites


The Scene before the Prison in Gaza.

Sam:  A little onward lend thy guiding hand
To these dark steps, a little further on;
For yonder bank hath choice of Sun or shade,
There I am wont to sit, when any chance
Relieves me from my task of servile toyl,
Daily in the common Prison else enjoyn’d me,
Where I a Prisoner chain’d, scarce freely draw
The air imprison’d also, close and damp,
Unwholsom draught: but here I feel amends,
The breath of Heav’n fresh-blowing, pure and sweet,
With day-spring born; here leave me to respire.
This day a solemn Feast the people hold
To Dagon thir Sea-Idol, and forbid
Laborious works, unwillingly this rest
Thir Superstition yields me; hence with leave
Retiring from the popular noise, I seek
This unfrequented place to find some ease,
Ease to the body some, none to the mind
From restless thoughts, that like a deadly swarm
Of Hornets arm’d, no sooner found alone,
But rush upon me thronging, and present
Times past, what once I was, and what am now.
O wherefore was my birth from Heaven foretold
Twice by an Angel, who at last in sight
Of both my Parents all in flames ascended
From off the Altar, where an Off’ring burn’d,
As in a fiery column charioting
His Godlike presence, and from some great act
Or benefit reveal’d to Abraham’s race?
Why was my breeding order’d and prescrib’d
As of a person separate to God,
Design’d for great exploits; if I must dye
Betray’d, Captiv’d, and both my Eyes put out,
Made of my Enemies the scorn and gaze;
To grind in Brazen Fetters under task
With this Heav’n-gifted strength? O glorious strength
Put to the labour of a Beast, debas’t
Lower then bondslave! Promise was that I
Should Israel from Philistian yoke deliver;
Ask for this great Deliverer now, and find him
Eyeless in Gaza at the Mill with slaves,
Himself in bonds under Philistian yoke;
Yet stay, let me not rashly call in doubt
Divine Prediction; what if all foretold
Had been fulfilld but through mine own default,
Whom have I to complain of but my self?
Who this high gift of strength committed to me,
In what part lodg’d, how easily bereft me,
Under the Seal of silence could not keep,
But weakly to a woman must reveal it
O’recome with importunity and tears.
O impotence of mind, in body strong!
But what is strength without a double share
Of wisdom, vast, unwieldy, burdensom,
Proudly secure, yet liable to fall
By weakest suttleties, not made to rule,
But to subserve where wisdom bears command.
God, when he gave me strength, to shew withal
How slight the gift was, hung it in my Hair.
But peace, I must not quarrel with the will
Of highest dispensation, which herein
Happ’ly had ends above my reach to know:
Suffices that to me strength is my bane,
And proves the sourse of all my miseries;
So many, and so huge, that each apart
Would ask a life to wail, but chief of all,
O loss of sight, of thee I most complain!
Blind among enemies, O worse then chains,
Dungeon, or beggery, or decrepit age!
Light the prime work of God to me is extinct,
And all her various objects of delight
Annull’d, which might in part my grief have eas’d,
Inferiour to the vilest now become
Of man or worm; the vilest here excel me,
They creep, yet see, I dark in light expos’d
To daily fraud, contempt, abuse and wrong,
Within doors, or without, still as a fool,
In power of others, never in my own;
Scarce half I seem to live, dead more then half.
O dark, dark, dark, amid the blaze of noon,
Irrecoverably dark, total Eclipse
Without all hope of day!
O first created Beam, and thou great Word,
Let there be light, and light was over all;
Why am I thus bereav’d thy prime decree?
The Sun to me is dark
And silent as the Moon,
When she deserts the night
Hid in her vacant interlunar cave.
Since light so necessary is to life,
And almost life itself, if it be true
That light is in the Soul,
She all in every part; why was the sight
To such a tender ball as th’ eye confin’d?
So obvious and so easie to be quench’t,
And not as feeling through all parts diffus’d,
That she might look at will through every pore?
Then had I not been thus exil’d from light;
As in the land of darkness yet in light,
To live a life half dead, a living death,
And buried; but O yet more miserable!
My self, my Sepulcher, a moving Grave,
Buried, yet not exempt
By priviledge of death and burial
From worst of other evils, pains and wrongs,
But made hereby obnoxious more
To all the miseries of life,
Life in captivity
Among inhuman foes.
But who are these? for with joint pace I hear
The tread of many feet stearing this way;
Perhaps my enemies who come to stare
At my affliction, and perhaps to insult,
Thir daily practice to afflict me more.

Chor:  This, this is he; softly a while,
Let us not break in upon him;
O change beyond report, thought, or belief!
See how he lies at random, carelessly diffus’d,
With languish’t head unpropt,
As one past hope, abandon’d
And by himself given over;
In slavish habit, ill-fitted weeds
O’re worn and soild;
Or do my eyes misrepresent?  Can this be hee,
That Heroic, that Renown’d,
Irresistible Samson? whom unarm’d
No strength of man, or fiercest wild beast could withstand;
Who tore the Lion, as the Lion tears the Kid,
Ran on embattelld Armies clad in Iron,
And weaponless himself,
Made Arms ridiculous, useless the forgery
Of brazen shield and spear, the hammer’d Cuirass,
Chalybean temper’d steel, and frock of mail
Adamantean Proof;
But safest he who stood aloof,
When insupportably his foot advanc’t,
In scorn of thir proud arms and warlike tools,
Spurn’d them to death by Troops.  The bold Ascalonite
Fled from his Lion ramp, old Warriors turn’d
Thir plated backs under his heel;
Or grovling soild thir crested helmets in the dust.
Then with what trivial weapon came to Hand,
The Jaw of a dead ***, his sword of bone,
A thousand fore-skins fell, the flower of Palestin
In Ramath-lechi famous to this day:
Then by main force pull’d up, and on his shoulders bore
The Gates of Azza, Post, and massie Bar
Up to the Hill by Hebron, seat of Giants old,
No journey of a Sabbath day, and loaded so;
Like whom the Gentiles feign to bear up Heav’n.
Which shall I first bewail,
Thy ******* or lost Sight,
Prison within Prison
Inseparably dark?
Thou art become (O worst imprisonment!)
The Dungeon of thy self; thy Soul
(Which Men enjoying sight oft without cause complain)
Imprison’d now indeed,
In real darkness of the body dwells,
Shut up from outward light
To incorporate with gloomy night;
For inward light alas
Puts forth no visual beam.
O mirror of our fickle state,
Since man on earth unparallel’d!
The rarer thy example stands,
By how much from the top of wondrous glory,
Strongest of mortal men,
To lowest pitch of abject fortune thou art fall’n.
For him I reckon not in high estate
Whom long descent of birth
Or the sphear of fortune raises;
But thee whose strength, while vertue was her mate
Might have subdu’d the Earth,
Universally crown’d with highest praises.

Sam:  I hear the sound of words, thir sense the air
Dissolves unjointed e’re it reach my ear.

Chor:  Hee speaks, let us draw nigh.  Matchless in might,
The glory late of Israel, now the grief;
We come thy friends and neighbours not unknown
From Eshtaol and Zora’s fruitful Vale
To visit or bewail thee, or if better,
Counsel or Consolation we may bring,
Salve to thy Sores, apt words have power to swage
The tumors of a troubl’d mind,
And are as Balm to fester’d wounds.

Sam:  Your coming, Friends, revives me, for I learn
Now of my own experience, not by talk,
How counterfeit a coin they are who friends
Bear in their Superscription (of the most
I would be understood) in prosperous days
They swarm, but in adverse withdraw their head
Not to be found, though sought.  Wee see, O friends.
How many evils have enclos’d me round;
Yet that which was the worst now least afflicts me,
Blindness, for had I sight, confus’d with shame,
How could I once look up, or heave the head,
Who like a foolish Pilot have shipwrack’t,
My Vessel trusted to me from above,
Gloriously rigg’d; and for a word, a tear,
Fool, have divulg’d the secret gift of God
To a deceitful Woman : tell me Friends,
Am I not sung and proverbd for a Fool
In every street, do they not say, how well
Are come upon him his deserts? yet why?
Immeasurable strength they might behold
In me, of wisdom nothing more then mean;
This with the other should, at least, have paird,
These two proportiond ill drove me transverse.

Chor:  Tax not divine disposal, wisest Men
Have err’d, and by bad Women been deceiv’d;
And shall again, pretend they ne’re so wise.
Deject not then so overmuch thy self,
Who hast of sorrow thy full load besides;
Yet truth to say, I oft have heard men wonder
Why thou shouldst wed Philistian women rather
Then of thine own Tribe fairer, or as fair,
At least of thy own Nation, and as noble.

Sam:  The first I saw at Timna, and she pleas’d
Mee, not my Parents, that I sought to wed,
The daughter of an Infidel: they knew not
That what I motion’d was of God; I knew
From intimate impulse, and therefore urg’d
The Marriage on; that by occasion hence
I might begin Israel’s Deliverance,
The work to which I was divinely call’d;
She proving false, the next I took to Wife
(O that I never had! fond wish too late)
Was in the Vale of Sorec, Dalila,
That specious Monster, my accomplisht snare.
I thought it lawful from my former act,
And the same end; still watching to oppress
Israel’s oppressours: of what now I suffer
She was not the prime cause, but I my self,
Who vanquisht with a peal of words (O weakness!)
Gave up my fort of silence to a Woman.

Chor:  In seeking just occasion to provoke
The Philistine, thy Countries Enemy,
Thou never wast remiss, I hear thee witness:
Yet Israel still serves with all his Sons.

Sam:  That fault I take not on me, but transfer
On Israel’s Governours, and Heads of Tribes,
Who seeing those great acts which God had done
Singly by me against their Conquerours
Acknowledg’d not, or not at all consider’d
Deliverance offerd : I on th’ other side
Us’d no ambition to commend my deeds,
The deeds themselves, though mute, spoke loud the dooer;
But they persisted deaf, and would not seem
To count them things worth notice, till at length
Thir Lords the Philistines with gather’d powers
Enterd Judea seeking mee, who then
Safe to the rock of Etham was retir’d,
Not flying, but fore-casting in what place
To set upon them, what advantag’d best;
Mean while the men of Judah to prevent
The harrass of thir Land, beset me round;
I willingly on some conditions came
Into thir hands, and they as gladly yield me
To the uncircumcis’d a welcom prey,
Bound with two cords; but cords to me were threds
Toucht with the flame: on thi

insecurity /ɪnsɪˈkjɔːrɪti/ is an uncertainty or anxiety
about oneself or lack of confidence

but insecurity is more than that.

insecurity is feeling like
you cannot wear the green shirt
because people would call you and it ugly.

insecurity is spending
an hour in the bathroom
to cover the spots from
cruel, laughing eyes.

insecurity is hiding
in the back of the classroom
with a shroud of mystery
to conceal the fear of
everyone laughing at
your answers.

insecurity is layering
yourself in conservative clothes
so the mockery
about your weight
is out of sight
out of the obnoxious gossipers mind.

insecurity is retiring
to a world of books
in the comfort of my room
since my peers cannot accept
me and my interests.

insecurity is allowing
only a small amount
of food, water, life
to shed the faces full
of ridicule.

insecurity is creating
a veil of sweaters and long-sleeved shirts
to hide the razor marks
of a haunting past.

insecurity is feeling shamed
of any uniqueness because
of the unnecessary attention
and inability to hide your shyness.

insecurity is sustaining
the weight of a burden
from the unfortunate
events of life
and the helplessness that
you couldn't stop the crash
that killed your parents.

insecurity is redesigning
yourself to be perfectly alligned
with society's expectations
making you forget
what makes you unique
so scornful looks are redirected.

insecurity is forgetting
that it's alright to be different
despite another person
saying otherwise.

can't i escape my insecurities?

Home bound after work
near 12:30 am
just a few minutes from checking my email
then retiring
as us old folks like to call it

from the North side of route 7
at a slight angle
there and gone in half a second
was the biggest meteor I've ever seen
if that's what it was
so big that I slowed and listened for a boom
but nothing came
I have no idea how far it went before touching down
but this isn't about the meteor
this is about the fact that when I got home
and thought about who I would tell...
there was no one that came to mind
I've seen so much crazy **** in my life
that the stories have grown old
even the new ones
I breathed life into a dead woman one morning
then faced the fact that I couldn't save another
hit by a truck on my way home
just after midnight

on the day before the great Russian meteor
I saw 2 objects in the sky on fire
and not moving...
in broad daylight
I've been touched and spoken to
by spirits or ghosts or phantoms
take your pick
I saw 3000 people sacrificed in the name of what?
and as a child I witnessed a president murdered by those supposed to follow him
I've grown to see the young know nothing of that last President who actually had a vision and a spine

and when I quietly leave this life
there will be little to note...
a brief glance
of my obituary
by a few sad souls

I often think of a quote I heard as a young man
by a comedian; George Gobel
who was on the 'Tonight Show'
Dean Martin and Bob Hope were also on that show
and unknown to George, Dean was flipping his cigarette ashes
in George's drink as he was telling his humorous stories
this caused the laughs to come out of sequence...and finally a confused George said; 'Did you ever feel like the world was a tuxedo and you were a pair of brown shoes?'

Twenty two years had passed  by

She blinked, and a lifetime had passed

She started this job as a lark

She never thought it would last

Two husbands and rehab were part of this bar

The husbands...her clients all knew

But the rehab, was hers...and hers all alone

Only one in her family knew

She'd been tending bar here for 3 presidents plus

Two popes, two husbands....one queen

There were things in this bar that were secreted away

There were things just not meant to be seen

Say, 4 fights a week for 22 years

That's four thousand six hundred fights

That's more violent acts than one person should see

That's  a lot of just mind numbing sights

As a tender of bar, she was part doctor as well

Serving drinks, and giving advice

She was hit on as well, and most she turned down

But some, they succeeded....some twice

They would come with their problems

spill their guts to this girl

Who they'd probably just met that night

They would tell her their problems and drink a few ales

When they  left, they would be feeling all right

But, Mary...poor Mary would harbour their pain

She'd help them, but could not let things go

They'd cheer up with her talking and 1 or 2 beers

But she hurt, and would leave feeling low

There was always a someone on the tales other end

Who was home, maybe beaten or mad

But, Mary....she talked to the one who'd come out

And she always left feeling quite sad

The stories they told her, she never asked them to tell

But they came and they opened on up

And she as their hostess just listened and served

Whle they sat there, getting full in their cups

She married two men that she met in the bar

Both left wives, and poor Mary was blind

They both charmed this girl, till she was way too far gone

And she learned that love..yes, was blind

She had a young niece, that her sister had left

She was going to school here in town

If there was one person alive who could bring Mary up

Her niece Amber was the proverbial clown

After marrying twice and divorcing just once

Mary vowed not to do it again

But, she was hit on each night

in this bar Down the lane,

by a considerable number of men

Her first husband...a lout, for better want of a term

Was a drunkard, and jealous most days

But she fell for him hard, for his sad tale of woe

And her marriage lasted 91 days

He would come in each night after finishing work

And would berate her for flirting for tips

After leaving the bar, he would beat her at home

Hitting low, just above Mary's hips

Her boss saw her marks whens she was filling the fridge

He kept quiet, but he told her to call

A friend that he had, who would help Mary out

He knew her marks were not from a fall

Before Mary phoned she had incredible news

Her husband had been in a crash

Her problems were over and her bruises would heal

And it all happened ...****...in a flash

During this time her sister ran off

Leaving Amber for Mary to raise

Though she hated her sister for leaving

Dear Amber she loved, and she helped Mary get through the days

But eight years along, with no outlet in sight

Hearing tales and of other folks pain

Mary reached out and she found comfort in

A needle and a rock of *******

for three years she spiked, shooting up every day

spending money she stole from the till

And during this time, she got married again

He seduced her when she had no self will

He knew of her problem and joined in all the same

Just a leech come along for the ride

He would help keep her secret, never telling her boss

Never letting them know she was fried.

Poor Amber found out, she walked in one June day

there was Mary with her coke and her spoon

When she looked at young Amber, she knew she must quit

And she knew that she must do it soon

Pure heartbreak she saw in that little girls eyes

She could see how she thought she would lose

Her Aunt like her mother, gone from her life

Mary knew she would now have to choose

Rehab was chosen, and her husband he left

He found out that this train had now stopped

his free ride was over, his meal ticket gone

You could say that his bubble had popped

Two years clean celebrated, at the bar with the kid

Mary got some good news from her boss

He was retiring to Texas and was selling the bar

And he would sell it to her at a loss

She was now the proud owner of a bar all her own

Three doors down from Giannis on Hope

She would run it precisely, the way she'd been taught

She would run the bar clean, free from dope

She would meet some great people,

Some nights in for a drink

And others that she wished would just leave

She would listen to stories, some good some not quite so much

And others just to  hard to believe

She would make friends with some people  And others she'd ban,

making sure that they left with a start

She'd befriend Harry Cooper, the World War two vet

Who would imprint his soul on her heart

And Amber...yes Amber would come down to spend time

She was fine and was going to school

She was a classical ****** in the dark of her room

And I tell you this girl was just cool

Mary brought Amber up with morals and faith

She would come when her Aunt made the call

She would rather hang out at the bar every night

Than to go with her friends to the mall

Mary made peace with the demons she had

She could leave the folks tales and go home

But, now she had Amber and a reason to live

And she would not have to do it alone

the bar's past Giannias, three doors  down to the right

It's not large but she makes  it make do

There's some music out back from a bluesman as well

Come on down and be one of the few

Be a regular there, join up with the crowd

It's not big but the beer's always cold

You don't have to stay long, but you'll come back again

For it's special....or so I've been told

Tell Mary I sent you, you'll get a free drink

And a free ear to hear of your tale

But, leave your ciggies outside for you can't smoke in here

You can do it outside by the pail.

