"There in the midst of it so alive and alone
Words support like bone..."  Peter Gabriel's  "Mercy Street"

Orion abandons the sky
dropping his club
casting his belt toward the horizon
Just once, for a moment, he glanced away
from exalted ****
his vanquished prey

He’d seen the picture—
A girl of sixteen
lying awake—muses in her head
eyes shut, arms thrown back
behind pillow
Tee shirt stretch across lean chest
Hips mingle with blankets
She is scattered there
among the minions of her hair
behind her mouth of unkissed words
____

McCaffery's Coffee is open late
He’s seen the picture
Muses in his head
His arm almost around her
Hers on his shoulder
Small—feather-light fingers
lift the hair of his neck
Reaching around her
his hand searches and slides
along her silk-draped hind
...and the view he has is amazing!
___

Music— and waves pounding and lapping
at the life he fears....

Little boat stranded in gray mists
till a thousand tiny birds alight
in a peppering and fluttering
stir of time
in greens of brine
as the sun pries through….
___

McCaffery’s is ready to close
but the owner, knowing
douses the overheads and turns away
leaving candlelight to crouch and duck
and blink in circles

How long and free we
are allowed to gaze....
so full of wind and riffling water
Stars above and stars below
blooming on the floral silk of night
Vespered lilacs exhale
Votives of warmth
beneath his hand
Silk sweating—
familial in their rocking

Distant lightning loosens eternity

Walter, I just want to sit on my *** and **** and think about Dante.*
—Samuel Beckett

All this fractures the Wolf. The ancient leaves
amid the ancient woods, wind riffling wind
in eddies she can see but she can’t hear,
the braying of a fatted calf which she
could eat, if she could hear thy call, O Wolf.

The tympani pretend to be a thunder roll,
the crashing cymbals mean to simulate
the distant lightning, all the strings—cello,
base, violin and viola—play the
pizzicato of rain commencing…

The Wolf sits to watch—what?—the floodlights fill
the stadium? the baton poised? the crowd
about to have their daily dose of not
quite silence served up yet again? She hates
that they have come to watch a prophecy.

It’s raining full blast now, the Wolf’s exchange
for music, how things balance out, how rain
fornicates in the forest, with its pools
and puddles, how it tenders lakes and rivers
and shadows… It can’t be! Ahead she sees him.

She sees Dante, the poet of the prophecy,
the one she has to drown.  It’s why she’s deaf.
She will not hear him wail. **** him so he will rot
in hell before the other poet comes. **** him
and spare the world another poem about

another world. The rain and music grow
so dense around her soul. She is so quick,
too quick for him to flee. She drags him still
alive, drags him to the lake of his heart.
Sink and die. In Paradise only bubbles rise.

The tympani pretend to be a thunder roll,
the crashing cymbals mean to simulate
the distant lightning, all the strings—cello,
base, violin, viola—play it soft,
so soft, as if the rain is about to start…

The Wolf and I walk the slopes of hell.
When Farinata and Cavalcante
rise up to ask her, ‘Who were thy ancestors?’
and ‘Where Is *****?’ she howls. O Wolf.
O Tuscan. She howls.

wouldn’t it be great to learn Greek
she says
quickly riffling
through the phrasebook
with a thumb and her tongue out
while I try to discover what
‘to speak’ is in Dutch

everyone uses English
you know I say
spluttering ‘ik spreek, jij spreek,
hij spreek’,
trying to nail the pronunciation
like the book tells me to
‘ick sprake, yigh sprake, hi sprake’

but they might appreciate
tourists knowing a bit in Crete
like ‘efcharistó’
or ‘ti ypérochi méra’ she mutters
but it all, literally,
sounds Greek to me
and we can’t visit everywhere

besides, she wants warm weather
but I’d be fine in, say, Sweden,
‘Där är den närmaste Ikea?’
or in Iceland, but I can’t
pronounce anything
the way the phrasebook
wants me to

so Greece is probably best,
and anyway,
she’s too busy
informing me that
‘monókeros’ means unicorn
and it’s 575 quid each
if we book now

Jingoism at its very best is still zealotry, and anyone with good sense can tell you none of that is good. Where has good gone? Narrowness is boasting ethnocentricity. The mind game of villainous blame furthers unkind possibility. Worse yet, demise of soul, to tout a right to defend, assaults a riffling on pith and marrow with no sane sense of psyche to lend. Basically then, we are told to "blend."