Year after year
--at daylight savings--
he kept moving his clock backward,
but never forward,
until he wound-up in the wrong century.

He then slept in masks,
his dreams repeatedly
disbanding and reforming,
as if in someone else's show,
but it was his hallucinating set-list, for sure.

He lived at the call of the void,
feeding off peppermint sticks
and clusters of chokeberry,
to help ease the pressure.

One phantom summer,
he read The Joy of Euthanasia
from cover-to-cover, over and over,
until he could recite death.

He poured his heart
into his new work
as an artist of tacenda,
--yes, he kept a lid on it.

And when the pretty young bees
buzzed about underneath
their brazen parasols,
he'd smile up at the sun
for her complicit glow:
the warmest days
always drew them out to him,
like honey on the tongue.

Now naysayers may keep
him out of Canton,
but one day, like most serial killers,
they will name a school after him
and his hijinks.

It promised to be quite ordinary,
that old student/new student/faculty social hour.

I had come to Champaign with high hopes a year earlier,
starting a new career (--and hoping to find someone to love).
Now, with just three months left,
my studies had been a success,
but I had not found anyone to love.
And now I was thinking beyond Champaign:
where I would go, what I would do with my new degree.

I scanned the faces in the crowd.
Mixed in with all-too-familiar classmates and teachers were new people:
A formidable, blonde-haired woman
with a big voice and a large imitation pearl necklace;
no meek, retiring librarian here; a Valkyrie.
A guy with wire-rimmed glasses in his early twenties;
congenial, but serious; he had studied engineering.
A girl; stylish, extroverted;
loved Faulkner; engaged to be married.
A sensitive, thirty-ish woman; recently divorced;
her ex had stuck her with a mountain of credit card debt.
And you, in a pink dress.
No jewelry, not much makeup.
Nice figure.
Very simple, very pretty.
A wonderful smile.
Obviously bright.
You had gone here as an undergraduate.
You had taught school in Iowa for several years
and now were back to get a Library degree.
You had grown up on a farm.
You were eminently lovable.
You were, amazingly, unmarried.

I felt that I was at an art exhibition in nineteenth century France.
Here was Raffaelli's "Boulevard of the Italians"
which had sold for 500 francs.
Over here Lecomte de Nouy's "Ramses in His Harem"
which had brought 1900.
And over here in the corner, neglected,
Van Gogh's, "The Artist's Room at Arles".
I felt like shouting,
"My friends, can't you see the beauty of this painting:
its simplicity and purity, its energy; the symphony of its colors!
You have opted for these smooth, conventional paintings
and left this one, the most valuable of all, unsold. . . ."

I felt like hugging you, right then and there.

You were number two or three on my all-time "instant attraction" list.
But I was wary -- so many others had not worked out, why would you?

Our first date was a "Streetcar Named Desire".
I put my arm around you during the play and held your hand as we walked back    toward your apartment.
I invited you to "Bubby and Zadie's" cafe. You refused and offered no alternative.
I was devastated. So this, too, would come to nothing.
We would walk the three blocks back to your apartment.  We would say    goodnight.
I would go home and cry. That would be that.

But when we arrived, my hopes soared: you invited me up to your apartment. You really just didn't like Bubby and Zadie's -- and you liked and trusted me well enough that the intimacy of your apartment didn't seem inappropriate. We talked for a long time and kissed. When I left, all traces of wariness were gone. The coming weeks would not be ordinary.

So spake the Son of God; and Satan stood
A while as mute, confounded what to say,
What to reply, confuted and convinced
Of his weak arguing and fallacious drift;
At length, collecting all his serpent wiles,
With soothing words renewed, him thus accosts:—
  “I see thou know’st what is of use to know,
What best to say canst say, to do canst do;
Thy actions to thy words accord; thy words
To thy large heart give utterance due; thy heart            
Contains of good, wise, just, the perfet shape.
Should kings and nations from thy mouth consult,
Thy counsel would be as the oracle
Urim and Thummim, those oraculous gems
On Aaron’s breast, or tongue of Seers old
Infallible; or, wert thou sought to deeds
That might require the array of war, thy skill
Of conduct would be such that all the world
Could not sustain thy prowess, or subsist
In battle, though against thy few in arms.                  
These godlike virtues wherefore dost thou hide?
Affecting private life, or more obscure
In savage wilderness, wherefore deprive
All Earth her wonder at thy acts, thyself
The fame and glory—glory, the reward
That sole excites to high attempts the flame
Of most erected spirits, most tempered pure
AEthereal, who all pleasures else despise,
All treasures and all gain esteem as dross,
And dignities and powers, all but the highest?              
Thy years are ripe, and over-ripe.  The son
Of Macedonian Philip had ere these
Won Asia, and the throne of Cyrus held
At his dispose; young Scipio had brought down
The Carthaginian pride; young Pompey quelled
The Pontic king, and in triumph had rode.
Yet years, and to ripe years judgment mature,
Quench not the thirst of glory, but augment.
Great Julius, whom now all the world admires,
The more he grew in years, the more inflamed                
With glory, wept that he had lived so long
Ingloroious.  But thou yet art not too late.”
  To whom our Saviour calmly thus replied:—
“Thou neither dost persuade me to seek wealth
For empire’s sake, nor empire to affect
For glory’s sake, by all thy argument.
For what is glory but the blaze of fame,
The people’s praise, if always praise unmixed?
And what the people but a herd confused,
A miscellaneous rabble, who extol                          
Things ******, and, well weighed, scarce worth the praise?
They praise and they admire they know not what,
And know not whom, but as one leads the other;
And what delight to be by such extolled,
To live upon their tongues, and be their talk?
Of whom to be dispraised were no small praise—
His lot who dares be singularly good.
The intelligent among them and the wise
Are few, and glory scarce of few is raised.
This is true glory and renown—when God,                    
Looking on the Earth, with approbation marks
The just man, and divulges him through Heaven
To all his Angels, who with true applause
Recount his praises.  Thus he did to Job,
When, to extend his fame through Heaven and Earth,
As thou to thy reproach may’st well remember,
He asked thee, ‘Hast thou seen my servant Job?’
Famous he was in Heaven; on Earth less known,
Where glory is false glory, attributed
To things not glorious, men not worthy of fame.            
They err who count it glorious to subdue
By conquest far and wide, to overrun
Large countries, and in field great battles win,
Great cities by assault.  What do these worthies
But rob and spoil, burn, slaughter, and enslave
Peaceable nations, neighbouring or remote,
Made captive, yet deserving freedom more
Than those their conquerors, who leave behind
Nothing but ruin wheresoe’er they rove,
And all the flourishing works of peace destroy;            
Then swell with pride, and must be titled Gods,
Great benefactors of mankind, Deliverers,
Worshipped with temple, priest, and sacrifice?
One is the son of Jove, of Mars the other;
Till conqueror Death discover them scarce men,
Rowling in brutish vices, and deformed,
Violent or shameful death their due reward.
But, if there be in glory aught of good;
It may be means far different be attained,
Without ambition, war, or violence—                        
By deeds of peace, by wisdom eminent,
By patience, temperance.  I mention still
Him whom thy wrongs, with saintly patience borne,
Made famous in a land and times obscure;
Who names not now with honour patient Job?
Poor Socrates, (who next more memorable?)
By what he taught and suffered for so doing,
For truth’s sake suffering death unjust, lives now
Equal in fame to proudest conquerors.
Yet, if for fame and glory aught be done,                  
Aught suffered—if young African for fame
His wasted country freed from Punic rage—
The deed becomes unpraised, the man at least,
And loses, though but verbal, his reward.
Shall I seek glory, then, as vain men seek,
Oft not deserved?  I seek not mine, but His
Who sent me, and thereby witness whence I am.”
  To whom the Tempter, murmuring, thus replied:—
“Think not so slight of glory, therein least
Resembling thy great Father.  He seeks glory,              
And for his glory all things made, all things
Orders and governs; nor content in Heaven,
By all his Angels glorified, requires
Glory from men, from all men, good or bad,
Wise or unwise, no difference, no exemption.
Above all sacrifice, or hallowed gift,
Glory he requires, and glory he receives,
Promiscuous from all nations, Jew, or Greek,
Or Barbarous, nor exception hath declared;
From us, his foes pronounced, glory he exacts.”            
  To whom our Saviour fervently replied:
“And reason; since his Word all things produced,
Though chiefly not for glory as prime end,
But to shew forth his goodness, and impart
His good communicable to every soul
Freely; of whom what could He less expect
Than glory and benediction—that is, thanks—
The slightest, easiest, readiest recompense
From them who could return him nothing else,
And, not returning that, would likeliest render            
Contempt instead, dishonour, obloquy?
Hard recompense, unsuitable return
For so much good, so much beneficience!
But why should man seek glory, who of his own
Hath nothing, and to whom nothing belongs
But condemnation, ignominy, and shame—
Who, for so many benefits received,
Turned recreant to God, ingrate and false,
And so of all true good himself despoiled;
Yet, sacrilegious, to himself would take                    
That which to God alone of right belongs?
Yet so much bounty is in God, such grace,
That who advances his glory, not their own,
Them he himself to glory will advance.”
  So spake the Son of God; and here again
Satan had not to answer, but stood struck
With guilt of his own sin—for he himself,
Insatiable of glory, had lost all;
Yet of another plea bethought him soon:—
  “Of glory, as thou wilt,” said he, “so deem;              
Worth or not worth the seeking, let it pass.
But to a Kingdom thou art born—ordained
To sit upon thy father David’s throne,
By mother’s side thy father, though thy right
Be now in powerful hands, that will not part
Easily from possession won with arms.
Judaea now and all the Promised Land,
Reduced a province under Roman yoke,
Obeys Tiberius, nor is always ruled
With temperate sway: oft have they violated                
The Temple, oft the Law, with foul affronts,
Abominations rather, as did once
Antiochus.  And think’st thou to regain
Thy right by sitting still, or thus retiring?
So did not Machabeus.  He indeed
Retired unto the Desert, but with arms;
And o’er a mighty king so oft prevailed
That by strong hand his family obtained,
Though priests, the crown, and David’s throne usurped,
With Modin and her suburbs once content.                    
If kingdom move thee not, let move thee zeal
And duty—zeal and duty are not slow,
But on Occasion’s forelock watchful wait:
They themselves rather are occasion best—
Zeal of thy Father’s house, duty to free
Thy country from her heathen servitude.
So shalt thou best fulfil, best verify,
The Prophets old, who sung thy endless reign—
The happier reign the sooner it begins.
Rein then; what canst thou better do the while?”            
  To whom our Saviour answer thus returned:—
“All things are best fulfilled in their due time;
And time there is for all things, Truth hath said.
If of my reign Prophetic Writ hath told
That it shall never end, so, when begin
The Father in his purpose hath decreed—
He in whose hand all times and seasons rowl.
What if he hath decreed that I shall first
Be tried in humble state, and things adverse,
By tribulations, injuries, insults,                        
Contempts, and scorns, and snares, and violence,
Suffering, abstaining, quietly expecting
Without distrust or doubt, that He may know
What I can suffer, how obey?  Who best
Can suffer best can do, best reign who first
Well hath obeyed—just trial ere I merit
My exaltation without change or end.
But what concerns it thee when I begin
My everlasting Kingdom?  Why art thou
Solicitous?  What moves thy inquisition?                    
Know’st thou not that my rising is thy fall,
And my promotion will be thy destruction?”
  To whom the Tempter, inly racked, replied:—
“Let that come when it comes.  All hope is lost
Of my reception into grace; what worse?
For where no hope is left is left no fear.
If there be worse, the expectation more
Of worse torments me than the feeling can.
I would be at the worst; worst is my port,
My harbour, and my ultimate repose,                        
The end I would attain, my final good.
My error was my error, and my crime
My crime; whatever, for itself condemned,
And will alike be punished, whether thou
Reign or reign not—though to that gentle brow
Willingly I could fly, and hope thy reign,
From that placid aspect and meek regard,
Rather than aggravate my evil state,
Would stand between me and thy Father’s ire
(Whose ire I dread more than the fire of Hell)              
A shelter and a kind of shading cool
Interposition, as a summer’s cloud.
If I, then, to the worst that can be haste,
Why move thy feet so slow to what is best?
Happiest, both to thyself and all the world,
That thou, who worthiest art, shouldst be their King!
Perhaps thou linger’st in deep thoughts detained
Of the enterprise so hazardous and high!
No wonder; for, though in thee be united
What of perfection can in Man be found,                    
Or human nature can receive, consider
Thy life hath yet been private, most part spent
At home, scarce viewed the Galilean towns,
And once a year Jerusalem, few days’
Short sojourn; and what thence couldst thou observe?
The world thou hast not seen, much less her glory,
Empires, and monarchs, and their radiant courts—
Best school of best experience, quickest in sight
In all things that to greatest actions lead.
The wisest, unexperienced, will be ever                    
Timorous, and loth, with novice modesty
(As he who, seeking *****, found a kingdom)
Irresolute, unhardy, unadventrous.
But I will bring thee where thou soon shalt quit
Those rudiments, and see before thine eyes
The monarchies of the Earth, their pomp and state—
Sufficient introduction to inform
Thee, of thyself so apt, in regal arts,
And regal mysteries; that thou may’st know
How best their opposition to withstand.”                    
  With that (such power was given him then), he took
The Son of God up to a mountain high.
It was a mountain at whose verdant feet
A spacious plain outstretched in circuit wide
Lay pleasant; from his side two rivers flowed,
The one winding, the other straight, and left between
Fair champaign, with less rivers interveined,
Then meeting joined their tribute to the sea.
Fertil of corn the glebe, of oil, and wine;
With herds the pasture thronged, with flocks the hills;    
Huge cities and high-towered, that well might seem
The seats of mightiest monarchs; and so large
The prospect was that here and there was room
For barren desert, fountainless and dry.
To this high mountain-top the Tempter brought
Our Saviour, and new train of words began:—
  “Well have we speeded, and o’er hill and dale,
Forest, and field, and flood, temples and towers,
Cut shorter many a league.  Here thou behold’st
Assyria, and her empire’s ancient bounds,                  
Araxes and the Caspian lake; thence on
As far as Indus east, Euphrates west,
And oft beyond; to south the Persian bay,
And, inaccessible, the Arabian drouth:
Here, Nineveh, of length within her wall
Several days’ journey, built by Ninus old,
Of that first golden monarchy the seat,
And seat of Salmanassar, whose success
Israel in long captivity still mourns;
There Babylon, the wonder of all tongues,                  
As ancient, but rebuilt by him who twice
Judah and all thy father David’s house
Led captive, and Jerusalem laid waste,
Till Cyrus set them free; Persepolis,
His city, there thou seest, and Bactra there;
Ecbatana her structure vast there shews,
And Hecatompylos her hunderd gates;
There Susa by Choaspes, amber stream,
The drink of none but kings; of later fame,
Built by Emathian or by Parthian hands,                    
The great Seleucia, Nisibis, and there
Artaxata, Teredon, Ctesiphon,
Turning with easy eye, thou may’st behold.
All these the Parthian (now some ages past
By great Arsaces led, who founded first
That empire) under his dominion holds,
From the luxurious kings of Antioch won.
And just in time thou com’st to have a view
Of his great power; for now the Parthian king
In Ctesiphon hath gathered all his host                    
Against the Scythian, whose incursions wild
Have wasted Sogdiana; to her aid
He marches now in haste.  See, though from far,
His thousands, in what martial e

I.    Scared
This is real for me
This is love to me.
And some days I’m scared out of my mind at how genuine this is.
Nothing has ever felt this authentic to me, other than maybe pain.
This is new to me.
You read the stories and love is this all powerful magic and its so **** powerful that it scares me. It scares me that this thing, this emotion, may rip my heart out of my chest and leave it in a million little pieces.
I’m not scared of you,
I’m not scared of us,
I’m not scared of a fight,
I’m not scared of love,
I’m not scared of forever,
And I’m definitely not scared of heartbreak, my heart has known its scars and I’m not afraid of gathering more.
I’m scared of an ending that’s everything but happy,
I’m scared of the strength of my feelings,
scared I’ll let you down,
scared I’ll hurt you,
scared of anything and everything, all my demons coming out to play and every inch of me is screaming run.
I’m scared that I’ll run,
I’m scared of losing you,
of not being enough.
But as scared as I am, I’m willing to fight for this.
For us.
For our forever
Our happy ever after.