I cannot.

I am fanatical. My colors must be seen. This weathering of dark storm has unbiased relinquishment that must convene, upon a rainbow. With all heart and soul, given to Orlando.

Inside the network of humanity,
There is a swell increasing,
Bubbling to the surface,
Clawing through sand and gravel,
and mud,
They are the sacred and pummeled hands,
riffling through the cosmos,
By and by making their thirst increase,
For dominance,
For sheer arrogance,
For all things wholesome,
For the coming of reason,
Dipped down by the ever restless,
Drawbacks that pinch their sides.

Then a time will emerge,
The face of the clock,
Shrouded in smoke, fog, and
mirror.
A specter of radiance,
draped in neither human
costume,
or of drawbacks; pinned wings,
Suckling a Dionysian Principle,
relishing the illicit,
and honoring the
perfect existential
burden,
Thus making assured this gift, this
upheaval,
Obsolete, dangerous,
misunderstood,
To the grand choir and,
velvet dungeons,
Slime pouring from an,
everlasting faucet,
His fate is surely carved into the
hieroglyphic walls,
in madness and panic,
swelled a deep tranquility,
The etchings formed poetry,
formed testament,
formed testimonial,
formed remedy in martyrdom,
Others were closed to strange intensities,
Others sat and smoked on their patios,
Watching the worlds collide,
Rattling the great fabric gong,
seizing with pleasure,
omniflourescent fireworks,
of absolute brilliance,
The twinkling dust falling,
flickering as
they fall,
Becoming imagined demons,
sacred omens,
reassurance that things,
derive from all things,

What had been said and done in the past, now is the wall keeping them from taking a look at the real veiled horizon that captivates the ethereal mystery of the child's wonder.

Coiled, grey March –snow patches slow to disperse on the townscape -
trying to turn the year.
A grey plume drifts through the low sky, like smoke but not smoke,
slow to disperse
reforming and palping like a long streak of foam on the sea; a grubby bag
turning, plastic and drifting
dividing in the sky: a shifting exclamation mark pulls out of shape
turns pale to vanishing, is gone.  
A sound like pages riffling, like a thousand paper fans rustling, a darkening in the air
turning in the low light all together
wheeling , breaking, re-combining, stretching again.  Sky geometry.
Still that dry whisper-clustering
of many wings holding close formation, turning and swooping together.
The cloud is back, is gone, is back again – endlessly
The grey light feels unnaturally late
above the Eagle Rec
starlings are moulding shapes, most beautiful murmuration.
The complex maths of defence – stay close, stay close –
turn, wheel, stay close.
Against the pale dusk the moment stretches beyond bearing,
that high, remote plasticity floats on as the light hesitates
dragging out the turn towards darkness.
The hawk must be near, striking into the crowd -
spin, turn on a wing-tip, wheel close, divide and turn: with luck
she will take your neighbour.
The black bunched crowd drops as one, to roost, to rest.

L'heure verte

The mountains. The heaps of their bountiful gravels, and earth, and soil, large oversized masses of half-frozen water teetering on the precipice of subzero masculine *******. Francophilic cleavage jetting out of this deserted white pastoral dressing. The inaugural bawl, wanton fixations of putting the imperialist foot on every spot of tree, each and every shrub, until the limbs' cast reaches each dimple that foliage braves, where that blue eagle of patriotism dredges its claws to form every river, rill, estuary, creek, channel, flume, littoral, and waterway where the iron-rich gullies once brimmed in the interamnian basins, rich crimsony waters riffling through fruitful and extravagant aquifers. Beyond that, where an inexplicably feral wind rips vines from their dendritic housings, where barely an eye can see, this place of exsanguination and abysmal phytocide.