II.    Two
Two souls, more different yet similar than most, met while on their own paths.
They continued together for a while, like many others.
A poet and a soldier, each claiming their own hell, living in their own darkness.
Finding comfort in each other’s arms.

III.    Love
How do you measure a relationship?
By the future?
By the arguments?
I’ve always measured it by how far I could see down the road.
And honestly, with some I could see into 20’s or 30’s, but never the end of our road. Those thoughts were foggy, these are too but more clear, everything is blurred but your face, where with them everything but their face was clear.
With them, I saw lives I didn’t want, lives that were comfortably numb. I saw superficial happy endings.
But with you I see my forever.
I see 5 years down the road, chasing dreams
I see 10 years, building a family
I see 15 years, balancing life
I see 40 years, retiring
I see 50 years, walking down random city streets, hands intertwined
I see 60+ years and meeting again someday in another existence  

I see forever with you
I want forever with you.

I.
     Below a capable bay strays a profitable whistle. The castle wrongs an enemy. The retiring intellect renders the gateway. The shaking countryside copes throughout a bought photocopy. A caring cluster jams around the flash approval. The league pulses inside the shame.
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     When can the sock chamber the human soundtrack? A snag overlooks a conceivable scheme. A monochrome biologist originates without a code. A disaster relaxes near your crisp charter. A cook fudges before the chance kingdom. A room leaps inside a spigot.
     The starved incompetent aborts throughout the worthless lifetime. The protein writes inside an undocumented sniff. The instrumental panel lies before the pipeline. The spike pinches the scope.
     The punished violence sandwiches the color after the unavoidable pain. A scarlet automobile prevails beneath a sinful stone. The bridge quibbles below a custard. Does an amber designer whistle with a cell?
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     A puzzled tea runs beneath the combining prose. The feat hangs from a daylight. The rat derives the oxygen. Our occurrence ducks near a god.
     A diesel flowers before the rival. The wiser foot floats the faithful analogue. A chicken cows a megabyte. A fossil drains the content gulf. The crossword surfaces below a suicide.
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     The secular shame hurts the scrap. My system mutters near a concern. A slippery giant does the kind holder. The rational sneak inhibits a tone.
     How will a chapter stick the foreigner? How can the meaningless pacifier monkey the nurse? Past the joke bores the approval. The enclosed advance pokes a moderate epic. Does the similar army pinch my elected soldier? The holy flies outside this swamped mystic.
     A slang drowns its operating alarm. The photo fumes below a hearing angle. How does the existence enter near the independent alternative? The enabling rocket despairs on top of a poet. An estate graduates on top of the located penguin.
     A damp psychologist assumes the food. Underneath a fighting lens worries a smallish motive. This bursting home experiments before the client. The musical turns without the highway.
     The hotel snacks beside a chemical. The cynical chocolate strains opposite a crisis. Does this sneak blood fume against the creator? Will a coast pant? Will the hand expand?
     The censor beams the flag. Will a functioning pope support a mounted toad? An unbalanced timetable yawns behind the meet defeat. A bedroom stretches around the global bigotry. The race writes. The predecessor guards an incapable contempt.
     When will the salary balance the expiring newcomer? The article bores! The advance rules without the arch! After the connecting human peers every par alien. The excess vends the fatuous courier. The carbon appends an inane sink.
     A four yawn cautions. How will the humorous concentrate refrain? The backbone flashes into the less premise. The servant retracts a voluntary flour.
     Beneath the mill bores the wetting pig.The kiss entitles my funded ballot throughout the throat. Our rose hastens a sample over the derived metric. The roundabout well coats the explicit truth. The stone persists.

II.
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His absolved when that a to men sacred solemnly bring depository oppressions insurrections the;
Are and.
Correspondence our between the rectitude;
Laws all only the that them.
And the.
Legislative hold consanguinity.
Utterly excited foreign;
Been effect absolute.
To forms.
Repeated them to their.
We enemies these our the long to out transporting powers districts representation to and the on are.
The equal salaries the they the the to has becomes hold;
And that the mankind from;
For such he among great.
For people attempts will their;
Be to;
Accustomed us;
The for.
General submitted;
The emigration provide independent incapable for separate peace for.
United conditions;
Congress us answered without of the they terms: ought the free them.
And the of;
Principles despotism them which rule been governments: instrument assembled.
To of have our undistinguished.
Is unless new necessity  which savages his the in dissolve.
Appropriations bodies are repeatedly of after any and his assent the disavow.
Naturalization valuable us it we the hold suspended.
And ends nature.
Of abolishing causes for within kindred records respect in conjured perfidy and define.
Circumstances legislative us will.
Great therein laws such our our the our.
Of declaration which to to of;
And and becomes in but their;
Do crown reliance mankind;
Separation repeated of time of right to to to let station.
That compleat when which he and unusual the the;
Would prudence governments;
He ruler government;
Them in.
Necessary repeated.
Protection the have;
To object his.
The and most do;
The events and.
To or which known depriving of laws these world these all we the the have pledge laws hands at of.
Foreign the of on of unfit most fall is forms;
Be a.
They he people troops.
Become government assume to;
All a of and honor;
Justice among sexes.
The be we indeed in;
Arms so.
Of civil.
Taken begun in act.
Mean them of petitions by.
New guards tyranny their may to;
Forbidden to;
Are a and same.
Head together;
The by he till should to;
Voice he our.
Firm parts.
Circumstances foreigners necessary the of our has on.
That self-evident connection a opinions for in.
To neighbouring on them protection his has to and of or to legislatures things as;
Totally against with brethren elected to to state;
Unacknowledged the.
Has sufferance its population those trial pass their of have among.
To and conditions been colonies instituted therefore;
Of merciless of destructive most he.
For and.
And powers with and on;
Other long.
For colonies exercise.
Towns for to men than hither their to.
Dictate refused;
The have.
Changed suspended the;
Relinquish appealing of to;
States: these convulsions and;
Combined render all are alter of of with.
To raising usurpations.

III.
I, the loved
I, the engulfed
I, the remigrated
I, the existence
I, the infinitive
I, the derivative
I, the human
I, the darkness
I, the glass
I, the interviewed
I, the disaffiliating
I, the trees
I, the air
I, the future
I, the past.
I, the present.
I, the moment.
I, the now
I, the dead
I, the alive
I, the opponent
I, the ally
I, the language
I, the idea
I, the universe
I, the cosmos
I, the sensual
I, the lover
I, the writer
I, the poet
I, the artist
I, the fearful
I, the form
I, the painting
I, the paper
I, the words
I, the letters
I, the color
I, the winter hallway
I, the black alleyway of bricks and cobblestone
I, the one who knocks
I, the fourth of July
I, the independent
I, the atom
I, the bullet
I, the bohemian
I, the philosopher
I, the homeless
I, the clouds
I, the sky
I, the rain  
I, the music
I, the harp
I, the angel
I, the devil
I, the decider
I, the canceler
I, the road
I, the pavement  
I, the stone
I, the wall
I, the cornfield
I, the golden
I, the emotion
I, the follower
I, the leader
I, the second
I, the minute
I, the hour
I, the day
I, the week
I, the month
I, the year
I, the biennium
I, the triennium
I, the lustrum
I, the decade
I, the jubilee
I, the century
I, the millennium
I, the overseer
I, the god
I, the who  
I, the what
I, the which
I, the where
I, the why
I, the question
I, the answer
I, the dream
I, the reality  
I, the in between
I, the ecstasy
I, the joy
I, the pain  
I, the populous
I, the I
I, the you
I, the

Title.        Never take for granted
the greatest power, the power to choose.
                ( An Acrostic ) of 50 lines.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Never take for granted the greatest power.
             The power to choose !
Every concession,or subsidy in whatever form
       As a contribution or donation to charity
Value this as a highest prize , volition is the          
   Sacred power to choose ,use that power well
Efficacy empowering the production of results
   By marching forward in a positive direction
Ranges of choices sometimes oh so wide as to
   Make a decision very difficult indeed.

Two equally ,typically undesirable alternatives
     We get to know typically as a dilemma
An act of choosing to take up one option as
     Opposed to another to maintain momentum
Knowing that there’s no apparent option rather
   than the real , you have “Hobson’s choice”
Embarras de richesses you become spoilt for
     Choice, is the other side of the coin.

From the comparison betwixt the humble poet
      And the power hungry “Megalomaniac,
Optimising in an act of choosing between the
  two, voluntary ,of one’s own free will Choose
Rights to act or judge by your power of choice
   you may call this discretion,one or t’other

God grants such power as yet unmaterialised
    and unrealised which he labels potential.
Relinquish that potential at your peril
   you may never live to see that choice again
An area of power and influence you may get
    to understand as your domain but reflect
Never take for granted the greatest power,
   the power to choose.
Twitter and chat with all and sundry
    relatives you’re born to, friends you choose
Even if you use your power of wit n influence
   and see it as weight n clout you throw about
Delegate or depute and assign somebody to
    make your choices for you. No don’t quit !

The A to Z of choices takes no time to ponder
    If you take for granted the power to choose
Hub of influence power centre ganglion from
    which nerve fibres radiate to every solution
Even by commencing from “A”. Aha . Eureka!
   you have chosen first time lucky .But wait. !

Great though he may appear as the “Boy”
  of your dreams, will he stand the test of time?
Retiring back into your shell ,your”Colleagues“
  At work never choose to know the real you.
Every “Demi-God “or “Elder”that you meet ,
  give respect to ,spoil it all by choosing not to.
An “F” word muttered under your breath .
    A “Gender” question,which choice of path?
To “Hero-worship” then a real life commitment
      “Interpreters “ of choices thru a Drago Man
Established in the art of choice as lead by
  “Jesus” Christ “Knowledge “that it will not fail

Superimposed, will “Liquidise “and blend
    all the choices that are available “Mmmmm”
To the most “Natural “smoothie that you have
   ever chosen to drink. “Ohhhh” yes. !  

Pause and “ Pause” again ,do we really under
    stand the power of choice. Procrastinate  !
Oh put off until tomorrow, “Quit” whilst ahead
      “Realise” your winnings in the now.
Weather you “Seek” perfection ,or an easy
    way out . “ Take” heart it is your choice
Ethereal choice becomes the mother of
    invention, when and where necessities dwell
React with an un-earthly prowess and ability
   to establish what was to be the right choice.

The “ Virtual “ choice that you could have
   made under the circumstances, bono-fide.
Having and knowing you have the power
    Of choice, it leaves it in your hands.
Even if you get the choice “Wrong” this time
    it is your mistake , no one else’s

Pretty soon you will know the error and mark
  It with an “X” n strive to get it right next time
Only “You “ have this individual power
   To make up your own mind .You do, don’t you
We can all be as”Zealous “and pedantic as
   You like in life but choices win through .
Even if you can’t be bothered to take the
   Choice to read this poem, on and on and on.
Reacting in a moment of impatience.
  “ what am I doing wasting time reading this?”

To have a power of choice is a valuable power
    not granted to all people of the world.
Oh stay with me ! Tell me that you understand
    the meaning of this poem. Do I make it clear

Can you choose? Do you choose? Are you
   exercising a sacred power that you’re given?
Holy power, not given to timid mice sitting
  on the fence waiting for the right choice
Oh no ! Never take for granted the greatest
    power, the power to choose.
Onlookers and bystanders are you learning
   from any of the simple examples I have set?
See unless you see and understand the good
   and bad choices made by man thru ages .
Earth and the Universe would have failed
  In its quest to provide a Heaven that we seek
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Written by Philip. 30/10/2018.

It’s my river,
Giving me the life
The sky is there on the other side,
Tears roll down from the sky
To my river
Feels the fathom
My river roars….
Bring tears like anything
The furious river breaks home,
Washes golden fields
Their dreams are shattered
……………
It’s the same river
This side is the heaven
We enjoy the beautifully setting sun
Searching out poems of life
Picnics, outing, retiring life,
Smiles, laughter and everything….
But
The sky on the other side,
It remains gloomy
May it be Majuli or Dhemaji
Dreams go away forever with the river
I cry for those dreams,
Curse my river
The same river…
That gives me life,
It’s my river still
And will always be!!

My lips can no longer hold back.
The muted tones cannot bring out the infinity that hides
discretely
points
to an exit sign.
Certainty waves goodbye. My only function now is to collapse it.
To put the past behind.

The barred doors allow the bottleneck to tighten for a few hours,
but memory has a way of sounding the alarm in the morning
when the early birds rise,
armed with ancient lessons
that remind me they're the ones who are eating well.

I want to come up from the dirt and drink from the well.
My low-life self can no longer heed the worm's advice:
"Sleep all day and you won't get eaten."

Out.

Out with your tepid voice and halfway disposition.
Out with your elevated mind, your profound commitment to the mediocre task
of enlightening the little people.

The empire you fabricate may stay stitched for a while.
But the clothes of emperors always burst at the seams.
A workaholic, addicted to the common
you're winning your converts with tired dreams, vicarious imaginings of those finer roads, well tread by shoes that are not your own.
You don't believe in the masses. Fine. But get the *******
your throne.

Reciting badly drawn poems at four in the morning
(it could have been worse e.g. I could have wrote "mourning")
looking to insight myself,
not into a passionate frenzy
like Bacchae drunk on the moonlight.
No -- I want piercing red. That's what I want to be.
Want to show the heavens how I use the precious wine.
Sip it.
Out the undulations go.
Sweating out the great myth that time forgets when it flows.

My pagan-witch ego has put me on the hunt for blood tonight,
and the full moon is giving rise to ****** undulations,
washing up teeny-book explanations
of loves once lost.
But I'm far from my being,
and from the infinite ocean.
And the only sound I can hear right now is my one hand clapping at the curtain call,
retiring my broom,
bowing goodbye.

I’m not feeling all that well, my friends.
It’s been that way forever.
You could see the clearest of days;
I would see stormy weather.
The doc said that there’s nothing we can do.
He said, “Just blame it on the low dopamine
and the serotonin blues.”
Now some pills will make it all better;
others will make it much worse.
It feels like I’m in a witch hunt
and everyone else threw the curse.
I really could use me a broom; this is true.
I’ll just get away from the low dopamine
and the serotonin blues.
I just can’t get out of bed today when
it feels like I just jumped in.
With this little game of counting sheep,
you know that I just can’t win.
The mathematician will be retiring soon.
He has a bad case of the low dopamine
and the serotonin blues.
The hours—they turn to days.
The days just turn to weeks.
A squirrel just had his nuts drop.
You can bet it’s one of the meek.
Whatever sound, it really was in good tune.
Perhaps it was the low dopamine
and the serotonin blues.
It’s time to get the oil changed—
getting thicker deep inside.
If I get a few more things fixed up,
I’ll have me a real fine ride
with a radio inside that ride just for my crew,
one that plays my low dopamine
and my serotonin blues.
So the ambulating bandleader quit.
I think that he’s still on the mend.
He claims that bad-boy poetry could
lead to a worldwide trend.
All agree this cat has way overpaid his dues.
It’s only the low dopamine and the serotonin blues.

Down horse drink gentleman alcohol
Ask gentleman what place go
Gentleman say not achieve wish
Return lie south mountain near
Still go nothing more ask
White cloud not exhaust time


Dismounting, I offer my friend a cup of wine,
I ask what place he is headed to.
He says he has not achieved his aims,
Is retiring to the southern hills.
Now go, and ask me nothing more,
White clouds will drift on for all time.

“It is the voice of years, that are gone! they roll before me, with
  all their deeds.”

  Ossian.


NEWSTEAD! fast-falling, once-resplendent dome!
Religion’s shrine! repentant HENRY’S pride!
Of Warriors, Monks, and Dames the cloister’d tomb,
Whose pensive shades around thy ruins glide,

Hail to thy pile! more honour’d in thy fall,
  Than modern mansions, in their pillar’d state;
Proudly majestic frowns thy vaulted hall,
  Scowling defiance on the blasts of fate.

No mail-clad Serfs, obedient to their Lord,
  In grim array, the crimson cross demand;
Or gay assemble round the festive board,
  Their chief’s retainers, an immortal band.

Else might inspiring Fancy’s magic eye
  Retrace their progress, through the lapse of time;
Marking each ardent youth, ordain’d to die,
  A votive pilgrim, in Judea’s clime.

But not from thee, dark pile! departs the Chief;
  His feudal realm in other regions lay:
In thee the wounded conscience courts relief,
  Retiring from the garish blaze of day.

Yes! in thy gloomy cells and shades profound,
  The monk abjur’d a world, he ne’er could view;
Or blood-stain’d Guilt repenting, solace found,
  Or Innocence, from stern Oppression, flew.

A Monarch bade thee from that wild arise,
  Where Sherwood’s outlaws, once, were wont to prowl;
And Superstition’s crimes, of various dyes,
  Sought shelter in the Priest’s protecting cowl.

Where, now, the grass exhales a murky dew,
  The humid pall of life-extinguish’d clay,
In sainted fame, the sacred Fathers grew,
  Nor raised their pious voices, but to pray.

Where, now, the bats their wavering wings extend,
  Soon as the gloaming spreads her waning shade;
The choir did, oft, their mingling vespers blend,
  Or matin orisons to Mary paid.

Years roll on years; to ages, ages yield;
  Abbots to Abbots, in a line, succeed:
Religion’s charter, their protecting shield,
  Till royal sacrilege their doom decreed.

One holy HENRY rear’d the Gothic walls,
  And bade the pious inmates rest in peace;
Another HENRY the kind gift recalls,
  And bids devotion’s hallow’d echoes cease.

Vain is each threat, or supplicating prayer;
  He drives them exiles from their blest abode,
To roam a dreary world, in deep despair—
  No friend, no home, no refuge, but their God.

Hark! how the hall, resounding to the strain,
  Shakes with the martial music’s novel din!
The heralds of a warrior’s haughty reign,
  High crested banners wave thy walls within.

Of changing sentinels the distant hum,
  The mirth of feasts, the clang of burnish’d arms,
The braying trumpet, and the hoarser drum,
  Unite in concert with increas’d alarms.

An abbey once, a regal fortress now,
  Encircled by insulting rebel powers;
War’s dread machines o’erhang thy threat’ning brow,
  And dart destruction, in sulphureous showers.

Ah! vain defence! the hostile traitor’s siege,
  Though oft repuls’d, by guile o’ercomes the brave;
His thronging foes oppress the faithful Liege,
  Rebellion’s reeking standards o’er him wave.

Not unaveng’d the raging Baron yields;
  The blood of traitors smears the purple plain;
Unconquer’d still, his falchion there he wields,
  And days of glory, yet, for him remain.

Still, in that hour, the warrior wish’d to strew
  Self-gather’d laurels on a self-sought grave;
But Charles’ protecting genius hither flew,
  The monarch’s friend, the monarch’s hope, to save.

Trembling, she ******’d him from th’ unequal strife,
  In other fields the torrent to repel;
For nobler combats, here, reserv’d his life,
  To lead the band, where godlike FALKLAND fell.

From thee, poor pile! to lawless plunder given,
  While dying groans their painful requiem sound,
Far different incense, now, ascends to Heaven,
  Such victims wallow on the gory ground.

There many a pale and ruthless Robber’s corse,
  Noisome and ghast, defiles thy sacred sod;
O’er mingling man, and horse commix’d with horse,
  Corruption’s heap, the savage spoilers trod.

Graves, long with rank and sighing weeds o’erspread,
  Ransack’d resign, perforce, their mortal mould:
From ruffian fangs, escape not e’en the dead,
  Racked from repose, in search for buried gold.

Hush’d is the harp, unstrung the warlike lyre,
  The minstrel’s palsied hand reclines in death;
No more he strikes the quivering chords with fire,
  Or sings the glories of the martial wreath.

At length the sated murderers, gorged with prey,
  Retire: the clamour of the fight is o’er;
Silence again resumes her awful sway,
  And sable Horror guards the massy door.

Here, Desolation holds her dreary court:
  What satellites declare her dismal reign!
Shrieking their dirge, ill-omen’d birds resort,
  To flit their vigils, in the hoary fane.

Soon a new Morn’s restoring beams dispel
  The clouds of Anarchy from Britain’s skies;
The fierce Usurper seeks his native hell,
  And Nature triumphs, as the Tyrant dies.

With storms she welcomes his expiring groans;
  Whirlwinds, responsive, greet his labouring breath;
Earth shudders, as her caves receive his bones,
  Loathing the offering of so dark a death.

The legal Ruler now resumes the helm,
  He guides through gentle seas, the prow of state;
Hope cheers, with wonted smiles, the peaceful realm,
  And heals the bleeding wounds of wearied Hate.

The gloomy tenants, Newstead! of thy cells,
  Howling, resign their violated nest;
Again, the Master on his tenure dwells,
  Enjoy’d, from absence, with enraptured zest.

Vassals, within thy hospitable pale,
  Loudly carousing, bless their Lord’s return;
Culture, again, adorns the gladdening vale,
  And matrons, once lamenting, cease to mourn.

A thousand songs, on tuneful echo, float,
  Unwonted foliage mantles o’er the trees;
And, hark! the horns proclaim a mellow note,
  The hunters’ cry hangs lengthening on the breeze.

Beneath their coursers’ hoofs the valleys shake;
  What fears! what anxious hopes! attend the chase!
The dying stag seeks refuge in the lake;
  Exulting shouts announce the finish’d race.

Ah happy days! too happy to endure!
  Such simple sports our plain forefathers knew:
No splendid vices glitter’d to allure;
  Their joys were many, as their cares were few.

From these descending, Sons to Sires succeed;
  Time steals along, and Death uprears his dart;
Another Chief impels the foaming steed,
  Another Crowd pursue the panting hart.

Newstead! what saddening change of scene is thine!
  Thy yawning arch betokens slow decay;
The last and youngest of a noble line,
  Now holds thy mouldering turrets in his sway.

Deserted now, he scans thy gray worn towers;
  Thy vaults, where dead of feudal ages sleep;
Thy cloisters, pervious to the wintry showers;
  These, these he views, and views them but to weep.

Yet are his tears no emblem of regret:
  Cherish’d Affection only bids them flow;
Pride, Hope, and Love, forbid him to forget,
  But warm his *****, with impassion’d glow.

Yet he prefers thee, to the gilded domes,
  Or gewgaw grottos, of the vainly great;
Yet lingers ’mid thy damp and mossy tombs,
  Nor breathes a murmur ‘gainst the will of Fate.

Haply thy sun, emerging, yet, may shine,
  Thee to irradiate with meridian ray;
Hours, splendid as the past, may still be thine,
  And bless thy future, as thy former day.

2010
Title.        Never take for granted
the greatest power, the power to choose.
                ( An Acrostic ) of 50 lines.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Never take for granted the greatest power.
             The power to choose !
Every concession,or subsidy in whatever form
       As a contribution or donation to charity
Value this as a highest prize , volition is the          
   Sacred power to choose ,use that power well
Efficacy empowering the production of results
   By marching forward in a positive direction
Ranges of choices sometimes oh so wide as to
   Make a decision very difficult indeed.

Two equally ,typically undesirable alternatives
     We get to know typically as a dilemma
An act of choosing to take up one option as
     Opposed to another to maintain momentum
Knowing that there’s no apparent option rather
   than the real , you have “Hobson’s choice”
Embarras de richesses you become spoilt for
     Choice, is the other side of the coin.

From the comparison betwixt the humble poet
      And the power hungry “Megalomaniac,
Optimising in an act of choosing between the
  two, voluntary ,of one’s own free will Choose
Rights to act or judge by your power of choice
   you may call this discretion,one or t’other

God grants such power as yet unmaterialised
    and unrealised which he labels potential.
Relinquish that potential at your peril
   you may never live to see that choice again
An area of power and influence you may get
    to understand as your domain but reflect
Never take for granted the greatest power,
   the power to choose.
Twitter and chat with all and sundry
    relatives you’re born to, friends you choose
Even if you use your power of wit n influence
   and see it as weight n clout you throw about
Delegate or depute and assign somebody to
    make your choices for you. No don’t quit !

The A to Z of choices takes no time to ponder
    If you take for granted the power to choose
Even by commencing from “A”. Aha . Eureka!
   you have chosen first time lucky .But wait. !

Great though he may appear as the “Boy”
  of your dreams, will he stand the test of time?
Retiring back into your shell ,your”Colleagues“
  At work never choose to know the real you.
Every “Demi-God “or “Elder”that you meet ,
  give respect to ,spoil it all by choosing not to.
An “F” word muttered under your breath .
    A “Gender” question,which choice of path?
To “Hero-worship” then a real life commitment
      “Interpreters “ of choices thru a Drago Man
Established in the art of choice as lead by
  “Jesus” Christ “Knowledge “that it will not fail

Superimposed, will “Liquidise “and blend
    all the choices that are available “Mmmmm”
To the most “Natural “smoothie that you have
   ever chosen to drink. “Ohhhh” yes. !  

Pause and “ Pause” again ,do we really under
    stand the power of choice. Procrastinate  !
Oh put off until tomorrow, “Quit” whilst ahead
      “Realise” your winnings in the now.
Weather you “Seek” perfection ,or an easy
    way out . “ Take” heart it is your choice
Ethereal choice becomes the mother of
    invention, when and where necessities dwell
React with an un-earthly prowess and ability
   to establish what was to be the right choice.

The “ Virtual “ choice that you could have
   made under the circumstances, bono-fide.
Having and knowing you have the power
    Of choice, it leaves it in your hands.
Even if you get the choice “Wrong” this time
    it is your mistake , no one else’s

Pretty soon you will know the error and mark
  It with an “X” n strive to get it right next time
Only “You “ have this individual power
   To make up your own mind .You do, don’t you
We can all be as”Zealous “and pedantic as
   You like in life but choices win through .
Even if you can’t be bothered to take the
   Choice to read this poem, on and on and on.
Reacting in a moment of impatience.
  “ what am I doing wasting time reading this?”

To have a power of choice is a valuable power
    not granted to all people of the world.
Oh stay with me ! Tell me that you understand
    the meaning of this poem. Do I make it clear

Can you choose? Do you choose? Are you
   exercising a sacred power that you’re given?
Holy power, not given to timid mice sitting
  on the fence waiting for the right choice
Oh no ! Never take for granted the greatest
    power, the power to choose.
Onlookers and bystanders are you learning
   from any of the simple examples I have set?
See unless you see and understand the good
   and bad choices made by man thru ages .
Earth and the Universe would have failed
  In its quest to provide a Heaven that we seek
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Written by Philip.
December 19th 2018. ~

Why’d you get locked up then lad?
Oh. I’m locked up?
I know you. You won’t escape lad
Escape from where?

(Jackie Wilson at her majesties pleasure 1884, West Denton, Newcastle)

The sweat rolled off Dominic’s nose.

Its ‘movement’

movement

movement

Uniting.

Meditation takes a person out
from themselves
so far out, without any need
for any additional charge, toll, or need, that when you come back,
even if it’s within
the same body,
you feel

and the glow comes back
on-coming traffic smiles, dead less grace
the worst, and 7am

chess
without a game.
a drool.
an intricacy within
mirage.
hope in the sorry soft gas explosions
and death was heavy enough to fly and give
But not in the normal way
one second, and even joy spills
and the cabbies have begun to scream and break down at each other
even though it’s not a full moon
too many people squashed on a tight balcony
drinking us all away
too many hands
not dancing
it all away


Slugs emigrate across concrete when the soil is wet.
When you wonder why they’ve left.
Its pouring
and you think you recognise a name scrawled in the wet trail.

Single, intimate, observations.

And reasons for the evening to be near.
It will be worth it! – I’LL SEE YOU! –
And now we are allowed to be glorious without price.
And now it’s sad as hell.
And the trees know that.
But the squirrels never do.
And now those words don’t matter.
And now we are allowed.
And now we go.

And the laminate floor
has the weight of a cross.
And the thing is,
you know

(It’s all softly bombed)
Not in a horrific
or knowable
way.

But in God’s good loving
loving
loving
******* for ya.

We’re finally rubbed out.

Crucifying.
And uncrucifying.

Eyes are useless here.

Blackness first.
THEN that soft
‘soft’

dripping.

easy blackness.

Meditating, sat middle
the pentagram of a small flat.
blue white board marker, on ‘easy wipe’ wood flooring.

And if I wake, I can wipe all the lines out.

SO, it went the same.
blue colour of cityscape coming-black light flashing always
across the distance from balcony
a beautiful stillness.
Waves first. Sea. The complete sea. Swimming.
ego. Ego swimming. Ego going down. Hello! And ha!
And no more jokes.
And isolation.
And no more months.
But there were gushes.
Gushes of experiences in, and outside, with individual breathes
and the proximity of love, coming closer
like a germinating hand
guiding you down
into the oceans private concert

Not too close to the expensive parts, or the bad parts,
or anywhere too pristine.
Christ, that’d be
a joke. It’d be funny
and then the surgeon would come and operate
on you;
lifting you out whilst you’re asleep

And it would go like this:

Cancer: Hey! What’s going on?!
Get off! I’ve paid my
rent and don’t wet the bed
anymore,

Surgeon: Don’t care.
Come here...
Oh for **** sake you’re making my day long.
I don’t get paid
for this.
Cancer: Oh yes you do handsome.
Surgeon: Oh yeah!

rest on the long side of your bed.
‘What’d you do at the weekend?’
Where’d you go?

...

banter broke down into spider web
substance
before fading completely, as thoughts begin
to disappear and fly down
into heavier states
from outside you saw a man still dressed
in formal office attire
tie hanging undone around a white shirt, shoes kicked off
beside strange markings on a polished floor. From in,
the understandings
are quite different
fly gently, like a loved one retiring from life
as the single light bulb watches from your ceiling
tensing one last second time in hesitation
then blowing you out with a blink.  

looked into the well where life is buried
and reached down
arms lengthened like dusty pieces of ham down a hole
touching the foetus as it crawls back up,
and up through the highway lines of his veins,
like a rabbit hunts wolves,
like the peach reacts to your bite.

We smoked and ate apple pie as the autumn tattooed
We snapped small pieces off
then ate the mites.

And then when the well filled we made our arms lassoes;
that churned the grain,
turning the quietness into storm,
and back to parts of spring.

You hesitate, touching the ape
like a clown who’s just tossed his life into the air, and juggles it,
like dead poems and hot boiling yeast.
you looked further into the well and found the figments of the ‘Narwhal’
the sea creature with a prominent horn
that shoots from its head-

Early sea farers
used to think the horned mammal was a type of
magical being
it birthed the idea of unicorns
you let the water well mix and join
as we drink coffee today, and the night is less silent
than that of star of apples and gloom
each tarantula that scatters in the red stars of sand is welcome;
and the honey man and honey woman flicker,
through numberless bank checks and bills as knocks arrive
knock after knock after knock
into long vibrational hum

All that remains
is the bursting punch
near the bottom
of oceanic well

As it tightens your grip into the follicle hibernating bears
that speak eloquent words whilst we eat;
the deep groan of munching hands
in the well helps our arms
pull up the glowing carcass as it turns back
into us within our hands, it speaks easily and slow, telling each
servant surrounding
the hole that they should:

‘Dance casually, dance inside my red eyes’.

Some take advantage of melody, as a trust that funds satellites of globe,
as if no one ever dreamed or broke the yoke of more pleasurable things;
one of your arms
is like the way that a crab crawls past over my nose and into our future home

another asks that you aren’t so violent in February
and that the month is a counting mouth that multiplies zero
beside the arms reaching for a pyramidic beauty
under the ***** shell; aborting its children like blood in the snow,
without humanistic style, more in tune with time
than the army of water lifting your throat up,
spits- that poke at us with antlers, undeterred, no legged, mating in the sand

After a while, otherness takes over, and will comes.
And emotion is long shattered,
easing out,
playing skin game and dissipating need, where all will and human comes back
it takes a while.

And our gender has nothing to do with just lust
We are the almost completely blind, as the cliché remembers
Gender is
the lack of gender and the freedom of paradigm
whilst hands are upon love,
And more night(s) turn within us.
dream like bright black stars.

Weekends. Week. Work. Corporations dancing like butterflies on fire. Gone.
Gone
Gone
Gorgeous

nothingness
apart from its face and voice
speaking

“Heyy, how’s it going?”
Projection
No
“Yes... Lover,
Yes yes yes!”
“No.”
skull now linked to the lips of a home
“Correct, correct, correct...” The intangible
darkness, over and over

a rushing
and uncontrollable
heaviness of fire.

foxes in back alleys salute
the black sky with a mongrel scream
and all the animals of the world are linked for a split minutiae,
recognising and respecting the breach;

“You’re hurting... mmmmuh-” Dominic tried to say
in the onslaught.

Converging planes that came from the lips of the spirit crowning his mind.

“You’re not Juuu, Juh Juah Juh.”

He tried to say for the next few hours, as the sun spread down
on the city
and felt a deep
empathy for another one
of its children
attempting to free
itself.

“No.”

how right you are...” The spirit said
as Dominic’s head slumped from exertion.

“You see...” The spirit said seeping into his bones
and killing him;
paramedics zip
the bag
over his face.

“You see...” The voice says again
knocking the lights off
and flinging you
by your throat

Each one letting you
go

landscape sick in multiple elements of confused colour,
parts of buildings, art: growing up in the horizon, new structures
made by thoughts, old flowers inside limbs,
smoking.

“What...” The spirit
said.

sigh at the strange place,
without looking around.
blossoms of mind and traffic
circulated
characters
on a schizophrenic island

two flies ****** invisibly
and grow from the unseen smallness of their passion
and become an instant world
in the Red Mountains.

“What’s up?” Dominic say gloomily,
laugh a little.