At the end of this lamentable torture, only a desert of human interest remains. There is no reason to laugh, or smile, or cheer, or put a leg up, to call on a friend, or to have ice cream. There will be no more ice cream. There is only the loathsome incredulousness and avarice in the semblances and familiarity of those with whom we thought we once knew. Little can ever be known, for there is much to gain in the absence of knowledge, and even greater that can be acquired in the alms of wisdom through patient examination and thorough silence. Here on the buttes and cornices, the thwacking gavels of evil power deities throw down their lust for more and soon become adjoined to these grand discrepancies greed mistakenly loses to a lack of awareness and to self-aggrandizement.

Power is the weapon of inexperienced wielders. Passion is the immortal frequency that is worn by artisans and artists, poets and painters, it is the business of quietness to learnedly evolve to protect our tomorrows from personal needs, but to instead preserve the integral parts of society. The words of languages, artifacts, and cultures, rather than the skeletons of ****** and the deeds of possession. Each who sleeps knows their bedfellows to equally be at peace. For no wealth can exceed that of comfortable pillows, soft quilts, and sheets. We are all the same while we sleep.

9:57
Vinyl Morrissey on the record player:
Window down,
Hair riffling in the breeze.
Guitar in hand,
strumming patterns guaranteed to relax my shoulders.
Crinkled papers line the floor
Covered in unused song lyrics
And scribbled what ifs about the girl you used to love.
For a second the sun hits your eyes and you look
Fragile.
Sensitive and vulnerable like myself.
Drops of rain shoot from the sky and kiss your window sill.
I slide my hand toward yours,
Stroke the outline of your fingertips
Until morning came,
and changed your eyes from blue
To gray.

Deteriorated configurations that are
neither of consecutive methods
                                             or contorted reflections,
it's upon the eye line of those who look perplexed.

For what is slumped like tired unimportance,
is neither an inflexible road,
for nothing is
               either invariable or contorted
It's just a view that each takes.

                                Me I'm like the reed,
both woven in a paradox
of motions.
For who sees a contortionist
   that's neither of each
                                     or the other.

Riffling upon the aspects of my decisive
                            displacement that catches
nither the truth or the lie.
  
You  may catch the second,
                        or minute,
        but beyond the mirco filaments
that linger between variable glimpse
that pass.

Is more than constructive  tendrils
           of a lifetime of consequential
amendments or defaming the
              consequential understanding
that nothing plays by the rules..

riffling through my old journals
I stumbled across some unsent letters I'd written.
You may not have read what I wrote
but I feel I still owe you an apology
for the nasty, hurtful things I said.

I was such a ****.
I can hardly believe I wrote them.
I don't want to believe it.

But maybe it's good that I don't recognize the girl I used to be.
Maybe it means I'm changing...

for the better hopefully.

I suppose I've forgotten my past
intentionally.

Ignorance is bliss?
in this case it is.

She sits on a wall...

Riffling book pages, as faces pass by
She finds answers in silence
and understands
All is well.

Sad for leaves getting out of sight
yet still
happy for the humor she found within
She smiles...

We look upon an older gentlemen.
Going through life, nothing special.
Working towards an end.
But one day, looking through old memorabilia.
He stumbles upon a long lost chest.
Brushing off the dust he opens it.
Hes heart jumps.
Lost notes from a love long gone.
But never forgotten.
Riffling through the chest he finds,
Pictures
Love notes
Old poems
And a ring.
Holding these small little trinkets.
A tear runs down hes check.
Everything happens for a reason.
Through all this a warmth flows through him.
He takes one last look at everything.
Puts everything back.
And goes back to the life that was found.
For the past is nice for a visit but life moves forward.

It was Sunday and she rushed around looking for her hair straightening iron and a pair of shoes she knew she'd worn just yesterday.  The day was as sunny as a Sunday could be, June 5th, dry as a desert in her Sierra Nevada town, no rain in sight until October at least, no smell of smoke, no fires in the air, it was a perfect summer day.  Rushing around her quiet, just waking up cottage, she lifted up clothes piled on her over stuffed fireside chairs, riffling through the pile of clothes dropped to the floor of her shower room, hunting, hunting, wracking her brain, walking backwards through time in her mind to find "where oh where" had she left her shoes!!!