“You’re meant to be screaming...
And yes...
Yet another ******* month
without hitting
target.” The nightmare says,

No incorporeal speech
no anger
anymore.

She might have been about twenty five,
dressed in a shade of grey
change
that covered her genitalia
and ******* from ankle up to neck

get used to it all.
raise your chin to the sky and try to blink away from the constant lick
of the beast growing
from yourself, or lover, or day

And grow the chimera
throughout numberless
stages
like a beautiful clay
that cant decide

Finally the meer-hawk looked like a Dickensian peasant
with an intricate smile, dressed all in jail rags
stinking of sweat, *****, and time.
And then we change
again

And her black hair scooped down
into the blackening sand
where the grains accepted her slim weight
through out itself

She was tired and fed up of the back-world today
She left her contract looking around upstairs
and accepted the hit
on her targets

A transference of types in the quaking room.
A quick drop of laughter flys
into the lil bear or a lot; and a snap and a lot of hunger
for us all...

The master of the basement was mostly machine.

The front of his face that we run towards
is a centred and hovering engine
at the far end of the shadow
room
and the stench
from its thought.

a farce and enough
to turn you away
from a really good
steak.

no walls

no matter

a car mouth approaches naked.

dead cats know this, as they lay purring still, licking their paws still,
misery knows,forgetting, and the coldness of the street gave birth

to numberless seedy neon lights
flickering away from the wall less walls
once more

and you know, we
all
have a prayer
that comes
out
here was
mine:

might as well let you know
whilst we’re at it
that this one comes
out, in some accent~~
but is how it’s meant to go

“...as if to prae
inside the rain
as if to move
the moon with small hands
ah cross the yard
and lucky sky

I live in that playce me lass
with ya quiet weiyht
upon me own
of ya li’l voice
that taeks it away

Ya-renuf ta bring
al me Gods back
an pin ‘em te tha walls

Enough ta mayke
al’ me angels breathe
heavy
for even an ounce
of ya grace

Ave begged at tha hands
of jesus Christ
for that tayste
of yeh
me sweet bonny lass
an ya the only lass
‘ahve evva met
that mayde us feel
like ah cuhd heal
without bein less

An I’m lookin at ya now
with al me luv
an ah divent need
ney where to ruhn
as am ah freed dog

and in ya charms

An ‘av ney-where left to luk
but I’ll kip alreet the neet pet
cos ya by me side

an in me arms.”

But now it is rather late my friend, and
we all know how long old accents last,
mine, I cherish, I will say it when cursing
and gone
when lit among friends and when
impressing
new jobs, that I shall leave, such is
my
way
and
i may
see you
again.

Announced by all the trumpets of the sky,
Arrives the snow, and, driving o'er the fields,
Seems nowhere to alight: the whited air
Hides hill and woods, the river, and the heaven,
And veils the farmhouse at the garden's end.
The sled and traveller stopped, the courier's feet
Delated, all friends shut out, the housemates sit
Around the radiant fireplace, enclosed
In a tumultuous privacy of storm.
Come see the north wind's masonry.
Out of an unseen quarry evermore
Furnished with tile, the fierce artificer
Curves his white bastions with projected roof
Round every windward stake, or tree, or door.
Speeding, the myriad-handed, his wild work
So fanciful, so savage, nought cares he
For number or proportion. Mockingly,
On coop or kennel he hangs Parian wreaths;
A swan-like form invests the hiddden thorn;
Fills up the famer's lane from wall to wall,
Maugre the farmer's sighs; and at the gate
A tapering turret overtops the work.
And when his hours are numbered, and the world
Is all his own, retiring, as he were not,
Leaves, when the sun appears, astonished Art
To mimic in slow structures, stone by stone,
Built in an age, the mad wind's night-work,
The frolic architecture of the snow.

What you get
with a basic life:
College diplomas
to hang on the wall,
a full-time job
that lasts 40 years,
dating resulting in
marriage and maybe divorce,
children are born and stick around for at least
18 years,
retiring in your sixties then finally
death.
Are you bored yet?

Meanwhile the new-baptized, who yet remained
At Jordan with the Baptist, and had seen
Him whom they heard so late expressly called
Jesus Messiah, Son of God, declared,
And on that high authority had believed,
And with him talked, and with him lodged—I mean
Andrew and Simon, famous after known,
With others, though in Holy Writ not named—
Now missing him, their joy so lately found,
So lately found and so abruptly gone,                      
Began to doubt, and doubted many days,
And, as the days increased, increased their doubt.
Sometimes they thought he might be only shewn,
And for a time caught up to God, as once
Moses was in the Mount and missing long,
And the great Thisbite, who on fiery wheels
Rode up to Heaven, yet once again to come.
Therefore, as those young prophets then with care
Sought lost Eliah, so in each place these
Nigh to Bethabara—in Jericho                              
The city of palms, AEnon, and Salem old,
Machaerus, and each town or city walled
On this side the broad lake Genezaret,
Or in Peraea—but returned in vain.
Then on the bank of Jordan, by a creek,
Where winds with reeds and osiers whispering play,
Plain fishermen (no greater men them call),
Close in a cottage low together got,
Their unexpected loss and plaints outbreathed:—
  “Alas, from what high hope to what relapse                
Unlooked for are we fallen!  Our eyes beheld
Messiah certainly now come, so long
Expected of our fathers; we have heard
His words, his wisdom full of grace and truth.
‘Now, now, for sure, deliverance is at hand;
The kingdom shall to Israel be restored:’
Thus we rejoiced, but soon our joy is turned
Into perplexity and new amaze.
For whither is he gone? what accident
Hath rapt him from us? will he now retire                  
After appearance, and again prolong
Our expectation?  God of Israel,
Send thy Messiah forth; the time is come.
Behold the kings of the earth, how they oppress
Thy Chosen, to what highth their power unjust
They have exalted, and behind them cast
All fear of Thee; arise, and vindicate
Thy glory; free thy people from their yoke!
But let us wait; thus far He hath performed—
Sent his Anointed, and to us revealed him                  
By his great Prophet pointed at and shown
In public, and with him we have conversed.
Let us be glad of this, and all our fears
Lay on his providence; He will not fail,
Nor will withdraw him now, nor will recall—
Mock us with his blest sight, then ****** him hence:
Soon we shall see our hope, our joy, return.”
  Thus they out of their plaints new hope resume
To find whom at the first they found unsought.
But to his mother Mary, when she saw                        
Others returned from baptism, not her Son,
Nor left at Jordan tidings of him none,
Within her breast though calm, her breast though pure,
Motherly cares and fears got head, and raised
Some troubled thoughts, which she in sighs thus clad:—
  “Oh, what avails me now that honour high,
To have conceived of God, or that salute,
‘Hail, highly favoured, among women blest!’
While I to sorrows am no less advanced,
And fears as eminent above the lot                          
Of other women, by the birth I bore:
In such a season born, when scarce a shed
Could be obtained to shelter him or me
From the bleak air?  A stable was our warmth,
A manger his; yet soon enforced to fly
Thence into Egypt, till the murderous king
Were dead, who sought his life, and, missing, filled
With infant blood the streets of Bethlehem.
From Egypt home returned, in Nazareth
Hath been our dwelling many years; his life                
Private, unactive, calm, contemplative,
Little suspicious to any king.  But now,
Full grown to man, acknowledged, as I hear,
By John the Baptist, and in public shewn,
Son owned from Heaven by his Father’s voice,
I looked for some great change.  To honour? no;
But trouble, as old Simeon plain foretold,
That to the fall and rising he should be
Of many in Israel, and to a sign
Spoken against—that through my very soul                  
A sword shall pierce.  This is my favoured lot,
My exaltation to afflictions high!
Afflicted I may be, it seems, and blest!
I will not argue that, nor will repine.
But where delays he now?  Some great intent
Conceals him.  When twelve years he scarce had seen,
I lost him, but so found as well I saw
He could not lose himself, but went about
His Father’s business.  What he meant I mused—
Since understand; much more his absence now                
Thus long to some great purpose he obscures.
But I to wait with patience am inured;
My heart hath been a storehouse long of things
And sayings laid up, pretending strange events.”
  Thus Mary, pondering oft, and oft to mind
Recalling what remarkably had passed
Since first her Salutation heard, with thoughts
Meekly composed awaited the fulfilling:
The while her Son, tracing the desert wild,
Sole, but with holiest meditations fed,                    
Into himself descended, and at once
All his great work to come before him set—
How to begin, how to accomplish best
His end of being on Earth, and mission high.
For Satan, with sly preface to return,
Had left him vacant, and with speed was gone
Up to the middle region of thick air,
Where all his Potentates in council sate.
There, without sign of boast, or sign of joy,
Solicitous and blank, he thus began:—                      
  “Princes, Heaven’s ancient Sons, AEthereal Thrones—
Daemonian Spirits now, from the element
Each of his reign allotted, rightlier called
Powers of Fire, Air, Water, and Earth beneath
(So may we hold our place and these mild seats
Without new trouble!)—such an enemy
Is risen to invade us, who no less
Threatens than our expulsion down to Hell.
I, as I undertook, and with the vote
Consenting in full frequence was impowered,                
Have found him, viewed him, tasted him; but find
Far other labour to be undergone
Than when I dealt with Adam, first of men,
Though Adam by his wife’s allurement fell,
However to this Man inferior far—
If he be Man by mother’s side, at least
With more than human gifts from Heaven adorned,
Perfections absolute, graces divine,
And amplitude of mind to greatest deeds.
Therefore I am returned, lest confidence                    
Of my success with Eve in Paradise
Deceive ye to persuasion over-sure
Of like succeeding here.  I summon all
Rather to be in readiness with hand
Or counsel to assist, lest I, who erst
Thought none my equal, now be overmatched.”
  So spake the old Serpent, doubting, and from all
With clamour was assured their utmost aid
At his command; when from amidst them rose
Belial, the dissolutest Spirit that fell,                  
The sensualest, and, after Asmodai,
The fleshliest Incubus, and thus advised:—
  “Set women in his eye and in his walk,
Among daughters of men the fairest found.
Many are in each region passing fair
As the noon sky, more like to goddesses
Than mortal creatures, graceful and discreet,
Expert in amorous arts, enchanting tongues
Persuasive, ****** majesty with mild
And sweet allayed, yet terrible to approach,                
Skilled to retire, and in retiring draw
Hearts after them tangled in amorous nets.
Such object hath the power to soften and tame
Severest temper, smooth the rugged’st brow,
Enerve, and with voluptuous hope dissolve,
Draw out with credulous desire, and lead
At will the manliest, resolutest breast,
As the magnetic hardest iron draws.
Women, when nothing else, beguiled the heart
Of wisest Solomon, and made him build,                      
And made him bow, to the gods of his wives.”
  To whom quick answer Satan thus returned:—
“Belial, in much uneven scale thou weigh’st
All others by thyself.  Because of old
Thou thyself doat’st on womankind, admiring
Their shape, their colour, and attractive grace,
None are, thou think’st, but taken with such toys.
Before the Flood, thou, with thy ***** crew,
False titled Sons of God, roaming the Earth,
Cast wanton eyes on the daughters of men,                  
And coupled with them, and begot a race.
Have we not seen, or by relation heard,
In courts and regal chambers how thou lurk’st,
In wood or grove, by mossy fountain-side,
In valley or green meadow, to waylay
Some beauty rare, Calisto, Clymene,
Daphne, or Semele, Antiopa,
Or Amymone, Syrinx, many more
Too long—then lay’st thy scapes on names adored,
Apollo, Neptune, Jupiter, or Pan,                          
Satyr, or Faun, or Silvan?  But these haunts
Delight not all.  Among the sons of men
How many have with a smile made small account
Of beauty and her lures, easily scorned
All her assaults, on worthier things intent!
Remember that Pellean conqueror,
A youth, how all the beauties of the East
He slightly viewed, and slightly overpassed;
How he surnamed of Africa dismissed,
In his prime youth, the fair Iberian maid.                  
For Solomon, he lived at ease, and, full
Of honour, wealth, high fare, aimed not beyond
Higher design than to enjoy his state;
Thence to the bait of women lay exposed.
But he whom we attempt is wiser far
Than Solomon, of more exalted mind,
Made and set wholly on the accomplishment
Of greatest things.  What woman will you find,
Though of this age the wonder and the fame,
On whom his leisure will voutsafe an eye                    
Of fond desire?  Or should she, confident,
As sitting queen adored on Beauty’s throne,
Descend with all her winning charms begirt
To enamour, as the zone of Venus once
Wrought that effect on Jove (so fables tell),
How would one look from his majestic brow,
Seated as on the top of Virtue’s hill,
Discountenance her despised, and put to rout
All her array, her female pride deject,
Or turn to reverent awe!  For Beauty stands                
In the admiration only of weak minds
Led captive; cease to admire, and all her plumes
Fall flat, and shrink into a trivial toy,
At every sudden slighting quite abashed.
Therefore with manlier objects we must try
His constancy—with such as have more shew
Of worth, of honour, glory, and popular praise
(Rocks whereon greatest men have oftest wrecked);
Or that which only seems to satisfy
Lawful desires of nature, not beyond.                      
And now I know he hungers, where no food
Is to be found, in the wide Wilderness:
The rest commit to me; I shall let pass
No advantage, and his strength as oft assay.”
  He ceased, and heard their grant in loud acclaim;
Then forthwith to him takes a chosen band
Of Spirits likest to himself in guile,
To be at hand and at his beck appear,
If cause were to unfold some active scene
Of various persons, each to know his part;                  
Then to the desert takes with these his flight,
Where still, from shade to shade, the Son of God,
After forty days’ fasting, had remained,
Now hungering first, and to himself thus said:—
  “Where will this end?  Four times ten days I have passed
Wandering this woody maze, and human food
Nor tasted, nor had appetite.  That fast
To virtue I impute not, or count part
Of what I suffer here.  If nature need not,
Or God support nature without repast,                      
Though needing, what praise is it to endure?
But now I feel I hunger; which declares
Nature hath need of what she asks.  Yet God
Can satisfy that need some other way,
Though hunger still remain.  So it remain
Without this body’s wasting, I content me,
And from the sting of famine fear no harm;
Nor mind it, fed with better thoughts, that feed
Me hungering more to do my Father’s will.”
  It was the hour of night, when thus the Son              
Communed in silent walk, then laid him down
Under the hospitable covert nigh
Of trees thick interwoven.  There he slept,
And dreamed, as appetite is wont to dream,
Of meats and drinks, nature’s refreshment sweet.
Him thought he by the brook of Cherith stood,
And saw the ravens with their ***** beaks
Food to Elijah bringing even and morn—
Though ravenous, taught to abstain from what they brought;
He saw the Prophet also, how he fled                        
Into the desert, and how there he slept
Under a juniper—then how, awaked,
He found his supper on the coals prepared,
And by the Angel was bid rise and eat,
And eat the second time after repose,
The strength whereof sufficed him forty days:
Sometimes that with Elijah he partook,
Or as a guest with Daniel at his pulse.
Thus wore out night; and now the harald Lark
Left his ground-nest, high towering to descry              
The Morn’s approach, and greet her with his song.
As lightly from his grassy couch up rose
Our Saviour, and found all was but a dream;
Fasting he went to sleep, and fasting waked.
Up to a hill anon his steps he reared,
From whose high top to ken the prospect round,
If cottage were in view, sheep-cote, or herd;
But cottage, herd, or sheep-cote, none he saw—
Only in a bottom saw a pleasant grove,
With chaunt of tuneful birds resounding loud.              
Thither he bent his way, determined there
To rest at noon, and entered soon the shade
High-roofed, and walks beneath, and alleys brown,
That opened in the midst a woody scene;
Nature’s own work it seemed (Nature taught Art),
And, to a superstitious eye, the haunt
Of wood-gods and wood-nymphs.  He viewed it round;
When suddenly a man before him stood,
Not rustic a

2010
Title.        Never take for granted
the greatest power, the power to choose.
                ( An Acrostic ) of 50 lines.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Never take for granted the greatest power.
             The power to choose !
Every concession,or subsidy in whatever form
       As a contribution or donation to charity
Value this as a highest prize , volition is the          
   Sacred power to choose ,use that power well
Efficacy empowering the production of results
   By marching forward in a positive direction
Ranges of choices sometimes oh so wide as to
   Make a decision very difficult indeed.

Two equally ,typically undesirable alternatives
     We get to know typically as a dilemma
An act of choosing to take up one option as
     Opposed to another to maintain momentum
Knowing that there’s no apparent option rather
   than the real , you have “Hobson’s choice”
Embarras de richesses you become spoilt for
     Choice, is the other side of the coin.

From the comparison betwixt the humble poet
      And the power hungry “Megalomaniac,
Optimising in an act of choosing between the
  two, voluntary ,of one’s own free will Choose
Rights to act or judge by your power of choice
   you may call this discretion,one or t’other

God grants such power as yet unmaterialised
    and unrealised which he labels potential.
Relinquish that potential at your peril
   you may never live to see that choice again
An area of power and influence you may get
    to understand as your domain but reflect
Never take for granted the greatest power,
   the power to choose.
Twitter and chat with all and sundry
    relatives you’re born to, friends you choose
Even if you use your power of wit n influence
   and see it as weight n clout you throw about
Delegate or depute and assign somebody to
    make your choices for you. No don’t quit !

The A to Z of choices takes no time to ponder
    If you take for granted the power to choose
Even by commencing from “A”. Aha . Eureka!
   you have chosen first time lucky .But wait. !

Great though he may appear as the “Boy”
  of your dreams, will he stand the test of time?
Retiring back into your shell ,your”Colleagues“
  At work never choose to know the real you.
Every “Demi-God “or “Elder”that you meet ,
  give respect to ,spoil it all by choosing not to.
An “F” word muttered under your breath .
    A “Gender” question,which choice of path?
To “Hero-worship” then a real life commitment
      “Interpreters “ of choices thru a Drago Man
Established in the art of choice as lead by
  “Jesus” Christ “Knowledge “that it will not fail

Superimposed, will “Liquidise “and blend
    all the choices that are available “Mmmmm”
To the most “Natural “smoothie that you have
   ever chosen to drink. “Ohhhh” yes. !  

Pause and “ Pause” again ,do we really under
    stand the power of choice. Procrastinate  !
Oh put off until tomorrow, “Quit” whilst ahead
      “Realise” your winnings in the now.
Weather you “Seek” perfection ,or an easy
    way out . “ Take” heart it is your choice
Ethereal choice becomes the mother of
    invention, when and where necessities dwell
React with an un-earthly prowess and ability
   to establish what was to be the right choice.

The “ Virtual “ choice that you could have
   made under the circumstances, bono-fide.
Having and knowing you have the power
    Of choice, it leaves it in your hands.
Even if you get the choice “Wrong” this time
    it is your mistake , no one else’s

Pretty soon you will know the error and mark
  It with an “X” n strive to get it right next time
Only “You “ have this individual power
   To make up your own mind .You do, don’t you
We can all be as”Zealous “and pedantic as
   You like in life but choices win through .
Even if you can’t be bothered to take the
   Choice to read this poem, on and on and on.
Reacting in a moment of impatience.
  “ what am I doing wasting time reading this?”

To have a power of choice is a valuable power
    not granted to all people of the world.
Oh stay with me ! Tell me that you understand
    the meaning of this poem. Do I make it clear

Can you choose? Do you choose? Are you
   exercising a sacred power that you’re given?
Holy power, not given to timid mice sitting
  on the fence waiting for the right choice
Oh no ! Never take for granted the greatest
    power, the power to choose.
Onlookers and bystanders are you learning
   from any of the simple examples I have set?
See unless you see and understand the good
   and bad choices made by man thru ages .
Earth and the Universe would have failed
  In its quest to provide a Heaven that we seek
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Written by Philip. 2010.

Title.        Never take for granted
the greatest power, the power to choose.
                ( An Acrostic ) of 50 lines.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Never take for granted the greatest power.
             The power to choose !
Every concession,or subsidy in whatever form
       As a contribution or donation to charity
Value this as a highest prize , volition is the          
   Sacred power to choose ,use that power well
Efficacy empowering the production of results
   By marching forward in a positive direction
Ranges of choices sometimes oh so wide as to
   Make a decision very difficult indeed.

Two equally ,typically undesirable alternatives
     We get to know typically as a dilemma
An act of choosing to take up one option as
     Opposed to another to maintain momentum
Knowing that there’s no apparent option rather
   than the real , you have “Hobson’s choice”
Embarras de richesses you become spoilt for
     Choice, is the other side of the coin.

From the comparison betwixt the humble poet
      And the power hungry “Megalomaniac,
Optimising in an act of choosing between the
  two, voluntary ,of one’s own free will Choose
Rights to act or judge by your power of choice
   you may call this discretion,one or t’other

God grants such power as yet unmaterialised
    and unrealised which he labels potential.
Relinquish that potential at your peril
   you may never live to see that choice again
An area of power and influence you may get
    to understand as your domain but reflect
Never take for granted the greatest power,
   the power to choose.
Twitter and chat with all and sundry
    relatives you’re born to, friends you choose
Even if you use your power of wit n influence
   and see it as weight n clout you throw about
Delegate or depute and assign somebody to
    make your choices for you. No don’t quit !

The A to Z of choices takes no time to ponder
    If you take for granted the power to choose
Even by commencing from “A”. Aha . Eureka!
   you have chosen first time lucky .But wait. !

Great though he may appear as the “Boy”
  of your dreams, will he stand the test of time?
Retiring back into your shell ,your”Colleagues“
  At work never choose to know the real you.
Every “Demi-God “or “Elder”that you meet ,
  give respect to ,spoil it all by choosing not to.
An “F” word muttered under your breath .
    A “Gender” question,which choice of path?
To “Hero-worship” then a real life commitment
      “Interpreters “ of choices thru a Drago Man
Established in the art of choice as lead by
  “Jesus” Christ “Knowledge “that it will not fail

Superimposed, will “Liquidise “and blend
    all the choices that are available “Mmmmm”
To the most “Natural “smoothie that you have
   ever chosen to drink. “Ohhhh” yes. !  

Pause and “ Pause” again ,do we really under
    stand the power of choice. Procrastinate  !
Oh put off until tomorrow, “Quit” whilst ahead
      “Realise” your winnings in the now.
Weather you “Seek” perfection ,or an easy
    way out . “ Take” heart it is your choice
Ethereal choice becomes the mother of
    invention, when and where necessities dwell
React with an un-earthly prowess and ability
   to establish what was to be the right choice.

The “ Virtual “ choice that you could have
   made under the circumstances, bono-fide.
Having and knowing you have the power
    Of choice, it leaves it in your hands.
Even if you get the choice “Wrong” this time
    it is your mistake , no one else’s

Pretty soon you will know the error and mark
  It with an “X” n strive to get it right next time
Only “You “ have this individual power
   To make up your own mind .You do, don’t you
We can all be as”Zealous “and pedantic as
   You like in life but choices win through .
Even if you can’t be bothered to take the
   Choice to read this poem, on and on and on.
Reacting in a moment of impatience.
  “ what am I doing wasting time reading this?”

To have a power of choice is a valuable power
    not granted to all people of the world.
Oh stay with me ! Tell me that you understand
    the meaning of this poem. Do I make it clear

Can you choose? Do you choose? Are you
   exercising a sacred power that you’re given?
Holy power, not given to timid mice sitting
  on the fence waiting for the right choice
Oh no ! Never take for granted the greatest
    power, the power to choose.
Onlookers and bystanders are you learning
   from any of the simple examples I have set?
See unless you see and understand the good
   and bad choices made by man thru ages .
Earth and the Universe would have failed
  In its quest to provide a Heaven that we seek
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Written by Philip.
December 29 th. 2018. ~

I sit down in front of this piece of paper, pen in hand, the wind through my hair and a single dim light’s reflection in my glasses. I close my eyes, tired of repeatedly trying and failing to write an article. I wearily rub my eyelids and sit still for a while.
And that’s when I see him.

He stands against the backdrop of a waterfall, the green grass gently caressing his bare feet as he walks slowly towards the calm, turquoise lake. A sudden whiff of tulips assails my sense of smell as he walks into the water, his composed steps mirroring the complacence of the cool blue he walks into. He wades in till he is waist deep; birds chirp in the distance, trees sway in the wind and everything the sunlight touches melts into a golden brilliance.

As he walks in, ripples branch out from his torso, tattooing themselves upon the surface of the water. They move forward with him, each with a colour that merges into a thousand new hues as two of them meet. I stand there watching in stupefaction; he does not acknowledge my presence as he continues to walk forward, his eyes fixed upon the blue-gold sky over us.

All of a sudden, he climbs out of the lake and begins to hurriedly hunt around, muttering to himself
‘It has to be here somewhere.’ He darts off between the trees, with the raw agility of a young impala. As he continues to fly over the many shrubs and roots in his way, I chase behind him panting and puffing as the entire forest falls behind in a blur of green and brown. And then we hear it, the scream tears through the woods and the sky explodes into a whirlpool of colour; he turns back and looks at me, his eyes wide with horror and disbelief. I skid to a halt before him and I realize that we had reached the outcrop of a cliff. I turn to him, my back to the massive drop from the bluff, a quizzical look in my eyes as I find myself unable to articulate the words in my mind. He puts his hands on my shoulders, the fear etched deep in his wide eyes. And he pushes me off the cliff.

The air whistles past my ears as I fall to the ground; it seems like an eternity has passed before I finally rest my head on the hard ground beneath me. Every bone in my body feels like I have walked headfirst into a moving train, I gingerly raise myself off the cold floor to see him standing over me. He raises a finger to his lips, signalling me to follow him. We walk forward cautiously, the fear of an unknown disturbance still hanging heavy over us. We walk through an open field of wild grass, the pale silver stalks dancing in the breeze as the moonlight lit up our path. He doesn’t say anything to me; I walk alongside his shadow as his shadow. We come to a clearing with a single tree standing proud in the middle of a vast expanse of nothing. He gestures to the tree, we make our way there with haste. I walk into the cool shade of a massive oak and collapse under its mighty protection. He walks around the tree and returns with a figure in his arms. Next to my tired form he lays her down, a look of gentle calm upon his hard features. The moonlight dances upon her face and her shallow breath rattles through the night. Her stormy grey eyes lie wide open as she continues to struggle against an unknown force so as to keep breathing. He stands at a distance, silently watching the two of us on the ground; one battling for her life and the other silent and still like the great oak tree above us. Her lips part slightly, a single droplet of light rises upwards into his palm and she falls into a silent stupor. He gazes at the pinpoint of white in his hand, bringing it slowly to his mouth. I watch on as he proceeds to swallow it, confused about the events transpiring before my eyes. He throws his head back and looks up to the pitch black sky and a million tiny lights wink back at him in response. His eyes open wide, his jaw falls low and a burst of brilliant white light breaks through his tall, proud form. I see the mouth move, I hear him speak a few moments later. The voice rings loud in my ears, resonating from everywhere and nowhere and he says to me, “The path you seek is straight ahead. Do not deviate from the road and you should be fine.”

My head falls back against the firm bark of the oak as I witness my guide disappear into thin air with no evidence of him ever having existed. My eyes close of their own will and I embrace the comforting darkness of slumber enveloping my mind.

My eyes fly awake as a sharp ray of light dispels my drowsiness. I wake up to find myself looking towards a convoluted, winding path leading into the woods. Against my will, I find myself rising and walking down the dusty road. I try to hum to myself, no sound greets me. I try to dart into the woods, but something brings me back to the same path no matter which direction I turn. The sun beats down hard upon my head, and in the distance I hear the faraway call of an eagle. Resigned to my current fate, I walk forward taking in all that I see around me. The sunlight dances between the shadows of the twisted trees, the brown floor beneath my feet gradually begins to evolve into a lush green lawn and the air I take deep, calm breaths of is painted with the scent of rain. I brush aside a shrub and stop in my tracks as I take in the view before me.

I stand before an ocean. The sand twinkles against my eyes, giving me a psychedelic glimpse of a million pinpoints of colour every time I blink. The tide rolls against the shore lazily as the sunlight bounces off the surface of the water. The sky lies mirrored before my feet and my toes play with the fine grains as I walk onto the beach. I sit against the onslaught of the slow tide and feel the refreshing spray of water upon my tired form. The sun begins to drop gently from the sky, retiring to his home beneath the vast expanse of water. I watch the sunset, I watch as the sky is painted by the whims and fancies of the final rays of sunlight as they herald the appearance of a single crescent sliver of silver hanging delicately in the sky, casting a dim white light on me. An ethereal breeze gushes past me, and I find myself obsessed by an urge to enter the water. I stand up, the waves breaking around my ankles as I walk into the water with an oddly familiar slow, composed gait. I walk forward calmly, the waves breaking against my torso as I begin to feel the ground sink below me. I let the ocean cradle me; I surrender myself to the mercy of the sea as she carries me in her lap. All emotion begins to wash away from me; I do not feel the familiar wave of fear as wave after wave crashes over my head, pushing me down beneath the surface of the water. I feel no panic as I take in the water in deep gulps, I feel nothing but a calm of certainty as I feel the ocean filling up my lungs. I smile and close my eyes as I begin to plummet down under depths. I embrace the vast nothingness that spreads out before me and fall unconscious.

A blinding pain flashes behind my eyes, as I gasp and sputter to find myself on a jet black rock, sprawled out like an empty carcass. I look around, unable to find my bearings, and my eyes fall upon a massive, emerald green pillar. It stands on the shore, firm and unmoving even as the ocean tries desperately to push it off its pedestal. I lift myself off the rock with difficulty and force my sore feet to stumble towards the pillar. I fall at its base, every bone in my body feeling like a deadweight. I rest my head against my arm, panting and coughing when I feel a hand upon my shoulder. I look up to see a small boy smiling down at me with an odd benevolence, the light of ages of wisdom alive in his eyes. He puts his hand to the pillar, and I watch in awe as it begins to crumble to a vibrant green ash. I look at him in plain bewilderment, and though he chuckles silently, I hear his deep, rumbling voice in my head. “You have nothing to fear from me, I am merely here to deliver to you what you have been looking for all this time.” I hear his voice tell me. He walks over to the shimmering green pile of dust and pulls out a piece of paper. He places his hand on my head, clasps the paper in my hand and smiles. I see his small head throw my face into shadow as he blocks the sunlight falling on my face, and I sit still, relishing the cool shade.

I open my eyes in front of this piece of paper, pen in hand, the wind through my hair and a single dim light’s reflection in my glasses. And on the paper, I see this article.

Marisa Mayeda's tiny hands are steady as she smooths the fabric out in front of her and examines the stitches, checking for bunching or knots.

“Lay it flat, so you can see the whole thing,” suggests instructor Joyce Blaney. Mayeda obeys, spreading out the gorgeous patchwork quilt she’s almost finished creating. It’s one of five she’s making for the babies at Torrance Memorial Hospital.

“It’s her Girl Scout project,” explains Blaney. “Each kid got to choose what they wanted to do, and since Marisa loves sewing, she picked this.”

Blaney’s studio at Sew Creative in Redondo Beach is colorful chaos: bolts of fabric, scrap baskets, ribbons and lace. Pincushions dot almost every surface, and the hum of Singer sewing machines underscores conversation.

It’s unhurried and something of a throwback that most post-baby boomers would recognize as a home economics class—a part of American curriculum that has dwindled over the decades. It’s where Blaney herself learned to thread a needle 50 years ago, fell in love with it almost instantly, and made it a part of her life.

“I learned in a classroom of 30 kids and one teacher. She must have lost her mind,” she laughs now. “It was very crowded. I didn’t realize how challenging that must have been until I started teaching my own students.”

The previous owner started Sew Creative in 1989 before retiring, whereupon Blaney—who had been an employee for several years—bought it and has run it for the past 13 years. Any kid—or adult —can join classes, starting from age six and up. “I primarily teach classes every day after school and on Saturdays. It’s a great opportunity for kids to have a creative outlet.”

According to studies from the University of Missouri, an increasing number of millennials and younger kids don’t know basic home skills, including sewing, cooking, or doing laundry. Only 30 percent of young adults know how to properly boil an egg, according to one study.

Learning by example, such as watching your mother hem a pair of pants, has become less common with each generation. We microwave our food or eat out a lot more. Convenience has made it easier to forgo learning how to cook, and with home economics classes gradually disappearing in the education system.

“Schools are so much more about academics now,” Blaney observes. “This gives kids a chance to make something with their hands, to feel confidence and have something to show for their work. One kid even said that sewing helps her relax, to focus on the moment. I mean, that’s pretty important. She gets it.”

The Queen Amidala costume that Ava Brunner is making for Halloween exemplifies that sentiment. Resplendent in flowing white fabric and a complex pattern of scalloped ruffles, it’s an intricate and challenging design. Brunner, who has been coming to Sew Creative for five years, is now a pro seamstress at age 11, and plans to be an actor and fashion designer.

“There’s no deterring her. Once she decides she’s going to do something ... ” Blaney shakes her head admiringly. “Nothing stops her.”

Mayeda, working diligently on her blanket, just started sewing two months ago at her mother’s suggestion. She had never sewn anything before, but she had a goal and dove in with enthusiasm.

“I wanted to make a new bag for my birthday, but I didn’t know how. So I needed to learn,” she said.