A glimpse of something black caught her eye from inside a canvas shoulder bag, "AH!"  She'd changed out of my work clothes before she'd gone to the river!  There were her shoes, waiting for her patiently to find them in her carry bag.

Shoes found, she raced to straighten her curls flat and sleek, straightened her teeshirt and pulled down her skirt a little so it sat just on her hips and down from her waist, allowing her newly grown Buddha belly freedom to breath.  She knew the flea market would be on all day, but there was something special about making it a whole day event.  If she were the first one there, it was like she were one of the vendors. She would be able to feel the bustle of the potential of setting up shop, selling found treasures and wares, collecting dollars from strangers, meeting new people, and possibly stumbling into the most amazing opportunity of your life.  She would be a witness, as the sun shed it's first glimmerings of light and long shadows down over the market, to the twinkling, the eye winking of the sun as it released it's magic over the lot.  That moment of the morning when the unknown was let down from the heavens and all of life's coincidences, synchronicities, and connections were released for us to walk through and make the most of in order to change our lives.  She fluffed the last brush of blush over her cheek, glossed her lips, gave a little tousle to mess up her now straight hair and was ready.  She grabbed her purse, car keys, and a burlap shopping tote, her phone, a cup of coffee, and a book...just in case she wanted to sit in the midst of the market and enjoy the ambiance while she soaked up some wisdom.  Then...she walked out the door.

My mind wanders to the stillness of a field
where wild asters used to stud the grass with blue
I seem to hear the echo of a voice
Lamenting over the vast stretches where my thoughts cling

Here, children ran and played and called each other yesterday
and people sometimes lazed in the earth's firmness
Riffling the crisp grass through their fingers
or gaze into the blue greyness of the vast unknown

Once this field nurtured life
Once a squirrel hid in it's thickness,
an ant crawled busily as it clung to a tree
Once all was teeming with life

Like a mother who nurtures a babe inside her womb
not a living creature now on that field
None whose love, whose life, whose breath
once braced the hearts of those he knew

What is that echo I seem to hear
where recently the field turned battlefield
Of maimed and wounded
I seem to hear the repeated blows against my chest

Or, do I hear the outside pounding of a heart
now the stench of death spreads an eerie feeling over me
I walk bent, my ear tuned to someone's distress
I cannot feel uplifted

It matters not where the source of death is life
clocking it's rhythmic beat
On its march to that irrevocable end
but when the arrogant hand of the battle

In Vietnam, Valley Forge, Verdun, Gettysburg or Golan Heights
moves the pace faster
Who am I not to feel the pain
the deep sore pain I share with those mourning

Mourning their beloved dead
striped of a life once dear to their very own essence
And dear to those who knew and loved and cared
who now have gnawing at their vitals the agony of loss

Like an amputation of the very fibers of their being
I share the deep sore pain of those left mourning
I think of their moment of anguish, their eons of hurt
Yet hope springs among some

And sometimes cheer a moment of cheer
like a grace note against a solemn chord
I picture myself on that field among the dying
I go deep into their entrails

Among those struggling to grip that last grip
that last gasp
Until beaten by death they surrender
Yet at times, I'm among those

who go to death with grace
As though the secret of the unknown were revealed in beauty
I ask myself, " Which would I " ?
I cannot know the imponderable

And yet I know a choice I'll be called to make
I'm back with those left living again
Living and mourning
I ***** perhaps to soothe with words or comfort with my touch

But I feel empty, hollowed out am endless desert
Like those who once knew those dead

i took your photo
so i may later
be riffling through
old memories
and find that this
one refuses to
collect dust

Pages rippling,
Quickly pushing through the years
My mind is a casino shuffling machine
Rapid fire, every card is
Every face bleeding through
Anchored memories, subsurface stillness
Reality is the crooked blade--

I now realize
I was always looking for
Everything that wasn't them
Different hair, different eyes
Why are they all blurring together

Old slides on a movie screen
Staring back at me.
Vindictive, hostile, blaming.
I was scrambling for the ideal of novel,
New and transposed.