Like her teacher, she’s found a new thing to love—plus a brand-new bag for her birthday this week. And come this January, five newborns will get handmade, hand-stitched blankets for theirs.Read more at:http://www.marieaustralia.com/cocktail-dresses | www.marieaustralia.com/evening-dresses

The time has been that these wild solitudes,
Yet beautiful as wild, were trod by me
Oftener than now; and when the ills of life
Had chafed my spirit--when the unsteady pulse
Beat with strange flutterings--I would wander forth
And seek the woods. The sunshine on my path
Was to me as a friend. The swelling hills,
The quiet dells retiring far between,
With gentle invitation to explore
Their windings, were a calm society
That talked with me and soothed me. Then the chant
Of birds, and chime of brooks, and soft caress
Of the fresh sylvan air, made me forget
The thoughts that broke my peace, and I began
To gather simples by the fountain's brink,
And lose myself in day-dreams. While I stood
In nature's loneliness, I was with one
With whom I early grew familiar, one
Who never had a frown for me, whose voice
Never rebuked me for the hours I stole
From cares I loved not, but of which the world
Deems highest, to converse with her. When shrieked
The bleak November winds, and smote the woods,
And the brown fields were herbless, and the shades,
That met above the merry rivulet,
Were spoiled, I sought, I loved them still,--they seemed
Like old companions in adversity.
Still there was beauty in my walks; the brook,
Bordered with sparkling frost-work, was as gay
As with its fringe of summer flowers. Afar,
The village with its spires, the path of streams,
And dim receding valleys, hid before
By interposing trees, lay visible
Through the bare grove, and my familiar haunts
Seemed new to me. Nor was I slow to come
Among them, when the clouds, from their still skirts,
Had shaken down on earth the feathery snow,
And all was white. The pure keen air abroad,
Albeit it breathed no scent of herb, nor heard
Love-call of bird, nor merry hum of bee,
Was not the air of death. Bright mosses crept
Over the spotted trunks, and the close buds,
That lay along the boughs, instinct with life,
Patient, and waiting the soft breath of Spring,
Feared not the piercing spirit of the North.
The snow-bird twittered on the beechen bough,
And 'neath the hemlock, whose thick branches bent
Beneath its bright cold burden, and kept dry
A circle, on the earth, of withered leaves,
The partridge found a shelter. Through the snow
The rabbit sprang away. The lighter track
Of fox, and the racoon's broad path, were there,
Crossing each other. From his hollow tree,
The squirrel was abroad, gathering the nuts
Just fallen, that asked the winter cold and sway
Of winter blast, to shake them from their hold.

  But Winter has yet brighter scenes,--he boasts
Splendours beyond what gorgeous Summer knows;
Or Autumn with his many fruits, and woods
All flushed with many hues. Come when the rains
Have glazed the snow, and clothed the trees with ice;
While the slant sun of February pours
Into the bowers a flood of light. Approach!
The incrusted surface shall upbear thy steps,
And the broad arching portals of the grove
Welcome thy entering. Look! the massy trunks
Are cased in the pure crystal; each light spray,
Nodding and tinkling in the breath of heaven,
Is studded with its trembling water-drops,
That stream with rainbow radiance as they move.
But round the parent stem the long low boughs
Bend, in a glittering ring, and arbours hide
The glassy floor. Oh! you might deem the spot
The spacious cavern of some ****** mine,
Deep in the womb of earth--where the gems grow,
And diamonds put forth radiant rods and bud
With amethyst and topaz--and the place
Lit up, most royally, with the pure beam
That dwells in them. Or haply the vast hall
Of fairy palace, that outlasts the night,
And fades not in the glory of the sun;--
Where crystal columns send forth slender shafts
And crossing arches; and fantastic aisles
Wind from the sight in brightness, and are lost
Among the crowded pillars. Raise thine eye,--
Thou seest no cavern roof, no palace vault;
There the blue sky and the white drifting cloud
Look in. Again the wildered fancy dreams
Of spouting fountains, frozen as they rose,
And fixed, with all their branching jets, in air,
And all their sluices sealed. All, all is light;
Light without shade. But all shall pass away
With the next sun. From numberless vast trunks,
Loosened, the crashing ice shall make a sound
Like the far roar of rivers, and the eve
Shall close o'er the brown woods as it was wont.

  And it is pleasant, when the noisy streams
Are just set free, and milder suns melt off
The plashy snow, save only the firm drift
In the deep glen or the close shade of pines,--
'Tis pleasant to behold the wreaths of smoke
Roll up among the maples of the hill,
Where the shrill sound of youthful voices wakes
The shriller echo, as the clear pure lymph,
That from the wounded trees, in twinkling drops,
Falls, mid the golden brightness of the morn,
Is gathered in with brimming pails, and oft,
Wielded by sturdy hands, the stroke of axe
Makes the woods ring. Along the quiet air,
Come and float calmly off the soft light clouds,
Such as you see in summer, and the winds
Scarce stir the branches. Lodged in sunny cleft,
Where the cold breezes come not, blooms alone
The little wind-flower, whose just opened eye
Is blue as the spring heaven it gazes at--
Startling the loiterer in the naked groves
With unexpected beauty, for the time
Of blossoms and green leaves is yet afar.
And ere it comes, the encountering winds shall oft
Muster their wrath again, and rapid clouds
Shade heaven, and bounding on the frozen earth
Shall fall their volleyed stores rounded like hail,
And white like snow, and the loud North again
Shall buffet the vexed forest in his rage.

Each and every day
its almost the same
locked away for hours with
no one there to blame

secluded isolation
escape to cyber space
retiring from reality
with no one in my face

running on, no time frame
every evening, every morn
the ridicule of others
harassment, even scorn

despondent transposition
the endless, constant pain
each day, another challenge
sun streaked sky without rain

the dogs are major comfort
the cats are here and there
the rabbit loves his clover
the birds, they just don't care

writing for no reason
except to pass the time
elusive comprehension
for those without a rhyme

single, tranquil moment
illusionary thought
Angel on my shoulder
things that cant be bought

retiring from the world
full of stress and hate
paying tax to those, with
too much on their plate

imagination wandering
country, city, slums
counting up the hours
until the reaper comes

time, it does escape me
I really must admit
If you want opinion
no one gives a ****

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                       The Retiring of Old Snow

Clinging to blue shadows and shades and trees
Stained ice and sleet and snow from days ago
Silently steams away as vapour, as mist
Beneath today’s yellow and slanting sun

On Monday eve the skies were low and grey
And Tuesday morn soft flakes began to float
And then the rattle of indelicate sleet
Sent every creature to its appointed burrow

And now the little that’s left hides from the breeze
Clinging to blue shadows and shades and trees

professional thieves and lunatic royalty
rule the alleys and burned out geniuses collecting cans
to earn the morning's medicine
fighting off last night's tremors
vampyre women that eat men alive
and live in darkness and
nobody's ever seen the forest
central park predators
Mad Hatter transplants
and eternal sages who stay drunk by being interesting
and getting good at giving tourists a smooth line of *******
(you can always spot the tourists in new york.  they are the only ones wearing bright colors.  in portland, they can be spotted by similar means, but the eye must be trained.  the city abounds with sprouts)
always looking up

eternal chatter of madness from corners,
doorways, windows, liquor stores
*** barrels floating on tears
with a police state terror squad
2 floors above
killing justice and truth
black ties jumping out windows of Wall St.
cracked by pressure and greed and ego
street hustlers retiring at 35- or dead at 13
the street musician dying from apathy
he is a withering poppy flower
cut and bleeding

i can't remember the last time i was satisfied with
only drinking one cider and 35cl of whiskey,
i honestly can't... then again i plucked two of my
favourite aphrodisiacs that night...
i beat up the whittle 'ichard before
(aphrodisiac no. 1 - exercise, exertion) cycled
to the brothel... then bought myself a bottle
of cider (aphrodisiac no. 2 - no other alcohol
works that sort of magic, no wine, no whiskey,
certainly not beer: cider...
and for that matter a very specific cider...
merry down cider, with a fox playing a violin
on the etiquette... the label... served in a 75cl
portion... 7.5%... medium dry...
so no...  not Thatcher's... or a Hertfordshire Weston's...
it has to be the Merry Down... probably
because of the portion) and did the victory
lap around the park and the brothel around
Goodmayes station...
obviously i bought 35cl of whiskey before walking
in... inside after we ******... hmm...
******* sets me off so quick... i don't know:
seeing a woman on her knees... from behind...
a bit like watching women in churches on
their knees before certain deeds are done...
i think i'm going to go back to a catholic church
one Sunday and draw out fetishes in my head...
kneeling before a cross... maybe Jesus the ******
would have loved to be nailed to some X cross
and then get ****** off by some Magdalene?
maybe he was into sadomasochism...
    who knows... but ******* sets me off on
an easy path of ******...
at least in the ******* it feels more
like exercise as i'm using the upper part of my body
to arch over a woman... from time to time
lowering myself to kiss her when she shows her tongue
licking her lips: i guess that implies: kiss me...
so i do... or lowering my body to brush noses
with her... press my forehead against hers
or just bite her chin...

is it just me or did the band Priest use certain accents
of Lana Del Rey's Summertime Sadness
in their song Phantom Pain? have a listen...
i think they did... never mind...
aphrodisiac no. 3: music... just listening to some
music you'd like to listen to when *******
fills the mind prior to the act with the act:
Trevor Something: into your heart...

work has transformed me, working with people,
dealing with drunk football fans...
i walked into the brothel: three beauties sitting there...
i never thought i had a thing for plump girls
or girls wearing glasses...
but this third one... the blonde... that lied
about being from Romania when in fact i know
from Michaela that she's Poland looked like:
a frightened doe... her eyes almost teary... her lips
moving as if trying to tell me something...
obviously i picked Michaela: she's going back
to Romania for a month to visit her family...
she worked so hard that she managed to have
a 12 room house with 3 bathrooms...
she's thinking about retiring in a year's time...
setting up a restaurant... i told her i make ****
good mint and chocolate chip ice-cream and i love
looking... who knows... i heard that Romania
is beautiful... and she's from Bucharest...
so... easy access to Ottoman heritage... and Dracula...
who knows... life is sometimes a house
of windows that are opportunities...
the same blonde that:

Khadija... Khadira... Khedra blocked me on WhatsApp
just before she ****** off back to Turkey
for a holiday... yeah... Khedra sent me
a photograph of herself with this girl...
now look at her... a frightened doe...
why did she block me? i don't care...
she was there last night... i asked for her...
but she was bringing back £60 for an extra half
an hour with a man she was already busy with...
we said hello: i kissed her cheek as a greeting...
me and my hardly jealous heart...
but Michaela can do i don't think even Khedra
could... after all... with Michaela it was
first time quick... second time longer...
third time quick... 4th time much longer...
first time? i blame it on the fact that she forgot
to pull back the *******... what sort of uncircumcised man
wants to **** without a circumcision imitation?
i know women prefer the aesthetic of a circumcised
man... but at the same time:
in the old ways... a man would be circumcised...
but the woman would have to pay some compensation...
just look at Islam and Judaism...
not the current American raw deal of circumcised
men... that's not how it works...
circumcise a man and his sometimes need to
pleasure himself makes no sense with no *******...

hardly a joke... it's called the acronym FGM (female
genital mutilation, but it's not called MGM male
genital mutilation?! oh right... all those eunuchs
in harems who were walking ******... because: hardly...
Solomon couldn't **** all his harem...
it would probably take him a whole year
to make the rounds and **** all his concubines)...
so unless he didn't have eunuchs to please his concubines
he had the concubines turn to lesbian acts...
even great kings of old didn't mind other men
******* their women... as long as they didn't impregnate
them...
i'm a modern man... i really don't care who she has
been ******* prior...

me? with Khedra... i know why she blocked me...
but it's only on WhatsApp... i still have her number...
i just have to use the conventional routes...
but she must have received advice from fellow prostitutes...
you're sending him pictures of yourself?
you said you'd gladly have a night with him
in a hotel room for free?! are you a ******* or his
girlfriend?!
mind you: Michaela asked me for extra money
for unprotected ***... Khedra simply gave it up without
any extra cost... to be honest... i don't mind either...
****** off: obviously...
****** on? honey... do you have two spare latex suits
we can wear? oh sure... and a tub of butter
we can both jump into and smear each other
and pretend we're snails... ha... ah ha... terrible joke...

but ever since starting work again: i feel more and more
alive... my confidence has shot through
the roof... two prostitutes sitting opposite me
don't really intimidate me...
one tries to be a smart-***... the other is gearing up
because she knows i'll choose her and the third
looks scared...
hmm... i know that Michaela would ask me to pay
extra to perform oral *** on her...
Khedra? she gave it up for free...
i love seeing a woman who shows her hot-shivers
or ******... not ******* are so ******* oratory
as might be portrayed... hot-shivers of ******...
and, to be honest? ****** vaginas are very...
not tasteless... i've had one once... they sort of stink...
there are not enough lubrication juices...
and i mean from multiple men...
it really doesn't bother me...

thank god none of them ever asked for me to perform
****... pop pornographic culture with all that
**** fixation is ill to me... i can understand
if two Russian soldiers on the front feel like
gagging each other's anuses... but with women?

that was Khedra... freebies... i would otherwise have
to pay for with Michaela...
but Khedra is a slim nymphomaniac...
Michaela is a business minded woman...
and being plump: that's an added asset...
Khedra has her eyes open throughout *******
while Michaela has her eyes closed...
hello: a welcome return to the Unbearable Lightness
of Being by Milan Kundera...
i have to see: everything... i gorge with my eyes...
i'm eating: but i'm not eating...

but i know why i only drank one Merry Down cider
and 35cl of whiskey last night, wrote 'Biggie"
and went to bed...
huh! i have a nickname? that's so endearing...
that's so much better than a girl calling you by your name...
English doesn't really have a diminutive
aspect of language: esp. nouns...
in ****** speech you can create diminutive "concepts"
of words: to make them more endearing...
Matthew, i.e. Mateusz can become Mateuszek...
duck, i.e. kaczka can become kaczuszka
dog, i.e. pies can become piesek
woman, i.e. kobieta can become kobietka...
what's the equivalent in English?
it's "diminutive": but it's not an endearing-diminutive...
it's belittling-diminutive, that's the distinction
between the two languages i own...
little women... you can't actually morph the word
woman to imply woman a "tiny", or, "small"
in an endearing way... only in a belittling way...
thank god i know two languages...
fluently: bilingually...
perhaps a third would be useful if i wished
to travel and start a business... most certainly a knowledge
of Spanish would open a world of opportunities...
obviously i'd settle for German... large enough
territory... but? as a personal psychology basis?
being monolingual would be claustrophobia for me...
or equivalent: therefore...

oh man... it would have been such a mistake if
i just settled for my high-school sweetheart, Promis...
when dating her i went to a friend's birthday
party and was presented with a chance to cheat...
she was much younger than me and eager:
i declined her even though she was already all
over me... it wouldn't have worked...
my father: i'm not my father... mentioned only
two women in his life...
one girl who tried to trick him into becoming
a surrogate father... i.e. not raising his own genes...
and... my mother... but i'm not my father:
i think my parents are freaks... seriously...
it's like monogamy and the swan song was all
about them...
my estranged uncle was a serial polygamist...
he tried a monogamy once: FAIL...
she ended up being a journalistic-wannabe
with an abortion as a notch on her belt...
i learned from my maternal grandfather too...
he was married at the age of 18? 19? but cheated
on my grandmother... he mentioned 3 women
in his life... me? i didn't lose count on purpose...
i lost count on the basis of: and how many different
selves of myself have i found along the way?
i can can't at least 5...

but unlike Khedra with her hot-shivers when i was
performing... eating-oysters on her ****...
there was Michaela who said last night:
look! you're making me dance! and she looked
the happiest girl... she was dancing... lying back...
it wasn't a dance: dance... it wasn't a samba...
she was dancing by wriggling happy on her back
after all that missionary ***...
plus?! i now have a nickname: i'm: Biggie...
and... fair enough: i have more beard envy than
***** envy... even though i've been approached
by guys at work with a similar envy... beards...
apparently i have a perfect beard...

i'm Biggie... now... a few years back i was
KAKASHKA for Ilona: little ****...
it could have worked with Ilona: if i wasn't a ******
and she wasn't a Russian...
Russian pride against Polacks was already
stated by Dostoyevsky demeaning us...
even though i'd be the first to celebrate Russian
isolationistic culture upkeep...

i don't think i could love one woman...
that would be selfish... after all... all the most beautiful
women are either prostitutes or...
actresses in the pornographic industry...
strange how beauty works: it works perfect in nature:
nature wants to showcase itself for the greatest
number of people...
that's a bit like beautiful women...
that's why beautiful women in Islam are an
antithesis of nature's parody...
i heard one Pakistani once tried to teach me
the "mystery" of Islam...
if you owned a jewellery shop... and you had this one
massive sapphire in your shop...
would you want to keep it in the front window
so that anyone could look at it...
huh? he continued: no... you'd keep it hidden
in the back...
                       rrrright... huh?!
he actually didn't mention: so people would ask about?
how could anyone know that you have
a massive ******* sapphire in the back
of your jewellery shop?
point being... why have a jewellery shop
if you're going to be so selfish about what's beautiful?!
you're a ******* jewel merchant or some stingy
****?!
then again: the allure surrounding women is the same
in the west as it is in Islam...
make-up and the NIQAB...
in the west make-up does what a NIQAB does in Islam...
it's the same-****: just a different cover...
i look at a woman in a NIQAB: i'm curious...
i watch a woman heavily overdone with make-up...
i can sometimes say:
there's less paint on a masterpiece than there is
chemical junk on her face to hide her imperfections
that: i might find appealing...
sure... with a NIQAB i can only see the eyes...
but with western standards: i see eyes... exfoliating
in feline fakery... and the rest of her is doubly faked-up...