Enough to break me down into molecules,
Toss me into atoms
Throw my essence against the starstuff and dark spaces between--

But there is no ripple effect.

No unseen unclothing me.

The faces keep bleeding through
I keep wading, riffling, sifting through the sands of time

It falls;
Between and all
around me.

Pondering,
Here I sit,
The small grains of sand I feel beneath me,

The low riffling of water,
I could hear,
Although the lake is near,
I hear it far,
More than near,

The atmosphere becomes gloomy,
The sky cracks,
Horrible and terrific,
Is the sound,

Heavy rain begins to pour,
Ssshhhh!
I shiver and squinch with pain,
With each and every drop touching me,

The rain stops,
The sound stops,
But the gloom never ends...

Enshrined for all posterity
mine benediction for reverence,
whereby conflict resolution
ameliorated courtesy peaceable solutions.

An adulation, concatenation, encapsulation,
gratification, introspection, et cetera
encompassing poignant episodes of mein kampf.

Flagrante delict adulterous sordid behavior
automatically linkedin with Lothario;
an unscrupulous seducer of women,
based upon a character
in The Impertinent Curious Man,
a story within a story
in Miguel de Cervantes'
1605 novel, Don Quixote.

Hard to fathom where yours truly
got (seedy – CD) drive and moxie,
after willingly assenting
to pledge sacred marital agreement
courtesy justice of the peace
and Magisterial District Judge:
Henry Schireson
925 Montgomery Avenue,
Suite 100, Narberth, Pennsylvania
19072-1913.

He subsequently and immediately
pronounced myself and the missus
as newlywed groom and bride
freshly minted husband and wife
July twenty fifth nineteen ninety six
until death do us part.

A couple years later,
we acquired our first computer
then snazzy top of the line
state of the art COMPAQ presario
running on Windows 98 operating system,
a belated wedding anniversary present,
whereat wide-eyed, I quickly disc hoovered
plethora pornographic websites
expending energy and time crafting
which hashtagged electronic ejaculations recognized
now as crude sexually explicit
classified personal advertisements
forsaking welfare of marriage and fatherhood
to mine innocent beautiful two little girls.

I blatantly, egregiously, indiscriminately...
whiled away hours shucking off
essentially grievously ignoring
paternal and husbandly duties
instead prioritizing re: cultivating,
cavorting, frolicking, inviting...
romantic (née dangerous) liaisons.

These days majority of time spent online
constitutes crafting anecdotes of mein kampf,
albeit reflecting categorically imponderable poetry
and/or stream of consciousness prose
veritable anonymous readers
probably roll their eyes
at mine trademark double entendre,
yet bard **** (with shaky spear) knows
how inapropos I consider ogling attractive girls
for instance while grocery shopping
with the missus at Trader Joe's,
nevertheless job of this punster
his wordplay accidentally doth impose
so please pardon moi harmless
momentary lapse of rhymed reason

as mine handy dandy
blue veined ribbed slimy fleshy hose
does double duty in tandem with magic wand,
lifelike snaky entity that actually grows
particularly necessary when
burst of fiery secretion flows
intense spray powerful enough
to pulverize knees and elbows
subsequently witnessing yours truly to doze,
an ideal juncture to figuratively close
silently wailing analogy to Moby ****
regarding how yesterdays
prurient laced introductions
to rhyme in retrospect embarrassingly blows.

Herewith to enliven anecdote ever further,
I inject humorous tidbit
just gimme moment to unload and reach
into psychological metaphorical knapsack
particularly blue slimy hose, my keepsake
to forcibly remove *******
birthed courtesy emergency pit stop
without means and ways to clean derriere,
a feeble and futile attempt.

Haint no fallacy
yours truly subsequently secured
more powerful giant accouterment,
while clinging for dear life
perched atop ledger
or edge er domain of clawfoot bathtub,
(ah how convenient and timely
smallish size Jacuzzi getup to appear)
and lemme figuratively
continue (closing) pathetic riffraff
(apropos of nothing) riffling around
mostly strewn with random tchotchkes
and odd bubba's zayda's knickknack
such as ahh... look here hocked wares,
acquired ready to receive paddywhack
giving dog(gerel) bonafied chops.

Without warning be alert
and on outlook for non sequitur
verses asinine blather to blurt
plus quite juvenile grown man here
averse to ***** thought processes of her/him
who might peruse frivolous inane gibberish
cuz precious effort ye exert
to comprehend written contents
alluding to metaphorical little squirt.

I chose to memorialize, alas and alack
atypical/unusual fond memory -
argh, a sudden nostalgia attack
many... countless years gone back
livingsocial at 324 Level Road,
elapsed good times, I can never buyback
Gambone builders demolished complex edifice
currently repurposed mansion manse courtesy
vinyl city as Stella's Way
boyhood address above,
frequently seen dramatically transformed
into aforementioned place name, which property
originally christened Glen Elm,
(within national registries)
yours truly cannot easily callback.
Noggin houses storied detailed information
though I experience exercise in futility
searching Internet, said webbed wide world
absent information when Leipers lived
circa early nineteen hundreds, though
if mine perchance eyes espied absent estate...
slack jawed stare would repeatedly
sow sadness weighing me heart
heavy as coalsack
accompanying sorrow with

attendant flood of tears,
would make an immediate comeback
impossible mission to stopper
feeble, futile and lame counterattack,
where sentimental reverie would
carry me far away to Old Virginny,
for no particular rhyme nor reason
e'en attempting to write
recollections might trigger
tsunami immanent grievous childhood memories

recollecting watching silent home movies,
while chomping on crackerjack
when I had real teeth,
boot the Missus axed me to enliven herself
regaling humorous instances, thus I cutback
to... hardy ***** times, the major drawback
x amount of time elapsed
summoning special occasions
(surgeon general's warning
such mental revisitations)

fraught with onset, where perilous flashback
will moost likely
violently grip cerebral cortex
analogous to puny chap (me)
knocked unconscious courtesy
searingly robust fullback,
nevertheless impossible mission
to restrain waterworks I intend to hijack,
and hoop fully succeed tamping tears
strong suggestion as encouraged by hunchback

from Notre Dame Dublin
known within these neck of woods
as storied Paul Bunyan
also alias Philanderer,
(especially among superficially
prim and proper, but
actually debauched women folk),
whose services regarding payback
best abide, adhere, and afford
to pay forward credo fore playbook.

Said burly lumberjack with severe scoliosis,
nonetheless quite self evident
his outsize implement,
(ye need not axe further questions)
extinguishing problematic residue
iterated further within mine playful ramble.

Flagrante delict adulterous sordid behavior
automatically linkedin with Lothario;
an unscrupulous seducer of women,
based upon a character
in The Impertinent Curious Man,
a story within a story
in Miguel de Cervantes'
1605 novel, Don Quixote.

Hard to fathom where yours truly
got (seedy – CD) drive and moxie,
after willingly assenting
to pledge sacred marital agreement
courtesy justice of the peace
and Magisterial District Judge:
Henry Schireson
925 Montgomery Avenue,
Suite 100, Narberth, Pennsylvania
19072-1913.

He subsequently and immediately
pronounced myself and the missus
as newlywed groom and bride
freshly minted husband and wife
July twenty fifth nineteen ninety six
until death do us part.

A couple years later,
we acquired our first computer
then snazzy top of the line COMPAQ presario
running on Windows 98 operating system no less,
a belated wedding anniversary present,
whereat wide-eyed, I quickly disc hoovered
plethora pornographic websites
expending energy and time crafting
which hashtagged electronic ejaculations recognized
now as crude sexually explicit
classified personal advertisements
forsaking welfare of marriage and fatherhood
to mine innocent beautiful two little girls.

I blatantly, egregiously, indiscriminately...
whiled away hours shucking off
essentially grievously ignoring
paternal and husbandly duties
instead prioritizing re: cultivating,
cavorting, frolicking, inviting...
romantic (née dangerous) liaisons.