thank god i'm man... i just need to wash myself
on a regular basis... trim my beard... shave my *****
region and my arm-pits... no chance of me shaving
the hair on my pirate chest and my stomach...
apparently Michaela likes flowing her fingers through
my body hair and teasing my *******...
tonight: i need more whiskey...
not because i'm miserable: i'm happy...
that's why i continue to drink and not get drunk:
i'll feel drunkness when i stop writing and relax...
until then my memory is working overload...
and this is only memory from yesterday...

maybe that's why i don't dream so much...
i don't dream because i'm not seeking escapism
some people seek via imagination...
since their memory faculty has either been eroded
by pedagogy... or? as Bukowski once noted:
some people never go mad: what horrible lives
they must least... a recurrent spontaneity of
"amnesia": or simply looking down on people?
not treating them fairly, lovingly?

life's not difficult: other people make life difficult,
their games of hierarchies...
life's not difficult... other people make life difficult...
and? i could never understand men
who associate cats with lonely modern women...
celebrating dogs...
oh **** me! cats are the best: esp. Maine *****...
then again... maybe i have a spezial cat...
why dogs and men why women and cats
why blue and men why pink and woman?!
who said?
   and who didn't say: cats of Ancient Egypt?
the Pharaohs probably owned cats...
what about Muhammad's favourite cat? Muezza?
who the **** said that cats are efaminating creatures?!
these Bonsai tigers are just as much fun
as dogs... if not more! why? you can have time off
from petting them: when they be themselves
and... no leashes! no muzzle! fickle sleeping and feeding
patterns...
but i agree... there's one negative of cats
that i remember was a great positive having petted
Bella... my Alsatian... well... two...

cat's can't pull a sleigh... with you on it as a toddler...
you can't ride a cat as toddler...
but you can a dog... like a Shetland pony...
you can't be a toddler and put your hand inside
the beast's gob and pull out an imaginary tongue...
and... this is my biggest envy of dog owners...
Sundays at my grandparent's house...
chicken broth... basically an entire poached chicken
in a soup of... choice of vegetable to create
a chicken and vegetable stock?
carrots... root parsley, fresh parsley... celeriac...
baby celery... leek... garlic... burned onions...
the usual seasoning... vermicelli pasta...
but that's the biggest difference between cats and dogs...
i don't know why cats stopped drinking milk...
classically they drank milk...
as a child i remember glowing with glee that i owned
an animal that would eat the leftovers of the food i just
finished... dog are special in that way...
some of the soup wasn't finished...
Bella the Alsatian was whimpering after the leftovers...
she got a bowl... a bountiful bowl...
she loved her chicken broth...
   with the vermicelli... with the vegetables...
and added to the mix? the chicken bones...
my grandfather always bemoaned the fact that me
and my father ate our chicken to the point of biting
off the cartilage off the bones... i went further...
i bit off the heads to get to the juicy-dry marrow...

a different season for a different animal:
i loved dogs for the simple pleasure that they would
eat what you couldn't finish for dinner...
but i love cats for the fact that they behave like
ferns... sorry... houseplants...
you can ignore them from time to time...
they only come up to you when they feel like approaching
you...
the rest of the time you can just ignore them...
but when they love you: it's unlike a dog
waiting for you to equip yourself with a leash...
when they love you: or rather: you're ******* more interesting
than any human prior... they rarely scout for more room...
you've already enlarged their perspective on existence...

perhaps i could be your neurotypical man by
any standards: in the Old Testament style
of breaking away from my father and mother
and chose a wife: i tried it with Promis...
i hated the experience... i have to abandon my mother
and father... in order... to marry you... woman...
and... abandon my mother and father...
in order... to give a **** more about: YOUR... mother
and father?! seriously?! that's a raw ******* deal...
i haven't been raised by my mother from the age
of 6 through to 8...
and by my father from the age of 4 through to 8...
collapse of the Soviet Union:
if it wasn't the brain drain (that came later)
it was a labour shortage in the early 90s...
i don't think i'm clingy... sure... if my parents raised
me throughout those LEGO-years...
i'd be out of the house already: or? no... the cost
of living... what? at least i have intellectual comparisons
with me...
times are changing... i was lucky to be out of
the cosmopolitan game of dating ever since i went
mad aged 21... my whole 20s are a fog...
i woke up mid-30s sort of happy to be simply
alive... i'm happy for that "conundrum"...
i missed so much that was required of me to miss...
i can go to the brothel with a clean conscience
of being able to satisfy prostitutes...

at least we know something personal about Muhammad
that's more than however many wives he had...
a man of his times of his region...
i can't be a judge of that...
but at least he had his favourite cat: and we know
his name: Mu'izza...
like i had a favourite cat of mine:
Darshan... who my Sikh neighbour killed
by poising him because: she offered to take care of...
but couldn't be bothered to clean up his ****
or give him food... easier to **** the poor creature:
make him suffer kidney failure...
i was visiting my grandparents
while my mother and father were holidaying
in the Maldives... two days before they were
supposed to come back... i woke up with a stinking
fear... i phoned them up, i need to go back home!
i'm worried about Darshan...
a silver beast of a Maine ****...
dead... "kidney failure"... i was so stricken
with morbid emotions... after he was cremated
i found a Croquet buggy...
took all the pieces off... strapped a belt
to the handle... walked into a World War I
memorial graveyard...
had a hammer and a chisel with me...
started carving off a piece of grave...
put it on the buggy... dragged it home...
picked up the ashes... started digging a shallow
grave in the garden... buried the poor sod...
then placed the hacked off gravestone above him...
i'm still not speaking to my neighbours...
they're scammers anyway...
that's how Sikhs and other Asians get to flaut
their money on rich weddings and Rolls Royce
limousines... sure sure... i hear you...
they own corner shops and get rich by selling 1p
gummy bear gelatin sweets by the million!
like, ****!
oddly enough... i'm sometimes perched on my windowsill
throughout the night till 4am...
4 break-ins... "break-ins"... and some during mid-day...
******* insurance scammers! SCAMMERS!
i saw jack-****!
no one broke in into their home...
that's how Asians get rich: that's how anyone rich
gets rich... they're not playing by the rules...
thank god i'm willing to make sacrifices...
i don't want to get rich: i don't want scammers
or gold-diggers in my life: i want to build up a natural
filter when it comes to resources!

if there won't be enough women in my life:
i can always test my "fertility" with cognitive ambivalence...
i can always think about more things than most
people are not willing to think about...

after all: Muhammad had a favorite cat... Mu'izza...
since Darshan passed away at the hands of a sadistic
*****... i now have Quarus...
i'm not going to be easily relieved of him:
easily divorced from him...
he has more nicknames than the times i actually utter
his name...
what was the name of the donkey that
brought Jesus to Jerusalem on Palm Sunday?!
no one knows because he had no name...
i'd call him Quizy... Quizy... no... don... key...
REGALO TECLA... or? DON TECLA...
but Jesus didn't give a name to the donkey...
psychopathic, if you ask me:
animals you ride, or pet, to be: nameless...

just maybe: there might be some sympathy for me:
it almost feels like i was there...
when Mel Gibson released that movie of
his: the Passion of the Christ... i cried when i first
heard Aramaic being spoken on screen...
i think i cried throughout the entire movie...
i was so moved that... some other guy in the audience
started crying with me...
maybe it was the music all along...
i'm a sucker for a decent music...

but i just couldn't stomach the raw deal of wedding
a woman: a man is to abandon his own mother
and father... esp. one who wasn't raised by his
mother from the age of 6 through to 8
or by his father through the ages of 4 to 8...
who spent his early developmental years
in a house filled with 20 other immigrant
labour-drain men... for about a two years...
the fact that my father was abandoned by his own
parents: through divorce... i was raieed
by a ***** of a grandmother and an alcoholic
grandfather: i loved them...
but she was such a ***** to the point
oh him pushing her through a glass door
and breaking her hand...
i blocked all of that out... maybe by way of blocking
out several personal memories i have been
given access to access certain historical details...
i question them: unflinchingly...
why didn't Jesus' donkey have a name?
while Muhammad had a favourite cat with a name
like Mu'izzi: i know it's Mu'izza... i prefer Mu'izzi...

my Quarus? a clever cat... i bemoan the fact that
he won't eat my scraps... from dinner...
that's the only great aspect of what Bella the Alsatian
and Axl (the Dobberman) used to be capable of...
they'd eat what man leftover...
i'd call cats vegetarians if i could...

i know that the definite article in Hebrew is HA...
i.e. ha-satan: the-Stanley... the Stanislav...
i forgot to remember what the indefinite article
is in Hebrew... oh... right... there isn't one...
to define someone: definitely is to suppose:
laughing at it in English...

the whiskey flows slow and cold...
my heart it growing slower and colder...
i like it, that way...
Biggie... oh **** me... then again: Michaela does stand
about 5ft2 beside of me... while i'm towering
6ft2 above her... no wonder she picked a nickname:
Biggie for me...
the smaller she is: the plumper she is...
the more endearing she becomes...
you just want to cuddle her...
the more tender her forehead feels and tastes like...
she mentioned: i haven't washed my hair...
i tell her while sniffing it:
it doesn't matter... i washed myself prior to seeing
you... you think i'm going to wash myself
after seeing you? i want your scent to fill my bedroom
with your ****** perfume...
i want to dream of orchids! i want to dream
of lavender! i want to dream...
of a desert and your being the oasis in it!

i love women... but some women are too proud...
too stuck up...
they miss out on a lot of fun *** can be...
can't we just have fun without taking to
the serious business of paying gas bills?!
are we simply things before the altar of the eternals?
can't we spontaneously break the rules
for the eternals to be envious of us?
have we, seriously become so shallow:
so boring, that the gods abandoned us due to the fact
that we became imitating immortal:
their own boringness, manifest, that we stopped
being mortals?!

if i a were an immortal deity, and had to overlook
the modern man? i'd die too!
i'd die from boredom!
i'd die from predictability...
i'd die from looking at mortal men and thinking:
we're the luck?! where's the gamble?!
where's the unpredictability?!
where on earth is the stupidity on earth,
that might make these men take enough chances
to later allow them status of sage?!
everything is being to closely manifested in keeping
a "slave" stock of workers...
no one wants to dare... and if they do want to dare:
it's all for the wrong reasons:
no for reasons akin to: i! i am Spartacus!

people say awful things about slavery...
i wonder... what slave was ever homeless?
what slave was ever left without food, without shelter?!
well **** me: if you're not a self-developed
business man... chances are: sure... you're not a slave...
just someone who earn a wage...
but someone who earns a wage is not someone
who's someone's responsibility
to demand the person bestowing said responsibility
to keep the slave: alive, fed, sheltered...
by simply earning a wage does not imply
my status is better than that of a slave...
is it? IS, IT?!
i just earn a wage... i have to provide food and shelter
for myself... as a slave: and not a wage-earner:
i had to have food and shelter provided for me:
for my services...
i didn't care about money because i was already
given what money would otherwise provide:
or rather, in the ancient realm: wouldn't...
since shelter was inherited by the manor
and food too... from owning farmyards...

i don't think slavery was bad... wage-employment
is far worse... esp. those zero-hour contracts...
no one can tell me that's beneficial to anyone...
zero-hour contracts is worse than slavery...
at least as a slave you had intrinsic value...
obviously disposable...
but as a wager... SLAVE CONTRA WAGER...
you have no instrinsic value:
you only have extrinsic value:
you're doubly disposable...

           like the concern for INFLATION:
the end-product is inflated...
but the manufacturing mechanism isn't...
then there's the deflation aspect of
football clubs increasing the payouts of their
football players... but not decreasing
the price of their tickets to attend a match
or their merchandise: t-shirts etc.!
fair enough: pay the players more...
but at least have the decency to cut down the ticket
prices to see a football match...
or the price of the merchandise...
but no... these clubs either keep it at the same price
or inflate the ticket prices...
but if the players are earning more?
why should the people pay more?!
surely they should be paying less!

SLAVERY wasn't a bad thing... not in my eyes...
i think slavery was a good thing...
you had protection... a SLAVE had more protection
against the peril of a "free" society than a WAGER
will ever have...

what are the chances of me retiring at my grandfather
did? getting a proper state pension,
passing it down my wife after my life,
allowing her last 10 years of life to be lived
in a luxury that only old age might hinder?
ZILCH!
of the people that applied for job i'm currently at....
i seem to be the only "slave": i.e. employee...
the rest are self-employees...
i do my job well because i don't have to:
invoice my presence... i get invoices by someone
else...i trust my "handlers"...
i look at dogs, i look at cats...

who was Proximo to Maximus in the fillm
Gladiator? a mere slave-owner?
really? Maximus was merely a WAGER?
Proximo didn't care about Maximus was more than
a WAGER and more a, commodity?
i'd love to feel like a commodity again...
i'd hate to be treated as a WAGER: as an EARNER...
i think slaves, "slaves" had more monetary rights
than people of our current age...
owning slaves came with responsibilities...
a bit like owning pets these days...
you had to be rich enough...
for one...
you had to clothe them... you had to feed them...
you had to put a roof above their heads...
to be considered a nobleman:
you had to treat them fairly...
these days? none of these rules need to apply...

the system of slavery worked on a decentralised
"bias"...
not on this, current, centralised bias of
the universal WAGE concept....
you're worse than a SLAVE... you're a WAGER...
communism tried to figure this out...
it never came close...
well, it did, for a short period of time...
the sort of period of time where:
drinking whiskey tasted like drinking regurgitated
garlic *****!

it's not working now...
not everyone can be some moon-blessed
entrepreneur... some people are truly allowed
the joy of being allocated the status of PAWN...
rather than BISHOP...
there are people that are like that...

if it was working NOW: it would be working WOW...
people exist for others to be looked up to!
you can't scribble some Darwinistic mantra
and expect people to stick to it!
it's either Darwinism or Christianity...
you can't have both!
there's one alternative... but you're not going
to like Islam...
i don't like Islam... i don't like circumcision...
that's why i'm expecting a 2nd schism
in this grand religion... spear-headed
by the Turks with a bunch of uncircumcised men...

i want whiskey to drip from my beard
while i drink it... and rub it into my chin...
and recall the number of tattoos i ought to have
from rekindling my mind to the past....

no one knows the name of the donkey that took
Jesus to Jerusalem as the fifth: "horseman" of
the Apocalypse toward that fateful Palm Sunday...
but... Muhammad's favourite cat's name is known...
the birth of the Korean script is known via
King Sejong... no one can rob me of this historical presence:
nothing is mythological too...
just easily forgotten...

me? i'm just clearing the path... for something...
more... expedient... more... clarifying...
let's share cats.

"A man is a wolf to another man",
What utter nonsense! What a silly thing to say!
I see no wolf-like qualities in the hearts of men,
No shy, retiring qualities, or unerring loyalty,
And certainly haven't noticed that men ****
Only when absolutely necessary for survival.

Perhaps it is I who am being foolish though?
As I stare deep into the noble eyes of the wolf
And see no hint of malice, or greed,
Or religious and political ideologies,
Or desire for such petty things as man wants.

Yes, indeed! Surely the fault lies with me,
For I am human, and can't begin to understand
Such simple things that those wild beasts can
Seem to so effortlessly comprehend- compassion,
Love, respect, and sense of unity.

Men are not wolves in the eyes of other men. No,
It doesn't describe the potentially ruthless way
We act upon meeting a stranger of our own species.
I wish such accurate statements as this held sway;
Men are like men to other men- **** homini ****
Since we've proof that men will oft rip men to pieces.

Pub poetry is a form of performance poetry consisting of the shouted word which has developed in UK urban pubs, dating back to the 1940s and 50s. Words are typically yelled over ambient haphazard rhythms which are not especially chosen for the piece of poetry, rather the poetry is performed over the generic sound of empty bottles and part filled glasses and live samples of patron conversation that will be familiar to those frequenting hostelries around the UK.

Sometimes the audience will employ call and response devices to distract the poet, such as calls of "W##k-er!', with the traditional response of "F##k-You!" before the pub poet continues with his yelled out verse, often read from the beer stained back of an overdue envelope.

The pub poet usually appears on a chair or table, surrounded by immediate family or work mates cheering him on.

Invariably inebriated, the pub poet may not appear to make any sense to the uninitiated - but once you too have availed yourself of your 4th or 5th pint, the words become clearer and easier to appreciate.

No musicality is built into pub poems and pub poets generally perform without backing music, delivering chanted speech with pronounced modulation, broken-rhythmic accentuation and dramatic, though random, stylization of gestures, often resulting in the pub poet losing balance and sustaining a head injury thereby losing consciousness and bringing the evening's entertainment to a premature, but often welcome, end.

It is often noted that many pub poets are remarkably shy and retiring when sober.