These days majority of time spent online
constitutes crafting anecdotes of mein kampf,
albeit reflecting categorically imponderable poetry
and/or stream of consciousness prose
veritable anonymous readers
probably roll their eyes
at mine trademark double entendre,
yet bard **** (with shaky spear) knows
how inapropos I consider ogling attractive gals
for instance while grocery shopping
with the missus at Trader Joe's,
nevertheless job of this punster
his wordplay accidentally doth impose
so please pardon moi harmless
momentary lapse of rhymed reason

as mine handy dandy
blue veined ribbed slimy fleshy hose
does double duty in tandem with magic wand,
lifelike snaky entity that actually grows
particularly necessary when
burst of fiery secretion flows
intense spray powerful enough
to pulverize knees and elbows
subsequently witnessing yours truly to doze,
an ideal juncture to figuratively close
silently wailing analogy to Moby ****
regarding how yesterdays
prurient laced introductions
to rhyme in retrospect embarrassingly blows.

Herewith to enliven anecdote ever further,
I inject humorous tidbit
just gimme moment to unload and reach
into psychological metaphorical knapsack
particularly blue slimy hose, my keepsake
to forcibly remove *******
birthed courtesy emergency pit stop
without means and ways to clean derriere,
a feeble and futile attempt.

Haint no fallacy
yours truly subsequently secured
more powerful giant accouterment,
while clinging for dear life
perched atop ledge er
or edge er domain of clawfoot bathtub,
(ah how convenient and timely
smallish size Jacuzzi getup to appear)
and lemme figuratively
continue (closing) pathetic riffraff
(apropos of nothing) riffling around
mostly strewn with random tchotchkes
and odd bubba's zayda's knickknack
such as ahh... look here hocked wares,
acquired ready to receive paddywhack
giving dog(gerel) bonafied chops.

Without warning be alert
and on outlook for non sequitur
verses asinine blather to blurt
plus quite juvenile grown man here
averse to ***** thought processes of her/him
who might peruse frivolous inane gibberish,
cuz precious effort ye exert
to comprehend written contents
alluding to metaphorical little squirt.

I chose to memorialize, alas and alack
atypical/unusual fond memory -
argh, a sudden nostalgia attack
many... countless years gone back
livingsocial at 324 Level Road,
elapsed good times, I can never buyback
Gambone builders demolished complex edifice
currently repurposed mansion manse courtesy
vinyl city as Stella's Way
boyhood address above,
frequently seen dramatically transformed
into aforementioned place name, which property
originally christened Glen Elm,
(within national registries)
yours truly cannot easily callback.

Noggin houses storied detailed information
though I experience exercise in futility
searching Internet, said webbed wide world
absent information when Leipers lived
circa early nineteen hundreds, though
if mine perchance eyes espied absent estate...
slack jawed stare would repeatedly
sow sadness weighing me heart
heavy as coalsack
accompanying sorrow with
attendant flood of tears,
would make an immediate comeback
impossible mission to stopper
feeble, futile and lame counterattack,
where sentimental reverie would
carry me far away to Old Virginny,
for no particular rhyme nor reason
e'en attempting to write
recollections might trigger
tsunami immanent grievous childhood memories

recollecting watching silent home movies,
while chomping on crackerjack
when I had real teeth,
boot the Missus axed me to enliven herself
regaling humorous instances, thus I cutback
to... hardy ***** times, the major drawback
x amount of time elapsed
summoning special occasions
(surgeon general's warning
such mental revisitations)

fraught with onset, where perilous flashback
will moost likely
violently grip cerebral cortex
analogous to puny chap (me)
knocked unconscious courtesy
searingly robust hypothetical fullback,
nevertheless impossible mission
to restrain waterworks I intend to hijack,
and hoop fully succeed tamping tears
strong suggestion as encouraged by hunchback

from Notre Dame Dublin down on miscreants
known within these neck of woods
as storied Paul Bunyan
also alias Phil Ander er,
(especially among superficially
prim and proper, but
actually debsauched women folk),
whose services regarding payback
best abide, adhere, and afford
to pay forward credo fore playbook.

Said burly lumberjack with severe scoliosis,
nonetheless quite self evident
his outsize implement,
(ye need not axe further questions)
extinguishing problematic residue
iterated further within mine playful ramble
methinks ye uttered vamoose,
hence best make a bee line and hastily scramble.

VIZHDAM VI. . .
( I SEE YOU. . . )

( Poem for Onelia )

"Did you know. . ?"
says ALICE

". . .that Lacie is a
an anagram of me!"

She follows me
through Sofia's streets

as my camera clicks
"curiouser and curiouser"

taking pictures
of reflections

the passing world
stopped and stilled

in windows
mirroring reality

back to itself

marrying one
to the other.

"Krasiv!"
whispers the street
to its other image.

"Yes. . .yes!"
I hear myself

answer her
as she falls

out of my pocket
( the wind reading her )

its unseen hands
riffling through her pages.


ALICE as real
to me as I am myself

. . . friend of my childhood.


"And in predictive text. . ."
I offer my fictional friend

"I change ***
becoming. . ."

"Enid or Ethel or
one or the other."

Like a door mouse
in a teapot

my mobile goes to sleep.


Like a grin
without a cat

her laughter
lingers.


This road's yellow
bricks escort me to

an OZ
of words

where an alphabet
dances in Cyrillic

its strange shapes
delighting my eyes

teasing me
with its sense

of real
Unreality.

I catch
a ray of sunshine

stealing into church

saying the little prayer
of itself.


Icons emerge
from the dark

as I walk
through the passing

. . .of ages.

One icon looks
like Berbatov

on his transfer
to Manchester United.

"Krasiv!"
whispers a leaf

. . .in its falling.

"Krasiv!"
whistles the little bird

enjoying a steam bath
in the hot springs

. . .behind the Mosque.

Saint Sofia
guides us

through her streets
we look to her

for our
bearings


knowing where we are
when we find her

standing in the sky

stopping to let a cloud
pass by.

"Krasiv!"
Sveta Sofia blesses us


"Krasiv!"

In the park
a man in a hat & a Mac

chases people
for chess

offering his pieces
as if they were a gift

inviting Time to stop
& play.

And when passers by
pass by

he invites himself
to play an invisible "him."

His unseen self seen
pondering its next move.


The timer releasing
the world

back to itself
where naked

statues shiver
in the park

throw snowballs
at each other

when a human
isn't looking.

A toddler
( as yet unsure )

of all this
"walking business"

tastes
each cautious step

as if
sipping soup

too hot

sip ( sip )
step ( step ).

The park is
melting

revealing itself
as it thaws...thaws

ice & snow
releasing its stranglehold

slinking slyly
away.

Outside the theater
snow has been swept up

into neat
pyramids

as if they were an Art
installation.

I listen entranced
to my friend's voice

a woman made only
of words & thoughts

( paper & E-mails )

now made real
by the beauty of her self.

"Krasiv!"
whispers her smile

to the secret
that she is.


"DA! DA! DA!"
chortles a yellow & black

tram as it "Yes! Yes! Yes's!"
around the bend.

Back at the hotel
my ALICE sleeps

dreaming of when
I will read her.

A book on a bed
in an empty room

chatting to a shaft
of Bulgarian sunshine.


And always
ALICE is

. . .asking:

"Do you know
what tomorrow is. . ?"

And I say "Yes. . .yes. . .yes!
to everything!"

"Tomorrow is all
I can imagine it

to be
&
more!"

Sofia sheds now
her clothes of snow

strips down
to her sunlight

& dances. . .dances.

"Krasiv!"
"Krasiv!"

her dancing translates
finally the word

"Krasiv
is. . .
beautiful!"

And it is
. . .it is!.



*

Reading and re-reading ALICE IN WONDERLAND  as I threaded through Sofia's streets drawing its sights through the eye of my mind and stitching it together as the words took pictures and like a patchwork quilt sewed it into the heart's lining. Knowing now( as if I hadn't already known before )that friendship is a KRASIV thing.